Author Author Angie fox came by for an interview back in July to tell us all about her debut book The Accidental Demon Slayer. Now the second book in the series The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers is due out at the end of this month and Angie was nice enough to write a guest blog for Amberkatze's Book Blog! She also has a nice prize to give away so make sure you read the post all the way through!

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The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers: or, Magic and mayhem in Las Vegas

Thanks for having me here today. I’m excited as heck because the second Accidental Demon Slayer book, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, is releasing soon and I have an early copy to give away today.

This book was a blast to write, and I learned a valuable lesson too: be careful what you write…because it may just send you to some, ahem, unusual places. See, I write about a reluctant demon slayer forced to run off with a gang of geriatric biker witches. Add that to the fact that I tend to write what amuses me and you have a recipe for trouble.

When I was writing the end of my first book, The Accidental Demon Slayer, this joke about Las Vegas popped into my head and I thought, “why not?” Lizzie is just about to kiss her man when she’s interrupted and told she and the gang have to head to Las Vegas to save her long lost uncle from marrying a succubus. Kind of fun. At least it made me smile. I was an unpublished writer at the time.

But then the book sold. Better still, The Accidental Demon Slayer hit the New York Times bestseller list. My publisher wanted more. Heck, I wanted to write more. I remember being on the phone with my editor and she said, “so you’re going to Las Vegas, right?”

Oh yeah.

I admit it. I had these images of cool hotels and shows in my head. Then reality hit. I write about biker witches and a preschool teacher turned demon slayer. These folks don’t have a lot of spare cash lying around. This wasn’t my trip – it was theirs. Good thing I like odd adventures. And my friends do too.

One in particular – my friend Aileen – is a sucker for anything strange and unusual. So I talked her into a long weekend and we headed to Vegas to see and experience the biker witch version of Sin City. We stayed in the cheesiest hotels we could find. We ate at Bob’s Big Boy. We even visited a dude ranch with armadillos, a boar and several very old chickens.

We were able to talk our way into some behind-the-scenes places as well. The climax of The Accidental Demon Slayer takes place inside the Hoover Dam, and we were lucky enough to be invited to see first-hand what I’d be writing about. A guide took us far down into the inspection tunnels they used in the 1930’s and 40’s, when the cement was still curing. It was amazing to see the notes these inspectors made on the walls, to hear the stories of those that didn’t quite make it out and to walk the same old metal steps that they did. All of that made it into The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, along with lots of things I had a blast making up (this is fiction after all).

And to celebrate the release of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, I’d like to give away a copy on today’s blog. Just take the highly un-scientific Are You Part Demon Slayer? quiz. Post your score below and enter to win. Also, if you post your score on my blog at www.angiefox.com, you could win a walk-on role in the next Accidental Demon Slayer book.

Link







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Contest Rules

The usual contest rules apply. How do you enter? Post a comment letting us know what score you got on the Are You Part Demon Slayer? quiz

No score = No entry!

49%

Earn another entry for each place you link this contest on the net. Make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries!

You can also earn extra entries by emailing your friends about the contest. Just make sure you send a copy to me at Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot net.

The contest will stay open until Sunday April 26th 2009 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.

If you are claiming a prize, have emailed me and have not heard back before the 7 day limit is up then post a comment here on the blog. Your email may get sucked into my spam filter.

Have fun!

Labels: Angie Fox, Contests, Guest Blog

Amy Atwood is a witch and not the nice kind. She is the devil worshipping kind of witch who got mixed up with Lucifer aka Luc. The Amy found her sister in bed with Luc and she turned her back on him for good. Or so she hopes. Going to Witches Anonymous and following the thirteen steps is the best way to go good but it doesn't look like Luc is about to let her go that easily.

Giving up magic, being normal and human isn't easy but then Amy meets Adam and things start looking up. She owns an Ice-Cream parlour and he loves to eat Ice-Cream, he is a firefighter and she has some fires he can put out for her. Sounds like a perfect match but Luc is still on the sidelines and he is up to something.

Then the angel Gabriel shows his face and Amy learns something about Adam that makes things a bit more biblical. Amy has a decision to make and she doesn't like either of the options. Will she make the right choice?

This was a nice short story that kept me happy to read till the end. The witches anonymous angle was interesting and it would have been nice to have had the story go into more depth about that. The angel and demon angle was also fascinating and I liked the way the author brought it all together without it sounding ridiculous.

Chick-lit like paranormal with romance thrown in is how I would describe this tale. This was a well thought out story that would have surely been a very good full length novel. I would love to see what happened next but I doubt there will be a sequel. Instead I will keep an eye out for something else by this author because her style has quirked my interest.

Labels: Guest Blog, www.paranormalromance.org

Orphaned as a child, Mona Lisa always knew she was different. After finding out exactly how different she really is her life changed. She is of mixed blood, a monère, a child of the moon and a queen. Now she is in charge of her own territory and as she embarks on this new challenge she has even more new customs to get used to.

Accompanied by her loyal warriors, servants and brother, Mona Lisa is in Louisiana for the first time. It isn't long before her reign is threatened by not only new enemies but some she has been up against before. With more power than she knew she had in her, Mona Lisa will have to fight and suffer to keep her territory under her control.

Mona Lisa Blossoming is the second part in the Children of the Moon series. After enjoying the first book in the series so much I couldn't wait to read this second part and finally gave in, regardless of the other books that await me, and read this this morning. Yes this was so good that I only needed a few hours to get through this amazing second part.

Very dramatic, action filled and dark this is an unique series in the paranormal genre. A tad more erotic than I like but the heat works well in the story and doesn't bother me. Mona Lisa is a strong character who has been through alot and is taking on her role as queen very well. I can't wait to see what happens next and what trials she will be against and how she will fight them.

Labels: Guest Blog, Sunny

It is the day of the dead!

Here in Austria people are visiting the cemeteries and leaving flowers and candles. So I thought my first guests today should have something to do with death!

First up is author Nancy Haddock who was my first ever author guest here on Amberkatze's Book Blog. She writes for Berkley Publishing and her first book, La Vida Vampire is available now, and the sequel, Last Vampire Standing will be released May 5, 2009. The main character of her series is vampire Cesca Marinelli. She was buried for more than 200 years in a smelly coffin under an old Victorian house and works as a ghost tour guide in St. Augustine, Florida.

Keep reading to the bottom because Nancy has a great prize to giveaway!

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Haunted Beach House?

Boo-rific greetings, readers! I’m Nancy Haddock, and I write paranormals because I love them. I’m into ghosts partly because St. Augustine, Florida is overflowing with them. Yet, for all the spirits in town, none resided in my little pink house on the beach … until now.

My ghostly tale begins with a lighted mirror in my bedroom coming on by itself at odd times during the day and night. The light is a three-way job, operated by touch. Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to turn on or change the level of the lights, but it does take more than mere vibration. Each time I saw the light on, I asked if a spirit wanted to talk. No response. Okay, I’d played this kind of game with ghosts in my Dallas area house. No biggie.

So, one day last week I realized I needed to – cue the spooky music and hold on for the horror – Clean The House. I grabbed a handful of rags and charged the dust dragons in the bedroom, muttering to myself that I wished the faeries would come do this job.

The mirror light suddenly blinked on. I was halfway across the room. Whoa!

I blinked, and asked, “Are you my house spirit?”

The mirror brightened to its next level. I took that as a Yes.

“Do you agree I need cleaning faeries?” I asked.

The mirror turned off, then back on to the lowest light level. Another Yes.

“I don’t suppose you’re that faerie, right?”

The light never flickered, so I took that as a No. Bummer.

“Do you have a message for me, or want to talk?”

Again, no change in the light.

“You’re just here to watch me slay the dirt, huh?”

The light brightened. All the ghosts in the world, and I get a comedian.

Still, it’s a treat to have a spirit around again. It quite makes my house a home.



CONTEST –

Do you have a ghost in your house? Know anyone who does? Is the presence a good thing? I love ghost stories, so share yours and be entered to win a prize!

One lucky poster will win a signed copy of La Vida Vampire and a $10 Barnes & Noble gift certificate!

Rules -

You must post on this thread will an answer to be entered! You can earn an extra entry by posting about this contest somewhere on the net and leaving a link for me to confirm your entry. You can also win another entry by signing up to my newsletter by clicking this icon

 Subscribe in a reader

The contest will close on Thursday 6th of November at 2pm CET. Please check back to see if you won as I will pick a new winner if the prize is not claimed within 7 days.

Labels: Contests, Guest Blog, Halloween, Nancy Haddock

Author at Large, J.F Lewis, is starting things off for Halloween weekend here on Amberkatze's Book Blog! Here is his guest blog (posted by moi because Jeremy is hopefully having fun at a convention!) about the zombies under his back porch!

Keep reading to the end because Jeremy has a book to giveaway!

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I'm afraid of the dark. This doesn't mean that I won't go outside at night or anything silly like that, but it does mean that *sometimes* late at night, whether I'm checking to make sure the house is locked up tight or letting the new puppy out for a walk, when the wind is howling and the moon is dark, when the leaves are rustling in the trees and the bats are flying. I am struck by the overwhelming suspicion that there may be zombies in the crawl space under my back porch, just far enough back that I won't see them until it's too late.

Weird, I know, but then again. is it so weird?

One of my favorite movies, Madadayo, is about the wonderful relationship between a teacher and his students in Japan. Every year the student visit their teacher on his birthday and ask him if he is ready to die and his response, each year, is Madadayo. In English, "Not Yet!" In one of my favorite scenes, the lights have gone out at the teacher's house and his wife calls his students. They come, light candles, and calm down their sensei. He berates them for not being afraid of the dark and goes into a wonderful tirade about how those who are *not* afraid of the dark suffer from a deplorable lack of imagination.

After all, it is not the dark that I fear, but rather, the unknown which may lurk within the dark. Darkness is not the only thing of which I'm afraid, either. My fears don't keep me from walking up my back steps and into my house (where I'll be safe from the zombies), but they do color my fiction. Now, as we near Halloween, it's natural to talk about the things that we fear, to watch spooky movies, and purposefully inflict the Shivers upon ourselves.

So, then. since I've shared one of my fears with you, why not share yours with me? Each reader willing to leave a comment about one of his or her phobias will be entered into a drawing to receive a signed copy of STAKED. So, c'mon, tell me. What are you afraid of?

Best,

Jeremy

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The winner will be drawn on Sunday 2nd Nov at 4pm CET! So hurry!!

This contest is only open to people in the US!

You must answered Jeremy's question to be entered!

You will get an extra entry for posting about Amberkatze's Book Blog Halloween Weekend somewhere on the web! Remember to post a link so I can confirm your entry!

Labels: Contests, Guest Blog, Halloween, J. F. lewis