Paranormal romance author Felicity Heaton is on the blog today with a fun Q&A, an excerpt from her latest book, and a chance to win an e-copy of one of her books. Read on and enjoy!
What is the first story you remember writing and what was it about?
It was back in school when we were studying gothic horror writing in English class. We had to write the opening chapter of our own gothic horror. I got really into it and I ended up writing a few chapters for it and planning a whole book, but it fell to the wayside when all that other schoolwork got in the way.
Name a memorable book from your childhood. Why is it memorable?
Probably Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I was early teens and I remember being on holiday with my parents, tucked up in bed in our caravan, and reading until the small hours. My parents teased me about it clearly being a good book since I was up so late and it was impossible to get my nose out of it. It’s actually my favourite book, ever. There’s just something about it that really grabs me and pulls at me.
If you could ask any writer (living or dead) a question, who would it be and what would you ask?
I’d love to ask Charlotte Bronte whether she fell for Mr Rochester when writing Jane Eyre, because I always seem to fall in love with my heroes when I’m writing their stories.
If you could pick any of the worlds or characters you have created, which would you want to visit or spend a day with?
I’d visit my Eternal Mates world and maybe a certain broken hero called Vail would be my escort into that dark and dangerous world of elves, fae, demons and other paranormal creatures. I think he might do it, begrudgingly. I love that world and it would be awesome to take a tour of Hell and visit all the different realms and species.
Where is your favorite place to write?
My office. I used to work full time in London, so I would write anywhere. During the commute on the train, in cafes at lunch and sometimes before work, or even at my desk first thing in the morning if I was really early. It’s nice to have my own space now with everything I need in it.
What is one thing you like to do when you are not reading or writing?
I am a little addicted to video games. I often play first thing while I’m waking up and then I’ll sneak in a couple of hours at the end of the day while waiting for my husband to get back from work. I like immersing myself in big worlds full of adventure.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?
Immortality. Is that a superpower? Wolverine has it in a fashion so I’m saying that it is. But it needs to be immortality that I can give to others too, so I can be with my husband forever. I’d love to live not having to worry about fitting everything I want to do and see into a short span of time. It would be wonderful to see the world change too.
What are you currently working on?
I’m editing Taken by a Dragon right now, which is the seventh book in my Eternal Mates series. I’m also just formatting all the ebook files for Bitten by a Hellcat and getting that up for pre-order as it’s out on February 17th, and I’ve been preparing for the release of Craved by an Alpha on January 27th.
Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA Today international best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books. In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons! If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates series.
If you want to know more about Felicity, or want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places:
Craved by an Alpha, the fifth book in New York Times best-seller Felicity Heaton’s hot paranormal romance series, Eternal Mates, is now available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release, she’s holding a FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY at her website and sharing sneak peeks of the book.
Find out how to enter the Craved by an Alpha international giveaway (ends February 8th) and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her website, where you can also download a 5 chapter sample of the novel:
http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/craved-by-an-alpha-paranormal-romance-novel.php Here’s more about Craved by an Alpha, including an excerpt from this paranormal romance novel.
Craved by an Alpha (Eternal Mates Romance Series Book 5) Felicity Heaton
Having turned his back on his snow leopard pride, Cavanaugh has been counting the days until he’s free of a role he never wanted—one that separated him from his fated female and stands between him and the future he craves with her.
Just days from the night he will finally be free to be with the low-ranking beauty who stole his heart, she walks back into his life and threatens to destroy everything he’s worked towards in the five long years they’ve been apart.
Eloise has travelled across continents searching for the male who was once her best friend and so much more to her, but was now her pride’s true alpha. Desperate to fulfil a promise to her kin to save them from the tyrant he left in charge, she convinces Cavanaugh to return to his pride, but as they journey to Bhutan, doubts bloom and old feelings resurface, tearing her between duty and her deepest desires and impossible dreams.
Will Eloise be able to resist the burning need that Cavanaugh reignites in her and remember her place in the pride? And can Cavanaugh find a way to save his kin and claim the future he craves with the woman he loves?
Craved by an Alpha is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in paperback. Find the links to your preferred retailer at:
http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/craved-by-an-alpha-paranormal-romance-novel.php
Craved by an Alpha – Excerpt Cavanaugh began swimming back towards her and the resolve she had mustered crumbled again. She trembled on the brink of casting aside all the rules and swimming with him. Part of her demanded she seized this moment with him, before he was taken from her again, but the rest warned that it would only make things worse. Giving herself to him again now would make seeing him with other females unbearable. The knowledge that he could again take something precious and special and treat it as if it was nothing would destroy her.
His gaze swung her way and his expression suddenly went cold.
“Eloise!” He shoved out of the water, spraying it everywhere and startling her.
He rushed across the wet rocks, his footing sure as he sprinted towards her, leaping with agile grace from one boulder to the next, his muscles working hard as he closed the distance between them.
Her eyes widened and she turned slowly, her heart thundering against her breast and cold prickles crawling over the nape of her neck.
She wasn’t alone.
Her eyes met the huge tiger’s ones as it stalked towards her from the edge of the forest, already close enough to pounce.
Her breath hitched and stuck in her throat.
Cavanaugh appeared between her and the tiger. His left hand clamped down on her waist and he pushed her behind him, shielding her with his big body.
He roared at the tiger and silver-grey fur rippled over his powerful shoulders.
His hand flexed against her hip, a silent warning to her, telling her not to move. She kept still, pulse racing at a dizzying pace, her blood running cold in her veins.
Beyond him, the tiger hunkered down, preparing to attack.
Eloise’s heart leaped up to join her breath, lodging in her throat and refusing to come down. Fear blasted through her, the thought that Cavanaugh might have to fight the wild cat turning her blood to ice and filling her with a desperate need to do something in order to protect him. She was powerless though. No match for the beast. It wouldn’t back down if she faced it. It would sense her weakness and attack.
Only Cavanaugh was strong enough to face the animal and make it leave.
The tiger growled, flashing long yellowing canines.
Cavanaugh snarled back at it. She could sense his desire to shift. It ran through her too, but it would be a grave mistake to give in to it. She was bigger in her human form and appeared far more like a threat to the tiger, and so was Cavanaugh. His hand trembled against her hip, cold from the water but filling her with comforting heat. Cavanaugh was strong. A king of beasts.
He could convince the tiger to leave them. She had to believe it, because she couldn’t bear thinking about the other path things might take.
She couldn’t think about Cavanaugh fighting.
It took her back five years, to a night she would never forget and one she didn’t want to remember.
The sound of flesh striking flesh. The scent of blood on the cold air. The anguished bellow. The snow painted crimson. It all whirled in her mind, cranking up her fear, sending her heart into overdrive as she fought for air and to escape the nightmarish vision.
Cavanaugh’s grip on her hip increased, driving away the gruesome vision but not her fear.
She stared up at the back of his head, fighting her need to touch him to reassure herself that he was fine and her need to do something to drive the beast away so he would remain that way.
He breathed hard, his eyes never leaving the tiger. The beast didn’t take its eyes off Cavanaugh either. They stared at each other across the expanse of muddy rocky ground for what felt like hours to her, a silent standoff between two powerful predators. She couldn’t take it. The air was too thick for her to breathe as she waited. She couldn’t get it down into her lungs.
The tiger snarled.
Cavanaugh roared, the sound echoing around the forest and the mountains that rose above it.
Her heart stopped dead when the tiger went lower and she felt sure that it would pounce and Cavanaugh would have to fight it. She grabbed his arm, on the verge of pulling him out of danger.
The big cat turned and slinked back into the forest.
Her heart plunged into her stomach.
“Are you alri—”
Cavanaugh cut her off by turning on his heel and dragging her into his arms, against his damp chest. He wrapped his arms around her, steel bands that bordered on squeezing the air she had managed to get down into her lungs back out of them again.
She wasn’t sure what to think when he pressed his cheek to the side of her head and cupped the back of it with one hand, tunnelling his fingers into the loose waves of her dark hair. She told herself not to do it, but ended up closing her eyes, pressing her hands to his stomach and resting her cheek against his chest, listening to his heart as it pounded against her ear and thundered against her palms.
He was shaking.
“You okay?” he whispered, his lips brushing her forehead.
She nodded, her voice nowhere to be found, driven away by the feel of his arms around her and how tightly he was holding her, as if he had been on the verge of losing something precious to him.
Gods, how she wanted to believe that.
It was all make believe though, a fantasy created by her mind as it interpreted how he had reacted and how he held her.
Wasn’t it?
He pulled away before she could answer that question, casually rubbing the back of his neck. Water dripped from his silver-white hair and rolled down his cheeks, cascading past bright eyes of purest silver. They caught and held her, stirring her feelings back to the surface, the intensity of them making her deeply aware of him—his strength, his power, his dark allure.
She was as lost in him as she had been a decade ago, snared by the spell he cast by focusing with such intensity on her, making her feel as if she was the only other person in his universe.
“Didn’t have problems like that back in London.” He smiled but she saw straight through it.
The tiger had shaken him.
She wouldn’t mention it. She would pretend she hadn’t seen it. He was being strong and so was she, because all she really wanted to do was hold him and reassure herself that he was fine.
He was safe.
His smile faltered, turned strained, and he muttered to himself as he crossed the short span of earth to his backpack and clothes.
He grabbed his t-shirt from inside his fleece and she stared at his chest, at the scars that slashed across them. The sight of them transported her back five years again, to that night when she had felt she had been on the verge of dying. Seeing him fight Stellan that night had almost killed her.
“What’s wrong?” Cavanaugh lowered the t-shirt to his side and approached her, every inch of him tensed and alert, and concern warming his grey eyes. “Is it the tiger?”
She shook her head and let the words tumble from her lips. “I was so frightened when you fought.”
Without thinking, she stroked her fingers across his chest, following the marks that marred his pale skin. They had been so deep at the time, a wound that had forced him to shift back into his human form. They had bled badly, crimson pumping from the three slashes, spilling down his bare stomach and painting the snow. Her hand shook against him, hot tears rising even though she tried to hold them back.
The air thickened and he breathed hard, his intense gaze heating her inside, making her burn at a thousand degrees and ache to lift her eyes to his. She wanted to see that hunger in his eyes again, the heat that she had seen in them before.
The desire.
“Eloise,” he husked, his voice scraping over gravel, stoking her need for him to a startling level, one that had her on the verge of surrendering to it.
Gods, she wanted to surrender to it.
She couldn’t put herself through that much pain again though.
She pulled herself together, snatched her hand back and lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck this shit.” He shoved away from her, swiped his clothes from on top of his backpack and bundled them up in his arms as he strode away from her.
Eloise could only stare at him as he threw his clothes down on the ground around twenty metres from her, on the other side of the camp. He shoved his wet trunks down his legs, leaving him completely bare, and then tugged his dark grey trousers on. Anger laced his scent, born of frustration rather than the adrenaline rush of facing the tiger. He was angry with her. He seemed to be taking it out on his clothes too. She was surprised his boots didn’t split apart at the seams as he pulled them open with force before shoving his feet into them.
She didn’t understand him.
Since the day he had become the pride alpha ten years ago, he hadn’t looked at her once, and he had been gone for five years. He had walked out of her life without as much as a backwards glance. He had made it clear that she had meant nothing to him and what had happened between them had been little more than hormones at play, a need he hadn’t been able to deny.
But since she had walked into the nightclub, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and the way he kept acting around her was taking her back beyond those ten years, to a point when they had been closer.
To a time when they had been together.
When the world hadn’t been a dark place, because he had filled it with light.
He paused and looked across the narrow stretch of land that divided them, his grey eyes dark with the hunger she had wanted to see in them again for what felt like forever, the heat that she feared because it awakened something within her too.
Need.
Desire.
Hunger that consumed her.
It was still a three day trek to the village if the weather stayed as it was.
Gods help her but she wasn’t sure she would make it.
No.
She was sure.
She wouldn’t make it.
She was a moth drawn to his flame and it was only a matter of time before he set her on fire and had her burning so hot that it reduced her control to ashes.
Craved by an Alpha is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in paperback.
Find all the links, a fantastic 5 chapter downloadable sample of the book, and also how to enter the giveaway and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her website:
http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/craved-by-an-alpha-paranormal-romance-novel.php Books in the Eternal Mates paranormal romance series:
Book 1: Kissed by a Dark Prince Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar Book 5: Craved by an Alpha Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat – Coming February 17th 2015 Book 7: Taken by a Dragon – Coming March 10th 2015 Enter to win an
eCopy of KISSED BY A DARK PRINCE, CLAIMED BY A DEMON KING or TEMPTED BY A ROGUE PRINCE (winner's choice).
