Happy Friday! Finally, it's been quite a week. Enjoy today's post, by Vanessa North!
The author is also offering a giveaway, and the details for entry are
here.
Guest Post:
Hi, Lindsay, thank
you so much for having on your lovely blog!
I wanted to talk today a
little bit secondary characters and how sometimes, they can change everything.
No joke, I love
secondaries, and I always have huge casts of them, even in shorter books.
Having a plot spanning three books, the secondaries in the Ushers trilogy sort
of became like family to me, and United boasts some of my favorite secondaries
ever. Two of them literally changed the shape of the series.
Of course all our
favorites from Amazon are still around: Jack and Bianca, Ted, Ellen, and Kathy,
Annie the Guide, and the Murphy parents: Roisin and Cormac. The Guide to the
third Usher is introduced in United, and we also get to meet Fionn’s kids, Devon and Rose.
United brings us a trio
of baddies: the Kirk brothers from North
Carolina. I loved Tavis Kirk so much, the man
actually got his hands into my plotting outline and shredded it, then rewrote
the whole ending for me. Tavis is a one-legged evangelical werewolf, who in my
mind looks a little like Edward James Olmos--all bad-ass and growly. The way I
originally planned to end the book had to be drastically changed once he
appeared because suddenly, he had to play a bigger role in the story and he had
to have a longer-lasting impact on Amazon Pack. Thank you, Tavis, for that. You
gave me a storyline I hadn’t anticipated! I’m not going to say anymore about
that because I don’t want to give away any spoilers. :)
The other secondary who
changed things up on me is Angelo Gonzalez. To this day, Angelo is my favorite
character I’ve written. We first meet him in Amazon, where he describes himself
as “a dork with an MBA.” Angelo stole my heart from the very first time I wrote
one of his scenes, and his friendship with Monica is still one of my favorite
things about the trilogy. By the time I finished writing his first scene in
United, I knew something major had to change in book three: Angelo would have
to be the hero in Cracked.
I hope you all enjoy
meeting these guys--I loved writing them and they really did become a second
family to me during the months I spent writing their books!
Available at…
Blurb
She's
willing to fight like hell for her man, but in return, she wants all of him.
Irresponsible
is the only way to describe the last twenty years of Fionn Murphy's life. Now
the fate of Were society depends upon him getting his act together. After all
those years of bad behavior, he doesn't believe himself worthy of happiness.
Monica
is the one woman who can give Fionn the happiness he doesn't believe he
deserves. She's been preparing for their mutual destiny for decades, never
expecting her mate to be so...careless. She's willing to fight like hell for
her man, but in return, she wants all of him.
When
Fionn's enemies exploit his past to discover his weaknesses, the two must stand
together to unite the packs as one and save Fionn's family.
Warning: This title is
intended for readers over the age of 18 as it contains explicit sex scenes and/or
situations and adult language which may be considered offensive to some
readers.
Excerpt
He laid his head in her lap, and she savored the feel of it,
the weight of him against her as he relaxed onto her legs. Her hand stole into
his dyed-blond hair, ruffling though it, the texture like silk under her
fingers. She felt his wolf within him, reaching for her touch and knew that he
denied himself as much as her. She stroked from his hair down into his beard
and she watched as his lips parted and he drew a ragged breath.
Annie stood quietly, then tiptoed from the room, closing the
door behind her.
“Fionn,” Monica whispered. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“I don’t know, dammit.” His eyes clenched shut as he sat back
on his heels, burying both hands in his hair. Finally, he looked up and his
eyes met hers, agony hovering just under the surface. “I’m falling apart, just
being close to you.”
“Kiss me,” she demanded. He looked at her, startled.
“C’mon, Finny, kiss me,” she repeated.
“Mo…”
“No, Fionn Murphy.” She stood up, tugging him to his feet
with her. “You need to know something. I’m your mate. I know what that is, how
it feels. You’ve never been mated before. You’ve played around, but you don’t
know what it feels like to kiss your mate. Don’t you want to know? Aren’t you
even the littlest bit curious?” She stood up on the tips of her toes, pressing
her face to the skin of his throat and inhaling his scent.
Oh Goddess, up close he smelled even more intense and amazing
.
“Mo,” he pleaded. She met his eyes and saw in them a hunger
that sent echoes of need into her. Feeling the heady power of seduction, she
leaned forward and licked from the hollow between his collarbones up to his
ear, and she bit, scissoring the lobe between her teeth. She felt the rumble of
a growl run through him, and he pushed her away. Her eyes closed, tears forming
with a sting behind her nose.
Then his hands were bracketing her face and his lips crushed
down hard on hers. This was no gentle kiss. Nothing like Angelo’s caring
caresses, intended for comfort. This kiss wasn’t about caring. It was full of
anger, lust, regret. But as his tongue swept through her mouth and his
elemental male taste tingled all the way to her toes, she felt her teeth
lengthen and she smiled against his lips. Her mate.
His assault on her mouth lost some of its fervor, replacing
the urgency with languor as he swept his tongue through her mouth again and
again as if he wanted to memorize her taste. Her hands fisted in the cotton of
his tank top, pinching the nipple ring underneath. His hands sank into her
hair, tugging. She felt with her tongue and realized his teeth had shifted too.
The knowledge sent a victorious thrill through her.
He knew. He knew, dammit.
He pulled away, leaving her bereft. She watched as he dragged
the back of his hand across his mouth in horror. “I’m sorry Mo. I should never—ever—have kissed you in
anger.”
“If that’s the only way I can ever have you, I would take
it,” she confessed. It broke her to admit it, but she knew the pull of mate to
mate.
His eyes closed and a spasm of pain crossed his face.
“You deserve so much better,” he whispered. He ran a gentle
hand down the side of her face and grimaced. “I have to go. We can talk, after
I get back?”
She nodded. Of course they could talk. All they ever did was
talk.
About the Author
Vanessa North was born
in New England but moved to the South as a teenager, where she learned to
appreciate biscuits and gravy, bluegrass, and that most welcome of greetings:
“Hey y’all!” She has a degree in Mass Communication but has long since
abandoned journalism in favor of writing romance. Instead of telling the news,
V would rather tell stories.
Vanessa has a voracious appetite
for books and loves all kinds. She writes obsessively: every day brings new
ideas and stories to tell. When she’s not buried in a book—hers or someone
else’s—you can find her taking thousands of photographs of the people she
loves.
She lives in Northwest
Georgia with her handsome husband, not-quite-civilized twin boy-children,
and a very, very large dog.
Connect with Vanessa North
Other Books by Vanessa North
Amazon (The Ushers #1)
Shifter's Dance (The Wiccan Haus)
Two In Winter
Fight or Flight
Wild At Heart Vol I
(Benefiting Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge)
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
A
veteran of the performing arts and worldwide missions, Tessa Stockton also
contributed as a writer/editor for ministry publications, ghostwriter for
political content, and she headed a column on the topic of forgiveness. Today
she writes romance and intrigue novels in a variety of genres. In addition to
her fantasy romance, WIND’S ARIA, she’s the author of suspense/thriller, THE
UNSPEAKABLE, political intrigue/romance, THE UNFORGIVABLE, and a literary short
story, LOVE AND LULL, with more in the works. 
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