Sunday, October 27, 2019

Happy Halloween



Happy Halloween

I realize it has been months since I made a post here and I do apologize. It was a busy summer with releases and signing events. I am also working on a new website! Which I hope to have up and running in the next month. 

In the meantime, exciting things are going on. I'm almost finished with the first book in a new series titled "The Legend of the Ghost Train." Three stories with a historical/paranormal twist. Book One - Smoky Mist centers around the Little River Railroad and Lumber Company which existed in Townsend TN in the early 1920's. Hopefully this story will be out later this year.

Also along with the Warfield Hotel Mystery Series, the Knights Club Series (all 5 books) are now in Kindle Unlimited.




And the Pinkerton Man Series, including the newest addition, "Aces Up" is on sale for $1.99 each until October 31!

 Now that things are slowing down, you'll see more from me in the weeks to come and look for the new website soon!!

Friday, June 7, 2019

Blood is Forever by Asta Idonea




Blood is Forever
Asta Idonea
NineStar Press
3 June 2019
74,000 words
MM/Paranormal Romance/Murder Mystery

Sometimes catching a murderer means risking one's heart.
 As a fae-vampire hybrid, scorned by all, Holden’s life has never been easy. The one bright spot is his job testing blood at supernatural crime scenes. It’s routine work, until the day he finds a victim he can’t read.
When one murder becomes two, and then three, it’s clear there’s a serial killer on the loose—one with a penchant for collecting hearts. Finding the bad guy could cement Holden’s career, but he’s drawing a blank. And it doesn’t help that the expert his boss calls in to assist him is the man Holden’s been crushing on for years.
With lives hanging in the balance, Holden and Val must solve the case before the killer strikes again. But will they come out with their hearts still intact?

SoundCloud Excerpt: https://soundcloud.com/nickijmarkus/blood-is-forever-by-asta-idonea-audioexcerpt
YouTube Excerpt: https://youtu.be/CuYWU05z_8w


Author Bio & Links
Asta Idonea (aka Nicki J Markus) was born in England but now lives in Adelaide, South Australia. She has loved both reading and writing from a young age and is also a keen linguist, having studied several foreign languages.
Asta launched her writing career in 2011 and divides her efforts not only between MM and mainstream works but also between traditional and indie publishing. Her works span the genres, from paranormal to historical and from contemporary to fantasy. It just depends what story and which characters spring into her mind!
As a day job, Asta works as a freelance editor and proofreader, and in her spare time she enjoys music, theatre, cinema, photography, and sketching. She also loves history, folklore and mythology, pen-palling, and travel, all of which have provided plenty of inspiration for her writing.

Linktree (for all other links): https://linktr.ee/nickijmarkus



Thursday, March 14, 2019

Shamrocks, Dancers and Authors



Authors & Dancers
Against Cancer

It's hard to believe but Authors & Dancers Against Cancer is happening this weekend. Saturday, March 16 in Perrysburg, Ohio, you can join in all the fun. I'll be there along with dozens of other wonderful authors and their books. There will be raffle baskets and most authors have a giveaway at their table as well. Proceeds go to Dancers Against Dancers.


I hope to see you all there. 

CJ

Saturday, March 2, 2019



Well, here's to hoping that spring is around the corner. We're supposed to receive snow again tomorrow, but maybe that will be the last one for this winter season.

Can you believe that Daylight Saving Time starts next weekend. What's up with that? I'm just not ready for that change again. It plays havoc with my system for about a week until I get used to it. I guess I'm getting old.

I've been working on the next Pinkerton Man book. It's titled Aces Up and will bring a mystery of course, but also the additional of Michael O'Brien as Stiles lover and possibly a new agent? Guess you'll just have to wait and see. Hoping to have Stiles, Lizzie and Michael in their new adventure to you late May, early June.


Don't forget that you'll be able to catch up with me at Authors and Dancers Against Cancer on March 16 in Perrysburg, OH. This book event is in support of a wonderful charity. On Friday evening, March 15 their will be a free recital (donations accepted) by the dance group Dancers Against Cancer. Please check out their website here Dancers Against Cancer

After, this book event, I'm taking a two week get-a-way trip to Tennessee to spend time with my daughter and my parents. I'll be writing of course and I'll be spending time in my wonderful Smoky Mountains to refuel myself. 

Hope your spring is blooming with sunshine, flowers, and good times. 

CJ

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

J. Scott Coatsworth ITHANI

Ithani
The final MM sci fi book in J. Scott Coatsworth's "Oberon Cycle" trilogy is out - "Ithani"!

Time is running out.

After saving the world twice, Xander, Jameson and friends plunge headlong into a new crisis. The ithani--the aliens who broke the world--have reawakened from their hundred millennia-long slumber. When Xander and Jameson disappear in a flash, an already fractured world is thrown into chaos.

The ithani plans, laid a hundred thousand years before, are finally coming to pass, and they threaten all life on Erro. Venin and Alix go on a desperate search for their missing and find more than they bargained for. And Quince, Robin and Jessa discover a secret as old as the skythane themselves.

Will alien technology, unexpected help from the distant past, destiny and some good old-fashioned firepower be enough to defeat an enemy with the power to split a world? The final battle of the epic science fiction adventure that began in Skythane will decide the fate of lander and skythane alike. And in the north, the ithani rise…

Oberon Cycle Trilogy

Ithani Buy Links


Dreamspinner eBook | Dreamspinner Paperback | Amazon eBook | Amazon Paperback | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads

Book 1: Skythane:


Dreamspinner eBook | Dreamspinner Paperback | Amazon Kindle | Amazon paperback | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads

Book Two: Lander:


Dreamspinner eBook | Dreamspinner Paperback | Amazon Kindle | Amazon Paperback | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads




Giveaway

Scott is giving away a $50 Amazon gift card and ten copies of "The Stark Divide," the first book in his other trilogy, his other trilogy, "Liminal Sky," with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d4753/?




Excerpt

Venin stood under the dome of the chapel, the waters of the Orn rushing past the small island to crash over the edge of the crater rim, where they fell a thousand meters to the broken city of Errian below.

The Erriani chapel was different from what he was used to back home. The Gaelani chapel in Gaelan had sat at the top of a tall pillar of stone, open to the night sky, a wide space of grass and trees that intertwined in a natural dome through which moonlight filtered down to make dappled shadows on the ground.

This chapel, instead, was a wonder of streaming sunlight, the columns a polished eggshell marble with glimmering seams of gold. Red creeper vines climbed up the columns, festooned with clusters of yellow flowers that gave off a sweet scent.

Both were bright and airy, but the Erriani chapel lay under a dome supported by fluted marble columns, a painted arch of daytime sky and the rose-colored sun blazing overhead.

The last time he’d gone to chapel had been with Tazim, before his untimely death.

Long before the troubles that roiled the world now.

Something drew him back. A need to reconnect with his past. To bridge the gap between then and now, between who he was and who he had become. Taz would have liked this place.

The chapel here had survived the attack, while much of Errian had not. The city below was a jumble of broken corrinder, the multistory plants that were the main building stock for the city. They would grow again, but the sight of the city’s beautiful white towers laid low struck him to the core.

So had Gaelan looked, after the flood.

Venin turned back to the chapel and unlaced his boots, baring his muscular calves before he approached the fountain that splashed at its center. The cool flagstone beneath his feet sent a shiver up his spine, and green moss filled the gaps between the stones.

Some builder whose name was lost to time had tapped into the river itself to make the fountain run, and the water leapt into the air with a manic energy around the golden statue of Erro, before falling back down to the pool.

Venin knelt at the fountain’s edge on one of the well-worn pads, laid his hands in the shallow water, and let his wings rest over himself, making a private place to pray.

Erro and Gael, spare us from danger and lift us up into the sky with your powerful wings. He gave Erro deference, being that this was his chapel, but he hoped Gael would hear him too. The god of his own people had been known to intervene in mortal affairs before, and if what Quince had told them about these ithaniwas true, they would need all the help they could get.

Venin’s wings warmed.

He looked up in astonishment to see the statue of Erro giving off an intense golden glow. His mouth dropped open, and he stood and stared at its beautiful male curves and muscles. Maybe the gods were answering him.

Venin reached up and touched the statue’s outstretched hand. The shock knocked him backward onto his ass, and he hit the ground hard, slamming into one of the marble columns.

Venin groaned, stunned, and reached back to feel his wings and spine. He seemed to be in one piece.

Taz would have laughed his ass off at the whole thing.

After a moment he sat up cautiously. He wrapped his arms around his legs and stared up at the statue, his chin on his knees.

The glow was gone.

Did I imagine it? He stood and felt the back of his head. A lump was already forming there. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Something had changed. Venin didn’t know what yet, but he was sure of that much.

He pulled his boots back on and laced them up. With one last suspicious glare at the statue, he turned and stepped out of the chapel, taking a deep breath of the moisture-laden air.

Then he leapt into the sky to soar down to the broken city.




Author Bio

Scott lives with his husband of twenty five years in a Sacramento suburb, in a cute little yellow house with a brick fireplace and two pink flamingoes out front.

He inhabits in the space between the here and now and the what could be. Indoctrinated into science fiction and fantasy by his mom at the tender age of nine, he quickly finished her entire library. But he soon began to wonder where all the queer people were.

After coming out at twenty three, he started writing the kinds of stories he couldn't find at Crown Books. If there weren't many queer characters in his favorite genres, he would will them into existence, subverting them to his own ends. And if he was lucky enough, someone else would want to read them.

His friends say Scott's mind works a little differently than most - he makes connections between ideas that others don't, and somehow does more in a day than most people manage in a week. Although born an introvert, he forced himself to reach outside himself, and learned to connect with others like him.

Scott's stories subvert expectations that transform traditional science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something different and unexpected. He runs both Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark.

His romance and genre fiction writing brings a queer energy to his stories, filling them with love, beauty and power. He imagines how the world could be - in the process, he hopes to change the world, just a little.

Scott was recognized as one of the top new gay authors in the 2017 Rainbow Awards, and his debut novel "Skythane" received two awards and an honorable mention.

You can find him at Dreamspinner here, Goodreads here, on Amazon here, on QueeRomance Ink here, and on Facebook here.


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Thursday, January 31, 2019

A New Year


The holidays have come and gone. A large part of the country is in the throes of what the weather people are calling the Arctic Vortex. In simple terms ""It's Freezing Butt Cold Outside"". 

If you are like me and feeling this cold, I hope you are staying warm with a favorite hot beverage and a good book. I even hate to let the dog out in this type of cold. 

The last 2 months haven't been the best for my family, but we're getting back on our feet now. And, I'm getting back into the swing of things for this new year as an author.

The last Knights Club book releases on Feb. 6 with a Series Blog Blitz with Signal Boost Promotions. Watch my Facebook page for the details. There will a rafflecopter with a chance to win a $15.00 Amazon Gift Card. 

I'm also getting ready to do first drafts on a new Pinkerton Man story, a 1920's lumber camp ghost story, and a paranormal twist on the myth surrounding the Phoenix. All full stand alone novels. It's going to be an exciting year.

Look for some changes to the blog as well. More about when and where you can find me at events. More recommendations on books you might find interesting. More posts on a regular basis. All good things.

Here's to a Happy New Year for each one of you and many happy reading moments in 2019!

CJ