Title: Dead of Winter (The Beautiful Dead, #2)

Author: Daryl Banner

Release Date: November 6, 2014

Genre: Post – Post Apocalyptic Zombie

 

Blurb

No one said being an Undead is easy.

Winter’s Second Life became a lot more complicated when the Living moved into her hometown of Trenton. Undead neighbors fight with their Breathing ones. Food is sparse. And, worst of all, the season is taking a change for the colder.

A desperate plea for help to a neighboring city turns deadly and soon Winter finds herself facing an old friend from her past whose plot to annihilate all life on the planet may have everything to do with her.

And what about the man-with-the-heartbeat in her house? Is there even room for love in such a ruined, unforgiving world?

New friends are made. Others are lost forever. In the dead of winter, no one is safe.

 

Purchase Dead of Winter

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Prologue

The world is a lot quieter than it used to be.

But there is a sound in the desolate dark tonight; it is the sound of fire burning. The tongue of this great fire stretches up high to lick the silver sky, and its fingers, red with greed, are as long as a lifetime.

The fire is as ugly and as beautiful as an ex-lover.

What it feeds on isn’t the wood of the forest. They’re all dead anyway; the trees. This is a fussy fire that only feeds on things you cannot see. It feeds on happiness. With its little yellow teeth, it eats hope for a midnight snack. It eats dreams and laughter and anything little or pretty.

Especially tulips.

If you squint, you realize it is not just a fire, but rather an army. Each flame is made of a person, and you realize it is their hope that burns … it is their happiness, their passion and despair and greed, burning, burning, burning.

A man stands at the front of the fire—the leader—and he burns a different color than the rest. He burns green. Furious, jealous, hungry green. He is not a proud creature, so the Green One stands with hunched shoulders and he watches from the top of his head, and though his pale face was once handsome, he can only form a permanent scowl now with his twisted, ruined lips.

With this Third Life of his, he will never smile again.

Kneeling before him, a man begs for his life. A Living man. He’s in tears about a girl he loves and the son or daughter he wants to have someday, and the scowling face we will cautiously refer to as the Green Fire holds him sweetly by the neck, the way one might hold a lover, and he says: “I once loved a woman.”

The Living man begs, imploring, and the Green Flame says: “She set me free, opened my eye to the gift of death.”

The Green Fury whispers: “My green eye.”

But the Living man won’t stop crying and begging, waving his hands everywhere, so the Hungry Green shows him what he means by taking those healthy Living hands and pulling them right off. Over the man’s screams, the Green Inferno says: “These hands, they’ve reached and reached, all your long, tiresome life, clinging to meaningless things. These hands that take so much, yet hold nothing in the end. I free you from them.”

The man’s voice breaks, his shrieks echoing off the bodies of dead trees, so the Burning Green takes his throat too and grips gently, the way one might embrace a friend. He brings his mouth close and says: “This Life, your permanent solitude, the torture of being Human … you are so hungry for a meaning to it all. Let me feed you.”

Something dark as a void passes between them. One might say it’s the man’s Life, or soul, or something called his Anima. Whatever it is, it’s so quick it’s already gone.

What remains is no longer alive, yet he is not dead. The man’s worries are forgotten, his girl is forgotten, his future, his past, his dreams, all of it, and his screaming is ceased. Handless, lifeless, deathless … he stares with stony glass eyes into those of the Green Death.

The Green Death, who says: “It is the dead of winter, and you will never hurt again.

 

The Beautiful Dead (The Beautiful Dead, #1)

On Sale Now for 99¢!

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She’s dead.

In fact, the whole world’s dead. Every single person, apparently. Unburied and reimagined into a beautiful living-dead woman called Winter, she is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in a quaint, peaceful city with no hunger, no sickness and no bills to pay. Her Second Life is perfect in every way possible.

So why is she so bent on destroying it all?

After angering the mayor, befriending rebel headless teenagers and igniting romance with a dark and brooding neighbor, she finds herself wrestling madly with a First Life she cannot remember and this Second Life she cannot accept. Not to mention the maniacal army of rotting corpses who want her dead. Again.

But none of that matters in comparison to an even worse problem. There’s a guest in her house. A rude, good-looking man on the run … a man with a heartbeat.

 

Almost Alive (Beautiful Dead, #3)

Coming April 24^th

Pre Order on Amazon

Twelve years have passed since the devastation.

The world is changed. What once was a planet struggling to survive is now a planet bursting to life. The humans are thriving. Gardens are growing. Trees are reaching up to the sky and the Undeadly clutch on the planet is slowly letting go.

But what does that mean for Winter and her friends?

In the wake of spring, the last of the desperate Undead gather, fighting to maintain their place in a world that no longer wants them. Mother Nature slowly but certainly works to purge the planet of the Dead, just when Winter thought she had finally embraced this Second Life.

Her new friends are back and old nemeses return for the final chapter in Winter’s Undead journey.

 

 

About the Author

Daryl Banner is a writer and composer who graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Theatre and Psychology. After writing several plays and a musical in college, he started composing for short films and websites, one of which is the Vamplets “Baby Vampyre Dolls” website: (www.vamplets.com)

Interesting tidbits: Daryl is also an obsessive piano player, video game enthusiast, and occasional actor. He’s been remixing video game music for over fifteen years, and is a passionate Final Fantasy fan. You can feed your ears with many of his remixes (as well as his original music) on his YouTube page “www.youtube.com/DarylBanner“. Also, he personally answers all emails he receives, so if you have some strange desire to write him, he may enjoy it. He currently resides in Texas.

 

Connect with Daryl

Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Amazon Page | Goodreads | Website

 

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Cursed by Fire

Author: Danielle Annett

Release Date: January 28^th, 2015

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal

Designer: Mae I Design

It has been six years since the Awakening and peace in Spokane, Washington is still tenuous at best. The vampires and shifters are all vying for control of the city and the humans seem to be the ones suffering the consequences, or so it seems.

Aria Naveed has spent the last two years of her life fighting to make the many wrongs of the world right, but soon finds out that the humans aren’t as weak as they appear and may be a more terrifying foe than any of the other races combined.

When a stranger rolls into town with trouble on his heels, Aria finds herself trapped in the middle of a battle that could cost her more than she has bargained for as a fight for justice turns into an unexpected fight for her life.

Buy links:

Amazon

BN

 

Excerpt

All I saw was blood. Blood soaked my hands and coated the walls. It stained the concrete flooring of the abandoned warehouse and dripped from fixtures that hung from the ceiling, trickling like a slow rain. My vision blurred as anguish filled me. How could this have happened? How could I have been too late?

I stared down at the lifeless body of a child. A boy. Kneeling in a pool of congealing blood, I ran my fingers through his chestnut hair, ignoring the now-cool moisture seeping into the denim of my pants. His face was unrecognizable. Gone was the child with the dimpled cheek and brilliant blue eyes. Left behind was a mass of flesh and bone—a ruined body drained of its life force at such a young age.

Reality snapped like an elastic band, bringing me back to the present as I sat at my desk in Sanborn Place. Ripped from the haunted memories of finding Daniel’s body.

The world was a cruel place. It was a fact of life and even though I knew it was true, I still had a hard time coming to terms with the atrocities people committed. The cruelties that for some god-forsaken reason, people thought were okay. Staring down at the wallet-sized photo now crumpled in my hands, I was greeted by a crown of chestnut hair, bright blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a brilliant smile; a single dimple on his left cheek. The face of an innocent seven-year-old boy, cut down like he was little more than a calf brought to slaughter. I found myself struggling to link the image of this smiling boy to that of the ruined body I’d found less than forty-eight hours ago.

Inside, a small part of me burned. My blood heated and a turbulent rage rolled through me, one I had to fight to contain.

“Ari, you’ve got to stop staring at the kid. He’s gone. Let it go,” I heard Mike say.

I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t understand how he could either. I looked up from the photograph and stared Mike straight in the eyes. He cringed but held my gaze.

“He was seven-years-old, Mike,” I said through clenched teeth. “Seven!”

I shook my head, the poor kid had barely lived, barely tasted what the world had to offer. I take that back, he’d tasted too much of what the world could give and it had cost him.

Ever since the Awakening six years ago when all things that went bump in the night decided to come out of the woodwork and play, safety had been tenuous at best and kids like this, like seven-year-old Daniel Blackmore, were suffering the price.

Vampires, shifters, mages, witches and many more creatures of the night so to speak had seemingly popped out of nowhere, deciding they were ready to integrate themselves into everyday, or night, society.

Daniel had been abducted by a rogue vampire. I’d found his mangled body, broken and discarded as if he were nothing more than a piece of trash and I was going to find the bastard that had killed him and make him pay.

“Ari, I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no.”

I looked Mike up and down. He was an older man in his late forties with a streak of silver in his otherwise midnight colored hair. The wrinkles around his eyes would lead you to believe he smiled a lot but I knew better. Those lines were from his ever-present frown. Dressed in black slacks and a grey button up shirt, his mid-section strained against the buttons looking like they could pop off at any moment, likely taking someone’s eye out in the process.

“I wasn’t asking for your permission,” I told him, my gaze going back to the photo.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you were asking. I’m telling you, Ari, let it go! You can’t help him anymore. All you’ll end up doing is getting yourself hurt or worse, killed for your trouble.”

That was the problem with people who had lived through the Awakening. Their only concern was self-preservation. Nothing else mattered. Well, screw that because this little boy, he mattered. His life mattered and he deserved justice. I had scrubbed my hands after finding his broken body but couldn’t scrub the stain his death left on my soul.

I stood up from my desk and grabbed my keys and daggers. I sheathed the twin blades on either side of my waist, grabbed my leather jacket, and made a beeline for the door. Mike crossed the room to intercept me, arms folded over his chest blocking my way.

“Move,” I bit out.

“No.”

“I can move you.”

“You can, but you won’t.”

I ground my teeth together. He was being ridiculous. This entire situation was ridiculous.

“Mike, this isn’t some game. A little boy died. He died! Does that even matter to you? I couldn’t live with myself if I let this one go.”

“What’s your plan, Ari, you going to just storm into the coven and force them to tell you who did it? They won’t tell you. They protect their own and you’re one person against an entire Coven of bloodthirsty vampires. Even the kid’s parents know it’s a lost cause. They’ve dropped the case and are focusing on burying their kid. They’re coming to terms with his death. It’s over.”

I’d been hired by Jessica Blackmore, Daniel’s mother, a little over two weeks ago to find her son who’d gone missing one afternoon. He had been walking home from a friend’s, only five houses down from his own, but never made it to the front door. She’d thought it safe enough to allow him the small bit of independence but with paranormals about, it was never truly safe.

Mike knows I’m different. He knows I have pyrokinetic abilities and he knows I can take care of myself. This wasn’t reason talking, this was him being overprotective. Feeling the temperature in the room begin to rise I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly. Trying to calm down and keep my pyrokinesis locked up tight. It wouldn’t help the situation to start a fire. All it would do is prove to Mike that I wasn’t in control and right now I was in no mood for a lecture.

“Look, Ari, you’re a mercenary. You take on a job when you have a client. There is no client so there is no job. We’re not the police. We don’t try to clean up the streets or bag the bad guys. We’re mercs.”

I couldn’t blame him for his way of thinking. Hell, two weeks ago I would have said the same thing, but this was different. He was just a kid and I couldn’t believe everyone was so willing to leave his murderer out there.

“Why don’t—”

Mid-sentence I heard the distinct buzz of a cell phone. Mike dug his phone out of his left pocket and answered it without looking at the screen.

“Hello,” he said. Mike’s face scrunched in confusion, a furrow forming between his brows. He listened for several moments and then with a grunt he hung up and stared me down. At six feet tall, he towered over me by a good five inches, but I didn’t back down. Lifting my chin and giving him my best try me stare. The one I knew drove him crazy.

“Looks like you’re getting exactly what you asked for,” he said.

“And what exactly is that?”

“That was Declan Valkenaar on the phone.”

Holy shit, the Pack Alpha. What the hell was he doing calling Mike?

 

Behind the scenes look at how Cursed by Fire’s cover came to be:

http://youtu.be/0NpvNlsUzCI

 

About Danielle Annett

Danielle Annett is a reader, writer, photographer, and the blogger behind Coffee and Characters. Born in the SF Bay area, she now resides in Spokane, WA, the primary location for her Blood & Magic series.

Addicted to coffee at an early age, she spends her restless nights putting pen to paper as she tries to get all of the stories out of her head before the dogs wake up the rest of the house and vie for her attention.

Website: http://danielle-annett.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDanielleAnnett

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Danielle_Annett

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7771866.Danielle_Annett

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Organized by: http://ptmacias.blogspot.com/

Love Like Your Kids

When I was asked to write something about young love, I thought maybe I could talk about my first experiences with love, like how it felt to dance my first slow dance with a boy in the school gymnasium, or when I got my first French kiss at a cast party after a school production of Anything Goes.

But then I figured if I was going to write about young love, I would turn to the youngest people I know – my kids.

I have a 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. When I asked my daughter about love, she said she loves her mom, dad, and her dog (notice how she strategically left out her brother). She then went on to say she loved colors, turtles, and dog food – I have no idea where that last one came from, and I’m afraid to ask!

My son, on the other hand, forgot about his family and went straight for his true devotions – bacon, macaroni and cheese, and Lego.

So what does any of this have to do with real love? It got me to thinking that maybe some of us are too stingy with love. I dated a guy for a year after college who never said he loved me because he claimed he didn’t know what was love was, and was saving the word for that grand moment when it all became clear to him.

How many of us hold back our love waiting for Mr. Perfect, or because we get too busy with our lives to acknowledge the love we already have? Maybe we should love like our kids do – finding love in the little things, and not being afraid to love with all of our hearts.

So as Spring blossoms, let more love into your life – fall in love with flowers, colors, bacon, and maybe even dog food. But most of all, don’t forget to tell those around you how much you love them every day.

 

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Title: The Darkest Frost, Vol 1 of a 2-part serial (TDF, #1)

Author: Tanya Holmes

Genre: A Gothic paranormal romance with a twist.

Release Date: June 22, 2015

 

Blurb

When the ghost of her best friend begs for her help, psychic detective Denieve Knight goes undercover as a live-in domestic to catch a killer. She sets her sights on the most likely suspect: her friend’s mysterious employer, Doctor Braeden Frost.

Dubbed “Dr. Death” by the press, the notorious hematologist is linked to nineteen other suspicious fatalities—all are former patients. The brooding recluse is a man of many secrets, the darkest of which may be lurking beneath the leather gloves he never removes.

 

Excerpt

THE DARKEST FROST,

Volume 1 of a 2-part serial, © Tanya Holmes

Fear all but crippled me as I listened to the wind beating the treetops. Listened to the creaks and groans of the house. Took some effort, but I got up and inched my way to the door with legs as steady as rubber bands. I yanked it open only to find the hallway empty except for a fiery trail of footprints. Strangely, the carpet didn’t burn.

Were I not buck naked, I would’ve followed right then. Instead, I backed into my room, fully intending to throw something on. But twin headlights skipped along the wall through a crack in the drapes. I shut the door and edged over to the window to brush the heavy curtains back. High beams sliced into the darkness as a vehicle cruised up the hill, breaking free of the wispy fog.

A gunmetal-gray Jaguar taxied into the courtyard and pulled in beside my late-model Chevy. My adrenaline spiked as soon as the headlights doused. Moments later, Dr. Braeden Frost climbed from the car and slung a gray satchel over his shoulder. It appeared to be a medical bag. He was dressed in dark clothes—leather coat, pants, boots, and gloves. Even his silky hair was black. He would’ve melted into the night if not for the security lights flooding the grounds and the white aura framing his body.

I’d witnessed a similar illumination on others in his profession. Doctors. Nurses. Orderlies. Most everyone in health care. I’d seen the glow on cops and morticians too. In fact, all who came in direct contact with the dead and dying had it. Still, on Frost the neon radiance was chilling.

The wind rushed past him, sending the tail of his trench coat dancing on a breeze. Then as if he sensed my presence, his gaze shot to my window. Our eyes locked. His narrowed and I froze. Unable to move, unable to breathe, I stood rooted in place like a petrified tree. The man gave the word “presence” new meaning. He had a stillness about him, an eerie calm that chilled my blood. I was surprised yet intrigued. Intimidated yet inexplicably drawn to him.

An eternity passed before I found the will to duck away. I plastered my back against the wall, my gaze doing a mad search around the ruined room for something to put on. A light breeze hissed outside, but still I didn’t hear him move. Finally, a trunk opened and slammed shut. Next came the slow but steady sound of footsteps crunching gravel as he trudged around the left side of the house.

Downstairs a door wailed open. Floorboards creaked, then a stair, followed by another. I dashed around like a headless chicken, tearing through my clothes, desperate to find something—anything—to throw on. But then the footsteps stopped just outside my bedroom and a menacing shadow crept beneath the door.

The lock. I’d forgotten to click it.

I stood motionless in the center of the room, my gaze latched on the knob, my blood pulsing in a crazy rhythm. I was still frazzled from Caryn’s appearance, and all I kept thinking was, please, please, please don’t let him come in here with me naked as the day I was born, and the room a complete mess.

Seconds passed, and still the shadow remained. Lurking, looming, waiting.

Normally, I had to be in the same room with people to read their emotions, but only five feet separated us, and a strong odor of sulfur—anger—wafted in from the hallway. No mistaking the owner. The essence belonged to him. The smell ebbed, replaced by a hint of saltwater and allspice. The former scent was fear, the latter smacked of uncertainty. So Frost was angry, afraid, and confused by my presence. The realization made my heart go from thumping to pounding.

Seemed like hours before his shadow finally retreated. The creaking staircase should have calmed me, but I was still unnerved. I slammed my lids shut and listened to his footsteps and the jingle of keys, followed by a door groaning open. When it shut soundly moments later, I collapsed on the bed, landing in a wet heap.

What the heck had I gotten myself into?

 

Pre Order The Darkest Frost on Amazon Today!

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About the Author

Amazon Bestselling Author Tanya Holmes is a Golden Leaf double-finalist, a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist, a recipient of the Maggie Award, the MICA Award, as well as Overall Winner of the Sandy Haddad Award and a two-time finalist and one-time winner of The Emily (Best of the Best). She’s happily married with children and loves reading, writing and a good cup of coffee—but not necessarily in that order. She has two novels coming out in 2015: The Darkest Frost, a two-part Gothic paranormal serial romance with a twist, and in 2016, Temptation’s Edge, a contemporary romance.

 

Connect with Tanya

About Me page | Amazon author page | Tsu | Twitter | Homepage

Goodreads author page | The Darkest Frost Facebook page

 

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It’s no fooling – Erin Danzer really has a new book coming out! On April 10, The Vampire’s Daughter, Book One of the Emmie Davenport series, will be published by Nevermore Press. Today I’m very happy to help Erin show off the cover and blurb for her upcoming release!

Ordinary girl Emmie Davenport thought college would be a fresh beginning. Little did she know it would change her life forever. After a vicious vampire attack, Emmie discovers the truth about her not-so-ordinary yet deceased parents. Now it is up to her to continue their legacy.

To guide her through this new life is TJ Hawthorne, a self-proclaimed badass who comes to town just to train her. Tensions rise as Emmie denies the attraction she feels toward him, especially now that she’s rekindled a relationship with her best friend, Logan.

But training with TJ is only half the battle. After multiple attacks by otherworldly creatures on campus, TJ whisks Emmie and Logan off to Chicago. There, Emmie learns another devastating truth that further shatters her world. In the end, she must lose someone she loves — or become the thing she hates most.

About the Author:
Ever since she was small, Erin’s imagination has led her to tell stories and create worlds, including the world of Kalearnia (found in the Spiral Defenders series). Her school notebooks were doodled with pictures and writing notes in the margins beside class notes. No scrap of paper was safe from all of Erin’s notes and creations. But writing wouldn’t pay the bills for a very long time.

Erin spent three summers giving away smiles as she handed out clothes to the working populace of an amusement park. It was the best three summers of her life (also where she met her husband). Since then, Erin has become a mediocre cookie decorator, learned to make a mean pizza in less than two minutes, and has sold dresses as well as window dressings.

When she isn’t exploring worlds of her own creation, you can find Erin with her nose stuck in the worlds of others, supporting Indie Authors everywhere, hanging out on Facebook, or spending time with her kids, husband, and their cat. Erin loves connecting with her readers. To learn more, visit her website: http://www.authorerindanzer.com

Other novels by Erin Danzer:

The Spiral Defenders Series:
Into the Spiral (free ebook everywhere!)
The Spiral Ascended
Christmas Around the Spiral (short story)
Embrace the Spiral
The Spiral Ascended