#WordlessWednesday African Princess by @DarioJart @deviantART #fantasy #art

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#WordlessWednesday #African Body Art by Guido Daniele

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The Healer’s Warrior WIP excerpt Part 2

My image of Ugo. The Protector by Sterling Brown 

This week I’m sharing an excerpt from my paranormal romance work-in-progress The Healer’s Warrior. To find out more about the story and read the first part of the excerpt, click on the link to go to yesterday’s post.

To read the other submissions for Romantic Friday Writers, go here. The theme for this week is Haunting in celebration of All Hallows Eve.

To read the other submissions for Weekend Dirty Dozen, go here. I’m sure there’ll be a few spooky stories with bite there too.

The Healer’s Warrior WIP excerpt

My image of Ebube. Illustration by Jenny Dolfen

In honour of All Hallows Eve, I’m sharing an excerpt from my paranormal romance work-in-progress titled The Healer’s Warrior. This story is part of a paranormal series I hope will be published next year. It is set in medieval Iboland. Whilst I've based the story on certain Igbo mythologies and traditions, it is wholly a work of fiction and fantasy.

The story so far: Ugo is a young woman who has been ostracised by her community. She is an outcast living with her paternal grandmother on the edge of society. She is also gifted with healing powers. One day she finds a strange injured warrior, Ebube, in the dark forest. She patches him up temporarily and takes him home. That night she dreams a demon is going to attack Ebube. She wakes from her dream and tells her grandmother and Ebube. They both urge her not to worry, so she returns to sleep only to be woken later by her grandmother.

Whispers - snippet from His Treasure

Hi readers, this week I’ve got a double challenge.

The first 12 sentences of this snippet are for the Weekend Dirty Dozen blog hop. It is a blog fest for romance and erotic writers to share 12 sentences every weekend for promotional purposes on their websites and blogs of their new releases and WIPs. Please use the link when you’re done to visit the Facebook page or blog to see who else is participating in the hop.

For Romantic Friday Writers, each Friday members post 300-400 words of romantic prose or poem on own blog based on a theme for the week. This week’s theme is Whispers. Use the link to see other submissions for the week.

I’m sharing a snippet from His Treasure, my debut historical romance novella set in pre-colonial West Africa. It is published by Breathless Press and out in December 2011. Click here to read the blurb.

For this scene, Adaku is with her friend Ifeoma at the New Yam festival when she hears worrying rumors about her husband Obinna that could change their marriage.

Thrusty Thursday - Debut Book Cover

Hello readers, welcome back to Thrusty Thursday. I have exciting news today.

Apart from the hard graft of editing and revising a manuscript in preparation for publication, other things happen in the background. Like reviewing and signing off the final cover art for the book. For me this is the most anticipated milestone outside of the publication date. As a visual person, covers are what attract me to books. They lead me to read the blurbs and find out more about the content of the book.

Today I can finally reveal the cover for my debut book titled His Treasure due out in December 2011. It’s a historical romantic fiction set in the region now referred to as South Eastern, Nigeria or Igboland and is part of the 3-book Men of Valor mini-series.

I am so excited about this book, in fact the whole series, as it would be the first of its kind to be published for the romance reading mass-market. Where else would you find a purely African historical romantic book or series? If I’m wrong, I’m sure someone will correct me.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the cover for His Treasure. Ta-da!

Sneak preview of WIP

Welcome back to Thrusty^TM Thursday.

Gosh! Thursday comes around pretty quickly these days. I feel as if I only did a post a few hours ago. It’s been one thing or the other this week. And I’ve been shoulders deep in editing, not just one but two books.

As some of you know already, I’m currently working on a historical romance series set in pre-colonial West Africa (the region now known as south-east Nigeria). The stories deal lightly with cultural issues at play in those days – including arranged marriages, polygamy, the importance of lineage, etc. These issues make for interesting conflicts with heroes and heroines that don’t always play by the rules. But we like rule-breakers in fiction, don’t we?

Thrusty Thursday - Inspirations

Welcome back to Thrusty Thursday ^(TM). This week we are talking about inspirations.

What are the things that inspire you as a writer?

I’m a very visual writer. I like to see things, colours, shapes, movement, lines, etc. Most of all as a romance writer, I like to see people and places.

When an idea comes to me, the first thing I visualise is the hero or heroine. In most cases it’s the hero first. Then I scramble around trying to find an image that closely matches what I picture in my head. On days like that I am thankful for Google. I am thankful that I don’t have to trawl through loads of magazines or slide images at the library. I simply have to type in a keyword into a website and my screen is filled with images of gorgeous men instantly.

WARNING: Don’t try this at home with little children hanging over your shoulders. You never know what image would be thrown into the mix. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. LOL

Anyway I digress. So, back to my inspirations. Last week I introduced you to Kola from HWB. This week I want to introduce you to the hero of a paranormal historical romance story I’m also writing. It is set in pre-colonial West Africa and is part of an epic series.

The hero, Ebube, is a fearsome Ure warrior, a guardian of the gateway between the physical and spiritual realm. The precarious peace on earth is under threat and he is on a mission to prevent a war breaking out when he encounters the heroine Ugo.

When I started the story I searched for an image that was close to the one I had in my head and eventually found this. As soon as I saw it I knew it was Ebube. The markings on his body are slightly different from what I had pictured in my head but trust me, everything else is him. It was as if the illustrator (Jenny Dolfen, I think) drew this for me. So say hello to Ebube.

Oh and did you guess right? Ebube is a shifter. His spirit beast is a leopard. So you can imagine how accurate I thought this picture was.

And now for the excerpt

***

 After bathing and getting dressed again, she left the pool and walked towards the stream. A movement in the periphery of her vision made her look upwards. Her footsteps and heart faltered to a halt. At the top of a hill of large boulders that separated the farmlands from the dark forest was a man.

At least she thought it was a man.

He was crouched low on his haunches. He rose slowly and stretched languorously. There was something about the physical dexterity of the man that kept her attention.

Ebube!

Recognition dawned on her. Her heart pounded in her chest erratically.

What was he doing up there? How did he get up there?

The early sun rays shimmered off his dark body and for a moment she held her breath. He was a sight to behold. With a grace she couldn’t describe he stretched out his body upwards again. His muscle movement was fluid as he leapt of the boulder onto another and yet another before landing on the red soil on the bank of the stream. When he looked at her his eyes had the catlike glint she had seen last night. Mesmerised, she stood still as he strode towards her.

He didn’t say anything until he reached her. Heart still pounding, she watched him walk around her slowly his chest brushing her shoulders. The warm tingles swarmed her body again. He sniffed the air around her and she heard something that sounded like a grunt and turned to face him. Filled with expectation but not sure for what, she could feel her body start to quiver, her nerve endings on alert waiting for his touch. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand upright.

As if in response to her thought, he lifted her up into his arms. She yelped and hung on to him as he carried her up the rocky hill, her ite abandoned by the footpath.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked with bewilderment.

“Be patient, precious one. You’ll soon see.” His voice had an edge to it like someone was sawing wood.

Copyright Kiru Taye 2011

***

So what inspires you as a reader or writer? Are you a visual reader or writer? Share your thoughts with me.

Wishing you all a very thrusty Thursday.