Soul Avenged Blog Tour: Author Guest Post With Keri Lake & Giveaway!

 

Keri Lake has kindly agreed to guest post here about her work, and share her inspiration for her newest release, Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath #1).

 About The Author:

Keri Lake is a married mother of two living in Michigan. She writes fiction in the genres of paranormal romance, urban fantasy and recently finished book 1 of a paranormal YA series. A graduate of Michigan State University (go green!), Keri holds 2 degrees in science but would gladly trade them both to pursue her true passion for writing. Though novels tend to be her focus, she has also written countless short stories and flash fiction whenever the distraction arises. She completed her very first novel in 2008 and has written two more since then with a few in the works.

When she isn’t toiling away on plots and protagonists, she enjoys reading, music and travel. If she could create mystical powers for herself, she’d have the ability to flash to anywhere in the world. And if she could flash to anywhere in the world at this very moment, she’d be staring at the ocean from her adirondack chair on the shores of North Carolina.

Find Keri Lake on the Web:

Official Website | Goodreads | Twitter  Facebook

 Guest Post:

The opportunity for a story tends to hit me several times a week.  It’s part of the reason I’m so addicted to writing flash—to quickly sate those cravings that so often strike in the middle of the day, you know, when it’s most inconvenient to tease them out.  So many times I’ve ignored voices in my head just begging for some attention.  Ideas flitter in and out, giving that one brief moment of excitement before they’re quickly forgotten. 

So why I decided to sit down and write Soul Avenged is an absolute mystery to me. 

I’d just released Somnium and was in the middle of writing the sequel, Requiem.  I couldn’t have been more immersed in another world if I’d been shipped off on the next flight to the moon.  Suddenly I was kicked upside the head and knocked back into reality.  Not reality, really, but a bit closer to home anyway.  Detroit, to be exact. 

The story struck me on a drive up to my nephew’s basketball game (an hour away from where I live).  I stared out the passenger window, watching the snowy Michigan landscape pass me by, doing my best to ignore the nausea creeping up my throat as car sickness began to settle over me, when out of nowhere I visualized this badass, lycan-slaying female. 

Meh.  I’ll jot a few notes on my iPhone.  Maybe it’ll keep me distracted from the world passing me by at 80 mph.

By the time we arrived to the game, I’d practically written the first chapter and fleshed out at least three characters in the book.  From there, it tumbled and rolled into a horrible 90K word manuscript after only six weeks.  I’d been so desperate to get the story onto paper, that I didn’t care much how disjointed and rough it sounded.  For months I polished and shined until it was ready (enough) to send off to my beta readers.  From there, it went on to more beta readers/reviewers.  Once they’d gotten hold of it and gave me some feedback, it was shipped off to my editor. 

I fell in love with the characters so much, that I’ve already written book 2 and have plans for novellas in between before I get to work on book 3. 

Soul Avenged was one of those distractions that I simply couldn’t ignore.  And I’m glad I didn’t.

  Excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE

Ice water.

The frigid sensation sliced through Ayden’s veins, leaving a numb trail in its wake as she stepped through the remains of the abandoned factory—one of many havens for the crack addicts and prostitutes. The old Packard Plant had become no more than a ghostly haunt for tormented souls.

Shitholes were cropping up everywhere, much more rapidly than ever before. Detroit, once a thriving city, brought to ruins. Gray and lifeless like the suffocating overcast that loomed during daylight.

A vile stench assaulted her nose, a potent blend of piss, sex and rotted meat, as garbage crunched beneath her boots. Foundation had collapsed all around where she stood, crumbled as if the building would fold into the depths of hell.

The graffiti spattering the walls gave the impression that gangs were the real threat—‘We don’t die, we multiply.’

Right. Like gangs own any part of this city, anymore.

A Beretta, loaded with silver bullets and a silver parrying dagger rested at one of Ayden’s hips, a silver bullwhip at another, as she moved past comatose bodies and decaying corpses.

Feeding grounds, like a bait pile.

Deadened eyes slowly tracked her movement in the darkness, squinting, as though craving the light that hers didn’t need to see. Humans so strung out on drugs, they failed to recognize the half-eaten carrion were once their own kind.

Not that knowing would stop them. They’d apparently chosen to face danger rather than kick their addiction, roaming the streets every night in search of their next high.

Lambs.

They were already dead. Death just hadn’t come to collect yet.

The blissful sigh of a hopped-up junkie reached her ears. She snarled her lip. “Enjoy it while it lasts, asshole.”

It’d be one thing if they were homeless. Hell, she might’ve fired a warning shot to evacuate.

The homeless didn’t come here, though.

Neither did the police—making it the perfect spot to get wasted and hustle some money.

Shots fired would’ve been nothing more than a momentary distraction before their minds slipped back into their ignorant state of euphoria.

Screw ‘em.

For any other girl, the place promised very bad things—an opportunity for a sadist to live out wild fantasies without ever getting caught.

For Ayden? Humans posed no threat. Their fragile bodies would shred like paper dolls against the work of her hands. Luckily for them, she sought something else to sate her thirst for bloodshed, something far more threatening than their most psychopathic criminal—and she’d tracked it right to the surrounding cornucopia of human flesh.

A thin, black mesh hoodie beneath her jacket concealed her face while the shiny black leather covering her body acted as a beacon in the moon’s light.

Full moon.

It didn’t matter.

Contrary to the fairytales and movies, they didn’t need a full moon to change.

Werewolves, some called them—like a supernatural Bigfoot on the loose. Nothing more than fodder for the tabloids, not to be taken seriously.

Lycans is how those ‘in the know’ referred to them.

The bastards could transform at will. In the middle of the day, if they wanted. Though, like a true predator, they’d evolved throughout the centuries, eluding humans by hunting them at night, catching their prey in their most vulnerable state.

Ayden reached a door in a darkened corner. The stubborn panel held stiff against the push of her palm, giving way only beneath one heave backed by exceptional strength. Beyond, a spiral of stairs wound above and below. Visuals flashed through her mind as she imagined the stairwell bustling with men in suits who passed each other with carefree visages—every one of them ghosts that roamed the destruction.

A quick scan showed no movement.

She tipped her head back and inhaled the repugnant scent the beasts had left behind.

They’re close.

Her feet took light steps, hardly making a sound against the concrete as she descended further into the pit of hell otherwise known as the lycan’s lair.

With each step, she wished her heart would pound wildly in her chest, or that her pulse rate would surge—both human reactions to fear. Neither of them did.

What fragments of her human soul remained had been stripped bare the night the Alexi made her one of their own. Even that, as tortuous as the unrelenting pain that seared through her body while it underwent its transformation, was a memory she could hardly summon anymore. Only a silent blackness dwelled in the place where snapshots of her life would have roamed free, a void that she couldn’t see beyond, separating her present from past.

She’d become one of them: an Alexi soldier. A cold and remorseless killer designed to eradicate in one sweep.

A noise piqued her sensitive ears.

Two flights below.

It could’ve been the skittering feet of a mouse beating against her skull like a base drum.

The thirst for blood moved like a dark storm cloud through her veins, a mix of raw adrenaline and something else—the something that came with her transformation.

Destroy.

Her feet moved on impulse, carrying her closer to whatever it was, rendering it nothing more than a thread-width away from its death.  

In the corner of a landing, he sat hunched over on himself, body convulsing.

A grin skated across her face as she approached her first kill of the night.
 

  Soul Avenged:

SOUL AVENGED (Sons of Wrath, #1)

By: Keri Lake

Release Date:  February 6, 2013

Genre:  Adult Paranormal Romance/Dark Urban Fantasy

ISBN:  978-0-9848517-3-7

Number of pages:  533

Passion is blind in vengeance and love ...

Ayden’s suburban home was invaded by a pack of Lycans.

The brutal attack is the only memory she carries of her former life.

Now, one motive burns in her soul:

KILL THEM ALL.

The Sons of Wrath—a brood of vengeance-dealing warrior demons—band with Ayden to hunt the Lycans on Detroit’s most deadly feeding grounds.

Kane Walker should’ve been her easiest kill.

Unfortunately, the newly bitten Lycan has something she wants—clues that may finally lay her past to rest. To reach them, she must be willing to submit to the sensual pleasures awakened by his touch.

Time is running out.

In seven days, Kane will become what Ayden despises most. She can halt his transformation but the antidote requires the ultimate sacrifice. As the beast takes hold, Kane becomes more of a threat.

Ayden must choose between her lust for revenge, or surrender to her enemy and discover a horrible truth.

Sons of Wrath
Never gamble with vengeance

Find Soul Avenged Online:  

Goodreads | B&N | Amazon | Kindle | Smashwords | Official Page

Giveaway:

Grand Prize:  (Valued at approximately $280)

1-Kindle Fire HD (approximate value $199)

1-Signed Paperback Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath, #1)

1-Sons of Wrath t-shirt

1-Sons of Wrath coffee mug

1-Soul Avenged Notebook

1^st Runner-Up:  (Valued at approximately $75)

1-$25 iTunes giftcard

1-Signed Paperback Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath, #1)

1-Sons of Wrath t-shirt

1-Sons of Wrath coffee mug

1-Sons of Wrath notebook

2^nd Runner-Up: (Valued at approximately $35)

1-Signed Paperback Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath, #1)

1-Sons of Wrath t-shirt

Rafflecopter Code for Fire & Ice Giveaway:

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Happy reading until next time!