What kind of stories scare you? Fright Night #BlogHop #Giveaway #ASMSG

Welcome to Fright Night Blog Hop hosted by Anna at The Herd Hops. This fright fest runs from Oct 24th to 31st and we are celebrating some of our favorite paranormal or spooky books. There are loads of prizes to be won across the blogs participating.

Over here I'm giving away $5 Gift Card (Amazon or All Romance, winner choice). I'll tell you more about it below.

Thrusty Thursday: Masks of a Tiger @mamaD8 #BookReview

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Thrusty Thursday. I’ve been trying to catch up with my To-Be-Read pile and this week I've got another book to recommend.

Disclaimer: No favours have been exchanged for these reviews. 

Masks of a Tiger by Doris O’Connor 

Tags: paranormal, erotica, BDSM, interracial 

Blurb

Neeve doesn't understand why any normal person would choose to wear a collar like a common house pet. So, the collaring ceremony of her best friend's sister-in-law is the last place she wants to be, even if the hot men watching her send her insides aflame.

Never one for missing the opportunity to teach a bratty sub manners, Grisha intends to show the fiery little redhead the error of her ways. He doesn't expect to see her drawn to the flame like the proverbial moth. When she hurts herself in ways that even a Dom of his experience finds hard to witness, he knows he needs to help her.

Will their sexual chemistry be enough to chase away their demons and burn away their masks? Or is the submission Grisha demands too much for Neeve to accept?

Thrusty Thursday: Incubus Hunter @Firebaptizedd #BookReview

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Thrusty Thursday. I’ve been trying to catch up with my To-Be-Read pile and read a few books over the past week. Here's one I’d like to recommend.

Disclaimer: No favours have been exchanged for these reviews. 

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Incubus Hunter by Kenya Wright

Tags: paranormal, erotica, novella, free kindle eBook (at time of writing this)

Blurb

Whispers swirl throughout the underworld of Carmen, the fanged elf with the violet eyes. They say she hunts incubus demons, not for money, but to clear a debt with a powerful wizard. 

But time is winding down. Carmen has five days to clear the balance or she loses her daughter. Desperation forces her to go after Blaze. He’s worth two million dollars dead or alive.

The hunt begins. She spots him and sets a seductive trap. It’s just business as usual—until she ends up capturing so much more.

This is a novella with adult content and sexual situations. 

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.

Romantic Friday Writers - Voices

This week on Romantic Friday Writers the theme is voices. 

My submission is a piece of prologue I wrote a few weeks ago when an idea came into my head. It’s starts of a bit on the dark side but don’t worry it’s ultimately a romance. The title of the story is His Captive. But I also think this piece works well as flash fiction. So join me as we take a walk on the dark side on RFW.

Word Count: 399

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                              Image is courtesy of jamesloveless.com

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

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 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

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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.