Book of the Week: Vampire Slayer

Jazz is one of my favorite characters that I’ve created. In his words:

You see, my real job is vampire slayer. Yeah, yeah it’s also not normal for satyrs to hunt vamps. We’re easily distracted by beer, boobs and bands, but beneath our three in the afternoon hang-overs, we’re good guys who can be pushed to our limit like everyone else.

Jazz is actually one of the first characters I created way back when I was taking writing classes. In the first story, the surprise reveal at the end was Jazz being a satyr. My teacher told me that audiences did not like “gotcha endings.” So then I tried to write it from the perspective of the love interest. The hope was audiences would be surprised in a good way along with Kyra when Jazz revealed himself as a Satyr. But I didn’t like that version. Several years later, I was invited to enter a story in an anthology (an “achievement unlocked” moment for me) and I decided to make one more attempt with Jazz. I did it in first person POV with him being straight-up with the audience about being a satyr. I love this version.

Vampire Slayer is a humorous, adventurous, and romantic way to start your week! Download today from Amazon for only $.99!

Shhhhh….I’m Back

I feel a bit of chagrin with this post since my last post was titled “Hello World, it’s been a while,” and that was dated October 2017. Has it really been that long?

My absence is a result of needing money. I’m a musician which pays a lot better than being a writer, at least for me. I know there are writers out there who make big bucks or even enough bucks to live on. I pretty much make coffee bucks with my writing. However, I love to write. I have never entirely given up on my stories, or on learning how to be a better writer. Ironically, I have been in a crit group for the past five years.

What I truly gave up on was branding myself. I tried various things with book covers and blog posts and giveaways. But I never really understood how to package myself. For one, I’m very eclectic. As a musician, I play jazz, classical, pop even Irish music and that’s normal. But in the book world, a writer writes modern romance. Or they write fantasy. Or they write mystery. If they write all three, they often have three different pen names. I like to write romance. I like to write fantasy. I don’t want to create two different brands because I’m not a marketer. I’m an indie writer.

And I love to write. And I’ve missed the frequency with which I used to write. And I’ve missed sharing stories with readers.

So I invite you to join me again! If you like contemporary romance, I welcome you. If you like a little magic with your romance, I welcome you. If you are looking for something a little different, I welcome you.

I’ve been sneaking some of my old stories back on to the Amazon shelf, and I even added a new one. I’ll write some blogs about them soon…I promise 🙂

In the meantime, I would love for you to check out my Amazon Page!

Shifting Into Love First Gear Last Post

Good morning! This is the last day to enter my Giveaway! https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/5cd1a1f17/? I’ll announce the winners tomorrow.

The Free Friday book is The Beautician and the Billionaire Episode 1-4

Today is also the last day for a post from Shifting Into Love First Gear. Please buy the book! Second Gear is due at the end of July.

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Jones had no time to ready the brakes or calm his pounding heart when he hit the between place, as he called it. The frequency of the waves was fast and high pitched. Alea’s soul pulsed through him in a frenzy. He tried to calm her, but blackness opened up and shot him out onto a long highway. Continue reading

Free Shifting Into Love First Gear!

Hey! It seems really hard to get reviews at All Romance, so I’d like to sweeten the prospect a bit. For the first five people who email me, I’ll send you a gift card from All Romance for Shifting Into Love First Gear in exchange for an honest review on the All Romance site.

Here are the instructions:

  1. Email me at evelynaster@aol.com asking for a gift card for Shifting Into Love from All Romance.
  2. I’ll email you the gift card soon if you’re one of the first five people. When you get the gift card you’ll have to register for an account on All Romance so that you can download the book and write a review.
  3. Download the book: pdf, Kindle or epub (Nook). Read. Enjoy.
  4. Go back to the page for Shifting Into Love First Gear and leave a review.

That’s it! If this is the first time you’ve heard about Shifting Into Love, it’s a romance with fantasy elements. Think of the movie L.A Story–it has a talking road sign, but it’s still a romance. Here’s the synopsis:

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Lana lives in a bar that shifts from town to town with a magic she never questions. It never goes to the same place twice; she never sees the same man twice. When she notices Chase, a muscular cowboy with sea blue eyes, she’s more than ready for a tumble in the upstairs room…until Jones walks in.

Jones shifts through the world on a Triumph motorcycle that might take him to the east coast and seconds later take him to the west coast. He cruises by a bar in New York city and spies a woman through the window who flips his heart. When the bar disappears, his bike carries him to the heartland and the same bar from New York City. Inside he meets Lana, the woman he must be fated for. But she seems to have her eye on someone else…

Fantasy Art 2

I’ve been super focused on The Beautician and the Billionaire finale and remiss posting about the Through the Magic series. Sorry about that!

As mentioned in my first post about Fantasy Art, Kevin Yancey is doing the covers for the trilogy. I wanted something a little different than normal urban fantasy book covers because the stories are a little different than normal urban fantasy stories.

I love working with Kevin because he really listens and implements changes that I ask for. Below is a couple from an unpublished story. He got all the details right from the armor to the hair to the perfect expressions.

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If you’ve bought The Beautician and the Billionaire Episode 7: The Mansion, be sure to check out the pages after the story. There’s a glimpse of the cover for the first in the Through the Magic series, Through the Painting.

 

Fantasy Art

I’ve mentioned that in May I’m switching genres a smidgen and publishing an Urban Fantasy Romance. Of course, my urban fantasy will be a little different because that’s the grown-ass way.

The difference starts with my cover. Urban fantasy books usually have photos:

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Fantasy covers are often drawn:

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The covers for the Through the Magic trilogy are all going to be drawn.

I love working with artists either photographers or painters or whatever. Masked Hearts and Thankful Hearts by Hang Le are my two favorite covers. But I always feel like fantasy stories require an intangible element that photos miss. Plus photos have the danger that another author has used them for a cover too. For the Through the Magic trilogy, I wanted covers unique to the characters and stories.

I immediately thought of Kevin Yancy who’s done some custom pictures for my Valentines I think three years now! He’s been working hard for a couple of months on the first cover Through the Painting. I thought I’d do a little exhibit of his previous works for me leading up to the cover reveal.

As you can see, he knows how to draw abs!

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You can view more of his work at deviantart.com. And next weekend I’ll post another picture he did for me.

Henna!

One of my most popular posts is Becoming a Fantasy Heroine: Hair. With the upcoming release of my urban fantasy romance Through the Painting, I thought it’d be fun to do some more in the Becoming a Fantasy Heroine series.

There’s no better way to kick it off than with henna tattoos!

I love the idea of tattoos being magical. Two of my all time favorite fantasy heroines are Xena and Gabriella. There’s a fantastic scene in the series where they’re getting elaborate henna tattoos:

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This week, I got together with my girlfriends for a sort of post Valentines Day celebration. I hired an artist and all of us got at least one tattoo. She was amazing! So fast and skilled. Here are some pictures from the party: Continue reading

Becoming a Fantasy Romance Heroine: Jewelry

Maybe after a fantasy romance heroine has slayed the fearsome monster threatening the kingdom, she’ll get to wear one of these:

And win the hand of him:

Prince Nkuul Mehta

But while in the midst of her quest, a fantasy romance heroine must have practicality as well as beauty. Maybe even something with magic. One of my first aquisitions for my fantasy jewelry collection was this lovely butterfly ring:

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I wore it out gambling once and the blackjack dealer wanted to do a side bet for it!

 

And while at the renaissance fair, my lover bought me a dragon earcuff. It’s my hope that a sexy shape shifting dragon made it, but don’t tell my lover that 😉

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It went great with my hair:

IMG_0581 Do you have any fantasy jewelry? I’d love to see a pic.