Boyfriend from Hell Winner!

Congrats to Catslady!

Email your snail mail addy to me at angie@angiefo x.com we'll get that book out to you!

Ghosts, Witches, & Demons, Oh My!

Please join me in welcoming the fabulous paranormal author, Deanna Chase...

 

I think I heard someone say it’s fall. You know, that time of year when the leaves start to change, a chill forms in the air, and Halloween is just around the corner. So far here in Louisiana, temperatures are still in the nineties and the leaves never turn a vibrant color. They just turn brown and clutter the sidewalks. But we do have plenty of Halloween candy.

And ghosts. Or at least a couple. I’ve been convinced our house is haunted for a few years now. I often hear footsteps across our old wood floors late at night. I know it isn’t the husband (the only other person in the house) because he’s kinda a loud sleeper. I can hear him from my office where I spend most late nights with my fingers glued to the keyboard. We also smell random cigar smoke every now and then in the bathroom, which is really odd since it’s in the middle of the house and doesn’t have any windows. Even so, our house ghost appears to be harmless. He doesn’t move my keys or steal the blankets or terrorize the dogs. So I’m good with letting him stay.

We recently learned the lot next to us is haunted. Or at least our neighbor who used to live there before the house burned down is convinced there is a ghost. It’s a woman who slipped in the bathtub. He says she still roams the property. That kind of freaks me out, because I’ve never seen our ghost. But every time I walk past the dining room windows, I catch myself looking for that lady ghost wandering around. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s always late at night, after I’ve been writing about ghosts, witches and demons!

Lord, I hope ghosts are all we’re dealing with, cause I sure wouldn’t want to be Jade, the star of my Jade Calhoun Series. She’s already dealt with a few ghosts, a possession, and a soul-stealing demon. As much fun as it is to write, I’d much prefer my simple life behind my keyboard. She takes it all in stride though, putting it all on the line to save those she loves.

This fall also marks a new Jade Calhoun release, Demons of Bourbon Street. It’s the third book in the series following Haunted on BourbonStreet and Witches of Bourbon Street.

Demons of Bourbon Street is available at:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

iTunes

Print

New Orleans coven leader, Jade Calhoun, is embarking on a Hellish mission. Literally. A week ago her ex sacrificed himself to Hell in order to save Jade’s mother. While he suffers, Jade will stop at nothing to bring him home…even if it means working with Lailah, an angel she’s never trusted.

But the stakes are raised when Jade discovers her boyfriend, Kane, is marked by a demon. The very same one who tried seducing him right before Jade’s eyes. Now Kane’s life is on the line, and consequently, Jade’s soul is compromised. She’ll need all the help she can get, including Lailah’s, as she fights her way through Hell to save her ex and Kane—and her entire existence.

~Deanna

http://deannachase.com/

Read any good ebooks lately?

After a whole week without internet, during which I was *this* close to going nuts, I am finally moved into the new house, have internet access, and we’re on the road to being unpacked.  Mind you, that may be a loooooong road, but we’re getting there.  Our motto around here is “one box at a time”.  :)  Pictures will be coming soon.  As soon as we get at least one room gets cleared out of boxes 

In the meantime, I have a big contest going on.  I’m giving away one ereader every month during Fall!  How do you enter to win?  Just sign up for my newsletter!  Check out the details here: http://www.gemmahalliday.com/contest.html

In October I’m giving away a Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight!

In keeping with the ebook theme today, I’d love to hear if any of you have read any good ebooks lately?  I had a ton loaded on my Kindle before Baby came along, but I’ve devoured them all, so I need some new recommendations.  My personal favs that I read this summer were the Ms. America series by Diana Dempsy.  Super fun, light, perfect beach reads.  

~Trigger Happy halliday

These Boots Are Made for...Bullet Hole

Some time ago, Jana "Deadly" De Leon posted a picture of killer shoes she'd just purchased. Now, I could no more manage to get my 8 and 1/2 wide foot in the to-die-for shoes Jana posted and still be ambulatory than I could pass up free chocolate. Besides, I'm not really a "shoe gal". (Sorry, Gemma.) I'm more of a boot gal. Being a former horse owner who still harbors dreams of owning her own ranch one day, I've always been partial to boots.

All kinds. All colors. All the time.

I have cowboy boots, hiking boots, Wellington boots, short boots, tall boots, suede boots, leather boots.

I love boots!

This past weekend I added another pair to my ever growing collection. I can't wait to wear them!

Okay. Now it's your turn. What's your guilty pleasure? Well, besides books, that is...

Shoes? Antiques? Jackets? Jeans? Hats? Kitchen gadgets? (Ugh.)

I should be good in the boot department for awhile. But I must tell you. I saw this fabulous pair of turquoise Tony Lamas the other day and I swear I can hear them calling my name.

And hey. Christmas is just around the corner!

~Bullet Hole~

Boyfriend from Hell Giveaway - the book, not the boyfriend

Killer Fiction welcomes Boyfriend from Hell author, Jamie Quaid. She's also known as Pat Rice, New York Times bestseller of more than thirty books. In Boyfriend from Hell, she explores her wild side. And here, she gives us the scoop on one not-so-wild date of her own.

Since I’m not the sexy and dangerous Tina Clancy of BOYFRIEND FROM HELL, I’ve had my fair share of boring dates. But the date from hell that sticks in my mind never turned into a date at all as far as I’m concerned. I agreed to accompany a friend’s friend to a game I’d been wanting to see and for which he had tickets. My friend claimed the ticket holder was a doctor, so how bad could he be? Right.

I put on my best capris, my team shirt and cap, and my favorite platform-heel sandals that tied around my ankles. I’d had men on motorcycles nearly fall off their bikes scoping out those shoes. Or maybe scoping out the mini I usually wore with them. Whatever. Dr. How-Could-He-Be-Bad took one look at my cool shoes, dropped his jaw, and hauled me off to the nearest Good Feet store to be measured for decent walkers. Walkers! And he expected me to pay for them!

Needless to say, I walked all right, in my platform shoes, to the nearest bus stop. And it turns out the good doc was just a poorly paid resident in guess which specialty? Podiatry. Can’t send a man to hell for practicing medicine without a license, I guess, but I would have been tempted had I been Tina!

Who else has had bad dates? If you could choose just punishment for your suffering, what would you have chosen? A free book to a random commenter.

The Whispers of Synchronicity

WINNER FOR THE $25 gift card is Sarah S.  Sarah, email me at christie (at) christie(-)  craig.com

Winner!!! Winner of last week’s contest is Ashlee Elliott.  Contact me at christie(at)christie-craig(dot)com for your prize.

C.C. Hunter AKA: Christie Craig, author of a New York Times Bestselling Series: 

How Did I Get Here?

Do you believe in synchronicity?  Do you believe that if you work hard enough, that if you stay on the right path, that you will get your just rewards?  Do you believe that perseverance pays off? 

I do. 

In 2005, my agent and I had just about lost hope of selling my humorous romantic suspense novels.  We kept getting letters saying… “Love the voice, but humorous romantic suspense isn’t selling well in today’s market.”  And then one tagged on the question:  “Can Christie Craig not write a paranormal?”  All those close, but no cigar letters were beginning to really sting.  I did what all writers do, I whined and whimpered to my agent.  Well, not all writers do that, some agents don’t tolerate it, I just got lucky.  (Though, I’m not so sure she feels the same way.) And after listening to me, my agent said, “Then write a paranormal.”

She made it sound so dang easy.  Begrudgingly, but feeling desperate, I searched my heart to see if this really felt right for me.  Was this the path I should follow?  Would it help me reach my goals as a writer—to climb that publishing ladder?  It was amazing the feeling I got when I seriously contemplated it.  It was as if a little voice in my head said, “Go for it.” 

Believing with all my heart that this was divine intervention, I sat down and started researching, plotting, and working on a story about four witches. I told my agent about it and she loved it.   Then, about five weeks later, when I was a couple of pages away from finishing the proposal, my agent called.  “I spoke to the editor who loved your voice and wanted you to write a paranormal,” she said. 

“Yes?” I asked, thinking this was really good news.

“Well, she needs you to change the witches to fairies.  Witches aren’t selling very well in today’s market.”

I friggin’ couldn’t believe it.  I was getting almost the same rejection on something that hadn’t even been sent out yet.  I said some words that weren’t very lady like and would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap if I was still living at home.  And it might have still gotten washed out if my agent was in close proximity to me with some soap on hand.  But come on, I knew zilch about fairies.  Zilch!  I was a little miffed.  Okay, I was a lot miffed. 

Yet, damn it, I still got that message from my gut that this was my path.  So I put myself back in the chair, laced my butt with super glue, and started researching, plotting and working on a story about four fairies.  But I’ll admit that all that bottled up resentment went right into that manuscript.  Well, hell, they wanted friggin’ fairies, I’d give ‘em friggin’ fairies.  

I wrote that proposal with all my barrels locked and loaded.  One of my critique partners read it and said, “Oh my God, I can tell you were pissed when you wrote this, but damn it’s good.”

I sent my friggin’ fairy proposal to my agent and she sent my friggin’ fairy proposal out to editors.  And . . . and I got a lot of friggin’ letters saying, “Love the voice, but humorous paranormals aren’t selling all that well in today’s market.”  It even went to the ‘buy’ committee at two major New York publishing houses.

I was about friggin’ ready to pull out my friggin’ hair and had mentally buried my figgin’ agent in the compost pile.  I didn’t kill her or anything and I didn’t plan on leaving her there very long.  What really disappointed me was that I’d honestly thought my gut said it was the right thing to do.  I’d done all the work . . .  for nothing.  Zilch!

Or had I?

Well, it appeared that way, especially when shortly after that I finally sold my humorous romantic suspense stories and not the paranormal stories.  I actually sold four of my romantic suspenses in one day.  And I did pretty good.

But let’s flash forward to 2010.  I’d sold some more romantic suspense novels, but I wasn’t climbing that ladder as fast as I would have liked.  Then an editor picked up the phone and called my agent.  (Thank God, she was out of the compost pile by then) “Would Christie be willing to write a young adult paranormal series for us?”  You see, even after four years, that editor still couldn’t get that friggin’ fairy story out of her head.

Yup, today is release day for the fourth novel in my New York Times Bestselling Shadow Falls series.  I’ve climbed the ladder, I’ve accomplish my dreams and so much more.  I got here because of synchronicity.  I got here because even when the rejections tried to rip out my passion for writing, I didn’t give up—instead, I doubled up on the super glue and wrote another book.  I got here because I followed my gut on what I felt was right for me.  I got here because of a friggin’ fairy story.

I hope any of you working toward your dreams—and it doesn’t matter what kind of dreams—will take heart.  Sometimes following the right path doesn’t offer you the benefits right away.  Sometimes you have to hang in there and use super glue.  You have to keep going even when the going gets tough.  Good luck to everyone on meeting their own dreams.

To read an excerpt of Whispers at Moonrise go to: http://www.cchunterbooks.com/books.html

And the first book in the series, Born at Midnight, is now on sale for $2.99 everywhere e-books are sold.  

Amazon:  http://tiny.cc/e5wglw

B&N:           http://tiny.cc/98wglw

Now here’s the back cover blurb for Whispers at Moonrise:

“It’s not often that I love a series as much as Shadow Falls. I find myself thinking of nothing else!  This has been one of my favorite series of all time.” –Open Book Society

   

Shadow Falls Camp is back in session with the most explosive installment yet.  A shocking new threat will rock Shadow Falls—changing it forever and altering Kylie’s journey in ways she never imagined.

 Even at a camp for supernatural teens, Kylie Galen has never been normal. Not only can she see ghosts, but she doesn’t seem to belong to any one species—she exhibits traits from them all. As Kylie struggles to unlock the secrets of her identity, she begins to worry that Lucas will never be able to accept her for what she is, and what she isn’t…a werewolf.  With his pack standing in their way, Kylie finds herself turning more and more to Derek, the only person in her life who’s willing to accept the impossible.

As if life isn’t hard enough, she starts getting visits from the ghost of Holiday, her closest confidante.  Trouble is, Holiday isn’t dead…not yet anyway.  Now Kylie must race to save one of her own from an unseen danger before it’s too late—all while trying to stop her relationship with Lucas from slipping away forever.   In a world of constant confusion, there’s only one thing Kylie knows for sure.  Change is inevitable and all things must come to an end…maybe even her time at Shadow Falls.

Ten Things You’ll Learn from Whispers at Moonrise

1.      Kicking your boyfriend’s father’s butt might not be good for the relationship.

2.      Sometimes following your heart means breaking some rules.

3.      Getting trapped in a grave with three dead girls is not a walk in the park. 

4.      Your parents breaking up sucks. Your mom having a boyfriend, and kissing him in front of you, sucks BIG TIME.

5.      When your boyfriend says one thing, but does another, what do you believe? His actions or his words?

6.      You can’t always protect the ones you love. Sometimes the only way to protect them is to tell them the truth—even if it hurts.

7.      When you are in love, you usually want to talk a lot more about your boyfriend than your girlfriends care to hear.

8.      You shouldn’t mess with magic if you don’t know what you’re doing. Especially when someone could end up sterile.

9.      Sometimes it is the little choices we make, and not the big ones, that define who we are.

10.   Be careful what you wish for or you might end up turning a bright shade of red in the boys’ bathroom.

And today I’m giving away a $25 Amazon or B&N gift card to one lucky person who leaves a comment.  This blog is also being published at Laugh, Love, Read, so if you would like to be entered twice leave comments at both places.  For Killer Fiction come back tomorrow to see if you are the winner. Winners will be posted on top of the blog.  For Laugh, Love, Read, come back next week to see if you are the lucky winner.  Here's the link and I hope to see you there....   http://christie-craig.com/blog/ 

The Reckoning is Out!

I won't swear that it's in your local Walmart, as they seem to have their own timetable for stocking and it differs at every store, but if you're a digital reader, you can get The Reckoning now.

This is the first book in the new Mystere Parish series. Mystere is a fictional parish close to the New Orleans area where the swamps are slightly different than swamps anywhere else in Louisiana. Voodoo lore, legends and haunts abound, making Mystere Parish swamps the last place you want to be after dark.

The Reckoning is the first of a three book related series set in Mystere Parish. Each book features one of three sexy brothers and a mystery that sends them clashing with a fiery heroine. An overarching mystery is solved over the three books, so try to read them in order for the best effect.

The Reckoning received a 4.5 star review and Top Pick from RT Magazine!

Here's the back cover copy from The Reckoning:

In a tiny bayou town with far too many wicked secrets, the sudden disappearance of a six-year-old girl is a mystery Sheriff Holt Chamberlain is determined to solve. But teaming up with Alexandria Bastin is a complication he didn't expect. Nor is he prepared to collide with the dark side of Cajun culture—and his own troubled past.

The frantic search leads them to a place said to hold magic, an eerie island where Alex is also working her charm on him. At one time, he'd been forced to leave her brokenhearted. And now , dangerously close to the truth, he'll do anything to protect her from the evil that surrounds them—an evil that might hold the key to sending a little girl home.…

Have a great week!

Deadly DeLeon