Thursday, November 7, 2019

Guest Author Day with Celia Breslin

Please give a warm welcome to author Celia Breslin to the Reading Nook blog. Today we are discussing her latest book, Origins and more.


How did you start writing ‘GENRE’?

            I’ve loved genre fiction since I was a kid, particularly science fiction and fantasy. When I started writing my own stories as a kid, I naturally gravitated toward the genres I loved to read.  I still do.

Are you a Plotter or pantster?

            A bit of both. I outline my stories in big-picture strokes and then let my characters run amok in the structure. They typically veer off-course from time to time which then generates fun new directions. These new story threads are then added to the outline. 

What are three things you have on your writing desk?

            Besides the obvious laptop and monitor, I have the Chicago Manual of Style (aka the editor’s bible), a stack of biz cards in a little holder, pad of Hello Kitty paper and a Hello Kitty pen.

Tell us a little about your new release. What character in the book really spoke to you?

            ORIGINS is the third book in my vampire trilogy. It completes the “hero’s journey” for our main character, Carina Tranquilli.  In the three books (Haven, Destiny, and Origins) we watch her grow and transform over time as she deals with and overcomes every conflict that is tossed in her path. In Haven, she discovers family and power she knew nothing about. In Destiny, she learns to use her power while dealing with one of her family’s pesky enemies. In Origins, Carina has mastered her power and is confronted with a war on two fronts while also having to navigate some family dysfunction.  While Carina’s mentor Jonas, aka The Executioner, really spoke to me in Haven and Destiny, Carina had my full attention in Origins. She really comes into her own in this book.

Finish this sentence: I write because…

I write because I love it!

What is your favorite type of character to write about?

            My stories are character-driven, and my characters tend come to me before the story. My favorite character types are fantasy characters:  vampires, werewolves, the fae. I pretty much love them all equally.  And I recently started working on a new series featuring demons and angels. They’re loads of fun, too.

What is the sexiest scene you ever wrote?

            Hm… While I was pondering this question, my two feistiest heroine’s, Lexi and Carina, both demanded attention, LOL.  So, let’s go with Lexi and Jake in Under A Mating Moon (Black Hills Wolves, multi-author series): on a starry, starry night…in the bed of a pick-up truck prepped for camping, on a mountaintop with a great view of the Black Hills and the small town below.  And for Carina and Alexander, we’ll go with Destiny (book 2, Tranquilli Bloodline): hot, make-up sex on Alexander’s baby grand piano and then continued in his big bed.

What is next on your writerly horizon?

            I have a fae series in progress. Two books completed and another three mapped out.  I’m also working on a four-book project for a multi-author world called Cupid Dating Agency. I’ve completed one story so far, and have the other three outlined and ready to rock.



Origins
Tranquilli Bloodline Book 3
Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance
Champagne Book Group
Date of Publication: September 22, 2019

 Number of pages: 250

Word Count: 94,000

Tagline: The Chosen One is home. Bad little vampires beware…




Book Description:

In HAVEN & DESTINY, San Francisco nightclub owner Carina Tranquilli finds love and fights her vampire family’s enemies. Now, in ORIGINS…

En route to reunite with her estranged father in Italy, Carina is kidnapped by a human organization intent on vampire genocide. Beaten, starved, and forced to fight fellow captives, she finally manages to escape. Along the way, she encounters the group’s leaders—their identities shock her to the core.

Once home, Carina warns her family of this new threat, but dear old dad is missing. In his absence, the Tribunal, the governing body for all vampirekind, lies in disarray, with an old enemy making a bid for her father’s throne. What’s worse? The usurper wants her for his queen…and slave.

With a human-vampire war looming on one side and a vampire-vampire battle brewing on the other, Carina will have to rally her troops, take back the throne, and fulfill her destiny as the Chosen One. If not, her whole world will fall, taking everyone she loves with it.


Available at:


Champagne:

Kobo:


Excerpt

The mansion was dark, but as we drove onto the circular drive and passed the fountain where five-year-old me had witnessed the death of my brothers’ father, light flared inside and out until the whole place glowed, like a star in a dark night sky.

The car stopped. Besnik clambered out and opened my door. Frigid, early morning air lunged into my lungs. Move, body, move…

Death nudged me. I wobbled but couldn’t convince myself to step out. What if… What if this was a freaking, injection-induced hallucination? What if I was still back in the damn prison?
Besnik reached in and helped me out. My legs shook, and my body swayed as I willed my mind to wake the hell up, to feel something good, something happy, something, anything—

The mansion’s mammoth double doors eased open. The man illuminated in the doorway chased away the numbness, pumped my heart so hard it might pound right out of my chest. He opened his arms wide, calling me. My lips curled upward in the first true smile I’d cracked since the last time he’d held me in his arms. That man, my man, loved me more than any other on this whole damn planet.

“Alexander.”

I ran to him.

Alexander’s arms closed around me, his hold so tight I could barely catch a breath. Tremors ran through his hard body, again and again.

“Carina,” he croaked, voice sandpaper rough. “Carina.”

Nuzzling his neck, I planted fevered kisses along his tan, heated skin. He’d fed recently to be this warm under my lips. Temptation had me licking his pounding pulse, nipping at the vein. Couldn’t resist it. My fangs slid home.

Energy exploded between us, our mate bond bursting to life and tearing away whatever magical wall had separated us for far too long. My bite, the catalyst, his blood the cure. Awash in the force of our reunion, Alexander staggered then clutched me closer while I pulled out of his neck and laved the rapidly healing holes.

As our power continued to bubble and stitch us back together, he whisked us into the grand entryway, planted my ass on an ornate, antique cabinet, and devoured my mouth like a starving man. His hands roamed everywhere, searching, cataloguing, as if to reassure himself this wasn’t a hallucination, that I was really here, in his arms, relatively unharmed.

The more he kissed me, the more those wonderful, golden threads of our connection resurrected inside me, around me, between us, and I felt like freaking Sleeping Beauty awakened from her magical slumber by a kiss from her fated handsome prince. The silly thought made me giggle against Alexander’s seeking mouth, and then I was crying while my love cupped my face between his hands, wiped away my tears with his thumbs, and pressed tender kisses to my forehead, my cheeks, the tip of my nose…

“Alexander.” I fisted his shirt tight. Please, God, let him be real. “I… I don’t want to wake up.” Please, don’t let this end.

His smoky blue eyes bored into mine, his brown hair spiked in every direction, a bit longer than in my memory. It’s not a dream, baby. You’re here. You’re home.

Oh my God, I can hear you. I swiped some willful bits of hair away from his forehead, touched his full lips, ran my fingers along his strong jaw, taking in the whole handsome, bad-boy package. You’re back in my head. I’d never been happier to have someone inside my mind. Silence is seriously overrated.

And back in your arms.


About the Author:

                                                                                          
Celia lives in California with her husband, daughter, and two feisty cats. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and has a particular fondness for werewolves, vampires, and the Fae. Her stories are action-packed and typically include one of the many varieties of romantic entanglements: fated mates, second chance, rescue romance, opposites attract, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, and more.

When not writing, you’ll find Celia exercising, reading a good book, hanging with her family, or indulging her addiction to Joss Whedon’s TV shows and movies, as well as everything in the Marvel Universe franchise. Of course!
                                                 







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1 comment:

Celia Breslin said...

Hi Dawn, Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog!

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