Book Spotlight & #Giveaway ~ Smoke and Mirrors: A Vampire Romance by Elise Nelson ~ PNR, Gothic Romance, Vampire Romance

Smoke and Mirrors: A Vampire Romance

Elise Nelson 

Genres: PNR, Gothic Romance, Vampire Romance

Publisher: Shattered Glass Press

Date of Publication: May 25, 2021 

ISBN: 1777632935 

ASIN: B08ZT1JTF9 

Number of pages: 409 pages

Word Count: 120,857 words

Cover Artist: Covers and Cupcakes 

Tagline: In the shadows, nothing is ever what it seems

About the Book:

Caroline Blake is a young reporter with a past almost as cryptic as her future. She never put much stock into her late aunt’s eerie tales of monsters and demons until she takes an assignment to cover the elusive Ashdown family’s Harvest Festival. As part of her assignment, she must live at the family’s mansion for six weeks and help prepare for the event.

No one has seen the family since the tragedy that occurred at the last festival almost thirty years prior. As the only female reporter on-site, Caroline must hold her own while uncovering why the family closed their doors all those years ago.

Perhaps the most challenging part of her assignment is dealing with her working partner, William Ashdown. The handsome lord of the house seems bent on testing her patience every time they meet. Still, there is something intriguing about him that she can’t ignore.

Caroline is soon swept into a world of generational secrets, unsettling mysteries, and unexpected romance. Amidst all the uncertainty, one thing is sure: in the shadows, nothing is ever what it seems. 

Watch the Book Trailer: https://fb.watch/7TwDBoHA0K/

Purchase from   Amazon     Author Website     Discover Books

Read Excerpt 1:

I could never forget that day. There was an eerie stillness in the air as we stood there, waiting. Chills dimpled deep into my skin, and I swore it was watching me. It was watching all of us. A thing too far away for us to see but close enough to feel the slimy chill of its gaping stare. Like the unnerving lick of a wild animal. Or being scratched in that spot of your back that you can’t quite reach.

I could never forget how it all felt. The stale air clasping my skin, as if paralyzing me in place. The blind panic coursing through me. The sound of muffled breaths and stifled cries suffocating the air around us while we did our best not to make a sound.

None of us really knew what we were waiting for, and somehow that made it worse. Maybe we wouldn’t have been so utterly petrified if we’d known what we were up against. But we didn’t. We just stood there in the dark, the dewy mist of twilight teasing our tired eyes, and tried not to scream.

My aunt always told me to beware of the monsters in the closet. Of demons and shadows. Mythical beings she read stories about at bedtime. Creatures from the corners of our eyes and the echoes in our footsteps. She sang me eerie lullabies of cautionary tales, sinking in stories rich with disaster and fear so I would recognize any such creature if I ever saw one. When she’d speak these rehearsed sermons of the undead, her hands would tremble, and her eyes would go wide and far away—the shocking blue around her pupils turned into stagnant crystals ready to drop and shatter at any moment. It was as if she had left this world altogether and I had to wait for her to return.

I always wondered where these stories came from and why Maggie recited them to me every night before I went to bed. As a teenager, I thought she was simply out of touch with reality— that there was something about her that wasn’t quite right. I heard it when she spoke and saw it in those wide crystal eyes. Her lyrics never made their way into my mind, at least not until I was much older. They just swirled inside the little head that she cradled and brushed before bedtime.

I was a very protected child in a small home, in a small town, hidden deep within Western Europe.

When she died, I left the only place I’d ever known. I had no one else in Fairbrooke worth staying for.

So I moved to Brakerton Heights.

About the Author:

Elise Nelson is a writer of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics, and articles. She has published under a few different pen names since she was nineteen and has been published in literary periodicals, including The Nassau Review and Essig Magazine. She has also worked as an editorial intern for Christopher Matthews Publishing as well as a writer and editor for many other companies, magazines, and websites. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boise State University, where she studied English literature, creative writing, and multimedia storytelling. She is currently a writer and editor for Jotaku.net and enjoys writing Star Wars fan fiction in her spare time.

https://www.elisenelsonauthor.com/

https://www.facebook.com/EliseNelsonAuthor

https://www.instagram.com/elisenelsonauthor/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21519109.Elise_Nelson

Enter the Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Release Blitz ~ The Angel’s Wrath by Julia DeBarrioz @juliadebarrioz ~ @RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #TheAngelsWrath #JuliaDebarrioz #UrbanFantasy #UF

 

The Angel’s Wrath by Julia DeBarrioz

Dakota del Toro, Book 3

Urban Fantasy, Vampire Romance, Romantic Suspense

Date Published: October 15, 2021

About the Book:

After the success of the Outliers’ Revolution, things are far from settled for Don Diego and the vampire coven of Santa Fe. Trouble lurks around every corner this holiday season: an impending duel with a deadly mercenary from Spain with whom Diego shares a violent past, and vampires from Washington D.C. who want control of the entire country. An outsider attacking citizens of The City Different threatens to break the truce with the Preternatural Control Team before it’s barely begun. An inhuman art thief is pinching important paintings, including a priceless Cézanne from Diego’s own wall. But worst of all in the new alcalde’s estimation, Dakota’s globe-trotting ex has returned from the jungles of Guatemala, and Diego knows Henrik Heyerdahl’s renewed interest in his consort is anything but platonic. The archeologist is hiding something, and it’s possible he has brought his own supernatural troubles back from the Mayan ruins of the Petén.

When Don Edgar makes an attempt on Dakota del Toro’s life, the bounty hunter shoots her way out, but finds herself suspended from PCT. The future of her career rests in her superior’s hands, and John Steele seems all too eager to extort her into signing up for Knighthood. Determined not to be a pawn in a Super Secret Monster Hunting Society’s game, Dakota digs in her heels, though new powers and the continuation of dreams that feel more and more like memories pull her toward something that feels alarmingly like destiny. Diego knows more than he will say, and Dakota recklessly gambles on the millennia-old demon Sri Devendra for answers. Whether he will help her, or he has his own agenda, is anyone’s guess…

About the Author:

Long ago, a fortune teller read Julia's palm and told her, “You’d better write this all down.” Julia has been writing, writing, writing, ever since. Somewhere along the line she earned a degree in fine art and traveled the world. For all the places she’s been, New Mexico remains one of her favorite places to be.

Now she lives on a farm in Missouri with her darling husband, two criminal conures, one stubborn bulldog, one bad bunny, a fivesome of ducks, and possibly too many chickens.

But really, is there such a thing as too many chickens?

Contact Links:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

BookBuzz

Purchase Links:

Amazon

Etsy

The Prophecy by Allie McCormack ~ When Darkness Falls, Book 3 ~ Paranormal Romance, Fantasy Romance, Vampire Romance

 

When Darkness Falls, Book 3

Paranormal Romance, Fantasy Romance, Vampire Romance

Release Date: July 1, 2021

About the Book:

The truce between humans and vampires has stabilized as the relationship between Alyssa and Lord Damien deepens. When a desperate group of refugees arrive at the city, bringing tales of a barbaric horde overrunning the lands to the west, the city’s resources are strained to assimilate them.

Just as life is settling back to normal, the worst of news arrives from scouts sent out to spy on the horde. The massive army is gearing up with plans to brave the hundreds of miles of stark desert to attack Al Khair itself, and Lord Damien must decide whether to follow their long code of non-involvement of human affairs, or to work with the humans to save their city.

*Please Note, this is a trilogy, with one sweeping story arc divided into three volumes. The books are not meant to be read alone, or out of order. If you prefer, you can buy all 3 volumes of the trilogy together in a boxed eBook set, When Darkness Falls: The Trilogy – Amazon

Want the Whole Trilogy in One Book?

When Darkness Falls: The Trilogy

Release Date: July 1, 2021

Ruled by a gracious, wise Sultana, the humans of the great desert city of Al Khair dwell in uneasy peace with the vampires and demons who claim the lands as their ancestral homelands under the leadership of an ancient, powerful vampire. Their shaky truce becomes strained when a young human woman arrives from distant lands.

Orphaned since childhood and outcast, Alyssa joins a caravan to the fabled Al Khair where she seeks only to make a new life for herself. A life that quickly becomes complicated when she draws the attention of the Dark Lord himself.

A thousand years ago, Lord Damien permitted the humans to build their city. When he senses a new, immensely powerful magical being in the land, Damien suspects the humans of plotting to overthrow him. Furious, he searches for the source of this power, but he cannot stop thinking of the young woman in the tower who had seen through his glamour spell that cloaks him from humans.

When he discovers that Alyssa is the mysterious being he has been seeking, his determination to have her for his own threatens to pit the two races, human and vampire, against each other in all-out war.

About the Author:

A former career medical transcriptionist and disabled Veteran, Allie McCormack is now writing from home full-time. Allie has traveled quite a bit and lived many places all over the U.S., and also a year in Cairo, Egypt as an exchange student, and a year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia under contract to a hospital there, plus a short stint with NATO while she was in the Army. Allie now lives in the beautiful southern California with her family and her two rescue cats.

Allie says: “A writer is who and what I am… a romance writer. I write what I know, and what I know is romance. Dozens of story lines and literally hundreds of characters live and breathe within the not-so-narrow confines of my imagination, and it is my joy and privilege to bring them to life, to share them with others by writing their stories.”

Contact Links:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Purchase Links:

Amazon

B&N

Kobo

iBooks

Release Blitz ~ The Dark Lord by Allie McCormack @AllieMcCormackK ~ @RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #TheDarkLord #AllieMcCormack #WhenDarknessFalls #Paranormal ~ Paranormal Romance, Fantasy Romance, Vampire Romance

 

The Dark Lord by Allie McCormack 

When Darkness Falls, Book 2

Paranormal Romance, Fantasy Romance, Vampire Romance

Release Date: June 17, 2021

About the Book:

Book 2 of a sweeping romantic saga in a medieval Arabian Nights type setting

Held captive in the Catacombs, Alyssa struggles with coming to terms with the loss of the life she had made for herself in the palace. She also has to learn how to deal with her strange magical powers that everyone but her seems to know she has. And she has to find a way to accept her new life with the ancient vampire who insists that she is his… but doesn’t seem to know what to do with her.

Lord Damien never thought to have a human woman in his life, and this one baffles him. He doesn’t understand his own need for her, but knows only that he must have her, at any cost. He had been prepared for anger and recriminations, but Alyssa surprises him with her determination to accept her new life, as well as her unexpected compassion and humor.

*Please Note, this is a trilogy! Books 1 & 2 have cliffhangers and are not meant to be read out of order.

Read an Excerpt:

Chapter 9 - The Craft Hall

Some distance from the city, Damien paused, holding up one hand. “We glamour,” he stated. “Until we reach the Craft Hall.”

Gabrielle and Kayja complied, a faint shimmering disturbing the early morning desert air as all three cast the small spell that would cloak them from untrained eyes. The sun wasn’t yet above the horizon, the days already shortening with the oncoming of fall. Damien focused his attention to the East, storm clouds gathering, building at his command, delaying the effects of the sun on himself and Gabrielle. Kayja, pure demon, was unaffected by the sun’s rising. Damien, with his demon father’s blood, could tolerate the sun until it was fully above the horizon, but Gabrielle would be susceptible to the sun’s influence much more quickly.

They reached the city, moving swiftly past through the lines of those waiting to enter through the huge gates. Passing unseen, the trio headed into the heart of the lower city, Damien leading them unhesitatingly toward the Craft Hall. He knew this city, every block, every stone. He had been here when it was a walled village. Had walked the construction at night as the city was built, the palace towering above all. There was no corner, no shadow, that he did not know.

Most of the shops and stalls were closed tight still, aside from a few stalls dispensing tea and thick bitter coffee, and flat bread with beans and fried balls of ground grain and herbs to early workers. The craftsmen, however, would already be up and working in their high-ceilinged hall deep within the city.

Indeed, the wide double doors of the Craft Hall were open, workers within milling about on various tasks. Standing just within the doors, Damien and his companions shimmered into sight of those nearby. There were startled gasps, then a wave of rippling murmurs, followed by silence, spread through the hall as craftsmen, journeymen and apprentices turned toward the great doors. The tension in the suddenly quiet hall was palpable. There was stirring, shifting of a group at one side of the room, and a man emerged, approaching the trio at the entrance. He was stockily built, with graying hair framing a lined face. Sharp, intelligent eyes held a wary defiance; not outright hostility, but Damien sensed little flashes of anger from the man, who wore a Master’s badge on one shoulder.

“He knows your little human,” Kayja spoke on their private pathway. “I see her in his mind, his concern for her well-being.”

Damien gave a tiny, barely discernible inclination of his head, acknowledging her words.

The Craft Master came to a halt some few feet from them, bending at the waist in a slight bow.

“My Lord Damien.”

“Craft Master Ahmed.”

Damien suppressed his amusement as the man started in surprise. He was Lord over these lands. Of course he knew all those who rose to prominence. Craft Masters, even prominent journeymen who were rising swiftly in the ranks; he made it his business to know everything in this city.

The man made a swift recovery, schooling his face to express polite inquiry. “How may we help you, Lord?”

Again Damien sensed that flash of anger from the man, swiftly suppressed.

“We have come for furnishings,” Damien told him, his gaze drifting about the spacious circular hall, sectioned into areas... tables, chairs, beds and divans, lounges, lamps, screens. He brought his eyes back to the Craft Master. “You are acquainted with the young Scribe from the palace?”

A swift startled murmur swept the room, starting with those in earshot who passed word to those nearby. Relief crept into Master Ahmed’s face, and some of the rigidity left his stance.

“Alyssa? Indeed, I know her well. All of us do,” and he made a gesture with his right arm, indicating the room at large. “She... she is alive, Lord? She is well?”

A rush of impatience swept him. “Of course she is alive,” he retorted. “What did you think I was going to do, eat her?”

Absolute silence. His lips tightened in exasperation. Obviously, they had. Humans! His stern gaze swept them all, meeting their eyes, commanding their attention.

“Do you truly believe,” and he raised his voice so that all in the hall could hear him. “That Zahira, your Sultana, would have permitted me to carry off one of her Court... indeed, any citizen of this city... without being assured that no harm would come to her? You do your Sultana a great disservice in this. Zahira would have gone to war, rather. She insisted upon, and received, my promise that no harm of any kind would come to the girl. She was prepared to risk outright war, had I not given her my word on this.”

The silence continued as the last echoes of his voice faded, then shifting and movement as the men and women returned to their various duties. Noises began to fill the hall.... sanding, pounding, hammering. Damien turned back to the Craft Master. The man was smiling, his relief almost palpable.

“What is it you would wish to see, Lord?”

Kayja stepped forward at this point. Her tail was twitching, to the apparent bemusement of a nearby apprentice, a boy barely into his teens who’d apparently never seen a demon before, from his fascinated stare. “We need furnishings for Alyssa. A bed to start. A clothing press. Tables, chairs. These will be delivered to the Temple in the desert.”

Ahmed nodded thoughtfully, gesturing them to an area across the hall. “This way my Lord, Ladies,” he added a bit doubtfully, with a glance at Kayja’s red skin, her curved, pointed black horns and shiny black hooves.

“This is excellent,” Kayja all but purred on their private pathway. “The human’s mind is already full of what he calls extras to include with the delivery, for Alyssa’s comfort. At no additional charge.”

“I can see his thoughts for myself,” Damien reminded her in some exasperation. Kayja huffed, her horned head tossing irritably.

They stopped before a display room, set back off the main hall, filled with bedroom furnishings. There were massive, carved poster beds, and simpler lounges and chaises. Gabrielle stopped before one, a pretty, low bed with soft sheets and a light throw, topped with several pillows. She leaned down to poke experimentally at the mattress, testing its firmness.

“What about this?”

“No.” His refusal was instantaneous. Ahmed had moved off to point out to Kayja a monstrosity of a bed with heavy wooden posts carved with fantastic animals, sure to appeal to the demon. Maybe he should have brought Aleksei instead. He turned to Gabrielle, leaning close to murmur. “It’s very similar to her bed in her tower room, in the palace. I don’t want it to be a constant reminder to her.”

As he straightened, his eye was caught by a burst of colors across the way. He moved toward the bed that had caught his eye. It was a combination piece, clearly designed for multiple uses as lounge, bed or sofa. A carved wood base rested on wood legs that rose high to support a flat lattice work above, like a canopy. The mattress was low and large, covered in bright turquoise damask. Gracefully carved spindles rose from the base to a smoothly polished banister, framing the bed on three sides, a warm backdrop for an array of colorful cushions, embroidered and sequined, propped against the supporting spindles.

He was aware of his sister and Gabrielle joining him, Ahmed at a respectful distance.

Gabrielle pursed her lips thoughtfully. “It looks more suited to a patio perhaps, or a balcony, than to a cave.”

Kayja glanced her way. “He already has a stone crypt that’s perfectly suited to a cave. That’s why we’re here.”

“True.”

“It’s suited to Alyssa,” Damien stated, his tone brooking no argument. “That’s what is important.”

“Indeed, my Lord, I think she would love this,” Ahmed concurred. “It would certainly brighten a... a cave,” he glanced at Kayja standing beside him. “If that is your purpose, this would do well. And Alyssa loves the jewel tones. Always, the jewel tones are what draws her. There is a chest for clothing that would go well with this. The workmen could put together a grouping to match, it would take perhaps a day or two, no more. Floor cushions, a chaise lounge. A mirror set into a mashrabiyya frame.” He warmed to his theme. “We could create an inlaid table using the same wood, the spindles, and inlay the top with hues to pick up the colors from the cushions.”

Damien nodded decisively. “Bring this bed and the chest, and whatever else you have made now, to the Temple by mid-day. Then the rest as it is completed.”

Ahmed bowed low, far different from the stiff, polite gesture he’d offered when they had first arrived. The man exuded good will.

“It shall be done, Lord.” He paused. “If you would send some of your human servants to the city, Lord, the bed will need to be disassembled to transport. We will show them how to put it back together again.”

Leaving the Craft Hall, they again assumed a glamour. Gabrielle hurried for the distant Catacombs, using the preternatural speed of the vampire to outrun the rays of the sun, rising swiftly now above the mountains to the east. Damien, his demon blood making him less susceptible, took longer in following, strolling leisurely through the streets with Kayja as they made their way to the great gates of the city and then taking flight for the longer distance to the mountains.

Entering the Catacombs, Damien made his way to the Great Hall, ringing the bell that summoned the khadam and the other human servants not immediately in service to the vampire they looked to as Liege.

His indifferent gaze scanned the humans gathered before him. “A number of pieces of furnishings are being delivered to the Temple later this morning. At least two males are needed for the heavier pieces. Also I need one of you to visit the Woodworkers Craft Hall in the city for instruction in assembling the parts.”

Instantly two men stepped forward, and several women. One, a bubbly, rounded redhead, jiggled in place, seemingly excited.

“Is it for Alyssa?” she asked, apparently flushed with excitement. “Is it a surprise?”

He turned his full gaze on her, little red lights flickering in his eyes. Fangs extending, he snarled at her. She gulped, visibly paling, and the humans closest to him fell back a step, watching him warily.

Not deigning to answer the woman, he turned on his heel, stalking away to his private chambers, where Alyssa still lay deeply asleep, faint smudges beneath her eyes. The sleep of exhaustion. He stood looking down on her. Yesterday had been difficult for her. He must remember she was mortal, and young. He reached down to stroke her hair, his fingers slipping through the short, silky strands.

A surprise. The idiot woman’s words came back to him. As if. He was no fairytale prince. And yet... an image arose in his mind’s eye. Alyssa’s eyes alight, her gasp of delight, her radiant smile as she saw the furnishings.

He straightened, turning away, dismissing the notion with a flick of his hands. He was vampire. Demon. An ancient. He had no place in his world for such human nonsense. And yet the image could not quite be dispelled, lingering in the back of his mind.

Other Books in the When Darkness Falls Trilogy

When Darkness Falls Book I: The Palace

Released: June 3, 2021

Amazon

When Darkness Falls Book III: The Prophecy

Release Date: July 1, 2021

Amazon

About the Author:

A former career medical transcriptionist and disabled Veteran, Allie McCormack is now writing from home full-time. Allie has traveled quite a bit and lived many places all over the U.S., and also a year in Cairo, Egypt as an exchange student, and a year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia under contract to a hospital there, plus a short stint with NATO while she was in the Army. Allie now lives in the beautiful southern California with her family and her two rescue cats.

Allie says: "A writer is who and what I am... a romance writer. I write what I know, and what I know is romance. Dozens of story lines and literally hundreds of characters live and breathe within the not-so-narrow confines of my imagination, and it is my joy and privilege to bring them to life, to share them with others by writing their stories."

Contact Links:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

Promo Link

Purchase Links:

Amazon

iBooks

B&N

Google Play

Kobo

 

Bewitching Book Tours Haunted Halloween Spooktacular Feature~ All Hallow’s Eve by Barbra E Ross #Giveaway @barbraeross

A Mortal Indiscretion             

The Justin and Ambra Series

Book One

Barbra E. Ross    

Genre: Paranormal Romance,

Romantic Suspense, Vampire Romance

Date of Publication: 4/27/16  

ISBN: 978-1530762804

ASIN: B01DFJ3TG4

Number of pages: 632 pages

Word Count: 259981

Cover Artist: ProEbook Covers

Tagline: A sexy vampire. A little deceit. A love worth dying for. What more could you want from a vampire romance?

About the Description: 

A man. A vampire. A love story....

One night changed everything for bachelor Justin Bertolli. A womanizer at heart, never quite ready to settle down, he meets the woman who would change his life forever. Ambra Taylor is that woman, but is she all that Justin bargained for? Told from a male protagonist point of view, A Mortal Indiscretion delivers wholly unique narratives that don’t succumb to the same old recycled concepts. 

Everything unravels in Justin’s world. Although Ambra is a vampire, she is the vulnerable one of the two characters, providing a refreshing twist on standard tales. She is not waiting for her prince to come save her on his white horse. She simply desires love, to feel human love again and will do anything to protect the love of Justin. 

When Justin discovers the truth about who and what she is, will he still love her? Will he still want her? Find out, as their hearts collide in this epic tale of love.

Watch the Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/spyRnzDG8dI

Purchase Your Copy:

Amazon     Createspace

All Hallow’s Eve 

Barbra E Ross

It only comes but once a year.

Filling your mind with fright and fear.

Some candy corn and popcorn balls.

While the eeriness, creeps through the wall.

A witch’s laugh, a ghostly moan.

Mummy’s hand and skeleton bone.

Vampire fangs, wolves howl.

Thunder cloud, wailing owl.

Midnight brings on the feast.

A zombie’s wander, never cease.

Cemeteries full of helpless souls.

While neighbors fill the candy bowls.

Dead leaves float through the air.

While devils dance, and stranger’s stare.

Pumpkin’s glow, red and gold.

My skin crawls in a deathly hold.

Sunrise brings it all to end.

Light and dark, begin to blend.

Demons whither, back to ground.

Evil’s desire gagged and bound.

Back to normal, all is well.

Nightly beasts sent back to hell.

Halloween, tricks and treats.

Make the heart, skip a beat.

About the Author:

Barbra E Ross lives in Michigan. She is a nurse by day and a writer of fiction at night.

www.barbraeross.com    

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBarbraERoss/   

https://twitter.com/barbraeross

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1223154.Barbra_E_Ross/  

Enter the Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway