Showing posts with label #AlexandraSokoloff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #AlexandraSokoloff. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Hunger Moon {+ Giveaway}



Hunger Moon
Alexandra Sokoloff
(The Huntress/FBI Thrillers #5)
Publication date: October 24th 2017
Genres: Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Revenge has no limits.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke has abandoned his rogue search for serial killer Cara Lindstrom. He’s returned to the FBI to head a task force with one mission: to rid society of its worst predators. But as the skeletal symbols of Santa Muerte, “Lady Death,” mysteriously appear at universities nationwide, threatening death to rapists, Roarke’s team is pressured to investigate. When a frat boy goes missing in Santa Barbara, Roarke realizes a bloodbath is coming—desperate teenagers are about to mete out personal, cold-blooded justice.
Hiding from the law, avenging angel Cara Lindstrom is on her own ruthless quest. She plans to stay as far away from Roarke as possible—until an old enemy comes after both her and the FBI, forcing her back into Roarke’s orbit. This time, the huntress has become the hunted . . .
Pre-order today!
PLUS: Books 1-4 are on SALE for $1.99 each for a limited time only!

Previous books in the Huntress/FBI Thrillers Series:
EXCERPT:
A bleak sky, streaked with white, stretches over the desolate South Rim of the canyon. There will be snow tonight.
The grinding of a pickup truck grates through the silence.
A four-door Tundra. Tonneau cover over the bed. Two men dressed in camouflage inside. Fast-food and jerky wrappers litter the wells at their feet. In the back seat, a cooler packed full of beer.
And three rifles, three-inch twelve-gauge magnums, strapped to the padded back-seat gun rest.
Hunters, driving the rim.
The front-seat passenger sets his sights on something moving ahead of them, leans forward greedily. “There we go, there we go.”
The driver follows his gaze, fixes on what he is tracking. Not a deer, but a young girl, shining black hair underneath the hood of her parka. Schoolgirl’s backpack on her shoulder.
On the men’s faces, something crude and capering.
“That’s some tasty-looking pussy.”
“Oh, yeah, that’ll do.”
“Let’s go.”
“Get her.”
The driver swerves the truck over to the side of the road, squealing brakes.
The girl hears the sound, stiffens, is starting to run before she even completes the glance back.
The truck skids to a stop in the snow. The doors fly open; the men are out of the car, grabbing for their rifles.
The girl runs for the rocks, but her pursuers are bigger, faster. Two of them, grown men, against a teenage girl.
They move forward into the strong wind, a military-style formation, heavy boots crunching in the sandy snow.
They pause at the rock outcropping, looking out over the boulders. The girl seems to have disappeared. Then a scrabble on the rocks betrays her. Hearing it, the men grin at each other.
The driver rounds the rock first, his mouth watering. He is already hard in anticipation . . .
The tire iron bashes him across the face, breaking his jaw. He staggers back, howling inarticulate pain.
The girl kicks him viciously in the knee, crumpling him, then swivels as the second hunter rounds the edge of the rock. She slams the tire iron against the side of his head.
Now both men are collapsed on the ground, moaning and cursing.
She steps forward, no longer feigning that youthful, hesitant gait.
She lifts her arm and uses the tire iron on their skulls. Two, three, four blows, and there is no more moaning. Thick crimson drops spatter the snow. Her breath is harsh. Her face is ice.
There is only the wind, swallowing the sound of her breathing.
Cara stands at the edge of the canyon, looking out at the spires of Spider Rock, the vast open gorge.
Below her is an icy crevasse. The canyon has any number of them, deep splits in the rock wall where whole sheets of the cliff have broken away. Behind her is the hunters’ pickup truck.
Their bodies lie at her feet.
She drags one, then the other, to shove them over the cliff’s edge, stepping back to watch each body hurtle down into the crevasse, tumbling into oblivion.
The snowfall tonight will cover all trace of them. Later, birds and animals will pick the bones clean.
Another offering to the canyon, and the gods and ghosts that haunt it.


Author Bio:

"Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre." - The New York Times ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF is the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Award-nominated author of the Amazon bestselling Huntress/FBI series (HUNTRESS MOON, BLOOD MOON, COLD MOON, BITTER MOON, HUNGER MOON - now in active development as a TV series), and the supernatural HAUNTED thrillers (THE HARROWING, THE PRICE, THE UNSEEN, BOOK OF SHADOWS, THE SHIFTERS, THE SPACE BETWEEN). The New York Times Book Review called her a "daughter of Mary Shelley," and her books "Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre."
As a screenwriter she has sold original horror and thriller scripts and adapted novels for numerous Hollywood studios. She has also written three non-fiction workbooks: SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS, STEALING HOLLYWOOD, and WRITING LOVE, based on her internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (www.ScreenwritingTricks.com), and has served on the Board of Directors of the WGA West and the Board of the Mystery Writers of America.
Alex is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where she majored in theater and minored in everything Berkeley has a reputation for. In her spare time (!) she performs with The Slice Girls and Heather Graham's all-author Slush Pile Players, and dances like a fiend. She is also very active on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. But not an addict. Seriously, it's under control.


GIVEAWAY!
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Monday, November 28, 2016

Alexandra Sokoloff ... Not a Romance Writer?


It’s a pleasure today to welcome award-winning thriller author Alexandra Sokoloff to Thoughts in Progress to talk about her latest release, BITTER MOON, the fourth installment in her The Huntress/FBI Thriller series.

Alexandra will be talking about not being a romance writer. By the way, her series also includes: Huntress Moon, Blood Moon and Cold Moon. And now, the long awaited fourth in the series – Bitter Moon!

BITTER MOON by Alexandra Sokoloff
◊ Series: The Huntress/FBI Thriller, Book 4
◊ Paperback: 464 pages
◊ Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (November 1, 2016)
◊ Language: English
◊ ISBN-10: 1503940365
◊ ISBN-13: 978-1503940369

FBI agent Matthew Roarke has been on leave, and in seclusion, since the capture of mass killer Cara Lindstrom—the victim turned avenger who preys on predators. Torn between devotion to the law and a powerful attraction to Cara and her lethal brand of justice, Roarke has retreated from both to search his soul. But Cara’s escape from custody and a police detective’s cryptic challenge soon draw him out of exile—into the California desert and deep into Cara’s past—to probe an unsolved murder that could be the key to her long and deadly career.
Following young Cara’s trail, Roarke uncovers a horrifying attack on a schoolgirl, the shocking suicide of another, and a human monster stalking Cara’s old high school. Separated by sixteen years, crossing paths in the present and past, Roarke and fourteen-year-old Cara must race to find and stop the sadistic sexual predator before more young women are brutalized.

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Alexandra as she talks about her writing. Welcome, Alexandra.

I am not a romance writer. I always say that, despite the fact that:

a)    I’ve written two books in the paranormal KEEPERS series, with romance goddess Heather Graham and Harley Jane Kozak, and –
b)    I’ve written a popular writing workbook on how to write romantic comedy and love stories: WRITING LOVE (Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II), and -
c)     I met my own romantic partner, the Scottish noir author Craig Robertson, at the Left Coast Crime mystery convention in Colorado Springs, and one whirlwind romantic month later was living in Scotland with him. How’s that for romance?

I also have to admit, I’ve hung around the romance communities quite a lot, at RWA Nationals and Romantic Times, and often teach workshops for chapters of the Romance Writers of America.

So even though my current, Thriller Award-nominated, bestselling Huntress Moon series is very dark crime/suspense, I am well aware that one of the strongest draws of the series, if not the strongest, is the erotic/romantic tension between my haunted FBI agent, Matthew Roarke, and the brutal but compelling serial killer he’s pursuing, the Huntress.  Many of my readers “ship” the characters, hoping for a hookup even though given the circumstances, it would probably mean the death of one or the other or both.

But there’s something extra delicious about romantic longing in the midst of danger and darkness, isn’t there? I’ve always been a big fan of simmering, often unresolved erotic tension between tortured detectives — Val McDermid’s Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, and Craig Robertson’s Tony Winter and Rachel Narey, and of course Scully and Mulder, being favorite examples.

Characters in the blockbuster horror TV series The Walking Dead, to which I am hopelessly addicted! — not only hook up, get married, and have children (or at least are pouring the Bisquick intending to make pancakes…) – TWD characters are probably shipped by fans more than any other movie or TV show ever.

Roarke and the Huntress/Cara are a little different than the other pairings I’ve name above, because Roarke, as a lawman, and Cara, as a killer, are supposedly on opposite sides of the moral battle against evil. But are they really? (Anything more than that would be a spoiler for the mystery, so you’ll have to read and decide for yourself).

Personally, I look at them as two halves of the same person. Or really, of the same soul. It’s a very romantic notion, the Platonic idea that each human being is half of one complete soul that has been split apart, and we spend our lives searching for our other half. If you believe that, you can well imagine how almost violently those two halves might struggle to find and join with each other, despite all odds, obstacles, and sense. So I think of Roarke and Cara as two halves of the same soul that are magnetized to each other; they can’t help themselves, even though actually uniting could destroy them both. 

And the other part of Roarke’s and Cara’s natures is that they are fighters, and they’re fighting the same battle, by very different rules. Together they are a powerful crime fighting team, and I find that very sexy and compelling.

So, I may not be a romance writer, but — romantic? I can cop to that! -         Alexandra Sokoloff

SALE ALERT:  This month you can get the first three Huntress books on Amazon US for just $1.99 each: Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, and Cold Moon.  Amazon Prime members can read Book 1, Huntress Moon, for free.
Huntress Moon:  http://hyperurl.co/xtajck
Blood Moon: hyperurl.co/sa8i03
Cold Moon:  hyperurl.co/fehyh8

Alexandra, thanks for joining us today and sharing this insight into your writing. I think a little romance goes a long way no matter the genre you’re reading (or writing). Great sale too!

Now for those who aren’t familiar with Alexandra, here’s a bit of background on her.

Author Alexandra Sokoloff
Alexandra Sokoloff is the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Award-nominated author of the supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, The Unseen, Book of Shadows, The Shifters, and The Space Between; The Keepers paranormal series, and the Thriller Award-nominated, Amazon bestselling Huntress/FBI Thriller series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon), which has been optioned for television. She has also written three non-fiction workbooks: Stealing Hollywood, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, and Writing Love, based on her internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (www.ScreenwritingTricks.com), and has served on the Board of Directors of the WGA, West (the screenwriters union) and the board of the Mystery Writers of America.

Alex is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where she majored in theater and minored in everything Berkeley has a reputation for. She lives in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.

For more on Alexandra and her writing, visit her website or blog and connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest.

You can find The Huntress/FBI Thriller series on Amazon.

Thanks for stopping by today during Alexandra’s visit. Do you think when opposites attract, they make a good pairing? Do you like the tension and romance that comes from such a couple?