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Saturday, August 17, 2024

Author Advice from E.L. Roux #SciFiRomance #AuthorAdvice


The best advice I can give relates to my own experience with beta readers. I love beta readers; they do an amazing job of telling me if something isn’t right with my story. 

They’ve got a nose for when a character or story arc isn’t going as expected. However, they aren’t experienced with the finer details of character development or determining the bigger picture of what exactly isn’t working with a story. I knew something wasn’t right with Unexpected Revival when I first wrote the draft wayyyyy back in 2018, but even when I ventured into paid beta readers, I couldn’t figure out why the story just wasn’t working.

It wasn’t until I looked into Developmental editor that I truly understood why my storyline wasn’t cooking they way I wanted it too. It took an editor who understood that I had too many characters in my story soup, that I needed to determine if I wanted humor or intense emotions, and how to whip my villain’s arc into tip top shape that enabled me to get the editing work I needed done to pitch my novel to editors and agents. After working through the developmental editor’s suggestions, my next pitch to an editor successfully landed me at Wild Rose Press and with Unexpected Revival being released to the world.


Unexpected Revival
Revived 
Book One
E.L. Roux

Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Date of Publication: August 14, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-5092-5657-0 
ISBN: 978-1-5092-5548-1 
ASIN: B0CW1GBTCT
Number of pages: 406
Word Count: 104,934
Cover Artist: Wild Rose Press

Tagline: She wanted it all, but she’d have to save the galaxy to keep it…

Book Description:

Dying a thousand years ago was the easy part.

Stopping a planetary annihilation? That might just kill her again.

The cat-like alien blocking her exit was the first clue Shannon had that something wasn’t right. Discovering she’d was freshly thawed from cryogenic stasis was her second. When the corporation that revived her wants answers about how she played a part in the destruction of earth over a millennium ago, she's more than willing to respond. The only problem is she doesn't remember how.

He was everything she wanted, but nothing like what she was used to…

Out of balance in this new era, Shannon turns to D’lane, the other out-of-place being in her new sphere of existence. Now slightly less terrifying, the intimidated alien male is shifting from a close friend to something more. A relationship she’d be more willing to explore if he wasn’t dead set on fulfilling his destiny, at the cost of destroying everything they’d built.

She wanted it all, but she’d have to save the galaxy to keep it…

With another planetary annihilation on the horizon, it’ll take everything Shannon and D’lane have to work together and unearth new information on how to stop the impending battle. With enemies hiding everywhere, they’ll have to learn to rely on each other to survive what’s coming for them, because not everyone wants to stop the attack.


Excerpt:

“In my culture, names have strong meanings.” D’lane pulled out the curved blade strapped to his arm and cut up the meat he’d been eating earlier into small precise pieces. “They’re meant to impart wisdom and advice throughout our lives.”

She straightened and tucked her hands onto her lap. This was an interesting conversational change. “There are, or at least used to be, cultures on Earth that believed the same. I’ve always loved that philosophy. What does yours mean?”

“Mine is a powerful name.” His lips were roguishly tipped up at the corner, exposing sharp eye teeth. He settled into his seat, as if preparing to lecture a student. The surrounding mess hall noise dimmed as she focused on him. “I am named after one of our past kings. A mighty Chriw’rian who fought valiantly against the Hissat or, as you humans call them, the Anunnaki. He’s credited with their first defeat on our planet.”

She locked her fingers together. “Really?”

He placed the curved knife beside her tray. “For your protein.”

Shannon glanced around the room. Surely someone would jump in to stop him from offering her a weapon. When no one did, she picked up the knife and cut up the last bit of food on her plate, a wrinkled sausage link in an off-putting green color. The blade cut smoothly through the dehydrated chunk. “Thank you.”

She fingered the metal handle. Smooth and warm in her hand, she tilted the blade far enough to see her reflection on its surface. She wanted to keep it. She placed the knife beside her tray and glanced up as D’lane consumed the last of his jerky.

He pushed his empty tray to the side. “The previous D’lane crashed his warship into the Anunnaki fighter set to bomb our most vulnerable. His actions disrupted the mothership and allowed the rest of the fleet to destroy them. If not for his heroic actions, my planet wouldn’t
have survived their last attack.”

She ate a bite of the sausage and winced. It fought her with every chew. Mouth dry, she discreetly spit it into her napkin. A few brows arched in her direction, including D’lane’s. To give herself something to do, she handed the knife back, handle first. He wouldn’t have let her keep it anyway. “Have you figured out how your name dictates your future?”

“Yes.” His fingers brushed hers as he accepted its return. The silver metal blurred when he holstered the blade. This male moved quickly.

She was afraid to ask about his future. She kind of liked this particular alien and didn’t want to see him dying any time soon. “And?”

He grinned and flashed his sharp canines. “One belief is I will be a great benefit to my people, but unable to participate in the ultimate victory of my path.”

“Does that mean you expect to die?” Shannon asked, undecided on if his smile edged from sexy into frightening.

“It is a possibility.”

She picked up her sausage, put it back down, and frowned. “You said one of the meanings. Can you choose another path?”

“There are many possibilities that exist for an individual. The Namegivers do not choose lightly when gifting a child at birth with their destiny. I could follow another D’lane’s path, or I could forge my own fate and provide a future for another down the line as the previous D’lane did.”

“Which destiny is yours?”

“I follow the path of the king.”

“Ah.” She ran her finger over the smooth surface of the table. Did that mean he expected to die or was there another path within that destiny he would follow? How did someone know which one to follow?

It had taken her months in college to discover she wasn’t interested in chemistry. Six long hellish months. The frustration alone for losing that small bit of time seemed inconsequential when compared to the possibility of traveling an entire lifetime down the wrong path.

He tapped the table. “What does your name mean?”

She huffed, knowing her name meant little when compared to his. She’d looked it up once after an unpleasant conversation with her father. “It means possessor of wisdom.”

Her father had wanted to call her Clair after his sister, but her mother had gone with Shannon after hearing it on a show during labor. The uncomfortable conversation on how he’d hated her name had been a slight peek into her mother’s past, even as her dad lay drunk on the couch. He’d apologized later, but the damage had already been done. She forced a laugh to lighten the mood. “If you take it to mean I went to school, then I’ve lived up to the title.”

“It is accurate.” His nail pressed down on the table’s surface. A bit of plastic curled in its wake. His nails were either extremely durable or the tables were flimsy. Shannon flattened her hand next to her tray and curled her fingers. She scratched at the table and winced as her nail bent back. “How so?”

“You were revived for information that will save billions of lives and stop a war.”



 


About the Author:

E.L. Roux is a Science Fiction and Fantasy Romance author who writes about finding love in all the wrong places. E.L. uses their knowledge on everything from prosthetics to the sport of fencing, to weave together complex romances you can't put down.

E.L. Roux lives in Washington State with their artistically inclined family, an indoor street cat, and a terror of a Bosten Terrier.












Monday, August 12, 2024

Happy Release Day Haunted Hotels of Michigan by Roxanne Rhoads



Haunted Hotels of Michigan 
Haunted America Series
Roxanne Rhoads

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing 
Genre: Haunted History, Travel
Release Date: August 12, 2024
ISBN-13: 9781467157858
Pages: 128

Are you brave enough to visit Michigan's most haunted hotels? 

From captivating tales of lingering lumber barons to lovelorn ladies and chilling stories of murder, Michigan's hotels hold secrets that will send shivers down the spine.

Ghostly apparitions and mysterious whispers have terrified guests for years at Petoskey's Terrace Inn and The House of Ludington in Escanaba, while eerie occurrences and disembodied voices wake guests in the night at Kalamazoo's Henderson Castle Inn. Once named America's Most Haunted City, Mackinac Island has enough ghosts to keep visitors sleepless for a lifetime.

Embark on a spine-chilling journey through the Mitten State with Haunted Flint author Roxanne Rhoads as she unveils the spooky history of Michigan's most haunted hotels and inns.

Your haunted travels begin here… if you dare to check in.  

Amazon     Bookshop     BaM


Thursday, August 1, 2024

Fanning Fireflies by LS Delorme #ParanormalMystery #Historical


Fanning Fireflies
Limerent Series
Book Three
LS Delorme

Genre: Romantic Historical Paranormal Mystery 
Publisher: Limerent Publishing
Date of Publication: April 19, 2024
ISBN:979-8-9874880-4-1
ASIN: B0CYCQ6XCF
Number of pages: 230
Word Count: 97000
Cover Artist: Brittany Wilson

Tagline: In 1944 Harrisville, Veronica’s dangerous love ignites a flame that reveals dark secrets, awakens ghosts and threatens to destroy all she loves.

Book Description: 

There is something rotten in Harrisville.

It’s 1944 and Veronica works tirelessly just so she can afford to eat. Maybe one day she will save enough to own the home her family is living in, but for now, she doesn’t have time for fanciful thoughts, or much else.  She doesn’t have time for the fire whispering to her, the ghosts trying to talk to her and the son of her boss, who can’t stop staring at her.  She definitely doesn’t have time to think about Lazlo, the handsome black soldier that she processed at the draft office, but she can’t seem to stop herself. As her ability to ignore Lazlo evaporates, so does her self-imposed ignorance about her hometown. There is, and always has been, something rotten in Harrisville. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, Veronica works in the cigarette factory, where corpses hide in the tobacco with the roaches. 

It’s 1944 and Veronica works tirelessly just so she can afford to eat. She doesn’t have time for fanciful thoughts, or much else.  She doesn’t have time for the fire whispering to her, the ghosts trying to talk to her and the son of her boss, who can’t stop staring at her.  She definitely doesn’t have time for love, even less for dangerous love. You see there is, and always has been, something rotten in Harrisville. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. 

After all, Veronica works in the cigarette factory, where corpses hide in the tobacco.


Excerpt:

Veronica froze.

Lazlo began walking the very same path she had walked minutes earlier, although he looked much more graceful than she must have looked. His gate was long and easy. His eyes were down, staring at the track as he walked. Veronica sat as still as she could, terrified that he might see her, equally terrified that he wouldn’t.

As he came to the spot where she was sitting, he didn’t look up. He walked right past her, as if he hadn’t seen her. Veronica felt a stab in her heart. Before she could stop herself, she called out.

“Aren’t you Lazlo Fox?”

He turned quickly.

“That’s me,” he said, and a grin lit up his face.

Now that he was here, Veronica realized that she hadn’t planned what she would say if she saw him. For a second, she considered saying that the draft office needed more information about him, but she realized that was both stupid and an obvious lie.

“I have an extra biscuit, if you’re hungry,” was what she managed to squeak out.”

She had hoped to be able to speak with him for a just a moment. She knew that it would be dangerous for him to even be seen with her, but as he walked toward her, she held the biscuit out for him. She knew that he would have to climb up to her to get it, and despite the danger, this is what she wanted.

Instead of scrambling up the broken concrete, as she had done, he gracefully jumped from one to the next, balancing on the ball of one foot as he landed on each one. In less than a minute he was standing on the rock next to her. She expected him to take the biscuit and leave, but she wanted him to stay… how badly she wanted him to stay.

Lazlo smiled and took the proffered biscuit bag gently from her, but his eyes were on her face, not on the bag. For a moment, he paused, and then he sat down next to her. He wasn’t so close that she might accidentally touch him but his feet dangling over the edge of the rock next to hers felt weirdly intimate.  He opened the bag and pulled out the biscuit. Veronica looked down at her biscuit and took a tiny bite, pretending to be engrossed in eating but her heart was racing so hard, she almost choked on the bread.

“Lazlo, that’s an unusual name, is it a family name or something?” she asked.

Lazlo turned and smiled at her. She was suddenly afraid that she had said something wrong or stupid, although she couldn’t for the life of her think what it was.

Lazlo’s eyes suddenly got wide.

“Well, my mama named me that cause she’s a witch,” he said quickly, and then winced and shook his head.

“That sounded awful,” he said quickly. “I’m not talking bad about my mama. She’s actually a witch, so she thinks like attracts like. And if she gives me a rich-sounding name that will draw money to me.”

Lazlo then laughed and shook his head.

“I can’t believe I just told you that,” he said. “I never told anyone that before. Probably because—”

Then he stopped.

Veronica’s heart felt like it had grown to take up the whole of her chest. She was frightened of what Lazlo would see if she looked at him, so she took another bite of her biscuit. When she did look up, he was looking at her with eyes that were hopeful and wary in equal measure.

“It sounds like your mother really cares about you,” was what she finally said. And that was all.

Looking at Lazlo’s guarded yet hopeful eyes, Veronica desperately wanted to tell him that none of this stuff mattered. She wanted to say that they could be friends, or even more. Inside, her crazy heart said that they could just run away together. She longed to say this out loud, but she knew it wasn’t true. Neither of them could outrun their class or caste. Lazlo was a colored man.

She was the poor white daughter of a single mother. If he was an untouchable, she was barely one step above that. Her brain told her that, even if her heart argued otherwise.

About the Author: 

Lexy is the Author of the Limerent novel universe.  The first two books in this universe were Caio and Bright Midnights. They are two of the three foundation books of the Limerent Series, and as such can be read in any order. 

Bright Midnights was picked as an Editor’s Choice by Booklife and received a Golden Wizard award in the UK in the category of YA.  

Lexy has also been a travel writer and author of The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland Hong Kong and An Expat Mom’s Unofficial Guide to Disneyland Paris. She is an ex rock musician, ex science grad, recovering attorney and now an expat writer.  Her love of writing stems from an eclectic life.  As a navy brat, she grew up in various states across the U.S. until her father retired to North Carolina when she was a teenager.   

As an adult, she has continued this tumbleweed life, having since lived in 3 countries, 9 US States, and 21 cities around the world. But, through all this change, her love of writing has been the one constant. Writing the Limerent Series allows her to use her unusual past to help create new worlds.  

Lexy now lives in Paris with her husband and two very cool sons.  
 
“Writing fiction gives you a place where you can put all the attractions that you probably shouldn’t feel, all the thoughts you are afraid of saying out loud, and all the rage that you can’t vent because you would kill people.  While we live, these moments stay with us, but when we die, they die too. When you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, you put these things out there in the world where they can be read by others.  This means that they have a life outside of you and outside of your own head, and that’s something that is really compelling to me. I like the idea that these amazing moments that I’ve had in life don’t disappear when I disappear.”  - LS Delorme 
 
“For me, writing is like therapy…just cheaper.  As most writers are not really individuals but a collection of individuals trying to find a way to live together in one brain, fiction allows them to make a home for all these people who live rent free inside their heads.  It’s also place that you can capture unique moments in life that impact you or that make you feel deeply.”  - LS Delorme