When she awakens, however, Cassidy realizes the cost of being transformed might be more than she was willing to sacrifice. But if Cassidy hopes to right the irrevocable wrongs that Jillian and her army of the Damned have wrought on New York City, she’ll need to not only accept her new senses, body, and cravings, but wield them in her favor. Irresistible and enigmatic as Dominic is, he no longer has command over the city or its vampires. Only Cassidy has the connections to convince the humans, Day Reapers, and the few vampires still loyal to Dominic to join forces. And maybe, if Dominic can accept her rising power over the coven he once commanded for the past several hundred years, the two of them together might forge a bond more potent than history has ever known. . .
As featured on Megan Morgan
Tips and Tricks to Fool Your Brain into Writing
Writing is a rough gig. It's a solitary activity, so either you wake up at ungodly hours before the sun and your loved ones rise for the day, like me, or you give up part of your day to spend quality time with a blinking cursor and a blank page, both of which SEEMS less important when your husband is itching to go on an adventure and the sun is shining and the day is beckoning and staying inside the perfect little writing cave you've created feels akin to death.
Then why do we write, you ask? Because it IS important. Most writers, myself included, have stories and characters and unexpressed emotions tumbling inside their brains whether we write them down or not, but we're compelled to put fingers to keyboards and solidify those stories. It's an expression of self, an exploration of humanity and the ties that bind us, and God help us, we can’t stop.
Even when the last thing I want to do is write—even over laundry, washing dishes and scrubbing the bathroom tile mold—I need to find that perfect word to describe her regret. I need to solidify that first kiss I've been envisioning for months, and I need to flesh out a fresh, unique way for a damaged man to learn to trust again. That need fills me with drive, and after almost ten years of being in the driver's seat of my writing life, I've learned how to smoothly shift gears, accelerate into the turns, and balance my day life and the people in it without crashing. And so can you.
Write what you love
Many people advise to write what you know, but I'd like to take it a step further. If your subject doesn't excite you, if you're not writing characters in settings exploring situations that excite you, than your writing won't excite anyone else either. Whether you’re writing romance or non-fiction, write with passion and you'll sweep readers off their feet along with yourself.
Writing is a long distance event, not a sprint
One page a day. That's all it takes to write a 365-page book in a year. It sounds overly simplified, but it’s true. There are days I write much more than one page a day, but I never write less. It's like training for an event. If you start to skip days in your training, you'll never get back into shape, you'll never be as in shape as the people training every day, and after skipping one day, the temptation to skip again is almost irresistible. Don't skip. Don't make excuses. Just write that one page.
Read, live, love
The books you read and the days you experience are the fuel for your writing. When the passion and drive for my characters and story overwhelm me and I'm bursting with inspiration, sure, I'll spend my whole day writing, and then when I unearth my head from the deep, dark depth of my imagination, I realize I've missed a beautiful day at the beach or a cuddle/movie/popcorn day with my husband. So sprinting is great for one day, but no one can sustain that pace for an entire book and remain sane, keep healthy relationships, and enjoy life. And by doing so, you're compromising the very thing that fuels your imagination: living. So take a book and read on the beach with friends. Or write a few paragraphs on your phone while in line for that concert. Being a successful writer doesn't have to correlate with being a recluse or alcoholic anymore. That's a stereotype long gone by the wayside. Let life inspire your writing by living it.
Learn the industry
Writing is a solitary activity, but you are not alone. Hundreds upon hundred of writers are out there—the hundreds upon hundreds of books filling libraries, bookstores, and Amazon shopping carts can attest to that—and that’s only counting published authors. Find a writers group. Attend a conference. Surround yourself with other writers who are hungry to improve their craft and absorb knowledge from industry professionals. Not only will they inspire you to write, but you'll better understand the secondary people you're writing for: agents and editors.
Once you write your manuscript and then edit it to within an inch of its life, you actually have a novel! And then what? Then you get to research agents and publishers and decide your next step. You start crafting your query letter, you shape your synopsis, you submit to agents and editors, and you pitch to them at conferences. And where do you learn to do all these things? I learned them from my fellow authors at writers group meetings, at monthly presentations with industry professionals/speakers that my group recruits to teach us the trade, and at conferences. Become involved, and you'll surprise yourself with how little you actually know about the business of publishing after reading and writing for a lifetime, or at least, I certainly did.
Don't be afraid to delete
Your writing isn't carved in stone like the Ten Commandments, and as Jodi Picoult so wisely said, "You can't edit a blank page." So just write. The great American novel isn't going to pour from your brain onto the page in a first draft, and I'll let you in on a little secret: it doesn't for me either. It doesn't for my favorite author or yours or anyone. We vomit the story onto the page until everything swirling in our brain is purged into some concrete format—usually Word but sometime the notes app on my phone and once in a great while, actual paper—then we take that mess of a manuscript and we get started on draft two. And then draft three. And then… you get the idea. So don't let the fear of imperfection or mediocrity or bad writing prevent you from writing. Accept up front that it will be bad—it can't be any other way because it's a first draft—let go of the fear and excuses that do nothing but choke creativity, and just sit down and do what you've been dying to do all along: write.
Writing is a rough gig. It's a solitary activity, so either you wake up at ungodly hours before the sun and your loved ones rise for the day, like me, or you give up part of your day to spend quality time with a blinking cursor and a blank page, both of which SEEMS less important when your husband is itching to go on an adventure and the sun is shining and the day is beckoning and staying inside the perfect little writing cave you've created feels akin to death.
Then why do we write, you ask? Because it IS important. Most writers, myself included, have stories and characters and unexpressed emotions tumbling inside their brains whether we write them down or not, but we're compelled to put fingers to keyboards and solidify those stories. It's an expression of self, an exploration of humanity and the ties that bind us, and God help us, we can’t stop.
Even when the last thing I want to do is write—even over laundry, washing dishes and scrubbing the bathroom tile mold—I need to find that perfect word to describe her regret. I need to solidify that first kiss I've been envisioning for months, and I need to flesh out a fresh, unique way for a damaged man to learn to trust again. That need fills me with drive, and after almost ten years of being in the driver's seat of my writing life, I've learned how to smoothly shift gears, accelerate into the turns, and balance my day life and the people in it without crashing. And so can you.
Write what you love
Many people advise to write what you know, but I'd like to take it a step further. If your subject doesn't excite you, if you're not writing characters in settings exploring situations that excite you, than your writing won't excite anyone else either. Whether you’re writing romance or non-fiction, write with passion and you'll sweep readers off their feet along with yourself.
Writing is a long distance event, not a sprint
One page a day. That's all it takes to write a 365-page book in a year. It sounds overly simplified, but it’s true. There are days I write much more than one page a day, but I never write less. It's like training for an event. If you start to skip days in your training, you'll never get back into shape, you'll never be as in shape as the people training every day, and after skipping one day, the temptation to skip again is almost irresistible. Don't skip. Don't make excuses. Just write that one page.
Read, live, love
The books you read and the days you experience are the fuel for your writing. When the passion and drive for my characters and story overwhelm me and I'm bursting with inspiration, sure, I'll spend my whole day writing, and then when I unearth my head from the deep, dark depth of my imagination, I realize I've missed a beautiful day at the beach or a cuddle/movie/popcorn day with my husband. So sprinting is great for one day, but no one can sustain that pace for an entire book and remain sane, keep healthy relationships, and enjoy life. And by doing so, you're compromising the very thing that fuels your imagination: living. So take a book and read on the beach with friends. Or write a few paragraphs on your phone while in line for that concert. Being a successful writer doesn't have to correlate with being a recluse or alcoholic anymore. That's a stereotype long gone by the wayside. Let life inspire your writing by living it.
Learn the industry
Writing is a solitary activity, but you are not alone. Hundreds upon hundred of writers are out there—the hundreds upon hundreds of books filling libraries, bookstores, and Amazon shopping carts can attest to that—and that’s only counting published authors. Find a writers group. Attend a conference. Surround yourself with other writers who are hungry to improve their craft and absorb knowledge from industry professionals. Not only will they inspire you to write, but you'll better understand the secondary people you're writing for: agents and editors.
Once you write your manuscript and then edit it to within an inch of its life, you actually have a novel! And then what? Then you get to research agents and publishers and decide your next step. You start crafting your query letter, you shape your synopsis, you submit to agents and editors, and you pitch to them at conferences. And where do you learn to do all these things? I learned them from my fellow authors at writers group meetings, at monthly presentations with industry professionals/speakers that my group recruits to teach us the trade, and at conferences. Become involved, and you'll surprise yourself with how little you actually know about the business of publishing after reading and writing for a lifetime, or at least, I certainly did.
Don't be afraid to delete
Your writing isn't carved in stone like the Ten Commandments, and as Jodi Picoult so wisely said, "You can't edit a blank page." So just write. The great American novel isn't going to pour from your brain onto the page in a first draft, and I'll let you in on a little secret: it doesn't for me either. It doesn't for my favorite author or yours or anyone. We vomit the story onto the page until everything swirling in our brain is purged into some concrete format—usually Word but sometime the notes app on my phone and once in a great while, actual paper—then we take that mess of a manuscript and we get started on draft two. And then draft three. And then… you get the idea. So don't let the fear of imperfection or mediocrity or bad writing prevent you from writing. Accept up front that it will be bad—it can't be any other way because it's a first draft—let go of the fear and excuses that do nothing but choke creativity, and just sit down and do what you've been dying to do all along: write.
Transform me into a vampire.
The words had just left my lips, more shape than sound since I still couldn’t speak without vocal cords, and Dominic Lysander, Master vampire of New York City—who had supposedly seen all, knew all, and wasn’t impressed by any of it in his four hundred and seventy-seven-year-long life—stared at me like I was an alien, like I was an otherworldly creature he’d always known probably existed, but was wholly unprepared to confront. I knew that horror-filled, struck-dumb look all too well; I’d been wearing it pretty consistently over the past several weeks, ever since Dominic had shoved me against the brick exterior of my apartment building and commanded me to look into his eyes, and my body had unwillingly obeyed. I knew that sometimes events were so devastating, both physically and mentally, that all you could do was stare blankly at the destruction and hope to God you didn’t lose your shit.
But in all his four hundred and seventy-seven years, this was not the time nor the place to lose his shit.
Use my necklace, I mouthed, both encouraging him and reminding him not to use the blood in his veins, weakened by the Leveling. I would have ripped the pendant from my necklace and raised the precious drops of his formerly powerful blood to my lips myself, but I’d lost the use of my arms. My body was numb, my awareness drifting, my vision a starburst blanket of blackness covering my face, and still, Dominic just stared.
What are you waiting for? I snapped, as much as I could snap under the circumstances.
“Another solution to present itself,” he finally admitted, looking over my injuries, the movement of his eyes darting and frantic.
I raised my eyebrows, or at least, I tried to. Cold feet?
Dominic let loose a long-suffering sigh. Some of the horror left his expression, but not all of it, and what little did leave was replaced by weary resignation. I didn’t understand his reaction—I didn’t understand him and maybe never really would, not as a human anyway. After weeks of attempting to seduce me, not only into his bed but into his coven, this should be his golden, shining moment, the pot of gold at the end of this violent, blood-soaked rainbow, but by the sick, nearly choked expression on his face, instead of bathing in his good fortune, he was drowning in it. “The temperature of my feet has little to do with this decision,” he said blandly.
I opened my mouth to correct his misunderstanding, to explain that “cold feet” was just an expression, not a literal physical discomfort, when I noticed the tilt to the scarred half of his lips. He was teasing. I was exsanguinating in an alley between East Fifty-Seventh Street and 432 Park Avenue, my vocal cords in shreds, breathing more blood than air into my lungs, and fading fast. And he was teasing.
I laughed and blood sprayed like a geyser from my esophagus. Dominic choked, coughing up physical blood from his metaphysical injuries. My injuries.
The blanket over my vision thickened, filling the gaps between starbursts. I didn’t have time to doubt my decision and consider why Dominic would hesitate—which wasn’t so much a decision as it was a last resort, and perhaps therein lay Dominic’s hesitation. I didn’t have time to convince him that my decision was more choice than he’d been given for his transformation, and if my decision was more about living than it was about a life with him, he’d have to suck up his pride and be grateful I was making this choice at all: the right choice, according to him, under different circumstances.
I didn’t even have time to catch my breath.
The words had just left my lips, more shape than sound since I still couldn’t speak without vocal cords, and Dominic Lysander, Master vampire of New York City—who had supposedly seen all, knew all, and wasn’t impressed by any of it in his four hundred and seventy-seven-year-long life—stared at me like I was an alien, like I was an otherworldly creature he’d always known probably existed, but was wholly unprepared to confront. I knew that horror-filled, struck-dumb look all too well; I’d been wearing it pretty consistently over the past several weeks, ever since Dominic had shoved me against the brick exterior of my apartment building and commanded me to look into his eyes, and my body had unwillingly obeyed. I knew that sometimes events were so devastating, both physically and mentally, that all you could do was stare blankly at the destruction and hope to God you didn’t lose your shit.
But in all his four hundred and seventy-seven years, this was not the time nor the place to lose his shit.
Use my necklace, I mouthed, both encouraging him and reminding him not to use the blood in his veins, weakened by the Leveling. I would have ripped the pendant from my necklace and raised the precious drops of his formerly powerful blood to my lips myself, but I’d lost the use of my arms. My body was numb, my awareness drifting, my vision a starburst blanket of blackness covering my face, and still, Dominic just stared.
What are you waiting for? I snapped, as much as I could snap under the circumstances.
“Another solution to present itself,” he finally admitted, looking over my injuries, the movement of his eyes darting and frantic.
I raised my eyebrows, or at least, I tried to. Cold feet?
Dominic let loose a long-suffering sigh. Some of the horror left his expression, but not all of it, and what little did leave was replaced by weary resignation. I didn’t understand his reaction—I didn’t understand him and maybe never really would, not as a human anyway. After weeks of attempting to seduce me, not only into his bed but into his coven, this should be his golden, shining moment, the pot of gold at the end of this violent, blood-soaked rainbow, but by the sick, nearly choked expression on his face, instead of bathing in his good fortune, he was drowning in it. “The temperature of my feet has little to do with this decision,” he said blandly.
I opened my mouth to correct his misunderstanding, to explain that “cold feet” was just an expression, not a literal physical discomfort, when I noticed the tilt to the scarred half of his lips. He was teasing. I was exsanguinating in an alley between East Fifty-Seventh Street and 432 Park Avenue, my vocal cords in shreds, breathing more blood than air into my lungs, and fading fast. And he was teasing.
I laughed and blood sprayed like a geyser from my esophagus. Dominic choked, coughing up physical blood from his metaphysical injuries. My injuries.
The blanket over my vision thickened, filling the gaps between starbursts. I didn’t have time to doubt my decision and consider why Dominic would hesitate—which wasn’t so much a decision as it was a last resort, and perhaps therein lay Dominic’s hesitation. I didn’t have time to convince him that my decision was more choice than he’d been given for his transformation, and if my decision was more about living than it was about a life with him, he’d have to suck up his pride and be grateful I was making this choice at all: the right choice, according to him, under different circumstances.
I didn’t even have time to catch my breath.
  |  As a journalist, Cassidy DiRocco thought she had seen every depraved thing New York City’s underbelly had to offer. But while covering what appears to be a vicious animal attack, she finds herself drawn into a world she never knew existed. Her exposé makes her the target of the handsome yet brutal Dominic Lysander, the Master Vampire of New York City, who has no problem silencing her to keep his coven's secrets safe… But Dominic offers Cassidy another option: ally. He reveals she is a night blood, a being with powers of her own, including the ability to become a vampire. As the body count escalates, Cassidy is caught in the middle of a vampire rebellion. Dominic insists she can help him stop the coming war, but wary of his intentions, Cassidy enlists the help of the charming Ian Walker, a fellow night blood. As the battle between vampires takes over the city, Cassidy will have to tap into her newfound powers and decide where to place her trust...   |
 | Trust No One Cassidy DiRocco knows the dark side intimately--as a crime reporter in New York City, she sees it every day. But since she discovered that she's a night blood, her power and potential has led the dark right to her doorway. With her brother missing and no one remembering he exists, she makes a deal with Dominic Lysander, the fascinating master vampire of New York, to find him. Dominic needs the help of Bex, another master vampire, to keep peace in the city, so he sends Cassidy to a remote, woodsy town upstate to convince her--assuming she survives long enough. A series of vicious "animal attacks" after dark tells Cassidy there's more to Bex and her coven than anyone's saying. That goes double for fellow night blood Ian Walker, the tall, blond animal tracker who's supposed to be her ally. Walker may be hot-blooded and hard-bodied, but he's hiding something too. If Cassidy wants the truth, she'll have to squeeze it out herself… every last drop. |
 | THE LEVELING Last week, Cassidy DiRocco had some influence over the vampires that stalk the streets of New York City. She was never completely safe, but with her newfound abilities as a night blood and her honed instincts as a crime reporter, at least she had the necessary skills to survive. Now, thanks to the injuries she sustained while saving her brother from a fate worse than death, she’s lost her night blood status just as another crime spree hits Brooklyn. Dozens of people are being slaughtered, and each victim bears the Damned’s signature mark; a missing heart. Cassidy will need the help of all her allies to survive the coming war, including the mysterious and charismatic Dominic Lysander, Master Vampire of New York City. But as his rival’s army threatens his coven and his own powers weaken with the approaching Leveling, even Dominic’s defenses might not be enough protection. With nothing left to lose, Cassidy must find the power inside herself to save Dominic, his coven, their city, and survive.  |
Win a $10 Amazon gift card & copy of the book!
I enjoyed getting to know your book; congrats on the tour, I hope it is a fun one for you, and thanks for the chance to win :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the tour and I appreciate the book description and the great giveaway as well. Love the tours, I get to find books and share with my sisters the ones I know they would enjoy reading and they both love to read. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteVery beautiful lady on the cover. This sounds like a great supernatural read.
ReplyDeleteLove the cover. Thanks for the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThe whole series looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a very intriguing book! Thanks for the opportunity 💕
ReplyDeleteThe Night Blood series looks good. Thanks for hosting.
ReplyDeletethe covers are good but maybe needs a hint more paranormal in them.can't wait to read the books added them too of my wish list.
ReplyDelete