Spotlight on Leave Taking by Angelica Dawson in Serviced: Volume 1

Posted on March 8, 2013 by S.J. Maylee

Serviced: Volume 1

Publisher: Breathless Press
Released: March 1st 2013
Word Count: 65,386

All’s fair in love and war, they say. Come find out if it’s true in these ten stories where soldiers prove that their skills in the field are only rivaled by their skills in the bedroom.

For One Night Only by Allie A Burrow
Over A Dead Body by Leona Bushman
Reds, Whites, and Blues by Mickey J. Corrigan
Leave Taking by Angelica Dawson
First Date The Italian Colonel by Jesabelle Jones
Major’s Minah by Raven McAllan
Knock Out by Natalia Petrovskii
A Chance At Love by Shelli Rosewarne
Taking Command by Zara Stoneley
Riding Out the Storm by Natalia Petrovskii

EXCERPT – Leave Taking by Angelica Dawson

A smile spread over my face and I closed the door quietly behind me, setting my duffel on the floor. Unless I missed my guess, Dani was upstairs singing in the bathtub. I had dreamed of her leaping into my arms at the door, but fate had given me a better surprise. I twitched in my pants as I pulled off my boots, thinking about her with each note and splash coming from the bathroom. I padded up the stairs.

“I don’t want, anybody else. When I think about you, I touch myself…”

I bit hard on my knuckles to keep from making a sound. The first muffle was laughter. The second was a groan as I peeked through the crack in the door. Danielle was shaving her legs, careful quick strokes down each long white limb. I sighed and adjusted myself. God, she had beautiful legs. I didn’t want to startle her while she had the blade in her hand.

The whole time she kept on singing with the music. “When I’m feeling down, I want you above me.”Oh, I was going to be above her all right. She was soaping her arms now and I didn’t mind giving her a little scare. I yanked the door open and she screamed, plunging her head under the water.

The Divinyls continued to touch themselves while I chortled and lunged to the tub, sitting on its edge despite the water coming over the side.

Dani’s head came up at the sound of my laugh. “Will! You scared the shit out of me! Don’t you ever… You’re home!” She jumped out of the tub to hug me, knocking us both to the tiled floor.

I kept laughing, nearly as wet as she was, holding her as she kissed my face.

“You don’t have to touch yourself anymore, honey,” I told her, still laughing. “I’ll be happy to do it for you.”

BUY LINKS

Breathless Press | Amazon

BIO

Angelica Dawson is the author of Blue Moon House and contributor to two anthologies, Campus Sexploits 3 and Serviced 1. Although her job as an environmental consultant makes her no stranger to the blood sucking hoards, she has been disappointed to find they are only mosquitoes and black flies instead of vampires.

Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ blog

@AngelicaDawson

Blitz Party for Storm Dancer by Rayne Hall

Posted on March 4, 2013 by S.J. Maylee

Today we’ll explore the Epic Fantasy world of author Rayne Hall. This post is packed full of all the details on Storm Dancer. Below you’ll find the BLURB, TRAILER, and EXCERPT. Also below you’ll find the links for all the places you can find Storm Dancer, Rayne’s BIO AND a GIVEAWAY for Stories from the Storm Dancer World.

Storm Dancer

by Rayne Hall

Publisher: Scimitar Press
Length: 469 Pages
Sub-Genres: Epic Fantasy

Blurb:

Six short stories from the mystical Bronze Age world of the dark epic fantasy novel Storm Dancer. The stories span the fantasy and horror genres, varying in tone from light to dark, from quirky to disturbing. Some have been previously published in magazines, ezines, collections and anthologies, others appear here for the first time. British spellings.

Excerpt:

Suddenly the air sang with danger. A rider vaulted off his grey horse. The sight of his moss-green tunic and plaited belt hit her guts. This was one of the Consort’s henchmen, a thousand miles from the palace. Had he come to arrest her?

She took a step back, poised for flight.

“A reading, please, seer.” His voice was deep like a slow-flowing river, smooth on top but dangerous beneath.

She allowed herself to meet his eyes, as if she had nothing to fear from his kind. Although his mouth smiled, his eyes were bitter-dark like olives. An aura of vibrant intelligence was enveloped in intense bitterness, and under his cheerful courtesy, pain radiated from him like heat searing from a fire.

Her instincts screamed at her to pull free from the dangerous power before it could burn her, but a genuine wandering seer would not panic at the sight of a palace official, and bolting would draw his suspicion.

She forced herself to stay in her role. “Your hands,” she demanded, careful to hide her accent.

The hands were wrong: Brown, with short dirty nails, calloused, rough and ridged with old scars, they did not belong to a courtier, nor even to a guard.

At the moment of touch, shock surged through her, sending tingles all over her body. Her stomach felt as if a pestle was running along the inside of a stone mortar. Several futures flashed by her vision, too fast to hold, then his past dragged her in. She heard screams of terror and pain, and smelled the stench of burning flesh. This man was burning in the fire of his own soul.

Buy Links:

Amazon.com UK | Kobobooks.com | Smashwords.com | iTunes

March 1 Close Encounters with the Night Kind http://closeencounterswiththenightkind.blogspot.com
March 3 Gayle Remage: http:// www.gayleramage.co.uk
March 6 A Little Bit of Naughty http:// alittlebitofnaughty.blogspot.com
March 9 The TBR Blog: http://tbrtheblog.blogspot.com/
March 10 The Log Line Blog : http://theloglineblog.blogspot.com/
March 11 Elizabeth Morgan’s My World: http://xxxxmyworldxxxx.blogspot.com/
March 11 Francis Pauli: http://francespauli.blogspot.com
March 12 SnifferWalk: http://www.snifferwalk.org
March 13 Read 2 Review: http://read2review.com/
March 14 Read Between the Lines: http://www.rbtlreviews.com

BIO:

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes, The World-Loss Diet and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors).

She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies and more.

Rayne Hall

Google ~ Twitter ~ Google+ ~ Facebook ~ Linkedin.com ~ Brandyourself.com

Goodreads.com ~ Independentauthornetwork.com ~ Youtube

@RayneHall

~ GIVEAWAY ~

Every comment will be entered to win a copy of “The Colour of Dishonour – Stories from the Storm Dancer World” I’ll be using Random.org Wednesday morning to find the lucky commentor.

Blurb: Six short stories from the mystical Bronze Age world of the dark epic fantasy novel Storm Dancer. The stories span the fantasy and horror genres, varying in tone from light to dark, from quirky to disturbing. Some have been previously published in magazines, ezines, collections and anthologies, others appear here for the first time. British spellings.

Weekend Writing Warriors and the Write Club meet Rob

Posted on March 3, 2013 by S.J. Maylee

Welcome friends new and old, warriors and write club members alike. I’m going to give you a couple more posts from the story I’ve been sharing. The first draft is finished and I’m in full on edit mode. I will hit send to the CP this week. I will. 🙂

In the Blind (working title), and you can see the past six posts from this WIP here. The Logline: When a head hunter finds her dream lover in a night of pitch black unrestrained passion, she fears she’ll never find him again. Fate steps in and throws the two together, but they might never discover the truth and stay in the blind.

Over the past few weeks I’ve shared Jane’s experience at Club Blind. Last Week Jane worked at remembering her mystery man, from the club, only provided her with a transition back into dating. Jane’s just gotten a chance to fill a job opening for a VIP client. She knows exactly who she wants applying for the job, he has the necessary skills, plus he’s the fantasy man she met last month. A fantasy because, although they hit it off and he’s been divorced for some time, he was still wearing the ring. She’s gotten the man on the phone and laid out a proposition to meet and discuss the opportunity. Will he agree or won’t he?

The silence on the phone grew deafening as her heart thumped in her chest. “Come on, I’ll buy you a great cup of coffee.” She’d never get another chance to help Keller, if she didn’t find him the right candidate. She also wanted to find out if Rob had taken off his ring.

“Okay, tomorrow, eleven o’clock at the place just past Clark on Diversey, lake side.”

“Sounds perfect, but make it nine and wear a suit.”

Jane is in the zone and calling the shots, will that continue through their meet? Come back next week and I’ll give you some from Rob’s POV. Until then, I hope you enjoyed my ~~eight~~ six today. Thank you so much for visiting me, it means a lot to me that you took the time to visit my little place on the web. Don’t forget to check out the other Write Club, Weekend Warriors, and Saturday Spankings too. I hope to see you again next Sunday.

ROW80 check-in #52 Editing and Birthday Treats

Posted on March 3, 2013 by S.J. Maylee

My goal this week was to look on the bright side. Yesterday I turned another year older, the annual event I’ve come to loathe. Oh, I know it’s just a number. I even tried to play a few games with it. I tried not to think about it, that didn’t work. I tried to stall, but the calendar kept moving. I tried to convince myself I was 10-years younger I’m too smart for that one. Figures.

If I have to turn older then we can all eat cake,

Photo Credit: Lynn Kelley Author

looks like someone’s already eaten half of this one. Bet it was yummy.

While I was trying to ignore my impending dooms day, I dove into edits. Last week I had a hard time getting the ball rolling, but this week the wheels started to turn and I finished the first (for story) and second (to fix passive voice, remove unnecessary words, and add in all kinds of visceral responses) read throughs. I’m going to give it one more read through and then I will send it to the CP. I will.

I survived my birthday and I cruised through a week of edits <– bright side. Look at me. I’m a champion. 🙂

What have you championed lately? Tell me your happy endings and let’s celebrate together.

The Goals – week-8 results

Spend at least 1-hour a day with my characters- done.
Daily progress in writing craft, word count, editing, and/or plotting- done. I finished the fifth and started the sixth Lectures in my Margie Packet and I edited everyday this week. I’ve read through the WIP twice now and it’s time to warn the CP. It’s almost ready.
Workout a minimum of three times a week and round it out with plenty of water, sleep and my calorie limit- DONE. By the hair of my chinny chin chin 🙂
Daily Nia study (i.e. studying the song/movement structure)- kind of done. A part of my teacher membership I can pick 4-routines a year from the library. The packet includes, the music CD, the routine on a DVD, and the standard supporting documents. I have not yet picked one, silly me. I picked one this week and it arrived yesterday. I’m looking forward to the new movement. WEEK 9 PRIORITY
Stay on top of my co-op preschool Treasurer responsibilities- done. I’m actually surprised I got anything else done this week. This goal took a massive amount of time. I finished deposits, reports, invoicing, and prep for a huge event yesterday which I did not attend. I was too busy ~~hiding~~ celebrating my birthday. Anyways, I got it all done. Wow.
Organize something in the house each week- done. Well, sort of. It was my birthday yesterday. So instead of organizing the house I pampered myself with at home spa stuff. I organized myself a bit, that counts, right? lol. You can agree with me, it was my birthday. 🙂

What you might have missed here this week: I had TWO of my favorite authors, double score, it was my birthday.

Spotlight: Mystically Bound by Stacey Kennedy <–I finished this yesterday. 5-Stars, love this series.

I Torture My Characters with Sarah Ballance <–I’m reading this next, so excited

Flash Fiction #38 Watching and Waiting

Flash Fiction #38 Watching and Waiting

Posted on March 1, 2013 by S.J. Maylee

Thanks for stopping. Another picture…another 100 words.

Freedigitalphotos.net

Christy stood at the fringes of the room. As a new member of the club, she was restricted from interacting, but she could watch. She peered through her bangs to the man standing at attention near the end of the bar. He’d crossed his arms tightly over his broad chest. Her bound wrists reminded her she could not touch, could not join the soiree.

Would he notice her?

Music pumped through the room, the beat vibrating through her body and mixing with her jumble of nerves. A crease appeared in his brow, he turned and captured her gaze.

“Oh my.”

Hope you enjoyed my flash today!! Don’t forget to follow the link to get to the other FFF posts. Flasher Fiction Friday. Or click away on the links below.

Ray Sostre: http://theafterdarkworld.blogspot.com/
Naomi Shaw: www.authornaomishaw.com
J S Morbius: http://morbiussworld.blogspot.co.uk/
Doris O’Connor: http://thetardisscribbles.blogspot.co.uk/
Gemma Parkes: http://gemmaparkes.blogspot.com/
AuroraRose Andromeda: http://rollingmuseintheroses.blogspot.com/
Angelica Dawson: http://angelicadawson.blogspot.com
Sherri Hayes: http://sherri-hayes.blogspot.com/