Spindle On Tour: AKA, Sharing Is Caring!

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SPINDLE is on tour this week with two other wonderful books: SERVANT OF THE CROWN and THE FREY SAGA.

SPINDLE - 2000Hencely (yes, I did just make up a word. I do that) you can catch up with myself and SPINDLE for a guest post at Mythical Books (What If…?), an exclusive excerpt of SERVANT OF THE CROWN byServant Of The Crown pic Melissa McShane on Brooke Blogs, and an exclusive excerpt and sneak peek for book four with THE FREY SAGA by Melissa Wright on Beck Valley Books.the frey saga pic

You can also enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway to win a copy of each of the books and a $30 Amazon gift card at any of the links above, so yay!

Many thanks to everyone who already entered, and to all the fabulous people who shared links and retweeted tweets! You’re all fantastic!

Sneak Peek: Shards Of A Broken Sword

Between Spindle (Two Monarchies #1) and the upcoming Blackfoot (Two Monarchies #2), I’ve decided to release two novellas in my (currently) three novella series Shards Of A Broken Sword. The first, Twelve Days Of Faery, should be published shortly before Christmas, and the second, Fire In The Blood, will hopefully be released just a month or so after the first. As you may guess, that means I’ve been VERY busy. I’ve been using a different process for the novellas, too; and so far it’s been wonderfully effective and quite reasonably enjoyable. Then, in between writing and plotting, I’ve been ferreting through stock images and premade covers to find suitable covers for suitably low prices. When I get bored with THAT, I start picking out excerpts of Twelve Days Of Faery to show you all. Lucky you, huh?

In Twelve Days Of Faery, King Markon of Montalier is at the end of his tether. His son, Prince Parrin, is afflicted with a rather nasty curse that slaughters, maims, or brutally attacks any woman with whom he so much as flirts. After the rumour that sweeps around the kingdom, promising that any woman breaking the ‘curse’ will be eligible to marry the prince, there is no shortage of willing volunteers. Unfortunately, there is also no shortage of bodies piling up.

Markon needs to do something, but what? Can a visiting enchantress from Avernse help, or is she simply another accident waiting to happen? And will Markon be able to give her up to his son if she does break the curse?

Well, that’s it from me! Spindle is on a whirlwind tour with Prism Book Tours, so I’ll be tweeting about that during the week, with a quick post midweek to catch up with all the action. In the meantime, do enjoy this sneak peek from Twelve Days Of Faery!

***

Still, when Markon introduced Althea to Parrin, she didn’t seem particularly coy. She curtsied to him with less depth than she had curtseyed to Markon, and said in an offhand manner: “You’re rather prettier than I expected from the portraits.”

Parrin bowed and smiled, but he looked as though he was no more sure than Markon was that he’d been given a compliment.

“I understand that you have a rather difficult problem,” continued Althea. She was remarkably business-like for a girl who had just been discussing marriage. Not a maidenly smoothing of the hair or sparkle of the eye. “I have a little bit of an idea about it. May I ask questions?”

“Of course,” said Parrin. He was cautiously admiring her, though Markon was pleased to see that he didn’t go so far as to smile. The boy was thoughtless, but Markon would like to think that he wasn’t so careless as to potentially endanger Althea.

“The first two girls, the fiancées–”

“Yes, lady?”

“Both of those were accounted to be accidents, weren’t they?”

“Yes, lady. The countess was thrown from her horse in the courtyard and the princess was attacked by bandits when she returned home from a visit.”

“How long between the betrothal and the death for the countess?”

“A few weeks,” said Parrin, tugging at the cuffs of his jacket. He had been very fond of the girl, thought Markon with a pang: he had also been the one to find her.

“The princess?”

“A few months.”

Althea frowned, a quick, reflexive action. “You weren’t immediately engaged again afterward, were you?”

“No: I met Jeannie at court and we stepped out a few times. She disappeared before it even got about that we were thinking of each other. After that it seemed to take less and less to activate the curse.”

“What set it off most recently?”

“I smiled at the girl,” said Parrin glumly. Markon couldn’t blame him: he remembered what it was like to be Parrin’s age, and the idea of being unable to so much as kiss a girl without something unfortunate happening to her was horrible to contemplate.

“And how long was it before it took effect?”

“A few days,” said Parrin.

“I see,” said Althea. “Stand up, please.”

Parrin did so, looking rather nonplussed.

To Markon she said: “Would you hold this? Thank you,” and pressed something circular and metallic into his hand.  He looked down at the ring, somehow more real in his hand than it had looked on her finger, and took far too long to realise what she was doing. When he finally did understand, Markon started forward, his hand closing around the ring convulsively. By then Althea was on tiptoes with her hands cupping Parrin’s face, kissing the boy with some force and not a little skill if his reaction was anything to judge by.

Markon felt a rush of molten anger unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He didn’t think he moved or even thought, caught up in the stunning heat of it, but that was his hand gripping Althea’s arm with white fingers and tearing her away from Parrin, and that was his other hand shoving the ring back on her finger, his own slightly shaking.

Althea, her eyes rather big but not at all frightened, said a thoughtful: “Ow,” up at him.

It was left to Parrin’s rather frantic: “Dad! Dad, she didn’t mean any harm!” to bring him to the realisation that he’d clutched Althea to his chest, and that he’d not been gentle about it. Parrin was evidently of the persuasion that his father objected to what could technically be called an assault on a royal personage.

Markon, breathing heavily through his nose, released Althea. She hadn’t struggled at all and now merely smoothed her dress and hair as though she hadn’t just put herself wantonly in danger.

“You said you were going to work from the outside!” Markon said furiously.

“No, I didn’t,” said Althea, and there was a suggestion of stubbornness to her mouth. “I said I could if it made you uncomfortable. I also said it would make more sense to investigate from the inside. You didn’t object.”

“I object!” said Markon in exasperation. “I object very much!”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Althea said reasonably. “And it’s proved remarkably useful, too. For instance, I’m now quite sure that you’re not dealing with a curse– well, not in any technical sense of the word, anyway.”

“What?” demanded Markon, in less than cordial tones.

“I was already pretty certain it wasn’t,” she told him. “None of the girls have anything clinging to them—well, apart from some rather nasty magic, totally unconnected with the prince—and neither does the prince. As a matter of fact, they all seem to have– at any rate, I could only be certain that there was no curse by taking off the ring.”

“And putting yourself in exactly the kind of danger I didn’t want you to be in!” said Markon testily. “I’ve a good mind to send you packing!”

“No, you don’t,” said Althea.

“Of course I don’t!” groaned Markon. She’d achieved more in a couple of hours than any of the girls (or in fact any of the enchanters he’d called in) had achieved in the last couple of years.

“Parrin can’t be expected to live his life locked away from women–”

“I should think not!” said Parrin feelingly.

“–and it’s not good for your kingdom, either. After a while you get people making snide remarks about the crown sacrificing the people on the altar of succession, and then–”

“Small disturbances that become bigger ones,” finished Markon, meeting her eyes. “Factions forming across the court and perhaps an accident or two for myself and Parrin.”

Althea nodded. “Exactly. I’m rather good at this sort of thing, actually. Try to trust me a little.”

“You have a fortnight,” said Markon.

***

Obsessive-Compulsive, Thin-Skinned and Delusional (Aka, Writer)

It’s been a whirlwind week. One one hand, I’ve been madly prepping for Wolfskins book blog tour next week (sending off completed interviews and guest posts, making sure my Upcoming Tours/Event Page is updated sufficiently). On the other, I’ve been madly sending out review copies of Spindle and obsessively clicking on the refresh button at Netgalley to see where it sits in the ‘most requested’ Sci-Fi/Fantasy group. (It’s slowly climbing from page to page, FYI. This does nothing to help my compulsion to keep checking). Also Netgalley has little ‘thumbs up’ and little ‘thumbs down’ icons for the cover. At last peek there were 26 ‘thumbs up’, and 3 ‘thumbs down’. You know what I thought?

WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE WHY WOULD YOU THUMBS DOWN MY BOOK COVER IT IS A WORK OF ART AND COMPLETELY GLORIOUS AND YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO TASTE.

C'mmon, it's GORGEOUS!

C’mmon, it’s GORGEOUS!

Really, it just showcased what my first 3-star review showcased. I’m thin-skinned. Which is bad, because who can make it as an author with a skin that thin? So I’m trying to be more TUFF. Well, I’ve got to be. I’ve heard that the Netgalley people pull no punches. And that’s okay, because the reviews aren’t for me. I may not even read them. (I’m lying, I’ll definitely read them all, probably weeping).

I’ve also been involved in A.F.E. Smith’s Darkhaven Release Day party, which is still going on here, (with lots of giveaways and interviews and fun stuff!). And tonight at 11pm (if you’re in Australia)/1pm(British Summer Time)/8amish(American time) I’ll be one of the authors being interviewed! So that’s been fun and frantic and a little bit terrifying.

And while all this has been happening, my Meniere’s Disease has been acting up, which means I’ve been woefully chuck-uppy and have lost about 25% of my hearing for the week. Most of my conversation, in fact, has consisted of ‘What?’ and ‘Huh?’ Hopefully my hearing will go back to normal when I get better. In the meantime, I’ve been learning a lot about lip-reading (just call me Sue Thomas, FBEye).

Oh, and my power just fizzled.

So all in all, things are starting to get interesting. If I manage not to end up as a quivering heap on my livingroom floor, I think I’ll be doing quite well, thank you.

Catch up with me tonight/tomorrow/midday on Facebook, and don’t forget to check out Wolfskin’s Tour Schedule (posted below for your convenience). I’ll see ya on the road!

Wolfskin Tour Dates/Locations (Will be updated with post links as they come):

July 6th

A British Bookworm’s Blog>> Excerpt

-Books and Ashes>> Review

Girls With Books>> Excerpt

Author & Book Spotlights>> Review

July 7th

Book Nerd’s Paradise>> Review

A Book Addict’s Bookshelves>> Interview

Happy Tails and Tales>> Review

July 8th

Coffee & All Things Random>> Review

CBY Book Club>> Excerpt

Bea’s Book Nook>> Review

July 9th

Reflections Of Reality, A.F.E. Smith>> Interview

Bookwyrming Thoughts>> Guest Post

Kimber Leigh Writes>> Interview

Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books>> Review

Sandra Fairbrother’s Blog>> Interview

July 10th

-Mandy’s Books & Beauty>> Review

Blog for readers, writers and bloggers by Daniela Ark>> Excerpt

Just Us Book Blog>> Review

Mythical Books>> Guest Post

Let The Games Begin! (Aka, Masque Is On Tour, And So Am I)

Let the games begin! The book blog tour for Masque has kicked off at The Indy Book Fairy, where you can read an excerpt and enter to win a paperback copy of Masque. Come on along and say Hi!

Further stops will be:

15th- I Heart Reading (Starter Party)

17th- Nat’s Book Nook (Promo Post)

18th- Books, Books, and More Books (Promo + Excerpt)

20th- Howling Turtle (Promo Post)

22nd- Mystical Books (Guest Post)

24th-100 Pages a Day (Book Review)

25th- Tea Talks (Promo Post)

26th- Jooniel Obsesses Over Stories (Book Review)

28th- Literary Musings (Book Excerpt)

28th- Dreams Come True Through Reading (Promo + Excerpt)

29th- C.J. Anaya’s Blog (Book Review and Character Interview)

So follow along with me as I traipse merrily across the blogosphere: and don’t forget to enter into the rafflecopter draw to win a paperback copy of Masque!

(I’ll even sign it for you. Hmm, draw or put-off . . . ?)

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