Thursday, May 30, 2013

Bianca Swan


Author Interview
For those who may not know, will you tell us a bit about yourself?

I began writing just after the invention of the wheel—seriously in about 1992 and started on a long journey to publication. One Christmas, when I lived in Miami, I stripped the tree of its decorations (a silk tree) and left it up all year, decorating it instead with rejection letters. Now, I live in Texas, don’t have horses and have a piano I can’t play (more on this in another question). I’m very into sports cars and love my black-on-black convertible.
 

What is the tag line for On Wings of Desire, your latest release from Double Dragon Publishing?

Heaven reviles him. Hell loves and hates him. The demon Salseph looks like an angel and is trapped between perdition and the mortal world unless he can redeem himself with lust and revenge. I thought of a new one though: Forbidden love—one man, one woman—one heart, one soul…only together can they be complete.
 

If your book was turned into a movie, who would you want to play your protagonists? 

Johnny Depp could play Seph, and maybe Cameron Diaz could be Gloria. 

What are three quirky facts about you that no one would know or assume otherwise? 
 
1. I own a baby grand piano I can’t play (my mom gave me piano lessons but I wanted a horse so I learned to play by the finger numbers. The piano was sold, and I got my first horse.) Now I wish I could play! But at least it has a PianoDisc player.
2. I love licorice and Pellegrino. I drink bottles of the stuff while I’m writing. I also eat licorice while I write. Not at the same time as the Pellegrino.
3. My male friend and I often drink Mimosas early on a Sunday morning for breakfast (w/o the brunch!)

What wisdom about writing do you wish you could share with fledgling writers? 


Don’t try to write for the market. Write each book for yourself—as if it were the book of your heart. Love your characters. Accept advice from professionals but don’t lose your voice.

What do you have in store for readers next? 


My muse and I are working on a new idea but she took a vacation to Belize without me.
 

Where can we find you?

My website  or blog 


ON WINGS OF DESIRE 
by Bianca Swan

Blurb:
The fallen angels have again risen against the Light, and the Second War in Heaven is raging. Paimon, General of Hell, yearned for a lover with the beauty of an angel and created a demon the exact replica of a celestial. He presents his creation with a powerful sword and appoints him commander of the demon forces. If Salseph returns to Hell with the sword in victory, Paimon vows to end Seph's demeaning missions of seducing human women and destroying their lives. The promise is a double-edged blade. The demons under his control abhor Salseph as much as he reviles them.

In battle, the angel Ophiel disarms Salseph and humiliates the young demon. Seph vows revenge against his foe and strikes upon the perfect plan for vengeance. He will seduce the guardian angel's charge, Gloria Landry, and at the Battle of Armageddon present soiled goods to the arrogant Ophiel in exchange for the stolen sword. When he rescues Gloria from a violent storm, she believes Salseph is her guardian angel. On their journey to the apocalyptic war, Salseph and Gloria discover that lust can become the purest love and that a bad boy can be good.

Excerpt:

     The stench of Hell burned Salseph’s nostrils.  Lost Souls¸ how he hated to return home.  For all his trials on Earth, he preferred the human realm to this insufferable place.  In the mortal plane, he could, with considerable effort and pain, divest himself of his wings, and feel as if he belonged—at least for a time.
     Evolerzzal, a slimy glob of green flesh, grabbed Seph’s shoulder as he passed into the gloom of the Demon Realm.  “Well, if it isn’t Salseph the Beautiful.  What are you doing here amongst us humble creatures?”  A clawed hand beckoned Charzzel, a demon of the Second Order.  “Look who’s come home.”
     Seph shrugged free, arched his wings.  The dim, smoky light refracted on his feathers, and the movement immediately drew the attention of every demon in sight.  His jaw tightened, a muscle twitching.  He yearned to drive his fist into the grotesque face and take to the air, but it wasn’t Evolz’s fault the demons hated Seph.  Paimon had insured that Salseph was an oddity, a freak.  His appearance and the majestic wings set him apart from the others of his kind.  Hell, there were no others of his kind.  In all of Perdition, he was the only demon who looked like an angel.  His face was handsome, his body lean and muscled—the body of a man, not a monstrosity—his blond hair thick and silky.
    “I smell angel,” a low-ranking atrocity shouted, his high-pitched voice rasping on Seph’s nerves.
     The demons stank of brimstone and ash.  Salseph’s Creator had only missed one detail in replicating a celestial being.  Like an angel, Seph possessed an individual, mysterious scent, the airy fragrance part of his allure.  Unlike an angel, Salseph had no sigil.   A sigil, the angel’s name in Malachim script, was branded in his palm at his creation.  Paimon did not have the ability to bequeath a sigil to his demon son.  The fallen angel had, however, created Seph with an irresistible sexual magnetism.
     A disgustingly ugly brute bared his fangs.  A laugh rumbled from the creature’s slavering maw.  He stumbled into Seph, crushing one of the long white feathers trailing the ash-gray ground.  “Hello, Salseph.”  Two taloned fingers drifted down the feathered arch.  “Wish I had pretty wings.”
     Seph flinched from the malicious caress, folding his wings in a tighter arch.  The creature chuckled, and anger ground Salseph’s good intentions to dust.   When he landed, he’d planned to hurry to his cave, avoiding another senseless confrontation with his brethren.  The fiends detested him as much as he abhorred them.  It was an effort of will to resist a scathing retort.
     “I think he’s hideous,” a demon in the shadows called.  “Angels are our enemies.  Every time I look at Paimon’s favorite, I want to draw sword.”
     Jealousy and envy gleamed in Evolz’s yellow eyes.  The demon reeked of the Pit.  Sulfur wasn’t an enticing perfume.  “Now, who would want to spit our lovely Salseph on a sword?”
     “Let me pass.” Seph would have shouldered by Evolz, but touching the creature repulsed him.
     “Coming home from another assignment?” Evolz smirked.
     Seph refused to give the other demon the satisfaction of a reply.  He was returning from another demeaning mission with his stomach in a knot and his heart bleeding for a poor human woman whose only sin was falling in love with him.
     “Did you eat her baby or pump a little half-demon into her womb?”  Evolz leered, his glob of a head tilted to the side, his hairy ears wagging.
     “I don’t consume human flesh.  Now, step aside.”
     “Or you’ll do what?  Report me to Paimon?”
     Seph flared his wings, striking the demon and sweeping Evolerzzal into a stumbling retreat.  “Sorry, Evolz.”  He drove his wings down hard, rising straight into the sultry, close air.  Voice dripping sarcasm, he said, “I forget how powerful I really am.”
     He hovered above the gross blob, his condescending smile goading Evolz to react.  The demon glared at him but said nothing, a quick comeback beyond his limited mental capacity.  Why were they all so fiendish?   One of the monsters tried to capture his ankle.  Laughing, he flew higher and, still chuckling, soared toward home.  The place I hide.  He’d never thought of the dim stone cavern as home.  His heart stuttered over a painful beat.  He had no home and belonged nowhere.


ON WINGS OF DESIRE is available in print or in ebook format:

Amazon 


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Juli D. Revezzo


CAITLIN'S BOOK OF SHADOWS (Antique Magic) by Juli D. Revezzo

Something terrifying stalks Caitlin and her beloved Trevor. Something the bits and pieces she left claimed she had to make sense of--or so legend says. When the curator of their collection finds Caitlin's long forgotten diary, she wonders will it tell the whole tale? Will it tell why Caitlin seemed so determined to tell the difference between reality and nightmare even as she continued the fight to defend her family from evil? Will it explain why she thought her world twisted? If she really became a witch?

Perhaps the answer lies between the lines of her story, one of lessons, struggles, and the hopes she carried like a warrior's shield.

 **This is a side (or supplemental, if you will) story in the Antique Magic series, a companion to The Artist's Inheritance (Antique Magic, Book One).

FREE on Smashwords until May 31st
OR for only .99 cents, support an Indie author on Amazon.com  or Barnes and Noble's Nook 

THE ARTIST'S INHERITANCE by Juli D. Revezzo can be purchased here:

Juli Revezzo, author of paranormal romance and supernatural horror, can be found HERE

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Clare Dargin


Cold Warriors
by Clare Dargin
Blurb--  

Left in cryogenic stasis for nearly a century, Caitlin Driskoll is awakened and drafted into a war she knows nothing about. Expected to defend a world where her kind is despised and expendable, she discovers love and respect from the one man who can’t be associated with her.

Lieutenant Colonel Medoro Keegan has spent a lifetime in the Marines. With no family to speak of, the Corps and his ship, the USS Blanchard, are all the loved ones he needs…until Caitlin sparks a fire within, that threatens to consume him if he doesn’t walk away.

Will he choose a life of certainty in the only world he knows or give it all to Caitlin and run the risk of losing someone, yet again?

Excerpt--

He didn’t know what to say. His first clash with her had distracted him to the point of madness. It had been some time since he’d had such a powerful encounter with a woman. The last one to push his buttons that hard, he wound up marrying.

Caitlin was stubborn, mouthy, somewhat insubordinate, and filled with an innate force he had not seen in sometime. She had no problem in standing up for who or what she believed in. He didn’t like the feelings she stirred in him. He dare not consider them. Especially with her. She was a subordinate and a cryo. It was against regulations for him to even think of starting anything with her.

He shifted his stance. His heart pounded in his ears and breaths quickened. “Ms. Driskoll. I don’t know what you expect from me.”

“Nothing more than I expect from myself.”

Before he knew it, he crossed the distance between them and swept her into a searing kiss. He caressed her body, touching every curve. 

He was ready to slip off into oblivion when he remembered himself. It was the middle of the day; they were in a briefing room and would be caught. Breaking off the kiss, he raised his hands in surrender.

“Jesus,” he said in between breaths.

“What?” she panted, as she straightened her uniform.

“Please leave. Just go.” He closed his eyes, wrestling his feelings into submission. Holding them down, he shuddered. Dear God, help me. He needed her so badly. His breathing slowed to a normal rate. When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

“Sir, you’re needed on the bridge,” the voice on the com said.

“Be right there,” he replied, grateful for the distraction.


Author Bio

Clare Dargin is a an author of Science Fiction and Military Science Fiction Romance.  She has been writing stories all of her life before being published in 2007.  She is a great fan of all things science fiction and romance and loves promoting the genre.  

She is an educator by profession and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English from a major mid-western university.  She presently resides in the Midwestern United States and is pursuing a graduate degree.  In the future she hopes to expand her writings to include non-fiction, historical romance, and contemporary novels.