Got a Question for The Holloway Pack?

For anyone paying attention, you’ll know I’ve been planning upcoming blog tours, or planning promotions, or have titles due to come out at some point this year.

Amongst some of the blog stops/promotional posts I do, there are often ones revolving around character interviews. In fact, I have quite a lot of character interviews set up for the Eternal Tour in July.

But I’d like to continue with those over the upcoming months to pave the way to the release of Blue Moon in December.

And that’s where you come in.

Because I’d hate to keep asking/answering the same character questions over and over again. I’d hate even more to ask/answer questions that folk have already heard a dozen times/folk ain’t so interested in.

So I’ve decided to give the reins for the questions to you guys.

If you could ask any one of the Holloway Pack a question, what would it be?

Be it for Nathan/Connor/Ethan/Kyle/Sean/Dan/Josh/Jem or if you prefer the earlier-based stories: James/Giles/Edward/Philip/Charles …

Maybe you’d like to know Nathan’s favoured underwear? Or if any of the pack ever had a senior school (high school?) crush? Or maybe you think Kyle has some juice on a growing-up Ethan?

You can now ask away. And I vow to provide answers (so long as they’re not spoilers for future novels). Whether they be in a post here, or in a guest post on someone else’s blog, you ask … and I’ll provide.

You’re more than welcome to ask as many questions as you wish, to as many pack members as you wish. I’ve even created a form for you to submit your questions so they can be done privately (if there aren’t enough slots for your questions, you can always refill it again).

And here’s THE FORM! Have at it.

Love in Bloom: And the winner is …

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. HUGE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED.

AND THE WINNER OF DARKNESS & LIGHT IS …

NICOLE L.

CONGRATULATIONS!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay then, onwards with the show.

To celebrate my BRAND SPANKING NEW cover for the E-version of Darkness & Light, I shall be giving away ONE E-Copy to ONE winner.

Let’s take a look:

Jem Stonehouse, a housewife with a neurotic husband bent on keeping her in line, dreams about werewolves in, what she believes, is a bid to escape boredom.

Sean Holloway is a werewolf, living a charade within the human race, whose mind drifts to a bond he shares with a woman he hasn’t met — at least, not in this lifetime.

Apart, the two are safe but live unfulfilled lives.

Together, they’ll become prey to rival packs just as they have been for hundreds of years.

When their worlds collide, and not for the first time, instinct takes over. Dreams become reality. Futures are uncertain. To keep history from repeating itself, Sean must teach Jem about his heritage, convince her of her role, and win her love.

Can Jem accept her destiny before it’s too late, or is her inner wolf buried too deep to save her future with Sean?

To enter, simply visit the Rafflecopter Form on my Giveaways Page, where you will be given the option to do one or all of the following:

a) Follow me on Twitter

b) Tweet about the giveaway

c) Subscribe to my blog (link for this is in the sidebar =>>)

d) Answer a question

e) Add Darkness & Light to your Goodreads shelf

Cheers & Good Luck!

FREEVIEW FRIDAY {ETERNAL}! #FVF

Hey all, and happy Friday. Thank you for stopping by. Today, I’ll be sharing another mini-excerpt from my PNR novella Eternal,  due out in a little over 4 weeks.

Following on from last week, and Jem is still insisting on tending Sean’s wounds … here’s your taste of Eternal:

Muscle rippled beneath my curled fingers when I nudged the fabric over his hips. I knelt to undress him, and he tensed further, giving a hissed inhalation as the trousers brushed against his skin. Only once the black fabric pooled at his ankles did I see the extent of harm caused, and I swallowed the gasp that tried to escape.

From his right buttock down the back of his thigh, a jagged opening, encrusted with crimson, oozed a yellowy liquid—an echo of blood that had already exited. I pressed my fingertips to the damaged flesh, pulling back when he flinched at the contact. “Why would you try to hide such an injury?”

“Alpha’s cannot show weakness in front of their pack.”

My forehead tightened beneath my frown. “Thank you for so generically placing me amongst the others.”

*Sigh* Sean, Sean, always managing to put his foot in it by saying the wrong thing.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks snippet. See you next week for another round of FVF

As I have said before, any and all are welcome to join me in this weekly shenanigan. HOWEVER, if you do so, I URGE you to keep the shared snippets short and sweet. Mine will be a maximum of TEN (10) sentences. To help identification of these posts, I shall be hastagging them (for Twitter purposes) as #FVF. Feel free to knick said hashtag for your own Freeview Friday posts.

COVER REVEAL: Make Believe Anthology

You might recall, around 10 days ago, I announced that my short story, ESCORT TO INSANITY, had been contracted for the MAKE BELIEVE anthology.

Well, the time has come to share the cover and blurb.

Here’s the cover:

It’s so pretty. LOVE the red against the white.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand here’s the blurb:

Sacrificial Oath by Terri Rochenski

An impetuous act unwittingly makes Alesuela the fulfillment of the Sovereign’s Blood Oath to their Goddess. In five days, she’ll be forced to make the greatest choice of her life: become the virginal sacrifice already promised, or force the man she loves most to die in her place. 

With an impossible choice in front of her, she searches for ways to undo the oath, and in her quest, finds not everything in her life is as she expects.

The Amulet of Ormisez by J. Keller Ford

There is only one way to save Elton Fletcher’s brother from an insanity-ridden death.

After years away from home, fighting for his people, Elton returns to discover his only sibling, Cayden, possessed by greed and malice, and responsible for malicious, unthinkable deeds. Cayden, though, isn’t the only one afflicted by the Amulet of Ormisez, and Elton finds himself in yet another battle, where the price of failure could be his own life.

Birthright by Lynda R. Young

Christa can mask the pain and hide the scars, but running from a birthright is impossible. 

She’s tried to escape her grief by fleeing to a small town in Florida. Much to her frustration, the locals think they recognize her even though she’s never been there before. To make things worse, a man named Jack spouts outrageous theories about her.

Both spur Christa to bolt, to start fresh yet again, but there’s something about Jack that intrigues her enough to stay. The only problem? Someone else wants her to leave, and they won’t stop until she’s dead.

Petrified by Kelly Said

A mysterious storm has replaced summer with winter, devastating crops and smothering Castle lands in snow.  Prince Sterling August stands alone as a leader, lost in personal grief as well as a desire to help his people but with an inability to do either. 

The answers he needs await him, but without Lochlyn, a woman who’s just as isolated as Sterling, he’ll never see what stands before him, cloaked in illusion.

Last Winter Red by Jennifer M. Eaton

Emily is a Red, a woman whose sole purpose in life is to produce offspring. When her husband dies and leaves her childless, she risks her life and forsakes the safety of Terra—a disease-free city born after the nuclear holocaust. Beyond its boundaries, she knows, survives a man with whom she can be properly paired.

The Outside, though, holds secrets the government struggles to keep, and what Emily discovers on her quest for a mate will change her life forever.

Escort to Insanity by J.A. Belfield

From a charity auction, to a stroll in the park, to the craziest night of her life. Nicole Harrington can’t help but wonder how a simple event went so drastically wrong.

Of course, the male escort she booked is wholly to blame. Not only charming but shrewdly intelligent, Benjamin Gold drags Nicole into a platoon of unimaginable problems—ones from which she’ll have to find the courage just to survive.

Yeah, mine’s the crazy sounding one.

Well, what did you expect?

So, whatcha thunk? Like?

MAKE BELIEVE will be available December 3rd.

Pssst, if ya wanted to add it to your Goodreads in the meantime, all’s ya gotta do is click on the link.

DATING 101: How to Recognise If You’re Dating an Alien! #30DaysOfDeamon Blog Tour!

I interrupt my usual programme to participate in an exciting (to me and about 5 million others) tour. If you take any notice of what I say across Twitter, Facebook or Goodreads, then you should already know what I’m about to say—because I’ve made enough noise about the fact that Jennifer L. Armentrout is my new ‘best thing since sliced bread’ author.

After being introduced to her books by Kayleigh of K-Books a few months ago, I’ve been chomping at the bit to get my hands on anything else she’s written and impatiently waiting for new titles to release in both of her series’ I follow. So you can imagine my excitement when I offered to help out with the 30 Days of Daemon Tour and her publisher accepted. After all, I luuuuurve Daemon Black. Although I do try and keep my lusting down to a minimum lest it seem gross. I mean, he’s young and hot and I’m pretty much not *cough*

Anyway, moving quickly on … in honour of the Lux series and all things (hot and totally sexy) Daemon, I decided to conjure up a new episode of my Dating 101 and focus on ALIENS!

So … without further ado …

DATING 101: How to recognise if you’re dating an alien (Daemon Black styleee)

Aliens can be an odd one to spot. After all, their very human ‘bodies’ they adopt ensure they blend well with us regular Homo sapiens with very few differences to set them apart.

That is, unless you’re looking for them.

And that’s where I come in. Because I have a readymade list of exactly what you need to look out for. Read on and learn …

MINOR STUFF:

- Does/Did he appear to be a total douche on first appraisal?

… my sister has this doll that kinda reminds me of you. All big-eyed and vacant. ~ Obsidian

- Are his eyes brighter and more vibrant than even blarted-upon contacts to the point you can understand his douchebaggery coz no one that good-looking can possibly be an okay guy to boot?

… eyes so green and brilliant they couldn’t be real … an intense emerald colour that stood out in vibrant contrast against his tan skin. ~ Obsidian

- Is he about as fit as every teen girl’s (and woman’s) wet dream?

Jeans hung low on his hips, revealing a thin line of dark hair that formed below his naval and disappeared beneath the band of his jeans. His stomach was ripped. Perfect. Totally untouchable. Not the kind of stomach I expected to see on a seventeen-year-old boy … ~ Obsidian

- What about that douchebaggery you encountered upon the initial meet? Yeah, doesn’t exactly go away. It just kinda evolves into more-than-occasional moments of a$$-hattery.

Daemon lost his smile and stared. “I’m never happy around you.” ~ Obsidian

Well, hello, honey, I’ve been out boozing and whoring … ~ Obsidian

WEIRD S**T:

- Does his family’s bodies’ have a tendency to frizz in and out?

Her entire left arm blurred. I could see the white railing through it. I blinked. Her arm was solid again. ~Obsidian

- Does he or his family move way faster than should be possible?

One second he was standing next to Dee and then next he was right in front of me. And I mean, right in front of me. ~ Obsidian

- How about explosions of the electrical kind during imminent implosion of your own of the lustful kind?

His hands slid around my head, pulling me back to his mouth. There was a cracking sound in the house. A fissure of electricity shot through the room. Something smoked. But I didn’t care. ~ Obsidian

EXTREME PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS: (often more apparent during moments of intimacy):

- After particularly vigorous makeout sessions check his eyes—no, his pupils. What colour are they? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

His pupils were white, glowing from within. ~ Obsidian

- Again, after a particularly, VIGOROUS session check HIM out! He shining like a glowworm powered by a billion Duracell?

All he saw was a white glow that bathed Beth’s face, reflected off the walls, covered the entire bed … Oh, holy s*** … He hovered, staring down at himself. He was glowing. ~ Dawson: Shadows

- Of course, both of the above two will often come with a warning sign. A tell. A small, precedence that the situation is about to get EPIC! That’s right, baby: the grrrrrrrowwwwl.

He shuddered and there was a sound from the back of his throat, half growl, half groan. ~ Obsidian

- And let’s not forget the icing on the cake. Be leery if, after spending some intense time with your guy, you just happen to get bizarrely stared at—like laser vision stared at—by random folk when you’re out and about.

Everyone stared as if I were a two-headed alien … I wasn’t sure if I should feel like a celebrity or an escaped mental patient. ~ Obsidian

So … do any of these pointers sound like something you’ve experienced with your guy?

They do?

Well … Congratulations! Oh, dear. Better hold on tight, baby, because you’re in for the bumpiest ride of your life. Good luck with that!

How about anyone else? You got any tips for recognising when your date ain’t quite right?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Obsidian and Shadows are both available NOW! You can go direct to their Amazon pages by clicking the book cover images.

And Onyx will be exploding into the world August 14th 2012! Go HERE to pre-order!

You can find out more about Jennifer L. Armentrout at the following spots:

Website | Blog | Goodreads | Twitter

Or why not check out the #DaemonInvasion Facebook page and discover what hoards of fans are participating in across the Globe.

Be sure to check out today’s other posts, too:

Basia’s Bookshelf – Dear Daemon post

Geek Girl’s Blog – Obsidian Review

And, of course, clicking the tour banner at the top of the page will take you to the complete tour schedule for the month.

Happy alien hunting, folks!

BEHOLD: MY SUNSHINE AWARD!

So … the miscreantic soon-to-be-debut novelist LS Murphy nom’d me for this award. And because I’m (occasionally) a good sport, I’m going to play along.

What’s it all about? See below:

Now, the way the award works is this: you copy the award picture into a post and link back to the person who gave you the award. You then must either answer ten random questions or give seven random facts about yourself. Then spread the award along to ten other bloggers by tagging them!

Okay, because I’ve answered HEAPS of questions lately for my upcoming Eternal tour in July, I decided to swing toward the 7 random facts about myself.

BE WARNED: If you don’t wish to view me as even odder than you already do, you should probably click away from this post whilst you still can.

You still here? Cool, then here are my 7 random facts:

1) This year, I shall turn 40. 40 is a state of mind. My body might realise it’s 40 but my head doesn’t believe it. When I was 20, I thought 40-year-olds were the elderly and living on pensions. Now I’m almost 40, I have a little more respect for 40-year-olds.

2) When I was a teenager, our entire house (bar the bathroom and stairs) was decorated in Artex and painted either white or magnolia. So I decorated my too-bland bedroom walls with posters I found in magazines of the faces of Matt Dillon, Michael J Fox, Limahl (for his cool hair), Jon Bon Jovi, Paul Young (I listened to Wherever I Lay My Hat on repeat, and played it over and over until my mum screamed at me to change the record), and *CRINGE* Shakin’ Stevens.

3) I first met Mr B when I was 15 at a Valentine disco. ‘Tis true. And he only ended up being there at all because my best friend’s boyfriend brought him so he’d have someone to talk to. That was around 24 years ago.

Who’d have thought Stevie Wonder, Chris de Burgh, a slow dance and a snog could inflict such a sentence?

4) The first fictional stories I wrote were for children. The first one was a story dedicated to my son, because I’d recently had the Mini-Me and he still wanted to sleep in our bed, but, dude, there just wasn’t room, ya know? So I decorated his bedroom for him and made it special. And when that didn’t work, I wrote him his own story. It was called Neill’s New Room. The second one was called The Rabbit With Terrible Habits (see dodgy image from a page of homemade book =>>). The third one was called Which Pet is Best?

5) My and Mr B’s marriage proposal was about the least romantic occurrence you could possibly imagine:

Sat on the sofa together, and Mr B says: I think we should get married. What do you think?

Me: *shrug* I suppose. Yeah.

Mr B: *nods* When shall we do it?

Me: Hang on, let me check my diary. *goes and grabs diary and skims through the pages* I have a week booked off from work in February. How about then?

Mr B: That’s three months time?

Me: Yeah.

Both sit staring at the diary for minutes.

Mr B: Spose we better tell me mum then.

And that’s pretty much how the conversation went.

HOWEVER, I would not change this for the world. To me, the naturalness of the conversation, as though our wedding was just another day out we were planning, symbolised just how comfortable we were with one another, and the normalness of it meant to me that it was the right thing to do. We’re still married 17 years later. Friends who did the whole shebang the same year we got married and spent thousands of pounds on their weddings were divorced six months later.

A marriage proposal and the wedding should be about how you feel on the inside, not about how it looks on the exterior.

6) Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a dream, I’ll suddenly decide I must hunt for a toilet. But every toilet I come across, there’s a reason I can’t/won’t use it. Like the door is only about a foot in height and everyone can see in. Or it’s a communal toileting room with about 50 s***y-looking Bakelite-moulded pans, and they’re pretty much all occupied, and when I finally manage to barge myself forward as one becomes available, the seat ain’t something I’d contemplate contacting with my butt anyway. When I eventually give up and wake, I’m usually in bad need of the loo. Yeah, it’s weird.

7) When my daughter was born, we were so convinced we were having a boy, that when the nurses lifted the baby to take her for weighing and cleaning and Mr B and I saw ‘she’ had some ‘bits’ missing, we both looked at each other in alarm then at the nurse and blurted out: “What is it?”

And that’s me all wrapped up in 7 random facts.

So, who to nominate for this award …

Well, as there are SO many blog awards that require people carry it along, and so my of my blogging friends have already been nominated for stuff when I know they have so little time, I’m going to make this an open nomination. If you fancy playing along for a little fun, then go for it. I certainly had a hoot writing my post. 

So I nominate:

YOU!

Hehehehe, thanks for stopping by.

FREEVIEW FRIDAY {ETERNAL}! #FVF

Hey all, and happy Friday. Thank you for stopping by. Today, I’ll be sharing another mini-excerpt from my PNR novella Eternal,  due out in a little over 6 weeks.

Following on from last week, Jem and Sean are alone after his outbursts over the trespassers … here’s your taste of Eternal:

Water splashed over the lip of the basin as I dropped the cloth. I tucked a forefinger beneath his chin and tilted his face upward, continuing to lift until he had no choice but to follow.

His teeth ground as his legs straightened. I caught the wince in his eyes before suggestive questions entered his gaze, and his smile appeared when I reached for the fastenings of his trousers.

A tug loosened the binding as well as jerked him forward.

His lips met my ear, and his breaths warmed the flesh there. “Really, Jem. Would you take advantage of a male in need of care?”

“Distractions are not going to work.”

‘Would you take advantage of a make in need of care?’ Um … yup, yup I would.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks snippet. See you next week for another round of FVF

As I have said before, any and all are welcome to join me in this weekly shenanigan. HOWEVER, if you do so, I URGE you to keep the shared snippets short and sweet. Mine will be a maximum of TEN (10) sentences. To help identification of these posts, I shall be hastagging them (for Twitter purposes) as #FVF. Feel free to knick said hashtag for your own Freeview Friday posts.

LOVE IN BLOOM GIVEAWAY HOP @JABelfield

Hey, and welcome to my post for the Love in Bloom Giveaway Hop. First up, I’d like to say a huge thanks to I am a Reader, Not a Writer & Portrait of a Book for organising/hosting this hop. Kathy works so hard on all of the hops she organises, as do the people good enough to co-host with her. Please find time to click on the hop badge (->), which will take you to the page holding the linky-list of all participants. Check them out because you’ll find some awesome prizes up for grabs.

Okay then, onwards with the show.

To celebrate my BRAND SPANKING NEW cover for the E-version of Darkness & Light, I shall be giving away ONE E-Copy to ONE winner.

Let’s take a look:

Jem Stonehouse, a housewife with a neurotic husband bent on keeping her in line, dreams about werewolves in, what she believes, is a bid to escape boredom.

Sean Holloway is a werewolf, living a charade within the human race, whose mind drifts to a bond he shares with a woman he hasn’t met — at least, not in this lifetime.

Apart, the two are safe but live unfulfilled lives.

Together, they’ll become prey to rival packs just as they have been for hundreds of years.

When their worlds collide, and not for the first time, instinct takes over. Dreams become reality. Futures are uncertain. To keep history from repeating itself, Sean must teach Jem about his heritage, convince her of her role, and win her love.

Can Jem accept her destiny before it’s too late, or is her inner wolf buried too deep to save her future with Sean?

To enter, simply visit the Rafflecopter Form on my Giveaways Page, where you will be given the option to do one or all of the following:

a) Follow me on Twitter

b) Tweet about the giveaway

c) Subscribe to my blog (link for this is in the sidebar =>>)

d) Answer a question

e) Add Darkness & Light to your Goodreads shelf

Cheers & Good Luck!

NEWS: New ‘Darkness & Light’ Cover!

Yep, you did read that right.

Darkness & Light has been allocated a new cover.

Why?

Well, my editor contacted me some weeks back and told me they were considering changing the cover so that it will ‘fit in’ with the other covers of the series as an entirety.

They wanted something that was more relatable to the Blue Moon cover.

They also wanted something that was going to look like it belongs with any covers they’re planning to produce for future Holloway Pack titles.

In layman terms: They want the covers, when all standing side by side, to look as though they are part of a collection and to be recognisable as part of that collection.

On top of that, they reasoned that Darkness & Light was almost One Year Old (O_o) and they thought it would make a nice (almost) anniversary marker.

To be honest, I was wondering what on earth they might come up with. The image of the wolf duet has been in my head a long time. And I’m pretty restricted in my ‘vision’ when it comes to imagining visual art and the end results, so to see something else ‘in my head’ was nigh on impossible.

However, my editor sent me the result, and after a couple bits back and forthing and a few tweaks made here and there, I’m happy with the finished article.

And here it is:

For now, the new cover will only be available in the E-versions of the book.

But that’s not the ONLY news!

To help promote its new look, Darkness & Light will be available in E-format throughout the month of June at the bargain price of 99c (or 70-summat-pence to us Brits).

Whoo-hoo!

AND …

The new E-version of Darkness & Light will sport three Sean Holloway POV scenes at the back.

Two of those (Of All the Burger Bars in All the Towns … & Mates Reunited) I have already made public on my website and are available for viewing any time.

However, the third one, titled: ‘Welcome back, Jem‘ has never been released anywhere, and for the time being, will ONLY be available via the new E-book.

So if you know anyone who hasn’t managed to nab a copy yet and would like one, be sure to spread the word and let the peeps know.

So … what do you think?

FREEVIEW FRIDAY {ETERNAL}! #FVF

Hey all, and happy Friday. Thank you for stopping by. Today, I’ll be sharing another mini-excerpt from my PNR novella Eternal,  due out in a little over 7 weeks.

Following on from last week, we get a taste of Sean’s mood over trespassers in the forest … here’s your taste of Eternal:

“ … Why are they all coming? How do they all know to come?” With a groan, he spun and resumed his pacing. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, enhancing the bruises that had begun to appear along his biceps. “Every one of them that has come was already aware of …” He trailed off though I knew he had been about to say my name. “Jem, for the fourth time, will you please go upstairs?”

Hmmm, what do you think she said? Think she complied?  ;)

I hope you enjoyed this weeks snippet. See you next week for another round of FVF

As I have said before, any and all are welcome to join me in this weekly shenanigan. HOWEVER, if you do so, I URGE you to keep the shared snippets short and sweet. Mine will be a maximum of TEN (10) sentences. To help identification of these posts, I shall be hastagging them (for Twitter purposes) as #FVF. Feel free to knick said hashtag for your own Freeview Friday posts.