Flame by AK Morgen

Greetings all,

I’m pleased to lend a little blog space to a fellow Curiosity Quills author, AK Morgen to help spread the word about her latest release. Below, is her guest post

-Matt


I’m very excited to announce that the long awaited (and much anticipated!) third book of the Amazon Bestselling RAGNAROK PROPHESIES series has finally arrived! Join Arionna Jacobs and Dace Matthews as they race to stop the apocalypse in this intense and emotional series by A.K. Morgen.


Read on below for all the details, including a giveaway!

 


SUMMARY

Who do you trust when betrayal threatens to destroy everything you hold dear?

When Arionna Jacobs fled town in a desperate bid to save Dace Matthews, she never expected the chaos she would leave in her wake. Now her closest friend is dead, and another is missing, forcing Ari to return to face the devastating consequences of her actions and the broken boy she left behind.

Her problems are only just beginning.

Even as her bond with Dace grows stronger, Arionna finds herself weakening when Freki’s cage shatters. Fighting the wolf for control is tearing her apart piece by piece. And at every turn, she finds that those she’s put her faith in aren’t who they seem, bringing her face to face with Sköll and Hati. As the depth of their betrayal is revealed, Freki spirals out of control, and Arionna must face her greatest fear: losing herself to the fierce wolf within.

The world balances on the edge of a blade, and one wrong move will destroy it all.

With few allies she can trust and little choice left, Arionna must decide between the lives of her friends and her own future with the alpha she loves. Will she be able to stand firm for the sake of the world, or will she falter in the face of defeat? 





BOOK LINKS:





AMAZON | GOODREADS | BARNES AND NOBLE 



EXCERPT

 

“Arionna, dammit, wake up.”

Unseen hands gripped my upper arms, shaking me. A familiar voice called my name over and over. Furious howls ripped through the air.

None of those sounds made sense to me.

I felt different, like I’d been taken apart and put back together in the wrong order. Everything hurt. My body ached, muscles locked tight in protest. My head throbbed. Each painful pulse rattled against my skull, sending ripples down my neck and into my back.

I groaned and rolled onto my side.

The hands shaking me relaxed.

I fought to open my eyes, then blinked, confused. Worn brown carpet scratched against the side of my face. The bottom edge of a pale blue bed-sham fluttered inches from me. Dust bunnies and small pieces of plastic were strewn beneath the sagging bed. A table and two chairs were grouped on the other side. A crack ran up the leg of one chair, splitting the wood.

None of the room looked familiar.

Where am I?

The voice calling my name stopped mid-shout and sighed.

Oh, thank god, he said.

For what? I wondered, marveling that the words came from inside my mind, but didn’t belong to me. How was that possible?

I couldn’t place the soft, silky tones either, but they made my stomach flip and my heart flutter. I knew the speaker. At least I thought I did. Before I could ask him who he was or how he spoke in my head, someone blew out a sharp breath. This time, the sound didn’t come from inside.

“Finally,” that second voice said.

Nope. Definitely not coming from my mind.

I rolled my eyes toward the relieved sound, and then frowned at the guy leaning over me. Long, dark hair hung in his face. His eyes were black, and full of concern. His features were sharp, severe, but handsome.

This time I was certain; I knew this guy.

“Ronan,” I said. His name was Ronan LaCrosse, and mine was… Arionna. Yes, Arionna Jacobs. Memory began to slowly trickle back in. We were at a motel in Illinois, looking for someone. And the howls were coming from Fuki, the little wolf we’d brought with us, though I couldn’t see him.

Where was he?

I tried to figure out why I was on the floor, but came up with a big blank.

“What happened?” I asked, looking up at Ronan.

He held out a hand for me, then pulled me into a sitting position.

The room tilted before straightening again. I clutched my head in my hands, groaning. When the initial wave of nausea passed, I tilted my head up slowly so I could see Ronan. “Did I hit my head?” I asked, trying to blink away the dark spots floating in my peripheral.

“You don’t remember?” He narrowed his eyes, tilting his head to the side like a raven assessing me.

I scooted back against the edge of the bed, frowning.

What was I supposed to remember?

 

GIVEAWAY

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A.K. Morgen is the Amazon Bestselling author of the Ragnarök
Prophesies series. She lives in the heart of Arkansas with her childhood
sweetheart/husband of thirteen years, and their six furry minions. When not
writing, she spends her time hiking, reading, volunteering, causing mischief,
and building a Spork army. Ayden graduated summa
cum laude
with her Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice and
Forensic Psychology in 2009 before going on to complete her graduate degree in
CJ and Law. She currently puts her education to use in the social services and
CJ field. 

Ayden also writes New Adult and contemporary romance under the penname Ayden K.
Morgen.

You can find her on 
Twitter, Facebook, or via her website at http://akmorgen.com.

Cover Reveal | CQ Darkscapes Anthology

darkscapes

Greetings everyone!

I’m thrilled to finally be able to show off Eugene Teplitsky’s cover artwork for the upcoming Curiosity Quills anthology: Darkscapes!

Check out the antho page here for the full list of authors and stories: https://curiosityquills.com/books/curiosity-quills-darkscapes/


OOS_Graphic

In my story, Out of Sight, Sima Nuvari, an unwanted sixteen-year-old runaway wakes up in an escape pod after years in stasis. Soon after she starts exploring, she finds some younger kids, also shipped off Earth against their will. Sima’s AI bracelet is their only chance to make sense of a wild uncharted planet, and avoid the deadly Night Scratch.


It is an honor to have my writing in an anthology with so many other wonderful authors, including Piers Anthony, J.R. Rain, Richard Roberts, Robert J Defendi, Randy Attwood, Katie Young, Ann M. Noser, Nathan Croft, Tegan Wren, James Wymore, Andrew Buckley, Darin Kennedy, J.E. Anckorn, B.C. Johnson, S.E. Bennet and Mark Woodring.

Favorite Character Blog Hop

Althea

I got tagged by Jori Mierek in a blog hop about favorite characters. I can’t say it was an easy choice, but I would have to say Althea from Prophet of the Badlands is my favorite by a smidge. Writing from Althea’s POV is fun because of how different the world is to someone with her upbringing. What is everyday and mundane to most people is full of magic to her. For example, old skyscrapers falling open aren’t buildings made by men, but giant nests constructed by unimaginable insects―because mere men couldn’t possibly have built something so massive.

1) What is the name of your character?  Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Althea is a fictional character in The Awakened series. She is painfully innocent, to the point of tolerating horrible treatment so long as she can continue to help others. Her world is one of harsh rules, where the strong take what they want unless someone stronger can stop them. She is able to control the energies within a person and speed up their rate of healing such that even the most grievous of wounds vanish in moments. For this, she has become well known, and everyone in the Badlands wants to own her.

I think she’s my favorite due to her combination of resilience, innocence, and compassion. Also, of all “powers” I’ve always been fond of healers. While I was writing Division Zero, I had Althea standing behind me tapping her foot waiting her turn. While writing Prophet of the Badlands, I had some plans in the outline about 65% of the way through that she rather didn’t approve of. When I hit that scene, she tapped me on the shoulder and shook her head. I wound up changing the story in a major way at that point, a tweak that rippled throughout the rest of the series. I am hoping her combination of inner strength, innocence, and plain horrible luck endear her to readers who (like I did) will want to reach into the story and pull her out to a safe place.

2) When and where is the story set?

Prophet of the Badlands is set in the year 2418. For the most part, the story takes place in the Badlands, which is basically most of central North America. Due to war involving cybernetic-enhanced gene-tweaked mutants as well as chemical/biological and small nuclear weapons, most of the interior of the continent has been abandoned. Modern cities line both coasts, but those who live in the middle are unaware of them, believing a curtain of fire marks the end of the world.

3) What should we know about him/her?

Althea is somewhere between eleven and twelve years old, and has been kidnapped over and over again since she was six. All she knows of her mother is from a faint story she heard of being abandoned at a small village by a lake. Her blue eyes emit bright light, a side effect of her Awakened nature, a visible manifestation of her ability to see in the dark. Her strongest psionic power is healing; she can command a person’s body to mend itself at a touch, sensing sickness and injury as distortions in the body’s “shapes.” Her second strongest power is telempathy (the ability to manipulate and read emotions). She is also capable of psionic suggestion, allowing her to force short commands on people, though she is far weaker (due to lack of practice) with that gift. Like most psionics, she possesses a degree of telepathy, able to listen to the surface thoughts of others, as well as communicate with a mental voice.

Since she was six, she has been repeatedly abducted by everyone from well-meaning villagers to marauding gangs. Everyone in the Badlands has heard the stories of the Prophet, and in a world without medical technology, they all want her to be theirs.

She has little reaction to the sight of gore, but cringes at violence–even balking at the idea of hurting people who keep her captive. She starts off desperate to help everyone she can while being terrified that one wrong move could turn the people’s adoration into hatred. Badlanders are notorious for their superstitions, and she tolerates captivity because she is afraid of how they would treat her if they knew she could do more than heal. Her reputation as The Prophet affords her a degree of protection, as those who hold her prisoner handle her as gentle as bloodthirsty marauders can―well aware of the legends which claim bad things happen to those who mistreat her.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

Not all of her “owners” are the same degree of cruel. When the story starts, she belongs to a group of primitive tribals who have come to trust her promise that she will not attempt to flee. She is allowed to exist among them out of her cage, and forms a friendship with Den, a boy a few years older than her who is also the son of the chief. Her gifts let her see through the gossip, that he only wants her for prestige-to have the Prophet as his pet-and she knows he genuinely cares for her. For years, she has gone through an endless series of abductions, not caring too much about being taken because she had lost nothing. When raiders take her away from the little village, she remembers what it feels like to hate being kidnapped.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

Althea’s personal goal is primarily to help others. She doesn’t care what happens to her as long as she is able to ease the suffering of everyone around her. As the story progresses, and she develops emotional connections of her own, her goals change to one of protecting the people she cares about as she finds the courage to do so.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

PROPHET OF THE BADLANDS is complete, and will be released next year. Althea also reappears in other books in The Awakened series. Click HERE for more information on Prophet of the Badlands.

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

The current date for publication is April 27 2015.

 

 

I was tagged by : Jori Mierek

https://www.blogger.com/profile/06875274426197309249

I’m tagging the following authors: (If you are up for it, post your answers to these questions and tag more writers.)

James Wymore (Theocracide, The Actuator, Exacting Essence, Salvation) – http://jameswymore.wordpress.com/

Vicki Weavil – (Crown of Ice) http://vickilempweavil.com/

Sam Hunt – (Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree, The Law of the Wolf, Ten Thousand Devils) http://www.theusualmadman.net/

Matthew Graybosch – (Without Bloodshed – Starbreaker I) http://www.starbreakerseries.com/

Tony Healey – (Far From Home Series, Edge of Oblivion – Anthology, The Bloody Northhttp://tonyhealey.com/

Evan Hourihan – (Bent, Time Lapse)  http://ethourihan.com/

Cover Reveal | Krystal Wade

Quite the flurry of cover reveals as of late! The most recent is from fellow CQ author Krystal Wade:

Popular YA author Krystal Wade has a thrilling new young adult novel coming out in October, 2014! The spine-tingling suspense in CHARMING will get your heart rate up. We promise you.

Charming K Wade

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and that’s great . . . as long as you don’t die.

Sixteen-year-old Haley Tremaine had it all: top-notch school, fantastic family, and a bright future, but all of that changed when an accident tore her family apart. Now, an alcoholic father, a bitter younger sister, and a cold headstone bearing her mother’s name are all she has left.

Chris Charming has it all: a powerful CEO for a father, a prestigious school, and a fortune at his fingertips, but none of that matters when he lands a reputation as a troublemaker. Struggling to follow in his father’s footsteps, he reaches out to the one person he believes truly sees him, the one person he wants: Haley.

Little do they know someone’s determined to bring the two together, even if it means murder.

 Add CHARMING to your TBR pile on Goodreads!

Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20703750-charming

KyrstalWade (1)

Krystal Wade can be found in the sluglines outside Washington D.C. every morning, Monday through Friday. With coffee in hand, iPod plugged in, and strangers – who sometimes snore, smell, or have incredibly bad gas – sitting next to her, she zones out and thinks of fantastical worlds for you and me to read.

How else can she cope with a fifty mile commute?

Good thing she has her husband and three kids to go home to. They keep her sane.

Website: http://www.krystal-wade.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/author.krystalwade

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KrystalWade

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5773867.Krystal_Wade

Cover Reveal | Ryan Hill

The_Book_of_Bart_WIP4

Behold! The cover for Ryan Hill’s debut YA Paranormal novel THE BOOK OF BART, coming May 22 from Curiosity Quills!

Only one thing is so powerful, so dangerous that Heaven and Hell must work together to find it: the Shard of Gabriel.

With a mysterious Black Cloud of Death hot on the shard’s trail, a desperate Heaven enlists the help of Bart, a demon who knows more about the shard than almost anyone. Six years ago, he had it in his hands. If only he’d used it before his coup to overthrow the devil failed. Now, he’s been sprung from his eternal punishment to help Samantha, an angel in training, recover the shard before the Black Cloud of Death finds it.

If Bartholomew wants to succeed, he’ll have to fight the temptation to betray Samantha and the allure of the shard. After an existence full of evil, the only way Bart can get right with Hell is to be good.

Links:

Goodreads | Website | Twitter | Facebook