Guest Post: Mercy Celeste talks about Shift in Time

We’d like to welcome, a friend of mine, and a favorite author, Mercy Celeste to the blog!

First I’d like to thank Carrie Ann for inviting me to blog with her here on Smoocher’s Voice. And second, I’d like to talk a little bit about my new book.

Why a shifter book? Especially when I’m record as saying I’m not fond of shifter stories or really paranormal of any kind. Well, it’s not so much that I don’t like shifter or paranormal stories, it’s that I read so many in the late 90s and early 00s that I decided I’d read just about every aspect of the genres that could be written.

It’s a case of: I’d started reading the same stories over and over and I stopped. Cold. I read the same vampire books until everything was just all a pale imitation of the top two or three vampire authors. I read the same werewolf trope over and over and just for once wanted a werewolf story that wasn’t about a lone wolf trying to escape his past because he may or may not have slaughtered his entire hometown because he can’t remember what he does when he shifts….or the ones that really turned me off were the werewolves as backwoods trailer trash, hillbilly types. After a while it just gets old and you look for something else and well, I just never went back.

So why did I write one? I don’t know. I do like paranormal and just like with my contemporary books I guess I just hit the point that if I couldn’t find something that I wanted then I may as well just write it. And that’s what I did with Shift in Time.

I put my stamp on this one though, it’s not just a shifter story. It’s not just a witch story. It’s a bit of fantasy world building and I had fun with it. Originally, I was just going to write a little fairy tale of loves true kiss breaking a curse on my shifter character which helps my witch boy to find his own powers. I’d originally titled it Out of Time and had planned to release the book a couple of years ago. But the story bogged down in the middle and I realized I had no idea what to do with it. I mean how interesting is just a short story about a broken curse and some sex on the beach? There needed to be more. I had no idea what more there needed to be so I put the book aside.

I finally found my way back to the story and worked in this whole world or rather, two worlds about to clash, all because of one panther shifter with a form of amnesia.

And the werewolf thing. There are no wolves in the south. Well, not the Deep South anyway. And I’m as far south as you can get without needing a boat and a Spanish dictionary. Plus I’m from Florida, and we have panthers where I come from.

I saw a panther in the wild one time. I was in my early teens. It was a full moon and the windows were open. It was spring and not really hot enough yet to turn on the air conditioner but too warm to sleep. The stories I’d always been told was that a panther crying at night sounds like a woman screaming….yeah, I about peed myself. After I got it together I went to the window and there it sat, in the middle of our cow pasture just as pretty as you please, with the moonlight washing it in silver. The cows were huddled in the barn. And I got a private audience with one of a dying breed. Gorgeous. Terrifying. That night was a night I’ll always remember. 

So that’s why I chose to make Fane a panther shifter. But then the pesky wolves showed up in my story and it gets a bit weird. I mean werewolves in Florida. Well that’s new. At least I’ve never read a shifter story set in Florida before.

Shift in Time is about young shifter who is cursed into different form other than his own. He loses himself and must figure out how to be human again once his curse is broken. Fane was just the most fun to write. He’s an anachronism. A man completely out of time. He’s an old soul and a free spirit at the same time.

And it’s not angsty. I know, that’s not what you’ve grown to expect from me. I mean even I get sick of being heavy all the time.

So what is Shift in Time? It’s book one in the Out of Time series that follows a shifter clan and a coven of witches on a twisting journey back through time to the present where one witch on a quest for power nearly destroys two proud races.

Shift in Time

True love’s first kiss will not break a curse.

Everyone knows that. Even a Normal like Morgan Monstros knows that.

But Fane Llewellyn isn’t everyone. He’s like no one Morgan has ever met.

Small, fragile and fierce, Fane doesn’t remember who he is or where he came from. He remembers pain and loneliness. Decades of pain and loneliness. And Morgan Monstros. He could never forget Gan. Gan was his from the day he came to the island. And Fane would fight to the death to keep Morgan safe. Even if he has to fight the whole world to do it.

Take one powerless witch, a sassy Siamese familiar, a panther shifter with amnesia, a meddling wolf clan, and a coven of witches hell bent on war, swirl all together and you get the perfect spell for all out mayhem…..oh yeah and there’s chocolate cake too.

Find Mercy at

 http://mercyceleste.blogspot.com/

http://www.mercyceleste.com/

Where to buy Shift in Time

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

All Romance Ebooks

Review by Niki: Wolf Run by BA Tortuga

Title: Wolf Run

Author: B. A. Tortuga

Publisher: Resplendence Publishing, LLC

Rating: 5/5 hearts and 5/5 steamy, sexy, and somewhat silly Smooches… 

Blurb:

Mick is a lone wolf in all ways. He’s left his pack, he’s left his homelands and he’s on the road, footloose and fancy free. Well, at least until he wanders up to a fence and finds a little wolf running his ass off behind it. Mick stops to let the pup out and is stunned to hear the young wolf, Scotty, tell him “no”. Scotty's mate and best friend, Danny, asked Scotty to stay behind the fence, so he will be safe while Danny fights to support them both. All this leaves Mick’s fur standing on end. Maybe, Mick doesn’t need one mate to bring him home. Maybe, he needs two.

Niki-O’s Down-low on Wolf Run:

I admit to being a fan-girl of epic proportions where B.A. Tortuga is concerned. Wolf Run is an excellent example of why and how that status came to be. Simply put, B.A. writes pure entertainment, on the level of hot buttered popcorn and a LOTR marathon.

Oh yeah, bring it on.

Wolf Run is exactly the type of fun and games I’ve come to expect from this delightful author. If you’re looking to impress someone with your acquisition of classical literature bonafides, skip this yummy bon-bon of a story and go straight for the Gabriel Garcia Marquez and William Faulkner, or better yet the Flannery O’Connor.

No, seriously.

If however, you’re looking to be thoroughly entertained drop whatever else you’re doing, get a copy of this grade A cotton candy and prepare to be held in thrall by the smexy shenanigans of three scrum-dilly-ishous shifters. Or, in the lingo of laughter and fun, you’d best get all up on this hot-cha literary snack like white on rice. Or, you know, like Chip on Ken. Heh.

No fooling.

The story is a sweet, easy read that lets the reader slip off the cares and toils of everyday life and honest-to-Pete gives the willing to be entertained reader something to smile about with every new page. That’s pretty amazing return for investment, if you ask me. The writing style maintains a light, engaging feel from start to finish. The comedic timing is spot on… and I mean that not in the sense of there being a ton of belly laughs in the story, but rather in the sense of classic comedy (i.e. things that either end with a happily ever after-ish conclusion, or at least everybody who should live does).   I’m giving this one two thumbs way, way up and telling you right now it will lift the glummest of moods. I’ve got it in my Lit-triage Kit to administer to friends in need of a good recommendation at a moment’s notice… Saucy, sassy and giggle worthy, Wolf Run is a great bite sized snack of yummy words that I cannot recommend enough.

Buy Links:

Amazon

All Romance Ebooks

Barnes and Noble