Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Tour Review: A Hunter's Angel by Cera Dubois (Guest Post)

Title: A Hunter's Angel
Series: The Hunter's Dagger #1
Author: Cera Dubois
Genre: Supernatural Fiction, Paranormal Romance 
Elements: Vampires
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press 
Format:
ASIN: B008MZ5ONS
Release Date: July 18, 2012 
Source: Tour Host {Bewitching Book Tours}
Rating:

Tagline(s): ~NONE~

Summary: The serial killer stalking Clayton, Pennsylvania, isn’t all that has Chief of Police Grace Wallace worried. For a year, she’s tried to forget Special Agent Ian McHenry and now he’s the expert the FBI sent to catch the killer. She can’t stay away from him, but something primal is telling her to run to save much more than just her heart. 

Despite the strict code of ethics Ian vowed to follow as a vampire hunter, he craves Grace’s blood above all others. If he chooses to stay, Ian risks losing his chance at divine forgiveness. 

But if he leaves Grace unprotected from the evil he’s hunted for over a century, he loses more than just his soul…

Review:

REVIEW WILL BE POSTED LATE. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.


Excerpt:

“I’m in love with the man inside the vampire.” Grace moved her hand to thread through his silky hair. When she rested the other over his heart, a soft sigh escaped his lips. Underneath her palm, the slow beat was barely noticeable.

His thumb grazed her cheekbone and slowly trailed down to the hollow of her throat. Her breathing quickened at the zinging anticipation as he caressed the pulse point where he’d claimed to have taken blood from her. He glanced at the spot with eyes as haunted as he sounded. “I’m not a man.”

“But you were once.”

He met her gaze again. “Yes, once.” 

His fingers lingered over her pulse. Her heart raced under his touch. She tilted her neck as if his touch awakened some base instinct to offer the sacrifice. “Do you still want my blood?” 

Ian stepped away and locked his wide-eyed gaze onto hers. At last, he rasped, “No, I don’t want your blood. Oh, God, I still crave it. You have the sweetest I’ve ever had, but I will never hurt you again.”

She didn’t know what possessed her to do so, but she whispered, “You can take...some of it.”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he acidly said, “No, Grace. I can never taste your blood again. It would kill you.”

Fear of what she’d wanted him to do tumbled through her. She stepped away, and for a moment, she considered telling him to leave. How did she know any of this was real? She couldn’t imagine she’d ever freely offer a vampire her blood. Did she really believe him? He was sucking her into his insanity. But if this was true and he could make people do things against their will, maybe he could control her feelings.

“Maybe I should go?” Ian backed away another step and headed toward the counter where he’d left his dagger. He turned back to her with the sheath in his hand. Her heart shattered with the knowledge that, if he walked out the front door, she’d never see him again. “Goodbye, my sweet angel.”

His jagged murmur ripped at her soul as his eyes took on a blazing intensity and snared hers. She felt a pressure in her mind, and she knew what he intended to do. He wanted to erase her memories of him.

No!

About this Author:

Cera duBois has a strong belief in never giving up on your dreams… Although Cera was unable to read due to dyslexia and a learning disability until she was in the fourth grade, she always had a story to tell. She wrote her first novel in eleventh grade when she had to keep a journal for her academic English class. 

Since her life was far from exciting growing up as a farm girl in West Central Pennsylvania, she decided to rely on her imagination to give her something to write about. Over the course of the school year, she wrote a tangled romance set in the Deep South during the Civil War. 

Becoming an author was her ultimate dream. Despite holding a BS in secondary social studies education from Penn State University, she currently works full-time as a medical secretary. 

A mother of a teenage son and pre-teen daughter, she lives near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with her husband of nearly 20 years. If she isn’t sitting in a quiet corner with her laptop, warm days will find her in the English garden surrounding her house. Cera loves to read and is interested in history, romance, science fiction and the paranormal. 

She also writes contemporary Westerns under her real name of Sara Walter Ellwood.

CONTACT LINKS: 





Guest Post by Cera Dubois:

Thank you so much for having me today. 

I’d like to share the eighth installment of my series of short stories, entitled The Vampire Encounters. As I hop around the internet these next few weeks, I’ll be sharing a part of each story. The story has four parts, with each part broken into two—except the last, it’s broken up into three sections. So, come follow me, as I interview (Ann Rice style) the four vampires from A Hunter’s Angel...

Although all of them could be read separately, if you would like to read them all I will also be putting them on my website. Or, if you’d like to follow along, go to http://ceradubois.wordpress.com/a-hunters-angel-the-book-tour/ for the link to the other parts.

The Vampire Encounters—Vivian (van Dyke) Pomeroy

PART 2: The Monk and the Tavern Wench
Chapter 1

The clank of swords echoed off the stone walls of the castle. Vivian followed the sounds down the narrow, winding staircase to the arena where the master conducted his training.  

Before she reached the arched opening, she heard a grunt of pain and a vile curse. 

“You must stop fighting like a mortal. You are a good swordsman, but your movements are not fast enough,” the master said.

“I know. Damn it.” Ian’s irritation came through is voice. “I haven’t held a sword in over a century.”

Vivian stopped in the opening and stared. The master and Ian stood in the middle of the dueling circle carved in the stone floor. Both men were naked to the waist. She’d long ago lost interest in Ian’s broad shoulders and corded muscles, though the raw slash on his biceps drew a flash of concern. But she didn’t study her fledgling’s physique longer than a second. Her eyes stuck on the master.

The torch light played a game of dark and light over his broad back. The muscles rippled under his pale skin. What would it be like to be under all that glorious man? Heat boiled through her veins and coalesced in the pit of her stomach, resulting in a gush of wet wanton lust in her core. She’d gasped at the desire, never before feeling such a powerful response to any man.

Both men turned and looked at her. Ian’s brow drew together as he stared at her, and she realized the smelled her response. Damnation.

“I…ah …I’m sorry…to interrupt.”  But she couldn’t make herself move.

Ian must have sensed that her response wasn’t to him through their blood bond. They mostly had it sealed off, but sometimes she’d lower her shields when a strong emotional response rattled her.

Realizing she wanted a man as unattainable as a vampire master was bound to rattle anyone. Especially with him staring at her with narrowed black-brown eyes that didn’t return the emotion. If anything, the master looked upon her with utter disdain.

Ian cleared his throat, but before he could speak, the master spoke in that refined, slightly accented voice. “We are finished for today. I will take my leave.”

He returned his sword to a bench and headed for the far end of the large space. The door led to a labyrinth of tunnels and traps to his private lair.

Ian cocked an eyebrow at her as he pulled his tunic over his head. The silent prompting brought more heat to her cheeks. 

“Master?” She could barely get enough air over her frozen vocal cords to make the word.

The vampire stopped but didn’t turn around. She glanced at Ian, searching for some sort of encouragement. He jerked his chin toward the powerful man who saved them both by taking them in and teaching them how to live without killing. Without the bloodlust gluttony that had been her reality since she became a vampire two-hundred-fifty years ago. Then Ian seemed to disappear in front of her eyes as he raced out of the room with preternatural speed.

The master turned as if surprised to find her still standing by the door. He glanced at the opening behind her. “You should follow your mate.”

The quiet command floored her. Didn’t he know the truth?  “Ian is not my mate.”

He drew those brows together again. “You turned him.”

She glanced away in shame. “I was following the orders of my mistress. But I never loved Ian, not as a mate, at any rate.”

The master shifted his shoulders higher; his stance seemed to stiffen even more. “You were his paramour, were you not?”

She met his ageless, dark eyes. “Yes. However, Ian and I have not been together in such fashion for over half a century. He is not whom I came looking for.”

His heavily muscled chest stopped rising and falling, and she knew he wasn’t breathing.  “What do you want, woman?”

You. “To train as a warrior—a hunter.”

He turned toward the door. “No.”

She panicked as she realized how much she wanted to learn how to kill those who didn’t follow Master Pomeroy’s code. Snatching one of the daggers from the table, she held it high. “Why not? I am strong.” She sent a blast of her power out over the room. The torchlight flickered and the master turned. The ivory handle of the sheathed silver dagger strapped to his thigh twinkled in the yellow wavering light from the torches. “I’ve never been a flower to be left to wither in a vase. I learned a long time ago to protect myself.”

She moved closer to him. Her heart pounded and her breaths came fast. But her hand was steady as she moved the long iron practice blade in a slow circle before her. The most damage the blade could do to a vampire was damage the skin and draw blood. Only a hawthorn stake or a sliver blade through the heart or decapitation could kill a vampire, but she wasn’t interested in killing the master.

“I learned to use a knife to protect myself from those who might want to prey upon me. I can learn how to use a hunter’s dagger to protect those I once preyed upon.” She held the dagger straight up and down in front of her face and genuflected upon the ancient floor of the castle, bowing her head as if he were the vampire king who had once lived within these thick stone walls and she some kind of knight.

“Rise, woman. There is only one Being you should bow before and I am not Him.” 


Lifting her gaze to the master, she had a hard time remembering that Lucas Pomeroy, vampire master, despised vampire hunter, had once been a monk. Of course, looking at his broad shoulders, heavily muscled arms and chest, powerful legs, he didn’t look much like a monk. He reminded her of a gladiator. He stood with his hands on his hips, his feet apart, and his head hanging low. He muttered something in Latin—a prayer for strength? But for what? He was the strongest man she’d ever known. When he met her gaze, his eyes flashed red, and his power washed over her. She shivered from the force of it and from the fire burning her core, but did not show her lust.

“I will train you.” He heaved a breath. “Though I do not like the idea of you fighting.”

She stood and tossed him the dagger within her hands. “Because I am a female?”

He easily caught the handle in mid-air and looked at the long blade. “No, because it shall be you.”

His soft tone of voice halted her as she reached for another dagger from the table of swords and knives. He didn’t want her to fight? Was he afraid for her? She turned and stared at Lucas. His face pinched, his brows drawn low over dark eyes. No, he didn’t want her fighting because he wanted nothing to do with her.

He’d never hid his dislike of her.

Damn him, she’d show him she could do this. Snatching up a dagger and gathering her skirts within her left hand, she sneered and let her fangs descend, the drops of venom from their tips cloying on her tongue. Her power zipped through her veins and strengthened her resolve.

And as he stared at her, she attacked. When he jumped away from the slashing sweep of her dagger, he bowed his head and surprised her with a smile. Then he, too, lost the glamour that made him appear human. His eyes burned a demonic red—a gift from the demon that had turned the former man of God—and his long, snake-like fangs descended. She inhaled the spicy sweetness of his venom, and her body responded with a gush of wetness between her legs.

She wanted to taste his kiss. She wanted him to crawl inside her and never leave.

He must have caught the fragrance of her blooming desire as he struck and misjudged the sweep of his dagger. His slash was a shock to her, and she was too late to parry the upward motion of the blade as it sliced through the fabric of her gown and the corset below. The two sides of her dress fell open, and her breasts tumbled out of their cloth prison.

They both froze and stared at each other. His eyes held to her breasts with powerful glue. Her nipples puckered from both the cold air and from the force of his red gaze. A blast of desire of the likes she had never known hit her senses. And it wasn’t hers.

“Lucas?” she whispered his given name for the first time. If she was feeling his emotions, that could only mean one thing.

He raised his eyes to hers. The red glow of his lust bled away and was replaced by dark brown of regret. Before she knew what he was doing, he turned and raced through the door to the labyrinth of tunnels and traps to his lair.

“Lucas!” She dropped the dagger in her hand. As it clunked and rattled on the stone floor, she ran through the door. “Lucas, we have to talk about this.”

But he was already gone. The master never let anyone into his lair and attempting to find it was a suicide mission. She calmed her senses and reached out with her emotions and mind. It was impossible to read another vampire’s mind, unless a bond was formed. She and Ian shared a mental connection because his blood ran in her veins and hers in his. The only other mental bond was a… 

Oh, God in Heaven, she didn’t even want to think such a thing. Her heart raced as her mind tuned in on Lucas’s confusion and held on with a death grip. She picked up her skirts and raced through the dark maze following the vampire master to his lair.

***

To find out more about A Hunter’s Angel check out my website (http://ceradubois.wordpress.com/a-hunters-angel-the-book-tour/) for a schedule of my blog stops during the book tour. I will be presenting a series of short stories called The Vampire Encounters. Follow me as I interview Ian McHenry, Master Vampire Lucas Pomeroy, Vivian van Dyke Pomeroy, and have a scary run-in with Shane Chamberlain. Hope to see you along the way.

Contest: 
Please leave a comment and your email address to be eligible. (Sorry, only USA and Canada residents are eligible for any prize that needs to be mailed. Non-residents and residents of USA are eligible for free PDF copy.)

* Two Lucky Posters will get a PDF copy of Bloodwine. (for info on this short story check out my website)

*1st Stalker Prize: Every Poster will be entered into a drawing for a chance at a $5 gift certificate from The Wild Rose Press (four to be given away)—drawing to happen on September 1.

*2nd Stalker Prize: Every Poster will also be entered into a drawing of a $25 gift card from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice)—drawing to happen on September 1.

Blurb for A Hunter’s Angel:
The serial killer stalking Clayton, Pennsylvania, isn’t all that has Chief of Police Grace Wallace worried. For a year, she’s tried to forget Special Agent Ian McHenry and now he’s the expert the FBI sent to catch the killer. She can’t stay away from him, but something primal is telling her to run to save much more than just her heart. Despite the strict code of ethics Ian vowed to follow as a vampire hunter, he craves Grace’s blood above all others. If he chooses to stay, Ian risks losing his chance at divine forgiveness. But if he leaves Grace unprotected from the evil he’s hunted for over a century, he loses more than just his soul…


Tour Hosted by Bewitching Book Tour

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