🎄 A warning comes with this clever book: A clever black cat, Christmas magic and paranormal trouble. You have been warned! #paranormal #christmas #cats

FOOD FOR POE

by

Mae Clair

When a blizzard strands Quinn Easterly at a handsome stranger's house on Christmas Eve, she doesn't realize her newly adopted cat, Poe, is the catalyst responsible for bringing them together.

Breck Lansing gave up on relationships after his wife, unable to cope with their daughter’s illness, left him. But the pretty blonde he rescues from a snowstorm has him rethinking his stance—especially when Quinn’s arrival coincides with a dramatic change in Sophie’s health.

Unfortunately, that change also attracts something only whispered about in folklore. Together, Quinn and Breck must defeat a sinister creature intent on claiming the ultimate payment.

 Warning: A clever black cat, Christmas magic and paranormal trouble

Amazon

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Like Sliding Doors or paranormal books like it? Check out Wide Awake Asleep! It’s half price! Paranormal✔ Time travel ✔ Romance✔ #supportIA #timetravel #paranormal

Wide Awake Asleep

by

Louise Wise

Amazon. UK | Amazon.com

There's someone for everyone—or so they say. Yet Julie’s ‘the one’ ran off with her best friend.

Julie never forgave either of them, but when she heard they died in tragic circumstances she realised that life was too short for regrets and dived into life making her career ‘the one’.

Except, Fate had other ideas.

Unbeknown to Julie, she’d taken the wrong destiny path and Fate needed to put things right. It sent Julie back to when it started to all go wrong for her… back to 1972 when she was five years old.

One problem.

She had to occupy other people’s bodies and watch her life through their eyes, while trying to stop her former self from making the same wrong decisions.

It was as disconcerting as you could get!

Wide Awake Asleep is currently on a countdown deal. Get it now while it’s only 99p!

Excerpt from Chapter Five Wide Awake Asleep

My head was buzzing; thoughts that weren’t mine invaded my mind. I looked over at the mirror on the dresser, then back at the contents of the bag on the bed. I looked at my hands. I’d noticed they looked different before, but I’d ignored their appearance—had to ignore it, to preserve my sanity.

A stranger’s thoughts persisted in my head. Mundane things of another life that I didn’t belong to.

I looked at the mirror again, then rose and forced my legs to move forwards. I knew I’d look different, but the jolt of shock hit me anyway. Instead of seeing my own face, I saw a young woman with a thin, pockmarked face and awful buck teeth. Instead of my blonde no-nonsense bob, my hair was long and brown. A wave of nausea turned my stomach as I stared at my reflection. I should be seeing a forty-nine-year-old woman in her prime, not a twenty-something scraggy-haired woman. I should be immaculately made up with perfect teeth and skin, not… not this.

An unexpected thought popped into my head. Will I look more professional if I put my hair up or should I leave it down? It wasn’t my thought. It belonged to whoever’s body I was occupying.

One thought was spinning around in my mind—and it was mine: I had died in the crash, and this was some sort of afterlife.

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Nurture or nature? Does anyone have any answers? #paradox #paranormal #timeslipnovels #timetravel

by

Louise Wise

I tend to write about lonely, could-have-psychological-problems characters who mingle with the 'normal' so my books have a dark edge, and my latest book is no different, but it has got me thinking about the human psyche and our chosen path in life.

My character starts out as a hard-nosed career woman in her late forties. She has no family other than an elderly mother. Her words 'I have no time for relationships' is true as she rushes from one business deal to the next.

Now, although this is a book plug, it has also made me think about the nurture/nature thing as my character (Julie Compton from WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP) is able to change her past by taking a different road in life, and I wonder how nurture, as opposed to nature, shapes all of us.

The protagonist from Wide Awake Asleep was shaped by her past, but as she is spirted back to her childhood she makes different choices and changes the very psyche of her being. Is that nature or nurture?

As I understand it:

Nurture = how we're brought up/outside the family influences/schools/friends/how family deal with tragedy/extreme happiness and excitement.

Nature = genes pure and simple.

If one of your parents has an illness you're more likely to get it, but if the illness is avoidable (through diet/awareness) it can be halted (type 2 diabetes for example) but if you 'catch' an avoidable illness it's back to nurture (learned habits).

I thought it was cut and dried, too. But another thing puzzles me... the little 'ticks' people have ie fiddling with your hair, that particular way you have/do things that is copied from your parents. That should be nurture/learned behaviour, surely?

OK, here's the story that got me thinking, I was visited the other day by a young relative who was brought up by her mum and never saw her dad (he died) but her mannerisms were EXACTLY the same as his. It was so startling it was uncanny.

This wasn't nurture/learned behaviour. It was passed down through genes.

How fascinating that simple gestures are passed from one generation to the next!

WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP

Find out what happens when an extraordinary event takes Julie Compton on a paranormal adventure through her past to correct a time paradox.

Amazon.UK | Amazon.com

‘Past events can be changed but one must be careful of how one does it because it’ll impact on the rest of one’s life.’—Dáire Quin, Modify your Destiny if you Must, 2003

No one saw Julie’s car leave the road, no one saw her crash into the watery ditch, no one saw the gnarled tree branch pierce through the window screen and impale her in her seat.
No one heard her screams.
Yet, this was the beginning of Julie’s life.

Julie Compton, is a forty-something woman, striving for success in a male dominated business world. She thinks she’s made it. She thinks she has it all.

Trouble is, her destiny has been travelling in the wrong direction and Julie is now forced to relive her life by occupying people’s bodies from her past in a time-travel, paranormal adventure.

For readers who enjoyed books like 'The Time Traveler's Wife' and 'The Lovely Bones'.

~

Excerpt from WIDE AWAKE ASLEEP – a paranormal, time travel romance.

Disorientated, I looked around at my surroundings. I had the strange feeling that I wasn’t here at all. I thought I heard a voice, and I cocked my head, but it was carried away on a gust of wind. The feeling of hands touching my body subsided and I was left in this paradox universe where I was me inside someone else’s body.

I looked down at myself and the first thing I saw was a plaid skirt, and thick tights, which sagged at the knees and ankles.

My heart began to beat in horror. No, no. Please, God, no.

My hands touched the stained cardigan over my large droopy breasts. Up further to my face…

My hands recoiled.

I felt a moustache!

I gasped in horror. I was ‘Auntie’ Iris Grimshaw!

It was bad enough being goofy Sarah Marshall, but now I had a moustache! And a bloody monobrow!

Iris began to walk, and I felt a sharp pain in my hip. I slowed, but the pain persisted. It shot down my left leg every time my foot touched the ground. No wonder the old sod was grouchy.

GIVE ME BACK MY BOOK!

When Characters Take Over

by

Janine McCaw

Genre-Paranormal/Supernatural/Fantasy

               
If you write fiction, then this has probably happened to you. You've carefully plotted your chapters so you've got a clear idea of where you're headed in this journey you've mapped out for yourself. You know that your antagonist is scheduled to meet his maker around two-thirds of the way into your story; his own conflict being resolved with three words—Monroe was dead. 

Then you pause. You wonder if you've done the right thing, unaware that what Monroe really was, was clever. About a third of the way into your story he began to seduce you. Sure he had shown you his bad side, but every once in a while he began to throw in some charm. He's so charming in fact, that by the halfway point in your book, you're starting to think that maybe Monroe doesn't die. Maybe your protagonist gives him an epiphany so empowering that evil no longer lurks in good old Monroe.

It's the curse of writing good characters. They come alive. They dance around in your brain like multiple personalities and prey on you like your kids. They start to talk back. You try not to listen to those voices in your head, but they just won't shut-up. They take you to the left when you really want to go right.

Remind yourself about the book you initially set out to write. Go back to those initial notes and swear on Monroe's grave that you're going to take him down on page 175. Maybe he doesn't go down in a hail of bullets, maybe he goes down in just one, but down he goes—Monroe is dead.

P.S. Here's a tip I've learned from experience. Save the day of Monroe's demise for when you've had a really bad day at work. That's right. That scene will be so much easier to write when Monroe begins to sound like the person or situation that has driven you to the point where chocolate offers no comfort. It also saves you a trip to the therapist.

How scary do you find the publishing process?

Where’s Your Towel?

By Amber Scott

I’m sure you’ve been there before. First day at school. First date. First...

Posting my first blog article. EEK!

Replying to a fan letter hoping I say just the right-write?-thing. Nerve-rack-ing.

Preparing to promote another new release. (Fierce Dawn, Soul Search) le Gulp. It never fails, when I’m facing a new edge in my comfort zone, I feel like I’ve just stepped out of the shower.

In public. And can’t find my towel.

Yep. Buck naked and sopping wet.

An old Adam Sandler skit comes to mind. “Noooo! They’re all going to laugh at you!” a paranoid mom screams at her children (read as: in my head).

Three Kindle bestsellers, eight published books, eleven successful manuscripts, two screenplays, umpteen articles and podcasts later, how can fear still wriggle its way in? I don’t know.

Okay, okay. So, I do know why. It’s how our brains work. I’ve read enough neuroscience books that I should know this is simply a normal function and part of life. Doesn’t help! Fear will never go away. But, luckily, thanks to a little magic, I’ve learned how to face it.

Here’s how:

Laughter.

“Everybody farts!” said my 3 year old angel to her Uncle Matt after she let a toot loose on his lap.

“Grow a pair!” the accidental great advice my career coach and laugh partner, Ann Charles, once emailed me. (It was supposed to be a link for a hilarious YouTube video. I thought it must be her way of motivating for the latest roadblock.)

Belief. 

Aunt Tammy’s magic dryer. My son is hooked on balloons and when we couldn’t take his onto the plane, my husband went to the local chain restaurant location and put an identical version in our dryer then gave my sister all the credit, saying she sent it to him.

“Big red balloon!” are three magic words that open any closed security gate. I dare you to try it!

Support.

The HOT Club is the misnomer for Amber Scott fans and our secret group on Facebook. The first members of the Amber Scott Books HOT Club absolutely rock. Not only do they wear their flaming heart emblem with pride, but they post things like “Don’t hate me because I’m hot!” They show up when I write articles, they shout out my events on Twitter and high-five me on Facebook.

Love.

With each new release, each new book ‘baby’, I fall in love. Right now, I’m crazy for Elijah Stokes, the winged seeker from Fierce Dawn. I’m swept into this world where human blood is a drug and vampires are the immortals addicted to it. I’m fascinated by human changelings like Sadie Graves, evolving from human into immortal. *sigh* (Don’t worry, Ashlon Sinclair still makes me swoon in Irish Moon and he isn’t the least bit jealous.)

My family has learned to share me with my imagination, with characters so real they make me laugh out loud and cry. My children ask me if I’ve finished my chapter. My husband really means it when he asks how my writing went.

All these things and more, combined, remind me that while I might feel naked and wet in public from time to time, in fact, I’m wearing an oversized, plush towel that fans, friends and family will always be ready to hand me.

To celebrate my next brave adventure, Fierce Dawn, I’d LOVE to give some eBooks away.

Please tell me one thing that helps you face your fears and be sure to include your email address. - Amber