First of all, I want to thank all of you for your kind e-mails and comments about THE CALLING Vampire novels. Your support is so appreciated.
You’ve been asking when you can expect more books in the series and I’m hopeful that the answer is: Soon! I expect to find out about the publication dates in the near future.
There are at least two more books coming out in THE CALLING series: ARDOR CALLS featuring one of my favorite vampires – Stacia. You may remember Stacia from a number of books in THE CALLING as well as from the free read DESIRE CALLS (you can click here for that free story!) Hopefully you will also remember the hero – DEA Agent Alex Garcia – from DEATH CALLS.
After ARDOR CALLS, you can expect to see VENGEANCE CALLS which introduces two new characters to THE CALLING mythology! But let me not bore you with more so you can get to today’s Wicked Wednesday Free Read.
Lots of you have been asking about David Harris, Diana Reyes’s partner, and Maggie Gonzalez, Diana’s best friend and FBI Forensics specialist. You fell in love with them in DARKNESS CALLS and DEATH CALLS and have been wondering what’s up in their lives. Well, I’ve been meddling in their lives for quite some time and you’ll be happy to know I’ll be offering their story to you here as a free read!
So to get you started, here is the first chapter of THE CALLING: THE WOLF WITHIN. If you cannot see the excerpt below, you can click here or cut and paste this link into your browser:
I am so excited to have my friend and fellow author Kaye Manro here to tell us a little about her latest release. Plus, we’ve got a contest for you since I’m also doing a guest blog over with my friend JoJo to help her celebrate her birthday! So, if you leave a comment at JoJo’s blog, you have a chance to win an ARC of STRONGER THAN SIN, my November release, a copy of SINS OF THE FLESH, the first book in the SINS series as well as a T-shirt! Double your chances to win by leaving a comment here and also, if you’re selected at JoJo’s site and leave a comment here, you will also win a copy of your choice of either FURY CALLS or SEX AND THE SOUTH BEACH CHICAS!
So without further ado, here’s my buddy Kaye!
*****
Thanks to the lovely Caridad Pineiro for inviting me, a new author, as a guest on her blog today! I’m so excited to be here, and to share my short ebook, FORBIDDEN LOVE, which is not a paranormal, but a science fiction romance!
Readers may not know exactly how sci-fi relates to the romance genre. So let me show you. In the subgenre of science fiction romance, authors use technology and not magic. Rather than fantasy characters such as shape shifters, the characters are alien or human. The settings are anywhere, but it is common to see stories taking place on alien worlds or on advanced spaceships. For an author, this genre, called SFR can be very exciting and fun to explore. I have to say it was for me.
Forbidden Love is a futuristic sci-fi romance. There is space travel at FTL (faster than light). But there is also lots of sensual exploring between the hero T’Kon and the heroine Maya, who hail from different galaxies and evolutionary paths. Rules on T’Kon’s planet forbid interspecies mating. Yet when he crashes his spacecraft on Maya’s world close to her desert home, what else is he to do but let this audacious alien tend his injuries?
For those who are new to this exciting genre, I have included a Science Fiction Lexicon on my Website. You can find phrases that may be unfamiliar to you there. The terms relate directly to those used in Forbidden Love.
For example, FTL is the ability a spacecraft has to travel in deep space far exceeding the speed of light. While in FTL, your ship could essentially reach billions of miles per second or more.
Now back to Forbidden Love, which is first and foremost a romance even though the subplot is science fiction. Here’s an excerpt so you can get a feel for the Forbidden Love romantic elements:
…She was upon him so near he could feel her breath, sense her warmth. She reached out and ran a hand through the air, searching the length of him.
“Maya,” he blew her name on a sigh.
“Take me with you,” she implored, as tears filled her astounding tawny eyes. “I want to be with you, T’Kon.” She melded her body against his invisible one.
“You know nothing of me or my world.”
“Teach me, show me everything.”
He felt her heat burning inside him, yet the absurdity of her request burned brighter. “What you ask is not possible.”
“Will you please become visible so I can look at you?” She asked. “We need to talk about this before you go flying off into the universe.”
He unshielded his body so she could see him. “I cannot take you.”
“Why not? You can’t say it was coincidence that you happened to crash land in my back yard.”
No, an unfortunate accident. The truthful certainty traced across his mind. Yet his arms enclosed her and he lifted her up. Her legs straddled his waist, and he held her close against his body. A fit so right he could not deny it.
“I wish it were not so, but it is,” he whispered, breathing in her pungent scent. “You would not survive on my world.” He dropped his head to taste her lips before she had a chance to counter his words. “Just one last kiss.” Her mouth opened to allow his tongue entry and he explored the soft moistness, losing himself in her tang.
The stars help him. He did not want to leave her.
Without warning, a sudden and dangerous noise yanked T’Kon from his enamored stupor. He sensed peril approaching. In a rapid-fire move, he raised his palm. A copper arch flashed and shimmered before them revealing the entryway to his concealed spacecraft. He dragged her inside. Tapping a pad the opening closed leaving them hidden behind an undetectable shield.
* * ***
I hope you enjoy reading Forbidden love as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Kaye’s Bio: As a romance author, I lean toward the adventuresome in my writing. I love science fiction and all the enticing quantum theories surrounding it. Where characters rush through outer space at FTL, or teleport into another time, and even slipstream into an alternate reality. I like creating sizzling love scenes too with sexy heroes, and captivating heroines. It just seemed natural to combine all these elements together in my stories.
This weekend will be hopping for me! First there is the Liberty States Fiction Writers Mayke It Happen get together! Can’t wait to go and hang out with all of my buds and talking about our writing projects.
I’ll be down the shore and hoping to see some sun! But just in case it’s rainy, I’m sharing a fun project with you from my friend Kathy Cano-Murilla, the Crafty Chica aka the Goddess of Glitter! As writers and readers, we always seem to have a vast collection of pens and I thought this crazy pencil cup would be fun to share with you!
If it is sunny, I hope to get some time in along the boardwalk, researching some more spots for . . .
BOOKS 3 and 4 IN THE SINS SERIES!
Yes, you heard it here first! I’ve accepted an offer from Grand Central Publishing for two more books in the SINS series. Not only that, you won’t have to wait that long to read about the continuing adventures of the Carrera clan as well as some new and very dangerous people that will enter their lives (can we say some non-human people with very unusual and deadly powers?)
As you know, STRONGER THAN SIN will be out in November 2010 and you’ll be able to read both Books 3 and 4 in 2011 if all goes as planned! I can’t wait to share these exciting paranormal romance stories with you and I know you’ll all like to see what’s up with Mick, Caterina and Liliana as well as find out more about the dark creatures who will threaten the Carrera clan. As for who will be the hero and heroine in book 3 — here’s a hint: You’ve read about them already in one of the SINS-related books/prequels and you’ll see more of them in STRONGER THAN SIN!
That’s all the beans I’m spilling for now! Hope you all have a great weekend!
This week’s Wicked Wednesday brings you another installment of my urban fantasy involving a twist to the werewolf mythology, battles with vampires and a struggle for control in a werewolf pack. I hope you like this next free chapter that I’m offering you.
In Chapter 23, Catalina and Ramon finally make love, putting aside all the prohibitions against a human becoming involved with a member of the pack, especially one who is slated to be the next leader.
In this chapter we see the morning after and what happens to shatter the peace of Caterina and Ramon’s time together.
For those of you who may have missed the first chapters, you can read them here:
Chapter 24
***If you are not over 17, please read no further***
Catalina woke to the feel of him spooning against her, the heat of his body bathing her back. As she stirred, pressing into him, he woke as well.
“G’morning,” Ramon said against the side of her face, a tired grumble in his voice.
She understood the reason for his fatigue. They had spent the night, short as it was, making love. Glorious, satisfying love, she thought and turned in his arms, dropped a playful kiss on the side of his mouth.
“Again?” he said, barely opening one eye, but a smile played along the corners of his lips.
“You dare to complain?” she teased, unused to beginning the morning with levity. Actually, unused to beginning the morning wrapped in the arms of a lover.
With a swiftness she had not anticipated, he rolled and trapped her beneath him, fully alert, his dark eyes gleaming with purpose. “Since last night, I dare many things, mi amor,” he said, bent his head and kissed the tip of her breast before suckling it.
“Ay, Ramon, what a nice way to wake,” she almost purred, holding his head to her as he switched from breast to breast, awakening desire. His erection growing as it rested against the softness of her belly.
A knock came at her door. Insistent.
Ramon picked up his head and glanced at her bedroom door and the knock came again, more determined. Followed by her sister’s command.
“Catalina. Open up. Father has called for us,” Helena said, clear distress in her tones.
Catalina shot a quick look at her alarm clock. Barely four in the morning. Her father would not be dragging from her bed at this hour unless it was urgent, especially knowing that she had been on patrol the night before.
“I must go,” she said, but Ramon was already in action, rolling off her and onto his feet.
The knock came again and Catalina bolted from the bed, grabbing a robe and jerking it on as she walked to the door. She only half-opened it, not wanting Helena to see that she’d had company for the night.
Her sister darted her gaze past Catalina and toward the bed, and Catalina stepped outside and closed the door behind her.
“What is it, sister?” Catalina questioned.
“Father called up from the morgue. He says it’s urgent and we need to convene the council.” As her sister spoke, she narrowed her gaze, as if examining Catalina for signs that something was amiss.
“In the morgue? One of the pack has been killed?” Catalina asked, tying the robe more tightly around her as if that would somehow guard her secrets from her sharp-eyed half-sister.
“Two wolves. Ambushed from the looks of it. By vampires.” After she finished her report, Helena leaned close and drew in a deep inhale.
“You should scrub, hermana, before you come down. His human scent clings to you,” Helena warned.
Catalina rubbed her hands up and down her arms as she considered all that Helena had said. The vampires had been growing bolder every day, but an ambush . . .
“This is so not good,” she said.
Helena nodded and seemed about to say something else, but hesitated.
“Is there more I should know?” Catalina pressed.
“Hemmerich was with Selina when I went to her room. He was rather smug, as if he knew more than he should,” Helena advised.
So not good, Catalina thought. She trusted Hemmerich as much as she trusted the vampires.
“Tell father I’ll be down shortly,” she advised and then ducked back into the room.
Ramon was dressed and pacing beside the edge of the bed, clearly aware that something serious had occurred. He stopped as she approached and faced her, tension evident in all the lines of his body.
“It’s something bad, isn’t it?” he said and opened his arms, always ready to offer comfort.
She stepped into his arms and embraced him, his comfort surrounding her. Peace suffusing her in a way that did not come with any other person. But even as she held him, she knew that her peace would be shortlived.
If the vampires were on the offense, it could mean only one thing. . .
We’re having a spontaneous contest today! Leave your mixed up version of an old adage here by midnight EST on Saturday, November 14, for a chance to win a copy of FURY CALLS and a SINS OF THE FLESH T-shirt!
So how does this mix-it-up Friday contest work – here’s a sample:
Old adage: A good man is hard to find.
Mix-it-up Version: A hard man is good to find.
Also, don’t forget there are only two more weeks to the SINFUL THINGS contest. For a chance to win, or increase your chances of winning, please do the following by midnight EST November 30:
On Twitter please Tweet/Retweet (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):
Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! RT for a chance 2 win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC
On Facebook please post to your profile (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):
Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! Post this link to your profile for a chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC
Sorry to have missed the blog yesterday, but family matters called to me.
I hope you all had a nice day yesterday and also hope you will enjoy this combo day’s offering – a prequel story to SINS OF THE FLESH. The prequel features Mick Carrera and offers some enlightenment on what he does and the kind of man he is beneath his dark and dangerous exterior.
I have only one tip for you this Tuesday – VOTE! Get out there and use a very important right that you have to decide what happens in this Nation. In fact, it’s not just a right, but an obligation that you have as a citizen so that this process keeps on running properly.
So please go and Vote today!
On another note, I’ve got some fun places for you to visit! Drop by Night Owl Romance to see some Behind the Scenes info on SINS OF THE FLESH and leave a comment there for a chance to win a T-shirt and copy of FURY CALLS.
Today we’ve got some really awesome things going on for the launch party! You can download the first chapter of SINS OF THE FLESH for free, catch my guest blog with my friend and fellow author Amanda McIntyre and drop by and listen to my Blog Talk Radio Interview later today!
To download the free excerpt, just click here! (You’ll need Adobe Acrobat to read the excerpt).
Welcome to day 2 of the SINS OF THE FLESH Book Launch Party! Today we have something really special – the premiere of the SINS OF THE FLESH video.
So grab a bag of popcorn, make sure you’ve gone to the bathroom because you won’t want to miss a second of this and sit back and enjoy this awesome video! Many thanks to all involved in the creation for doing an amazing job in translating my vision for the book into this trailer.
Don’t forget to leave a comment by midnight EST on Friday, October 30 for a chance to be one of 5 lucky winners of a SINS t-shirt and autographed copy of the book.
And don’t forget to either tweet or post the following for a chance to be the lucky winner of a $50 gift certificate! The SINFUL THINGS Contest ends on November 30, so keep on retweeting/posting!
On Twitter please Tweet/Retweet (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):
Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! RT for a chance 2 win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC
On Facebook please post to your profile (please be sure to include the bit.ly link):
Celebrate the Release of Caridad Pineiro’s SINS OF THE FLESH! Post this link to your profile for a chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate. http://bit.ly/2AZWlC
This week’s Wicked Wednesday brings you another installment of my urban fantasy involving a twist to the werewolf mythology, battles with vampires and a struggle for control in a werewolf pack. I hope you like this next free chapter that I’m offering you.
In the prior chapter, Catalina has battled two vampires, including a vampire elder. She has killed them both and survived the battle, but not without injury. As she stares at the bodies of the two dead vampires, she pauses to consider how it is that her family came to bear the burden of hunting the undead. This chapter provides you a glimpse of the actions that will lead to the birth of the Villalobos werewolf clan.
For those of you who may have missed the first chapters, you can read them here:
Even a vampire could only stomach so much death and decay.
Pedro de Aragon had hoped that the verdant hills in the north of Spain and the nearby villages would provide him more fertile feeding grounds than the crowded cities filled with pestilence.
As he stood at the edge of the woods, waiting until full night before entering the village below, the sights in his native city and the others through which he had passed in his quest for sustenance haunted him. Bodies piled high outside city walls. Sick stragglers dead in their tracks along the roads leading from one town to the next.
In one city they had tossed dozens of bodies into the river when the graveyards and fields could no longer hold more. Grimly the bodies bobbed along, carried downward by the current to the next unfortunate town.
Pedro wished that here, far away from the crowded and rat-infested cities, it might be different. The air was certainly an improvement, he thought, breathing in deeply of the forest — pine with the refreshing touch of eucalyptus.
Sí, definitely better, he thought and padded down the hillside toward the modest seaside village, eager for a meal. A few hungry weeks had passed since he had last fed. It showed. His body was gaunt with bird-like bones visible; skin pale as milk. Every day he grew weaker. If he couldn’t dine soon . . .
To one nearly immortal, the prospect of death was even scarier.
A nice plump villager, he thought and smacked his lips. One of the healthy ones to sustain him.
The closer he got to the village, the fresh scent of the forest disappeared to be replaced by the tang of the ocean as a breeze blew inward from the shore. But occasionally, there came the smell of something else — death.
Pedro had barely gotten to the edge of the town when he passed his first body. That of a shepherd in a meadow between the forest and a row of buildings marking the furthest edge of the town. Beside the grizzled old shepherd lay his small herd of lifeless sheep, their bodies bloated and stiff.
He had seen it before, faithful animals dead alongside their masters. It didn’t bode well for what awaited him in the village below.
At the first lane of buildings — strong stone warehouses constructed by the Romans who had conquered this small Galician aldea — were piles of corpses, rotting beneath the revealing light of a full moon.
Pedro held his breath against the putrid smell and moved onward quickly, rushing through the town’s streets to confirm what he already knew — the pestilence had reached here as well. Those not infected were barricaded tightly in their homes, out of his reach.
As he rounded one corner, a man staggered into him and grabbed hold. “Ayudame,” the man pleaded in a weak voice, his eyes glazed with fever. A bright flush marked the sick man’s cheeks.
Pedro wanted to weep with frustration and tossed the plague-ravaged human away.
He would not feed here anytime soon. He couldn’t risk slaking his thirst on one of the dying. He’d already seen some of his kind, their armpits and groins swollen, oozing blood and pus as the disease ravaged them slowly. Vampires were difficult to kill, but the plague seemed to delight in wreaking vengeance on his fellow undead before finally taking them.
Eyes wild as he searched for a meal, he realized there would be none tonight in this village. He ran as fast as he could, eager to return to the forest with its fresh air and clean scents.
At the edge of the woods, he paused to look down at the city once more and ponder what to do. He leaned his hand on a tree as he sought to catch his breath from his sprint up the hillside. Taking a deep inhale, the scent of something else teased his nostrils. Fur, wet with a mist that had started on his rush back to the woods.
From nearby came a growl, low and menacing. Movements cautious, Pedro peered toward the sound. Bright red eyes met his. A wolf. Fur the color of chestnuts glistened in the bright light of a full moon from the drops of moisture clinging to it. A warm regular breath marked the night air. A chill had swept down the hillside with the coming of night.
This was no sick animal, he thought. Allowing himself to transform, the strong steady beat of the wolf’s heart sang with life. He knew then what he had to do.
Long fangs erupted from his mouth. He issued his own growling challenge to the wolf before he flew at it.
Sensing danger, the wolf turned and raced into the forest, but even weak from his lack of feeding, he was able to keep up and the thrill of the hunt energized him.
He dodged low-lying branches. Jumped over the underbrush in the forest. Slowly he gained ground on the fast moving animal. The wolf’s haunches bunched and moved with strength as it tried to escape, but Pedro was too desperate to allow that to happen.
With one final lunge, he had the beast within his grasp. The lush fur soft in his hands as he wrestled the wolf to the ground. The wolf fought him, pawing at his undead flesh with its sharp nails. Tearing through the fine cloth of his pants, raking deep into his leg.
He managed to avoid the wolf’s powerful jaws as it snapped at him, trying to break free, but Pedro’s hold was too strong. With a quick twist, he bared the wolf’s neck. A sound, almost like a pleading whimper, escaped the animal, but his hunger was too strong for compassion. He needed fulfillment after weeks without sustenance.
Pedro bent his head, sank his teeth into the wolf’s neck and fed. Wolf’s blood, richly luxuriant, filled his mouth and ran over onto his lips as some of it escaped his fangs. He sucked greedily, a reckless glutton, forgetting a wolf was unlike a human and would not give up the fight so easily.
As he gorged on its blood, the wolf renewed its struggles and reared up. It sank its teeth deep into Pedro’s thigh. Just one final futile attempt to free itself before he drained the last of its life and the wolf’s jaws gave up their hold.
He lay down beside his prey, giddy with the strength flowing through his veins from the kill and took a long moment to enjoy the rush. Smiling, fangs and lips crimson from the blood of his prey, he realized he’d discovered how he could survive the pestilence decimating the cities and towns of Spain. The forests were full of wolves. He had seen them roaming the edges of many a city on his journey to escape the sickness. More than once he’d wondered why they had seemed unaffected by the death sweeping across the country and killing almost everything else in sight.
Whatever the reason, he didn’t care. He had found a way to survive.
Rising, still in his demon state, he used those heightened senses to search the night air for yet another source of food. A howl pierced the night, as if to challenge him. He raced off, emboldened with the wolf’s blood in his veins. Eager for another meal.
He didn’t stop to look back at the body of the wolf he had ravaged. Didn’t notice, as he raced away, the slight hint of breath that came from the wolf’s muzzle or the quiver of muscles reanimating.
Pedro’s blood lust was unstoppable.
As the wolf slowly awakened and lumbered to its feet, its body heated as it changed, the moisture clinging to the wolf’s fur steaming in the night air. The wolf’s eyes glowed, but with an unnatural light. With a low growl, razor-edged fangs erupted from its upper lip. The wolf shook its head, as if fighting the transformation, but it was inevitable.
Altered strength energized the wolf’s body as it headed down toward the village. A new carnal lust as the vampire’s blood now running through its veins drove it onward, eager for slaughter. Needing to feed to drive the heat of the ongoing vampire transformation consuming its body.
Its first hunting ground — the unsuspecting town below.
First of all, I want to thank all of you for your kind e-mails and comments about THE CALLING Vampire novels. Your support is so appreciated.
There are at least two more books coming out in THE CALLING series: ARDOR CALLS featuring one of my favorite vampires – Stacia. You may remember Stacia from a number of books in THE CALLING as well as from the free read DESIRE CALLS (you can click here for that free story!) Hopefully you will also remember the hero – DEA Agent Alex Garcia – from DEATH CALLS.
Thanks to the lovely Caridad Pineiro for inviting me, a new author, as a guest on her blog today! I’m so excited to be here, and to share my short ebook, FORBIDDEN LOVE, which is not a paranormal, but a science fiction romance! 
We’re having a spontaneous contest today! Leave your mixed up version of an old adage here by midnight EST on Saturday, November 14, for a chance to win a copy of 
I have only one tip for you this Tuesday – VOTE! Get out there and use a very important right that you have to decide what happens in this Nation. In fact, it’s not just a right, but an obligation that you have as a citizen so that this process keeps on running properly.
