The
last bit of The Witch's Lair is going in for formatting, and once
complete, I'll be able to set up pre-orders. The weekend in two weeks
should be a lot of fun, Deadpool comes out on the 12th,
and on Valentine's Day, The Witch's Lair will be ready for you. Until
then I give you this question what exactly is a Kafka Roach and how Brother
Sebastian and crew would ever encounter one? Find out on Valentine's Day when you read The Witch's Lair.
As
it is close to Valentine's Day, I'm featuring a writer who still
deals with the paranormal and monsters, but in a more romantic
setting. With out further ado I give you Cassandra Larsen, and her
upcoming novella, Gray’s Dilemma.
Preorder Link
Amazon Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AYEQD1Q
Blurb
Pack life can be harsh. The price for disobedience is
swift and severe. Gray knows this. As the Alpha’s son, he’s even
had to mete out a few punishments himself. But when a close friend of
his lands on the wrong side of pack law, Gray must choose between
loyalty to his friend and loyalty to his pack. And this time, a wrong
decision could cost a lot more than a beating…
Gray’s Dilemma is a novella from The Witches Circle series, told from Gray’s perspective. It covers events in the Silver Ridge Pack that take place at the same time as the first book in the series, Silent Circle.
Gray’s Dilemma is a novella from The Witches Circle series, told from Gray’s perspective. It covers events in the Silver Ridge Pack that take place at the same time as the first book in the series, Silent Circle.
Preorder Link
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AYEQD1Q
Bio
Cassandra Larsen graduated from The College of New
Jersey with a degree in English Education. An avid reader of urban
fantasy and paranormal romance, she has been dreaming up stories from
a very early age. She is the author of the young adult fantasy series
The Witches Circle.
After nearly a decade of practicing Wicca, she has recently published
a new non-fiction series, Simple Witchcraft,
to help guide beginners in the craft. She
lives in Maryland with her husband and son.
Links
Twitter - @LarsenBooks
Preorder Link
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AYEQD1Q
Excerpt
From Gray’s Dilemma
I scrub my skin over and over, long after the water
turns cold. Rust colored water swirls around the drain, standing out
against the alabaster tiles at my feet. My skin stings, my normally
tan arms now pink after having scraped off several layers of skin. No
matter how long I scrub, I can’t remove the feel of Mikhail’s
warm, sticky blood. An image rises up of his beaten body, lying cold
and still on the concrete floor. I shudder, shutting off the now icy
water.
Grabbing a towel with unsteady hands, I barely notice
the small cuts and bruises on my knuckles already healing; one of the
perks of being an extremely dominant werewolf. I’d almost prefer to
be lower in the pack hierarchy and never be forced to brutalize a
weaker man again, except then I’d be at the mercy of the other
dominants in the pack, like Zak, and then it could very well be my
hide strung up and beat for all the pack to see.
No, better to be strong, to be able to protect myself.
I freeze at the sound of someone striding down the
hallway towards my room. My hands still shaking, I rub them over my
face. I need to pull myself together. I can’t let Nikolay or Ivan
see me like this.
Gripping the sides of the sink, I take a slow, deep
breath and stare hard at the mirror above, the silver eyes of my
reflection boring into me, calming me.
Get it together, Gray.
When my hands are steady once again, I wrap the towel
tighter around my waist and set out to face my visitor.
My body relaxes when I recognize Vasily, Nikolay’s
second in command. “How you holding up?” He asks, his gold eyes
studying mine.
“Fine,” I lie, pasting a lazy half smile on my face.
He raises one eyebrow. I’m not fooling him. “He had
to do that, you know.”
“Nikolay had to have me beat a pack brother like
that?” I ask, anger leaking into my voice. If it was anyone else, I
wouldn’t dare question the Alpha’s actions, but this is Vasily;
he’s been more of a father to me than my own.
“Mikhail left him no choice. He refused to stop seeing
that human. He challenged your father in front of the pack.”
This is news to me. I remember Mikhail was dating a
human, Megan or something, a while back, but I thought that had
ended. It isn’t forbidden for werewolves to date humans—several
people in our pack are currently doing so, including my best friend
Derek. But they all understand that when it comes time to take a
mate, they choose a werewolf. Packs are all about strength, and
mating a strong werewolf to a puny human weakens the pack, diluting
their power.
“If that’s the case, why didn’t Nikolay punish
Mikhail himself? Why have me do his dirty work again?”
“That was your grandfather’s doing,” Vasily
answers, voice sharp. “And even if it wasn’t, your position as
the Alpha’s son demands that you show your strength. You are going
to lead this pack someday. You can’t have them all thinking Zak is
more dominant than you.”
“Zak,” I snort derisively. “He doesn’t have the
balls challenge me openly.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Vasily warns. “He
doesn’t relish the idea of having to take orders from you.”
“Let him challenge me. I’d love nothing more than to
put that mudak in his
place.”
Vasily nods in approval. “Now you’re beginning to
sound like the Alpha’s son.”
I grimace, not wanting to discuss Nikolay any longer.
“How is Mikhail holding up?” I ask, turning away on the pretense
of grabbing a t-shirt from the dresser. An image of Mikhail’s
shattered body rises to the surface, but I shove it back down,
relieved Vasily can’t read my expression right now. I can’t show
weakness. Pulling on a pair of faded denims, I keep my back to him,
waiting for his answer.
“I had Allison take a look at him. She healed his more
serious injuries. He’ll be down for a couple weeks, but he’ll
live.”
Allison is one of the witches in the Ashwood Creek
Coven. She isn’t the best healer they have, but she’s adequate.
Our pack has an alliance with her coven, extremely rare in our world
where witches and werewolves have an almost inbred hatred of each
other. But a few decades ago, Nikolay decided that joining his pack
with the Ashwood Coven would only increase his own power, and so
treatises were written up. Now we coincide peaceably in this small
town in Vermont.
Turning back to him, I hide my relief behind a careless
shrug. “And what excuse did you come up with, for his injuries?”
“I told her it was a dominance fight,” Vasily
answers.
I nod my head. “Yeah. Dominance fight. Good cover.”
Although the coven generally doesn’t interfere in pack business, I
can’t see them turning a blind eye to the brutal punishment Mikhail
just received. If Madelyn heard about it, she would almost certainly
have something to say to Nikolay, which would only increase the
tension between them. Those two have been butting heads for as long
as I can remember. Vasily said once that it has something to do with
Madelyn’s daughter, Elizabeth, who disappeared almost twenty years
ago, but I’ve never heard the full story.
I note the tension in Vasily’s face. Yeah, he wouldn’t
want Madelyn to know about this. Vasily is all about keeping the
peace, especially where Madelyn is concerned.
“Alright, enough about Mikhail,” Vasily says.“Posle
draki kulakami ne mashut.”
They don’t swing fists when the fight is over.
Vasily’s always good for a trite Russian saying. His
way of saying what’s done is done: the werewolf credo. There’s no
point bemoaning the past, hoping to change it; it doesn’t do any
good. Live in the present, not the past.
“Come on. Your father has business to take care of, so
we’re leading tonight’s hunt.”
Shaking off the ugly events of the night, I feel a small
smile lift one corner of my mouth. “Time to hunt,” I answer.
Preorder Link
Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AYEQD1Q
Author
Questions
Main
Character's motivations
Gray
has been raised to follow pack rules and obey his Alpha (who is also
his father) without question. But when a close friend of his gets in
over his head, Gray’s loyalty is divided. He has to decide whether
turn him over to the pack, or betray his pack and go against
everything he’s been raised to believe.
What
is their secret strengths/ weaknesses
Gray’s
strength is his ability to lead. Unlike his father, who leads through
intimidation and fear, Gray has the ability to inspire loyalty
through trust. He just hasn’t realized this yet. There are a lot of
things that go on in the pack that he doesn’t agree with, things he
knows are wrong, but he turns a blind eye to them. He doesn’t
believe that there’s anything he can do to change them. He’s been
raised all his life to obey his Alpha and follow orders. Before he
can ever hope to become a leader, he has to first find the courage to
stand up to his father.
Any
philosophical issues in this story?
This
story is an example of conformity vs. individuality. It’s about
standing up for what’s right, even if that means going against
one’s family and community.
When
did you start to write this one and why?
This novella is part of my longer series, The
Witches Circle. Though the other books in the
series are told from Emerson’s point of view, Gray’s
Dilemma is written from Gray’s perspective
and covers events in the Silver Ridge Pack that took place at the
same time as the first book in the series, Silent
Circle. I wrote this in order to give the
reader a better understanding of Gray and to give some insight into
the pack dynamic as well as introduce some of the characters that
will appear in the third book in the series, Shattered
Circle.
What's
next in this series or in your next book?
I'm
working on the third book in the series, Shattered
Circle. In it, the reader will get to see a
lot more of Gray and the Silver Ridge Pack, as well as how Emerson,
the lead character from the series, interacts with the pack and this
new environment.
Excerpt
from Shattered Circle:
The dry leaves crunch beneath my feet as I pace back and
forth, anxiously searching for headlights in the distance. I glance
at my watch for the hundredth time: 12:15. Where is Gray?
Fuller Park is a huge, with acres of forest trails,
picnic sites, and campgrounds. It didn’t occur to me until after I
got home that we didn’t specify a particular place to meet, so I
decide to wait for Gray in the first parking lot, directly off the
main road leading in. From this vantage point, I should be able to
see any passing cars.
I hear a rumble of an engine, and peer into the
darkness. The sound gets closer, but I don’t see any lights on the
road. Squinting in the darkness, I see a dark shape slowly moving up
the trail. The headlights are off, but as it nears, I recognize the
massive black Hummer. As it creeps closer, I dart off toward the
road. The car slows even more, and I see an arm dangling out of the
open window.
“Hey,” I yell, hoping I’m close enough for him to
hear. He stops the car and sticks his head out of the window, and
then turns into the lot, parking next to my car.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to find me,” I tell
him as he climbs out. “I don’t have your number, so I couldn’t
tell you where to meet me.”“I’m a werewolf,” he smirks. “Of course I’d be able to find you.” At my puzzled expression, he taps his nose. “Better than a bloodhound.”
“You were planning on sniffing me out like a dog?” I
raise my eyebrows.
“If you’ve got it, use it.”
I rub my hands briskly on my arms. I’ve been pacing
out here for the last fifteen minutes, and although I wore my warmest
sweater, I’m still numb with cold.
“Here,” Gray says, handing me his leather jacket.
“What about you?” I ask, scrambling into the jacket,
still warm with his body heat.
“I’m fine.” Then half his mouth lifts in a smirk.
“If I get cold, I have you to keep me warm.”
“Like that’ll happen,” I scoff.
“Moya Luna, you wound me.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I ask him seriously.
“It means ‘my moon’ in Russian, right? Why do you keep calling
me that?”
He leans back against his Hummer, crossing his arms in
front of his massive chest. “It seems appropriate. I’m drawn to
you the way wolves are drawn to the moon.”
I sigh. “Forget it. I don’t know why I’d expect a
serious answer from you.”“You don’t think I’m serious?” He raises one eyebrow at me.
I just shake my head. “That’s not what I want to talk about anyway.”
He drops his eyes and purses his lips. "Yeah, about
that..."
"What?" I ask sharply. He’d better not tell
me he’s changed his mind.
"Well, I could get in a lot of trouble for
answering your questions...”
"And you want something in return?" I guess.
“You could say that,” he drawls.
Figures he wouldn’t tell me something for nothing.
“Alright, what do you want?”
“Well, I’m still new in town and all, and there is a
party going on this Friday at Chuck Benson’s house...” he trails
off, raising his eyebrows questioningly.
“You want me to go to a party with you?”“Well I can’t show up alone!” He says with mock indignation.
“Riiiight. And you don’t have anyone else to ask? What about Olivia, or even Kayla. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to go with you.”
“Ah,” he smiles. “But I don’t want to go with
Olivia or Kayla.”
“And why do you want to go with me?” I narrow my
eyes at him in suspicion. He always has an ulterior motive.
“Well, you’re all anyone around here can talk about.
Showing up with you would score me major street cred.”
I laugh. “‘Street cred’? What, are you from a
1980’s sitcom?”
He grins, showing all of his teeth.
“And if you’ve listened to anything anyone around
here has said about me, you’ll know that hanging out with the
‘crazy chic’ is likely to detract points
from your reputation, not add them.”
“Maybe I like crazy.”
“And maybe you have a hidden agenda.” I cross my
arms and look at him pointedly.
“Alright, you got me.” He throws his hands up in
defeat. “It might have a little bit
to do with the fact that Madelyn and Vasily asked me to keep an eye
on you, just until we can get you out of town.”
My stomach sinks. “Another babysitter. Great.”
“ ‘Babysitter’ is such an ugly word.” He
wrinkles his nose and leans in toward me. “Why don’t you think of
me as your escort instead?”
“Pimping yourself out, huh? I’m not sure I can
afford you.”
“For you, Moya Luna,
I’m free of charge.”
“Lucky me...”“So do we have a deal then?”
“I go to this party with you, and you’ll answer my questions about my mom?”
“I’ll answer whatever I can, though I don’t know all that much,” he answers cautiously.
I purse my lips, thinking it over. “Deal.” I hold my hand out for him to shake.
He wraps his large hand around my much smaller one, the warmth of his skin sending goose bumps up my arm. I take my hand back hastily.
“But this isn’t a date,” I warn. “Just friends, got it?”
“Whatever you say,” he says with a smirk.
When will it be available?
Gray’s
Dilemma is available for pre-order now, to be released April 14th.
Shattered Circle is much longer and still in the editing process, so
it will be several more months before it will be ready for
publication.Thank you Cassandra, that should be just right for a lot of readers out there. Good stuff for those of you who like your werewolves a bit more tame than mine. And speaking of my stuff -
Junior
Inquisitor Book One
Amazon - http://goo.gl/D6KrbX
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/mJtTf8
Soulless Monk Book Two
Smashwords - https://goo.gl/NXw3Gr
Amazon - http://goo.gl/p9fBn0
Inquisitor Series - http://goo.gl/5lCyaX
The Witch’s Lair Book Three
As
always you can find me here as well as
Twitter
- @lincolnfarish
Facebook
- https://www.facebook.com/lincoln.farish.7
NEXT POST
Next
week we have R. James Stevens, and his book Clarity, trust me you won't want to miss out on this writer or his work.
