A Sneak Peak of “A Fall of Water” by Elizabeth Hunter

While waiting for spring I had the chance to read the Elemental Series by Elizabeth Hunter. She is a fellow Fan Fiction writer, who has turned her talent towards  original work.  As much as I loved her writing on FanFic, I wondered how in the world she was going to create a new group of vampires which were fresh and intriguing.   Well  let me say she did JUST that.   Her characters are rich and we immediately are drawn into their plight and struggle.   Lucky for all of us the final “chapter” to this great series will be available in a few short weeks,  June 5, 2012. 

Below is an except from the last book of the series, “A Fall of Water”.   I can’t wait to see what happens next with Gio and Beatrice hope  I'll see you in line at Amazon on June 4th say around midnight.

September 2011

“How could you?” She threw him into the face of the cliff, tossing him as if he weighed nothing when he finally caught up with her on the road back to the valley.
He shook his head and wiped a trickle of blood from his nose. “He was old.  He was going to die within a few weeks, Beatrice.”
She paced back and forth in the small clearing.  “But I didn’t need to be the one to kill him.” Streaks of tears marred her perfect white skin.  The rain beat down on them and the wind whipped through the small pass.
Giovanni tried to speak in a low calming voice.  “You broke out of the bloodlust much quicker than I had imagined.  You’re doing very well.”
“But I still killed him, Gio! I did.  And you stood there and let me.  You stood by and let me kill that old man doing nothing more than sitting in his garden!”
Giovanni stood slowly, still keeping his distance.  “If he had been in good health, you would not have killed him.  But he was sick, Tesoro. Surely you must have tasted it in his blood.  He was in pain.  Your amnis calmed him as you drank.  He felt nothing.”
She screamed and pulled at her hair.  “How could you let me kill him?”
“It was a mercy.”
“No!” she yelled and rushed him, knocking him over and pummeling his face.  She loosed her rage on her mate until he grabbed her hands.  He could barely contain her; Beatrice had become almost immeasurably strong.  “Why? Why did you let me murder him?”
With a surge, he rolled over until she was laying under him, sobbing in the rain as the bloody tears ran down her face and into the mud.
“This is why!  Do you understand?  Look at me, Beatrice.”  Giovanni finally caught her narrowed eyes, and she bared her teeth at him.  “Look at me and listen right now!  Did I let you kill that old man?  Yes, and I’ll tell you why.”
He took a softer hand and brushed at the tears that stained her cheeks.  “Because one day, very soon, it’s not going to be a sick stranger in a garden who tempts you.” He sat back and pulled her up in front of him, as the rain beat on their heads.
“Someday very soon, it’s going to be Benjamin.  Or your grandmother.  Or Caspar or Dez or Matt.  It’s going to be someone you love.  An innocent stranger on a train or walking down the street at night.  And the temptation is going to knock you over and every instinct in you is going to be screaming to take and drink and not to stop because there is nothing in the human world more powerful than you.  Do you understand what I’m saying?”  He grabbed the collar of her soaked overcoat and pulled her closer.  She still stared at him with sullen, tear-filled eyes as he continued. “Do you? Because when that moment comes, I want you to remember how you feel right now, Beatrice.  I want you to remember this moment for the rest of your existence because that is what will keep the humans around you safe from the monster who lives inside you.  Who lives inside all of us.”
Her eyes were dull as she stared at him.  Her hands lay limp at her sides.
“I hate you.”
“I love you.”

An "Irish" Obsession

I have a new obsession,  and it has an Irish flair.  I'm not sure who started me down this path, and if it was you please remind me so I can give you a big hug and thank you profusely!  So do I have your curiosity piqued?  I'm talking about the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning.  It is a series that I can NOT stop recommending.

The first book, Dark Fever, readers are introduced to Mac, the young, southern, heroine.   I loved this strong willed, brave, and quirky young woman from the beginning - my affinity for her just grew throughout the series.  We follow her quest for truth and justice encountering the world of the Fae in which she unknowingly plays an important pivotal  role.  I loved the interaction with two sexy but very different males, V'lane  and Barrons.  I felt myself wondering right along with her who to trust,  who to believe. Should she believe the Blonde, Adonis, like V'lane, who is a Prince of the Fae or should she believe the dark, smoldering exotic, but sexy as all get out Barrons who simmers with a animistic presence.   KM Moning keeps us guessing until the final book Shadow Fever.  If you are like me you will read these as fast as you can,  unable to put them down because you just NEED to know what happens to Mac and those she has grown to love.  


If you like paranormal fiction I can guarantee you will enjoy this series and will come to love the characters as much as I have.   


Below is an excerpt from the first book, Dark Fever:  

Prologue

My philosophy is pretty simple—any day nobody’s trying to kill me is a good day in
my book.

I haven’t had many good days lately.

Not since the walls between Man and Faery came down.

But then, there’s not a sidhe-seer alive who’s had a good day since then.

Before The Compact was struck between Man and Fae (around 4000 B.C. for those of you who aren’t up on your Fae history), the Unseelie Hunters hunted us down like animals and killed us. But The Compact forbade the Fae to spill human blood, so for the next six thousand years, give or take a few centuries, those with True Vision—people like me

who can’t be fooled by Fae glamour or magic—were taken captive and imprisoned in Faery until they died. Real big difference there: dying or being stuck in Faery until you die. Unlike some people I know, I’m not fascinated by them. Dealing with the Fae is like dealing with any addiction—you give in, they’ll own you; you resist, they never will.

Now that the walls are down, the Hunters are back to killing us again. Stamping us out like we’re the plague on this planet.

Aoibheal, the Seelie Queen of the Light, is no longer in charge. In fact, nobody seems to know where she is anymore, and some people are beginning to wonder if she is anymore. The Seelie and Unseelie have been smearing their bloody war all over our world since her disappearance, and although some might say I’m being broody and pessimistic, I think the Unseelie are gaining the distinct upper hand over their fairer brethren.

Which is a really, really bad thing.

Not that I like the Seelie any better. I don’t. The only good Fae is a dead Fae in my book. It’s just that the Seelie aren’t quite as lethal as the Unseelie. They don’t kill us on sight. They have a use for us.

Sex.

Though they barely credit us with sentience, they have a taste for us in bed.

When they’re done with a woman, she’s a mess. It gets in her blood. Unprotected Fae-sex awakens a frenzy of sexual hunger inside a woman for something she should never have had to begin with, and will never be able to forget. It takes a long time for her to recover—but at least she’s alive.

Which means a chance to fight another day. To help try to find a way to return our world to what it once was.

To send those Fae bastards back to whatever hell they came from.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, ahead of the story.

It began as most things begin. Not on a dark and stormy night. Not foreshadowed by ominous here-comes-the-villain music, dire warnings at the bottom of a teacup, or dread portents in the sky. It began small and innocuously, as most catastrophes do. A butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and the wind changes, and a warm front hits a cold front off the coast of western Africa and before you know it you’ve got a hurricane closing in. By the time anyone figured out the storm was coming, it was too late to do anything but batten down the hatches and exercise damage control.

My name is MacKayla. Mac for short. I’m a sidhe-seer, a fact I accepted only recently and very reluctantly.

There were more of us out there than anyone knew. And it’s a damn good thing, too.

We’re damage control.

--Dark Fever by K.M,Moning