* Health advisory: this post is certified TENTACLE-FREE *
I come here to give away a free ebook and what do I find? Tentacle porn. Honestly.
Anyway. Where was I? Oh, yes. I have a new apocalyptic book out this month! To celebrate, I shall bestow a free ebook upon one of you lucky folks. So scroll to the end for the giveaway and ignore my post. Go ahead. I won't mind, or anything.
The Hot Golden Wings book
So. This is my new book, REDEMPTION. I'll allow you a moment to wallow in the gratuitous gorgeousness... right. Cleaning up, moving on.
My Seven Signs series (of which this is book #2) is about a gang of angels trying to stop demons from bringing on the END of the WOOOORLD....
Good plan, eh? Stop the destruction before it goes too far. Save a few souls, keep the insurance bill to a minimum, break as few nails as possible. And look mighty good while you're doing it. We smokin' hot angel warriors have an image to keep up.
But to stop the End before it Ends, you've gotta have some inkling it's coming.
If the super-bug catches you unawares (no one EVER listens to the geeky scientist, and boy, are they sorry afterwards) or the aliens arrive in their kick-ass hyperspace cruisers and blast you to oblivion with their WMDs before the radar goes 'ping!' -- you don't have much of a chance.
Luckily for my angels, they have seven signs to look out for. Nothing like telegraphing your apocalyptic intentions with a few juicy plagues. By the time REDEMPTION starts, our heroes have already headed off a ravenous zombie invasion (yay!) and dealt with the sticky, stinky consequences of an ocean full of blood.
If this is what's left of your planet? TOO LATE
Sign number three? Vampires. Smelly, hungry, crazy ones, led by a creeptastically horrid demon fellow called the Prince of Thirst. And with the city already in a state of fear and half torn down by those rampaging zombies in the first book... well, that's the cool thing about the biblically patented Seven Signs Method of Doom, isn't it? You might be giving yourself away to any potential do-gooders, but you get seven goes at making a really big mess.
Anyway. Vampire plagues, demon princes with costume fetishes, a cool angel-slaying assassin heroine. And Japheth... oyy. Japheth is one of my favourite heroes I've ever written. If you like 'chaste-ice-prince-with-a-heart-of-fire', you're gonna love this guy.
Hell, even if you just like hot angel smut. Did I say that loud enough? Hot angel smut.
So. Want yourself a nice fresh Kindle or .epub copy of book 1 in this series, REVELATION? It has zombies, as well as hot angel smut. Of course you do!
Leave me an amusing comment on this post by the end of Friday -- tell me a joke! I love jokes! -- and I'll pick a winner at random. Make sure you leave your email addy. Extra kudos if it's a zombie joke. Or a vampire joke. Or if it's even a little bit funny.
P.S. {Obligatory links} You can check out more about my new book at my website. Or hell, you can just buy it, in the US or Australia. Ta muchly.
P.P.S. I'm also doing a brilliant giveaway on my blog tour. You can win a Kindle Fire (or equivalent gift card for those of us who live in Amazon-sucks countries). Yay! Check out the links here. You can get more entries at each stop, so go get your Rafflecopter on.
P.P.P.S. TENTACLES!! Ha ha! Fooled you...
EDIT: giveaway is now closed. Some side-splitting (no, truly) vampire jokes were volunteered. And the randomly chosen winner is... Booklady!! Yay! Congrats! I'll email you with your prize. Thanks to everyone for playing.
I've been a loyal follower of AMC's The Walking Dead since season one. But lately I've been seeing a certain trend that rocks me to my core. It made me wonder if the fight for survival would be our ultimate undoing?
Saying you survive with a group of people past the first weeks of utter chaos, fighting the undead only to realize you are no longer on top of the food chain, your species as a whole is becoming endangered, and the supplies you need to live are disappearing off the shelves, what do you do?
With the herds of walkers running around the country side how do you replace your food source? It's not like staying in one place for a season to grow some fresh veggies, and maybe raise a cow or two. It isn't really going to happen, let’s face it. Most of the wildlife is probably zombie food and when was the last time you saw a herd of cattle?
Hope you like fish because that may be the only protein you may be getting for a while. With scarce resources it's understandable that unknown groups are going to have conflict but again the bigger picture! Hello Zombies.
I makes me just plain ornery to see groups that should be working together to clear the undead off the planet but instead fight over the right to land. I mean can't we all just get along?
I know people would probably say that I'm naïve because I honestly believe in the good of people and doing the right thing. No it doesn't always turn out that the best for me. And I do get taken for a ride but in the end when you are outnumbered by the undead. I would take the time to stop and pick up the poor soul at the side of the road begging me to save him. So in the end what kind of person are you? Because our humanity is in your hands. After all there's strength in numbers.
Here's a pic of Daryl. Well, because he's awesome!
When the Apocalypse does finally hit us will it be a
catastrophic Mother Nature type event or a human instigated nuclear/deadly
virus/insert crazed human death dealing vision here disaster?
Personally I don’t think it much matters either way. Most of
humanity will be wiped out and the world as we know it destroyed. And then we
will have to start all over again in the process of rediscovering technologies.
I have a pet theory. Whenever humankind gets too close to
cracking the nut that would give us intergalactic travel with the possibility
of meeting alien life—the axe falls. And then we’re all so busy with just
surviving that it takes generations before we’re in any state to once again
venture towards the stars.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar thing happened on every
habitable planet in the Universe with the sole intention that none of us ever
meet each other. Because if we did ever get to the stage where we could bend
space in order to travel the vast distances required—well, wouldn’t that be
fun! Because does anyone really believe that we’d all be BFF in a fluffy bunny
and kitten kind of way?
We can’t even get on with other humans so what chance is
there of us becoming allies with massive bugs or creatures with many tentacles?
(Note – I didn’t mention tentacle porn!!!)
So in order to save the Universe, we’re all locked into our
own planetary hourglass, a celestial failsafe that resets itself every time we
push too close to the boundaries.
One thing I am pretty sure about though, and that’s no
matter what humans might do to our home planet the Earth herself will recover,
even if we as a species don’t :-)
Under my pen name of Christina Phillips I’m delighted that
my third fantasy historical romance set during the Roman invasion of Britannia
is being released by Ellora’s Cave on 20th March. BETRAYED has crazed gods and
powerful goddesses, a magical heroine and a hot hero. Here is the trailer for
your viewing pleasure. It has a yummy naked guy. Enjoy!
Betrayed
Christina
Phillips
In 51 A.D., Druid priestess Nimue is injured and enslaved by
the hated Roman Legions. Even though she is drawn to her captor, she’s
determined to escape and complete her mission for the Briton king and her duty
to Arianrhod, the goddess she
is bound to.
The tough Roman warrior who captures her is far from the
brutal barbarian she expects. His touch inflames her desires and passion burns
between them. Though Nimue does not accept her enslavement, her heart
surrenders to her enemy. When Arianrhod appears to her in the form of an owl,
Nimue knows the union is blessed.
Roman warrior Tacitus is enchanted by the fiery beauty who
shows no fear and challenges him at every turn. Though enslaving her goes
against his heart, he’s determined to make her his. No woman has ever heated
his blood as she does. But when he discovers her true nature as one who
actually communes with the gods, his loyalties are torn between his heritage
and a woman who could destroy everything he’s ever believed in.
A Romantica® fantasy erotic
romance from Ellora’s Cave
I've been thinking a lot about a post-apocalyptic world
lately, not simply because I've been writing about it, but because the wild
weather in Queensland—drought followed by rain and floods and then more
rain—took out our electricity for four days and kept us more or less housebound with no way of getting into town.
Things I noted in said power outage? No running water, well
no water at all except for what I collected in buckets, and I don’t recommend
having to wash hair in cold water. Guess I was lucky I collected enough rain
though to do the job! The other factor with no running water, aside from not
being able to turn on my trusty washing machine and get my clothes washed? No
toilet water. Again, filling up buckets of water and leaving them beside the
toilet was the only option.
See, it’s the little things
.
And what about the boredom factor once darkness sets in.
There’s only so much that can be done by candlelight, even reading isn't much
fun under such a dull light, though my husband managed his 1-2 page habit
before falling asleep with book in hand lol!
Of course the refrigerator wasn't allowed to be opened
unless under the most exceptional circumstances, such as dragging out the coke
to mix with the bourbon. We needed to keep the cold air in there for as long as
possible, obviously to keep our perishables non-perishable.
Public Domain Pictures.net
But then there were the bigger problems. The phones went out
for quite some days too. Bad enough not being on the computer and gas-bagging
to anyone who’d listen, but no way to communicate at all? It was the pits. For
me though, a concern I have deep down (whether it be by natural or man-made
disasters) is how I’d acquire my thyroid tablets. And how many weeks/months
would I last without them? And that goes for my daughter too. Her medicines
keep her arthritis under control (just barely), so how would she function
without her injections and pills?
Yes, I discovered the modern world is something we take WAY
for granted. And let’s not go into those poor people who lost their homes in
the floods (and in another state, lost their homes to the fires).
I’m going to make a concerted effort to be happy for what we have - or maybe we can all move to a new planet like my heroine has in Galactic Flame =)))
Eden isn’t meant to be the alien prince’s life mate; it’s her sister
who’s been promised to him. But when Genesis comes to Earth and
mistakenly believes Eden is his mate, she knows it’s the perfect
opportunity to play the role her sister never wanted. And when she steps
into the magnificent alien’s arms, and is taught unimaginable carnal
pleasure, Eden knows she’s filched a priceless prize indeed.
Seems we've been inpsiring some some crazy writing challenges, as situation that pleases the RWoftheA hive mind no end. This week, special guest, Killion Slade, tells us all about the 2013 Wicked Women Writer Challenge. Are you ready to step up your preppin'? Put pen to paper and deal with a real life (sorta) apocalyptic situation? Well? Go on then... give it a go.
A couple of weeks ago, here in Montana, we experienced a real live “Zombie Alert” come across our TV sets. The tonal emergency broadcasting signal announced, “Bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and are attacking the living. Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies because they are considered extremely dangerous.”
True to form, instead of the mass public scare followed by looting and hoarding, Montanians called police departments to ask how many feet do the undead walkers need to be inside their lawn before they can shoot them! Only in Montana.
The TV station hack got me to thinking about my own family’s preparedness. What would we do in an apocalyptic situation other than get excited about killing zombies? Sure we have guns, but that isn’t the answer to everything by any means. What about food and water we’ll need to survive? Are we prepared to hold up after a nuclear EMP blast where the electric grid has been knocked out? Do we have enough horses to bug out with since the cars won’t start? Or, what about that ever looming super volcano just south of us in Yellowstone – are we capable of surviving the ash fallout?
Even though we have the ability to hunt, grow our own food, make our own bullets, and escape into the mountains - I am still concerned we aren’t prepared enough to survive. Perhaps it’s time we thought about practicing our bug out scenarios. Can’t say I’m gonna be too thrilled about sleeping on the ground, under a poncho, eating MREs at -10 temperatures… but at least I’ll be alive!
Recently I wrote a short story about this type of scenario for The Sirens Call. “The Blood Mobile” is about how a husband and wife in their fifties respond to the vampire apocalypse. It isn’t until they see the pandemonium hit their neighborhood that they understand the real threat is upon them. What could they do to survive?
Often times our characters surprise me at the ingenuity of how they manage to get themselves in and out of the horrific situations I can present.
Thus, I am putting the challenge to you.
Just like I learned to get out of my comfort zone to hunt and cast bullets this past year, (the RWofA blog inspired me to do so) I also ventured forth into new territory in my writing. I accepted a challenge from the Wicked Women Writers. The challenge was to write a short story and then produce that short story into an audio podcast based on prompts given to me to fulfill. After winning the challenge, I am honored to host the 2013 Wicked Women Writer Challenge this year and I am officially inviting you to participate in this challenge.
The theme I chose for this year is “How Will You Survive?” (Again – inspired by ya’ll ;)
Each entrant is given an apocalyptic situation, a location, a helpful item, and an untimely disability. Life is never convenient, why should the apocalypse be any different?
Location: Where will you be when the inevitable strikes? The office lunchroom, stuck on the freeway, a public toilet, or at the gynecologist? We’re pretty sure it won’t be while you’re hunkered down in an underground missile silo with a fully loaded bug out bag and Jason Momoa.
Disaster: How will the end of the world strike? There is an endless spectrum of how humans will meet their ultimate demise. Bio-terrorism, super virus, economic collapse, aliens, bugs, asteroids, or possibly even zombies are but a few of the ways to end humanity, as we know it. Will you be prepared? What Will You Do to Survive?
Helpful Item: It wouldn’t be fair to trap you in a room full of flesh-eating slugs and not give you a fly swatter now would it? Each challenger will receive one item to help them out of their dire situation. Use your item wisely.
Caveat Disability: You are trapped in your designated location. Unfortunately, you have an untimely disability. There is someone or something trying to kill and possibly eat you. Will you escape or battle it through to the bitter end? What might await you on the outside if you do manage to escape? How Will You Survive?
If you like to walk on the darker, edgier side of storytelling - I hope you’ll join us to see who will become Most Wicked 2013. We would love to have you! To learn more about the challenge please go to Wicked Women Writers website at http://wickedwomenwriters.wordpress.com/
Killion Slade is comprised of a married writing team. When it comes to romance and kick-ass scary, Mrs. Slade takes the reins. Mr. Slade primarily sticks to Sci-Fi & Fantasy. They met in the virtual realms of Second Life, and virtually enjoy everything. Members of the Horrors Writers Association and the Paranormal Romance Guild, they storyboard their characters inside Second Life as their avatars reveal their stories.
Killion’s Current Project: The Exsanguinate Series
Both in her reality and virtuality, Cheyenne O’Cuinn must navigate tortuous and violent clues to rescue her kidnapped sisters before exploited to breed a dhampir army. Cheyenne fights against time and her own immortality before the world’s balance of vampire to human ratios tip towards apocalypse.
An apocalypse doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out mammals, and eventually humans, would never have gotten a foothold. Ending something allows new beginnings. And you can’t have a fresh start without ending something…in this case the world.
So let’s look at a few positive outcomes from the apocalypse:
Over population is no longer a problem and nature gets to reclaim some of the land and new species develop (I’m sure they’ll taste just like chicken).
Society gets to try again, and hopefully learn from its mistakes.
Religions get to rethink what happens next and maybe they can learn to get along.
We all get mutant super powers (I can hope, right?)
So the apocalypse doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom and zombie shooting. It can be an opportunity to rebuild.
Society will reform. It has happened previously. Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt fell. We then had the dark ages ruled by fear and religion, but we rediscovered medicine and science and made computers. If you believe in Atlantis then they were there before us, they had an apocalypse and yet here we are. Battlestar Galactica used that idea and the human race survived and rebuilt…we were however doomed to repeat the same mistakes…
So I'm obsessed with my current WIP, a pre-apocalyptic historical paranormal novel that I think will be title Famine.
Death on a Pale Horse, Benjamin West, 1796, public domain
This one's about the Biblical kind of apocalypse (as in preventing it from happening), rather than the zombie/alien/disease/war kind of apocalypse.
And it has me thinking about pre-apocalyptic fiction, in general, and wondering what's so appealing about it.
Could it be that we admire the hero who, knowing that the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket and he or she may or may not be able to stop it, carries on anyway? And, if so, what's so cool about that? Perhaps because sometimes it seems like the world really is skidding straight toward Armageddon and, damn, won't it be grand if some hero shows up to fix it before we're all toast?
The best fiction is aspirational. We love post-apocalyptic fiction because we can aspire to surviving the zombies and even kicking some undead ass. Likewise, I think we admire pre-apocalyptic fiction because we want to solve the problems (global and local) that we see unfolding on CNN every night. Or maybe we're comforted by knowing that we're not the only ones who think that society is doomed. After all, history repeats itself. Everything comes to an end, and then, like a phoenix, somehow manages to find a little spark of vitality and rises up once more...to screw up all over again in the future.
Of course having a hero who is French, tattooed, and sexy certainly makes me aspire to survive Armageddon. 'Cause if we're going to hell in a handbasket, he's the one to get toasty with.
