Saturday, April 11, 2015

Kindle Freebie April 9-13 Paranormal Pleasures II Ten More Tales of Supernatural Seduction



Paranormal Pleasures II
Ten More Tales of Supernatural Seduction
By Roxanne Rhoads

Genre: Paranormal Erotica

Publisher: Bewitching Books

Release Date: May 27, 2014

Award winning author Roxanne Rhoads brings you ten more tales of supernatural seduction featuring demonic desires, wanton witches, voluptuous vampires, and ghosts with grave needs…

Four brand new, never published short stories have been combined with six previously published, freshly edited tales to give you a collection of hot paranormal erotica you can really sink your fangs into.

Scent of a Vampire

Aidan has searched several human lifetimes for his perfect mate. Now that he’s found her, he refuses to let go. He must make Gabrielle see they were destined to be together.

Immortal Flame

An off duty fire fighter encounters a sexy vampire in what he thought was an abandoned house.

The flames that ignite will leave them both scorched…and aching for more.

An Unexpected Evening

Samuel is a centuries-old vampire who prefers to be a recluse. He is always afraid of losing control and becoming the monster he once was. Falling in love with a young witch has pushed his boundaries and pulled him out of his comfort zone.

Katerina always encourages Samuel to be more open, to let loose, and to really "live" instead of only existing in the shadows.

One night, he finally grants her wish . . . in ways she never imagined.

Underneath the Fangs

Samuel is being framed for murder. Katerina knows he is not guilty but she has to convince Samuel that he is not a monster and that he is worthy of her love.

Cemetery Seduction

Abby, a half witch, half vampire whose powers go awry in a club, has to run, afraid that the Others, who are policing all human/magick interaction, might put her in jail. She ends up in a cemetery, jumps behind a bush and lands right on top of a very sexy ghost hunter.

No Place I'd Rather Be

Sonora is torn between a human and a vampire. How can she choose between the man who makes her feel safe and the vampire that makes her blood race? Sonora prays to the Goddess for guidance while harboring secret desires that her broody vampire, Brom, and her brawny human, Avery, can get past their jealousy and be willing to do more than just share the witch in the middle.

Can the Goddess grant Sonora's wish, or will she be stuck making an impossible choice?

Blood, Lust and Shadows

Vampire/succubus hybrid Allana is on the prowl looking for a bloody snack and a sexy energy boost. While strutting her stuff in a dark parking lot she encounters a yummy Latino who makes a lovely meal. She also encounters something else that puts her senses into overdrive.

Complete Circle

Lissette is a vampire who has lived with her succubus girlfriend, Cassandra, for a long time. She swore off relationships with men after being viciously raped by the vampire hunters who killed the love of her life and left her for dead.

Lissette and Cassandra only use men to get what they need, blood for Lissette and sexual energy for Cassandra. They are completely satisfied with their lives- until a mysterious stranger comes along.

For the first time in centuries Lissette wants a man. Why is she so drawn to him? What is he?

Much more than a mere mortal, Gabriel has been searching for Lissette and Cassandra for a very long time. They have what he needs, what no one else can give him.

But will they be willing to share?

A Package Deal

Chloe needs to get out of the city- fast. So she buys an old farmhouse out in the middle of nowhere- with one stipulation. The caretaker gets to stay. She readily agrees thinking it’s an old man that won’t give her any trouble.

Ash is definitely not what she expected.

My Demon Valentine

Elita wants to give her demon boyfriend a Valentine’s Day to remember. Connor was built for giving pleasure but Elita wants to turn the tables on that.

This time the pleasure will be all his.

Available at  Amazon

Cover Models: Victoria Nightshade and Sugar Monroe

Cover Photo By RSII Photography

Friday, April 10, 2015

Interview with Shevaun DeLucia



Please share a little about yourself, your genres, any other pen names you use.

Hello! I am a mother of four and a writer! How I find the time while working part-time, I have no idea!! I write YA and New Adult and go by my married name, Shevaun DeLucia.

Tell us a little about your latest or upcoming release.

Jayded is a riveting, erotic romance that pushes the invisible boundaries and social norms when it comes to love. 

Are you a mom?

Yup! I am a mom of four. Yes, four!!

If yes do you find it hard to juggle writing and parenting?

Absolutely! I am now working on my third book, and I still don’t know how I did the first two. Ugh!

Is there a theme or message in your work that you would like readers to connect to?

Yes, just that love has no color, gender, age, or religion.

When you’re not writing what do you do? Do you have any hobbies or guilty pleasures?

Reality TV is my guilty pleasure!!! I’m obsessed!

If this book is part of a series…what is the next book? Any details you can share?

This book is not part of a series. My next book, I’m hoping, will be the second book to my Eternal Mixture series.

What is next for you? Do you have any scheduled upcoming releases or works in progress?

Yes, I am working on the second book in the Eternal Mixture series. I hope to have it out by November 2015.

What book are you reading now?

Fifty Shades Freed. I decided to jump on the bandwagon. Lol.
What is in your to read pile?


Beautiful Redemption by Jamie McGuire.


Jayded
Shevaun DeLucia

Genre: New Adult

Release Date: April 10, 2015

Photographer/Cover Designer: George Parulski

Book Description:

Maxine Daniels was made an offer that she couldn’t refuse. She couldn’t think of a better time—after breaking things off with her fiancé—to change cities and merge her company with Saunders Literary Agency. At thirty-three, she isn’t getting any younger, so it’s time to start fresh and leave her past behind.

What she doesn’t anticipate is the diversion that lies ahead. Kyle Saunders is a catastrophic tsunami that enters her life and consumes her world in just a matter of minutes. Everything about him is telling her no, but her heart and the heat between her legs is screaming yes. He was never a factor in her divine plan—nor was she in his.

Kyle is the cliché bachelor; he is a twenty-four-year-old charismatic chick magnet who refuses to settle down. He’s dead set on living the carefree single life—that is—until Max comes strolling in. Then all his ridiculous rules fall to the wayside.

Who knew that just one hello could alter their lives forever?

Add it to Your Bookshelf on Goodreads

About the Author:

Shevaun DeLucia lives in upstate New York with her husband, four children, and two dogs. As a stay-at-home mom while her children were young, she fell in love with reading. She indulged in the small moments that took her away from the reality of her loud, overly rambunctious household, bringing her into a world of fantasy. When reading wasn’t enough to satisfy her, she turned to writing, determined to create the perfect ending of her own.




Thursday, April 9, 2015

A World Apart by LJK Oliva



Please share a little about yourself, your genres, any other pen names you use.

Hi, and thanks so much for having me over today!

So, a little about me: I am a full-time mom, wife, amateur chef, gardener, and (non)recovering chocaholic. I currently write urban fantasy (with a dash of paranormal romance) as L.J.K. Oliva, but I cut my literary teeth on noir romance and romantic suspense (you can find out more about my work as Laura Oliva here).  I live in Northern California within driving distance of the mountains, the ocean, and San Francisco—the best city in the world!  Not surprisingly, it shows up a lot in my books.

Tell us a little about your latest or upcoming release.

My latest release, A World Apart, is the first book in my new urban fantasy series, Shades Below.  In it, a private detective and a paranormal investigator wind up working the same case.  There's murder, ghosts, some sexy time...I hope people have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

Are you a mom?

Yes, I am.

If yes do you find it hard to juggle writing and parenting?

Absolutely!  There's always this niggling feeling that if the writing is going well, I'm somehow neglecting my son—or vice versa.  But I think all parents feel that way, to a certain extent; that there's always something we could be/should be doing better.

Have you ever based your book or characters on actual events or people from your own life?

Never in entirety, but there are definitely bits and pieces of people I know and things I've experienced that show up in my books.  Hey, writing's cheaper than therapy... 

Which romance book or series (or other genre, if you don’t write romance) do you wish you had written?

Either the Downside Ghosts series by Stacia Kane, or The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning.  Both are brilliant, and frequent re-reads for me.

Is there a genre(s) that you’d like to write that you haven’t tackled yet?

Funny that you ask.  I actually wrote a dystopian a while back that I've been saving for a rainy day, so to speak.  I'll publish it eventually, but for now, the Shades Below series is taking up all my time and brain space.

If this book is part of a series…what is the next book? Any details you can share?

Next up in Shades Below is a standalone paranormal romance novel, centered on two of the minor characters introduced in A World Apart.  It's called Season Of The Witch.  As for details, think badass-biker-witches and unwilling mediums.  Oh, and hellhounds.  There are totally hellhounds.

What is next for you? Do you have any scheduled upcoming releases or works in progress?

I just finished a companion novella to A World Apart, also centered on minor characters from the Shades Below series.  It's m/m (boy + boy, for the uninitiated), and is currently offered free to members of my mailing list.

Besides that, Season Of The Witch is the only other project on my desk.

What book are you reading now?

The Truth About Witchcraft Today, by Scott Cunningham.
What can I say?  I'm in full-on research mode.


A World Apart
Shades Below
Book One
L.J.K Oliva

Genre: Urban fantasy

 Book Description:

"There are things that go bump in the night, Mr. MacMillian.  It's my job to bump back."

Private investigator Jesper MacMillian was sure he'd seen it all.  After all, in a city like San Francisco, strange is what's for breakfast.  Following a long  recovery after a horrific accident, his life is finally the way he wants it- or at least, close enough.  The only monsters on his radar are the ones that keep him awake at night.
All that changes the day he meets Lena Alan.

Before MacMillian has a chance to brace for impact, Lena drags him into a world where monsters aren't just real, they're hiding in plain sight.  Suddenly, everything he knows is suspect, starting with his current case.  For Lena, a medium since childhood, it's just another day at the office. 

For MacMillian, it's the beginning of the end of everything he thinks he knows.

Excerpt 2

The elevator came to a stop.  The doors started to open.  MacMillian backed away and shook his head.  "Do me a favor.  Leave now.  Don't come here again."
He stepped into the hallway, then froze.  Clustered outside the door to the office was a horde of people, the widest slice of humanity he'd ever seen crammed into one place.  There were cowboys, businessmen, soldiers.  Native Americans, what looked to be early Chinese, and more than a few women resembling the one from the side street.
The woman stepped out of the elevator behind him.  She hissed.  "Jesus.  Is it always like this here?"
MacMillian stared down at her.  "What are you- you can see them?"
She rolled her eyes.  "Well, obviously.  I'm a medium, remember?" She started down the hallway, paused, and glanced over her shoulder.  "Are you coming?"
MacMillian hung back.  She shrugged.  "Suit yourself."
She walked up to the edge of the crowd and cleared her throat.  "Okay, someone want to tell me what you're all doing here?"
Multiple heads swung towards her.  An elderly man in a suit that would have been the height of fashion in the late eighteen-hundreds stepped forward.  MacMillian strained his ears, but he couldn't hear what the man said.  The woman listened closely, made a curious sound in the back of her throat and turned back to him.  "He says there's a medium here.  Are you sure you're not sensitive?"
He was feeling rather sensitive, but he shook his head.  "I don't even know what that means."
The woman humphed.  "That's what I thought."  She turned back to the man.  "So you're all here to be moved on?"
The man nodded.
Her shoulders relaxed.  She reached out and took the man's hand in hers.  His eyes widened, then a peaceful look came over his face.  His lips turned up.  White light appeared in the center of his chest, expanded outward until his entire body glowed.  With what looked like a sigh of relief, he evaporated.
MacMillian's jaw dropped.
The woman moved slowly through the crowd.  Hand after hand reached out for her.  She took each one, held on until its owner flashed white and disappeared.  By the time she reached the office door, the hallway was empty.  She leaned back hard against the wall and closed her eyes.
MacMillian didn't remember moving, but somehow he was standing in front of her.  He closed his free hand around her arm and towed her inside, not stopping until they reached his office.
He slammed the door.  "What the... what was..." He dragged a sleeve across his brow.  It was drenched in sweat, but his skin felt freezing.
The woman watched him, her eyes sympathetic.  "Rough day, Magnum?"
He glared.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead.  "That, my dear detective, was the other San Francisco.  You've probably seen it before, just out of the corner of your eye.  You've probably dismissed it all your life.  Maybe you always told yourself you'd just had too much to drink."  She paused, her gaze heavy on his face.  MacMillian squirmed.  "But I'm guessing you always knew better."
His head was throbbing.  He shook it once, twice, but it didn't clear.  "I don't get it, Miss..."
"Alan," she supplied.
He nodded.  "Ms. Alan.  Why are you here?"
Her eyes darkened.  "Because there are things that go bump in the night, Mr. MacMillian.  It's my job to bump back."



About the Author:

L.J.K Oliva is the devil-may-care alter-ego of noir romance novelist Laura Oliva.  She likes her whiskey strong, her chocolate dark, and her steak bloody.  L.J.K. likes monsters... and knows the darkest ones don't live in closets.

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Blog- http://writebitches.com    




Guest Blog and Kindle Fire Giveaway with Amy Lane and Dreamspinner Press





Cooking With Amy

By Amy Lane


Sh—do you want in on a little known secret?  Promise not to tell?  I mean, nobody but us can know, okay?

So here’s the deal—and you didn’t hear it from me.

Amy Lane can cook.

Sh! No! Don’t spread it around!  It’s not well known.  In fact, I’ve been waging a misinformation campaign on the internet and in my personal life for going on twenty-six years now.  My parents assume I can’t cook—they frequently grace my husband and children with pitying looks when we visit.  My stepmother will serve up perfectly seasoned meats and a casserole and smile softly as if to say, “We are very aware that our child is housework-disabled, overemotional, strange, and a detriment to any social group whatsoever, but we are grateful to you for taking her off our hands and allowing her to breed, and as a thank you, we shall cook for you, as we are very aware she can’t do this either.”

And my husband will smile in the interest of keeping the peace, and the children will be polite and say thank you.

And then they’ll get in the car and we’ll stop at McDonald’s because we’re starving and I don’t feel like cooking.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t cook.

In fact, I have a decent repertoire of things I can make.  Potato salad, sausage dressing, pizzadillas, barbecue chicken sandwiches, curry stir fry, chicken teriyaki, cilantro lime pork roast--

It’s following recipes I have a little trouble with. And cleaning up, of course, but I do have several live-in eaters who are required by the birth pact to clean up for me so no worries there.  But mostly the problem is the following of recipes.  I mean, I can cook—and make it good—but can I repeat that recipe?

Do I want to?

Uhm, well, sort of no on both counts. 

I mean, I know that when I boil my corned beef in beer for a long time it comes out tender and savory—but it’s not always the same.  Because we don’t always have the same kind of beer.

I have two kinds of two curry—I don’t always use the same one. Sometimes I have coconut milk, sometimes I have 1%. Sometimes I have hot dog buns, sometimes I have bagels.

It’s a crapshoot, really—it all depends on my reality when I was shopping, and seriously? I mean, the last time I went shopping was a thousand years ago in brain-time. I was worshipping a whole different flavor profile then.

So I can cook.  Five days out of the week, when Mate asks me, “Do you want me to bring home anything?” I can responsibly reply, “No, I’m making something.”

“What?”

“Stuff.”

“Ooh! My favorite thing!”

And it is, too, because it’s not always the same thing, but 99 times out of 100, it’s an edible thing, because like I said before, the truth is I really can cook. We just don’t like to put a name on it.

In fact, the one thing we can put a name on is that thing that happens the other two nights a week when Mate asks me what I wanted to plan for dinner.  My answer on those nights is “SMDM”, which is our family’s acronym for “Something Mama Didn’t Make.”  And honestly, no matter how good the pizza-dialla or braised pork roast or curry chicken was that I made during the rest of the week, “SMDM” is pretty much always my favorite thing to have for dinner.  I’m just picky that way.

So, you might be asking yourself, how can this woman who only knows how to cook in a very loose, unstructured sense of the word, have written a novella based on cooking?

Well, as it turns out, the recipe that Emmet follows in Food for Thought is actually one I invented about a year ago. We were getting vegetable deliveries at the time, and excitingly enough, our potpourri box came with five gigantic beets.  Yeah, I know. I mean, beets are sort of trendy among the recipe book crowd, but for someone who considers diced tomatoes or mushroom soup “recipe rescue” they’re sort of out of my range of sophistication. But that didn’t stop me from trying.

I sautéed a bunch of other vegetables—some peppers, some mushrooms, some onions—in a broth with chipotle soup cubes and chicken.  While that was cooking, I put the beets in the new food processor and sliced them up. I thought. What I really did was turn the beets—which are hellaciously hard to cut into chunks, in case you were wondering—into beet meal.  I mean, five huge beets—we had a pot full of beet meal.  I threw this in with the veggies and the chicken, and after an hour of simmering, what I had made was…

Really yummy.

It looked like hell—I mean, seriously, it looked like it should have had eyeballs and chicken feet floating around in it, because it was blood red and had a texture like viscera, but it tasted amazing.

And my family is used to eating with their eyes closed anyway—it’s a byproduct of having mom throw random stuff into the pot, add some magic seasoning, and proclaiming it dinner by industrial magic. 

So we ate the beet porridge—and it was delicious.  There was also a lot of it, so it lasted us like, a week, and I’m pretty sure I can never reproduce it.  But that’s okay—because this odd concoction made it into my novella about Emmett Gant and Keegan Malloy, and they’re adorable.


So when you’re reading about them cooking the beet porridge, remember: there really was such a thing, once. And it was as ephemeral as magic, so it really does belong in a magic cookbook full of recipes that produce rather odd—and definitely singular—results.


Food for Thought
Tales from the Curious Cookbook
Book 2
Amy Lane

Genre: Contemporary M/M

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Date of Publication: April 8, 2015

Word Count: 26K

Cover Artist: Reese Dante

Book Description: 

Emmett Gant was going to tell his father something really important about himself one morning, but his father died before he got the chance.  A year and a half later, Emmett's life is a muddle of the life he thinks he should have and the man he really wants.  Can the gift of a mysterious cookbook give him the clarity he needs?


Each Book in Tales of The Curious Cookbook 
Can Be Read As a Standalone

Prologue
Dust for Dinner

Emmett Gant looked at himself in the mirror of his dorm room, and wondered how gay he looked. He had a long bony face and gray eyes, so usually he looked just… solid and placid, a sober, rawboned specimen of American manhood.
But he knew he was gay. He’d known since his long ago junior high crush on his best friend Vinnie. His crush on Vinnie had gone away—for one thing, Vinnie was just too awesome a friend to crush on for long. He was the kind of friend who would sneak all the seniors on the football field in the pissing rain, after the last home game, so they could perform their competition band show without instruments, singing their parts at top volume. He was the kind of friend who would show up at your dorm in Sacramento from his dorm in Chico, with a keg in the back of his aging Mini Cooper and a plan to go eat sourdough bread and look at girls on the beach.
He was the kind of friend who would nurse Emmett through a broken heart and not ask the name of the person who broke it—wouldn’t even ask the gender.
He was a brother kind of friend—but he wasn’t a crushing on kind of friend, not anymore.
Emmett had lived through the crushing on kind of friend, and had broken his heart, and he’d managed to pull his grades out of the toilet from that semester, and managed to put on some of the weight he’d lost too.
And now it was time to tell his father why he’d looked like hell for three months. Because right now, only two other people in the world knew, and they weren’t likely to tell a soul.
Emmett decided that whether he looked gay or straight, his sandy hair wasn’t going to get thicker or more interesting looking and it was time to go. He pulled out his cell phone and hit his dad’s picture. Ira Gant had a farmer’s face—but he’d been a factory worker, so maybe that was just the kind of face he was supposed to have. Raw-boned, like Emmett, unsmiling, he always seemed to be looking at a grimmer version of the world than Emmett could imagine, and his picture in Emmett’s phone wasn’t any different.
“Hey Dad? You must be outside mowing the lawn. Anyway, just a reminder that I’m on my way today, okay? I’ll cook dinner—I know you get tired of eating out. See you when I get there!”
Emmett’s dad didn’t say… well, anything, but Emmett had figured out that his dad liked it when he cooked. When he’d been about six, he’d once tried to make popcorn in a pressure cooker, because he’d been home alone and hungry, and they’d had an air popper, but he hadn’t been able to reach it. He had, fortunately, not killed himself by blowing up the kitchen, but the lid to the pressure cooker had frozen, and when his dad got home, Emmett was crying over the pressure cooker, because he was starving and all of the popcorn was right there and he couldn’t pry the lid open.
His dad had taught him how to make noodles then, and Mac & Cheese, and even open a can of beans and add hot dogs. Emmett had been the one to find the kids’ cookbook at the library, and then Vinnie’s mom, Flora, had helped him through the basic recipes.
Emmett’s dorm had a hot plate and a minifridge, but once a week and on the holidays, Emmett went to his dad’s place and made things like chicken cacciatore and roast pork with new potatoes, and he enjoyed that. He didn’t want to do it for a living, but being able to give his dad some sort of substantial proof that Emmett was grateful for his upbringing: that was important.
Emmett didn’t remember his mom—she’d left before he went to kindergarten—but Emmett’s dad had… well, been there. He’d hugged Emmett when he’d cried—although he hadn’t offered any advice on how to stop. And he’d tried to make sure Emmett grew up as a healthy child, although Emmett had needed to go next door to Vinnie’s house to know how to grow up as a happy one. No, a communicator Ira Gant was not, but Emmett was still sort of sure his daddy loved him.
For one thing, every Sunday when Emmett arrived, his dad was sitting out on the rotting wooden porch of the old stucco house waiting for him, even if it was near the summer and a zillion degrees outside.
This particular mid-April day, it wasn’t supposed to get above 80, so Emmett was surprised at the end of the two-hour drive to find that his dad wasn’t there on the porch. The house looked like it always did—the stucco was chipped and peeling, the porch needed to be painted, and the roof was probably falling down—but Emmett’s dad was nowhere to be found.



Tales of the Curious Cookbook

It’s called comfort food for a reason.

Not much is known about the cookbook, except that years ago, the mysterious Granny B collected a set of magical recipes and wrote them down. Over the years, each book has been modified, corrected, added to, and passed down through the generations to accumulate its own unique history. The secrets behind these very special recipes are about to find their way into new hands and new lives, just when they’re needed the most.

Food created out of love casts a spell all its own, but Granny B’s recipes add a little something extra. This curious cookbook holds not only delicious food, but also the secrets of love, trust, and healing, and it’s about to work its magic once again.

About the Author:

Amy Lane has four children, two cats, a love starved Chi-who-what, a crumbling mortgage and an indulgent spouse. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and m/m romance--and if you give her enough diet coke and chocolate, she'll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She'll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.



Twitter: @amymaclane


a Rafflecopter giveaway


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Interview with Diane Cox Author of Typewriter from Hell




Tell us a little about your latest or upcoming release.

WISH ME ALIVE is currently making the rounds of agents. Wish me luck! 

Johnny Crawford, successful but bored with life and women, thinks he has found the girl of his dreams when he reads about a sexy character in a spy novel. Things start to go haywire when the character decides she needs a new author and figures out how to materialize. His perfect world is turned upside down as Johnny tries to put the genie back in the bottle and prevent the character from ruining his new romance.

Have you ever based your book or characters on actual events or people from your own life?

My first manuscript was inspired by the story of my neighbor's ancestress, who set off alone into the wilds of Georgia in 1806 with her six sons under twenty. In my story, a young girl discovers this woman and her family and learns the secret of why she is in hiding.

Is there a theme or message in your work that you would like readers to connect to?

My last two projects feature writing and the paranormal and each of them has a moral woven into the plot.

What would your readers be surprised to learn about you?

How old I am!

Which romance book or series (or other genre, if you don’t write romance) do you wish you had written?

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series

Of all the characters you’ve ever written, who is your favorite and why?

I really like Johnny Crawford, hero of WISH ME ALIVE. He goes through a big metamorphosis - from a womanizing heel to a really nice guy.

If this book is part of a series…what is the next book? Any details you can share?

I'm afraid my writing is spontaneous. I didn't intend to write two books that featured romance and the paranormal - they just emerged!

What is next for you? Do you have any scheduled upcoming releases or works in progress?

WISH ME ALIVE is doing the rounds of agents, but if I'm not successful by mid-summer I will be self publishing again. 

What book are you reading now?

I just finished JACARANDA by Cheri Priest and THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS by John Connolly.

What is in your to read pile?

AUSTENTATIOUS by Alyssa Goodnight
THE CAKE HOUSE by Latifah Salom
THE MEMORY BOX by Eva Lesko Natiello 


Typewriter from Hell
Diane Cox

Genre: paranormal romance, romance suspense

Publisher: Opal Creative Enterprises, Inc.

Date of Publication: November 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9910982-0-0 ebook,
ISBN: 978-0-9910982-1-7 paperback
ASIN: B00GCSL6FC

Number of pages: 147
Word Count: 20226

Cover Artist: Rebecca Poole
Dreams2Media

Book Description:

Unemployed librarian Ellen Brinson submits her steamy manuscript to literary agent Henry Morgan. The only thing they have in common is that they are both desperate for money. Henry believes the unfinished piece is his ticket back to the big time. 

His hopes for a winner are thwarted when Ellen falls in love and is offered a cushy job. As her interest in finishing the manuscript wanes, Henry's desire to get it published increases. 

Enter the Typewriter from Hell. Ellen can't stop writing. The old Corona is a magnet and it's wrecking Ellen's new romance. Henry will pull any dirty trick he can think of to win - and he does!

You'll laugh your way through this fast paced suspense story and you'll never guess the ending.


Available at Amazon

Excerpt:
Chapter One

Ellen Brinson peered over her half glasses at the messy typewritten page. The ‘e’ on the old Corona was so occluded it looked like a giant dot. She quickly read through the last few paragraphs she’d just pounded out. She had a screaming headache.
Where the Hell was this stuff coming from? It was true she’d always wanted to write. Her MLS in library science was all about Ellen’s belief that she couldn’t write, so being around books was the next best thing. But, this, this stuff she was typing -- she’d never done the things, never even known anyone like the people in this story.
It didn’t matter. Six more weeks and her unemployment was going to run out. The stress of not having a job for two years, of trying to find something else she could do to earn a living and getting nowhere, the sheer desperation, was about to drive her crazy. This book was the only hope she had right now, and she clung to it.
Rubbing her eyes, Ellen stretched and the old afghan that covered her lap slipped to the floor. This damn dump was so drafty; she was always cold. Pushing her chair back, she moved to the other side of the room where a row of cabinets and a miniature stove and fridge masqueraded as a kitchen. She poured a cup of hot water from the kettle warming on the stove and dunked a tea bag in it. Then, she reached under the sink and found a pint of vodka, splashing a liberal shot into the tea mug.
The mug cradled in both hands, she plopped down on the rumpled bed that dominated the small room, and leaned back against the wall. Sometimes she felt like she was someone else. Maybe that explained what happened at the typewriter. Or maybe she was just going nuts. That was probably it.
Ellen took a big gulp of the spiked tea, her mind running in circles like a hamster on a wheel. She had to do something, even if it was wrong. She got up and crossed to the rickety wooden table that held her typewriter. She grabbed the messy pages of the manuscript that had been pouring out of her for the past three weeks. Automatic writing, wasn’t that what they called it? Ellen read a paragraph at random:
Serena slid a glance at the senator next to her. With a twitch of her shoulders, she hit him with a blast of décolletage, and then sent her tongue on an exploratory tour of her mouth. She could feel the man heat up like a kitchen stove.
 Another sideways glance confirmed that the front of his pants now looked suspiciously like a tent. Turning her head to look directly at him, she lasered him with the 100 Watt Sex Bomb Smile. Tossing her head back, she trailed her long, red fingernails down her arched, white neck toward her bosom. Then she rose and wiggled her way across the room, giggling to herself.

My God, what crap! Where had it come from? All the same, it was so trashy that maybe it had some potential for being published. It reminded her of the stuff written by Isabel Ritter –no, Isabel Rider.
Rider - she got a visual of the author astride a naked man, bucking in unabashed lust. Ellen laughed out loud, then as quickly sobered as the gravity of her situation struck her.
She ran her fingers through her curly hair. What could she do with this stuff? She needed to send it out to somebody, but who?
And, why would they read it? She was nobody, unpublished. She didn’t even have a friend at a publishing house. She knew a few writers, but they were mostly historians. They would be appalled if she asked them to pass this trash on to their agent.
She read through the pages again. What the Hell. It’s worth a try. Taking in a deep breath, Ellen jumped off the sagging bed, pulled her parka on over her sweats, and tugged on some mukluks. Slamming the door to her flat, she descended five floors of walk-up, her mukluks slapping against each step.
A late spring snow was lazily drifting down as she pushed through the front door of her building, cursing as a splinter poked her hand. She hated this dump. She was beginning to hate New York. Ellen had come here with such high hopes, sure she would discover the glamor and excitement that beckoned in so many novels. Instead, the reality was that New York was no fun for the poor.
In spite of her disappointment, the farmhouse in Iowa where she’d grown up still didn’t look good to her. That was something. Her mother would make her life a living Hell if she had to go back home, broke. Only her father had believed in her dream, and he’d been dead five years now.
“Watch where you’re going!” A guy in a plaid wool jacket bumped her as he passed on the busy sidewalk. She turned into the Strand book store, and headed straight for romantic fiction.



About the Author:

Diane Cox lives in Atlanta, Georgia with two dogs and two cats. She loves to garden, snap photos of her flowers, and dine out with friends.  She works hard for her money, so she squeezes in her writing early in the morning.

Some years ago she fell in love with the true story of one of her neighbor's pioneer ancestresses. After seven years of rewrites, she had learned about the craft. Her next tale -"Typewriter from Hell" was a complete departure from the first, incorporating romance, satire and a bit of fantasy. This year she will bring out a third project, and once again writing will be part of the plot.

She has been in love with books and reading all her life and has always wanted to write. Finally it has happened.


Twitter: dianecoxwrites


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