Spotlight & Excerpt: Salad on the Side + Giveaway

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Salad on the Side - Karenna Colcroft
Karenna Colcroft has a new MM paranormal romance out, Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat book 1: Salad on the Side. And there’s a giveaway!

Since moving to Boston, Kyle Slidell has met only a few of his neighbors, including Tobias Rogan. Kyle is very interested in Tobias, and is ecstatic to learn that Tobias wants him, too.

But his neighbors have a secret: They’re a werewolf pack, and Tobias is their Alpha. When one of the wolves attacks Kyle, he learns the truth in a hurry–and in the most painful way. Now he’s a werewolf too, and as a vegan is at war with his wolf aspect, who craves meat.

With Tobias’s help and love, Kyle must adjust to his new life. But can he protect the pack and his lover from a werewolf seeking revenge against Tobias?

Warnings: References to sexual assault.

This is a rerelease.

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Excerpt

No! Oh, God, anything but this!

That was the first conscious thought I’d had since the wolf had bitten down. I didn’t know what it meant at first.

Then I opened my eyes. Nothing looked right. Everything around me appeared flat and muted. I definitely wasn’t in the garden anymore, but since I couldn’t see things properly, I couldn’t tell where I was. Inside, somewhere. Not my apartment. I was lying on a floor; that much I could tell.

When I tried to stand, my legs didn’t want to cooperate. Then I caught a glimpse of my foot.

It was covered in fur.

Shit.  Wolf bite. Wolves didn’t live in Boston.

Maybe werewolves did. Even though as far as I knew those didn’t exist.

I tried to see my body. Fur, check. Pretty off-white color, or at least I would have thought it was pretty if it didn’t cover me. Snout protruding out far enough to see, check. Four paws with claws sticking out from the end of each… finger? Toe? Didn’t know what to call them. Check, anyway.

Shit.

At least my head moved the way I wanted it to. I glanced around, trying to gain some sense of place. This time, I spotted two humans crouching nearby. One of them was Tobias. Even as a wolf, I recognized the regret and sadness in his expression.

Tobias was there, and that meant he knew what had happened to me. My brain refused to go any farther than that.

The other human… After a second, I recognized her too. The hair color gave it away, perfectly matching the color of the fur on the wolf that bit me.

Fucking Melia. She eyed me with a contemptuous smirk which vanished quickly when Tobias glanced at her over his shoulder. He turned back to me, and Melia glowered. “He should be dead.”

“Fortunately for you, he isn’t,” Tobias snapped. “I thought you’d learned better control than this, Melia. Clearly I overestimated you.”

Melia bowed her head. “I’ll do better in the future. He could have died.”

As a wolf, tone of voice wasn’t quite as obvious to me as it was when I was human. But something in the way Melia spoke caught my attention. She meant what she’d said. I should have been dead, because that had been her intention. Maybe I was wrong, but the fury and contempt in her eyes confirmed it.

I snarled and tried to stand, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to get those four legs under me. Tobias raised his hands and took a couple steps toward me. “Kyle, easy,” he said softly. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Melia said. “Tobias, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up, Melia,” Tobias ordered without taking his eyes off me. “You’re here to see the results of your poor control, not to make apologies. I don’t think Kyle will accept your apology easily.”

I managed to move my head in something resembling a nod. Fuck if I’d ever forgive the bitch! It hadn’t been my fault I’d wandered into the path of a frigging werewolf. Like I’d even known there would be a wolf in the garden. It wasn’t the sort of thing people usually considered when going out to pick strawberries. “Oh, I’d better be careful; there might be a werewolf out there.” Right. Not outside horror movies.

Hopefully they’d figure out soon how to change me back so I could get things ready for my dinner with Tobias the next night. I’d be sorely pissed if that had to be put on hold.

The next night. Except I didn’t think it was “next” anymore. I had no clue how long I’d been unconscious. The sunlight streaming through the window beside me pretty clearly told me that it wasn’t night any longer. But if it wasn’t night, why was I still a wolf? Didn’t werewolves only shift when it was dark?

I blinked at Tobias and he caught the question. “It’s your first shift, Kyle. You changed while you were out cold and it’s going to take your body and mind a little while to coordinate so you’ll go back to human. That’s how it works for all of us our first time. And we can shift whenever we want.”

All of us.  Now I couldn’t prevent myself from grasping the truth. The truth Tobias and Mrs. Frelich had been so damned determined to keep from me. Tobias was one of the wolves. And he’d probably made sure none of the other neighbors would ever see anything he didn’t want them to. Tobias, the man I lusted after, was a fucking werewolf. I didn’t even know what to think about that.

“You have to eat something, Kyle,” Tobias said. He crouched low to look me in the eye. “You’ve been unconscious for three days, since Melia attacked you. You don’t know how sorry I am about this. I wanted to protect you from it.”

Even in my current form, my heart and a couple other things responded to his words. He did care about me. Maybe at our dinner he would have admitted all this to me. Though I certainly understood why he’d been reluctant. Without seeing it for myself, I probably wouldn’t have believed him.

He might have told me the truth, though, and if I’d believed him, if I hadn’t thrown him out, who knew where things might have ended up? I knew where I would have wanted them to end, whether Tobias was a werewolf or not.


Author Bio

Karenna Colcroft lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been in love with the city since childhood, though she has yet to encounter any werewolves, vampires, or other paranormal beings in her travels. At least none that she knows of. Though since in her non-writing life, under another name, she offers services as a channel and energy healing practitioner, it could be said that she herself is a paranormal being. The jury’s still out on that.

Karenna is a polyamorous, nonbinary human who splits time between the home she shares with her husband and the one she shares with her committed partner. She also has two adult children and a bonus son, three grandchildren, and two and a half cats. (Half in terms of time the cat lives with her, not in terms of the cat itself…)

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Spotlight, Author Interview, & Excerpt: Penumbra + Giveaway

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Penumbra
AngelSong, #1
by Kevin A. Davis
 
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Inkd Publishing LLC
Date of Publication: 2/9/22 
ISBN: 978-1737391432
ASIN: B09S6SDHCB
Number of pages: 265 ebook, 300 paper
Word Count: ~67K
Cover Artist: Warren Designs

*

The Next Rave Might Be Haddie’s Last.
 
Will Haddie’s power be enough?
 
Haddie has a power she doesn’t understand – the bizarre ability to move objects back in time – unfortunately not in one piece.
 
With all that she has going on, Haddie ignores Liz’s call. Later, when she listens to the message, the panic in Liz’s voice is unmistakable, the words threatening to be her friend’s last. Overcome with guilt, Haddie puts everything on the line to find Liz.
 
Someone, or something disturbing is hiding amid the colorful lights and music of Portland’s raves. Nothing could prepare Haddie for the supernatural creatures she uncovers in the search for Liz in the secret underground raves. Haddie races time to track down Liz before she becomes another victim.
 
The next rave might be Haddie’s last.
 

Excerpt:

Haddie swore. No wonder Dad had been calling. “Tell her I’m fine. Just looking for Liz.”

“And Dr. Aaron?” Terry sounded relieved that she didn’t go off on him.

“How do you know him?”

He swallowed audibly. “Well, I mean, he’s been a constant in these demon groups. A bit of a fanatic. But I got worried, and asked if anyone had seen a friend of mine around this sighting. He messaged me immediately and started demanding that I put him in touch with you. Said he knew you from last winter. That was the ski trip, right?”

Terry had posted a description of her in the forums. It didn’t matter. The fight outside the hotel had to have attracted some attention, though she’d had pink hair part of the time. She opened her mouth, about to ask Terry if he’d heard anything about the fight outside the hotel, and stopped. Wilkins would be after her shortly. The FBI wouldn’t just let something like this go. She’d killed someone, no matter the circumstances.

“Haddie?”

“Huh?” She stared at the building where the rave would be happening. She needed to find Liz.

Get past those guards.

“What about Dr. Aaron? Do you want me to give him your number?”

She did want to know about the demons. He’d been suspicious of her and her powers, and had disappeared right after the fight. “Yes.”

He paused and she could hear him typing. “So what’s going on?
Still haven’t found Liz? I mean, this could be serious. The more I look, the worse it gets. Missing people, on top of the suicides. One mom swears her son is in a mental hospital because of these raves.”

That sounded about right. Whatever the song did, she could imagine it driving her crazy. “I’m about to go into the rave now. I’m hoping to get Liz out. I’ll let you know.”

“You’re alone?”

“Yes.” She’d rather have Dad with her.

She peered at the building where the rave would be. If the guards were looking for her, likely considering the attack at the hotel, then she’d have to scout for a back way in. Before, she’d planned on walking in as if going to the rave, then scoop up Liz — and Matt.

“Maybe you should just call the police.”

She thought of a swat team facing down demons or the fanatical yellow-hazed men, with Liz in the middle. “Not yet.” This needed to be quiet. She looked into the mirror at the spray of pinkish brown covering the right side of her hair and leaving a shock of white down the left side of her face. Not very stealthy, Haddie. Maybe she had a hoodie in the back from last winter.


Author Interview:

1. Tell us a little about how this story first came to be.
Penumbra, all of the AngelSong series, started with an idea of Haddie’s dad, Thomas, being pushed back into time. When I mulled over potential conflicts and the magic system tied to a distorted view of angels and fallen angels, I perceived that there might be a future where he had children of power. When I conceived Haddie it was while binge reading a number of urban fantasy books.

2. What, if anything, did you learn when writing the book?
Romance, a slow burn especially, is difficult. It leaves plenty of potential conflicts, but the pacing balance is considerable.

3. What surprised you the most in writing it?
How much I liked some of Haddie’s friends (team) and where some of the positions that her contagonists moved into.

4. If it’s not a spoiler, what does the title mean?
Penumbra: partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast
Much of what Haddie and her dad have to do is dark, deadly, and causes her a ton of remorse. Her decisions aren’t easy but she instinctively uses her powers to protect her friends and family. Doing the right thing often means death for her enemies, some of whom are coerced and technically innocent.

5. Were any of the characters inspired by real people? If so, do they know?
Aspects certainly, and only a couple could I mark to a singular person. One is a lawyer from a firm I worked at, and I have not reached out to her.

6. Do you consider the book to have a lesson or moral?
Not a direct theme, but aspects of my beliefs certainly leak through in their distrust of authority, unacceptance of bigotry, and the pain over damage to our planet.

7. What is your favorite part of the book?
When Liz has to help Haddie survive, after being saved by her.

8. Which character was most challenging to create? Why?
Detective Cooper, because the mindset is very alien to me.

9. What are your immediate future plans?

I’m presently working on an urban fantasy series called the Khimmer Chronicles. Let’s compare our protagonist with Jane Yellowrock meets Tank Girl. Ahnjii is a fun human assassin, with some really cool adaptive armor, stuck here on Earth amid a bunch of cryptids that the other humans don’t know about. Book Two, Death’s Contract, is about half-way through first draft. It opens right after sex with a shifter (off screen, no PNR) and continues with a vampire who doesn’t take no for an answer.


About the Author:

 
Kevin A Davis writes fantasy, especially urban and contemporary. His urban fantasy series, AngelSong, can be found on Amazon, Audible, and Ingram. There might even be a few paperback copies in the rural bookstore that he and his wife own. His Khimmer Chronicles series will be available starting late 2022.
 
Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter.
 
 
Download a free ebook of Shattered Blood here.

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Book Blitz & Excerpt: Mermaid of Paris + Giveaway

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Mermaid of Paris
by Jincey Lumpkin
(Mermaid of Venice, #4)
Publication date: May 16th 2022
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance

The latest action-packed installment in the Mermaid of Venice series finds Gia Acquaviva, the world’s most famous mermaid, reconnecting with a mysterious man from her past. Will he punish Gia and get the revenge he deserves—or will they fall in love all over again?

Meanwhile, Gia attempts to rebuild her broken business empire just as the Mermaid world descends into a bitter and dangerous civil war. Gia already picked her allies, but will she make good on her promises—or will she cut sail when the winds shift?

Fans of Killing Eve and Fifty Shades of Grey will love the Mermaid of Venice series. These page-turning thrillers have lush fantasy elements and showcase the billionaire lifestyle that you secretly covet.

Goodreads / Amazon


EXCERPT:

When Florent’s jet landed and he exited the plane, Moussa led his people in a round of applause. After much embracing, Moussa escorted Florent onto Gia’s plane.

Florent wore a sweater, just like the last time she’d seen him, several months ago. He carried a Domenico Vacca alligator duffle—a custom bag that cost him no less than eighty grand.

Bon soir, Gia,” Florent said, lowering his head to nod hello. “These days you can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you?”

Gia wanted to gain the upper hand, to throw him a little, so she gingerly pulled the cashmere blanket off her chest—exposing her breasts—and moved Serena to the other side to continue her feeding.

The plan worked. Florent was transfixed.

“I would get up,” Gia whispered, “but as you see, I am dealing with a hungry baby.”

Florent’s eyes flashed, and in that blaze echoed a multitude of memories, unrealized dreams and resentments. Over the years he had fantasized about everything from embedding himself back in Gia’s life and marrying her, to strangling her and tossing her in the ocean. And now, here she was right in front of him, chest exposed, the very picture of radiant motherhood combined with unfettered sexuality. It was difficult for him to reconcile this scene with what he knew to be true about her—her killer instinct, to be specific. After all, he had the scar to prove just how dark her true impulses were.

Moussa shifted from one foot to the other and swallowed hard as he watched the pair before him. He offered a brief, “ahem,” and broke the awkward silence. “Bisset, how long before we leave for the port?”

“I have a fleet of trucks coming in half an hour,” Florent replied, finally tearing his eyes away from Gia.

“Then I have some work to do to get everyone ready.” Moussa bowed at Florent before heading down to wrangle the merfolk, happy to leave the plane.

When Moussa was gone, Florent sat across from Gia, trying not to fidget. He wanted to telegraph an air of cool serenity. Gia, of course, didn’t buy it.

“Why are you here, Florent?”

“I want to help. Am I not a gentleman, Gia?”

“I never knew you to be one, no.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

Gia studied his face, narrowing her eyes. “I find it odd that you harbor an impulse to help in any circumstance that involves me.”

Florent smirked. “Oh, but you see, Gia, I’ve been waiting for the moment you need me the most. I have been watching and waiting for a very long time. What luck,” he commented, raising his eyebrows. “It appears that the moment I anticipated has finally arrived.”


Author Bio:

JINCEY LUMPKIN is a writer and creative director in Luxury Beauty. She is the author of the Mermaid of Venice fantasy thriller series. Recognized as a thought leader on women and culture, Jincey has written more than 50 columns for the Huffington Post and Playboy. She headlined Sex Week at Harvard and gave an infamous TEDx talk, “Are Robots the Future of Sex?” She has been profiled by Dateline NBC, Vice, and GQ, among others. Out Magazine listed her in its “OUT 100”, naming her as one of the world’s most influential LGBTQ+ people, alongside celebrities like Laverne Cox and Ricky Martin.

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