Welcome author MJ O'Shea Today

Hi Everybody! It's M.J. O'Shea here:)

 I hope the holidays are treating you well so far. I've been off and running on the third and final book of my 'Moon' trilogy. It's been so fun to get lost in a world where there are vampires and lycans...and in this final book even dryads--the tree nymph who is my main character's best friend.  It will be sad to see the characters go that I've held on to for three previous books, but it's time to move on to new things!  They're more spinoffs than direct sequels, and can easily be read out of order but I'll go ahead and include the blurbs from the first two books, in case you've never seen them before, then the blurb and an excerpt from the third book which should be out in a month or so!

Book One Blood Moon

There’s something different about Noah….

Zack Parker met his best friend Noah at his lake cabin when they were only five years old. He realized he felt more than friendship for him by the time they were in junior high school. One fateful night when they were eighteen Zack couldn’t take it anymore. Fueled by love and lust and need, he finally kissed Noah like he’d wanted to for years…and Noah kissed him back, returning every drop of Zack’s passion. The next morning, Noah ended their friendship for what Zack believed was forever.

Now twenty-one, Zack resents being dragged by his guilt-tripping mother every summer back to the lake cabin where every leaf and rock and turn in the road reminds him of Noah and the love he felt for him three long years before. He hates being reminded of what he lost and more than anything he wants his best friend back. But this year things are different.

Noah has returned, apologetic and more gorgeous than ever. Amazingly, he seems to want Zack as much as Zack wants him. He’s sweet and attentive, sexy enough to make Zack’s thighs quiver, but there’s something not quite right…

What secret is Noah hiding?

Book Two Hunter's Moon

Miles craves adventure. Freedom from his monotonous routine; but he's started to believe that perhaps adventure isn’t in his stars—until a late night encounter makes him wonder if the creatures he creates in his stories could possibly be real.

PC is a wolf. A lycan since birth, he’s spent the first twenty-four years of his life trying to be the exact opposite of what everyone expects of him. He hunts supernatural troublemakers, hangs out with vampires, and refuses to settle down—even if his respectable parents and the stuffy lycan council want him to. One confusing night, his body responds, turning into his wolf form and hurling him into the darkness to save a stranger.

Pulled together by a physical force stronger than either can resist, PC and Miles must learn to live with each other because separation, even for just minutes, means extreme pain. Miles finds himself falling for the unpredictable lycan, his strange friends, and their nightly adventures but his reluctant lover is determined to find a way to break the bond between them.

Together, they are drawn into a mystery involving werewolves, the lycan council, bad vampires and a whole lot of dead humans. Finding the truth at the bottom of it might just be the hunt of PC's life--especially if he wants to keep Miles alive.

And the third book Cold Moon (forthcoming)

Charlie Fitzgerald is sick of being the kid who nobody takes seriously. His older brother Colin is off in New York City fighting bad vampires and other trouble causers and Charlie wants in on the action. He thinks it’s impossible until he overhears something that seems to be his perfect opportunity. The Lycan council is looking for a human emissary--someone to take a message of peace to a volatile werewolf who lives in the dark forests of Romania. Charlie decides that emissary will be him.

Xan, or X’andrien as he’s known to his people, is furious. His best friend, who also happens to be one of the Fitzgeralds his family has vowed to protect, has gone missing. When they find out where Charlie has gone, Xan has to chase him all over Europe and eventually save his stubborn butt in the middle of the night in the freezing cold Romanian forest. He never realized how much his best friend and charge meant to him until he was nearly killed.

Together, they end up stuck in the middle of a political mess that includes the lycans, the werewolves, and some very nosy vampires. If the two of them manage to make it out alive, they may realize that stuck together or not, years of friendship for one stubborn hunter and an equally bullheaded dryad protector can turn into a love neither of them is willing to live without.

And here's an excerpt from the forthcoming novel Cold Moon:

Chapter One

Normal Sucks

“You did what? Are you out of your Goddamn mind?”

I held my cell away from my ear and let my older brother, Colin, scream to his heart’s content. It was too late. There was nothing that Colin, his vampy friends, or any of the rest of my family, could do….

I was gone.

“Charlie?...Charlie?…Charlie Fitzgerald?” Huh? Oh, crap. I looked up from where I’d been staring blankly at the fake woodgrain on my desk, inscribed by years worth of kids who were probably as bored as I was in their final months of high school. My teacher was standing there with his hand stretched out, eyebrows raised. “Do you have last night’s assignment with you?”

“Yes, of course.” I grabbed my homework from where it was folded in the back of my book and handed it to Mr. Carlson, my history teacher. He took it and deposited it with the rest of the papers in his inbox before he strolled to the front of the room and powered up his LCD projector.

“Okay, guys, there were some pretty wretched scores on the Jamestown unit. Maybe you were just easing into the year, but it’s mid October now and quite a few of you need to pull your grades up on this unit or else your first report card will be pretty grim.”

I wanted to gag.

If there was anything in the entire world more boring than U.S. History, I couldn’t name it. The subject was lame when I had to learn it in fifth grade, just as lame in junior high school, and for the third time—now that I was a senior in high school and ready to get the hell out of the public schools, or any school for that matter—It was torture of the worst kind. I couldn’t think of how many times I’d had the same argument with my mother about graduating from school. It wasn’t like I needed to get into some prestigious college, or any college for that matter. I’d known what I wanted to do with my life since I was a little boy. The choice was easy.

I wanted to be a vampire hunter.

Yes, you heard right. I said vampire hunter. And here’s where you think ‘Sure kid, doesn’t everyone who ever watched a few episodes of Buffy have fantasies about staking blood suckers and round-housing demons?’.  And you’d probably be right. But, you see, it’s different for me. Because I’ve known for years that vampires, and vampire hunters, really exist. Sounds crazy, right? I swear to effing God it’s not.

 My family, the Fitzgeralds, are one of the oldest hunter families in the world. There are a few others, my cousin Noah’s family the Harpers are one of them, and we’re all aware of each other. We’ve been active for centuries, slaying supernatural dragons (and from what I heard actual dragons back in the day) and it was so my turn to get into the action.

 If you want to get into technicalities, I wasn’t supposed to even know hunters existed, let alone that my family was among the chosen few. Well, at least not as early as I did manage to find out. My brother Colin hadn’t been told formally until he was eighteen; neither had any of the cousins...at least I don’t think that's the way it always worked. I suppose it was probably for our safety. I thought it sucked.

Of course I’d managed out when I was a little kid, nine or ten, by overhearing a conversation that was not meant for junior ears. I guess that’s one of the nice parts about being the ignored younger brother to superstar Colin the fantastic. I heard all sorts of things I wasn’t supposed to know about...like hunting vampires, killing werewolves and banshees, doing all sorts of things that were way better than anything in my boring lame ass life. And that’s how I’d decided years before that I was going into the family business as soon as I possibly could. 

“Charlie.” I heard my name again, this time from behind, hissed quietly and followed by a pencil poking my neck. Jesus, wasn’t anyone going to leave me alone? It was Xan, my oldest and best friend. He poked me again. Probably with one of those natural colored recycled pencils. At the moment, he was kind of annoying me. Nothing could ruin a good sulk like Xan’s perpetual sunny mood.

“What’s up?” I whispered back, wishing Xan would leave me alone.

“Do you have the answer to number seven?”

I wanted to roll my eyes. Who cared about number seven? Who cared about high school? It was only October but I was so ready to be out of there. I’d turned eighteen over the summer (and gotten a card from my brother Colin that said happy seventeenth. Dumb ass). I felt like I was marking time until I could be done with the charade of normalcy and moved on to my real life. I was already mentally sharpening my stakes.

The fam hadn’t bothered having the big ‘You’re a Fitzgerald and we hunt vampires’ conversation with me on my birthday, like I’d hoped. It was common knowledge at home that the cat had been out of the bag for ages. Probably when I’d started running around with pretend stakes in fifth grade and pretending to slay the couch. My mom hadn’t liked that one too much. The couch had been expensive and leather after all. All those years ago, my mother had explained to him that it didn’t work like that in our world—that there were rules to be followed and you didn’t go around staking random vampires or shooting werewolves with silver bullets at first sight. I’d been a bit disappointed. I was even more disappointed when the long detailed eighteenth birthday talk had been skipped back in July. I was going to have to find everything out for myself. It didn’t matter. Forget my family. I was happy to do some investigating.

“Charlie? What’s the answer to seven?”

Oh, yeah. I’d forgot about Xan. “Ummm…” I scanned down his paper. “The First Continental Congress met at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia on September fifth, seventeen seventy four.”

“Thanks.”

I heard the scratching sound of Xan’s pencil and paper coming from the desk behind him.

The noise was suddenly completely annoying. The noise, school, my teacher’s endless assignments, even my life long friendship with Xan had become annoying, predictable, blah, blah, blah. I wanted something new.

“Hey, Charlie,” Xan whispered again. I had to keep from screeching. I was so irritated with my life and I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“Yeah?”

“Am I coming over tonight?”

I shrugged. “Sure.” Why not? It was Friday, and I didn’t have anything better to do. Xan and I ended up together ninety percent of Fridays anyway plunking away on one of my gaming systems and eating pizza. Why change the status quo? I probably wouldn’t see much of Xan after I was out in the world hunting badass vampires anyway. A few more normal teenage weekends wouldn’t kill me.

“Wanna play Worlds of Warcraft.”

Yay. We could play video games for a change. “That’s fine. Whatever you want, dude.”

“Do you have the answer to number eight?”

I snorted. “Jesus, Xan you’ve got to do some of your own work.”

“I don’t want to be here any more than you do.” He whacked me in the back of my head with his pencil.

* * * *

“Hey, what’s your problem today?” Xan shoved me off the curb onto the street where I stumbled and nearly dropped the slushie I was drinking on the ground. It was a good thing the street was one of the many quiet tree lined streets in New Haven and there wasn’t a single moving vehicle in sight.

New Haven was safe, but it sure as hell wasn’t somewhere exciting, like say, New York where my brother had gone over a year ago to talk to my cousin Noah and basically never came back. The overnight trip had turned into this crazy awesome rescue mission to get my aunt Bianca back from some nutcase (something else I wasn’t supposed to know about but did) and ended up with Colin living in the city and hanging out with Noah and his friends while I was stuck in suburbiaville. It was bullshit. I hopped back up onto the sidewalk.

“You’re a jerk. Why’d you push me?” I pushed Xan back and he chuckled and punched me in the arm. Pretty typical for us.

“Because you weren’t answering me. What’s your problem?”

I shrugged. How the hell was I supposed to explain my problem to Xan? I’d never told him about my family. Every instinct I had told me that it wasn’t a good idea to share, even if there was a chance in hell he’d believe me. Which there wasn’t. His family was earthy and granola-ish, but they weren’t the mystic type. At least I didn’t think they were. I didn’t know his family all that well. I had the feeling Xan was a bit embarrassed by them. He spent most of his time at my place.

“I guess I’m just feeling restless. I want to get the hell out of New Haven.”

“Do you want to drive into Hartford and walk around?”

I chuckled. Hartford wasn’t going to cut it. Not even close. “No, not really. That’s just another version of boring.”

“I’m guessing video games aren’t going to make you feel better.” He nudged me with his shoulder. I’d have felt better if Xan wasn’t so damn understanding. As it was, I kind of felt like an asshole for being annoyed with him.

“No. Not really.”

“What about the city? We can take the bus into Manhattan. Maybe Colin would want to hang out.”

Hmmm. Not a bad idea. The thrill of noise and cars and city sights (Even if I’d seen them on a million field trips) all of a sudden appealed to me.

“You think your moms would be okay with it?”

Xan lived with his mother and her partner. They were lenient to a point, but they both seemed to have a violent distaste for the noise and lights of New York.  I’d never seen where they lived. The few times I brought it up, Xan cringed and shook his head. From then on, I assumed it was some sort of weird ex flower child commune and Xan didn’t want my suburban sensibilities to be damaged. I was mildly curious, but happy to have him come to my house.

Xan shrugged. “They’ll be fine as long as I’m with you.”

“Am I the great protector?” I chuckled.

Xan gave me an odd smile. “Yeah, something like that. Are you going to call Colin?”

I pulled my cell out of my backpack and dialed. Colin picked up on the third ring.

“Charlie? What’s up? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

I shrugged, then realized he couldn’t see it. “Oh, same ol’ shit. You know.”

Colin chuckled. “Yeah, I know. How’s Mom and Dad?”

Wouldn’t he like to know? “They’re fine. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind seeing you once in a while. Dad went on a business trip last weekend with Uncle Jeffrey. I think it went fairly well.”

“Aren’t you even going to pretend you don’t know about the hunting?” I could hear his ironic smile.

“Um, not anymore. I turned eighteen last summer, douche wad, not seventeen. Thanks for the card, by the way.”

“Oh.” Colin’s silence was awkward.

I decided to give him a break. I was over it anyway. “Listen, Xan and I were dying to get out of New Haven for the weekend.” I am at least. “What would you say to us crashing at your place in the city. We’ll bring sleeping bags and try to stay out of your way as much as possible.”

“It’s fine with me. I’m going to hang out with Noah and some friends tonight. You guys are welcome.”

I’d always liked Noah. He was older than me but younger than Colin—quiet, sweet, and if I wasn’t mistaken, we had something in common in the liking guys department. I wasn’t that good at detection yet, but from what I remembered? Totally. Did I mention that I like guys and not chicks? Big deal. No one in the family seemed to care. Wasn’t going to stop me from being an ass kicking hunter either. As far as I was concerned it was a non-issue.

“Sounds great. What time do you want Xan and I to be there?” I elbowed Xan with a smile. It was hard not to grin. Suddenly the weekend didn’t seem quite so lame.

“How bout eightish? We usually don’t meet until nine or so.”

“We’ll be there!”

Colin gave me his address (since the punk hadn’t bothered to invite me down before) and I managed to hang up before I gave in to a very undignified fist pump.

“We are so out of here for the weekend. How long do you think it’ll take to grab your stuff and get to my house?”

Xan shrugged. “An hour maybe?”

“Cool. Then we have time for one or two games before you have to go home. I could drive you home if you want…” I hadn’t hinted about going to Xan’s place in years. He shook his head, as usual, though. I wondered, for the millionth time, how weird it could really be. His moms were pretty nice whenever I saw them out in public.

“Nah. I’ll be fine walking. Does your mom have any of those frosted cookies still? I’m hungry.”

I couldn’t help my smile. It was so much easier than it had been just a few minutes before. “You always want sweets.”

“Whatever. Your mom’s cookies are awesome and you know there’s nothing like that at my house. Let’s go so we can eat and stuff before we have to head out.”

Here's where you can find me:

Website: http://www.mjoshearomance.com/Site/Welcome.html

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001662139193

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/MjOsheaSeattle

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3512511.M_J_O_Shea

M.J. O'Shea has been writing romance since algebra class in sixth grade (when most of her stories starred her and Leonardo DiCaprio). When she's not writing, she loves listening to nearly all types of music, painting, reading great authors, and on those elusive sunny days in the Pacific Northwest, she loves driving on the freeway with her windows rolled down and her stereo on high.