Urban Fantasy/Science Fiction Blog Hop: Featuring Nessie Strange

THE LIVING DEAD WORLD SERIES

BY NESSIE STRANGE

LIVING DEAD GIRL

Living Dead World Book 1

Genre: Urban Fantasy (New Adult)

Publisher: Etopia Press

Date of Publication: January 15, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-940223-73-5

ASIN: B00HWFEZ8O

Number of pages: 294

Word Count: 63,386

Available at:

Amazon       BN      Kobo      ARe   iTunes  Etopia Press

Jen MacLellan has hit a dead end…

Jen knows tattooed, blue-haired Jack Norris is trouble the minute he opens his front door. And being a mortician in the avante garde East Side of Providence, Jen has seen a lot. Jack has recruited Jen’s teenage brother Drew to play drums for his less-than-respectable punk band, and Jen has no choice but to follow their gigs to keep her little brother out of trouble. But when Drew goes missing, she finds herself in the awkward position of asking for Jack’s help. Shocked that he agrees, Jen decides she may have misjudged him. Worse, she might even like him.

But when Jen is brutally attacked, she awakens in the hospital where a Sid Vicious look-alike greets her with the news: she’s dead, and he’s the reaper assigned to take her away. Yeah, not so much. Refusing to leave, Jen’s spirit watches helplessly as her loved ones suffer, powerless to ease her family’s grief or prevent the police from accusing Jack of her murder. Desperate to help them, Jen convinces the reaper to bring her back. But reanimating corpses isn’t as easy as it looks, and neither is finding a killer before it’s too late…

REAPER MADNESS

Living Dead World Book 2

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal

Publisher: Etopia Press

Date of Publication: November 21, 2014

ISBN: 9781941692325

ASIN: B00PYURBCQ

Number of pages: 223

Word Count: 71,385

Available at   Amazon    BN      
ARe   Etopia Press    Kobo    iTunes

Book Description:

This isn’t the afterlife she expected...

Jen MacLellan can’t get the hang of being a reaper. She’s been separated from Jack, the man she loves, and is stuck with an annoying telepathic link to her ill-tempered mentor, Sam. Now Death is breathing down her neck, promising to remove that annoying link if she gives him what he wants. But when reapers begin to disappear back on earth, leaving behind walking, talking dead people, Jen and Sam are thrust into a dangerous mission to recapture the souls, and a passionate physical relationship that complicates everything.

Jack Norris has no memory prior to waking up on the half-demon Nulcifer’s couch six months earlier. As he begins to investigate his past, he discovers a string of past lives tied together by a beautiful, mysterious brunette. Who is she? And why does finding her seem like a life or death proposition?

When Sam falls victim to fate during a routine visit to earth, Jen’s devastated. Desperate to get him back, she runs smack into the man she never thought she’d see again—Jack. She tries to keep her distance, but there’s no time to be awkward if they want to save Sam. When sinister plots are revealed, and betrayals threaten everything, she’s forced to make some tough choices—and learns that life is just as difficult when you’re dead.

CONFESSIONS OF A PUNK ROCKER

Living Dead World Book 0.5

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal

Publisher: Etopia Press

Book Description:

Jack Norris just lost his best friend—who also happened to be his band’s drummer—to a drunk driving accident. As he navigates the uncertainty of the band’s future, as well as his own personal demons, his life spirals out of control. To make matters worse, his dead friend is back, and it’s wreaking havoc on Jack’s sanity. When a new acquaintance not only hooks him up with a drummer, but promises to help get rid of his ghostly stalker, Jack’s life does a one eighty.

Drew MacLellan, the new drummer, is helping to bring the band back from the dead. He’s also got an insanely hot older sister who is definitely not Jack’s biggest fan. Jen MacLellan is nothing like the women Jack’s dated in the past, but the more he gets to know her, the deeper he falls. The only problem is, she’s got a boyfriend. Caught between his growing attraction and the desire to do the right thing, Jack does everything he can to keep things as just friends. The longer it goes on, the more he realizes it isn’t possible. Can Jack win the heart of the woman he’s fallen for? And can he figure out how to help his dead friend rest in peace...permanently? 

About the Author:

Nessie is a Massachusetts native and mother of two who has dabbled in everything from abstract painting to freelance sports reporting. She also loves a good story, whether it’s reading or writing one.

Living Dead Girl and Reaper Madness, the first two novels in her urban fantasy Living Dead World series, were published by Etopia press in 2014.

http://www.nessiestrange.com

http://nessieslivingdeadworld.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNessieStrange

https://twitter.com/NessieStrange

http://amazon.com/author/nessiestrange

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7463821.Nessie_Strange

http://www.pinterest.com/nessiestrange/

Urban Fantasy/Fantasy Romance/SCIFI Blog Hop Sept 25, Event Sept 27 


Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzScZ

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4244/ a Rafflecopter giveaway



 
ROMANCE Blog Hop October 2, Event October 3&4

Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzWJv

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4245/ a Rafflecopter giveaway

Urban Fantasy and Horror Events: September 25-27

This is is going to be a busy weekend for me--and loads of fun for those who love horror and urban fantasy.

Friday night, Mocha Memoirs Press is hosting their Fall into Horror Facebook Event

I will be there from 6:30-7 pm and am ready with some prizes and giveaways.

Click here for the Facebook Event

Plus, the fabulous Books n Pearls celebration continues with the Paranormal Event Rafflecopter giveawy still in progress and even more chances to win with the kickoff of the Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Science Fiction Weekend event. Another Rafflecopter and more giveways

I am personally giving away a copy of The Ultimate Test at random for every five posts on my blogs or Facebook.

Buy Link

This is the first short story I've written that can be classified as horror. 

The fun continues.

Urban Fantasy/Fantasy Romance/SCIFI Blog Hop Sept 25, Facebook Event Sept 27 


Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzScZ

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4244/ a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Fall Into Reading Paranormal Book Tour: Meet Kris Hack, Author of The Ascension of Laney

Amazon
Smashwords
Kobo
Barnes and Noble
iBooks

I loved him at fifteen. I thought we'd stand the test of time. He was my forever but maybe I fell too fast or loved him too much. Maybe I came on too strong or maybe I did something wrong. He still left. Turned his back on me without a word. I never thought I'd see him again and to be honest, I didn't want to. I began to hate him even though he would never know it. But then, I did see him again and with him came the secrets that would forever change all of our lives.

She was only a recurring dream in my foggy subconscious. A voice. A face. We weren't supposed to dream. We weren't supposed to remember. They said it was impossible and the before would never come into the now. None of the others remember, at least not that I know of. What I do know is that she was my everything, my every waking breath. Now that I've found her I will not be losing her a second time. She will be mine again, no matter what the cost.

Author Bio:

Kris Hack lives in Texas with her husband and their two furbabies. As an adult she became an avid reader and always seemed to have her own story to tell.  Finally, she took the leap and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, until she laid her heart and soul into writing and told her story. This is her first published work and she plans to publish many more in the future

Author Media Links:

Facebook 

Goodreads 

Twitter 

Instagram 

GIVEAWAY

Dozens of Prizes. Visit the participating blogs
(shown below) to comment for your contest entries.

If the Links to the Fall into Reading Posts do
not appear below, please visit here for more featured authors:  http://wp.me/p5p8oj-1nG

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4243/

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fall Into Reading Paranormal Events and Blog Hop Raffelcopter Giveaways--September 18-20

This weekend kicks off the Paranormal Edition. The Blog Links will each feature a different author, and you'll find the genre's coordinating Rafflecopter linked at each post so when you leave a comment, you can submit an entry for commenting on that blog. And to top it all off, there will be events each of the three weekends with some of our authors; more fun & more prizes. So don't miss a chance to win. Thank you for following. I hope you fall into a new favorite, because as the temps become more tolerable for outside reading, you'll need new material.

PARANORMAL Blog Hop Sept 18, Event Sept 18, 19, 20  

Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzNWx

Party Schedule: 

Friday: all times listed are Eastern

5 p.m. Brenda Tetreault

6 p.m. L. Bachman

7 p.m. Kacey Hammell

8 p.m. L.D. Rose

9 p.m. Renea Mason

10 p.m. Ashlynne Laynne

11 p.m. Krystal White

Saturday

4 p.m. Shauna Aura Knight
5 p.m. L. Bachman
6 p.m. JC Stockli
7 p.m. Jena Baxter
8 p.m. Brenda Tetreault
9 p.m. Rissa Blakeley
10 p.m. Margaret Madigan
11 p.m. Louisa Bacio

Sunday

4 p.m. Laila Raimes

5 p.m. L. Bachman

6 p.m. Missy Lynn Ryan

7 p.m. Brenda Tetreault

8 p.m. Felicity Kates

9 p.m. Michelle Rabe

10 p.m.Rosanna Leo

Visit these blogs to participate in the Blog Hop giveaway!

Featured Authors⇔Participating Blogs

Alice K. Wayne⇔Pukah Works

Ashlynne Laynne⇔Deal Sharing Aunt

Brenda Tetreault⇔Warrior Woman Winmill

Carole Anne Moleti⇔ A Bookaholic's Fix: Feeding the Addiction

Dahlia Donovan⇔STANDARD ISHUE--Katie

Demelza Carlton⇔ L.D. Rose

Felicity Kates⇔Love Knows No Bounds (Louisa Bacio)

Jena Baxter⇔Haley Whitehall

JC Stockli⇔3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too!

Kacey Hammell⇔Ebook Addicts

Kris Hack⇔Carole Ann Moleti

Krystal White⇔The Naughty Librarian's Playground

L. Bachman⇔Paranormal Romance and Beyond

Laila Raimes⇔Paranormaly Yours

L.D. Rose⇔Making it Happen

Louisa Bacio⇔The Ultimate Fan Blog

Margaret Madigan⇔Angel's Guilty Pleasures

Michelle Rabe⇔Imaginative Dreams

Missy Lynn Ryan⇔The Phantom Paragrapher

Renea Mason⇔My Tangled Skeins Book Reviews

Rissa Blakeley⇔SSP

Rosanna Leo⇔L. Bachman

Shauna Aura Knight⇔Books N Pearls

Susan Hanniford Crowley⇔Between The Lines

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4243/ a Rafflecopter giveaway




HISTORICAL Blog Hop Sept 25, Event Sept 26

Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzP0w

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4242/ a Rafflecopter giveaway




Urban Fantasy/Fantasy Romance/SCIFI Blog Hop Sept 25, Event Sept 27 


Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzScZ

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4244/ a Rafflecopter giveaway




ROMANCE Blog Hop October 2, Event October 3&4

Facebook Event-> http://on.fb.me/1JWzWJv

An InLinkz Link-up

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b6938c4245/ a Rafflecopter giveaway

Welcoming Loren Rhoads, Author of Kill by Number and the Wake of the Templars Trilogy

Today, I'm welcoming Loren Rhoads, author of Kill by Numbers. I always admire writers who can take on this high concept subject matter, and she's here to tell us about the Wake of the Templars trilogy. 

Buy Link

Former assassin Raena Zacari thinks she's left the past behind. The Imperial torturer who trained her is dead, the human empire is disbanded, and she is finally free.  But Raena is troubled by a series of nightmares that always ends with her killing an ex-lover. She needs to get her mind clear because there's a flaw in the most common starship drive -- and the band of media pirates she's fallen in with is at the heart of the trouble.

Raena walked through the rain toward the trees she could barely see on the other side of the landing field. The saturated ground under her feet was invisible below a shaggy carpet of weeds, but as she crossed it, it felt sodden and slick beneath her boots. Terrible footing for a fight.

She wasn’t exactly sure where she was or where Doc’s ship was headed after this, but it didn’t matter. Here she was, with the rain driving into her face, soaking through her cape. It was so cold that she couldn’t stop shivering. She almost turned back to the medical shuttle behind her. She could take it all back, ask them to drop her in a city someplace or, for that matter, anywhere warm and dry. She didn’t have the stomach to run right now, even to search for somewhere to sleep out of the weather. She felt so completely overwhelmed that she thought she might cry.

Then something moved amongst the trees, a shadow blacker than the night. Raena froze, but of course she must have been seen. The ship’s lights were behind her as she stood in the scrubland, no cover at all unless she flung herself flat on the spongy ground.

“Raena?” a male voice called. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“How do you know my name?” She suddenly felt so cold that even her shivering stopped. A quick reality check reminded her that her hands were beneath her cloak.

“I’m an old friend,” he said. His voice sounded strangely amused, as if he’d had this conversation before.

“I don’t have any old friends,” she said bitterly, inching her right hand down toward the new holster Skyler had given her.

“I’m an old friend of Ariel’s, too.” He stepped clear of the trees, coming toward her at a slow, non-threatening walk.

Keep coming, Raena thought. Make this easy. I don’t want to do anything hard tonight.

“How is Ariel?” Raena asked, keeping the conversation alive. “Is she safe?”

“She found her way back to the Coalition, if you consider that safe.”

Raena eased the new pistol free of its holster, angled the barrel toward the man. She couldn’t see him clearly at this distance and through the weather, but she was certain he was human. That made the Coalition a possibility, but the Empire much more likely.

She fired off six quick shots. One of them spun him around, took him off his feet. She ran toward him, rather than back to the med ship. Who had Doc told she was landing here? Either the Panacea had betrayed Raena or she’d just shot one of their Coalition friends. Either way, the Panacea’s crew didn’t want her showing back up on their doorstep.

The man was wheezing when she reached him. His hands were empty as he sprawled in the mud, but a pair of expensive guns hung from his belt.

“I’m here to help you,” he muttered as she rolled him over. He was an older man, old enough to be her father, with thinning hair and a beard that eclipsed the lower half of his face. Nothing about him looked the least bit familiar.

Raena shot him in the heart. Then she stole his guns and the belt that they hung from and ran into the woods.

Behind her, the med ship powered up for takeoff. Raena felt adrenaline course through her. She ran among the trees, looking for a deadfall or a cave or even a low-hanging branch. She had to find a defensible hiding place, in case they came after her.

They didn’t.

Raena was left alone in the storm. The weight of her guns comforted her enough to raise a smile.

Raena blinked, refocusing her eyes on the screen in front of her. The curriculum vitae that Coni had prepared for her was still open.

What had just happened? Raena shook herself, stretched, trying to get the blood flowing into her stiff muscles. Had she really just hallucinated that she shot Gavin dead in the rain on Barraniche?

That hadn’t happened twenty-odd years ago. She hadn’t known Gavin then, hadn’t met him until the night on Nizarrh. That had been, what? Months, maybe as much as a year after she’d said goodbye to Kavanaugh and Doc and the Panacea.

What the hell was going on?

So, Loren, what  is your background as a writer?

I have always told myself stories, but when I went to university, my parents thought I ought to pursue a career more stable than writing fiction.  So I made a radical leap and studied journalism.  When I graduated, I thought that all I had learned in that program was that I’d never work at a daily paper, on a tight deadline, calling up survivors of tragedies.  And on that score, I was right.

However, I did work as a travel writer and personal essayist for years.  The skills I learned in journalism school came in very useful.  I’ve edited several books of nonfiction essays and created a magazine called Morbid Curiosity, which collected confessional first-person essays.  It was all journalism in a different guise.  That background led to the pirate journalists in Kill By Numbers.

Do you write full time? If not, what is your "other occupation?"

Yes.  Since October 2014, I finished the three novels in this trilogy: The Dangerous Type, Kill By Numbers, and No More Heroes.  The last, No More Heroes, had to be finished from first scene to final draft, in four months.  That was brutal.  I’m finishing a proposal for another series now, but I’m hoping I’ll have more than four months to finish each of the new books. 

What are your writing inspirations?

Kill By Numbers was inspired by the novels of Philip K. Dick.  I am fascinated by the phenomena of memory – how it can strengthen or change over time, how the same event can be remembered differently by everyone present, how memory creates us but changes as we change.  My grandmother suffered from dementia and several of my closest friends have lost their parents to Alzheimer’s, so I wondered what a person might cling to if someone else attacked their memories.

How did you come to write this story? 

I finished The Dangerous Type (the first book) in 2012 and was facing down NaNoWriMo, so I decided I’d play with writing a sequel.  The first book explores persona, which I talked about that on Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog, so memory seemed like a perfectly logical follow-up.

I wondered too how you would protect your memories from a determined ex-boyfriend.  What if he knew everything there was to know about your life, but only cared that you’d chosen not to be with him?  What lengths would he go to in order to make what he considered a happy ending? 

When Night Shade saw the first two books – the finished first book and the NaNo draft of the second one – my editor asked if I could write a third book.  So when I signed the contract, I needed to come up with a subplot to fill out the word count of Kill By Numbers.  My editor wanted me to write more about the mechanics of space travel in my galaxy – and in the real world, I drive a Toyota, which is always being recalled.  So I wondered what would a star drive recall be like? How would that disrupt life in the galaxy?

Amazing where ideas come from, isn't it? Tell us more about the series.

Kill By Numbers, the second book in the In the Wake of the Templars trilogy, came out September 1.  The Dangerous Type was published in July, and the third book, No More Heroes, comes out in November.  The publisher called it the Netflix Effect: people want to devour the whole trilogy one book after another, rather than wait a year for each volume to come out.  It was brutal to write to that schedule, so I’m curious to see if it will boost sales.

Even writing full time that is a hard timeline to conquer. Tell us a bit about the characters and who we will be meeting in the future.

Raena Zacari was an Imperial assassin, before she defected.  Once she was hunted down and given a show trial, she was imprisoned for twenty years in a prison that kept her from aging.  She looks twenty, but she’s much older in spirit.  She’s left behind the man who rescued her from prison and she’s trying to live her own life now.

Thanks for coming by Loren. How can readers connect with you?

Here's the contact list:

www.lorenrhoads.com 

 www.lorenrhoads.com/blog

http://lorenrhoads.com/writing/the-dangerous-type/   

https://www.facebook.com/loren.rhoads.5

www.twitter.com/morbidloren

www.pinterest.com/lorenrho/