Friday, July 30, 2021

Claimed by J.R. Ward

Fresh off her latest New York Times bestseller Lover Unveiled (April 2021), #1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward introduces a new type of supernatural force with CLAIMED (Gallery Books; Mass Market) that went on sale this week.

Lydia Susi is passionate about protecting wolves in their natural habitat. When a hotel chain develops a tract of land next to the preserve, Lydia is one of the most vocal opponents of the project—and becomes a target.

One night, a shadowy figure threatens Lydia’s life in the forest, and a new hire at the Wolf Study Project comes from out of nowhere to save her. Daniel Joseph is both mysterious, and someone she intrinsically wants to trust. But is he hiding something?

As the stakes get higher, and one of Lydia’s colleagues is murdered, she must decide how far she will go to protect the wolves. Then a shocking revelation about Daniel challenges Lydia’s reality in ways she could never have predicted. Some fates demand courage, while others require even more, with no guarantees. Is she destined to have true love...or will a soul-shattering loss ruin her forever? 

Now here’s an excerpt for your reading pleasure.

CLAIMED
Chapter 1
Town of Walters, est. 1834
Upstate New York

 Lydia Susi’s Destiny came for her in the veil, on a random Thursday in the early spring.

                As she ran along the wooded trail, two miles into a loop that would take her through the preserve’s northeastern acreage, she was measuring the glowing line that topped the contours of the mountains. Soon, the stripe would expand to an aura, and after that, the sun would accept the handoff from the moon, and day would arrive.

                Her grandfather had always told her there were two twilights, two gloamings, and if you wanted to find your past, you went into the pines in the evening as the sun went down. If you wanted your future to come to you, you went alone into the forest in the veil, during that sacred transition of night into morning. There, he’d told her, when the distinction between that which ruled the light and that which held domain over the dark was at its narrowest, when the moon and the sun reached for each other before the rotations of their orbits tore them asunder, there was when the mortal could brush up against the infinite and seek answers, direction, guidance.

Of course, that did not mean you got good news. Or what you wanted.

But life was not an à la carte buffet where you could choose everything that went on your plate—another words-of-wisdom from a man who had lived to be 101 years old still smoking a pipe and drinking a glass of sima after his dinner year round.

Why limit spring to just Vappu? he’d said.

Lydia had never believed in his superstitions. She was a researcher, a scientist, and the kinds of things that her isoisa had gone on about did not fit in with that Ph.D. in biology she’d bought on layaway from the federal government and was still paying off.

So no, she was not out looking for any prognosti-cation from the universe this morning. She was get-ting her workout done before she headed into her office at the Wolf Study Project. With the way things had been going lately, she was going to blink and it would be seven at night. Short-staffed and under-funded, everything was a fight for resources at WSP, and by the time she locked things up every evening, she was exhausted. So Carpe Cardio was her motto and why she was out in this misty darkness—

Lydia let her stride peter to a halt.

Her breath pumped in clouds that captured and held the moonlight, and as a breeze came across the trail, her body did the same with the chill, grabbing it out of the air and bringing it in under her wind-breaker.

As she shivered, she looked behind herself. The trail she was on was the widest one in the preserve, a highway rather than a street, but she couldn’t see much into the trees. Pines crowded up close to the shoulders of the packed path, and the fog wafting through the craggy trunks and fluffy boughs obscured the forest even more.

                In a quick calculation, she figured she was a good three miles from any other human, two miles from her car at the trailhead’s parking area, and a hundred yards from what had caught her attention.

                There, up ahead, something was close to the ground, moving.

                Fight or flight, Lydia, she thought. What’s it going to be.

                She reached around to the small of her back. There were two cylinders mounted on the strap of her fanny pack, and she left the Mace where it was. Clicking on her flashlight and bringing it forward, she swung the beam in a wide arc—

                The eyes flashed over on the left, a set of retinas flaring the light back at her as pinpoints. The stare was about three feet from the ground and the pupils were set close together, as predators’ were.

                Lydia looked around again.

“I’m not going to bother you,” she said. But like the gray wolf spoke English?

                The growl was soft. And then came the rustling. The animal was prowling toward her.

                “Oh, shit.”

Except . . .

Lydia kept the beam down on the fallen pine needles as she, too, walked forward. Something was wrong with the wolf, its gait wobbly and uneven. Yet the spirit of the hunter remained undeterred—and she was identified as its target.

                She was about twenty feet away when she got a sense of the fully mature male. He was filled out, at a healthy weight of about a hundred and thirty pounds, and his mottled white, gray, and brown fur was thick and lush, especially at the tail. But his head was hanging at a bad angle, and he was dragging his back paws as he continued to close the distance between them.

                It was obvious when the wolf was going to collapse. Though his head remained forward, his body listed to the side, his will staying strong even as his rear legs, and then his forelegs, gave out.

                He landed on the soft bed of pine needles on his side, and the struggle was immediate, useless paws batting at thin air and ground cover. As Lydia drew a little closer to him, he snarled, flashing long white fangs, his golden eyes narrowing.

                “Shh . . .” she said as she kneeled down.

                Her hand shook as she got out her cell phone. As she called a number from her favorites, she tried to keep her breathing steady.

                In the flashlight’s beam, she could see the grayness of those gums. The wolf was dying—and she knew why.

                “God damn it, pick up, pick up—” Her words ma-chine gun’d from her mouth. “Rick? Wake up, I’ve got another one. On the main trail—what? Yes, it’s the same—enough with the talking, get your ass out of bed. I’m on the loop, about two miles into the—huh? Yes, bring everything, and hurry.”

                She cut the connection as her voice gave out.

                Letting herself fall back to a sit, she stared into those beautiful eyes and tried to project love, acceptance, gentleness . . . compassion. And something got through, the majestic male’s muzzle relaxing, its paws falling still, his flank rising and falling in a shuddering breath.

                Or maybe it was dying right now.

“Help is coming,” she said hoarsely to the animal.

Meet the Author: J.R. Ward

J.R. Ward_Photograph © Jan Cobb

J.R. Ward is the author of over thirty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling series, The Black Dagger Brotherhood. There are more than 15 million copies of Ward’s novels in print worldwide and they have been published in 25 different countries around the world.

After graduating from law school, Ward began working in healthcare in Boston and spent many years as Chief of Staff of one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation. 

She lives in the south with her incredibly supportive husband and her beloved golden retriever. Writing has always been her passion and her idea of heaven is a whole day of nothing but her computer, her dog and her coffee pot.

Visit the JRWard Facebook Page for more on the Brotherhood or email her at assistant@jrward.com.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Are you a fan of wolves? Does this excerpt entice you to find out more?

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Murder at Sea Captain’s Inn (+ Giveaway)

It’s a pleasure to be a part of author Melissa Bourbon’s Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for her latest release, MURDER AT SEA CAPTAIN’S INN, the third installment in her Book Magic Mystery.

Murder at Sea Captain's Inn

By Melissa Bourbon
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series: A Book Magic Mystery
Publisher: Lake House Press (July 20, 2021)
Approx 300 pages
Digital ASIN: B08GL19B84

Generation after generation of Lane women die in childbirth, while the sea claims the men.

Pippin Lane Hawthorne’s grand opening of Sea Captain’s Inn is tainted when a scholar studying the Lost Colony of Roanoke is brutally murdered. Like the black crow that hangs around the old house, could the untimely death be a harbinger of dark things to come?

When her twin brother, Grey, begins bucking the curse by risking his life in the waters of the Outer Banks, Pippin lives in terror that he’ll be the next Lane male to be swallowed by the sea. Now she must use her gift of bibliomancy to save her brother, solve the murder, and end a two-thousand-year-old pact.


Murder at Sea Captain's Inn
is available to purchase at the following link: Amazon 

Meet the Author: Melissa Bourbon

Melissa Bourbon is the national bestselling author of more than twenty-five mystery books, including the Book Magic mysteries, the Lola Cruz Mysteries, A Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, and the Bread Shop Mysteries, written as Winnie Archer. She is a former middle school English teacher who gave up the classroom in order to live in her imagination full time.

Melissa lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos. She is beyond fortunate to be living the life of her dreams.

Learn more about Melissa at her website, www.melissabourbon.com, on Facebook @MelissaBourbon/Winnie ArcherBooks, and on Instagram @bookishly_cozy. You can also find her on the following links:

Book Warriors Online Book Club: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookWarriors
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookishly_cozy/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5423119.Melissa_Bourbon
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmyAuh_IzHHYkzWzuZg9OVA

Be sure to enter the giveaway below. If the Rafflecopter widget doesn’t show up, you can still enter by clicking HERE. You can also follow Melissa’s tour by visiting the blogs below.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Do you believe in curses?

July 21 – Novels Alive – GUEST POST

July 21 – Island Confidential – SPOTLIGHT

July 22 – I Read What You Write – REVIEW, RECIPE

July 22 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT

July 23 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW

July 23 – Books to the Ceiling – REVIEW

July 24 – Author Elena Taylor's Blog - AUTHOR INTERVIEW

July 24 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog – SPOTLIGHT

July 25 – eBook Addicts – SPOTLIGHT

July 25 – Books a Plenty Book Reviews - REVIEW, CHARACTER INTERVIEW

July 26 – Baroness' Book Trove – REVIEW

July 26 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT

July 27 – Maureen's Musings – SPOTLIGHT

July 27 – Christa Reads and Writes – SPOTLIGHT

July 28 – Christy's Cozy Corners – GUEST POST

July 28 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW

July 29 – Tea Book Blanket – GUEST POST

July 30 – Dear Reader – CHARACTER GUEST POST

July 30 – Sapphyria's Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

July 31 - Celticlady's Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

July 31 - MJB Reviewers – SPOTLIGHT

August 1 - Ascroft, eh? – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

August 2 – Elizabeth McKenna - Author – SPOTLIGHT

August 3 – BookishKelly2020 – SPOTLIGHT  

August 3 – Literary Gold – CHARACTER GUEST POST

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