Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Stalker-In-Training

October 23, 2016 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another round of Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where a bunch of really awesome writers share excerpts from their work in ten lines or less. I’ve been sharing from Matthias: Order of the Black Knights, due to hit the virtual shelves on November 2nd. Dylan, a reporter, discovers he’s been assigned to help investigate an old acquaintance of his, Matthias Krall. Matthias was a mystery man back in college, and things haven’t changed much. (For previous snippets, click here and here.)

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Matthias kept a low profile even while he mingled with jet-setters. Most of the photos Dylan uncovered were thanks to tabloid coverage of Matthias’s brief affair with Jason Vaughn. A few others showed him with senators, CEOs, and movie stars. All were incidental. Matthias was never the focus of the shot, merely a bystander.

Dylan had lost track of Matthias, had tried to put him out of his mind, but now that Amanda had stirred the slumbering coals of his obsession, he was determined to find out what he couldn’t back in college. Who was Matthias, and what the hell was he up to?

As a journalism major and stalker-in-training, Dylan had quickly discovered that, although Matthias attended classes, he wasn’t a registered student at UW. That was as far as Dylan’s research got. Matthias had disappeared from campus and from Dylan’s life, until now.

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Matthias: Order of the Black Knights ~ Release date November 2, 2016

From Louisiana swamp rat to revivalist huckster to skilled con artist, Matthias Krall clawed his way out of poverty using his natural gifts of grift and manipulation to become the leader of an exclusive retreat center. Exploiting the guise of spiritual guru, Matthias seduces the rich and powerful into turning over their lives and fortunes to his control. But wealth and a small cadre of loyal followers can’t protect Matthias from the betrayal he knows is imminent. Everyone wants what Matthias has, except for one man who wants to destroy it. Dylan Connelly is a reporter who’s determined to prove the charismatic recluse is not only a fraud but a murderer.

Irresistibly drawn to Dylan despite the warnings in his gut, Matthias lures Dylan to his island retreat, determined to destroy his enemy once and for all.

Preorder at Dreamspinner Press!

Preorder on Amazon!

Order of the Black Knights

Every century has seen its knights, but they are not always seen. Some of them do what must be done—getting their hands dirty when no one else is willing. Assassins and antiheroes who work from the shadows, they are called the Black Knights. From the time of the society’s creation in the 1100s, these men are cursed to repeat their lives of bloodshed. But for each knight, there is one who can bring out the man that waits inside and break the cycle. The question is whether or not the knight will kill his true love before he figures it out.

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This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight to ten sentences from a published work or perhaps their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or use the address: http://www.wewriwa.com

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Up To No Good

October 16, 2016 by Alexis Duran

Hi! I missed last week because I was at the coast. Good thing I went last week because a few days later a freakin’ tornado touched down not far from where we stayed! Sheesh, we’re not supposed to have weather on the west coast. So the moral is..never miss Weekend Writing Warriors.

I’m picking up where I left off last time. This is from the second chapter of my upcoming release Matthias. Dylan, a reporter, is flashing back to when he first met Matthias ten years ago.

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Matthias hailed from Louisiana. Dylan had learned that much in one of their few conversations way back when, when they’d both been students. Correction–when Dylan had been a student and Matthias had been pretending to be a student.

Now Matthias was an über-rich businessman, some sort of spiritual guru at the head of a swanky members-only retreat on San Juan Island. Until recently he’d been dating a rock star. This irritating fact was just too natural and made the bile rise in Dylan’s throat. Matthias had been way out of Dylan’s league in college and now was even more so. Mysterious, powerful, and apparently up to no good.

Why else would Amanda Arno, Dylan’s senior editor, instruct him to dig up any photo he could of the reclusive businessman? There weren’t many.

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Matthias: Order of the Black Knights ~ Release date November 2, 2016

Irresistibly drawn to Dylan despite the warnings in his gut, Matthias lures Dylan to his island retreat, determined to destroy his enemy once and for all.

Preorder at Dreamspinner Press!

Order of the Black Knights

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ So We Meet Again

October 2, 2016 by Alexis Duran

New month – New Novel!

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where a bunch of really great writers share snippets from their published work or works-in-progress. This week I’m leaving Wryer to his fate at Gryffon Hall and moving on to my next book, Matthias, which is set to release on November 2. This is a new-to-me publisher, Dreamspinner Press, and a new concept- writing one novel in a multi-author series. The series is called Order of the Black Knights (cool,eh?) and you can read about it here. On to the snippet!

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“So we meet again, Matthias,” Dylan Connelly said in his best imitation of a James Bond voice. He clicked the Zoom button to increase the size of the image on his screen and tilted the monitor to reduce the glare of the overhead fluorescents. The resolution was low and the photo grainy, typical tabloid quality, but he couldn’t mistake the dark-haired, blue-eyed man lurking behind the main subject: struggling rock star Jason Vaughn.

Dylan leaned back in his creaking office chair and let out a long, slow breath. Looking at Matthias, even at low res, brought it all back. The agonizing pain of the most intense crush he’d ever endured, the months of pointless longing, the humiliation of rejection. Mostly it brought back the longing, and Dylan squirmed as his body reacted in its usual cock-jerk way to the sight of the mesmerizing creole con man, Matthias Krall.

“If that really is your name,” he muttered. Dylan had yet to uncover Matthias’s background. He’d appeared, as if sprung from the earth fully formed, ten years ago on the campus of the University of Washington.

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Irresistibly drawn to Dylan despite the warnings in his gut, Matthias lures Dylan to his island retreat, determined to destroy his enemy once and for all.

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Order of the Black Knights

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Not Even a Life

September 18, 2016 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where a bunch of really great writers share excerpts from their published work or work-in-progress. As I hope everyone on the vast interweb knows by now, my m/m fantasy Gryffon Hall released on August 30. I’ve been sharing from the scene where Wryler finds out he’s been betrothed to the notorious Lord Rouchet. He’s been left alone to pack and roil in his own worry and misery. I skipped ahead a bit from last week.

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And the master of Gryffon Hall, Aeric Rouchet, destined to be Wryler’s protector and husband, what of him? Wryler could only think of the man tearing into the greasy flesh on his plate and wonder how he behaved when out of the company of refined men and women.

Wryler forced himself to move. There had to be some way out of this cursed fate. He went to his wardrobe and flung it open. He could run away. But where on earth would he go? As a youth he’d harbored fantasies of returning to his mother’s people, but now a very harsh truth hit him. His mother had been traded off to Wryler’s father just as Wryler was now being traded off to Rouchet. A life in exchange for an advantageous trade agreement, and not even a life, in the eyes of the dealmakers, but a title, a name.

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Fated to be born the useless fourth son of the Lord of Glimmerveen, Wryler dreams of getting married and escaping the rustic confines of his father’s castle. A wealthy merchant’s son seems to hold the key to Wryler’s safe if somewhat dreary future. However, the arrival of a mysterious stranger on the eve of Wryler’s betrothal sends his plans into disarray and Wryler finds himself traded off in marriage to one of the most notorious rogues in the land.

Is Lord Aeric Rouchet the scoundrel he appears to be, or is he something much worse? Separated from his family and thrust into a strange and dangerous new life at the foreboding Gryffon Hall, Wryler must unravel the secret of his husband’s shadowed life and defeat the curse which threatens not only his growing affection for the barbarian in his bed, but the lives of everyone the Lord of Gryffon Hall is sworn to protect.

Check out the great review on Diverse Reader.

Amazon

ARe

Loose Id

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Muddled Misery

September 10, 2016 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where a fun and diverse group of writers share excerpts in ten sentences or less from their published works or works-in-progress. I’ve been sharing from my new release, Gryffon Hall, an m/m fantasy inspired by Beauty and The Beast. In this scene, Wryler’s father informs him that he’s been betrothed to the notorious Lord Aeric Rouchet. Last week, Wryler found out that he’s to leave for Gryffon Hall three days hence. His father, who is entirely unsympathetic to Wrylers’ misgivings, is the speaker:

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“Cheer up, Wryler. I don’t want my last image of you to be the one of muddled misery I see before me now. When you give me that baleful look, I can’t help but think of your mother.” He sighed, momentarily woeful, then rallied, slapping his hands together. “Let’s go, Cook, we’ve still got a house full of guests with aching heads–all ripe for a little lucrative conversation.”

With that, the two intruders departed, slamming the door behind them. Wryler stood motionless, listening to their fading boot stomps and the grating buzz of Amster’s snores.

Sent away into the wilderness, alone, to live out his days with a stranger. A barbarous stranger who battled monsters for a living. For most of Wryler’s life, Gryffon Hall had been held up as an example of power gone awry—a once great seat of power brought down by greed and black magic.

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Check out the great review on Diverse Reader.

Buy on Amazon

ARe

Loose Id

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Better Get Packing

September 4, 2016 by Alexis Duran

Greetings and welcome to another round of Weekend Writing Warriors.

I’m forging ahead with a scene from my new release, Gryffon Hall. Wryler has just found out that he’s been betrothed to a stranger, the notorious Lord Aeric Rouchet. The arrangement is very advantageous for Wryler’s father, but that’s cold comfort to Wryler. The “they” in the first sentence is Wryler’s father and a government minister.

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They both smiled broadly, completely unconcerned with Wryler’s feelings or the terrifying fate they’d bound him to.

Wryler lifted his chin and put back his shoulders. “And when is the ceremony set to occur? Sometime in the summer?” he asked, mind racing. There was still a chance he could talk to Rouchet and explain that Wryler had no interest in marrying him, that he loved—or at least was fond of—another. Maybe MacFarlane would reject the Arsburry offer and Wryler’s father could be persuaded to reconsider—

“Seven days hence at Gryffon Hall. Lord Rouchet has already taken his leave in order to prepare his household. You’re to follow in three days. Better get packing.”

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Buy on Amazon

ARe

Loose Id

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