Tag Archives: Alexis Duran

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ All Yours

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Hi! Another week has flown by and it’s Weekend Writing Warriors time again. The only solace to time moving so quickly is that I get to find out what happened on all the great snippets that left me hanging last week.  Here in my little corner of WWW, I’m continuing to share from Matthias, my contemporary m/m thriller that’s coming out this Wednesday.

Dylan is a reporter who’s been assigned to do research on the leader of an exclusive resort, Matthias Krall. He was surprised to find out he knew Matthias in college, but not that Matthias’s current activities are suspicious enough to warrant investigation.

***

The loose papers on Dylan’s desk lifted and skittered sideways in the tidal force generated by Amanda as she marched up behind him and dropped a fat stack of file folders on his keyboard.

“All yours,” she said and continued walking toward her office.

“Hey, hang on,” Dylan called after her. The tall, honey-skinned woman spun around. By the glare and the tight lips, Dylan guessed her interview with editor in chief Marley Hawkins hadn’t gone well.

“I knew Matthias Krall in college,” he said, hoping to distract her from whatever argument still brought rose-colored splashes to her cheeks.

“I don’t give a shit,” she said. She blinked a few times as her reporter’s instincts kicked in. “I never found anything about Krall attending UW.”

“There’s no mistaking him.”

***

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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.

***

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 ~ Stalker-In-Training

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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.)

***

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.

***

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

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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.

***

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.

***

matthiasfs_v2

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!

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.

***

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

My Sexy Saturday ~ This Is It

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Hi! Welcome to My Sexy Saturday.  I’m going to make this intro quick, because there’s a big storm brewing here in Oregon and I’m afraid I might lose power again. So, short and sweet: I’m sharing from my upcoming release Matthias, an m/m contemporary thriller with a touch of fantasy for spice.  This week’s theme is My Sexy Surprise, and the surprise in this scene is that Dylan never expected to talk to Matthias. He’s been lusting after him from a distance, until their paths cross on the street.

***

They’d reached the glass door of Mocha Joe’s, the coffee shop where Dylan picked up a coffee every time he stalked Matthias at the dojo.

Matthias put a hand on Dylan’s arm to stop him from entering. A tingling sensation radiated from the touch, warming Dylan’s skin like a sunbeam.

“I didn’t mean to intrude on your meeting with your friend,” Matthias said, voice smooth as massage oil and oh so polite with that whisper of a Southern drawl. “I thought it might be nice to exchange a few words after eyeing each other all last semester.”

Dylan’s heart dropped into his high-tops, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

This is it. He’s going to ask you out. Wait until he asks before you say yes.

“It’s okay. My friend and I talk every day. I mean, every other day. Sometimes he doesn’t even show up. You wouldn’t be interrupting anything important.” Dylan held on to the metal bar across the door for support. If anyone wanted in or out, they’d damn well have to wait.

Matthias moved a little closer until his chest bumped Dylan’s shoulder. He smiled, a little like Elvis with a touch of sneer at the corner of his mouth, as if he found Dylan amusing.

***

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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!

***

This post is part of the My Sexy Saturday blog hop.  Don’t forget to continue the hop to find more sweet and sexy excerpts!

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ So We Meet Again

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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!

***

“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.

***

obk-avatar

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.

***

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.

***

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

Seductive Studs ~ Unfortunate Encounter

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Hello and welcome to Seductive Studs, the hop that celebrates m/m romance in all its many wonderful forms.  This week I’m sharing a snippet from my latest release, Gryffon Hall, a fantasy inspired by Beauty and the Beast.

***

Morning arrived on the plodding feet of ill-tempered giants. Glimmerveen Castle ground into a tumultuous, clanging upheaval as the harsh light of day crept over the castle’s outer walls and poured into Wryler’s window with relentless persistence.

He sat in bed with his hands wrapped around a mug of tea, recounting the evils of alcohol and swearing off the foul brew for the rest of his days. Amster snored loudly, stretched out on the settee beneath the window. Wryler had to summon a kitchen maid to bring him his breakfast—hot, spiced tea, dry bread, and a few sad-looking pieces of fruit. He nibbled on the bread and listened to fifty-odd guests loading their carriages, shouting at the servants, and generally making a very pointless racket. He wondered if Lord Rouchet was among those leaving and, with a creeping dread, recalled their unfortunate encounter.

Wryler’s body stirred, and he grimly ordered it to calm down. Thank goodness he hadn’t succumbed to Rouchet’s impetuous advances. It was a small miracle the brute hadn’t taken advantage of Wryler’s obvious drunkenness. He dimly recalled Rouchet threatening to hoist Wryler over his shoulder and carry him off to ravish him, at which point Wryler had said something devastating enough to send the barbarian running off into the night.

To his extreme irritation this muddled memory did nothing to soothe his body. His troublesome cock just kept growing harder and harder no matter how much Wryler conjured terrifying images of being abducted by the lord, manhandled, forced to do… Well, his imagination wasn’t that lurid… Oh dear, yes it was.

He nearly dumped the tea in his lap when someone thumped loudly on his door, and for a second he thought it might be Rouchet come to make good on his threats.

Then the door burst open and his father marched in, followed closely by his first minister, Fenwale Cook. They were both smiling, which made Wryler want to leap from the bed and throw himself out the window. No good ever came from his father smiling.

***

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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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Don’t forget to continue the hop at Seductive Studs for more steamy m/m goodness.