Posts Tagged ‘Modern Mythology’

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Contest August 2009

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

This is my first contest, so hold onto your hats and help me spread the word!

I’ll be giving away an advanced review copy of WILD, TETHERED, BOUND and a $15 gift certificate from Amazon. I’ll do the drawing on September 1st. To enter the contest, follow these steps:

1. Cut and paste this blurb into your blog.

2. Post the link below in this thread or email stephdraven@gmail.com with the link to your post.

And that’s it!

Note: By entering the contest, you agree to let Stephanie use your name on this website and her blog when she announces the winner. Your email address will never be sold or transferred to any third party. Stephanie might, however, contact you with the very occasional update on her writing and career. At your request, however, you’ll be promptly deleted from her mailing list.

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Excerpt from WILD, TETHERED, BOUND

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Nuristan Province, Afghanistan

In the high leaves of a walnut tree, Dessa caressed the graceful branches. The limbs were covered in gray bark, a smooth skin over the tree’s lifeblood, which pounded in a secret rhythm only she could hear; this was the dryads’ heart tree and its pulse was just one pace behind her own.

It was an autumn morning–so early that the moon was still up. Dew drops glistened on the leaves like perspiration on the skin of a fevered lover. With a sensuous tongue, Dessa reached out to lap at the sweet water, and she felt her heart tree shiver with appreciation for her tenderness. After all, the walnut tree was straining, laboring, to give birth to the ripening nuts that weighted down its branches in clusters of fat green orbs. Soon the husks would turn brown, the fruit would fall and, if a man were to happen by and taste the sweet walnuts, Dessa might finally have a mate of her own.

Dessa missed the old days when Alexander first brought the dryads here and she had frolicked with other nymphs. Now there weren’t many dryads left in the wild; most had long since abandoned their woods to live amidst the mortals. And in Dessa’s loneliness she ached for a child. A daughter to love, to keep her company and to help her protect the last forests of Afghanistan. A little dryad to help her bind nature together in this old and legendary land…

As this dream played in Dessa’s imagination, the wind rustled the leaves and she heard the trees whisper a warning.

Someone was coming.

In earlier times, Dessa might have allowed a stranger to pass through her woods unhampered. But there had been shelling the night before—the acrid stench of destruction still lingered in the air, muted only by the peppery perfume of her walnut tree. If one of the wounded stumbled into her lair, Dessa would try to help.

Dropping out of her heart tree, Dessa followed her senses. Her bare feet were accustomed to the luxurious carpet of husks and pine needles that blanketed the forest floor, so she moved silently in the darkness, stopping only now and again to comfort a fretful cypress or to praise the bravery of one of the boastful pines.

She told herself that the nighttime intruder must be part of the mortal family who lived at the edge of her woods—the shepherd or one of his three daughters who sometimes came into the forest to dance. But it alarmed her that the intruder moved so quietly—this was no bumbling shepherd who had lost his way.

Luckily, not even a stealthy fighter with night goggles could move through her woods without tripping over the tendrils of magic Dessa had threaded between the trees. And with those tendrils she now sensed not just one intruder, but many.

Soldiers.

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To read the rest, purchase WILD, TETHERED, BOUND from eharlequin.com! (Also available for the Kindle at amazon.com.)

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Blurb for Wild, Tethered, Bound

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

WILD, TETHERED, BOUND

What if monsters of ancient myth are made, not born? And what if you find out that you’re one of them…

Lieutenant NICK LEANDROS is a battle-hardened American soldier who thinks he’s seen everything. But nothing prepares him for the horrors he encounters when he’s separated from his patrol in a dark Afghani forest. What he sees there fractures him–body and soul. Split into three separate men with three savage wills, he struggles to tame the cunning creatures and hold them inside.

His only hope of salvation is DESSA, an ancient dryad who lost her Heart Tree on that war-ravaged day. Without a forest to guard, Dessa is bound to Nick by mystic forces and she alone understands the nature of the chimera that he’s become. She also knows that Nick is the only man who can give her the child she’s longed for and the only man who can ensure the future of her country. But the cruelest, most lustful, part of him demands her submission as the price for his help and with her powers waning every day, time is running out for Dessa to save the last forests of Afghanistan…and to heal the man she’s come to love.

WILD, TETHERED, BOUND will be available for purchase starting August 2009 at www.eharlequin.com.

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Shifting Gears

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

For the past month I’ve been outlining my next modern mythology novel for Silhouette Nocturne. It’s going to feature a number of creatures from ancient myth–the hero is going to be a Minotaur–and in it I’ll explore the themes of war, beauty, and sexual repression. I sure like to keep it light! And while I’m excited at the progress I’ve made and by all the research I’ve done, it’s now time to shift gears.

The first book in this modern mythology series, tentatively titled POISONED KISSES is due to the publisher on August 15th, and now that I have the manuscript back from my victims readers, it’s time for the editing to begin. I shall begin by tearing out chapter two and using a ruthless red pen!

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