Tag Archives: D.R. Slaten

Night Blind Cover Reveal and Saturday Snippet

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Night Blind

nightblind_800_2 Just got my cover for NIGHT BLIND. It is so pretty. lol I really should wait to do a reveal until the edits and everything are all worked out. But I got so excited that I just couldn’t wait. I keep looking at the pretty, shiny and getting all excited. 🙂

This story is Part 2 of a 2 part prequel to my OtherKind series. The main characters in these two books are sisters. Unbeknownst to them, the witch sickness is the opening salvo by a madman bent on controlling the world, human and OtherKind alike. As sides are picked and lines are drawn, the world as they know it will be changed forever by this power struggle.

Night Blind is the story of Ellie, Lucien and Rory coming together as they hunt down the source of the witches’ magical sickness. Lucien is a Vampire Lord, Rory is Lucien’s werewolf body guard and Ellie is the witch sent to dispense the goddess’s justice. They’ve been sent to seek and destroy. Along the way, they find each other.

Ellie is Evie’s sister. Evie, Trent and Drew were featured in FarSeen. Anyway, here’s the blurb. Bear in mind that the blurb and snippet haven’t been edited at all. So, any mistakes are mine. Flog me. lol

Blurb:

Every Vampire Lord needs a shifter bodyguard. Rory’s been Lucien’s for a while now. And although Rory’s been protecting Lucien’s body, Lucien has just been plain lusting after Rory’s. Unfortunately, Rory’s been rebuffing Lucien’s advances; that is, until Ellie comes along with her witchy bad self. The Witch Council is sending her in her capacity as Enforcer to Dallas. And to make matters more interesting, they’re also sending Lucien and Rory

Ellie’s mission is to find and destroy the source of the witch sickness. Along the way, she uncovers Rory’s reason for hesitating in accepting Lucien’s advances. It isn’t because he doesn’t like or want Lucien. Rory does. He’s just never been with a man before. As a result, Rory and his wolf were confused when Lucien came on to him in the past. With Ellie’s help, Rory’s not confused anymore. Now, what happens in Dallas
 well, it’s not going to stay in Dallas

As Lucien, Rory and Ellie navigate the intricacies of a full triad and one man new to manlove, they also have to navigate the treacherous home of Dallas Vampire Lord during the winter solstice. Because something is rotten in the Texas city. And Ellie’s pretty sure it’s the Dallas Vampire Lord.

  Snippet:

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said as she slid her blade into its sheath. It had taken her a long time to learn to sheath and unsheathe her blade in one move. It looked cool and impressed bad guys. It had the added benefit of not cutting off her neck at the same time. It was the latter she enjoyed the most. Although, she wasn’t adverse to imparting shock and awe in her opponents. “You can either call the Council for a pick up or dump him on the roof for the sun. The choice is yours.”

“The Lord sent word that he wishes to speak with you,” Morrie told her, ignoring her disposal instructions.

“Tell Luc I’ll get back to him,” she replied.

Morrie’s eyes got big  and wild while his guards went solid. “Enforcer, I don’t think he’ll be pleased by that news.”

His eyes stayed big. She wasn’t sure if he was shocked she wasn’t scurrying off to call the Vampire Lord or if it was because she had just called the Vampire Lord Luc. Probably a bit of both.

“Don’t care. I got a job to do, Morrie. I don’t have time to detour to speak to your Lord,” she was bone tired. She needed to report in to the Council. But she needed sleep. Killing rogues and drawing her power had left her very, very tired. “If he doesn’t like it, tell him to take it up with the Council.”

She turned and walked out the room. The scent of ozone receded as she made her way to the rear exit. She had no desire to walk down the hall again listening to people fucking and sucking, nor did she want to go through the packed blood den’s bar area.

She stepped through and walked out into the night.

I hope you enjoyed the cover, blurb and snippet! NIGHT BLIND will available early next year.

Preorder: 14th March 2014 (book becomes available to preorder through TEB website)
Prerelease: 28th March 2014 (book becomes available to buy through TEB website)
General Release: 25th April 2014 (book becomes available everywhere)

Hot Autumn Nights Blog Hop

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One more blog hop to end the year on a high note. I’ve got a new release this month from Foreword Literary in their anthology entitled Holiday Spice. My story, HOMECOMING, is in there. It’s a brother’s best friend turned lover and their first holiday at home… together.

I also had a release late last month from Totally Bound entitled FARSEEN. That book has witchy goodness, menage and magic. FarSeen is Part 1 of a 2 part prequel to my OtherKind series. NIGHT BLIND  is Part 2. I just got my cover for it, and HAT TRICK. If you scroll down the side bar, you can see the cover for Night Blind.  Or scroll down the blog and read a snippet from it. Homecoming and FarSeen have numerous snippets peppered throughout the blog, click on snippet in the category or tags and it will pull them up for you in one location. To see the cover for Hat Trick, mouse over titles and click on Name of the Game. Hat Trick is Book 2 in that series.

So this blog hop is to celebrate those things, like my book releases or just to have fun around the holidays. lol Thanksgiving is one such holiday. Food, family and football. The ubiquitous recipe for food coma. Our country could get invaded during the aftermath of Thanksgiving dinner and we wouldn’t do more than groan and roll ourselves onto the couch to lie down. lol

Speaking of which, my favorite way to spend hot autumn nights– especially a Friday night, is to go watch a local high school football game. Hanging out with friends, neighbors and other parents cheering on the local team sipping hot apple cider with someone you like-like. 😉 Holding hands, grabbing a 3-2 beer, making out under bleachers and generally horsing around. Grinning like mad when the team scores, booing the refs off the field and shaking my groove thang to the slightly off-key marching band. Could any night get more perfect? Whether this is date night with your lover or just getting together with the community, what a great way to spend a fall night. Well, I guess if it turned even more sultry and hot later, you know, after the game with… a… smokin’… hot… round… of… ummm… kissing. Yeah, that’s it– kissing. 🙂

Anyway, you can choose either the Holiday Spice anthology with Homecoming or FarSeen as your ebook of choice. Just leave me a comment. I’d love it if you told me about your perfect hot autumn night, but any comment will do. Just be sure to include your email, which format you want the ebook and which ebook you want.

I hope you enjoy the hop. To get the most out of it, check out the others in the hop as well. There is a $80 grand prize gift card as well as cool winnable swag from other authors. The gift card is being picked at random from a commenter from one of the blogs.  If my understanding is correct, random.org is being used to pick a blog in the linky list at random, then a commenter from that blog will be picked at random. Just as an FYI– you increase your chances of winning the GRAND prize if you comment at each blog. So stop by, have fun and enjoy yourself!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

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Happy Turkey day y’all. Gobble, gobble. lol I actually like Thanksgiving as far as holidays go. I like that it’s about food and family and getting together. In my family, at dinner, we go around the table and tell about the one thing we are the most grateful for that occurred in the last year. Not all the things that make us give thanks or a few of them. Just one. It makes us focus and keeps the momentum going so everyone gets a chance before the dinner is over. It’s awesome.

So many of our holidays have turned into three ring circuses. I like hanging out with friends and family, watching football and generally just being with the people who love us and we love back. Then if you’re lucky, you made plans to go gorilla shopping the next morning, complete with infiltration plans and an exit strategy, with those very same people. Cause for Black Friday shopping, you NEED a posse. People who will have your back and not leave a man behind. But they also have to have sharp eyes to look for bargains as well as coordinate color combinations. So really, you want a variety of family members to go with you to cover your back. Yes, it has gotten that grime out there. Little blue haired old ladies will cut a bitch to get to the blouse on sale. Seriously.

I also vary my menu a little every year. Yes, I do turkey and ham. And most of the sides are perennial favorites. But this year instead of a chocolate pecan pie, we are having a dark chocolate mousse. I’ve decided to forgo candied yams in favor of the simpler baked sweet potatoes. And so on. Here’s my Thanksgiving menu:

brined, dry rubbed turkey
ham
mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and herbs
sweet potatoes
green bean casserole
broccoli and cauliflower in a cheddar cheese sauce
stuffing with chestnuts, gruyere and bacon bits
turkey gravy
pumpkin pie
chocolate mousse
cranberry sauce

This menu is for 4 people. I add more sides and maybe an appetizer sampler if I have guests arriving. But for the small, nuclear family thing? The above menu has been honed from years of tweaking to find the perfect balance for my family. Yours may vary.

Now the best part of Thanksgiving isn’t the main menu, although that is pretty great. Nope, the best part is the left-overs. I like messing around with different recipes to use the turkey as much as possible. I even use the turkey carcass as a soup base. But that’ll come later. And if you serve turkey for Christmas, then some of the leftover recipes will stand you in good stead.

Saturday Snippet

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Hat Trick-6x9 master-16-Nov-medHere’s a sneak peek at one of the novellas that have been contracted, but not yet edited. I gave you the cover reveal earlier this week. So I thought I’d give you a snippet form the same work. The caveat is that you don’t judge too harshly if you see any typos and stuff cause it’s unedited. lol In other words, keep that shit to yourself. Now if you see the same mistake after editing, please do inform me so that I might make fun of the appropriate people. lol

Anyway, here’s a little snippet from Hat Trick.

Enjoy!

 

 

“What?” he asked as she stood still continuing to peer into the waste receptacle.

“No condom wrappers?” she asked perplexed. She strode over to the bathroom and picked up the trashcan that was just inside the door. Then her gaze swept over the room. “No condom wrappers, Silas.”

Shit. He wracked his brain to remember what he’d done with the condom wrappers and the spent condoms themselves. He got nothing. Not one iota of an idea for what he’d done with the protection he had used regularly since he’d been getting laid. He’d never, not ever not used a condom when he had sex. No matter how drunk, how fucked up he’d gotten. Not ever. Evidence of his diligence was usually left somewhere in the room in which he’d engaged in sexual relations. And as his gaze traversed the hotel room, he noted one thing. There was an absolute lack of evidence that a condom was even pulled out last night, much less used.

As Emma slammed down her coffee cup, he could’ve sworn that the sound was his world crashing down around his ears. Shit. Fuck. Damn.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Emma chanted. More to herself than to him. She looked over at him. “I’m on the pill. Well, the shot really, but birth control anyways. As long as you haven’t slept with half the Houston female population without protection, we should be covered.”

He was offended. “Hey, what if you’ve slept with half the Denver population without protection?” A ridiculous assertion, but still he didn’t like being called a man-whore even in a roundabout manner.

Hat Trick Cover Reveal

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I don’t have a release date for HAT TRICK yet. However, I did just get my cover. It is really pretty and I like it a lot. Hat Trick-6x9 master-16-Nov-medSo I thought I would share the pretty with y’all. HAT TRICK is Book 2 of the Name of the Game series. The main male characters are all professional sports athletes and part of a guys’ poker night group that gets together once or twice a month. And this series is about how each athlete falls, one by one.

The blurb for this book is below. As soon as I have a release date for this one, I will update ASAP.

Blurb:

Silas is a professional soccer player and Best Man at his best friend’s wedding. Emma is in upper management and Maid of Honor at her best friend’s wedding. When the Silas and Emma wake up the next morning in bed together, the worst thing they thought the night before had given them was a hangover.

Now the Maid of Honor is showing up to the wedding pregnant with the Best Man’s baby. On the way to their own happy ending, Emma and Silas have to overcome their dislike of each other and the situation. If that isn’t enough, the past always has a way of coming back to haunt the present making it anyone’s guess if Emma and Silas will play to advantage or commit a foul.

Homecoming Release Day Snippet

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holidayspice_smallMy Christmas story, HOMECOMING, is live on Amazon in the Holiday Spice anthology.

It is currently priced at $.99 through the rest of November. Then the price will go to $2.99. Smart money says buy now. Click on the picture of the cover to the right and it will take you to Amazon. If you’re feeling lucky, I’m doing a small, short blog hop at the end of the month in celebration of this release. A comment will give you a chance to win the book.

Anyway, the Titles page has the full Table of Contents and author list. Just scroll down, you can’t miss it. I put a blurb below, the link to another snippet here, and  a  new snippet below.

Check out the other authors in the book. I bet they have cool stuff about the anthology on their websites as well. Who knows what it could be. 😉

Anyway… enjoy!

Blurb:

Tessa’s known Nathan for most of her life. She should. He’s her younger brother’s best friend. Which means she’s also his elder by two years as well. They’re both home for the Christmas holidays. And for the first time, they’re together.

Tessa knows her brother isn’t going to react well. She doesn’t know how everyone else is going to react. What she does know is that she wants Nathan more than she’s ever wanted anything or anyone. This homecoming for the holidays could be the worst in the history of holidays, or it could be the best and the start of more yet to come.

 

Snippet:

“That’s not true,” she took a deep breath and decided to come clean. She was not a teenager any longer and falling back to her old behavior patterns was childish and not who she was now. “Nathan and I have been seeing each other.”

Her mother gave her a startled look. It turned thoughtful pretty damn quick though. Her mom’s emotions changed like the wind. Capricious came to mind.

“I always knew Nathan had a thing for you,” her mother said finally.

“What?” she wasn’t sure she’d heard what she’d heard.

“He would stare at you like you were a tall drink of water and he was parched, just out from the desert, back when you were still kids,” her mother explained.

“Really?” Tessa clearly didn’t remember that. What she remembered was Nathan and her brother teasing her about her boyfriends and generally being a nuisance. Not Nathan, mostly her brother. Her mind had just lumped them all together.

“You ignored both Nathan and Rick mostly, but I watched Nathan watching you,” her mother confirmed.

Saturday Snippet

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Got a small little snippet today. It’s from one of the pieces I’m working on right now. I debated from which work I was going to snag a snippet. But in the end, I couldn’t do Homecoming because I’m gonna do one when it releases next week. And I want to wait to do more snippets from Hat Trick until closer to its release. I’ve done several FarSeen ones already, as well as Home Run and Open Road. Soooooo, that left me with the choice between no snippet today because of the release next week, or the one I decided to put in this post.

Guess which option won out. 😉

Here’s my disclaimer: The snippet below is still  a work in progress. Little, no or substantial changes could be made to it before it sees the light of day. Also, it is unedited.

Snippet:

“You know it’s gonna be a bad day when you show up and people are dead,” she laughed. But it wasn’t really a laugh laugh. It was more like she was trying to laugh and not being very successful at it.

Bad jokes just fell from her mouth when she was stressed. It was totally an inappropriate response. She knew it. She couldn’t help it. Some people giggled inappropriately. Some people did other weird ticks or mannerisms. She told shitty jokes. She wasn’t a good joke teller in the best of times. When bad shit happened, her skill level didn’t increase by any stretch of the imagination.

Did she know when she arrived for the shoot today it was going to be a crappy day? She didn’t think so. Otherwise, she would’ve turned around and gone back home. But she hadn’t so it must’ve meant her day hadn’t been going bad up until that point.

But at some point up to and including finding one of her stunt co-workers dead in the trailer, well that would allow one to classify the rest of the day as fairly shitty. By most people’s definition of that word anyway.

Happy Halloween 2013

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Happy Halloween! It’s the spookiest day of the year. Muhahaha. lol An excuse to dress up and eat candy? Sheesh, what’s not to like? I love Halloween. I like the trick or treaters. I like the grownup costume parties. I like it all.

Halloween always signifies the start of the holiday SEASON. You know the one with the capital S. It starts the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas trifecta. One right after the other toward the end of each month. And mostly having to do with food. Again, what’s not to like?

So I did the Wicked Warriors Halloween Hop to give away my book FarSeen. I gave away two last time I participated in a hop. Gonna do it again this time. The winners are sandyg265 and Krysta B. I’ll get in touch with you by email or you can go to the contact page and drop me a line with what format you want. ** as an aside- if any of you who participated in the blog hop but didn’t win and you want an epub copy in exchange for a review, please let me know by leaving a comment or using the contact form or email. I’ve got one left.**

Thank you to everyone who participated!! I had a lot of fun doing the hop and I hope you did as well!!

Just a little news. I have this on my home page, but I signed a contract for my second book, Hat Trick,  in the Name of the Game series with Rebel Ink Press. I signed to have part 2 of a 2 part prequel released next year in March/April. Night Blind will be published by TEB and is part of my OtherKind series. I also had 3 short stories accepted into anthologies. Date Night, Homecoming and Show Me will be released at various times over the next few months by some really good people. October has been a month filled with treats for me. Lovin’ the awesome.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday Season. lol

Snippet Saturday- Homecoming

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holidayspice_smallHere’s a little treat from my upcoming soon-to-be released short story, HOMECOMING, put together by the good folks at Foreword Literary. It’s being released in a holiday anthology called HOLIDAY SPICE. I hear plans are in the works to have this out and in your grubby little hands by early November if possible.

I’ve seen the lineup of writers listed in the table of contents for this one and it’s a goodie. Should be some hot, hot, hot stories in there to help warm you up on a cold fall-ish/winter-y night. I’m pretty sure this is their first Holiday anthology. I’m betting it won’t be their last. It would be a good thing to get in on the ground floor and get the very first one and then each one every year after to make yourself a little collection. Plus, you might discover the next up and coming hot author in one of the anthologies. If my experience with past anthologies is any indication, then several of the authors you find in current anthologies will be the next Sylvia Day or something.

Anyway, here’s my story with blurb and snippet below.

Blurb:

Tessa’s known Nathan for most of her life. She should. He’s her younger brother’s best friend. Which means she’s also his elder by two years as well. They’re both home for the Christmas holidays. And for the first time, they’re together.

Tessa knows her brother isn’t going to react well. She doesn’t know how everyone else is going to react. What she does know is that she wants Nathan more than she’s ever wanted anything or anyone. This homecoming for the holidays could be the worst in the history of holidays, or it could be the best and the start of more yet to come.

 

Snippet:

“Babe, you look beautiful,” Nathan whispered from behind her.

She hadn’t heard him come up behind her.

Hearing his voice gave her an unexpected thrill. A fluttery feeling that began in the pit of her stomach and radiated out. God, she had missed him. Which was so funny. Nathan had been around her, her brother and in their home constantly when they were all growing up. Sure, she’d noticed he was hot and growing up hotter. But he was Rick’s best friend. So while she noted him in a vague sort of way because he was her brother’s friend, she hadn’t noticed. Not really

When he’d come and stayed with her for some job interviews in DC, she hadn’t seen him for several years. They kept missing each other at holidays. Not only had he grown up but he had become beyond hot. They’d gotten a little tipsy that first night and then everything had changed. She was pretty sure they hadn’t dressed or left her apartment the entire he’d been there. Ordering food in and staying in bed when they weren’t eating or showering. Or the few times he left for an interview.

Now he was moving to DC. He wanted to move in with her. And she wanted that too. She was just unsure of how their parents would react. And she was pretty sure that Rick would go ballistic.

Rick and Nathan had been best friends since grade school. She so did not want to get in the middle of that friendship. Not at all. But she refused to give up Nathan. Which meant that this Christmas was going to get tense.

“Hey, Nate.”

“I grabbed some mistletoe. Come with me. Let’s find a secluded place so I can put it over your head and you can kiss me senseless,” he said, his lips tipping up as he teased her.

“Nathan,” she admonished. “We can’t make out in my parent’s house.”

“Yes, we can,” he disagreed. “Either come with me and find a hidey-hole or I’m going to kiss you senseless right here.”

Wicked Warriors Halloween Hop 10/23/13-10/30/13

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I figured since I just had a release a couple of days ago, I’d join this hop to give away a copy. It is a Halloween Hop and my book is part of the Wanton Witches Collection by TEB. FarSeen has witches and magic and menage. With two wicked warriors, a girl’s Halloween is all about the treat.

I don’t know about you, but Halloween is one of my all time favorite holidays. I not only like getting tons of candy, but I like the whole dress up aspect of the the festivities. There is just something about it.

The Grand Prize for this hop is 5 autographed copies of Unbound AND a Kindle Paperwhite. This rocks. I’ve been lusting after a Paperwhite for quite some time now. So I am envious of whoever is gonna win the Grand Prize. Much envy.

My prize isn’t so fancy. It’s just my ebook, FarSeen, in whatever format you specify. I put the blurb below. So if you’re interested in winning a copy, leave me a comment. Any comment will do, but I would totally get a kick out of it if you’d tell me about your most memorable Halloween. Funny, Scary, Weird. Whatever.

If you’ve got some time, check out some of the other participants in the Hop and see if they have any themed prizes as well. Just because we’re grown ups doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to have a few treats show up in our bags as well. Halloween didn’t used to be all about the kids. And it shouldn’t be all about the adults. Let the kids have the candy this year as the adults collect delicious reading treats. And maybe a new Paperwhite to read them on.

The rafflecopter and link list to other blogs is at the end of this post. Have fun. Less tricks. More treats! 🙂

 

FarSeenBlurb:

Taking a break from finding the cure for a magic sickness killing witches, Evangeline (Evie) Parker picks up Drew for a night of hot sex. One night is not enough, however. In strange twist of fate, Trent, Drew’s partner also comes into Evie’s life. One night is definitely not enough when two becomes three. As they come together, they realize while separately they are good, together they are great.

All Hallows Eve is the time when the cure to the magic sickness is predicted to make itself known. Combining magic and sex on that special night cures more than the magic sickness afflicting the witch community, it also cures three lonely hearts.

FARSEEN is hot and sweet in a small tasty bite. It is filled with sex magic, lit up chakras and hearts slowly opening up to each other.

** Snippets can be found here, here, here and here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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