Scarred (36 page)
Authors: Amber Lynn Natusch
I thought about watching from afar, hidden by the nearby trees or headstones, so I could avoid the onslaught of grief I was sure to be bombarded with. It was cowardly, but I was certain that when faced with the totality of my own grief, I would crumble under the weight of any extra. He was always so strong both physically and emotionally – I selfishly wished for his strength in that moment. If I couldn’t be strong, then I would at least be honorable and bear my pain publicly, for all who loved him to see.
It was by my actions that he was about to be put six feet under, and I owed it to him to be there.
Tempted by Evil
Book 1
The Light and Shadow Trilogy
Release Date: November 2012
A brand new YA Fantasy/Paranormal Romance trilogy by Shannon Morton and Amber Lynn Natusch!
A sheltered girl.
The perfect boy.
A mysterious stranger.
Random messages delivering a sobering prophecy plague Aspen's existence. With every curious encounter, her sanity further wavers. Before long, Aspen finds herself balancing the fate of humanity on her shoulders, until a single act turns her world upside down. She finds herself alone, isolated from those she thought she could trust.
Alone to damn the world.
See more about Author Shannon Morton:
******* What I’m Reading *******
Caroline Hanson
Love is Darkness (A Valerie Dearborn Novel)
Valerie Dearborn wants a cotton candy life, but it’s more like a puffer fish: pointy, unusual, and—if not prepared exactly right—deadly.
In London for graduate school, Val knows she's finally free. Her father and ex-almost-boyfriend are back in California and she's out of the Vampire hunting biz for good. Or is she?
She draws the attention of Lucas, a 1600 year old Vampire, and King to his kind. He’s also wicked hot. As golden as Lucifer, and just as tempting, he makes Valerie an offer she can't refuse— help him find out if the Others (Empaths, Fey and Werewolves) still exist or he'll stop protecting those she loves.
Lucas tells her that Empaths were a Vampire’s biggest weakness before going extinct hundreds of years ago. While the Fey or a Werewolf might kill a Vampire, an Empath could enslave them, seducing or harming with emotions at will. The one detail he leaves out? Valerie is an Empath.
And after 1600 years of an emotionless existence, Lucas wants Valerie like a recovering alcoholic wants a wine cooler.
Can she keep those she loves alive, stop Lucas from munching on her, survive a fanged revolution and still find a way to have that boring, normal life she’s always wanted? Probably not, but boy is she gonna try!
Samantha Towle
First Bitten (The Alexandra Jones Series #1)
A love story with bite…
Walking home after a night out drowning her sorrows with her best friend, Carrie, Alexandra Jones stupidly takes a phone call from her cheating ex-boyfriend, Eddie, and in her anger hurls her phone into the forest before her.
But when Alex goes to retrieve her phone from the undergrowth, she and Carrie come face-to-face with a monster they never even knew existed, a Vârcolac (a nightmarish vampire-werewolf hybrid) and he's in search of fresh blood. The next thing Alex knows, she is staring at the impossibly handsome but mysterious Nathan who has helped bring her back to life, but not to the life she left.
To her horror, she discovers she has now become a blood-drinking Vârcolac herself and she is the only female of her kind, with the potential for breeding a whole new army of Vârcolacs if they can only track her down and press her into service.
And while Alex gets to know Nathan and his shape-shifting family as they offer her the protection she so desperately needs, unbeknown to all of them, the Vârcolacs are getting closer…
Denise Grover Swank
The CHOSEN Series
http://www.denisegroverswank.com/
About the Author
This one is dedicated to my bizarre fears and irrational convictions...
I firmly believe that we all know someone who has killed someone else. If you think I'm wrong, do some serious digging into those around you. I guarantee you'll find my statement to be correct.
Every time we renovate something in my 100 year old house, I'm convinced that we're going to find a dead body in the wall.
I still hate walking alongside my bed in the dark for fear that my ankles will be snatched by something unspeakable. That goes for getting in my car at night too.
I don't do woodsy, forest areas at night, or corn fields at ANY time. Did you see Children of the Corn? Malichi... (*shudders).
I would rather run in the city at night than a rural area. I like to know exactly what types of things could possibly attack me and my imagination seems to go less crazy.
Most importantly of all, I am firmly convinced that if I squeeze my eyes tight enough and burrow under the covers deep enough, I can't be harmed by anything that goes bump in the night.
Acknowledgments
I have some new people to add this time around, so bear with me.
Firstly, I need to thank the team, which has grown to include Shannon Morton, Jena Gregoire, Jess Thibodeau, and Kristy Bronner. They've helped to finely tune Scarred to near perfection along with Virginia Nicholas, Eryn Bagley, and Jen Krom.
My editor, Jennifer Ryan, was amazing as always, and my cover designer, Jamie Rosen, delivered yet again.
It really takes a lot of people to get a novel prepared for the eyes of readers, and I never want to overlook them. They help make this series all it can be. I am grateful as always.