Danielle Annett
Cursed by Fire
Release Date: January 28th, 2015
Blurb:
It has been six years since the Awakening and
peace in Spokane, Washington is still tenuous at best. The vampires and
shifters are all vying for control of the city and the humans seem to be the
ones suffering the consequences, or so it seems.
Aria Naveed has spent the last two years of
her life fighting to make the many wrongs of the world right, but soon finds
out that the humans aren’t as weak as they appear and may be a more terrifying
foe than any of the other races combined.
When a stranger rolls into town with trouble
on his heels, Aria finds herself trapped in the middle of a battle that could
cost her more than she has bargained for as a fight for justice turns into an
unexpected fight for her life.
Goodreads:
Buy links:
HTML iTunes Linke: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/cursed-by-fire/id958444099?mt=11&uo=4" target="itunes_store">Cursed by Fire - Annett,
Danielle
BN nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cursed-by-fire-danielle-annett/1121069648?ean=2940046513417
GooglePlay: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Danielle_Annett_Cursed_by_Fire?id=AsQmBgAAQBAJ
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About Danielle Annett
Danielle Annett is a reader, writer, photographer, and the blogger behind
Coffee and Characters. Born in the SF Bay area, she now resides in Spokane, WA,
the primary location for her Blood & Magic series.
Addicted to coffee at an early age, she spends her restless nights putting pen
to paper as she tries to get all of the stories out of her head before the dogs
wake up the rest of the house and vye for her attention.
You can learn more about Danielle on her website at Danielle-Annett.com
or follow on on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDaniel... and on
twitter @Danielle_Annett
Excerpts
LONGER EXCERPT
(Beginning of Chapter 1)
All I saw was blood. Blood soaked my
hands and coated the walls. It stained the concrete flooring of the abandoned
warehouse and dripped from fixtures that hung from the ceiling, trickling like
a slow rain. My vision blurred as anguish filled me. How could this have
happened? How could I have been too late?
I stared down at the lifeless body of a child. A boy. Kneeling in a pool
of congealing blood, I ran my fingers through his chestnut hair, ignoring the
now-cool moisture seeping into the denim of my pants. His face was
unrecognizable. Gone was the child with the dimpled cheek and brilliant blue
eyes. Left behind was a mass of flesh and bone—a ruined body drained of its life force at such a young age.
Reality snapped like an elastic band,
bringing me back to the present as I sat at my desk in Sanborn Place. Ripped
from the haunted memories of finding Daniel’s body.
The world was a cruel place. It was a
fact of life and even though I knew it was true, I still had a hard time coming
to terms with the atrocities people committed. The cruelties that for some
god-forsaken reason, people thought were okay. Staring down at the wallet-sized
photo now crumpled in my hands, I was greeted by a crown of chestnut hair,
bright blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a brilliant smile; a single dimple
on his left cheek. The face of an innocent seven-year-old boy, cut down like he
was little more than a calf brought to slaughter. I found myself struggling to
link the image of this smiling boy to that of the ruined body I’d found less
than forty-eight hours ago.
Inside, a small part of me burned. My
blood heated and a turbulent rage rolled through me, one I had to fight to
contain.
“Ari, you’ve got to stop staring at the
kid. He’s gone. Let it go,” I heard Mike say.
I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t
understand how he could either. I looked up from the photograph and stared Mike
straight in the eyes. He cringed but held my gaze.
“He was seven-years-old, Mike,” I said
through clenched teeth. “Seven!”
I shook my head, the poor kid had barely
lived, barely tasted what the world had to offer. I take that back, he’d tasted
too much of what the world could give and it had cost him.
Ever since the Awakening six years ago
when all things that went bump in the night decided to come out of the woodwork
and play, safety had been tenuous at best and kids like this, like
seven-year-old Daniel Blackmore, were suffering the price.
Vampires, shifters, mages, witches and
many more creatures of the night so to speak had seemingly popped out of
nowhere, deciding they were ready to integrate themselves into everyday, or
night, society.
Daniel had been abducted by a rogue
vampire. I’d found his mangled body, broken and discarded as if he were nothing
more than a piece of trash and I was going to find the bastard that had killed
him and make him pay.
“Ari, I know what you’re thinking and
the answer is no.”
I looked Mike up and down. He was an older man
in his late forties with a streak of silver in his otherwise midnight colored
hair. The wrinkles around his eyes would lead you to believe he smiled a lot
but I knew better. Those lines were from his ever-present frown. Dressed in
black slacks and a grey button up shirt, his mid-section strained against the
buttons looking like they could pop off at any moment, likely taking someone’s
eye out in the process.
“I wasn’t asking for your permission,”
I told him, my gaze going back to the photo.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you were
asking. I’m telling you, Ari, let it go! You can’t help him anymore. All you’ll
end up doing is getting yourself hurt or worse, killed for your trouble.”
That was the problem with people who
had lived through the Awakening. Their only concern was self-preservation.
Nothing else mattered. Well, screw that because this little boy, he mattered.
His life mattered and he deserved justice. I had scrubbed my hands after
finding his broken body but couldn’t scrub the stain his death left on my soul.
I stood up from my desk and grabbed my
keys and daggers. I sheathed the twin blades on either side of my waist,
grabbed my leather jacket, and made a beeline for the door. Mike crossed the
room to intercept me, arms folded over his chest blocking my way.
“Move,” I bit out.
“No.”
“I can move you.”
“You can, but you won’t.”
I ground my teeth together. He was
being ridiculous. This entire situation was ridiculous.
“Mike, this isn’t some game. A little
boy died. He died! Does that even matter to you? I couldn’t live with myself if
I let this one go.”
“What’s your plan, Ari, you going to
just storm into the coven and force them to tell you who did it? They won’t
tell you. They protect their own and you’re one person against an entire Coven
of bloodthirsty vampires. Even the kid’s parents know it’s a lost cause.
They’ve dropped the case and are focusing on burying their kid. They’re coming
to terms with his death. It’s over.”
I’d been hired by Jessica Blackmore,
Daniel’s mother, a little over two weeks ago to find her son who’d gone missing
one afternoon. He had been walking home from a friend’s, only five houses down
from his own, but never made it to the front door. She’d thought it safe enough
to allow him the small bit of independence but with paranormals about, it was
never truly safe.
Mike knows I’m different. He knows I
have pyrokinetic abilities and he knows I can take care of myself. This wasn’t
reason talking, this was him being overprotective. Feeling the temperature in
the room begin to rise I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly. Trying to
calm down and keep my pyrokinesis locked up tight. It wouldn’t help the
situation to start a fire. All it would do is prove to Mike that I wasn’t in
control and right now I was in no mood for a lecture.
“Look, Ari, you’re a mercenary. You
take on a job when you have a client. There is no client so there is no job.
We’re not the police. We don’t try to clean up the streets or bag the bad guys.
We’re mercs.”
I couldn’t blame him for his way of
thinking. Hell, two weeks ago I would have said the same thing, but this was
different. He was just a kid and I couldn’t believe everyone was so willing to
leave his murderer out there.
“Why don’t—”
Mid-sentence I heard the distinct buzz
of a cell phone. Mike dug his phone out of his left pocket and answered it
without looking at the screen.
“Hello,” he said. Mike’s face scrunched
in confusion, a furrow forming between his brows. He listened for several
moments and then with a grunt he hung up and stared me down. At six feet tall,
he towered over me by a good five inches, but I didn’t back down. Lifting my
chin and giving him my best try me
stare. The one I knew drove him crazy.
“Looks like you’re getting exactly what
you asked for,” he said.
“And what exactly is that?”
“That was Declan Valkenaar on the
phone.”
Holy shit, the Pack Alpha. What the
hell was he doing calling Mike?
SHORT EXCERPT
The light began to fade from his eyes
as I crawled across the floor in an effort to reach my father. My nails were
raw and bloody as I struggled to carry myself closer to him, digging into the
rough wooden floors with each drag of my body.
“I’m
coming,” I panted in between breaths. “Just hang on, Papa, I’m coming.”
I woke gasping for breath, drenched
in a cold sweat, clutching the hilt of my dagger as if my life depended on it.
I frantically looked around the room in search of our attacker while also
taking stock of any injuries. I was perfectly whole.
“It was just a
nightmare,” I told myself, though that did little
to ease the ache in my chest over the remembered pain. I miss you so much.
Rubbing my hands over my face, I pushed
back the wet, loose tendrils of hair that had escaped my braid during my fitful
rest and returned my dagger to its resting place beneath my pillow. Taking
another deep breath I registered a hint of smoke.
Shit!
My eyes roamed over the room,
frantically looking for the source of fire.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
I untangled my body from the sheets,
tripping and falling into a heap on the floor before I was able to crawl out of
my covers and retrieve an old shirt. I frenziedly swatted at the bedroom
curtains with the old t-shirt but the flames continued to rise. Deciding there
was no other choice, I ripped the curtains from the window and rushed to the
kitchen.
Throwing the curtains into the sink and
turning the faucet on all the way, I watched as the flames were snuffed and
steam began to rise. The curtains ruined.
Turning the water off, I allowed my
body to slide down the smooth wooden cabinets until my bottom met the cool tile
floor. I folded my arms across my knees and rested my forehead against them.
Closing my eyes I took several deep breaths, my heart still racing from the
effects of the recurring nightmare. This was getting out of hand. I had thought
the nightmares were fading, but something was bringing the memories back with a
screaming vengeance and this was the third time this week they’d plagued me. I
missed my parents but it’d been over six years now. They weren’t coming back
and I needed to let it go. My subconscious needed to let it go and I needed to
let Daniel’s death go. Not the case, no, I wouldn’t let that go. But his death
was affecting me in ways I couldn’t allow to continue.
I breathed deeply in an effort to calm
my nerves. Small tremors racked my body, the nightmare had shaken me more that
I’d like to admit. My skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. A physical
reminder that I needed to relax before I accidentally caught something else on
fire.
Q/A with Danielle
How did you come up with the idea for this story?
I’m not entirely sure to tell you the truth. I think when I decided
I wanted to write something this story just popped into my head because it was
one I wanted to read myself. Overtime it took shape and changed drastically but
the idea itself more of less popped in out of nowhere.
Where do you find your inspiration?
I find my inspiration at the Library. There is something
entirely exciting about walking through a room filled with books and looking at
all of their covers that just inspires you to write more.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your
writing?
Finding the time to write is difficult. Between my day job, my
blog, my home life and beautiful daughter, it all adds up. Time is something I
definitely wish I had more of.
What are your current projects?
Currently I’m working on Book 2 in the Blood & Magic series,
and a side PNR project that is just beginning to take shape.
Tell us about your first book. What would readers find different
about the first one and your most recent published work?
I don’t have any other published works.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Not particularly. If there is a message in my book then it is
coincidence. I’m a story telling and don’t really look to add special messages
in my writing but I do think Cursed by Fire may have developed one, can you
guess what it is?
Does music play any type of role in your writing?
Music is HUGE. I tend to assign a song to every scene. Music
makes you feel something and I want my book to make my readers feel something
as well. Music for specific scenes allows me to strive to draw that emotion
into the scene.
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your
life?
No. Everything in Cursed by Fire is entirely fictitious.
What books have influenced your life most?
I feel like I should list the classics here but truth be told,
Urban Fantasy novels such as those by Ilona Andrews and Patricia Briggs have
inspired me to want to become a writer. Additionally, On Writing by Stephan
King has been an extremely helpful tool in developing my craft.
Are there any new authors that have grasp your interest?
Yes. ML Brennan is not completely new but is newer and has
caught my attention. Additionally, Sherry Palmer who wrote Life with Charley.
Something completely outside my genre scope but so touching has grabbed my
attention and held on tight.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your
readers?
I hope you love my story as much as I loved writing it.
How can readers discover more about you and your work?
Do you have a special time to write? How is your day structured
writing-wise?
So not structured at all. I fit in time to write whenever I can.
Sometimes I write all day and sometimes I don’t write until the weekend rolls
around, every day changes.
Why did you choose to write [genre] stories?
I chose to write Urban Fantasy because its what I enjoy reading
most. There is something about fantasy creatures living in todays society and
dealing with everything it brings.
What is for you the perfect book hero?
My perfect book hero is someone you can relate to. Someone who
goes above and beyond to help others but is not all that extra ordinary. I want
to feel like I can be that person.
When you start a book, do you already have the whole story in
your head or is it built progressively?
It starts progressively. I typically outline first but even my
outline changes as I go. Cursed by Fire went through four different outline
revisions and three major rewrites.
When and why did you begin writing?
I began writing passively about two years. I was just playing
around with an idea and slowly it began to take shape. Only within the last
year have I taken my writing seriously though and really buckled down to finish
a book.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
That's tough, I suppose when I typed THE END. That was when I
felt accomplished enough to say, I’m a writer.
List three books you have recently read and would recommend.
Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews
The Kraken Kong by Meljean Brook
Archangel’s Shadow by Nalini Singh
Tell us something that people would be surprised you know how to
do.
I crochet. I feel like it is a grandmotherly habit but I learned
when I was young and recently finished a baby blanket for my niece.
Will you write more about these characters?
Yes. I have four books planned so far for this particular
series.
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