Goodnight (+18 Excerpt of The Lost Mercenary)

Hey everyone, I’m back one final time for the night (it's way past midnight in Spain). Before I head to bed, I'm leaving you with a hot excerpt from The Lost Mercenary. 

I'll be announcing the winner of the giveaway tomorrow on my blog. *wink*

Goodnight lovely readers!

Elyzabeth M. VaLey

Contact Links:

www.inadreambeyond.blogspot.com

www.elyzabethmvaley.weebly.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElyzabethMVaLey/info

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElyzabethVaLey

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/ElyzabethMVaLey

The Lost Mercenary +18 excerpt

Sharply taking hold of her hands, he tied her wrists together. Pulling her to her feet, he bound her to the lowest branch, forcing her to almost stand on her tiptoes. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright and her hair disheveled, the taut braid she wore earlier practically gone. Gregorii swept his gaze over her body and he felt his cock ooze in appreciation. She was truly gorgeous. Curvy, with toned legs and breasts with large hard nipples begging to be touched and tasted.

“Grearióus, release me or I will kill you,” she threatened in a low murmur. 

He lifted his eyes to her face and licked his lips. He was anxious to kiss her again, yet he knew it would not be an easy task at the moment. “I believe your position is not exactly one of ease for killing, though I do not doubt your capabilities. You have a nasty right hook,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “And incredibly strong legs, not to mention a delicious tasting pussy. No wonder you became mistress of the brothel.”

Emmeline spat at his feet and he grinned.

“Tell me what I want to know and I will release you and no one will know the better. We can even have a peaceful fuck afterwards. I know you want it as much as I do.” He glanced into her eyes, but she spat again, this time the dribble landing on his face. Chuckling, he brushed it off like a bothersome fly.

“I’ve been submitted to worst torture than this. You don’t have it in you to hurt me. You were never good at hurting others.”

“It’s been ten years, Avalina, I have changed.”

“No, you haven’t. You are still the gentleman, the kind hearted soul who will help maidens in distress. You might be a mercenary, but that is only on the outside. Inside, you are still that playful boy with a heart of gold. I have seen you fight before and it was not what we just did here. You didn’t want to hurt me,” she accused.

“You didn’t want to hurt me too badly, either. You killed that man in the woods without contemplation. Right now, you doubted your moves or we would both be very badly injured. In truth, you’re still that vulnerable child challenging everyone because she’s scared of the world.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, Grearióus. I lost my vulnerability the moment Ragnahall burned down. I admit I am scared of the world. You have no idea what is out there, Gregorii,” she whispered anxiously. “But now, I challenge for survival.”

“You don’t always have to fight against everything, Ava,” he murmured. “You don’t have to fight me.”

He watched Emmeline carefully as she lowered her lashes and chewed on her bottom lip, mulling on his words. In two strides, he stood inches away from her, his fists clenched at his sides so he wouldn’t touch her. She glanced up at him with large brown eyes full of fear, causing his heart to flutter nervously.  “Why won’t you tell me why you’re really going to Karpathian?” he asked softly.

Emmeline squared her jaw, her lips thinning and her eyes growing hard. “There is nothing to tell, Gregorii.” 

“I think there is.”

She shook her head, lose strands of her long hair falling over her face, framing the pink lips he itched to kiss.

 “You will tell me.”

“Like I said,”—she lifted her cool gaze to his eyes—“there is nothing to tell.”

“I will torture you for information.”

“I am no stranger to pain.”

Gregorii grinned and laughed. Reaching out, he roughly cupped her jaw. She inhaled sharply. “The torture I have in mind for you, Emmeline, my sweet Avalina, is quite different.” Dropping his head, he captured her lips in a searing kiss. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before opening her mouth to him and allowing his tongue to brush hungrily against hers. Gregorii pressed the length of his body against hers, wanting her to feel the need between his legs. He dropped his hands to her ass, caressing and squeezing the firm, round globes. Emmeline whimpered, the sound fueling his desire to new heights. His fingers brushed against the apex between her thighs, the heat there blazing. Panting slightly, he pulled away. 

“I am no stranger to sex,” she said huskily.

Gregorii grinned. “I know, but I believe that like most whores, you are a stranger to soul weakening desire. The kind of attraction we feel for each other is as strange to you as it is to me.”

Buy links:

http://www.evernightpublishing.com/pages/Elyzabeth-M.-VaLey.html

  And more retailers from tomorrow on forward

A Part to Play Book Trailer + Giveaway

A Part to Play 

by Jennifer L. Fry

**See giveaway info below**

When fifteen-year-old actress Lucy Carter loses her older sister in a car accident, her mother shuts down and her father can’t hold the family together. Their only choice is to ship Lucy off to the Edmond School for Performing Arts. But boarding school is no cure for Lucy’s grief. With failing grades, wooden stage performances, and curfew violations, Lucy is threatened with expulsion. For the once talented Lucy, it feels as though she has nowhere to turn. 

One night, Lucy hears mysterious music drifting through the school’s old heating system. The music leads her to a troubled but passionate songwriter whose brilliance gives her the strength to perform like never before. Yet their intense relationship puts Lucy in a precarious position: if she follows her muse, will she lose herself? And if she breaks it off, can she stand on her own again?


 

Available in print, e-book, or audiobook!

Author website - Facebook - Twitter
Goodreads  - YABC
Amazon - Barnes & Noble
Audible - iTunes

**GIVEAWAY**

Comment on any of my posts today and one lucky winner will be randomly selected to receive a set of original character illustrations of Lucy, Chris & Isa from A Part to Play. These illustrations are not available for sell! 

Goodnight everyone!

It’s been a great day around here, thanks so much readers, fans, and Goddess Fish for hosting our little party. I hope you all enjoyed the first glimpses of Assumed Calling and can’t wait to share this perfect ending to the Identity series with you November 17. It will be available at:

Amazon           ARe      Nook

If you’d like to keep up with me after today, I rather enjoy having you join me at my blog, Realmantic Moments, or on Facebook or Twitter. You can follow my blog either through Blogspot or Networked Blogs and I’d be happy to have you give my fan page a like and/or follow my tweeting antics.

Have a great evening everyone…and I leave you with this from Allen…

Easing the door open, he found only one lamp burning in the far corner of the room and Nicki huddled in the middle of his mahogany, four-poster King. She looked like a scared little girl who'd just witnessed the boogey man coming out of her closet as she sat against the heavy headboard with the manacles embedded on either end, her knees drawn to her chest, her chin atop them. Rivulets of blackened tears ran down her cheeks as she looked at him through the bluest eyes Allen had ever seen. Dark hair hung in long, wavy curls around her shoulders and her pouty, coral lips were parted as almost indiscernible whimpers escaped from between them. God help him, but she had to go at the earliest possible moment because truth be told, something was snapping inside him. Something which hadn't snapped in a long time. At the moment, all he really wanted to do was gather her up and comfort her then turn her over his knees and give her what he gave best, a good old-fashioned spanking.

Lila Munro…

Writing one realmantic moment at a time 

Why I went Indie: A blog post by Lenore Skomal

By Lenore Skomal

You can reach Lenore Skomal and check out her blog and other books at her website, www.lenoreskomal.com, or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Goodreads. Buy BLUFF here.

I am Indie. And I say it proudly and with gusto because I chose it. Perhaps that makes me different from other Indie authors who find themselves pushed into the Indie way because of a general lack of response from the profit-driven, long-suffering commercial publishing industry, which has been reduced to a passel of lost sheepherders trying to lead their readers without direction or vision. But that’s another blog post.

   A little back story: I started writing books in 2001, following a long career as a broadcast reporter and a burgeoning career in print journalism. It is a career that took me four decades to finally get to. That first book (Keeper of Lime Rock, Running Press, 2001) spawned 16 other book deals with four separate publishing houses. I have hired and parted ways with two literary agents during the course of that time. And learned a lot about the industry in the process, much of which is not pretty or glamorous. Not counting advances, the conventional route of being published through a commercial publisher has, to date, netted me exactly zero dollars in royalties.

  The lack of financial success isn’t the real reason I went Indie. That goes much deeper, and it’s multifold. Indie appeals to me. I chose the Indie way of life because it speaks to me and how I have come to approach my life in the broadest of terms, and my art in specific. While working within the traditional publishing hierarchy and producing mostly contracted books, I found myself in a lesser place, wrangling with base emotions. Rather than feeling exalted and amped up like I do when I am dancing with my muse and creating tapestries with my words, I was ugly. That lack of beauty was obvious through my moods and rash feelings of disgruntlement, frustration, shock, sadness, disheartenment and yearning. Always yearning.

   My mind shifted from the creative to the competitive. And with that, my higher path dropped to the lowest of roads. I found myself bitter about other’s successes, jealous of those I considered lesser writers who had moved ahead, and greedy for my piece of the pie. This is not what being in the flow is about. I began to look at success in terms of dollars and more dollars. And I continued to plummet.

   Dark days indeed, especially because I was continuing to write all that I didn’t want to write. My two novels and two other very important books that I had completed stay buried in my computer, waiting to be discovered by this same industry that had never proved fertile ground for my craft.

  The independent book revolution, though I discovered it rather than it finding me, saved my soul. I am a newbie, with only one plus years under my belt with my own imprint. But have found myself again. Through forging my own path to understand all the specifics of getting my work in print, my courage was steeled, my voice sharpened, confidence cranked up, and my imagination humming. This is no exaggeration.

   Long ago I isolated the reason why I write. As one of seven kids, raised in a dysfunctional Catholic family during the tail end of the Hippie era, I discovered writing at a young age and found that it did something for me that nothing else could. It helped me make sense of my life. It also allowed me to be heard, which didn’t happen often in the chaos that was my childhood. And that is the primary reason that I write. Being schooled in that tradition for 12 years, I got very used to being told what to do, how to do it, and what to wear while doing it. I was primed for the publishing industry because I was such a good soldier. The problem was, I wasn’t happy and somewhere along the way, they wanted me to sell my soul. And I’m ashamed to say, for the right advance, I might just have done it. Thankfully, no one wanted my novels as they are written, so I remain with my spirituality intact.

   I say all of this because it ultimately explains why I love the Indie book revolution. No one is telling me what to do. And that is very freeing. In this ever-evolving movement where boundaries are still being defined and we are all pretty much making things up as we go along, there is plenty of room for all of us. And no one has to change plots or switch voices or add werewolves to their novels or make endings more politically correct, just because an editor or publisher tells us to. Experimental genres are just as legit as literary fiction, and we can all wear unmatched socks and go shirtless to fancy restaurants if we want. And make money at the same time.

  You know why? Because we are now free to leave ourselves bare, just as we are, take us or leave us, for the only person that matters to decide: The reader. We cut out the fat middleman, the hierarchy, the chain of command—call it what you will. We go direct to the reader and let that person decide. 

   Whether you come to independent publishing by choice, like me, or by chance, it really doesn’t matter in the long run. You’re here. And because of that, you’re part of the future, whether you realize it or not. We’re not outside the industry.

   We are the industry, redefined.

You can reach Lenore Skomal and check out her blog and other books at her website, www.lenoreskomal.com, or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Goodreads. Buy BLUFF here.

   

A Healer, Nature Lover, and Suspected Witch--Kira, Daughter of the Moon--Beth Trissel

Release Day was Nov 2nd! Now, more about my new historical romance and very unique heroine. 

A beautiful Scots-Irish healer in the rugged Alleghenies finds herself accused of witchcraft. With the terror of the French and Indian War fresh in her mind, can Kira love a white warrior?

1765––The recent Indian wars are over (for now) and an uneasy truce in place. Free-spirited Kira is at odds with the superstitious Scots-Irish in the settlement and rumor spreads that she may be a witch. Her imagination runs to fairy rings, the little people, and haints (something that’s there but ain’t). She's happiest out among the trees where she can hide from her painful past and any warriors who might again appear. A gifted healer with a menagerie of wild creatures, she's in the forest releasing a tame crow when her little beagle sounds the alarm. She peers warily from the leaves at the handsome young stranger. His buckskin breechclout and moccasins are more in keeping with a warrior's than any frontiersmen she knows and there's a stealth in his manner that reminds her of the way Indians pass through the trees. Yet he's not a warrior. Unless, he’s a renegade. This is the set up for the story, but there’s a great deal more behind it, and especially, Kira, the most unique heroine I’ve ever written.

Not only does Kira have a tame crow she’s nursed back to health, but a number of wild animals under her care in what she calls her nursery, a protected nook in the woods close to the homestead where she lives with the Houston family who took her in after her parent’s death (relatives of the hero, Logan McCutcheon). Some of her Kira’s babies ride in pockets she’s sewn inside her cloak for that purpose. Her guardian, particularly his wife, aren’t happy about hosting her creatures and banish the talkative crow, the reason she’s in the woods releasing him when she spots the potential threat.

Besides my love of animals, two books influenced this aspect of Kira’s character, one was a children’s book my youngest daughter brought home from the school library in fifth grade. I wish I could recall the title and maybe a helpful reader will because I’d love to locate a copy. I only remember it’s a true story about a family who took in injured and orphaned animals and I was much impressed by their talking crows. The second book, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley, is a remarkable journal first written in crayon by an amazing girl, and later laboriously pierced back together after her sister shredded the pages. Sadly, Opal suffered from schizophrenia in an era when little was known about treatment, but her relationship with nature is the most outstanding I’ve ever come across.

When I first wrote Kira, Daughter of the Moon, I simply entitled the novel Kira, because she’s very much her own person. But she evolves into a much stronger young woman as a result of Logan’s return to her life, and that aspect of Kira is influenced by the Native Americans he counts as friends who give her the name, Daughter of the Moon.

***Kira, Daughter of the Moon is available in print and various ebook formats from The Wild Rose Press, from Amazon, Barnes & Noble’s Nookbook, All Romance eBooks, and other online booksellers.