Wayward and Upward Anthology

  

My story, Prodigal Moon, was selected to appear in the Wayward and Upward anthology from Off Topic Press, a small Canadian publisher. Details follow below.

Genre: Paranormal, Supernatural, Vampires

Length: Short Story

Heat Level: 1 Flame (suggestions of romance)

Blurb

A young man makes a new friend who is much older than she appears to be.

Snippet

Deborah Virgo and Valentins Hines met on the first day of summer 2017. The youngsters lived at the wrong end of Fox Avenue. The electricity had been turned off in Valentins's house, but he didn't mind sitting on the covered porch painting figurines. His mother, Doriend Hines, was gone most of the time, working at the Daily Grind Bistro or The Zealous Whistle Tavern or staying overnight with old folks who paid her under the table for her caregiving services. Doriend was a workaholic who would have been thriving monetarily if not for being a functional alcoholic and opioid addict with a love of gambling. 

Valentins was sitting on the porch at dusk, painting a vampire figurine for his haunted house, when a wraithlike girl with an alabaster complexion and waves of xanthic hair flowing to her mid-back entered the gate.

Buy Link

Order the ebook for 5.99 CAD or the print book for 25 CAD.

https://www.offtopicshop.com/

Guest Post: Seelie Kay and Donovan Trait

Vive la Resistance

Release Date: May 27, 2022

Publisher: Extasy Books

Paranormal Romance, Romantic Suspense, Contemporary Romance, Fantasy

Three flames, 21+

An Interview with Seelie Kay:

Q. Why do you write romance?

Since the onset of the pandemic, I have totally changed my attitude toward writing romance. While I was long enamored of the happily-ever-after because it brought me and readers joy, I have concluded that my true purpose in writing romance is to give me and my readers hope. Let’s face it, the pandemic has been traumatic—for everyone. It evolved into one of the most chaotic situations of our time, something we had never before experienced. I was grasping at anything that would give me hope and found myself turning daily to romance books and tales of finding or sustaining love. So now, I write to give people hope.

Q. Do you prefer a certain type of romantic hero?

That also changed during the pandemic. While I still adore smart, dashing gentlemen who aren’t afraid to live on the edge, I found myself focusing more on principled men, those willing to fight for what they believe in. And now, you will that find my heroes also have a strong sense of family. They value the support a family can provide. Of course, the definition of “family” varies and comprises more than the traditional assortment of parents, siblings, and relatives.

However, these “heroes” continue to pair with strong, independent women who aren’t afraid to fight for what they want, even love.

Q. Why did you write “Vive la Resistance?”

At the foundation of this book is the belief that people cannot be afraid to speak out against wrongs, especially those inflicted on others, and they must be willing to fight against evil, even at the risk of death. Soldiers and peacekeepers do that every day. We live in turbulent times. It is so easy to say, “Not my problem,” and turn away. But sometimes, you don’t have that choice. You have to stand up and fight back. 

Donovan Trait is a vampire lawyer. In the human world, a very respected lawyer. Now he must use his skills to save the half-bloods—vampires whose blood is mixed with human or Were. What began as a Vampire Coalition vendetta against his turned wife, Judge Shirley Magnusen, who gave birth to half-blood twins in violation of her marital agreement, has extended to the elimination of all half-bloods. A campaign of genocide. 

However, this is not a battle that can occur with boots on the ground in the presence of humans and Weres. It must be fought in the shadows to prevent exposing the vampire world to humans. So it must be fought virtually, and soon it becomes clear that the resistance may be winning battles, but the Vampire Coalition will never concede the war. The final battle must occur in person. Sacrifices will be made, lives will be lost, and the vampire world will be shattered. But the real question is, what will emerge from the ashes? Vive la Resistance (Long Live the Resistance)!

Blurb:

Things are gonna get messy…

An illegal union, a banned birth, a Great Lie, and now, genocide. Vampire lawyer Donovan Trait and his wife, chemically-turned Judge Shirley Magnusen, are battling for their lives and the lives of their children. The Vampire Coalition wants them dead, but now the despots have also decided to expand their net, targeting any vampire whose blood is mixed with human or Were. 

Half-bloods are already treated like dirt by the Vampire Nation. They have been subjected to centuries of discrimination and cruelty at their hands. As the Coalition embarks on a campaign of terror, destruction, and slaughter, millions of half-bloods emerge from the shadows, ready and willing to reclaim their place in the Vampire Nation. The problem is, war cannot be unleashed out in the open in the human world. Battles must be fought in other ways. Even with an island of highly-skilled vampire nuns and a few Weres and humans at their side, it appears the Traits may be fighting an unwinnable war. Their only option may be to sacrifice their own lives in the hopes of setting all other half-bloods free.

Excerpt 

Clinging to the tree, Donovan watched as the monkey taunted him with the package. How the hell was he supposed to get it back? Slowly, he began to edge down the tree. Suddenly, a ladder hit his feet. Donovan gazed below him and smiled. That was where the worker had gone. To get a ladder. He eased onto it and carefully lowered himself. When he reached the sandy soil, he gazed at the worker and pointed at the devious monkey. “He grabbed the package. How do I get it back?”

The worker chuckled. “He will drop it in exchange for a treat.” He nodded at the monkey. “That one loves berries.” The worker motioned toward a blueberry bush and started pulling the berries from the bush. “These are hard for them to pick. If we pile them at the base of the tree, he will drop the package in order to get to them.”

Donovan cocked an eyebrow. “Really? That’s all it will take?”

The worker dropped a handful of berries by the tree and the monkey began to jump up and down, screeching excitedly. Donovan quickly picked another handful of berries and dumped them onto the growing mound. After a few minutes of berry picking, the worker motioned for Donovan to step back. They waited a moment. With the package in his teeth, the monkey leaped from the tree and landed softly next to the blueberries. He tossed the package away and dug in, consuming the berries with aggressive zeal. When he finished, he leaped back into the tree and swung away.

Donovan grabbed the package. It was a bit slimy, saturated with monkey saliva. “Ye Gods, I hope they didn’t dissolve the pill.” Carefully, he peeled away the packaging. Inside was a small box wrapped in several layers of plastic. He sighed with relief. Donovan removed the box and grasped it tightly in his hand, then he began to run. The faster he got it to the laboratory, the faster they would get some answers.

Consumed with the task at hand, Donovan failed to notice a plane hovering over the island. In a grid-like pattern, it flew back and forth, each time moving closer to the electronic grid. Finally tuning into the sound of the plane’s engines, Donovan looked up, just in time to discover that the plane intended to dive into the net. It was headed straight for him.

Donovan had no time to leap out of the way. The plane hit the net and burst into flames. The vegetation below was caught in the fire’s path. The force of the explosion threw Donovan into the dense jungle, where his head hit a tree. He struggled to remain conscious in what was now a sea of smoke and flames. His last thought before he succumbed to the darkness was that there was one thing they had not planned for—fire…and monkeys.

Book Trailer— https://youtu.be/qqCjNQtFHKI

Buy links--

Extasy Books: https://www.extasybooks.com/Vive-la-Resistance

About Seelie Kay:

Award-winning author Seelie Kay writes about lawyers in love, sometimes with a dash of kink.

Writing under a nom de plume, the former lawyer and journalist draws her stories from more than 30 years in the legal world. Seelie’s wicked pen has resulted in twenty-two works of fiction, including the new paranormal romance series Donovan Trait, as well the erotic romance Kinky Briefs series and The Feisty Lawyers romantic suspense series. She also authored The Last Christmas, The Garage Dweller, A Touchdown to Remember, The President’s Wife, The President’s Daughter, Seizing Hope, The White House Wedding, and participated in the romance anthology Pieces of Us.

When not spinning romantic tales, Seelie ghostwrites nonfiction for lawyers and other professionals. Currently, she resides in a bucolic exurb outside Milwaukee, WI, where she enjoys opera, the Green Bay Packers, gourmet cooking, organic gardening, and an occasional bottle of red wine.

Seelie is an MS warrior and ruthlessly battles the disease on a daily basis. Her message to those diagnosed with MS: Never give up. You define MS, it does not define you!

Seelie can be reached at www.seeliekay.com, www.seeliekay.blogspot.com, or on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.

Author links:

Website: https://www.seeliekay.com

Blog: https://www.seeliekay.blogspot.com

Twitter: @SeelieKay https://twitter.com/SeelieKay

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seelie.kay.77

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seeliekay51/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Seelie-Kay/e/B074RDRWNZ/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/seelie-kay

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16492565.Seelie_Kay

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@authorseeliekay

Newsletter sign-up: https://rb.gy/w69pim

Prior Books:

Kinky Briefs: https://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs-1

Kinky Briefs, Too: https://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs,-too

Kinky Briefs, Thrice: https://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs,-thrice

Kinky Briefs, Quatro: https://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs,-quatro

Kinky Briefs, Cinque: https://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs,-cinque

Snatching Dianna: https://www.extasybooks.com/snatching-dianna

Infamy: https://www.extasybooks.com/infamy

Cult: https://www.extasybooks.com/cult

Hope: https://www.extasybooks.com/hope

Martimus: https://www.extasybooks.com/martimus

The Garage Dweller: https://www.extasybooks.com/the-garage-dweller

The President’s Wife: https://www.extasybooks.com/the-presidents-wife

Seizing Hope: https://www.extasybooks.com/seizing-hope

The White House Wedding: https://www.extasybooks.com/the-white-house-wedding

The Last Christmas: https://www.extasybooks.com/the-last-christmas

The President’s Daughter: https://www.extasybooks.com/the-presidents-daughter

A Touchdown to Remember: https://www.extasybooks.com/a-touchdown-to-remember

First, We Kill All the Lawyers: https://www.extasybooks.com/first,-we-kill-all-the-lawyers

Ye Gods! The Law is an Ass!: https://www.extasybooks.com/ye-god-the-law-is-an-ass

A Room in Blake's Folly Guest Post

A Room in Blake’s Folly (published by The Wild Rose Press)

If only the walls could speak…

In one hundred and fifty years, Blake's Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels,
scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town.
Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a
room at a long corridor's end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations.

 I love writing about people who are different. Some are forced to adapt to new circumstances in order to survive, others are originals, folks who have never really fit into mainstream society. But no one is humdrum, and all have dreams. 

So what do an embittered mail-order bride, an adventurer, a brothel madam, a silver baron/artist, a war refugee, a pacifist, a playboy veterinarian, and a woman who protects spiders all have in common? They get another chance to find love. And what better setting for romance than a semi-ghost town in Nevada? 

A Room in Blake’s Folly begins in 1889 with the romance between Sookie Lacey, former prostitute now saloon dance girl, and Westley Cranston, adventurer. But love rarely follows a straight path. Times change, life goes on, and new relationships form. In 2022, Blake’s Folly, once notorious for saloons, brothels, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town of abandoned shacks and weedy dirt roads. But the old stories are still very present, and they have the power to influence the remaining 53 inhabitants.

Excerpt

Lance saw the woman doubled over in the dirt road, her legs bent backward and to each side of her in what looked to be an exceedingly painful position. Had she been hit by a car? Probably not: few enough cars passed this way. She might have had an attack of some sort. He loped toward her, thinking only of rescue and alleviating pain, because that’s what a veterinarian’s job is all about, and humans happen to be animals, too. 

He was less than ten feet away, when she raised her head and glared at him with fury. The look, as toxic as a poison arrow, halted him in his tracks. She certainly didn’t look as though she needed his help. She didn’t look as though she’d ever need anyone’s help. 

“Um…I’m sorry. I saw you down there, in the road, and I thought…” 

He saw her fury seep away, transform into visible regret. “You chased it away.” 

“Right.” 

Swinging her bent legs into a more reasonable position, she stood up without using her hands. For someone who wasn’t young, she looked to be in perfect shape. Or at least she had maintained an admirable flexibility. 

He knew who she was, all right. Who else had a long bushy ponytail of silvery hair? Who else had three dogs trailing after her—three dogs now sitting calmly in the shade of the abandoned laundry and watching him, wary-eyed. They knew he was one of the vets who gave them shots every year, and that meant he was no real friend. 

The woman in front of him, what was her name? Lucy something…oh yes, Lucy Barnes, and she worked in Rose Badger’s vintage clothing shop whenever Rose roared off to Reno. For the first time, he noticed the camera. 

“Look, I thought you had fallen or…” 

“Yes, I realize that’s what you thought.” She didn’t look as though she were about to forgive him for it either.

“You were taking a photo?” 

“Yup.” 

“Of what?” 

“A Xysticus.” 

“A what? 

“Oh, sorry. A ground crab spider.” 

“Of a ground crab spider?” 

She relented slightly. “They’re called crab spiders because they look and move like crabs.” 

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I think I’ve worked that one out.”

“Right.” 

“What for? Why were you taking a photo?” 

“Because I like them. I like macro photography, I like taking photos of spiders, and this particular spider was very pretty.” 

“Pretty. Got it.”

She looked annoyed again. “Veterinarians don’t consider arachnids worthy of notice?” 

“Did I just tell you that?” he said a little too defensively because she was right: he never noticed them. Okay, he never killed them either, because he knew how useful they were, but that was as far as things went. “What was particularly pretty about that one? I mean spiders look like spiders to me. I never thought aesthetics came into it.” 

“Really?” She even looked surprised. 

“Really.” Inwardly, he sighed, regretting his attempt to maintain chatty conversation. It was always the same when you dealt with nuts, cranks, and fanatics: they couldn’t understand how normal people functioned. 

“Most crab spiders are brown-beige so they can blend into their surroundings and catch prey easily. They do have splotches though, and this one had a nice leaf marking on its opisthosoma.” She smirked. “Sorry, that’s the posterior part of the body. The front part is the—”

“Prosoma,” he interrupted. 

The smirk faded and, wordlessly, she stared at him.

It was his turn to be haughty. “Since you know I’m a veterinarian, you’ll probably accept that, in this century, we do go to school. And while we’re there, we manage to study a little science.” 

“Sorry,” she said contritely. 

“That’s all right.” He tried not to look too self-satisfied.

Review of A Room in Blake’s Folly

Rich detail and scintillating dialogue transport the reader through the decades between 1889 and 2022 of this surprising saga. With flowing descriptive phrases (“… the walls had a yellowish hue that only time could bring,”) Culiner effectively intertwines the characters and descendants of Blake’s Folly. And although overhunting and pollution mean environmental change, the charm of this old world community remains intact. Cheers for this book!

Lisa McCombs for Readers’ Favorite

Purchase Links

https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance


Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt3VkYUTVNk

Writer, storyteller, photographer, and social critical artist, J. Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived in a Hungarian mud house, a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave dwelling, on a Dutch canal, and in a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest and, much to local dismay, protects all creatures, especially spiders and snakes. She particularly enjoys incorporating into short stories, mysteries, narrative non-fiction, and romances, her experiences in out-of-the-way communities, and her conversations with strange characters.

Author Website: http://www.j-arleneculiner.com

Blog: http://j-arleneculiner.over-blog.com


Storytelling Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/j-arlene-culiner


BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-arlene-culiner

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JArleneCuliner/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jarlene.culiner/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7158064.J_Arlene_Culiner

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jarleneculiner

Amazon Author Page : https://www.amazon.com/author/jarleneculiner-quirky-romances