Kryssie Fortune...Knights Vampire!

Author Kryssie Fortune has done it.
That's right. She has managed to blend two of my favorite romantic themes: vampires and knights. I don't know about you, but I'm already having fantasies. Read on as Kryssie tells us about the very sexy Knights Vampire.

The Legend of Blaxton the Bold

When you think of knights in shining armor, what do you see? Warriors charging down the tourney field, lances extended? Powerful men with huge muscles wielding broadswords with deadly effect? A hero with a battle ax defending his lady’s honor?

In a time of courtly love and chivalry, one warrior knight leaps out of the history books. Sir Blaxton de Ferrers was fiercer, stronger, and smarter. A medieval superstar, he blushed when ladies sighed over his physique or men praised his fighting prowess.

Some say Sir Walter Scott used the folk tales about Blaxton to create his hero, Ivanhoe. Like Blaxton, Ivanhoe fought to save a group of Jews when the people of York wanted them dead. Outnumbered, he put his life on the line to do the right thing.

York was the only time Blaxton was wounded, but he kept his charges safe. A moneylender’s daughter named Rebecca nursed him back to health. Anyone who knows Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe will see the similarities here.

Afterward, Blaxton joined the Knights Defenders—a religious order founded by Henry I to protect his traveling justices. Blaxton the Bold took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience when he joined the Knights Defenders.

Later Eleanor of Aquitaine complained to her son Richard the Lionheat, “My ladies in waiting wept for days.”

Undefeated on foot or on horse, Blaxton became a medieval superstar. When he went on crusade, Richard the Lionheart wanted to fight at his side.

Then the Knights Defenders stole Blaxton’s soul. Nine hundred years later, he still doesn’t understand why. A few months later, his cousin stuck a knife in his back and killed him. Only, without his soul, he didn’t stay dead.

Blaxton the Bold became Blaxton de Ferrers, Knight Vampire.

Book Blurb

Betrayed by the Knight Defenders and murdered by his cousin, crusader 
knight Blaxton de Ferrers rose as a vampire. For nine centuries, he’s 
preyed on the people he once swore to protect.  Gradually, as his
emotions leach out of him, he forgets how to feel. Then he meets Harriet.

Harriet Mortlake’s a strong sassy woman who battles her weight and her 
temper. Her job is to seek out the ancient secrets of the castle that was 
Blaxton’s childhood home. Instead, she finds the love of her life.

When danger threatens Harriet, Blaxton steps in. Harriet and Blaxton, are 
a match made in heaven. Except… he’s a vampire and to fully claim her, 
he’ll have to kill her.

Excerpt

Harriet studied him as though he were a bug beneath a microscope. “De Ferrers? Are you a descendant of the original family that ruled here in medieval times? Do you really know things about this castle that no one else does? What makes you think the chapel was really a temple? And if it was, who worshiped there? And if it was a pagan stronghold, then why do the oldest documents mark it with a cross?” 

He raised his hands in surrender. “Slow down. You’re firing questions the way a machine gun fires bullets. Yes, my ancestors once ruled here, but it was a long time ago. How about you tell me why you believe that black hole’s a chapel? It looks more like a dungeon to me.” 

She threw back her head and laughed. “Clever, turning my own question back on me. Okay, I’ll play. I’m the new archivist here, but back in Victorian times, they unearthed an original map of the castle. Your dungeon, temple, or whatever you want to call it was marked with a cross. See? Temples are pagan strongholds, not places for Christian worship.” 

He grinned that devastating smile that melted her bones, and tossed her a tidbit of information. “The cross on the plans. Were all the arms the same length? Was it bright blue on a silver-gray background, and did the arms have cut off triangle bases inverted and stuck on their ends?” 

Harriet’s breath came faster, and as she stared down at her hand, it shook so hard she almost spilled her coffee. “You mean like a Knights Templar cross but in different colors? Azure and argent? Sorry, you’d call them sky blue and silver. Those were the Knights Defender’s colors, weren’t they? Do you really think it was one of their temples where they carried out their most secret and sacred rituals? Really? It’d make my career if you’re right, but we don’t have any Knights Defender connections here.” 

Hot coffee scalded Harriet’s throat, but the quicker she drank it the sooner she could return to her office and check out the original map. Proving a Knights Defender connection could make her reputation and impress the higher-ups who’d doubted her. “I’ll dig out those original plans and check, but I can’t believe anyone could make such a foolish mistake. Can I have your phone number or something, and if you’re right, I’d love to talk.” 

Mortified, she realized she’d just asked this stranger for his phone number. He wound her up like a clockwork toy, and when she chased after him, he talked with such authority she almost believed him. Besides, even if he’d made his wild story up, she really wanted to see him again. Who was she kidding? She needed to know if he tasted as great as he smelled—all sandalwood and exotic spices. If he did, she’d surely find him addictive. 

Blaxton grinned, pulled out a business card, and scribbled a cell phone number underneath his business contacts. “Here. That’s my personal number.” 

She studied the card and laughed. “It says here you’re a property developer. I can’t see you being able to do much with a twelfth-century castle, even if it wasn’t grade one listed.” 

He stared out to sea, and for a moment he looked lost. His smile returned so quickly Harriet wondered if she’d imagined his brief withdrawal. 

He finished his coffee and stood up. “Maybe I could demolish the damned temple and replace it with a real chapel. I’m not staying in Yorkshire long, but would you have dinner with me tonight? We can discuss the Knights Defender if you like. How about we meet up in the Italian restaurant by the harbor? I’ll book a table for eight o’clock tonight if you’re free.” 

Harriet blushed, but she smiled back. Tonight she’d be dining with the best-looking guy in the town—if he turned up. She’d been stood up so many times by her ex before she’d stupidly let him share her body and her bed. After the way he’d treated her, dating came hard. 

Blaxton de Ferrers seemed genuine. Part of her wanted to run out and get her nails done right along with her hair. What the hell am I going to wear? She wasn’t some sophisticated London beauty, but she cleaned up okay despite her extra ten pounds. Besides, no way would she miss a chance to pump him for information. And if he wants to kiss me goodnight… Well, I might just let him. 

Buy links

Loose ID                               http://www.loose-id.com/knights-vampire.html

Amazon US author page               http://www.amazon.com/Kryssie-Fortune/e/B00J5AQOBU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Amazon US                         http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knights-Vampire-Kryssie-Fortune-ebook/dp/B00SICJ2N8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1421827652&sr=1-1&keywords=kryssie+fortune 

                              

Amazon UK                        http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knights-Vampire-Kryssie-Fortune-ebook/dp/B00SICJ2N8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1421827990&sr=1-1&keywords=kryssie+fortune

Amazon Au                         http://www.amazon.com.au/Knights-Vampire-Kryssie-Fortune-ebook/dp/B00SICJ2N8/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1421828077&sr=1-3&keywords=kryssie+fortune

All Romance Books    https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-knightsvampire-1730628-340.html

Author Links

I’d love to hear from you, or answer any questions you might have.

Facebook                            https://www.facebook.com/kryssie.fortune

Twitter                                                 https://twitter.com/KryssieFortune

Blog / Web site                 http://kryssiefortune.blogspot.co.uk/?zx=ccc4a46fd9391f4c

Ryan Lanz on Showing Vs. Telling

Every so often you connect with someone on social media who offers true value to your work and the way you think. For me, one of these people is blogger Ryan Lanz. He hosts a very popular writing blog at www.ryanlanz.com on which he has interviewed many authors and New York Times bestsellers. I was recently privileged to be part of an interview there as well. You can find that piece here.

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Ryan now lives in the Midwest, USA, "trying to keep warm." Knowing he has so much to offer in the way of writing advice, I asked him to appear here. I'm very pleased he is able to share a post that rang true for me on the topic of showing vs. telling. This is an essential skill for a writer in any genre. Please read on to hear Ryan's take on this topic and do share with your writer friends. And if you find Ryan's examples helpful, please take a moment to comment and let him know today.

If there was one piece of writing advice I disliked most as a new writer, it certainly was “Show, don’t tell.” Initially, I had no idea what it meant. Self-help writing blogs often toss this phrase around without examples. I even had a critique done on my writing once, and the person critiquing said this phrase several times but offered no help on what showing actually meant.

Finally, I stumbled upon a quote that changed my outlook on writing forever.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” -Anton Chekhov

It clicked for me. I finally got it. At least, it was enough to where I knew what the heck those people were talking about. But I still craved examples. In this blog post, I thought it would be fun to dive into the important topic of showing versus telling. And yes, fair reader, there will be examples.

“Show the readers everything; tell them nothing.” -Ernest Hemingway

First, let’s think about why we tout showing rather than telling. Why is it so important and popular these days? Literary trends change over time, although much more slowly than, say, fashion trends. These days, the trend in commercial fiction is concise, lean writing without a lot of overly-descriptive “purple prose.” Prologues are somewhat out of fashion for certain genres. Third person limited and first-person are by far the most popular these days, when it used to be third person omniscient about 40-60 years ago. To recall third person omniscient, think Lord of the Rings and phrases like, “Little did they know . . .”

“An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.” -Steven King

In my opinion, I believe that we show rather than tell because the modern reader is pretty smart. Fiction, in some form, has been around for thousands of years. Readers have come to expect certain things when they read stories. They may not be able to name literary devices, but they are intuitive nonetheless.

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader–not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” -E.I. Doctorow

What fun is a crossword puzzle that gives you all the answers up front? It’s much more interesting, and more challenging, to be hinted toward the answers. Essentially, when you “show” in your novel, you are hinting at the answers. You don’t have to come out and say the whole thing; you can give the reader several pieces, and the reader can apply the final piece . It’s an interesting dynamic when you think about it, and it’s much more gratifying to the reader.

“The secret of being boring is to say everything.” -Voltaire

The same principle applies to comedy. If you provide all the information upfront, it’s not funny. But when you give the audience every piece but one (with the right timing), the joke is hilarious. The audience’s mind supplies the final tiny piece of information.

I’ll give an example. Recently, I sent out a tweet featuring a room with crumpled up pieces of paper waist-high. As a caption, I wrote, “Yes, I’ve gone through several drafts . . . why do you ask?” Now, I’m not saying that’s the summit of comedy, but can you imagine how unfunny it would’ve been if I instead had written “These are all of my drafts.” It’s unfunny, because within the context, that part is already obvious. Unconsciously, your readers want you to leave out the obvious parts, too.

By the same token, when your protagonist is upset, simply describing her eyebrows drawing together is enough to tell the reader as such. Within the context, the reader gets it. The reader is pretty smart. These days, continuously telling the reader something that is obvious insults their intelligence and bothers them, even if they’re only subconsciously aware of it.

 “A writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes.” -Anton Chekhov

So! How about some random examples?

• Telling: Tiffany felt afraid. He pounded on the door, demanding to be let in.
• Showing: Tiffany gripped the sheets in bunches between her cold fingers. Her forehead was slick with sweat. The door rattled again and again against its weak hinges. She didn’t imagine it would be long before he got in.
• With this example, it shows physical signs that Tiffany is afraid, rather than telling the reader out-right. The reader can easily surmise that she is afraid by those physical clues and the context.

• Telling: The crowd looked angry. He wouldn’t be surprised if they revolted. The guards did what they could to keep the peace.
• Showing: The crowd boiled like a simmering cauldron. When the guards weren’t looking, some of the people threw apple cores, aimed at the well-polished helmets. Yells and curses cut through the air. The captain stepped forward with his hands spread out.
• In this example, you can tell the crowd is upset because of the simile and the fact that they are yelling and throwing things. Saying they are upset doesn’t really move the plot forward, but the crowd throwing apples at the guards does, while at the same time showing their anger.

• Telling: Luke drew his sword. He knew this would be the fight of his life.
• Showing: Luke drew his sword. He eyed the graceful movements of the man standing in front of him. His opponent held his sword easily, as one would after a lifetime of applying it. Luke willed his hands to stay dry.
• It’s fairly clear that Luke’s hands are threatening to sweat because he is nervous to fight his opponent, who looks intimidating by his battle stance. Reading that indication is likely enough to signal to the reader that he may be in a tough fight without needing to tell the reader as such.

• Telling: “You have nothing to worry about,” Susie said. It was clear she was lying.
• Showing: Susie shifted her weight, never bringing her eyes up fully to meet mine. When she did speak, she interrupted the sentence by biting her lip. “You have nothing to worry about.”
• Although the “tell” in this example isn’t terrible, you can use physical cues to show that Susie is not confident about what she’s saying. Maybe you want to shed doubt on Susie, but you don’t want to out-right tell the reader that she’s lying, for reasons of mystery. It may not be a simple “which is better,” but it might be a question of how much you want to reveal and when. Showing hints is imperative in a mystery subplot.

Conclusion
Having said all this, it’s not possible to write an entire book without “telling” something. You have to “tell” the readersomething eventually. Add a pinch of salt to any writing advice. What I encourage everyone to do, is to pick off at least the obvious instances to show rather than tell.

Virtually every human emotion could be shown. Observe your friends when they talk. You don’t need to hear your friends thoughts to know when they are feeling certain emotions. True, you have the visual cues that you don’t have in a book, but you can describe the visual cues in writing, which in most cases is all you need. Increasing the amount of “showing” in your books could mean the difference between a good book and a great book.

Ryan's original post on showing vs. telling can be found here:  http://ryanlanz.com/2014/11/22/showing-vs-telling/

If you write, I urge you to subscribe to his helpful blog today. Thanks for sharing this information with us, Ryan!

Allison B. Hanson...Pledged!

Making the unreal seem real can often be tricky for a paranormal romance writer. I'm thrilled Allison B. Hanson is here today to tell us a bit about her process and how she surmounted this obstacle with her new book Pledged.

Welcome, Allison!

Research for a Paranormal by Allison B. Hanson

I’ve heard some people say that writing a paranormal is easy because the author can always use magic when they write themselves into a corner. I tend to write in a lot of different genres, but I find paranormals to be the most interesting and complex.

After all, I’m writing about something that’s not real, but I have to find a way to make it feel very real to the reader.  I can’t read a book or Google what if feels like when a human being shifts into an animal, because humans don’t really do that. But yet, it needs to be written in a way that makes the reader doubt that fact without hesitation.

In my new book Pledged, I put a lot of thought into what it might feel like to have my body transform into another being. The thing I was most certain of was that it would be painful.

I find my muscles and joints protest after sitting on the floor for too long, and they’re just morphing back into the form of a normal, standing human. Surely when femurs stretch, and muscles bind there has to be a good bit of pain involved.

There’s also bound to be pain from organs moving, and that itchy feeling of fur sprouting out of your skin. All in all, it must be a pretty strenuous thing for a human body to go through.

So then I thought there has to be a payoff. Some great freedom that makes it worth it, that makes the shifter feel like this oddity is actually a gift. That they are special and even superior to a normal non-shifting human.

For the wolves in my Pack of Lies series, the freedom is not just about the ability to run over terrain at high speeds with the wind in their fur. It is the emotional freedom.

To be able to step away from all the human emotions and drama. To just be, and do, and yes… run with the wind through your fur. 

Blurb:

Camille Anthony was abandoned at an orphanage when she was only a year old. She knows nothing of the parents who left her with strangers, and has spent her whole life struggling to fit in, without success. But on the night of the full moon, she undergoes a change she’s never felt before—she becomes a wolf. She hopes the changes will finally give her a place to belong, as well as answering questions she never knew she had.

Will Holbrook knows he can’t have anything long-term with Camille. After all, he is a wolf, and he was raised knowing wolves only marry other wolves. When she reveals to him that she is changing in the same way he does every full moon, he thinks things will finally work out for him. Until a new fear arises. Wolves are usually pledged at birth, and Camille has no memory of anything that might have happened before she was left at the orphanage. Could she have a mate already? What will he do if one shows up?

Excerpt:  

Maybe it was the flu.

People got aches and pains with the flu. She watched her muscles twitching under her skin and nodded.

Just in case it wasn’t the flu, she decided to get ready for Plan B.

If she did turn into a dog again she didn’t want to eat cardboard.

She checked under Gia’s bed for any stashed contraband. All clear.

She dumped the granola bars on her bed, and with throbbing, shaking fingers she pulled them from their wrappers. She made a box of mac and cheese in the microwave and set the bowl on the floor.

With the last of her energy used up, she took off her clothes and curled into a ball on her bed to convulse and moan. Her body began to twitch harder, throwing her arm out and then her foot. Her head pulled up, and she tensed against what was coming.

The increasing tide of pain washed over her, and she was left panting on the bed in confusion.

Not again.

She slid off the bed onto her four paws and went straight for the bowl of cheese-flavored pasta. She downed that in a few quick gulps and sniffed the air hoping for more.

On the table by the bed was some kind of bars. She swallowed them down without chewing.

With her hunger momentarily sated, she began with the pacing. When she passed the mirror, she stopped and looked at herself for a long moment.

A thin, lanky wolf with pure white fur looked back at her with curious blue-green eyes. Her reflex to shy away from the wolf in the reflection subsided as she realized it was her. She was safe.

She was a wolf, but she was safe.

http://www.amazon.com/Pledged-Pack-Lies-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00S6ZT6A6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421275204&sr=8-1&keywords=allison+b+hanson

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pledged-allison-b-hanson/1121008898?ean=9781622101726

http://www.lsbooks.com/pledged-p984.php

Links:

www.allisonbhanson.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003793842190

Twitter: @allisonbhanson

TSU: https://www.tsu.co/AllisonBHanson