Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween! Here's a treat for you...

A deleted scene from 'Hurricane! This scene was shortly after Adriana was kidnapped by Hayden and Luke.

“No.” Hayden stood up defensively.
“Calm down, dear. This has been going on too long now. You know the consequences of the two worlds colliding. Besides, if it’s not you, you know it will be someone else.” Sansha’s voice immediately had calming effect.

“Sansha, we know what we need to do and we’ll get it done,” Luke chimed in.

“This isn’t about you or me and you know it.” Both of Hayden’s fists were clenched, and at that moment I thought there would be a fight. What my mind was really focused on is what they were talking about. Was it about me, and was I about to die?

Everyone was staring at my confused, fearful expression.

“Why don’t you two discuss this outside?” Sansha suggested, glaring at the doorway. “We’ll be waiting right here.” Her devilish stare returned to me.

Hayden and Luke nodded. “I’ll be right back and then we will leave, okay?” Hayden oddly caressed my cheek with the back of his hand before pulling a strand of my hair back behind my ear. I nodded in reply because I believed him. I trusted him; at least I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe that I would make it out of here alive and that Hayden was the person I thought him to be.

Luke turned to go outside. Hayden’s body turned too but instead of moving toward the doorway he waited until Luke had left. Suddenly, he took one quick step towards me grabbing my thighs and throwing me over his shoulders. What was happening? I forced myself to keep my eyes shut as I felt Hayden jumping out the back window and sprinting away. I managed to open one eye, seeing a blur of trees and green which made me nauseous.

The bouncing wasn’t helping so I wrapped my arms around his waist to keep from moving up in down. That had been a mistake. I no longer knew if he was still running or we had stopped. All I knew was that my arms were wrapped around pure muscle and a flawless abdomen.

Finally, I felt myself falling but Hayden’s arms were still on my body. I released my hold from him as he lowered me onto a mossy tree trunk. I blinked my eyes, shocked to see nothing familiar in sight. My lips parted ready to demand an explanation but he bent down to my level. Dark hair spilled over emerald eyes and the words caught in my throat. With one hand behind my head, he began to apologize.

“I am stronger than he so I can outrun him. But it won’t be long…”

“Stronger than who?”

“My brother… it’s not what you think, Ana. He just needs some time to reconsider a decision he is about to make.”

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Character Interview with Luke Boudreaux

*This interview was originally featured on Book Chow Down

Character Interview- Luke Boudreaux


Character profile:

Name: Luke Boudreaux
Age: 18
Place of Birth: Overseas
Hair Colour/Eye Colour: light brown/hazel eyes.
Siblings: Hayden Boudreaux

What is your middle name?
Who wants to know? Fine, it’s Claude.

That’s unique for a name. What is that
French?

It was my father’s name.

What is your favorite journey?
Twisted as it may sound but hands down the night I was almost destroyed. It was sweet how Ana thought she could save me. Never has a Hunt been more dangerous.

What is your most marked characteristic?
My attitude. Yeah, I will live forever, get the hell used to it!


Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Damn. I really have been saying that a lot haven’t I? that or hell. I really don’t swear that much, I still have soap in my mouth from all the times my mother would wash it, but where I come from hell has a whole
different meaning.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Why would you want to change something that’s perfect?

How would you like to die?
Sorry to break it to you but I ain’t going to die, man.

What is your motto?
An eye for an eye, that is my motto.

What is your greatest
extravagance?

I dunno. Nothing’s really that cool anymore once you have it all. I mean, I guess it’s my custom rebuilt 1969 Chevrolet Camero z28.

What is your greatest fear?
Honestly, I can’t stop thinking about what will happen to me if Ana says no. I have never even thought about being tied down before then all of a sudden I feel a love like no other and I can’t even imagine living, or exiting whatever, without her. If she turns me down, will I just continue forever? What will happen to me? What the hell is happening to me? Shut up, I am not crying. Ana is my only weakness.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Ugh, see above

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Guest Post by Sheila Deeth

One of my earliest memories is of looking through wooden railings down on a narrow, dark staircase. Behind me is a bedroom and the stairs come straight up into the room. That may not sound so strange, but in my world stairs were separated from rooms by doors, so I used to wonder where the memory came from. One day I asked my Mum and she said I’d lived in a house like that when I was a baby—less than two years old. But of course, she added, there was no way I’d have been old enough to remember it.

I’ve read things since then that agree with her, suggesting we can’t make memories when we’re so small. But I don’t believe them and I find myself wondering if anyone can remember all the way back, to being born.

The child in my new story, Flower Child, is born too soon and doesn’t survive the journey through the birth canal. But her spirit survives, somewhere between ghost and angel, becoming real to her mother and to me. I talk to my characters when I’m writing, and they talk to me—I just hope no-one notices and thinks I’m mad. So when Angela told me the story of her journey through the birth canal there’s a part of me that said “Hey, you can’t remember that.” But she did.

“It started, the end or the beginning—I’m not sure which—while I was asleep, red warmth and people-sounds. The ocean’s roar grew violent and angry around me, changed its shape to waterfall. My body jerked in slumber as fluids flushed. My river gone dry, I struggled against my cage and started to fight.

The lights of my red world grew scary then, viciously bright. Something whiter than angels made brittle images on the air. Voices were sharp and fearful, mother singing but the tune all cracked like there was a hole in her heart, beating ragged and sharp. “My baby has gone down the plughole…” she laughed, her body, me, quaking and bent. I didn’t know what a baby or plughole meant, so I simply stored the sounds in memory.

When Mother fell silent, her heartbeat slowing, her thrashing flesh finding rest, then my own struggles dimmed and I fell asleep. Everything up to then felt like a dream, but somehow sleeping didn’t feel like falling awake. My body was sliding, squeezing, fighting its pain, but I had no control and no desire to control it. Flickers of green trickled over me, as though I were trying to rise, but the nightmare held tight.

The world went black at the last and there was silence for a while. Somewhere in the distance the mother-voice cried while Father soothed with words like heavy sap in the burgeoning dawn, but I wasn’t really there. Just a memory of listening, of feeling, seeing nothing, making no sound.”



I’m really grateful to Jenna-Lynne for inviting me to her blog. If you visit my blog: http://sheiladeeth.blogspot.com/ today you’ll find Jenna’s post and an excerpt from her novel Hurricane which promises to be the first in an exciting new series.



About Flower Child: When Megan miscarries her first pregnancy it feels like the end of everything; instead it’s the start of a curious relationship between the grieving mother and an unborn child who hovers somewhere between ghost and angel. Angela, Megan’s “little angel,” has character and dreams all her own, friends who may or may not be real angels, and a little brother who brings hope to her mother’s world. But Angela’s dream-world has a secret and one day Angela might learn how to be real.

Where to find Flower Child: http://gypsyshadow.com/SheilaDeeth.html#Flower

About the author: Sheila Deeth grew up in the UK and has a Bachelors and Masters in mathematics from Cambridge University, England. Now living in the States with her husband and sons, she enjoys reading, writing, drawing, telling stories, running a local writers' group, and meeting her neighbors’ dogs on the green.

Sheila describes herself as a Mongrel Christian Mathematician. Her short stories, book reviews and articles can be found in VoiceCatcher 4, Murder on the Wind, Poetic Monthly, Nights and Weekends, the Shine Journal and Joyful Online. Besides her Gypsy Shadow ebooks, Sheila has several self-published works available from Amazon and Lulu, and a full-length novel under contract to come out next year.


Find her on her website: http://www.sheiladeeth.com

or find her books at: http://sheiladeeth.weebly.com