I'd said that the theme/topic for the week was a major character overcoming a fear. If you have an excerpt from your published book, or coming soon, you may post it in the comments. Excerpts should be no more than 500 words, and include the name of the book, author name (Sometimes it doesn't show up with the comment) and a buy link. Each time, I will pick a few excerpts as a blog feature, but even if you don't get in on that, the comments are open. Spread the word! The more participation this gets, eventually the bigger the audience. And you want readers to see what you're posting, so please reach out :)
I've got one feature for today's theme. If you want in, the comments are wide open! I'll also post the next theme/topic at the bottom of the post. Ideally, if you want to get in as a feature, the earlier you email me at Stormgoddess925@yahoo.com with your interest, the more likely it is you'll be featured. If you do become a feature, I'd like everything sent to me the Friday before your feature date.
Ready? Let's have a look at today's feature.
Blood's Voice Excerpt feature:
“Ya lost me. Are you saying you’re going to tell me or that you are not willing to be open and honest with me?”
“Declán, I am trying. You’re right; I’m not like other girls. I am not like other . . . humans you know. How to explain? Normal human girls are not cold. They cannot flawlessly hypnotize with nothing but their voice. They cannot outrun even the fastest animal without effort.
“But I don’t see how labels will help either. For now, I will just say that I am forever frozen as you see me now. As much as I want you, I am not a good companion for you.”
Understanding lit his gentle eyes. “You’re afraid I’ll run? I won’t. I don’t care, just be honest with me, please.”
“You may change your mind in time. I risk your safety and life every time I get near you. I would never deliberately harm you, but my very presence is dangerous . . . to you especially.
“I do not believe in harming humans, but you cannot even touch me without problems. Even more of a problem is that I crave your touch, among other things.” Did he understand yet? Would he fear me?
“I don’t understand, Anya. Why do you think you’ll hurt me just by being near me?”
No, he didn’t. Would he really make me use the crude words that Star and Nicholas used to describe us? Yes, he would if he could make me.
“Declán, have you ever seen me eat or drink anything? Do I not stand out to you at all as something not right? You pointed out that Nicholas and I are something other. Can you really not understand why I fear telling you, or worse, fear your reaction?”
“No, I haven’t, but that’s one of the many things on my list of weird things about you. I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I simply can’t.” How could he be calm? It was maddening! “Anya, you look positively ill. Are you sure you’re okay?” His worry was so sweet. Would he still be concerned when he knew the truth?
“Please, listen to what all I have told you and then tell me if you can truly not think of why I am having issues with explaining all this to you.” I could hear the edge in my voice, I knew it would affect him, but this is what I wanted. Really. “Please know that it is only fear that strangles the words within me. Once I say it, I will not be able to take it back.” I smiled, sadly, allowing my fangs to show, fully extended.
His curiosity was only slightly marred by fear. “Anya, what do you live on?” he asked quietly.
“Blood.
“The blood of animals, not humans,” I quickly qualified. “As I said before, I don’t believe in harming humans, not even to live.”
He swallowed hard, seeming to have trouble remembering how. I could hear his heart racing in an uneven dance I had never heard before. “You’re a . . . a-a vampire?”
Looking down, unable to bear seeing the fear and disgust he would finally feel, I simply whispered, “Yes.”
His breath caught and then he was up on his knees trying to turn my face up towards him. But, of course, he forgot he couldn’t touch me like that. Great, dazed again. I just cannot win. It was so maddening!
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/BloodsVoice
to buy in print: http://bit.ly/BloodsVoice-print
So you are free to comment. If you don't have an excerpt to share, that's okay. I'd love to know you stopped by. But I do hope you have some juicy excerpts for me to pawn over!
Now, for NEXT WEEKS Promotion feature: In light of the fact that we just had April Fools day, the theme/topic for your excerpt is going to be....A character is tricked/ had a joke played on them/ fooled. It doesn't even have to revolve around April Fools. As long as somehow someone was messed with as a joke, or even not, say someone lied, or whatever. Be creative! Hope to see you here today, and I hope I get some emails in my inbox for next promotion day.
Happy Monday! I've got the cure for your blues.
Until next time,
Storm Goddess
Hello Nikki! I enjoyed today's excerpt and like your idea to chase away the Monday morning blues. Here is my short excerpt:
ReplyDeleteRachel woke abruptly and looked around in confusion. It took a few moments for her to remember where she was and what had happened. She waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness, then quietly slipped out of bed so as not to disturb the sleeping man next to her. She never liked to chat in the morning with a new lover, especially one she barely knew.
Dressing quickly and quietly, she tiptoed out of the cabin and made her way back to her own quarters. She fell into her bed and a deep sleep with her clothes still on.
* * * *
For the next three days, Rachel felt lousy—tired and run down. She chalked the first day up to a hangover, even though she hadn’t had much to drink, but when she still felt ill two days later she knew something was wrong.
While not overly cheerful by nature, Rachel usually had an abundance of energy, so this feeling of lethargy was aggravating. She dragged through the days, then fell into an exhausted slumber early at night, too tired even to visit Orbitz.
On the fourth day she decided it was time to pay another visit to Brody and get to the bottom of this. Something odd had happened during her encounter with the bartender. She couldn’t shake the memory of that golden light…
Every night since then, she had fallen asleep to the vision of that otherworldly glow and the sensation of all the strength leaving her limbs as she was sucked down, consumed.
Not being a big believer in mystical mumbo-jumbo or the paranormal, Rachel had no idea what to make of what had happened. The most logical explanation was that she had been imagining things. But something in the back of her mind told her all was not well—there was more to this than met the eye. Some kind of hypnosis or maybe an hallucinogen in the Bloody Mary he’d given her. She knocked off work early and headed to the bar.
“What did you do to me?” Rachel asked the bartender as she plunked herself onto a stool early that evening.
“Well, hello to you too,” Brody responded with his usual big smile. “How are you today? I’ve missed seeing you.” He looked at Rachel with his beautiful green eyes and she felt heat rise in her body. Ignoring that burning flame, she concentrated on her mission.
“I’m terrible, that’s how I am. I think you used some sort of tantric sex hoodoo on me, or put something in that drink you gave me, because I feel like crap.”
When Irish Eyes Are Evil by Naomi Bellina
Buy link: http://tinyurl.com/7sqfdf2
Thanks for reading, and I'll see you again.
Naomi Bellina
Thanks for stopping by and playing! loved the excerpt! Have a great week.
DeleteThanks Naomi.
DeleteEnjoyed yours as well.
Here's an excerpt from The Ghost in the Basement, the first of my Ghost series.
ReplyDeleteHannah grabbed the big flashlight from the kitchen drawer and followed Donovan down the hidden stairs from the back of the pantry. These steps were steep, almost like a ladder, and the bottom of the steps rested on a dirt floor. With each step down, the air grew thicker, stale and airless. Hannah held her hand over her mouth and nose as she played her flashlight on the inside of the brick wall. It looked ragged, as if the cement holding the bricks together had been forced through from the other side and then left to harden like that. Why would someone wall this off?
Her foot hit something. Intense cold came up from the dirt floor and wrapped around her, chilling her to the bone. And then it moved away. Shivering, she pointed her flashlight down and gasped. “Is that... ?”
“Aw, shit! Sonny was right. Don’t move, Hannah.”
As if she could. She was too stunned to move. Those weren’t chicken bones she stepped on, and the cold she released wasn’t of this world. Grandpa said a murder had been committed in the house, but he didn’t say the body was still here.
“Okay, step back, straight back.”
She grabbed the stairs to steady herself as Donovan played his flashlight on the ground, then bent over for a closer look. “Looks like bones from a hand. Well, now we know why this was walled in.”
Hannah had never fainted before, but between the dark, the stale air, and the shock of finding those bones, her legs threatened to give way. Donovan grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Don’t go out on me now, Hannah. Stay with me.”
She leaned into him and he held her tightly against him. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Sure you will.” Still holding her, he called up the stairs. “Pop?”
“Yeah?”
“Call the station. Tell Peterson to send some men over to dig down here.”
“Dig for what?”
“Human remains.” His voice softened. “Come on, Hannah, let’s go upstairs.”
Shivering from the cold and the shock, Hannah stumbled up the stairs, with Donovan right behind her, his hand on her back to steady her.
As soon as she stepped from the pantry, he said, “Take deep breaths.”
Pop tried to hand the phone to Donovan.
“Hold on a minute, Pop.” Donovan pulled out a chair at the table and gently pushed Hannah into it. “Are you all right?”
“Just stunned.” That was a huge understatement. She’d walked on someone’s grave.
“Can I go look?” asked Billy.
“No.” All three adults spoke at once.
As the shock wore off and questions swam in the pool of her mind, one thought kept popping to the surface. Until now, no one but her family had ever lived in this house. That guy down there was either a member of her family. Or someone in her family had put him there.
Hannah sat at the kitchen table with Pop and Billy for several minutes watching men troop through her kitchen and down the basement stairs. How could they deal with this kind of thing all the time? She couldn’t stop shaking. First Grandma’s ghost and now this.
Donovan was downstairs, coordinating the activities in the basement. Hammers tapped, men and women called to each other, and the kitchen overflowed with people. Digging up a murder victim was serious business, and she knew whoever was buried down there had been murdered. Why else would he have been buried down there? Or was it a he?
Listening to the chipping and banging made Hannah jumpy, so she walked outside and sat on the front porch swing. She drew her left knee up and hugged it, leaving her right foot on the porch to keep the swing moving. If she held still, the world would come crashing in on her. There wasn’t just a body down there. She felt the cold and sensed the presence.
"Don’t be afraid," Grandpa said in his letter.
Of what, Grandpa? What had they released?
The Ghosts in the Basement - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007BTVT62
Oh my.....You had me sold at ghosts! Love it- thanks for playing!
DeleteThank you for the opportunity to post.
ReplyDeleteHere's something about my short story collection, Man Theory and Other Stories:
"Ouch" - Who knew a yoga class would be so dangerous...and romantic?
"Man Theory" - When a geeky co-worker espouses his theory on love, a friend risks her heart.
"Tommy and the Teacher" - A young boy steals from the school’s book fair causing interesting possibilities to arise.
Excerpt from "Man Theory":
"I have a theory about love.”
Ethan's statement knocked me from the proverbial mountain top. Eyeing him, I clapped my hand across my mouth to stifle a giggle.
From Day One at our new jobs at Prime Designs, Ethan and I had forged a friendship. I was the artsy-heartsy, emotional gal. Him--the technical, by-the-book pal. We ate an occasional dinner, watched a movie, whatever. Traded small gifts like coffee, a magazine, music. However, Ethan had never made an overture toward me.
Translated: Nothing intimate.
I'd said to myself, "Rats."
For work, we'd traveled to Colorado Springs to attend a workshop on web design innovations. After check-in, I'd joined him at the bridge crossing the lake to decide about lunch before the meetings commenced.
My six-one geek wearing rimless glasses, leaned against the railing, and stared into the sparkling blue waters of the high mountain lake, and the feathered fowl paddling by.
Have his feelings changed?
I asked in disbelief, "R-really? A theory...about love?"
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Theory-Other-Stories-ebook/dp/B00704USSI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331567622&sr=8-1
Great excerpt!
DeleteWhat a great blog meme. Don't have anything to share as of yet...but enjoyed what was here.
ReplyDeleteNichelle
I loved all the excerpts.
ReplyDeleteLoved the excerpts!
ReplyDeleteOoh, this is a fun thing. Okay, I'll share. This is from my short story, Beauty Touched the Beast.
ReplyDelete***
He ducked out of the kitchen with a glass of water as she entered it. Concerned and exasperated, she decided to confront him.
“Mr. Morris,” she called. When he froze, she softened her voice. “Blake.”
His name hung in the air between them, taunting her with its intimacy.
“I wanted to apologize again for what happened last time,” she explained. “I should have left right away when I saw what you were doing…I was just surprised.”
He looked surprised now, too. He cleared his throat. “Apology accepted.”
He flashed her what was she supposed was a conciliatory smile but looked more like a grimace. And that made her think of what he looked like when he climaxed. Dammit.
She really should shut up now, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I was wondering if you, that is, if you were thinking of me…weren’t you?”
His eyes widened even as his lips tightened.
“Well, it’s only that, I wondered if… if it was just a passing thought or if it was more...”
He looked alarmed now and she cursed herself silently. “Erin,” he said, his voice strangled. “You don’t feel that I was asking you to do anything…inappropriate, do you? That I would try to make you do something you don’t want?”
“No!” she exclaimed in dismay. “Of course not. I just meant that, well, if you were interested in me that way, well, I...”
She took a deep breath and rushed out, “I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it.”
“You –” He broke off. She noticed detachedly that his hand was gripping the counter so tight his knuckles were white.
***
There ya go! If you're interested in the story, you can grab it for free from All Romance (http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-beautytouchedthebeast-646572-149.html) or Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108871)
Great snippets.
ReplyDeleteThis is going to make Mondays so fun! Enjoyed reading everyone's excerpts! Love the idea :)
ReplyDelete