I loved working in New York City and also visiting there and exploring the sights that I normally wouldn’t see on a workday. It was that love for the city that led me to make it the setting for The Calling is Reborn Vampire Novels. I wanted to share all the different neighborhoods in New York City with you! One of my favorite places is Central Park because there is so much to see in the Park. Belvedere Castle. Strawberry Fields. All the bridges, arches, and statues in the park. The Carousel and zoo! So many things. Another one of my favorites that is easily accessible right on the edges of the park is the Turtle Pond. On a sunny day, you can see dozens of turtles sunning themselves on the rocks and tree stumps in the pond. Speaking of The Calling is Reborn, HONOR CALLS is now available for free if you’ve got Kindle Unlimited. Please take a moment to check it out at https://amzn.to/2GTBY9D.
#TeaserTuesday – BLOOD ROGUE from Linda Parisi
I am so excited to have my dear friend Linda Parisi here with me today to talk about her new release BLOOD ROGUE! Linda is a long-time friend and this is a great book. Please welcome Linda and check out her book at https://books2read.com/u/47X6Rj. And now, here’s Linda!
All About Linda
I’d like to take a moment to thank my wonderful friend and author, Caridad Pineiro, for asking me to join her for a few moments. You see, not only do Caridad and I go back a way, we also share a love—writing about vampires. And guess what? HONOR CALLS, the second book in her vampire series, just re-released. That means my newest book, BLOOD ROGUE, has some damned good company on the bookshelves.
Why do I write about vampires? Simple question, not so simple answer. I guess the first answer is that I fell in love with these sexy, dark, angsty characters. There is pathos in the way vampires are portrayed, they’re evil, they drink blood, they kill people. And yet, they yearn to be loved, they yearn to be human again. And, of course, there’s always redemption. For an author, redemption is so much fun to write. No matter how bad they are, I can make my vampires better, even lovable. And so, so HOT!
For the BLOOD ROGUE series, I wanted to combine my day and night jobs. During the day, I’m a clinical research scientist. Fun fact, my first job was in a blood bank. Not kidding! Right out of college. Fun fact! The New York cell is a mansion and estate on the banks of the Hudson River and houses a blood donation center with banks of refrigerators housed right in the bedrock of the Palisades. Run by humans but overseen by vampires!
At night, I write. My books are character-driven first, then I build my world around them. In my vampire world, humans aren’t supposed to know vampires exist. Each time a vampire feeds, he/she enthralls the human with Lethe so they won’t remember what happened. So I asked, what if I create a human that doesn’t become enthralled, and whose very existence threatens vampire anonymity? What if I created a drug that made vampires sick and that sickness meant they could drain human after human, yet not be sated? Could my heroine, Stacy Morgan, a forensic chemist and blood banker, find out what it was before the High Council decided she was no longer of use? Could my hero, vampire Charles Tower, find out who was using it to create these rogue vampires? Could I create a vampire world, complete with vampire politics, that’s being threatened by human and rogue alike?
If you’d like to find out more, please stop by my website at www.lindajparisi.com or you can purchase BLOOD ROGUE on Amazon at https://books2read.com/u/47X6Rj.
Thank you for spending time with me. If you enjoy reading about BLOOD ROGUE, the second book in the ROGUE series, HONORABLE ROGUE, will be available from City Owl Press in July 2021.
Teaser
There is the blood and can only ever be the blood.
Vampire Charles Tower never knew anything sweeter than the taste of Stacy Morgan’s lips. He never imagined anything crueler than her being marked for death by the only father he’s ever known. Mikhail reared him. Taught him how to survive. Now he’s gone rogue and it’s up to Charles to put the man down.
But can Chaz convince himself and Stacy that love between them is impossible?
That’s hard to do with a woman like Stacy Morgan, especially when she offers herself up as bait. Now they must fight against the centuries-old customs that bar them from being together and the rogue vampire who wants every last drop of Stacy’s blood before they can discover why Mikhail isn’t the only BLOOD ROGUE they’ll have to face.
Excerpt
Something was wrong. Stacy couldn’t right herself. The world kept spinning out of control.
“I’m sorry, Stacy.”
Her body still pulsed with the aftershocks of an amazing orgasm, but she couldn’t get the room to balance, she felt drunk, higher than a kite. Damn him, he’d used the thrall.
“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for something you should never have been involved in.”
“You won’t what?” Stacy tried to lift her head. The room tilted when she did. “You bastard,” she cried, realizing what he’d done. “You…you didn’t…”
Such sadness. After such pleasure. “Not exactly.”
Stacy tried to gather her thoughts. As she did, he covered her with a sheet and rose. She’d never seen such steely determination in his face before. “You’re going after him by yourself.”
“To keep you safe.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“It is now. I drank enough of your blood so you won’t get out of this bed and try to be a hero.”
“Did you really think that was my only motivation? That I was doing this to be a hero?”
He stared down at her, his gaze unchanged. “You’ll be all right after you sleep it off. Go to sleep.”
“No, I won’t.”
She struggled to sit up and fell back onto the bed, too weak to get up. She tried again, only to have the room spin out of control.
“Why?” she asked, her thoughts a mass of contradictions.
“Because I love you.”
She watched Chaz turn on his heel and leave the room. She had to close her eyes again to get the room to stop spinning. She could hear him throwing his clothes on in the other room. Then she heard him stop in the doorway.
“I’ll never forgive you,” she said, her tone flat and her stare hard as she opened them. He was leaning against the doorjamb. He looked anything but nonchalant.
“I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. So we’re even.”
#ManCandyMonday – Sam Heughan
I know fans of the Outlander series will recognize this hottie right away! Sam Heughan has captured hearts in his role as Jamie Fraser. But you can see him in a different, almost comedic light, in THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME which turned out to be a funny take on spy novels. Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon also star in that movie.
Original Image Christine Ring / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0). Image has been cropped for use on this post.
#ThrowbackThursday – South Beach Love
We used to love going down to South Beach to get away from winter for a week. It was so much fun to go to the beach, hang out by the pool at the Park Central, and stroll along Ocean Drive. We’d also walk over to Lincoln Road to check out the shops and restaurants as well as take various trips to Little Havana to get our fill of Cuban food. Good times. That’s one of the reasons that I set my book for Hallmark, SOUTH BEACH LOVE, in the South Beach area. I’m so excited about this book! It’s got lots of great food scenes that are bound to make you hungry and a fun twist as two chefs who are starting to fall in love find themselves forced into a competition to decide who is the better chef. You can find out more about SOUTH BEACH LOVE at https://amzn.to/36L1kkm.
#WisdomWednesday – Kind Words to Those With Different Opinions
It troubles me greatly to see the kind of vitriol, and even violence sometimes, that is happening just because someone has a different opinion or belief. Whatever happened to agreeing to disagree? Whatever happened to being respectful to each other? I see people calling others anuses, stupid, ignorant, or worse just because they don’t share your view of the world. What does that accomplish besides sowing the seeds of hate? We may not think the same, but there’s no reason why we can’t be kind to each other. We lose nothing by being kind, but we make the world a worse place by not doing so.
#ManCandyMonday – Patrick Brammall
I actually watch television while I write during the early morning hours and got hooked on a show from Australia titled GLITCH. It’s about what happens when dead people suddenly come alive again. One of the heroes in the show is a local sheriff who’s lost his wife (who of course is one of the people who is suddenly alive again.) The sheriff is played by Patrick Brammall and I could totally picture Patrick playing the detective in my upcoming March 2021 release COLD CASE REOPENED. He’s got that rugged look and blue eyes that always call to me. LOL!
GLITCH is available on Netflix.
Photo Courtesy of Eva Rinaldi / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)
#FreebieFriday – HONOR CALLS on Kindle Unlimited
Happy Friday! I am so excited about the re-release of HONOR CALLS, one of the novellas in The Calling is Reborn Vampire novels. This story features vampire slayer Michaela and FBI ADIC Jesus Hernandez and it’s a very emotional and sexy story that sets up Jesus and Michaela’s full story in DIE FOR LOVE. In HONOR CALLS you get to see the vampire underground in New York City and experience how Jesus doesn’t believe in things that go bump in the night until he sees Michaela stake a vampire right before his eyes. Even then it’s hard for him to accept what’s right before his eyes, but he can’t ignore it or Michaela who intrigues him on multiple levels. If you’d like to check out HONOR CALLS, it’s free over at Kindle Unlimited. You can find it at https://amzn.to/33nXtru. If you do read it, please take a moment to leave an honest review as these really do help authors.
