Calypso's Heart: Guest Post and Giveaway

Calypso’s Heart
M.C. Solaris
(Orion’s Order #1)
Publication date: May 15th 2020
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance

If you enjoy Psy-Changeling and Black Dagger Brotherhood, this new series is right up your alley!

Sexy shifters. Hot vampires. Intriguing immortals. Strong heroine. Sizzling romance. Page-turning plot full of emotion and excitement. Modern and fresh take on fated mates.

Caly

Do you dream of ridiculously hot men? Okay, maybe you do. (And yes, I’m well aware I should lay off the romance books before bed.) But do you actually ever meet those men you dream about in real life? I didn’t think so. That’s probably a good thing though because I have… And these men from my dreams have done nothing but pull the rug of reality out from under me… which was how I fell and ended up in a world that I thought only existed in romance books.

My name is Caly (AKA Callie) and I’m just an ordinary single woman living the LA dream… paycheck to paycheck. Except whose dream is it? I’m not really sure… but it’s not my dream. Especially because I have really weird dreams… like really weird. Then again, everyone has weird dreams, right?

Blake

I am an alpha wolf shifter and leader of Orion’s Order, a pack of… well, not wolves. We’re an unconventional pack of highly skilled specian hunters that do one thing: hunt the evil in our world. And we were hired by SILE (Species Investigative Law Enforcement) to hunt a bloodthirsty criminal who is infamously untraceable. That was until an irresistible female brought an unexpected twist to our hunt and set things in motion… a motion that has left my pack and our world forever changed.

Welcome to The Order and a secret world of magic and mystery, where a pack of unlikely friends find love and fight against an ancient evil force.

Devour this addictive series at your own risk…

+ Happily Ever After

+ Steamy Paranormal Shifter Romance

+ Multiple POV

+ Mature Content

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CALYPSO’S HEART is an adult paranormal wolf shifter romance. If you like swoon-worthy males, heroines with feminine strength, an engaging plot, satisfying relationships, steamy love stories, happy ever afters, and getting sucked into a supernatural story, then you’ll want to immerse yourself in the world of species!

You’ll feel right at home if you’re a JR Ward, Nalini Singh, and Dannika Dark fan.

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“It has the elements you need – love, pain, heartache, action, revenge, some light comedy, etc. I thought the sex scenes were SPOT ON! Like damn those were great. I really felt immersed in it at times and I felt transported into the story.” ★★★★★

“The descriptions and imagery are on point. It’s easy to picture the characters and scenes. I like the multiple POV shifts to better understand and immerse myself in the character’s mind. The sex scenes are steamy and kept me turning the pages.” ★★★★★

“…if you are looking for a book that punches you in your face, right out the gate, with unrealistic action, tasteless sex scenes, and emotional turmoil, this won’t be it. Go watch Shameless instead. But if you are looking for something that unfolds at a pace that gives you time to decipher the characters, setting, and complexities of the story that is to come, then this is for you…” ★★★★★

“…at one point in the book, a group of characters are all introduced in a short amount of time. While this might not be standard protocol for fictional stories, it’s realistic. Trust that it was done with purposeful intent. Without giving away too much about the story, you get to learn about a pack of males in their environment, doing what males do…” ★★★★★

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Character Development Process for Calypso’s Heart (Orion’s Order Book 1)

by M.C. Solaris, paranormal romance author

So, what’s my “secret sauce” to character development in Calypso’s Heart?

The honest answer is... I don’t know.

Now, I’m sure that’s not exactly the answer you were looking for. And I’m also sure that’s not the “proper” way I should start off with writing this blog post. But something about me that I believe is a direct reflection in my writing style and process is that I often say, “Fudge the rules.” Okay, maybe I don’t exactly use the word for the delicious sweet treat (because why would I taint such a divine gift from the Gods? ;) ) but I think you get my point.

The thing is, I didn’t go to school to be a writer. Hell, I’ve never even taken a creative writing class or anything to do with writing classes either. The only thing I know about writing is from writing those boring as hell essays in school growing up, where I spent a ridiculous amount of time learning MLA format and that cursed reference page only to be thrown the biggest curve ball of my freaking life when in college I was told to write yet another boring essay about who in the hell even remembers or cares about but make sure it was in APA format (shout out to Purdue Online Writing Lab and lots of caffeine).

Anyway, my point is my writing process, including “character development,” is probably not the norm. I didn’t just sit down one day with a lifelong dream, too much time on my hands, and pent up creative energy, and say, “I’m going to write a paranormal romance story” and then proceed to plan the plot and strategize the storyline and characters. In fact, I wasn’t even planning on ever being an author, let alone publishing paranormal romance (PNR). Sure, I’m an avid reader of PNR and love it but it wasn’t in the realm of my conscious mind to write PNR. Until one day during the January 2019 super blood moon eclipse, I literally woke up and began writing bios for my imaginary friends (AKA the characters that were suddenly in my head introducing themselves and sharing their world with me). And as soon as I started writing, I couldn’t stop. The words and scenes were just in my mind, playing out like a movie and I just wrote them down. This is how Calypso’s Heart was written. This is how the characters were written. This is how the “character development” was written. (PS: This is also how Book 2 (Rhyker’s Key) and Book 3 (title not yet revealed) were written).

So, I don’t have any specific ingredients to give you as to what the “secret sauce” for the character development in Calypso’s Heart is. But what I can share is that I believe in following your own creative process and your own creative compass (that creative True North that’s inside of you and I believe is guiding you). What works best for one author, may not work best for you. And if I may leave a parting thought to all of this, it would be to follow that True North, trust your instincts and intuition, have faith in your desires and dreams, and don’t be afraid to say, “Fudge the rules!”

Author Bio:

M.C. Solaris’s life took an unexpected turn during the super blood moon eclipse on January 20, 2019. She woke up and began writing bios for her imaginary friends that she met that day. As soon as the pen hit the paper (or fingertips to the iPhone), she couldn’t stop. It was kind of like one of those fire hydrants, spewing copious amounts of water all over the place. The characters and their stories just flowed out of her. She is honored to be the scribe, getting to share her friends’ stories. You can read all about her gifted friends in the Orion’s Order series (Book 1 is Calypso’s Heart).

On a personal note, M.C. Solaris is actually the pseudonym of Marina Schroeder, women’s health enthusiast and lover of all things paranormal romance (PNR) and happily ever after (HEA). When she is not curled up on the sofa with her partner’s oversized hoodie, a PNR novel, peppermint tea, and one of her three cats, you will find her either at the ocean with her toes in the sand or in a forest hugging a tree. Well truthfully? There is one more place you might find her: trolling the aisles of Whole Foods for a satisfying combination of salty and sweet while hiding in her partner’s hoodie… like any proper PNR-writing introvert.

Want to get the latest scoop, sneak peeks, and short shares all about her imaginary friends? Go to www.mcsolaris.com and sign up for the newsletter.
Welcome to The Order!

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GIVEAWAY!
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Caught: Blog Tour and Giveaway

 

Caught

Sea Temptress Series

Book One

Kimberley Cale

Genre: Fantasy romance

ISBN: 978-1-7772821-0-3

ASIN: B08D7T8YSK

Number of pages: 155

Word Count: 58127

Cover Artist: Sharko Studios cover model Taylor Walker

Tagline: She was just supposed to be a myth. He was just supposed to be a stupid pirate. Who knew?

Book Description: 

A vengeful pirate…

Ruthless pirate captain Quinn O’Connor is bent on getting revenge on the creatures who wrecked his ship and killed his crew. When he claims their leader as his captive, he doesn’t expect the scorching consequences that come with being stranded with her on a mysterious island.

A beautiful sea temptress…

Lorelei, a daughter of Poseidon, is willing to bargain with the dangerous pirate who captured her in order to save the ones she loves. He believes the worst of her and her kind, and when he drags her onto dry land, turning her beautiful tail into a pair of unsteady legs, she’s not sure if she’ll be able to return home—and soon she starts to wonder if she really wants to.

Magic and mayhem bring them together…

With each smoldering kiss, each heated touch, their desire blazes higher. Can they overcome misunderstandings and monstrous enemies seeking to tear them apart? Will a mermaid challenge her fate for the love of a pirate? Will the vengeful pirate give up his revenge and take on a god to save his mermaid?

Amazon

Excerpt One for Caught

He’d make her pay. He vowed it. Quinn sat with his unconscious prey in the only remaining rowboat. With red-rimmed eyes, he watched as his ship, his pride and joy, The Mayhem, was consumed by fire. Yellow and orange flames blazed, creating a distorted tale of fiery devastation on the dark waters, while billowing black smoke overshadowed the star-studded sky above.

He would not look away, not from the sweltering heat of the flames, nor from the acrid stench of burning oiled wood and sail. Not even the vile smell of human flesh set afire could make him avert his gaze. He wanted to imprint this sight into his brain, so when he was ready to punish the murderous little creature he had captured and plucked from the sea, he would not falter. He would remember and take measure for measure.

He stared at her now, and hatred raged in his heart. Her face, so deceptively innocent, did not fool him. Relentlessly, he rowed towards the little island not far off while his thoughts churned on the treachery of women.

Having once been played the fool by a pretty face in his checkered past, he’d learnt a thing or two about women and their self-serving ways. He’d almost paid the price by getting leg shackled to one until he’d discovered the true extent of her devious nature.

Fortunately, he’d found her out before she’d been able to cause too much damage.

The one taking up space in his rowboat had scuttled his ship and succeeded in sending his crew on a one-way journey to Davy Jones’s Locker.

It gutted him to think of their lifeless bodies drifting down into a watery grave while their murderer sat across from him, alive and well.

Quinn collapsed back into the bow of the rowboat. His weary mind drifted back to before the mermaid had invaded his life. Memories took on a dreamlike quality, taking him back to just before this nightmare started, as if the events were occurring for the first time.

About the Author:

Kimberley Cale writes fantasy romance and is the author of the Sea Temptress Series and the epic Tales of Terraron. She has been a reading addict for as long as she can remember. While she enjoys reading anything and everything from historical, paranormal to contemporary novels, she has found her passion bringing her feisty heroines together with their bad boy heroes and adding a spark of magic to create fantastic page turning romance.

After visiting over half of the United States, Mexico, The Dominican, Europe and parts of Canada, she can honestly say the experience has broadened her perspective on other cultures and enlivened her already overactive imagination.

Her family will tell you that from the time she was a child she has rarely been without a journal in hand building worlds for her characters to live in and exciting obsoletes for them to overcome.

With a few college and online writing courses under her belt, Kimberley is constantly learning how to improve her writing craft online, While she worked for an insurance company, part of her job involved writing letters to claimants. These were sad tales that should have started with sorry for your loss. Later she worked in the safety industry and wrote many a safety manual for different companies. Unfortunately not one manual included an ounce of romance in it. Finally after years of research, which involved reading a great variety of romance novels well into the night, she decided to pursue her writing passion.

Kimberley’s other loves besides her awesome family include, trying unsuccessfully to keep the weeds out of her garden. So far verbal threats and hand gestures haven’t worked; still it’s a war she intends to win. She’s also obsessed with a streaming cup of hot chocolate; well chocolate of any kind really, there’s been talk amongst family and friends about an intervention. When she’s not writing you will find her snuggled next to her hubby searching Netflix for the latest epic movies.

More than anything else she loves hearing from her readers and makes it a priority to respond to any and all who are willing to take the time to send her a line.

Website www.kimberleycale.com

Twitter   https://twitter.com/kimberleycale/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KimberleyCaleAuthor/

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The Warrior's Progeny: Excerpt and Giveaway

The Warrior’s Progeny

The Heaven and Earth Series

Book Two

Jeny Heckman

Genre: Paranormal/Fantasy Romance

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Date of Publication: 07/27/2020

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-5092-3219-2

ISBN (Digital): 978-1-5092-3220-8

ASIN: B089PZQJ34

Number of pages: 424

Word Count: 102,620

Cover Artist: Debbie Taylor

Tagline:  If love dies, can it be reborn…only stronger?

Book Description:

Colton Stone is a newly traded tight end whose reputation is as battered as his football helmet. When he receives a vacation invitation from his new teammates, he accepts. There he collides with Dr. Lillian Morgan, a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon, and doesn't know what to think.

A widow with two children, Lilly is looking forward to her friends' wedding. When she meets Colton Stone, his arrogant attitude only makes her long for the love she took for granted. Lilly struggles between letting go of her perfect past for an uncertain future.

Strange events occur, out of the realm of normal consciousness. When black energy touches their world Colt and Lilly become the pawns of the immortal Greek gods. Is the love developing between them natural, or part of a larger prophecy?

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/zy5nbMGQoCg

Amazon     BN      iBooks

EXCERPT 1: (244 words)

Colt’s body temperature heated until his helmet, now that of a Trojan, melted and became part of his skull. Painful, thick, fire plumes ignited from the sides of his head and curved toward the sky, until they solidified in a solid line down the middle of the helmet. Black snake-like smoke wafted up from the earth and encircled his ankles and wrists, locking him into place.

The smoke turned into bindings and massaged tentacles over his chest and phallus.

He looked over at Lilly, who now knelt helpless as her skin became dusky, then turned a brilliant shade of blue. However, the color became an iridescent hue that reminded him of something just outside the confines of his mind. Her skin bubbled, separated, and formed into thousands of compact hairs. Small points protruded from her shoulders and down her arms until they freed themselves from the surface of her skin, as she screamed. Several long, hollow shoots grew, lengthening into the elegant, arching rods, as more buds sprouted from them and turned into thready feathers. As the feathers lengthened, green and blue eyes opened in intervals. At a screech of transformation, Lilly turned into a peacock, whose tail plumed out in a perfect fan. A feathered diadem lifted from her skull and the beautiful eyes all blinked at him. He wanted to mate with her, devour her, possess her, and bellowed out an unearthly warrior battle cry. Breaking his bonds, he charged at her.

About the Author:

Award-winning author, Jeny Heckman, was born in Bellingham, Washington, and was the youngest of two daughters. She met her husband, Jeff, in August 1992, and eloped three months later, at Magen’s Bay, on St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.

She wrote her first book, the Catch, in a few short months but took several years before she gained the courage to self-publish it at her son’s urging, and her love for writing began.

In 2018, Jeny knew her next project would be a series that showed adults could have adventures in the paranormal-fantasy genre too. So, she created the Heaven & Earth series, a story of doomed Greek gods and their only salvation, their modern-day descendants. Her first book of the series, the Sea Archer, was immediately picked up by the New York publishing house, the Wild Rose Press, and won, “Best in Category” from the 2018 Chanticleer International Book Awards.

In the year 2020, Jeny released, Dancing Through Tears, a short story from the anthology, Australia Burns: Volume Two, highlighting the Route 91 massacre from the perspective of one family at the concert, and at Mandalay Bay. She also intends to release, the Warrior’s Progeny, and Dee’s Cornucopia, in 2020, continuing the Heaven & Earth Series.

Jeny lives in Washington State with her husband of over twenty-eight years.

Website: https://jenyheckman.com/

Amazon Author Central: https://www.amazon.com/Jeny-Heckman/e/B010PJ4IR6/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heckman.jeny

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenyheckman

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenyheckman

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeny-heckman/

Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/jenyheckman17

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14228337.Jeny_Heckman

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/jeny-heckman

YouTube: https://bit.ly/30vNfUI

iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/author/jeny-heckman/id1436374028

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dDTPI9

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The Road Not Take: Guest Post and Giveaway

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The Road Not Taken    
Susan Rubin

Genre: Fiction: Women’s Fiction, SciFi/Time Travel, Fantasy
Publisher: Harvard Square Editions
Date of Publication: September 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-941861-68-4
Number of pages: 290

Tagline:  A trippy fantasy that uses time travel to explore the inner drives of a woman in midlife whose errand to a department store lipstick counter becomes an opportunity to unravel the mystery of self.

Book Description:

Widowed suddenly at age 50, Deborah is left with plenty of money but no direction to her life. Shedding her suburban housewife life, she moves back to the West Village where she grew up.

When she meets a woman who appears to be an identical twin, Deborah discovers the Lost: a group of 100 fully-formed people who were dropped off on Earth as it cooled down and who have lived on the planet as it developed.

The Lost show her the myriad dimensions of Spacetime, taking her to ancient Egypt, Weimar Germany, and planets without inhabitants. They reunite her with deceased loved ones. She forms relationships with an Egyptian god and a famous artist through whom she lives new truths and learns who she needs to become to walk the road not taken.

From the Author:

My debut novel, The Road Not Taken, is about a woman who is smart, suddenly widowed, and without a purpose in life. Early in the story she meets a woman who appears to be her twin sister, but who is a 50 million year old member of a small group of humans who arrived on earth as soon as it cooled down. 

Deborah has been chosen to give the members of this early group of earthlings an “argument” for or against going on with planet earth which requires a lot of energy. Every 10 thousand years, the group finds a human being who can show them how far the species has progressed. In this case, they chose Deborah who is bright, but has done nothing to help make earth a better place. She is out of touch with every human part of herself.

She must learn things that most of us never see, giving her an intensive course on our universe including insights into human pros and cons. She is taken to horrible historic times, and magical places, like the discovery of Egyptian gods. She is shown planets that are archived because they were not worth maintaining, she befriends a brilliant artist who is no longer alive.

Deborah begins to constantly ask herself if the world is worth saving. Being the “decider” for her, I had to write an answer to this question. It was hard to grapple with my own sadness at things that are unbearable to me: violence, cruelty, lack of compassion for people and animals. The animals are where I initially made the judgement to close this planet down. Too much flesh eaten, too many trophies taken for fun. Too many people who abandon old dogs or cats when they become annoying and hard to care for.

I was on my way to writing a closing argument for her that suggested ending this whole cruel place. Then something amazing happened.

My friend, a burly, manly guy who loves football and steak, found a tiny kitten outside his house. He thought it was dead, but he chose to pick it up and he felt its heartbeat. He rushed the kitten to a vet and was given eyedroppers to feed him, flee meds to clean off his tiny body.

For 8 days this “tough” man hand fed the little cat sending constant updates on the kitten’s eating and breathing to me, along with amazingly hopeful photos. He held him all day to keep him warm. He showed me what the human at its best is like. 

Soon after I finished the book my friend called -- the kitten had died. His heart just stopped beating. My friend and I hung up because we were both crying. But now I remembered what is worth saving on earth.
 

Amazon

About the Author:

Susan Rubin has written for Funny or Die, and in contrast, she’s written more than two dozen documentaries that highlight international women’s issues like domestic violence, forced child marriage, and untested rape kits accumulating in police evidence rooms. Rubin has used her skill, empathy, and compassion to render these darkest of topics into accessible films distributed to tens of thousands of college classrooms.

As a playwright, Rubin has, for 20 years, been the recipient of Los Angeles County Arts Commission Grants and Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department Grants. She also was honored with a six-year residency at the prestigious Los Angeles Theatre Center. Her plays have been seen at New York Theatre Workshop, Baltimore Center Stage, and at every major 99 seat theatre in Los Angeles including co-productions with Bootleg Theatre, Circle X, Skylight Theatre to name a few. She is the recipient of Garland, Ovation and LA Weekly Awards.

https://www.susanrubinwriter.com/

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The Ashes: Playlist and Giveaway