Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Interview and Giveaway - Caitlyn Nicholas - The Danger Game




Please describe your novel twitter style 140 characters or less.

Flick Smith has developed a dangerous cyber-war program, when its stolen and her boss murdered she realises lives are at risk.

What is the one thing you wish you knew before you tried to get published?

Rejection is not an excuse to put on ten pounds! 

What to you is the best part of being a writer and what is the part you wouldnt mind giving up?

I enjoy the whole writing process.  I’m very goal motivated, so I get a real sense of satisfaction from setting goals and reaching them. I also enjoy the editing process, getting someone else’s point of view on your story is painful and fascinating at the same time. 

I think the worst part is the waiting to see how the book is received.  I’m always terrified there’s some huge mistake that every reader will pick up, which we missed in editing.  Yes, pre-release nerves, I could do without them.

What city would you love to set a story in but the right one hasn’t come along yet?

London.  I was born in the UK and have lived there for just under half my life (the other half in Sydney, Australia).  So I love England. London is the most amazing city.  The history is incredible and the place itself is wonderful.

Vampires, Shifters, Zombies, Angels - who wins the final ultimate battle?

Erm. Can Greek Gods win?  My money is on the Greek God contingent.

If you could witness any historical event past, present or future what would it be and why?

Oh goodness.  How can I pick just one…  I’d like to see the jubilation in England when World War 2 ended.  It must have been so bittersweet.  Celebrating that it was all over, but thinking of everyone that they’d lost.

If you were going to cowrite a new book, who would you want to write it with?

Kylie Scott. She’s an Australia writer and writes the most sensational books, including Flesh, and The Colonists Wife.

What books are currently on your nightstand?

There’s a couple of Harlequin Romantic Suspenses and a kindle plugged in to recharge.  The battery went flat right at the end of the book I was reading (Marked by Elizabeth Naughton) had to finish it on my phone!

When writing what is your favorite part of the story?

The beginning. This is when I’m brimming with ideas and so many possibilities lie ahead.  The first chapters are always the most fun.

Anything else you would like to share today?

My next book, The Bunker, is out in July 2013.  It’s a romantic suspense set in an old nuclear shelter in the green hills of England, and if you liked The Danger Game, you’ll love The Bunker. 

When terrorists strike the British financial system Dimity Pond, who is already in a world of trouble, has to face her fears and save the country from total collapse. The man who wants to send her the jail for the rest of her life, Lord Richard Summerhayes, is the only one who can help her.

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The Danger Game
by Caitlyn Nicholas

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BLURB:

Flick likes computers. She’s good with them, and they do what she tells them, mostly. People, however, are more of a challenge.

But when a terrifyingly dangerous program is stolen, and her mentor killed, Flick finds herself on the run. The police are convinced she’s committed murder, and a sinister weapons developer will stop at nothing to force her to work for him.

In Ben’s line of work being suspicious keeps you alive. So when Flick turns to him, he quickly realises that she’s up to her neck in trouble and hasn’t fully grasped the danger she is in. 

First he has to keep her safe, and then, together, they have to figure out how to save the world from an epic meltdown.


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EXCERPTS:
.
“It’s your last chance with the Vice Chancellor.”

“I said I’d be there.” Flick didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “I just won the man a million dollar grant, what more does he want?”

“Your bubbly and fun personality?” There was amusement beneath Andy’s sarcasm.

Flick snorted. “All right. Okay. I’m leaving now.” She growled the words, and hit the off-button on her phone.

They both knew she lied.

She dropped the phone onto the desk. Then, scowling, she clicked on the icon that’d run the Bellona program.  It crashed instantly, and took the computer with it.

“Awesome.”  She threw herself back into her chair and stared at the ceiling panels, running the changes she’d made to the code through her mind.  Realizing it’d be a waste of time to unpick what she’d done, Flick rebooted her computer and went in search of a clean copy of the program on the backup server. 

There were two versions. Usually they only kept one, but she thought nothing of it, and after saving a copy to her hard drive, she opened it up.

She scanned quickly through the code, looking for the section she’d been working on, so preoccupied with figuring out how to manipulate it into doing what she wanted, she nearly missed the strange command, her eye travelled straight past it. But then she hesitated, and went back to the unusual group of letters.  They hadn’t been there before.

A logic bomb? Some little joke Andy was playing?

She ran the command and it brought up a whole section of Bellona that she’d never seen before.

“Bloody hell -” For a moment she simply stared at the screen. 

It was no joke.


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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

I began writing in 2005. Exhausted, pregnant (sure I was going to expire from morning-
sickness) and coping with a demanding toddler, I decided the time was right to embark on a writing career. (In hindsight I may have been suffering from a scorching case of sleep-deprivation).

Still, it kinda worked out. My debut novel - and the first manuscript I'd ever written - Running Scared, was published in January 2007.  My next book, Secret Intentions followed.  Then I had a short story published in the Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (MBSOR) in 2010 - my story is called The Grey Man.

In 2012 my novel Drive Me To Distraction was published, and my novella The Danger Game came out just before Christmas.  My next book, The Bunker, will be published in July 2013.


Author Links

You can find me online at: http://www.caitlynnicholas.com






Buy links







 
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GIVEAWAY:

Caitlyn will be awarding three prizes: a $25 Amazon GC and Caitlyn Nicholas gift bag to one randomly drawn commenter, and a Caitlyn Nicholas gift bag to two randomly drawn commenters during the tour.(International)


 
Follow the tour and comment; the more your comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here:





Monday, May 20, 2013

Interview and Giveaway - Mertianna Georgia - Angel fo Syn





Please describe your novel twitter style 140 characters or less.
Cara Augustine discovers being an über-witch is like being a walking lightening rod for trouble and sexy dangerous supernatural men.

What is the one thing you wish you knew before you tried to get published?
Everyone knows about the rejections, the thanks-but-no-thanks we get along the way.  But I think my biggest wish is that I knew about the work that begins after your book is published.  Readers have to somehow discover you as an author or discover one of your books.  There are lots of choices for readers these days with traditional and indie-publishing going head-to-head.  Choices are wonderful, confusing, frustrating, and exhilarating – much like having multiple love interests. Who to choose?  Who to take a chance on?  Who to curl up with on a rainy afternoon?  Every writer wants it to be her or him.  It’s getting the word out there, like the book is saying “Hey, yes you gorgeous. Try me.  It might be love.”

What to you is the best part of being a writer and what is the part you wouldn’t mind giving up?
The best part is having the freedom to create worlds where anything is possible, fantasies come true, and new adventures are always lurking around the corner.  I wouldn’t mind giving up the pre-writing panic when I think I couldn’t possibly get my heroine out of the trouble she just gotten herself into.

What city would you love to set a story in but the right one hasn’t come along yet?
Almost any city I haven’t set a story in yet.  I’m sure even the tiniest rural town or village could be an exciting location.  On the other hand, this question has me thinking I really should personally visit some exotic foreign settings– just to make sure I get the details right.  Totally work related.  For the sake of my readers.  Willing to make the sacrifice. Really.

Vampires, Shifters, Zombies, Angels - who wins the final ultimate battle?
Humans. Or maybe ants.  Not the kind who give you a dollar bill in a card on your birthday, but the insect variety. No, I’ll have to go with humans. We have to win in the end.  A world of Vamps would eventually be forced to turn vegetarian, shifters couldn’t space travel because of all the moons, zombies would disintegrate into dirt and angels would be bored without us. I think humans or some form of next-generation human will out-live them all.

If you could witness any historical event past, present or future what would it be and why?
Instant transportation of a person from one location to another.  Like Star Trek.  None of this duplication stuff where you’d have to kill the original so there wouldn’t be dozens of you running around making trouble.  The real person going from one location to another, anywhere in the world in a micro-second with no side-effects, weird dreams, or existential angst.  I’m actually not a good traveler.  Long car rides rival using a wire brush instead of a washcloth in the shower as my least favorite thing.

If you were going to co-write a new book, who would you want to write it with?
Too.  Many.  Choices.  Head.  Exploding.  Can’t.  Choose.

What books are currently on your nightstand?
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  My Bookclub made me do it. 
I want to read Charlaine Harris’s last Sookie Stakehouse book, Dead Ever After.  I’m wiping away a tear as I type this.

What is the best thing you have done in the name of research?
Watched all the episodes of Hemlock Grove from Netflix in one sitting.  I was not paid to confess this.

When writing what is your favorite part of the story?
Writing “The End.”

Anything else you would like to share today?
Angel of Syn is the second in a planned trilogy. I’m working on the third novel, tentatively titled Dark Syns.  Cara is in for some very exciting trouble, uh, I mean adventures and will have to make some hard decisions in the end.




Angel of Syn
by Mertianna Georgia

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BLURB:

Contemporary witch Cara Augustine goes international and inter-dimensional, from San Francisco to France to an alternate Eden-like dimension, in this second book of the Synemancer series.

Cara is a fugitive, pursued by the Portalkind police for breaking a major covenant. When she accidently made a werewolf her witch’s familiar, it amounted to enslaving a human. And the punishment is death. On the run for her life, she and her companions stumble into a strange paradise dimension. But they quickly find the dangerous world is filled with strange creatures, deadly and beautiful. And, because she’s quickly learning a Synemancer’s life is never simple.  Cara has to deal with an amorous Nephilim (half-angel half-witch), a dangerously deranged French werewolf, and the darkly handsome Nightkind she just might love. Each powerful supernatural man has his own reasons for wanting to possess Cara, body and soul. But if the Portalkind police catch her, she’ll be in a fight for her life.
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EXCERPT

The nape of my neck tingled with the familiar sensation of being stalked. I glanced over my shoulder to see my bodyguard, Azrael. He was named after the angel of death, but he was no angel—in any sense of the word. I used to think it was a nickname. It wasn’t. We were both witches, but he came with specialized security training.  He watched me from his favorite indoor spot halfway up the stairs to the second story of our Berkeley hills house. His sky blue eyes stared at me hungrily.That stare reminded me of a hawk watching a tasty mouse.  Irritated, I took a last bite from my nearly finished apple, turned, and threw the core at him with deadly precision. I’d been practicing using non-magical self-defense skills. My magic skills were unreliable to say the least.The apple core flew between the wooden posts directly at his beautiful face. He deftly caught it in a blur of motion, put it up to his nose, inhaled deeply, and slowly licked the apple. His eyes never left me.



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AUTHOR Bio and Links:


Mertianna currently lives with her husband, son, and three dogs in Northern California. At a young age, while traveling the globe with her military family, she discovered the joys of reading. Armed with a fascination for science fiction, the paranormal, and fantasy, she amused, shocked, and impressed her teachers with her imaginative stories.

As an adult, reality reared its boring head, and she joined the business workforce. After many years working as a professional manager while secretly wishing she was a writer, she took a detour from the corporate world to immerse herself in the fictional worlds of her own making.

Mertianna has accumulated multiple graduate degrees in business and survived years of doctoral studies in psychology, all of which undoubtedly has influenced how her characters behave or don’t behave as the case may be.

Buy Links:



ImaJinn Books:


GIVEAWAY


Mertianna will be awarding a canvas tote bag printed with the book cover on one side and a saying on the other("Are you a syn-er?"), and filled with goodies plus a $20 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour (US ONLY).

Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: