The winner of the fabulous Beauty Bath Basket and a copy of my book, DEMON SOUL, is SHANNON ECKRICH! Congrats, Shannon!
If you entered the individual blog contests, check around – you too may have won! The big prize of a Kindle or a Nook will be announced on June 4th at the Crescent Moon Press Blog.
Hope everyone is having a safe, relaxed and happy Memorial Day holiday. To those serving both here and overseas, a heartfelt “thank you” from this wife and mom!
Hi y’all! This is Day One of Crescent Moon Press’ Memorial Day Blog Hop! You can find the entire itinerary at CMP of course. Here are the details: Following this section I’ll be putting up the blurb and a brief excerpt of DEMON SOUL. At the end, I’ll ask you a question. In order to qualify for the GRAND PRIZE, you need to EMAIL me with the answer (PLEASE do not put it into comments!) at Christineash@sbcglobal.net. Of course, I’d LOVE it if you would subscribe to my RSS feed, too!
Then hop along the rest of today’s trail, and Wednesday and Thursday. You have until the end of the day May 26th to submit all your answers to the quests for the grand prize of a KINDLE or a NOOK, plus a dozen Crescent Moon Press titles!
From all the correct answers on MY blog, I’ll be giving away a relaxing bath basket filled with a bath pillow, fabulous bath salts, a scented candle, and of course a copy of DEMON SOUL. So…here we go!
DEMON SOUL BLURB:
…to retrieve his soul, she’ll become fire…
Gabriel Caine stands on the edge of the abyss. A bitch vampire has taken his soul and if he doesn’t get it back soon, his next step will be into Hell.
Rose Walters has been sent back to complete one task; save Gabriel Caine. She’s drawn to Gabriel on the most basic level, but restoring his soul may be at the price of her life.
Rose has touched the whole of Gabriel, making him yearn for a love he believes he can never have. Her willingness to put her human life on the line for him forces him to bring all three parts of himself into harmony – demon, human, and Fae bloodlines, and the strengths of each – to the fight that decides their fate.
EXCERPT:
A sound came out of Rose then, a half-whimper. “It hurts. Gabriel, it hurts.”
“What hurts?” He turned to her, shocked to see three claw marks deep on her left shoulder, ripping her tee shirt and reaching to her elbow. Blood dripped from her arm down onto the grass. “Damn it. Let’s get inside, I’ll fix you up.”
“What? Oh, my shoulder.” She winced. “Yeah. But that’s not what hurts.” Rose put her right hand just above her hipbone. “There. It hurts there.”
Frowning, Gabriel knelt in front of her and gently lifted her hand away. He tugged at her damp black tee shirt, bared the pale skin of her flat belly. A spiral of runes rippled and moved there, a mesmerizing magical dance. Made of colored ink, and yet not ink…a tattoo, but no human hands had a part in its creation. Gabriel narrowed his eyes. If he looked closely, he could see flickers of flame and a familiar pair of eyes sliding through the runes, not quite daring to meet his gaze.
A shudder of recognition went through him as his fear came true.
The demon scent, the fire, the runes. Mephisto.
The last time all three had been in front of him, he’d killed Marianne, the girl he’d loved, while trying to kill the demon Mephisto. Ten long years ago.
Now here he was, full circle, back home with as much bad hanging around him as the last time. Mephisto was back, loaning Rose his powers. Satine was somewhere near, coming to kick his ass. And Rose, the sexy little redhead in front of him, not only carried Mephisto, but she also held part of his soul.
Gabriel had always suspected Los Angeles would be the death of him. He just hadn’t expected it to be quite so soon.
* * * Your QUEST will be at the end of this posting!
Today’s participants are as follows:
JEAN MURRAY at http://www.wickedromance.wordpress.com
LARA NANCE at http://www.laranance.com
ME!!! and then
TRACI BELL at http://tracibell.net
and Tracy Farrell at http://tracyfarrell.com
Stop off at Crescent Moon Press for the rest of the information!
Your Quest: What is on Rose’s belly? Please EMAIL me your answer at Christineash@sbcglobal.net !
Now head on over to TRACI BELL at http://tracibell.net for the next stop!
Crescent Moon Press Memorial Day Weekend Bash~! Three Day Blog Tour
May 24th, 25th & 26th
Prizes at every stop!!! Grand Prize ~ Nook or Kindle, Your Choice!!!
Every stop along the way will have a posted quest. Sign up for the newsletter or blog (on mine, it’s going with the RSS feed!) then email your quest answer to the author to enter for great prizes.
Complete all blog tour stops, all three days, to enter into the grand prize drawing… A Nook or Kindle, Your Choice plus BONUS a dozen digital CMP books!!!
My participation begins tomorrow TUESDAY May 24th, so come on back!
Full itinerary will be posted on the CMP blog. All stops must be completed to qualify for the Grand Prize. You can join the games late, no problem! All quests must be completed by May 26th end of day.
All Winners Posted on CMP blog by June 4th. Good luck!
So – four of us from Crescent Moon Press have decided to do a book giveaway as well as try our hand at Romance Trading Cards. They were THE big thing at the last Romantic Times Booklover’s Convention, held April 6th – 10th here in Los Angeles, and I think you’ll see a lot more of them in the future. Here’s mine…
The idea being you can give a snapshot of your hero, your heroine, and what they’re like. I kept mine to my bookcover and the blurb as I’m still learning how to juggle photos and etcetera, but for a first time, 5 minute creation, I really like it.
Now for the contest. If you go to Jean Murray’s blog here, there’s another trading card to check out. Visit the next one on the list, and the next, and you too could all win FOUR ebooks – DEMON SOUL PLUS three other Crescent Moon Press books!
1. Leave a meaningful comment on my blog to enter your name in drawing.
2. Leave your email address in your comment section (to avoid spammers, please use at for @, dot for .)
3. To increase your chances of winning, go to Author Jean Murray’s website and see her other SOUL REBORN Trading Card.
4. You may enter up to 4 separate comments on each of the participating author sites to increase your chances (each site will lead you to the next!).
Here’s just one of Jean’s trading cards…enjoy!
I apologize, I don’t have my notes with me from yesterday so I’ll have to add those tomorrow.
But – yesterday I had my very first booksigning ever. For my very first published book, DEMON SOUL, pubbed by Crescent Moon Press. It was amazing! No, I didn’t sell out, and that’s okay – the lovely NY Times bestselling author in two genres next to me didn’t sell any more books than I did, so that made me feel better.
What I did do though was get up off my ass. I stood, and hooked my bookmark to my pen, and leaned over the table to people as they walked by. “Here, you need this!” or “This is for you!” Most people smiled, only a couple refused; and I spread my brand a little more. I even sold one book that way (in total, I sold 4. Don’t laugh!). I could have sold more if I’d had a physical book; several people, including men, expressed interest in the physical book. Hopefully they’ll go to Amazon and buy that way, we will see. But at the end of the day I must have given away more than a hundred bookmarks and pens. Which spreads the brand.
I know – many authors say they’ve never bought a book from a bookmark, and I’m one of them. But readers are not authors, and if the blurb is catchy enough, the bookmark striking enough, you’ll pull in new people. If nothing else, you’re spreading your brand, and that’s never a bad thing, right?
I was so into my “friendly marketing mode” that I even talked to Selena James for about five minutes about her conference experience and then about my book. It wasn’t until she walked away that I realized her affiliation with Kensington. Now, she’s the exec editor for Dafina Books, and as such not a publisher for me, but still – I learned that when in marketing mode, it was easier to be relaxed even in front of the biggies. Heather Osborn of Samhain Publishing also got a pen, a bookmark, and we had a brief conversation.
Another thing I learned while pimping my book out was how to succinctly state what the book is about in an organic, unplanned way. This is not your elevator pitch, my friends – this is a conversation with readers. Hooking them verbally is different than hooking them on paper. I don’t know why but it is. The basics are the same but the delivery is different…words that I’d never put together with the novel were tumbling out. I got good at it very fast, and enjoyed it which I didn’t think I would.
The best thing about the day? I had a gal from England buy my book. She downloaded it on her newly-won-at-a-raffle Kindle, and came back to show it to me…her plan was to read it on the plane on the way back home. SWEET!!! Am I allowed to happy dance?!!
*****
Buy Link: at Amazon or at All Romance eBooks and search for DEMON SOUL.