Synopsis:
Zane’s horrific past is forever etched into his skin.
His anger and pain overcome his body and turns him into the beast he’s come to accept himself as. But, is there a way to save himself from the beast he has become?
Especially when the anger makes him feel complete…
Serena can’t let go of the past, and, in the spectral embrace of her murdered lover, Devon, she has little reason to...
Until Zane arrives on her doorstep (and blows it into splinters).
However, she can’t deny the true desire she feels in Zane’s strong embrace. Will she be able to resist Zane’s mysterious allure, despite her own budding passion?
Especially when the passion makes her feel complete…
As their personal pasts continue to haunt them, the future for them and their clan grows evermore in jeopardy of the malicious schemes of a familiar force.
Can an untamable beauty finally submit to her destiny, and can a slaughterous beast be swayed of its catastrophic nature?
Or will the lover and the fighter be doomed to lose themselves amidst the chaos?
Now for the cover reveal....
Excerpt:
Neither of them deterred, the darted through the bits of wood with their fists balled and ready. Two punches landed simultaneously and room slipped back into normal time as the two were knocked out of overdrive and across the room until they came crashing down onto the unforgiving hardwood floor.
Zane groaned and rolled to his knees, struggling to stand up and, when he’d finally gotten to his feet, grabbing his shoulder in pain. Wincing from the contact, he glanced at the floor and let out a heavy sigh at the sight of the massive crack that he’d put there when he’d fallen; two perfect indents showing where his back and shoulders and broken through.
He silently thanked Gregori for his vast wealth and the assurance that the damage would be easily repaired.
The sound of metal straining caught his attention and he looked towards opposite side of the room in time to see the one of the weapon racks—loaded with a series of Oriental swords and daggers and cracked in half down the middle from Serena’s fall—start to come unhinged. As he watched the collection of weapons start to shift, he watched as a short sword slipped free and stabbed into the floor several inches from Serena’s head.
And the rest were sure to follow!
Growling, he fought through his own pain and dizziness and rushed towards her, pushing his already-drained body into overdrive and struggling to maintain the superhuman speed as the room slowed around him long enough for him to snatch her body from the floor and hurling them both out of range of the slew of razor-sharpness that rained down behind them.
Zane groaned and blinked against his worn-out body’s blurring vision and saw Serena below him; pinned to the floor by his body.
Biting his lip at the compromising position, he hurried to pull himself off of her, hoping that she hadn’t gotten the wrong idea or done any damage in falling on top of her. The sound of another crash reverberated in Zane’s ears and he gritted his teeth as a second wave of falling weapons rang out and startled Serena into an upright position; holding her chest and coughing as she tried to catch her breath.
Zane sighed; at least she was safe.
He dropped his head to look at her, she was breathing softly and her chest lifted and fell in slow breaths. He chewed his lip as he realized he was staring at her chest still and turned his attention to her face. Her dark bluish-purple gaze was pulled into his and he frowned, realizing he’d been caught. She smirked and licked her lips. Realizing he was being teased, Zane looked away and growled.
“Like what you see?” She smirked.
Not interested yet?? Check out this review on it by Crystal Barnard:
Review:
The first book you have to read is The Lover, it introduces you to 2
of the, main characters Serena(a vampire) and Devon(a human/you’ll see).
These two are in love when tragedy strikes. Enter Zane, a sexy
vampire/beast who was sent to bring Serena home after her fathers death.
But nothing seems to go easy. The story follows them through getting
home, denying feelings, a pissy ghost, a jerk brother and more……lol I
found it very entertaining. The sarcasm and smart assed comments between
Serena and Zane had me laughing my ass off. I very quickly came to NOT
like Keith, and got tired of Devon’s presence.
I was very impressed with the story, it was writen so well that it
pulled me in without even realizing it. One minute it was just a story
and the next I am in tears over something, yes, literal tears. It was
easy to familiarize myself with the characters that’s how much the
writer pulls you in with her words.
I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who likes vampires,
beasts, drama, romance, fighting, and sarcasm dripping fast…lol I myself
cannot wait for more, I just hope it’s not to long.
Reblogged from writer Christoph Fisher
Review of Noir:
“Noir” by Nathan Squiers is the first in his Crimson Shadow series.
It concerns Xander, a boy who gets bullied at school and who lives with
his grandmother. The only good friend he has is a voice in his head, yet
that voice cannot protect him from his enemies either.
Then one day he gets rescued by a group of vampires, the Odin Clan, and
becomes part of their community, a rare type of vampires who are feeding
from blood and from personal power. He receives training and enters
into battle against their enemies.
This is as much a vampire tale as it is symbolic for the struggle for
personal power and good use for it. Having been a victim has changed
Xander and makes him an unlikely candidate to join “bad” creatures. His
feelings of rage need to be contained – there is a sensei/ teacher in
Xanders training who helps him with these struggles.
Very well written and perfectly paced the author has given us a great
read and a skilfully developed character in Xander. I will say that this
type of story about supernatural powers and the struggle for personal
control and self-discipline has been done many times before but this is
one of the few times where I actually bought it, cared for the
characters and started to understand why it has the following it has.
Incredibly well done!
Interview with Nathan:
-Nathan, how did you come to writing?
I’d always been interested in storytelling. As a kid, even before I
knew how to write, I was always drawing pictures in crayons based on
stories in my mind or intricately enacting scenes and adventures with my
action figures. As the years passed my interest in creating stories
only grew, and the introduction of writing just sort of got assimilated
with the other methods I used. As my more “childish” activities (donning
costumes and running around the neighbourhood pretending to be a
superhero or dipping into an overflowing bin of toys to create some
grand new heroic battle) have dwindled, writing has simply survived and
prospered with a growing wealth of vocabulary and ideas.
-What would you say exactly is your preferred genre and why have you chosen it? Is that the type of books you read as well?
If I had to funnel it down to only one genre I’d say it’d be
psychological dark urban fantasy. Most of my work is set in a realm of
fiction that my fiancé and I co-created through several years of
research, and, aside from the customized creature-types, I’ve always
defined my style as being very emotionally driven; not one of my stories
ever being so simple as to have solely one conflict and, for the most
part, incorporates an equally (if not more) threatening struggle with
oneself as well as whatever external force they’re up against.
This, however, is not the only thing I write (I’ve even been known to
write non-fiction/articles lol), and, that being the case, I don’t
restrict my reading lists to that genre, either. While I DO enjoy it,
I’m also partial to well-structured romance, mystery, and even
philosophy books.
-You write short stories as well as novels, some of which are connected. Can you explain that concept a little?
I’ve always been a REALLY big comic book geek, and, for as long as I
can remember, the concept of a single universe (such as Marvel or DC)
having all of these wonderful characters who are unique and intriguing
and, above all, able to cross paths with each other was FASCINATING. To
me, a single story can encompass a specific character’s (or characters’)
struggles, but they aren’t the only ones worth focusing on and, while
they’re story is being told, the probability that others are in their
own adventures is vast and often unseen. I like to approach all projects
with a mind of “how does THIS fit into EVERYTHING, and where can THIS
character influence THOSE characters down the line?”
My father would call it “having too much time on my hands”, my
philosophy professors would call it “the ripple effect”, but I just call
it “the mythos universe”.
-When did you first have the idea for this book/ series?
When I was about 14 or 15, I was DEEPLY troubled and depressed. At
that time, I was certain that I wouldn’t last too much longer; every day
serving as a haunting thought of “is today the day I kill myself?”
When I first sat down to write Xander Stryker’s story, it was planned
to be a testament to my feelings at that time (a sort of “creative
suicide letter”). However, what was supposed to be a short story about a
tortured young man’s suicidal rituals ended up becoming something of
intrigue for me, and I found myself driven to write more and more of
Xander’s story. After a while I became less interested in seeing Xander
die and more interested in trying to make him overcome his troubles—to
find the strength that I felt I didn’t have and overcome it all—and, in
struggling to create a character who wanted to live, I started to want
to live. Eventually, by the time I was finished with the piece that
would later become “Noir”, book #1 of the Crimson Shadow series, I had,
in essence, cured myself of my suicidal tendencies.
-How long did it take you to write?
“Noir”, because of all the personal elements laced throughout
it—personal elements that gave me multiple anxiety attacks and landed me
in the hospital about five times a year for the entire duration of
writing it—took me about five years to write. The subsequent books,
however, have taken substantially less time (book two taking two years
and my more recent piece, “Curtain Call: A Death Metal Novel”, only
taking me eight weeks from start-to-finish).
-How many rewrites did it take you?
Far more than I’m brave enough to guess lol
-How do you write? What is your writing environment like?
Location isn’t really a factor for me when it comes to writing. If I
can sit down with my computer and listen to my music, then I’m pretty
much good to go (having something to drink and nibble on certainly keeps
me from being interrupted by those needs).
-Your fiancé is a writer, too. What kind of books does she
write and how should we imagine a household of two writers? IS there
ever a competition between you? Is there tension when one of you has a
writer’s block? Do you ever have that – either of you?
My fiancé, Megan J. Parker, has always been a talented writer, but
she’d always preferred writing poetry. Over the years, she had begun A
LOT of “Chapter One”s, but these openings never went much farther than
that. After “Crimson Shadow: Noir” was accepted for publication and I
started to get acquainted with names in the community, I started to
become aware of calls for submissions. One of which, for an anthology of
short stories, looked like something that might offer Megan a chance to
dust off one of her first chapter/shorts and see what people thought.
Unsurprisingly (for me, at least), people LOVED her work and it wasn’t
long until the publisher we were with asked if she could submit the
novel attached to that “Chapter One”. Motivated by this, she wrote the
rest of the book (a paranormal/dark urban fantasy romance set in the
same universe—a universe that she had just as much of a hand in creating
as I did—as all of my own but featuring a new cast of characters) and
unleashed it onto the world.
Like the mythology, however, we don’t feel competitive between what
“belongs” to whom. She has a constant influence in the nature of my work
just as I, in turn, have my own influence on hers, so there’s never a
moment of competition because, for us, it represents something that we
both had at least some hand in as well as being the product of a lover’s
imagination (I have to imagine it’s no different than a couple with one
writer—the non-writer doesn’t feel challenged or threatened by their
lover’s work—but, in this case, we get to play both roles to the other).
Beyond that, when writers block strikes, it’s nice to have a fellow
literary mind sitting beside you to fall back on.
-Who are your editors and how do you quality control your books?
I recently met a wonderful woman named Kristina Gehring with an eye
for editing that’s as sharp as I’ve ever seen. Her ability to spot
anything—and I do mean anything—that doesn’t look/sound right in a
manuscript is nearly outside of my realm of belief (and anybody who
knows the sort of stuff I’m willing to believe would understand that to
be IMMENSE). Because her standard for quality is equal to the standard I
set for my own work, by the time I’ve done my personal comb-through
& edits on a finished piece and gotten it sent off to her, I’m
nothing short of 100% confident that any alterations I’m suggested will
be EXACTLY what’s needed to make the piece golden!
-Who are your favourite authors / influences?
Favorite authors:
• Rob Thurman
• Nancy A. Collins
• Stephen King
• Clive Barker
• Anton LaVey
• Steve Niles
• (too many more to list)
Biggest influencers:
• Guillermo del Toro (filmmaker)
• Stan “The Man” Lee (Marvel Comics legend)
• Mike Mignola (writer/illustrator of Hellboy)
• The Wachowski siblings (creators & directors of The Matrix)
• Marilyn Manson (musician)
• William Control (aka – William Francis/musician)
• (and many, many more)
-Who would play your characters in a movie?
I recently saw a movie called “We Need to Talk About Kevin” about an
incredibly troubled young man played by Erza Miller. Throughout the
entire movie, subtle nuances in Miller’s performances and his overall
appearance kept making me think of Xander, and I think if you were to
slap a pair of black & white revolvers in his hands and give him a
set of fangs he’d fit the bill pretty well.
-What are your next projects and where would we be able to hear about them?
Since starting up Tiger Dynasty Publishing, a lot of my focus has
gone towards re-releasing my previous titles along with the titles of
some phenomenal authors I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in my
adventures. Obviously the continuation of the Crimson Shadow and Death
Metal series are a priority of mine, and down the line we’re going to be
releasing comic books, so a number of my original scripts will finally
have a face and be available. Information on these (and other) projects
can be seen on my official author site, http://www.nathansquiers.com or on my Facebook page People can also learn more by following my Twitter (username @LitDark_Emperor).
OFFICIAL author site: http://www.nathansquiers.com
OFFICIAL FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/Nathan.Squiers
The Legion (“fan” page) on FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Legion-of-Nathan-Squiers/329543403767153?fref=ts
OFFICIAL Crimson Shadow FB page: https://www.facebook.com/CrimsonShadow.Legacy
OFFICIAL Death Metal FB page: https://www.facebook.com/DeathMetal.NovelSeries
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LitDark_Emperor
“A Howl at the Moon” (cover art attached to this email) on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/A-Howl-at-Moon-ebook/dp/B00BFF7ZX4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361432567&sr=8-1&keywords=Nathan+Squiers+Howl+at+the+Moon
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