Tuesday Teasers~!

Welcome back to the Tuesday Tease~!

Next week I begin reader appreciation month in which I give away prizes each Tuesday because you are beyond awesome and deserve them.

Toxic Part Two news~! My editor is still hacking through that thicket but once it reverts to me it’s on baby. I’m taking that book to task, working 24/7 until I crush it under my heel, I mean until it sings to me and then I will graciously pass it on to you~! In the meanwhile I managed to pretty up SOMEONE TO LOVE and will swap it out with T2 once she’s through. Honestly, my personal goal was to get T2 out to you by Halloween, so “boo” for me. Sorry about that. On the upside, each day it’s closer to completion.

Enjoy the teasers~!

TOXIC Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5)

(Chloe, Gage, Ellis, Skyla)

“It’s our senior year. This is it, the big one.” She slits her eyes over to Gage’s crotch when she says “the big one” and I suck in a quick breath at the audacity. “Then it all ends,” she whispers, “and everyone goes their separate ways.”

“We’ll always have Paragon.” Ellis picks up a stick and stokes the fire. “Half of us will probably never leave.”

*(Skyla and Marshall)

“Fine, I’ll go to Ezrina myself.” I take Marshall in with all of his physical perfection, feel his glorious vibrations of love pulsate through me, and wonder how I ever got so lucky that a celestial king such as himself should ever pay me any attention.

“My, my—pouring it on a little thick, are we?” He purrs, lapping up the stroke to his ego.

“Did it work?”

“Maybe,” he steals a quick kiss before pulling away. “What the heck. Let’s get this party started.” He snaps his fingers and we disappear.

(Wesley to Skyla after she threatens to rip his balls off in the Tenebrous Woods)

“I wasn’t kissing you.” Wesley twitches his brow the same way Gage does. It makes me wonder if Dr. Oliver had made a genetic deposit to some long gone girlfriend before he married Emma. “You’re beautiful, Skyla,” he whispers, “but my heart belongs somewhere else.” He tilts into me. “I was going say thank you for trusting that I wouldn’t hurt you.” He offers a bastardized version of a sarcastic smile. “And I won’t.”

SOMEONE TO LOVE

*New adult contemporary romance

(Kendall talking to her friends about Cruise)

“I asked him to instruct me in his wicked ways.” A devious smile plays on my lips but I won’t give it. “I told him I wanted to be just as sleazy as he is when I grow up and asked him to teach me the tricks of the trade.”

“Which consists of?” Lauren seems nonplused by my ability to enlist Cruise as my personal portal to promiscuity.

“I don’t know. It’s like my mouth started moving without my permission and before I knew it I was asking him to lead me through the deep dark forest of debauchery. The truth is, I sort of wanted to, you know, be with him but I was too shy and embarrassed by the fact I’ve never been with anyone before.” I shrug as though what just flew from my lips was morally sane. “I believe I referred to it as a social experiment.”

***Have a safe and Happy Halloween tomorrow! And to my East Coast family of readers, please stay safe and warm!  

Feel free to comment, I love to chat!

The Tuesday Tease plus a special preview of my New Adult book!

Welcome back to the Tuesday Tease!

I’m still waiting on edits for TOXIC Part Two so I’ve been keeping busy with edits for SOMEONE TO LOVE. Ack! I didn’t post a special tease this past week—please forgive! I swear that book is so freaking hot I’m afraid to touch it half the time. Honestly, if Marshall offends you in the least, you’ll want to steer clear, because my new male MC, Cruise, brings the heat in a big way. It’s definitely not young adult.

As for TOXIC 2 I’m expecting it to land in my hands any minute now and when it does I’ll polish around the clock and begin my marathon read-thrus. I really hope I’ll get this book to you exceptionally soon. I long to give you the complete TOXIC experience!

Off to the teasers!!

(Skyla with Logan and Gage)

We drive through miles of fresh paved asphalt—the black tongue of Paragon unspooling itself for an eternity. It feels like this could easily be last year. That I had just arrived on the island and started going out with Logan—that Gage was here posturing with his pent up feelings and a poem at the ready, warm in his pocket. It’s funny how life comes full circle sometimes. Funny thing is, it’s not the beginning, it very much feels like the end of a very long season in my life. It breaks my heart just to think about it.

(Skyla, Logan, Brielle, and Gage)

Logan casts a glance from me to Gage with a look that could transform butter knives into lethal weapons. Not even the deafening waves can penetrate the silence.

“Did I say something wrong?” Bree knots up her lips trying to decipher what the deal is.

Hell if I know. Gage is a liar, and Logan is the thief that took off with my heart—jammed a war between the two of us because it was the only logical solution. Nothing ever makes sense on Paragon. 

(Lizbeth and Marshall talk about the party he’s going to throw)

“I can hardly wait.” Mom sags into him dreamily as if he had offered to inseminate her himself. “Demetri sort of opened the season and now you’ll usher us out.”

“In style. This is no bikini romp by the pool. Prepare to be dazzled. The menu will astound you.” He washes his eyes over me as if I were the main course. It’s a betrothal ceremony, Skyla. A coming out of sorts to Sector society. And you will dazzle them all, of this you can be certain.

A brief introduction to my New Adult book: 

                  SOMEONE TO LOVE

What happens when two people who don’t believe in love happen to fall madly, deeply into the most beautiful relationship they could ever imagine? A train wreck.

Twenty-year old Kendall Jordan devises a seat of the pants plan to “play the player.”

When Kendall spots gorgeous Cruise Elton from across the room, something in her burns to have him. There’s only one problem; Cruise likes the ladies, a lot, and Kendall has never shared so much as a decent kiss with a guy.

Kendall has long since come to discover that love is an illusion that never lasts and Cruise couldn’t agree more. So when Kendall proposes that Cruise tutor her in becoming a female version of himself, Garrison Universities own man-whore, he’s more than happy to comply. But when real feelings begin to emerge, and neither Kendall nor Cruise know how to classify them, everything they once thought they knew is redefined as they discover in one another, Someone to Love.

* The book alternates POV between Kendall and Cruise.

(Kendall and Cruise at a bar) 

Cruise

She frowns and scans the room. “I don’t know. I was thinking about having a fire sale with my virginity. You know, get it over with so I can start mishandling the boys at Garrison.” She gives a quick wink.

I shake my head at her. I think we both know she’s not that person—that she never really was. But maybe all she needs is one more push in the wrong direction to realize it. I just hope once she does she also realizes she might have feelings for me. Because what I’m feeling is too wonderfully large, too fucking fantastic too ever be one-sided.

“Body shots.” I pull my cheek back no smile. “Lesson for the day is letting some slopped up, drunk, virally hormone induced frat boy lick your stomach clean.” I try to hold back a laugh but my back shudders. If that doesn’t send her running for the hills I don’t know what will.

***Thank you for reading~! Please feel free to leave a comment here or facebook~! I look forward to chatting with you!

Tuesday Teasers + TOXIC Part Two News

Welcome back to the Tuesday Tease~! TOXIC Part Two has landed on my editor’s desk!!! *breathes* *jumps up and down* Hopefully she’ll pull off a miracle and get it back to me around the weekend. Once I hit publish on TOXIC 2, ETHEREAL KNIGHTS (Ethereal from Logan and Gage’s perspective) is ready for final edits. The boys are patiently waiting for a chance to speak.  

Questions? Since I’m getting ready to pen the final Celestra book I thought this might be a good time to get any questions you might want answered. If you have a burning question that you’d like to see addressed in the last book, feel free to post it on my FB wall, or my blog, or you could private message or email me. Any of those avenues is fine.

Ezrina speaks this Thursday~! She’ll be on another blog to help usher in Halloween and what’s scarier than our own little hatchet princess? I’ll be sure to leave a trail of links. It’s too fun to miss, I promise.

I’ll be doing a special teaser later this week for my new book Someone to Love and I cannot wait to share Kendall and Cruise with you! It’s a college setting and life is a little naughtier there, be warned.

But for now, here are the teasers:

Enjoy~!

TOXIC Part Two (Sorry if there are repeats. The "used" file has left me to my own devices. It's corrupted.)

  

(Skyla trying to get Marshall to find a head in the woods)

“I don’t know. Aren’t you equip with some kind of spiritual sonar? Use your infrared graveyard vision and look for a skull or blood—go.” I bat at him. “Go get her. I’m sure there’s at least a ten mile radius of forensic evidence.” Freaking Chloe. I’d like to reduce her to a head—mount her in my bedroom and throw darts at her nose every single night.

“Sonar? Infrared graveyard vision? Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for the crime investigations chapter of Sector P.D. a rather elite group of graveyard go getters.”

(Skyla and Gage)

“You’re a real inter-planet ace,” I say, breathless from his display of teleportation prowess as I take in the dark brooding scenery of the Cape. “And all that in under a minute.”

“I can’t wait to show you what I can do in one night,” he says it serious, shakes his head just barely as if pleading for the opportunity.

(Skyla and Logan)

The moon pours its beams over us and dusts the water with a reflective luminescent bloom.

“Girls’ tents,” Logan points to the left, “boys’ tents.” He crimps a smile. “That lasts for about an hour.”

Thank you for all the kind comments and reviews, you've left, regarding TOXIC Part One ~! I really appreciate them. 

Have questions you'd like to see answered in the series? Feel free to ask!

Tuesday Teasers + TOXIC Part One is available~!

Welcome back to the Tuesday Tease~!  TOXIC Part One released a little earlier than expected!

Amazon,  Barnes and Noble, Smashwords  

What happened, right? Well, sometimes babies arrive early and I guess in this case book-babies are no different.

When I uploaded EPHEMERAL I uploaded 3 days in advance for Barnes and Noble and two days in advance at Amazon, and they both ended up loading late. SO, trying to circumvent that from happening, I loaded both books even earlier, 4 days out for B&N and 3 days out for Amazon. Well, Amazon loaded in just over an hour. Go figure, right? B&N also loaded shortly thereafter. I guess it’s better early than late. So there’s that.

News! I’m on track with edits for TOXIC Part Two and should have them back for a final review to my editor next Monday. *squeals*

*TOXIC Part Two is a fun, freak-fest, and the ending… well, it’s heart-stopping in nature. But that’s just my humble opinion. ;)

News: Ezrina MacHatter speaks! That’s right , our hack attack princess gets her very own POV. I hope you’ll join me in traveling back to 1692 and seeing the world through Ezrina’s warped lenses. I’ll be sharing a scene from Ezrina’s yet untitled book from a chapter called, The Season of The Witch. It’ll be up on a friend’s blog sometime this month and I’ll give you the link once it comes out.   

Questionable News: (LOL) Christmas story! Will it be out in time for the holidays? I hope so, but I wouldn’t count after the New Year out of the running either. I’m going to try super hard to push SOMEONE TO LOVE out in time for the holidays since there is a touch of Christmas in it. (This isn’t my adult romance. That one is safely nestled on my editor’s desk.) SOMEONE TO LOVE is not quite a warm and fuzzy delight as it is a lusty romp of a ride—reader beware. This is not young adult. ;)

I’ll be giving an extended preview of SOMEONE TO LOVE next week, with or without a cover. I cannot wait to share this new book with you~!

On to the teasers!

Here’s the preface to TOXIC Part One:

 Preface

Love can play host to rich delusions. It stifles reality and skews the truth to meet our insatiable desire to be wanted, longed for, needed. It waxes poetic on destiny and soul mates with thoughts of forever and happily ever after pinned high on its wings. Love affords you the luxury of a unique brand of trust, an intimate level of confidence that solidifies two souls as one. It unifies them under the false banner of all things holy and right.

I gave my heart away in exchange for beauty and a song. I put a hook through my nose and leashed it, handed the reins to the one who held my affections and gave him permission to lead me astray. It was the scourge of my youth that bore a thousand different sorrows. 

Deceit. The grey clouds of deceit clotted my world. The battlefield moved from heaven to my heart. It came at me from all directions at once—an entire landscape of smoke and mirrors. Deception in acres spawned heartache for miles. This was no ordinary illusion. This was the severing of a lover’s cord. The death of a pure and righteous love I believed in.

I bought into the calm still waters that surrounded the one that I loved and entered in, but the current pulled me under and swept me away—dangerous—inescapable.

A rainbow of truths finally emerged. It pushed the darkness away and thrust us back into the light.

We held our faces to the sun only for a moment before death clapped over us like a bridegroom snatching away his betrothed.

Death is a promise incapable of deception. 

It tells the truth. You were destined to die from the moment you were born. It makes no promises, holds no delusions. Your corporal form was never meant to linger—only love, in theory, is capable of withstanding time and memoriam.

Love promises happily ever after, it boldly professes forever—but delivers only one thing—a reckless brand of hope.

***TOXIC Part Two (sorry if there are any repeats my “used” file is corrupted)***

(Skyla thinking about Logan)

“I still love you, Logan,” I press the words out with my heart. “I will never stop. I don’t know what you did to me that day I met you in the bowling alley—or before that in my dreams but you shifted my entire existence on its axis. I will never recover. I will always need you, deeply—completely.”

(Skyla in a pickle)

Trust only your heart, my mother’s strange words come back to me at this odd hour, and strangely enough, right about now, my heart is saying don’t trust your mother. 

*(Skyla to Marshall)

“So where are you going to sleep?” I already know the answer but I figure we should have our first lovers spat while I’m still bright eyed and bushy tailed and not wait until I’m so exhausted I don’t care whether or not his heavenly bod is snuggled up to mine.

(Skyla and Gage)

“What was that about?” Gage digs his dimples in and slays me without trying.

“You tell me.” I try not to get caught up in the fact he just wrapped his arms around me, that he’s dotting my neck with a series of molten hot kisses. Gage Oliver doesn’t fight fair, that’s for damn sure.

(Wes and Skyla in the Tenebrous Woods)

Wesley dreams of his Laken—her long wavy hair, the barely there skirt of her cheer uniform. She sways her hips for him on the football field. She’s not good by the way. Brielle could have aced those moves in her ninth month of pregnancy if she wanted.

She’s very good, he corrects.

***Thank you so much for your outpouring of support for TOXIC Part One all over Facebook and Twitter. You made me cry in a good way. If you enjoyed Book 7, please consider leaving a brief review, even a sentence is so very much appreciated! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. ~A

TOXIC Part One arrives a bit early!

Amazon rolled it out in an hour~! (It took days last time!)
Link: TOXIC Part One

Barns and Noble is on the ball, too~!
Link: TOXIC Part One

Smashwords
Link: TOXIC Part One

Tuesday Tease + Toxic Part One release date~!

Welcome back to the Tuesday Tease! TOXIC Part One is FINISHED. Finally! Right?  The official launch date is… ~**Thursday October 11^th!**~

I’ll be loading the book to Amazon and Barnes and Noble days ahead of time, because it takes days and days for them to aggregate it into their system and I’m trying to avoid the loading issues I’ve encountered in the past. Smashwords and itunes takes a little longer so it won’t be available there on the 11^th.  

Just a refresher, TOXIC as a whole was far too long for just one book (it mostly has to do with paper books of which I do plan on creating in the near future ;). My editor informed me (once she finished laughing) that I had two books on my hands so we chopped it in half. Well, mostly in half. I ended TOXIC Part One where I thought it was best. Anyway, it’s on its way!

TOXIC Part Two has already been through the ringer as far as edits go it needs just a little more work before I can push it out and I’m hoping *crosses fingers* before Halloween but don’t hold me to it. It might be way sooner if Skyla and friends don’t make things difficult for me.

Both TOXIC Part One and TOXIC Part Two are book 7. They are not the end of the Celestra series. Once I push Part Two out the door I’ll start penning the end. And, if I end with another monster on my hands I’m giving them separate titles and numbers because quite frankly the idea of having another part one and two fries my brain. But anyway, after Celestra concludes I’m moving Skyla to another series. More on that next year. ;)

On to the teasers…

(*Skyla and Ellis)

“So now I guess I’m screwed.” I give a hard sigh, bringing my hands to my ears because I can’t take much more of this.

“There is a way.” Ellis comes over and drapes his arm over my shoulder. “I’ve got an idea.”

“What’s that?” I look up at him with an intense measure of hope. The fact the prospect of my future lies in the hands of Paragon’s most notorious stoner makes me sway slightly on my heels.   

(Skyla thinking about Gage)

Gage swoops in. His cologne reduces me to cinders without even trying. Every fiber of my being cries foul. This is mutiny on a cellular level. I forbid my body to act so viscerally toward someone who I willfully despise on a cerebral level.

Back off hormones, I reprimand. I will go Celestra all over your estrogen ass if you even think of surging with excitement.

I’ve just threatened to kick my own ass and yet somehow this doesn’t alarm me. With the scope of insanity that’s gripped my life as of late, providing myself with a substantial beating seems both mandatory and necessary at this point.

*(Skyla and Lizbeth (mom)

“What’s cooking?” I ask, peering over Mom’s shoulder at a bubbling brew in what honest to God could double as a witch’s cauldron. Witchcraft, poison cuisine, her insatiable lust for Demetri the Celestra hunter—all clear evidence that my mother ditched her sanity once my father died. Her union with Tad should have tipped me off that permanent placement in a psychiatric facility was completely necessary.  

*(Skyla and Marshall)

I needed to kiss him. I was going to explode if I didn’t kiss Gage, splatter over all four corners of the island if I didn’t jam my tongue down his throat just to satisfy my parched affections for him.

It’s me, Skyla, do try to focus on the suitor at hand, Marshall suggests while pleasuring me with a kiss I wont soon forget.

*(Skyla and Logan)

Logan cradles my face in his hands and pulls me in. I can feel his ache to kiss me deeply. His entire being draws me in and I give. There’s not one cell in my body that suggests otherwise, just the sweet anticipation of his precious lips as I wait for them to fall over mine.

Hope you enjoyed!

Also, thank you for all of your wonderful support and awesome reviews for EPHEMERAL (The Countenance). I can’t wait to dive back into Laken’s world.

If you haven’t read it and you’re interested it’s available at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords and also on itunes.