Shannon's Law Cover Reveal - romance, danger, adventure and passion from Emma Calin.

 Cover-reveal for "SHANNON'S LAW" the new action-adventure-romance novel from Emma Calin.

Blurb

Wild child inner city cop Shannon Aguerri walks a dangerous line between her methods and justice. When the bosses lose their nerve, after yet another maverick mission, she is transferred to green pastures to play out the role of a routine village cop. When she encounters signs of people and drug trafficking she homes in on serious millionaire criminals. As a loner she has attracted men but nothing has stuck. When she meets Spencer, the hunky and widowed Earl of Bloxington, there is an immediate rapport between them. Their social differences mean nothing to their passion and need. Already in the mix is an upper class female rival – who has long plotted her way into the Earl's bed. The jealousy is an evil shade of green and the anger is a violent scarlet. Often inhibited by a sense of duty and honour, Spencer is slow to reveal his feelings. When Shannon confronts him with the need to choose between her word and that of her rival, he does not immediately support her. All the same, when they are forced together to carry out a desperate rescue mission, their love is stronger than everything ranged against them.

Shannon’s Law USA        Shannon's Law UK

(Pre-order paperback only at this stage)

We will be revealing snippets from the story, photos of places and people that inspired the venues and characters on Pinterest during the pre-launch book tour. There are already some scrap-book cuttings posted:

http://www.pinterest.com/emmacalin/shannons-law-launch-reveal-on-pinterest/

There is also news about the book on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShannonsLaw

(‘Likes’ are always appreciated.....)

There are two launch parties themed around “Afternoon Tea At Bloxington Manor”. The first is online on the 28th February on Facebook and the second is LIVE at the English country house that inspired the home of the hero of the book, on Sunday 2nd March. A local favourite venue for Emma,  Avington Park in Hampshire, UK, is steeped in history and tradition. (Think genuine Palladian style rather than Downton Abbey neo-Jacobean). The private owners have kindly agreed to open up with a tour of the house and then tea and cake – oh and launch the book of course!

Shannon’s Law Cover Reveal Draw

$30/£20 Amazon voucher
A pair of tickets to Avington Park Launch Party 2nd March (UK only)
3 Advanced Review Copies of Shannon’s Law

EVERY entrant will receive a FREE gift of an audiobook of Emma Calin's short story Escape to Love.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/Mjg1OTEwYzI5YjYwMjA3ZWY2Y2EzZDEzODljNmNjOjE4/

How a Book Emerges & Prizes

First off- For every post I put up today if twenty people comment I’ll give away an ebook to one of the visitors who comments. So tell your friends and have them come by and leave a comment. If forty people comment on one blog two people will receive an ebook.

How a Book Emerges
by
Paty Jager

It was a mixture of things that prompted me to write Secrets of a Mayan Moon. First I’d read a book that was dubbed “action adventure” and I was less than impressed. Second, I mentioned this to a writer friend on the way to a writer’s retreat.  She then asked, “How would you write an action adventure?”

And we spent the rest of the drive over and back brainstorming the characters, the setting, and the tone. But I have to admit the tone ended up darker than I’d first imagined. Once the characters started to develop and show their inner demons and wants to me, I could no longer write the heroine in the comedic way I’d first portrayed her in my brainstorming.

This is the beginning of the conversation between my friend and I when this book started forming in my head.

Julie: Why don’t you write one?

Me: I can’t write action adventure and I’ve worked hard at branding myself. I write western or Native American.

Julie: So make the heroine have something to do with Native American studies.

Me: I guess that would work. (here my brain started kicking into overdrive)

Julie: Where would you set this story?

Me: South or Central America.

Julie: Why?

Me: I could use the heroine’s studies of Native American Indians as her reason for traveling to countries with drug problems.

Julie: Why?

Me: Because the hero would be with the DEA.

Julie: What kind of heroine will she be?

Me: Scholarly…genius level having graduated with her doctorate at 20 or22.(a light bulb clicked in my head as a slender girl with glasses wearing a long broomstick skirt, tank top, and sandals formed in my mind) Her name is Isabella Mumphrey.

Julie: (laughing) That’s a great name! Tell me more about her.

I went on to describe Isabella and as soon as I returned home, I began gathering the information and doing the research to write her book.

Have you ever read a book and wondered how the writer came up with the idea?

Blurb for Secrets of a Mayan Moon

Child prodigy and now Doctor of Anthropology, Isabella Mumphrey, is about to lose her job at the university. In the world of publish or perish, her mentor’s request for her assistance on a dig is just the opportunity she’s been seeking. If she can decipher an ancient stone table—and she can—she’ll keep her department. She heads to Guatemala, but drug trafficking bad guys, artifact thieves, and her infatuation for her handsome guide wreak havoc on her scholarly intentions.

DEA agent Tino Kosta, is out to avenge the deaths of his family. He’s deep undercover as a jaguar tracker and sometimes jungle guide, but the appearance of a beautiful, brainy anthropologist heats his Latin blood taking him on a dangerous detour that could leave them both casualties of the jungle.

Excerpt

Isabella climbed out of the boat, keeping as much distance between her and Tino as possible. He’d humiliated her, and she couldn’t get away from him. They were stuck together tonight and all of tomorrow until he delivered her to the dig. His taunting her with a kiss and then drawing away as if she were some vile creature hurt as deeply as the things Darrell Rutley had said to her face in grad school.

She walked into the forest, hunting for a place to have a few moments to herself.

“Do not go far,” Tino called in his seductive Latin accent.

She cursed her reaction to his voice, raised a hand acknowledging his order, and tromped deeper into the trees. The murmur of the river faded away in the steady drone of mosquitoes. She slapped at the leaves on the plants and wandered deeper. Rustling in the underbrush shot her heart into her throat. Jaguars were nocturnal weren’t they? A small, furry, pig-like animal trotted across her path, followed by five smaller versions.

She giggled at her jumpy nerves and the animals’ comical parade as she watched the last one disappear through the greenery. The waning light enlarged the shadows. Reluctance played war with her logical self. She should return to the boat before darkness descended and she couldn’t find her way back. But her pride, something she usually didn’t consider, wouldn’t let her face Tino.

Not yet.

It was stupid to believe he wanted to kiss her. Tino was handsome, virile, and so unlike any of the men she’d met during her college days or professionally. Exactly the type who toy with women like me. His chivalry and her attraction to him made her feel attractive, something she rarely experienced. But the way he brushed her off after he’d initiated the kiss... He’d only proved he could kiss her and not that he wanted her. She mentally slapped herself at her stupidity and virginal cravings.

The walk hadn’t settled her anger. Reliving the event only escalated her rage.

How could one be a genius yet stupid about life lessons?

She pulled out what she now considered her knife and hacked at the plants along the way. With each swing she lopped off something of Tino’s. Blue penetrating eyes. Devastating smile. A hand, so good at soothing her. The other hand. Her smile grew, and her frustration turned to the healthy exhaustion of an extensive taekwondo class.

Isabella wiped a sleeve across her sweaty brow and heaved a sigh of contentment. The vigorous exercise worked wonders on her disposition.

A fierce roar vibrated through the trees.

Secrets of a Mayan Moon is available at  Windtree Press   Kindle, and Nook,

Also starting this month I’m giving away gift cards to restaurants and book outlets. Stop in and see how you could win!

Award winning author Paty Jager is a member of national and local writing organizations. She not only writes the western lifestyle she lives it. With sixteen novels and several short stories published, she continues to have characters cavorting in her head. 

You can learn more about Paty at her blog; www.patyjager.blogspot.com  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager , Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1005334.Paty_Jager  and twitter;  @patyjag.

New Historical Romance Novel Kira, Daughter of the Moon and Giveaway--Beth Trissel

‘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?’

Kira, Daughter of the Moon, the third in my colonial frontier series, follows Through the Fire and Red Bird’s Song. Though written to stand alone, Kira, Daughter of the Moon is the long-awaited sequel to Through the Fire and features strong secondary characters introduced in that novel, with the addition of the very unique heroine, Kira, and other new characters. The story also builds on the conflict between Scots-Irish settlers and frontiersmen, the Shawnee and their allies, and British mandates regarding the return of white captives depicted in Red Bird’s Song.

Set in the rugged Alleghenies in the colonial Virginia frontier, the story opens in the spring of 1765, about six months after the close of Red Bird’s Song in the fall of 1764. Through the Fire takes place the summer of 1758 at the height of the French and Indian War. For those of you interested in this obscure but vital era of American history, a second war lead by Chief Pontiac (who united a number of the tribes) followed on the heels of the French and Indian, a sort of part two. That’s the war wrapping up in Red Bird’s Song, but to anxious settlers the Indian Wars just flowed together with times when attacks were more prevalent than others. 

These harried folk trying to survive didn’t keep track of the names of the wars. They didn’t always even know which tribe was attacking them, and some war parties were a mix of allied warriors. But the Shawnee gained the distinction of being the most feared tribe in the Shenandoah Valley and the Virginia frontier—the ultimate badass. The French officers who lead some of these attacks were particularly hated, to this day in some mountainous regions of Virginia and now West Virginia. Memories run deep. Bear in mind that Virginia used to be vast and encompassed states.

Dread of Indian attacks, of being killed or captured, of what happened to captive loved ones, and mistrust of white men who turned renegade and ran with war parties was on the minds of these mistrustful and superstitious Scots-Irish. Not that all settlers were Scots. Some were German/Swiss and English, but the clannish Scots tended to band together. And this is the volatile background for Kira, Daughter of the Moon.

(***Old family musket and pouch and powder horn)

Blurb:

Logan McCutcheon returns to colonial Virginia after seven years in the hands of Shawnee Indians. But was he really a captive, as everybody thinks? He looks and fights like a warrior, and seems eager to return to those he calls friends and family.

Kira McClure has waited for Logan all those years, passing herself off as odd to keep suitors at bay––and anyone else from getting too close.  Now that he's back, he seems to be the only person capable of protecting her from the advances of Josiah Campbell and accusations of witchcraft.  And to defend the settlers against a well-organized band of murderous thieves.

Excerpt:

“My secret in exchange for yours.”

     

Tantalizing.  He was drawing her into his snare, but she couldn’t resist asking, “How do you know I’ve a secret?”

    

“To begin with, you’re hiding in a tree.  What from, a wild beast?”

    

“Near enough.  You.”

     

He smiled.  “Was I to think you a large red bird, or overlook you entirely?”

     

Drawing her remaining shreds of dignity around her like a mantle, she said, “This isn’t one of my best hiding places.”

     

“Indeed?  Where are the others?” 

    

“That would be telling.” 

     

The strengthening breeze tossed the branches around them as he considered.  “You never could keep secrets from me, Cricket.  I’ll discover them and you.”

     

An assertion she found both disturbing and oddly heartening.

     

His lips curved as if the deed were already done.  “Why were you hiding?  Am I so very frightening?”

     

“Oh––I feared you were some sort of warrior.”

    

The humor faded from his eyes.  “I am.”~

About Beth Trissel: Married to my high school sweetheart, I live on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia surrounded by my children, grandbabies, and assorted animals. An avid gardener, my love of herbs and heirloom plants figures into my work. The rich history of Virginia, the Native Americans and the people who journeyed here from far beyond her borders are at the heart of my inspiration. In addition to American settings, I also write historical and time travel romances set in the British Isles. For more on me, my blog is the happening place: One Writer’s Way

***If you would like the chance to win a copy of Kira, Daughter of the Moon in pdf or mobi format (winner's choice) please leave me a comment.

***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.