Spotlight & Excerpt: Generation of Vipers + Giveaway

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Generation of Vipers
by Maria Ann Green
Publication date: June 18th 2021
Genres: Adult, Gothic, Psychological, Thriller

Rosabella Moore-Davis has just moved her husband halfway across the world, with a spur of the moment purchase–a glorious gothic mansion–while on vacation in France. It was love at first sight, and somehow she knew it was more than just some huge house; it was meant to be her home.

But not all things that are meant to be end happily ever after.

Rosabella soon finds herself waking in the middle of the night from more than just wind and creaking pipes. In the dark she discovers ghostly figures looking up into her windows from outside, rooms and treasures previously hidden for centuries, creeping crawling guests, and too many dark shadows lunging toward her. And still, somehow, instead of screaming and running away she researches, choosing knowledge over fear, and learns more about the house and the history of this place she loves so much.

Only when she stumbles into the past, meeting an aristocrat hiding enough deadly secrets to take down the patriarchy, does Rosabella start to regret her choices. And after having come this far, she worries it’s too late to turn back and save herself from a house that has more skeletons in its vast amount of closet space than anyone expected.

Rosabella isn’t the fleeing type, but she’s not sure she’ll survive the fight. Especially against a place with so many stories buried beneath it, burned into every fiber of the edifice, a house with a portal to dark places and troubles that shouldn’t be stirred up.

Generation of Vipers is a mix of crimson peak and Mike Flanagan’s Haunting of Hill House, with elements of Marisha Pessl’s Night Film mixed throughout.

If you like dark thrillers that border on horror, gothic elements, and deliciously dark twists that will keep you guessing, then Generation of Vipers might be your next favorite book. It’ll keep you reading just one more page all night long, too afraid to turn out the light and go to sleep.

It appeals to lovers of suspenseful plots, all things dark like thrillers and horrors, stories with murder and mayhem, dark romance elements, fans of American Horror Story, Shirley Jackson, Gilian Flynn, Ruth Ware, Tana French, J.A. Konrath, and the Timothy Blake Series by Jack Heath.

*Content Warning: graphic violence, sexual content, and language*

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo


Excerpt:

“Rosabella.” I hear it again.

And no matter how many times I move my head, trying to clear my mind and reset my senses, hoping to shake the sound away, it doesn’t help. I still hear my name coming from somewhere.

I can’t tell where.

“Rosabella,” it calls out, and this time I can hear what I haven’t been able to put my finger on before.

The accent.

It’s French.

Not like how Milo, or anyone I know, croons my name, not anyone who says it regularly. It’s distinctly rooted in the land that we’ve planted ourselves on.

A French accent calling out to me, in a voice I don’t recognize.

Though…I almost do.

It seems vaguely familiar, but not because I’ve heard it before. More like it’s, oh I don’t know, kindred. That sounds fucking crazy, even to me. But still, the puzzle pieces click together.

“Rosabella. Rosabella. Rosabella, I need you.”

I jump.

Spinning on the spot, not moving in any direction, just around in a circle, I look for something to wrap around the voice. A face to go with whoever is calling to me. Something to place this awful hallucination into actual reality, solidity. But every time my eyes find a new corner the sounds shift, constantly moving in a way that seems, that is, impossible.

It comes from everywhere, from nowhere.

And I want to stamp my foot like a child, insolent and annoyed, screaming for my tormentor to cut the shit. The terror mixes with annoyance for a strange new sensation.

As I stop moving, my vision taking a moment to reset and settle on the sudden lack of constant change, a sharp pain pricks into me.

Generation of vipers


Author Bio:

Maria, a badass USA Today and internationally bestselling indie author, lives in Minnesota despite the frozen winters. Actually, she prefers snow drifts and icicles over summer and all that sweat running everywhere. She writes about bitches, breakups, and bloodbaths – not in any particular order. She lives with her husband and little family, which includes a few lazy cats who make great lap warmers. You can usually find her whishing that she lived in a secret cabin in the woods where she could be a hermit reading and writing all of the time. Instead she lives the suburban life where she pretends to her neighbors and the other moms around that she doesn’t swear like a sailor, have hidden tattoos, and loves a good bottle of wine. She absolutely believes in unicorns and ghosts and hopes vampires and monsters are real too. She’s a coffee-in-the-morning and alcohol-in-the-evening kind of person, preferably with a nap in between. Maria prefers cats over dogs, books over people, and late nights over early mornings. She probably shouldn’t talk to anyone until she’s had her first cup of coffee, extra sugar. And if you ever want to hang out with her, you’ll have to be game for a horror movie or just a quick run to target for two (hundred) little things. Also, you couldn’t pay her to be in her twenties again; Thirties is where it’s at. She’s a creative, mouthy, introverted, proud bisexual, highly-sensitive INFJ, chronic pain spoonie warrior, Slytherpuff, dork with a sweet-tooth.

Maria devours books, reading mostly in bed or listening to audiobooks in the car. Writing has been one of her passions for pretty much her whole life. So creativity is a necessity for her, always. After working in the mental health field for almost a decade, she’s now living her dream as a stay-at-home writer, kiddo wrangler, professional snuggler, and constantly-tired-person. When it comes to her writing, she specializes in dark and twisted thrillers or gritty, angsty contemporary romances. But no matter the genre, she always prefers writing deeply flawed characters with dysfunctional relationships. She’s pretty sure the whole “unlikable character” thing is a conspiracy because every character she loves have been labeled this way. Ridiculous. And because of this, she’s pretty much found it impossible to write anything without at least a little mayhem.

Maria was once told she painted with her words, and that phrase stuck with her – because writing really is an art, and good stories are true masterpieces. She’s always trying to grow and improve in her craft, shooting for a masterpiece of her own someday. And she plans to write forever because writing gives Maria the ability to disappear into new worlds and create people within twisting plots, all from the comfort of her couch. She will always believe that though not every story is for her, and her stories aren’t for everyone, every story has a reader.

For more from Maria find all of her links, including a link to get more content at her newsletter, here: linktr.ee/mariainmadness

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bookbub / Newsletter

 

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Book Blitz & Excerpt: Generation of Vipers + Giveaway

Generation of Vipers Blitz Banner

Generation of Vipers
by Maria Ann Green
Publication date: June 18th 2021
Genres: Adult, Gothic, Psychological, Thriller

Rosabella Moore-Davis has just moved her husband halfway across the world, with a spur of the moment purchase–a glorious gothic mansion–while on vacation in France. It was love at first sight, and somehow she knew it was more than just some huge house; it was meant to be her home.

But not all things that are meant to be end happily ever after.

Rosabella soon finds herself waking in the middle of the night from more than just wind and creaking pipes. In the dark she discovers ghostly figures looking up into her windows from outside, rooms and treasures previously hidden for centuries, creeping crawling guests, and too many dark shadows lunging toward her. And still, somehow, instead of screaming and running away she researches, choosing knowledge over fear, and learns more about the house and the history of this place she loves so much.

Only when she stumbles into the past, meeting an aristocrat hiding enough deadly secrets to take down the patriarchy, does Rosabella start to regret her choices. And after having come this far, she worries it’s too late to turn back and save herself from a house that has more skeletons in its vast amount of closet space than anyone expected.

Rosabella isn’t the fleeing type, but she’s not sure she’ll survive the fight. Especially against a place with so many stories buried beneath it, burned into every fiber of the edifice, a house with a portal to dark places and troubles that shouldn’t be stirred up.

Generation of Vipers is a mix of crimson peak and Mike Flanagan’s Haunting of Hill House, with elements of Marisha Pessl’s Night Film mixed throughout.

If you like dark thrillers that border on horror, gothic elements, and deliciously dark twists that will keep you guessing, then Generation of Vipers might be your next favorite book. It’ll keep you reading just one more page all night long, too afraid to turn out the light and go to sleep.

It appeals to lovers of suspenseful plots, all things dark like thrillers and horrors, stories with murder and mayhem, dark romance elements, fans of American Horror Story, Shirley Jackson, Gilian Flynn, Ruth Ware, Tana French, J.A. Konrath, and the Timothy Blake Series by Jack Heath.

*Content Warning: graphic violence, sexual content, and language*

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo

Generation of vipers

EXCERPT:

My eyes snap open.

There’s no disorientation, even though there should be.

Between stone walls and wallpaper older than my three decades, the cold air isn’t a surprise.

But what does scare me isn’t the new setting or the snoring of my sweet husband but the feeling that something just left. Like I’d been watched and only noticed after it ended.

Or—okay, well that’s crazy.

Though, I don’t know if I was dreaming or if something external woke me up.

Milos’s breath is soft, even if it rumbles in the back of his throat just a little. And I’ve slept next to it for years without jarring awake like this. As another creak sounds, followed by a tiny clunk, I know I’m right.

Maléfique has old bones, and they must protest changes in temperature as we take our trips around the sun.

Though…

The little noises aren’t really enough to have woken me up either. I don’t think so anyway.

Still, whatever the reason, I’m up now. Wider awake than I was when we were taking in the newness of our manor earlier. My eyes flick to the clock Milo insists on bringing with us every vacation, and I correct myself. It was now yesterday that we bought this beautiful space, considering it’s three in the morning.

And I’m fucking wide awake.

I’ll never get back to sleep right now.

So I slip out from under the comforter and let my toes touch the chilly wood of the floor. I move slowly, quietly, even though I doubt Milo would wake up for anything less than my screaming.

Heaviest sleeper I’ve ever met. Which he proves with a snort as he moves to face the other way, still very much unconscious.

And as I move toward the huge window of our new bedroom, I roll my eyes at Milo for the second time in the last twenty-four hours. It happens without forethought, and of course I feel instantly guilty after.

That’s when a kinder smile touches my lips just before my fingertips, then my forehead, touch the thick glass, as I lean against the window and look down at the greenery of our property.

Well, it’s all shades of gray and black at the moment, with the moon behind the clouds.

I can still make out plenty, though.

The woods just beyond an overgrown garden, a path starting just between two picturesque weeping willows—the kind that beg for a swing, or a hammock strategically placed for reading. I can see all of it well enough, but when the moon peeks out between two wisps of cover, my eyes scan harder, searching for something. I’m not even sure what.

Maybe for what could have woken me up if it wasn’t Maléfique.

And I’ve all but given up as the tall grass waves in a darkening breeze when something sparkles and pulls my eyes back to the opening of the track, the archway between hanging branches.

Though, not something. No.

Someone.

Author Bio:

Maria, a badass USA Today and internationally bestselling indie author, lives in Minnesota despite the frozen winters. Actually, she prefers snow drifts and icicles over summer and all that sweat running everywhere. She writes about bitches, breakups, and bloodbaths – not in any particular order. She lives with her husband and little family, which includes a few lazy cats who make great lap warmers. You can usually find her whishing that she lived in a secret cabin in the woods where she could be a hermit reading and writing all of the time. Instead she lives the suburban life where she pretends to her neighbors and the other moms around that she doesn’t swear like a sailor, have hidden tattoos, and loves a good bottle of wine. She absolutely believes in unicorns and ghosts and hopes vampires and monsters are real too. She’s a coffee-in-the-morning and alcohol-in-the-evening kind of person, preferably with a nap in between. Maria prefers cats over dogs, books over people, and late nights over early mornings. She probably shouldn’t talk to anyone until she’s had her first cup of coffee, extra sugar. And if you ever want to hang out with her, you’ll have to be game for a horror movie or just a quick run to target for two (hundred) little things. Also, you couldn’t pay her to be in her twenties again; Thirties is where it’s at. She’s a creative, mouthy, introverted, proud bisexual, highly-sensitive INFJ, chronic pain spoonie warrior, Slytherpuff, dork with a sweet-tooth.

Maria devours books, reading mostly in bed or listening to audiobooks in the car. Writing has been one of her passions for pretty much her whole life. So creativity is a necessity for her, always. After working in the mental health field for almost a decade, she’s now living her dream as a stay-at-home writer, kiddo wrangler, professional snuggler, and constantly-tired-person. When it comes to her writing, she specializes in dark and twisted thrillers or gritty, angsty contemporary romances. But no matter the genre, she always prefers writing deeply flawed characters with dysfunctional relationships. She’s pretty sure the whole “unlikable character” thing is a conspiracy because every character she loves have been labeled this way. Ridiculous. And because of this, she’s pretty much found it impossible to write anything without at least a little mayhem.

Maria was once told she painted with her words, and that phrase stuck with her – because writing really is an art, and good stories are true masterpieces. She’s always trying to grow and improve in her craft, shooting for a masterpiece of her own someday. And she plans to write forever because writing gives Maria the ability to disappear into new worlds and create people within twisting plots, all from the comfort of her couch. She will always believe that though not every story is for her, and her stories aren’t for everyone, every story has a reader.

For more from Maria find all of her links, including a link to get more content at her newsletter, here: linktr.ee/mariainmadness

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bookbub / Newsletter

 

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Spotlight & Excerpt: What Big Teeth + Giveaway

What Big Teeth
by Rose Szabo
Published by: Farrar Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Publication date: February 2nd 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Gothic, Young Adult

Rose Szabo’s thrilling debut What Big Teeth is a dark, gothic fantasy YA novel about a teen girl who returns home to her strange, wild family after years of estrangement, perfect for fans of Wilder Girls.

Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.

Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together. In order to save them all Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.

Exquisitely terrifying, beautiful, and strange, this fierce paranormal fantasy will sink its teeth into you and never let go.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play

 

Excerpt:

I jolted awake, my hands loosening from my throat. Had I been strangling myself? My throat was dry. I stumbled to my feet. Water, I needed water.

Through the crack in the bathroom door, I could see Mother sleeping in her bathtub. I didn’t want to wake her, so I crept down the back staircase and past the closed laundry door, trying not to think about Grandma Persephone’s body laid out on the flagstones. I slipped into the kitchen and was halfway to the sink when I realized I wasn’t alone.

Margaret stood in the middle of the room with her back to me. She was working at the long low table, her hands doing something I couldn’t see, something that squelched. I held very still at the sink, not sure what to do. She would notice me if I tried to leave, or if I turned on the faucet.

I had to be brave, I told myself. This was my family. Margaret used to stand me on a stool and let me help her in the kitchen, I remembered. Help with what, I wasn’t quite sure.

I shifted so that I could see what she was doing, and had to stifle a gasp.

There was a vulture spread out on the butcher block, its naked neck and head hanging down. Its wings were as long as the table. Its belly was slit open, the knife she’d used was stuck point-first into the wood, and she was rummaging around inside its body, mumbling to herself as though she were looking for something in a handbag. Slick guts caught the moonlight. She combed through them for what felt like an eternity while I was frozen on the spot, not able to move. And then she looked up and turned to me. She held up a length of gut in bloody hands. She seemed to look at me and past me at the same time.

“Mother!” she said.

The back of my neck went cold. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping I was still dreaming, that if I shut my eyes I’d wake up back in bed, and if I shut my eyes again I’d wake up in my room at Saint Brigid’s, and from there I could shut my eyes and wake up a child again, somewhere in some house just like this one, but where I’d been happy.

Margaret’s feet scuffed on the floor as she padded over to me. One hand, wet and sticky, touched my wrist. She pulled on it. Eyes shut still, I let her lead me, until my fingers brushed feathers, and I realized all at once what was about to happen.

I struggled, but she was stronger than me. She plunged my hand into the guts. I thrashed, silently, afraid of what would happen if I screamed, afraid to open my eyes and see what was happening to me. And then all at once, I felt it. It was as if there were words, in there, in the guts. I relaxed my hand. I felt. The smell of dead meat and guano was almost unbearable, but somewhere in there was the truth. I just had to fight my way through to it.

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make sense of it. At last, I opened my eyes. I shook my head at Margaret. She let go of my wrist, flinging it away from her like some useless thing. And I fled into the predawn garden and desperately pumped water from the spigot to wash the smell of blood from my hands.

 

 

Author Bio:

Rose Szabo is a nonbinary writer from Richmond, VA, where they live with an assortment of people and animals and teach writing at VCU. They have an MA in English from the University of Maine and an MFA in creative writing from VCU. Their work has been published in See the Elephant and Quaint magazines. What Big Teeth is their first novel.

 

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