I’ve known Jaleta Clegg for a number of years now. We have a bunch of stuff in common, so it’s nice to host her here today with her new release, Priestess of the Eggstone. It just released last Friday, the 10th, so you’re really getting this news fresh!

Alan Parsons Project “Don’t Answer Me.”

The song captures the essence of a scene near the end of the book, plus it’s a cool song from a cool group. I love Alan Parsons Project. Priestess of the Eggstone is one long chase scene with lots of fighting, shooting, cake throwing, and explosions. But near the end, Dace (the main character) has to make a choice. She can’t trust the man she loves because he works for the Patrol. Has everything he’s said and done been an act to win her trust so he can recruit her?

Want the blurb? Sure you do!

Pursued by the Targon Crime Syndicate bent on revenge, the Patrol intent on recruitment, and the Sessimoniss who want their god back, the last thing Captain Dace needs is a handsome copilot with romance on his mind. But that’s exactly what she’s got.

She didn’t realize she was smuggling when she accepted the courier job. Now Targon wants her for stealing the shipment and the Patrol wants to arrest her. The Sessimoniss want their god returned. And Jerimon’s aunt is planning their wedding.

She doesn’t know which scares her most.

Buy link! journal-store.com/bookstore/priestess-of-the-eggstone

Go visit Jaleta:
http://www.jaletac.com
http://altairanempire.com
http://jaletaclegg.blogspot.com
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3291041.Jaleta_Clegg

Here’s one from another new friend! Michele Drier has just released the third book in the Kandesky Vampire trilogy, Plague: A Love Story.

Plague and love in the same book title? Really? This, I gotta see!

Michele didn’t say much about why she chose The Girl Can’t Help It as the song that makes her think of her book. In fact, she didn’t say ANYthing about it — feel free to ask in the comments, or to find another way to reach her to ask. I’m curious. Are you? Adding a bit of mystery to the topic of the day, there are a couple of versions of The Girl Can’t Help It. There’s the Journey version and the Little Richard version.

Which do you think she means?

Here’s the blurb:

The third book of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles begins the saga of the family’s start during the chaos of 14th century Hungary. When Stefan’s wife and infant son die in a minor plague outbreak, he has nothing to live for, so Theron’s turning him to a vampire is just a way out of his anguish.
Until he takes over the estate of a merchant, recruits Jean-Louis to teach him business and meets Lady Penelope Kandesky.
Plague returns to Budapest and this time paves the way for Stefan to become Baron Stefan Kandesky, a businessman who builds a trading empire with the help of Jean-Louis and Pen.

This is another one you can only get at Amazon. Guess us non-Kindle users are SOL. Bummer!

As word of the Featured New Book spot spreads, more of you are dropping into my inbox. This is cool, and I hope these authors won’t be strangers once the post is up.

Today we’ve got Kathleen S. Allen, whose Lore of Fei is the first in a new series. Check it out!

Song is: To The Fairies They Draw Near By Lorena McKennitt

TAGLINE: Faeries vs. humans, who will win in the battle for Fei, the land of the faeries? The Book of Lore states a silver-winged faerie will be born to save their race but, no silver winged faerie has been born. There is only Ariela, a faerie without wings, and no wings means she has no magic, or does she?

Hmm…. no reason or explanation given… maybe it’s self-explanatory?

LORE OF FEI BLURB:

“I am not a human girl, Duri. I am a faerie, like you. I was born without wings.” His eyes widened, but he still did not speak. “The Old Ones sent me to find a way to stop the humans. There can be no war on Fei. I need to know what the humans plan and when they will raid Fei again. You can help save Fei from extinction, Duri. Will you help me and be loyal to me and to Fei?”

He nodded. It was a slight nod, but it was a nod.

“Thank you Duri.” I sensed relief from him. “Sunvi, of the Old Ones has been captured and is ensconced in the food area. His wings have been clipped, too. He will help us restore Fei to the land it once was.”

I moved away from Duri toward the dragons. Tashie spotted me and flew over. She gave me a look, and I laughed at her. I sensed hunger from her. I reached in my pouch and pulled a sweet out. She took it and gobbled it down. I scratched under her chin, feeling the happiness flowing from her into me. I looked over to where Duri had stood, but he had gone back to the Lair. I hoped I could trust him. Faeries were much harder to read than humans.

Intriguing, no?

Why don’t you go pick up a copy? And remember: if you like what you read, a few words in a posted review help an author out a LOT.

Buy it at Amazon

Watch the book trailer

Websites:

http://www.loreoffei.weebly.com

http://www.gaelicfairie.webs.com

Facebook Author Page

On Twitter: @kathleea

I am so overdue with this one, and it’s not fair ’cause it’s a humdinger… And a favorite song around these parts!

Author Jaidis Shaw is too cool for words. She’s one of those people who makes you nervous ’cause she brings back that old high school insecurity, where you so desperately want someone to like you…

No? Only me?

Yeah. Whatever. On to the subject at hand… Jaidis wrote a book called Destiny Awaits. The synopsis follows her answer to my famed one-question interview: What song makes you think of your book?

I don’t know if there is a song that sums but the entire book but there is one song that would often make its way onto the Pandora station I listened to while writing Destiny Awaits that fits one of the main characters. I didn’t really listen to the lyrics at first but the beat was nice so I continued to listen and hesitated briefly as a few words caught my attention:

“The secret side of me, I never let you see…”

Alayna, the main female lead, is able to see visions in water but she has always kept this part of herself hidden so that she wouldn’t be considered a freak. After she is attacked by a Vampire, she becomes more comfortable with this side of herself but the bite has left her with a sense of hunger that she struggles to control:

“I feel it deep within, it’s just beneath the skin, I must confess that I feel like a monster.”

With this new thirst threatening to burst forth at a moment’s notice, especially when she is in close proximity to Jayden, she feels as though she is a monster. She doesn’t understand what she is becoming and when the effects of her blood are revealed, she realizes just how dangerous (or helpful) she can be. So it is because of those reasons that I feel “Monster” by Skillet is an accurate song for Alayna.

Link to “Monster” by Skillet on YouTube

Yes! Skillet!

I ran into their touring cellist… do I get cool points for that? He used to work for a friend of mine.

Okay. Back to Jaidis and her book. I want to read this one!

Synopsis:
Twenty-year-old Alayna Scott receives visions around water, but even her foresight couldn’t prepare her for the tragic accident that claimed the lives of her parents. With everything she loves gone, Alayna packs up and moves to the small town of Juniper Grove in hopes of starting over.

Jayden McKnight can’t explain the attraction that he feels whenever Alayna is near, but he does know that he will do whatever it takes to win her heart. When a vampire selects Alayna as his next victim, Jayden will stop at nothing to ensure her safety – even if that means bringing Alayna into a world that she never knew existed.

Love blossoms, challenges are made and Alayna will find herself fighting not only to survive, but to understand what she has become.

LINKS!!!
Amazon

GoodReads link for Destiny Awaits

Jaidis’ Links:
Juniper Grove Blog
Amazon Author Page
GoodReads
Facebook Fan Page
Twitter
YouTube

I met DJ Butler not too long ago, when he dropped into my inbox. A mutual friend had suggested we hook up, and let me tell you, I owe that mutual friend! DJ’s pulp series is FUN, FUN, FUN. The fourth installment of his rock band fighting evil came out right around the time King Trevor did, and I was busy with my own release and getting this place back up and running. Poor DJ had to wait all this time for his feature.

That means that once you’ve read this, you need to head over to Amazon and get yourself ALL the titles in the series. Yes, I’m serious. No, doing so won’t break the bank. (Especially because, for you freebie hunters, there are some this week only!)

Read on and see what song inspired this fourth episode, Devil Sent the Rain.

That’s an easy one: “Sympathy for the Devil.” I actually was going to use that title (all the Rock Band Fights Evil books steal their titles from blues, folk or rock songs), until I saw that it had already been done. Many, many times.

I choose “Sympathy for the Devil” for three reasons. First, I think we can all agree it’s a bitching song. And Rock Band Fights Evil is nothing if not bitching.

Second, the song is a devil’s eye retelling of the history of the human race. It’s epic in scope, involving great human wars and famous atrocities (the World Wars, the killing of Christ and the Kennedys) in a tale in which it’s not always easy to tell the cop from the criminal, the sinner from the saint. This is also true of Rock Band Fights Evil, which is a sort of rock ‘n’ roll telling of the apocalypse, revolving around a not-entirely-unsympathetic figure of Azazel, greatest of the Princes of Hell.

Third — and this is why I wanted to use the title for one of the books in the first place — the action in the early books is driven by sympathetic magic. (For anything who is now raising a puzzled eyebrow, the basic idea of sympathetic magic is that two things that are once together are always together, so you can take magical action on a part of something to cause an effect on the whole thing.) Azazel, imprisoned in the wastes of Dudael for centuries under a bath of holy water, lost a fragment of his hoof. The band, a gaggle of variously-damned men, grab the hoof fragment in book one and race towards Hell against the powers that want to snatch the hoof from them, because they want to use it in an act of sympathetic magic — think voodoo doll principles — to force Azazel to undamn them.

Hey, look, I think I’ve just given you my book blurb, too. Ha! Rock on!

(Sadly, it looks like the Stones have yanked all the video of this off the Internet. Shoot.)

[Note from Susan: I found one! Click that link above!]

Rock Band #1 is Hellhound on My Trail

Rock Band #2 is Snake Handlin’ Man

Rock Band #3 is Crow Jane

Rock Band #4 is Devil Sent the Rain

Blog

Rock Band Website

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

Goodreads

One final note: Be sure if you do nothing else, you check out the cover art for these books. They’re every bit as awesome and entertaining as the books themselves and I HATE that covers this slick have to be reduced to greyscale!

I got all excited when I saw the title of MaryLynn Bast’s new book. No Remorse.

Metallica alert!

But… nope. Here’s what song makes Mary think of her book:

Pink is my favorite female singer. I love her bad kick ass attitude and she reminds me of Amber, and her song “Perfect”, is actually a perfect for description of Amber’s life up until she meets back up with Blake.
“Made a wrong turn once or twice.
Dug my way out, blood and fire.
Bad decisions, that’s alright.
Welcome to my silly life.
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood!
Miss “No way, It’s all good”, it didn’t slow me down.
Mistaken, always second guessing, underestimated!
Look, I’m still around…”

Ahh, Pink’s a favorite around here. It probably doesn’t have the Family Friendly alert that the other song I linked to does…

So what’s Mary’s No Remorse about, anyway?

Due to her unusual birth, Amber has abilities no other werewolf has ever possessed. On the run since childhood, the lone wolf avoids contact with other werewolves at all cost, continually moving, constantly looking over her shoulder and always alone.

Everything changes when Amber saves a werewolf from the mere brink of death, Blake, the only werewolf to ever protect her. Love blossoms, but not without tribulations when Amber realizes she must help her new pack rescue a member who is being held hostage by a rival pack.

Warring with emotions of going from lone wolf to the pack leader’s mate, Amber must decide if she is willing to risk Blake’s life to know true family and friendship despite the fact that the Council is hell bent on locating her and will stop at nothing until she is found. Will Amber’s special abilities be enough to keep everyone safe?

Links you’d like to have:
Amazon
Book Trailer
Website
Facebook
Facebook (author page)
Twitter