Escapement with Ciara Knight and CassaStorm with Alex J. Cavanaugh

I was in the hospital for a HUGE kidney stone last week. I'll tell more about it tomorrow. As for now, I want to give a shout out for some of my blogger buddies who have big things coming out.

Neumarian Uprising

We need your help! Thanks to our spy, Ciara Knight, we are able to communicate with you today via blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

The Neumarian uprising has begun. We are fighting for freedom and equality for all, but we need your help. Ciara informed us that you might want to know more about the uprising and why we ask you to risk your lives for our cause. To answer these questions I’ve agreed to let Ciara tell my sister’s, Raeth’s, story about her captivity. It will be free for you on a site called Amazon until March 1, 2013.

Our spies have told us this will help spread the word and find more recruits for our rebellion against the tyrannical queen. You can help by simply downloading a free copy of Weighted, a prequel to the Neumarian Chronicles.

If you are intrigued and wish to follow our uprising, Escapement, book I of The Neumarian Chronicles, will be available for only $2.99 until March 1, 2013.

Escapement is told by Princess Semara. Don’t hold the fact Semara is a princess against her like I did, there is more to her than you can possibly imagine.

Here is a brief explanation of her telling of our uprising:

Ten years after the great war of 2185 the queen’s reign is threatened by uprisings and fear. In celebration of my sixteenth birthday it is my duty as princess to sacrifice a slave to be initiated into the ruling council, solidifying my mother’s empire. When my own erratic powers surface I’m captured and tried for treason. Slaves hate me, my mother wants me executed, and my only chance of survival rests in the hands of a young man, Ryder Arteres, whose sister I sentenced to death.

What people are saying about Escapement:

“A heady mix of action adventure and steampunk -- leavened with a dash of romance -- ESCAPEMENT offers up its fair share of thrills, horrors and heart-pounding moments. A strong start to a captivating new series.”

 -- Jana Oliver, author of The Demon Trapper's Daughter 

“A riveting tale of justice, mercy, honor and love. Take a deep breath and hold on, because you'll be turning the pages of Escapement quickly. Three unlikely comrades, Princess Semara, Ryder, and his sister Raeth, embark on a journey that will alter their lives forever. The beautiful love story nestled into these action-packed scenes will make you sigh and remember why you love to love. After reading the prequel Weighted, I knew this story would be amazing, and it was. Ciara Knight truly has a gift for creating awesome worlds and characters you won't forget.”

 --Lindi Peterson--Award winning author of Summer's Song.

“Betrayal, secrets, and a rebellion send readers on a grand adventure, caught in the plight to discover Semara’s gifts and purpose.”

 --Alex J Cavanaugh, author of Amazon best sellers CassaStar and CassaFire

 “The most unmissable series ever! I couldn't stop reading, the action and romance too breathtaking to break the spell!”

 --ARC review by Sudah on Goodreads

"A courageous heart-stopping journey by young people to save their kind."

 --Hildie McQueen, bestselling author of Where the Four Winds Collide

If you’d like to see a peek into our world, please view this short clip on You Tube. 

If you are now ready to join our fight, please add Escapement to your TBR shelf on Goodreads here. Shout out on all your social media sites, and tell everyone you know to stand up and fight.

Be Bold.

Be Brave.

Be Free.

In the name of the rebellion,

--Ryder Arteres

I know most of you have seen Alex's cover art for the next book in his space opera series. I'm a little late to the game, but I wanted to post/reveal it. I love the elements at play in this cover. The spaceship is not dead center, lending tremendous chaos to the overall picture. Yet the lightning bolts and explosions definitely draw your eye to the middle. It's a wonderful illustration, and Alex should feel proud at his amazing accomplishment of completing a trilogy. I can't wait to get my hands on this one. Have a great Monday, everyone.

I noticed Disciple by L. Blankenship

Today I'm participating in the "Did I Notice Your Book" blog fest orchestrated by the Queen and King of Fabulous:

Ciara Knight

Alex J. Cavanaugh

The book that caught my attention today is by science fiction author L. Blankenship. It is called "Disciple" and has some amazing cover art. She says that it will be available on November 1, 2012. But I did a quick search for it, and it's already up on Amazon! I hope she doesn't mind if I spill the beans.

What really got me to notice this book aside from the astounding cover art is her wonderful blog which you can visit HERE.

FROM THE BACK OF THE BOOK

The saints favor her, else-wise a peasant girl like Kate Carpenter would never be apprenticed to the kingdom’s master healer. But her patron saint also marks her ready for the duty of tending to a mission that must cross the ice-bound mountains. Their little kingdom faces invasion by a vast empire and desperately needs allies; across the snow-filled pass, through the deathly thin air, is a country that’s held off the empire and may be willing to lend an army.

Kate knows about frostbite and the everyday injuries of wilderness travel. She can heal those.

She’s not ready for the attentions of a ne’er-do-well knight and the kingdom’s only prince, though.

And she isn’t ready for the monsters that harry them night and day, picking off their archers first, wearing the party to exhaustion, pushing Kate beyond the limits her healing abilities.

She must keep them alive, or her blood will be on the snow too.

Her book could use some love on GOODREADS with a "Want To Read".

And if you want to download it now, it's on Amazon for $4.99. CLICK HERE TO BUY.

I bought my copy yesterday and started reading it.

Thanks to everyone who complimented me on my new blog banner. My skills with Adobe Photoshop are getting better and better AND I just got myself a copy of Adobe CS5.5. Soooo excited to play with FLASH and After Effects.

Have a great Wednesday

Weighted Release Day Blitz

I love this cover! It's like a Nationwide insurance commercial where the guy talks
about "vanishing deductible" and makes a huge boulder hanging over a
woman's head disappear.

Today, I'm participating in the Weighted release day blitz written by critically acclaimed author and fantastic blogger, Ciara Knight. At right, I've included a picture of what she looks like:

This is Ciara Knight. She writes great books.

Ciara writes to ‘Defy the Dark’ with her fantasy and paranormal books. Her debut novel, The Curse of Gremdon, was released to acclaimed reviews, securing a Night Owl Top Pick and five stars from the Paranormal Romance Guild. Also, book I, Rise From Darkness, from her debut young adult Battle For Souls series, secured glowing reviews and won July Book of the Month from Long and Short Reviews.

Her first love, besides her family, reading, and writing, is travel. She's backpacked through Europe, visited orphanages in China, and landed in a helicopter on a glacier in Alaska.

Ciara is extremely sociable so please feel free to connect with her at her blog, website, Twitter, Goodreads, or Facebook,

Weighted (Prequel Novelette)

The Great War of 2185 is over, but my nightmare has just begun. I am being held captive in the Queen’s ship awaiting interrogation. My only possible ally is the princess, but I’m unsure if she is really my friend or a trap set by the Queen to fool me into sharing the secret of my gift. A gift I keep hidden even from myself. It swirls inside my body begging for release, but it is the one thing the Queen can never discover. Will I have the strength to keep the secret? I’ll know the answer soon. If the stories are true about the interrogators, I’ll either be dead or a traitor to my people by morning.

Want to know more about Weighted? Please go read THIS excerpt right now.

Here is where you can find Weighted today. Don't "wait." LOL...punny, right?

SMASHWORDS
AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE 

It will be up on all online retailers soon, including iBookstore, Kobo, AReCafe, etc…
If anyone has a second to ‘like’ or agree with tags on Amazon, that would be awesome.

Upcoming books in The Neumarian Chronicles:
Escapement (Book I) - Early 2013

Pendulum (Book II) - Mid 2013

Balance (Book III) - Early 2014

Other books by Cara Knight:

Battle for Souls Series

Rise From Darkness

Fall From Grace

Ascension of Evil - Coming in October

Cover Reveal for Weighted by Ciara Knight

Here is the cover for Ciara Knight's new book. As part of a May 25th release, a bunch of bloggers are showing it today as a coordinated takeover of the blogosphere, and I'm one of them :))

Weighted is a young adult post-apocalyptic with paranormal elements. It is a prequel novelette to The Neumarian Chronicles, and will be released August 2012.

Book I, Escapement, will be released in 2013.

Blurb:

The Great War of 2185 is over, but my nightmare has just begun. I am being held captive in the Queen’s ship awaiting interrogation. My only possible ally is the princess, but I’m unsure if she is really my friend or a trap set by the Queen to fool me into sharing the secret of my gift. A gift I keep hidden even from myself. It swirls inside my body begging for release, but it is the one thing the Queen can never discover. Will I have the strength to keep the secret? I’ll know the answer soon. If the stories are true about the interrogators, I’ll either be dead or a traitor to my people by morning.

Please add the book to your "to read" shelf on Goodreads.

The Curse of Gremdon by Ciara Knight

I bought and read the Curse of Gremdon. This novel by Ciara Knight is the first romance novel I have ever read and I really liked it. I give it five stars out of five.

Curse of Gremdon is more than just a romance though. It is a good ole fashioned sword and sorcery novel (with the emphasis on "sword" and very little if no "visible" magic at all). It's what us nerds might call a "magic poor" world. But the description fits and the world-building is amazing. The book is mostly told through the experiences of Arianna. She's an amazing warrior with the spirit of Grace Jones' character in Conan the Destroyer but with a component of beautiful femininity that the afore-mentioned character never had. And Tardon is every bit a testosterone-fueled warrior who lops off heads with one arm while embracing his true love with the other.

The song done by Bryan Adams called "Have you really loved a woman" comes to mind when seeing Arianna through Tardon's eyes. The story is thick with erotica (and I loved this) and it NEVER gets old. If you are looking for a sexually-charged story that is borderline pornographic yet maintains the side of art instead of descending into details of what goes where and also has an incredibly engaging story, then this novel is for you.

Yes, it's an adult book. But I'm an adult and I loved it. There were several times when the heat from the pages made me fan my face and think, "wow...Ciara is such a damn good writer."

And the story is in no way predictable. There's a plot twist in there that came out of nowhere. I thought the story was going to be linear...you know...as a reader I had it "all-figured out." I was going to give it four stars because of this. But Ciara surprised me with her cleverness and my eyes opened wide when I realized what was going on.

Tardon for all his brawn though is so wimpy when it comes to child-birth. I guess that makes this tough guy kinda cute.

Author Ciara Knight

INTERVIEW:
1) First off, I just wanted to say without gushing too much that you are an amazing writer. That being said, I wanted to ask you on some pointers on how you wrote your sexually charged incredibly steamy scenes? Are there words you would tell others to steer away from, and did it flow naturally or were they really difficult? I've tried to write something similar, and I always thought I ended up crossing the line.

Michael, you are so sweet. *blushes* I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the book so much. I LOVE the story and there is still so much more to tell!

Okay, wow, start with a tough question. ;) I’ll be honest, during the first draft the scenes practically wrote themselves. Tardon and Arianna were two characters that took over and didn’t let me have much say in what was happening. You’ve gotten to know Tardon after reading the story, so I’m sure you can understand that he wouldn’t tolerate my author voice interfering at all. J

As for words to avoid, it wasn’t until editing that word choice took some extra thought. My world is fantasy, so I wanted to avoid any modern terms. I think one of the most important things to remember while writing any scene is to stay true to the world you’ve created; otherwise your reader will be ripped from the moment.

My intent for this type of romance was to describe a setting and what the characters were feeling, but not to list each movement and action. I didn’t want to spell everything out. That would be intrusive to the reader’s journey. I think a writer should be able to describe something to a certain extent, but leave some of the actions to the reader’s imagination.

2) Who would you have star as Tardon? How about Arianna? You can pick anyone from any time period. I'm just curious. My personal pick for Tardon is Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. Is that even close?

I think Tardon is such a strong character each reader can view him a little different. In my mind, his face resembles Chris Hemsworth (maybe a little less pretty) and the body of “the Rock” or Arnold in the early years.

Dwayne Johnson

Arianna HAS to be played by a curvaceous female, no skinny girl should ever play her. She has lips like Angelina Jolie, curves and a strong female air like Katherine Zeta Jones.

3) How do you channel Tardon so well? I mean he's the quintessential hunk. And do you picture him having to work out to maintain all that muscle or is he just naturally swoon-worthy?

Chris Hemsworth

Tardon just wouldn’t let me write him any other way. His voice was so distinct in my head, I couldn’t alter it. Due to his training schedule, he doesn’t work out. No need, the hours in the Pit keep him in shape.

4) Tell us about Arianna. More specifically, where in your psyche does she come from? She has a riveting strong female voice, but at the same time, she is completely aware of her lack of physical strength when it comes to her comrades in arms, and I just want to know how you came up with her.

Arianna is one strong girl. She is physically capable of handling many things. When I wrote this book I had blown out a disk in my back and I wanted to be tough. Since I wasn’t, and had to spend many hours in bed, I wrote who I wanted to be. It ticked me off that I couldn’t beat the pain, so I lived vicariously through Arianna for several months. They say tap into your emotions to write a better character, so that’s what I did.

Arianna is also strategic, always thinking. When she couldn’t win a fight with her own physical abilities, she’d use her brain and imagination.

5) How is writing romance fantasy different in your mind to writing say fantasy or science-fiction and how did you come up with the story for Curse of Gremdon?

I think the main difference is the character interaction. Typically, fantasy and sci-fi have little romance, and usually it is off screen. The Curse of Gremdon had more on screen romance.

I’ve always had a huge imagination. I LOVE world building and probably have ten other worlds in my head right now. I think of myself as more of a story teller than a writer. Inventing the story is the easy part, writing it is extremely challenging at times. For instance, The Curse of Gremdon started as a short story. I didn’t think I could write a fantasy novel, but when I received a rejection from a magazine that stated the story was too big, I turned it into an 84,000 word novel.

6) Last question...was it difficult coming up with the title? Now that I've read it, I think the title and the artwork are perfect. But it seems so effortless. Were there other titles you had considered before the one you chose or did you go in knowing that it would be called "the Curse of Gremdon"? Oh and is there going to be a sequel (I know I'm cheating by asking two questions here)?

I usually have a difficult time with titles, but this one was easy. Actually, that was the title of the short story.

I have outlined a sequel, but it might not be out for a year or so. This one will be a little heavier on the magic side. I can tell you that it will be held in the same world but the main hero will be Saldor. The female, well you’ll have to wait and see if his love returns.

Buy Curse of Gremdon at Amazon for $7.99 on Kindle here.
Visit Ciara Knight's author blog here.
Enter to win a free copy of Curse of Gremdon on Goodreads here.

AND because it is Friday the 13th, my Christmas giveaway has ended.  MY ADVANCED READER EDITION GOES TO...

T.F. Walsh.

I'll get your shipping information from you and get it in the mail.