Cindy Young-Turner

Happy release day: Wild Point Island by Kate Lutter

Congrats to Crescent Moon Press author Kate Lutter on the release of her debut novel, Wild Point Island! This looks like a great read! Keep reading for a fun excerpt.

The blurb:

Banished from Wild Point Island as a child, Ella Pattenson, a half human-half revenant, has managed to hide her true identity as a descendent of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Thought to have perished, the settlers survived but were transformed into revenants–immortal beings who live forever as long as they remain on the island.

Now, Ella must return to the place of her birth to rescue her father from imprisonment and a soon to be unspeakable death. Her only hope is to trust a seductive revenant who seems to have ties to the corrupt High Council. Simon Viccars is sexy and like no man she’s ever met. But he’s been trapped on the island for 400 years and is willing to do almost anything for his freedom.

With the forces of the island conspiring against her, Ella must risk her father, her heart, and her life on love.

Bio:

Kate Lutter believes she was born to write. She wrote her first novel when she was in eighth grade, but then almost burned her house down when she tried to incinerate her story in the garbage can because she couldn’t get the plot to turn out right. Now, many years later, she lives in NJ with her husband and five cats (no matches in sight) and spends her days writing contemporary paranormal romances, traveling the world, and hanging out with her four wild sisters. She is happy to report that her debut novel, Wild Point Island, the first in a series, has just been published by Crescent Moon Press. She is busy writing the sequel and her weekly travel blog entitled Hot Blogging with Chuck, which features her very snarky and rascally almost famous cat.

Website: www.katelutter.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/katelutternovelist

Blog: www.katelutter.blogspot.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/katelutter

Email: katelutter.author@gmail.com

Excerpt from Wild Point Island

Despite what he believed, I never had a relationship where I felt so bound to someone and yet so constrained in behavior. Sitting so close to him on the beach, hidden from view, wanting to hold him, I hesitated. So I’m not sure how what happened, happened next. What kept us apart—the suspicions, the fact that time had elapsed and we felt a bit like strangers meeting again—all of it abruptly dissipated like so much fog when the sun shines through.

His strong yet gentle grasp pulled me toward him, and he held me close, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. I felt in the urgency of his grip how much he’d missed me, and remembered again the dream he’d arranged for me, how cautious he’d been only days before. But dreams could not satisfy me now, no matter how real they seemed.

We pulled apart, but our eyes met. I leaned in and pressed my lips against his, chaste at first, to taste him, to spur his reaction. But that tentative reaching out soon exploded into the confirmation I’d been waiting for. Our desires cascaded in upon each other. I wanted more of him, and soon lost awareness of the cold surf, which melted against our heat. The roughness of the sea also faded into the distance. The spray of salt water was forgotten.

I couldn’t catch my breath. I didn’t want to think of the future or eternity. Only feel sweet sensations as he kissed me harder and harder.

Helpless to resist this love-making, I was the sand being thrown about by the waves around me. Soaked with a longing for him.

His kisses grew stronger, and I wanted all of them.

“Ella,” he groaned, sweeping the stray strands of hair out of my eyes.

I reached up to touch his face, to trace the outline of his strong jaw. Desire flickered in his eyes, a wildness mirroring my own needs, and I wanted to lose myself in that need, in that desire. I wanted him as I had wanted no other, knew for the first time in my life I had the potential for loving someone who knew me for who I really was.

It was intoxicating.

“Can you take me now?” I asked. “Here. Show me what I have to do.”

Indecision flickered across his face. I saw it. A look of a man who walked a tight rope and risked falling to the depths below.

“Ella.” His voice floundered in his own deep emotion.

But I reached over to pull him closer, and he tumbled on top of me. The weight of his body anchored me to the ground. Within seconds, my back was pressed against the sandy floor. His eyes grew hooded as his lips played against my mouth. Teasing. Caressing.

Suddenly, the kisses changed. Slow and carefully placed, I felt a heaviness to them that made me ache where I had felt warm and riled up before.

Aching to be with him in that way that I knew was forbidden to us.

But what did I care.

He was kissing me, and I began kissing him back, as if I had been doing this all my life, as if I were some kind of expert, allowing the pooling warmth in my stomach to find release. His hands burrowed under my sweater, nudging, rubbing against my breasts, which swelled to his touch.

The feel of his skin against my skin pushed me to a boldness I had not known until now, and I reached my hand below the belt of his pants, dared now to touch where I knew he wanted me to touch.

“Simon.” I whispered his name into the air, so sure that he was the one. Knowing as we wrestled together on the sand, in this sweetest of lovemaking, that I had a fire in me that he had set. He was the man I had been waiting for. This was the moment–

I felt resistance. Simon seemed to be struggling for control.

Over me. Over himself.

“Enough.” His voice, raw and edgy, strained against the sea that roared in the background.

Still breathing heavily, he released his hold on me, and pushed himself to a seated position.

My heart pounded.

“Have I done something wrong? Tell me,” I demanded.

“No.”

“Then why are you stopping?”

“We cannot be together, not now. I was wrong to even start.”

“Wrong? But I thought… ” I struggled to sit up, to face him, to put my own thoughts in order. When two people wanted to be together, how could there be something wrong? “Don’t you want to be with me?”

His gaze traveled down my body. I felt his stare, the desire in it. “Yes. I want to be with you.”

“Then–” I touched his arm. I needed to understand what could possibly be strong enough to hold him back.

“What I want has already been decided. You must decide what it is you want…” His voice softened. “… to do with your life.”

A chill coursed down my spine. And even though my flesh was still warm from his touch, I pulled my sweater down to cover myself, not because I was ashamed, but without his closeness, the early evening breeze now felt cold and damp. I guessed what he was saying, but I didn’t want to think about the future. Not here, not now.

“I want you to make love to me, Simon.”

“The Council forbids it,” he said.

“I don’t care about the Council. They have no say in what’s between us.”

He faced me then, and his finger touched my lips. “I could take you, Ella. Now. But it would not be the honorable thing to do.”

My fists clenched. I didn’t understand.

“I made a choice when I saved you from your uncle’s dangerous game. It was not difficult because I wanted you, Ella. But it was my choice. The moment our spirits fused, everything changed. Until you are sure I am what you want, I cannot take you. Until you are sure this island can be your home, I cannot give into my passions. My world is not like your world. There is no formal ceremony of commitment. There is the fusion and then there is consummation. When that occurs, you will be bound to me forever. There can be no turning back.”

Sydney vs. Katniss

Warning: Potential for mild spoilers ahead

I enjoyed The Hunger Games and recently flew through the next two books. I’d heard from other people that they didn’t like the second and third books as much as the first, and the more I read, the more I found myself agreeing with them. Whereas my first impression of Katniss was that she was a great role model, a strong female character who faced suffering and still managed to survive with her spirit intact, I began to grow weary of her indecisiveness and passivity. Gale vs. Peeta. Districts vs. Capitol. Become the Mockingjay or not. Katniss rarely seemed able to actually make a decision on her own. Instead situations forced her to act. Finally I just wanted to shake her and say dammit, just stand up for yourself and what you believe and be the Mockingjay, on your own terms!

I also kept comparing her in my head to Sydney, the heroine from my book. Okay, Sydney’s nineteen so she’s got a couple years of experience on Katniss, but she’s also a strong female character who’s suffered and has to face her inner demons in order to become a leader in the rebellion. Sound familiar? I know I’m a bit biased because Sydney is my character and near and dear to my heart, but she does share some similarities with Katniss. Sydney grows and changes tremendously throughout the course of Thief of Hope, and I really wanted to see that kind of growth in Katniss. She had so much potential and fell short, in my mind.

So here’s a little compare/contrast of our two heroines.

Loss of a father: Katniss loses her father in a mining accident. Sydney’s father figure, Edgar, is hanged for being part of the resistance. This one is close. But unlike Katniss, who still has her mother and Prim, Sydney has no other family to fall back on. Point to Sydney.

Street smarts: Another point to Sydney. She’s survived on the streets of Last Hope all of her life. It’s not a pleasant place. Katniss is resourceful, but she can’t maneuver through the back alleys like Sydney can.

Wilderness survival: Okay, this one goes to Katniss. She can hunt, she knows plants, and she can clearly hold her own in the wild. Sydney would be pretty useless in this environment, although she’d hang on as long as she could.

Knife vs. bow: Sydney’s pretty good with a knife and Katniss is an expert with her bow. This one might be a tie because it really depends on the situation. Hand to hand I’d bet on Sydney, but long distance goes to Katniss.

Watching loved ones die in front of you: The body count gets pretty high by the end of Mockingjay. Sydney loses quite a few people as well. This one’s probably a draw.

Drug problems: Katniss sees firsthand how easy it is to escape into the world of drugs and for a brief time, feel no pain. She never quite succumbs, though. Sydney does have a problem with drug addiction for that very reason-she uses it as an escape because the pain of losing Edgar is too much. But she gets through it and refuses to go down that path again, as tempting as it might be. Point to Sydney for overcoming her addiction.

A villain you love to hate: President Snow was a great villain. But Katniss loses a point here because the resolution made me want to toss my Kindle across the room. Luckily I value it too much for that. Schrammig is Sydney’s nemesis in Thief of Hope, and yes, I’m quite partial to him. He doesn’t have as much power as Snow, although he has a lot of power over Sydney because of what he’s done to her and the people she cares about. Sydney gets a point for having to face Schramming and all of the fears associated with him.

Boy trouble: Katniss has the whole love triangle going on. I started off Team Gale but switched to Team Peeta about halfway through. And once I began reading Mockingjay, I guessed correctly who she’d end up with. And in one of the many annoying elements of the ending, Katniss STILL doesn’t really choose, it just falls into her lap. Point taken away from Katniss for sheer annoyance. Sydney, on the other hand, doesn’t always make the best decisions where men are concerned (Zared is the prime example), but she comes to a realization about that. And when she has a chance at finding love with someone who is worthy of it, she takes it.

Leadership skills: Katniss has the mockingjay fall into her lap and still doesn’t know what to do with it. Again, she’s indecisive and very passive. I don’t think it’s just because of her age, either. There was potential for her to be a real leader with real power, and it was wasted potential. Sydney has plenty of doubts about her own leadership skills and her dubious past makes people doubt her. Yet she proves to herself and to others that she can stand up and fight for her beliefs and be an example for others to follow. Definitely a point for Sydney.

Pretty clothes: All right, we’ll give one more point to Katniss. Both Sydney and Katniss are pretty casual about their appearance. Katniss has stylists and some really amazing dresses. The dress in Catching Fire was one of my favorite scenes (if you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about. Sydney is lucky to get a pair of new boots.

So you can see where some of my criticisms of Katniss lie. I would still say I enjoyed the trilogy overall. It’s unique and has a refreshing point of view. I know it’s YA, but man is it dark, especially the last book. I was worried I might have nightmares after reading that. People can argue that Katniss is just a sixteen-year-old girl; she’s not perfect. That’s all well and good, but she’s also a heroine who deals with extraordinary circumstances. She survives the Hunger Games. She is the Girl Who Was on Fire. And she transforms into the mockingjay. She’s a lot more than an ordinary girl. She’s a hero we can look up to, and that’s why I hold her to a higher standard.

What do you think? Are you on Team Katniss? Or have I made you a convert to Team Sydney?

RIP Ray Bradbury

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
-Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

We lost a great writer yesterday with the death of Ray Bradbury. One of the panels I did at Balticon was Stories We Like to Hear Out Loud and I read Ray Bradbury’s “The Emissary,” a great little story about a boy and his dog. The boy is bedridden and depends on his dog to tell him about the world, but the dog also has a bad habit of bringing things home, things he shouldn’t. I love the opening paragraph:

“Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees. In dark clock-springsof hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees. Dog jumped. Showers of brittle fern, blackberryvine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted. No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!”
-Ray Bradbury, “The Emissary,” from The October Country

Years ago a friend took me to a great used bookstore and introduced me to Ray Bradbury. My favorites are The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Fahrenheit 451, and Dandelion Wine. Bradbury was such an amazing writer and truly had a gift with language and storytelling. If only we could capture his talent like bottling summer in a bottle of dandelion wine. He will be missed, but he will live on in his stories. And who says genre fiction isn’t literature? Just read one of Bradbury’s stories to see how powerful science fiction and fantasy can be.

Balticon 46 recap

It’s been a week since Balticon. I think I’ve recovered, although I was pretty exhausted going in due to a hectic week leading up to it. I had a lot of fun. Being my first con and my biggest author appearance to date, I had no idea what to expect. I’m very much an introvert. The idea of speaking in front of a group of people I don’t know makes me break out in a cold sweat. I think that’s why the panels I picked were primarily games, like a Cthulhu out of the hat and fantasy title chain. I figured if it was a fun thing, I’d be less nervous.

cyt_Balticon — Proof that I really was at Balticon! At my reading, the Sat. 9 am panel.

Based on feedback from some friends who attended my panels, I did very well, despite needed to project a little more. The game-like panels were a lot of fun and I got over my nervousness pretty quickly. I didn’t have a choice, actually. These were think on your feet, audience participation type panels, with lots of, shall we say, unusual topics and laughs. That helped put me at ease also. Plus everyone I met was incredibly nice. I met some experienced authors who were helpful and willing to share their knowledge and some authors just starting out who were interested in sharing ideas. There was definitely a “we’re in this together” vibe. And there were lots of amazing and strange costumes. One friend who is a costumer won the hall costume contest with her Japanese demon/dragon costume. (Go Amy!) I even went back on my free day and brought my four-year-old, who also enjoyed it and got to make a neat Mad Hatter hat at a children’s panel. Next year I might get a t-shirt with my book cover on it for her so she can be my adorable walking advertisement.

AKaplan_Japanese_dragon — This is NOT me. It’s Amy Kaplan in her amazing costume, which won the hall costume contest.

Two things I learned: 9 am panels and panels Friday afternoon (when people are arriving or trying to fight traffic to get there) are
not a good idea. I hope next year I can get some better times, but it’s hard being a mostly unknown author. With any luck that may change by 2013. Second, don’t expect to sell many books. Again, timing and being an unknown probably play a factor in this. I think next time I’ll go with the mindset of having fun, meeting new people, and networking. Maybe there will even be a costume involved.

I’ll post my A Cthulhu out of the Hat story later this week for your reading pleasure. I have to type it up. I’m not sure how it will read post-Balticon, but it sounded pretty good at the time. And I only had twenty minutes to write it. As far as I know, no Cthulhus were summoned.

Cover reveal: Demon Hunt by Christine Ashworth

Here’s another great Crescent Moon Press cover!

The blurb:

Tribred Gregor Caine decided long ago to deny his blood legacy. So he isn’t happy when paired with a full-blooded Fae to hunt the demons threatening to overrun Los Angeles. As they fight side by side, he finds she calls to both his Fae and his demon blood; a call he can’t resist.

Warrior Fae Serra Willows crossed into the Human Plane to help destroy the demons released from the Chaos Plane. Finding and shutting down the portal between worlds is more challenging than she expected…and Gregor and his world more seductive than she had ever imagined.

As the killings escalate, Gregor and Serra realize one of the most deadly demons from the Chaos Plane has marked Serra as his own. To save her, Gregor has to face his greatest fear—losing his humanity to the darkness in his blood. But in a race against time, that darkness could become his greatest strength. And he will kill to claim Serra’s love.

Christine’s Bio:

Christine Ashworth is a native of Southern California. The daughter of a writer and a psych major, she fell asleep to the sound of her father’s Royal manual typewriter for years. In a very real way, being a writer is in her blood-her father sold his first novel before he turned forty; her brother sold his first book before he turned twenty-five.

At the tender age of seventeen, Christine fell in love with a man she met while dancing in a ballet company. She married the brilliant actor/dancer/painter/music man, and they now have two tall sons who are as scintillating as their parents, keeping the dinner conversation lively.

Christine’s two dogs rule the outside, defending her vegetable garden from the squirrels, while a polydactyl rescue cat holds court inside the house. Everything else is in a state of flux, leaving her home life a cross between an improv class and a think-tank for the defense of humans against zombies.

You can find Christine here:

Website and Blog: http://christine-ashworth.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/CCAshworth

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/ChristineAshworthAuthor

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4768755.Christine_Ashworth