Guest post by AD Koboah paranormal author

Title: Dark Genesis

Author: A. D. Koboah

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Format: eBook

Life for a female slave is one of hardship and unspeakable sorrow, something Luna knows only too well. But not even she could have foreseen the terror that would befall her one sultry Mississippi evening in the summer of 1807.
On her way back from a visit to see the African woman, a witch who has the herbs Luna needs to rid her of her abusive master’s child, she attracts the attention of a deadly being that lusts for blood. Forcibly removed from everything she knows by this tormented otherworldly creature, she is sure she will be dead by sunrise.
Dark Genesis is a love story set against the savage world of slavery in which a young woman who has been dehumanised by its horrors finds the courage to love, and in doing so, reclaims her humanity.
Author Bio
A.D. Koboah was born in London and completed an English Literature degree in 2000. Her first novel, Dark Genesis, was inspired by the concept of dehumanisation and the impact it can have on the psyche. She is currently working on a screenplay and will begin the sequel to Dark Genesis shortly.


Guest Post

Hello Everyone.

I’d like to start by thanking Brenda for letting me do a guest blog today.

I really wasn’t sure what to write about today so I decided to go with a topic everyone can relate to. Love.

Dark Genesis is, in essence, a love story and is narrated by Luna, a slave living in Mississippi in 1807. When we meet her she is so dehumanised by her experiences that she has spent most of her life keeping others at a distance. So when she falls in love with a vampire, it is an unexpected and frightening experience for her. But she loves him deeply despite the fact that everything she has been taught flies in the face of that love. For example, his race, the fact that he is no longer human and is someone who has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

The love these two characters have for each other is intense and unconditional. And maybe I’ve turned into a bit of a cynic in my old age, but I’m not so sure that kind of love exists in the real world. And even if it does, is it healthy to love another person unconditionally?

I believe that a mother and father’s love should always be unconditional. Luna’s mother was sold away from Luna when she was three. She eventually finds a way to get back to Mississippi to be near her daughter although she only sees her roughly four times over the years. So her daughter is, in effect, a stranger but that doesn’t stop her from loving Luna deeply.

But when it comes to relationships and friendships, conditions should be placed on your love. If you’re in a relationship and someone is abusive, is it love when you stay with them? No. I remember watching the British equivalent of the Jerry Springer show in which a female guest who was in an abusive relationship had decided to have a child in the hopes that it would change her partner’s violent behaviour. Naturally, the host asked the critical question: Why would you stay with this man and bring a child into such an abusive environment? Her answer was that she loved him.

Now I was watching that and thinking: that’s not love. In my mind, when you genuinely love someone you want them to be the best that they can be. If someone is behaving badly in a relationship and you stay, your actions tell them loud and clear that their behaviour is acceptable. The only way they’ll see that it isn’t is if there’s a negative consequence as a direct result of their actions. Hopefully that will be enough for them to address their issues and become a better person for it. That is love

Everyone needs boundaries and I believe you should set boundaries for yourself and the people you care for.

Apart from your children, the only person who should have your unconditional love is you. You can’t really love anyone else the way they should be loved if you don’t see anything worth loving in yourself.

I hope you all have a good day and take the time to appreciate the people you love and care about.

ADK x

Links
Website: http://www.adkoboah.co.uk/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Genesis-Darkling-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007NI8GUS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337086773&sr=8-1
Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Genesis-Darkling-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007NI8GUS/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332433043&sr=1-7
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/141566
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5807160.A_D_Koboah

Guest post by Intisar Khanani

: http://www.thornthenovel.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/booksbyintisar

GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5780445.Intisar_Khanani

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/intisar

Princess Alyrra’s strength lies in silence. Scorned by her family, she avoids the court, spending her time with servants. When her marriage is unexpectedly arranged with the prince of a powerful neighboring kingdom, Alyrra feels trapped. As the court celebrates her match, dark rumors spread about the unexplained deaths of the women of her new family. Alyrra begins her journey with mounting trepidation. Betrayed while traveling, she seizes an opportunity to start a life away from court.

Walking away from a prince whom she doesn’t know should have been easy. But from the moment she sets eyes on him, Alyrra realizes that her freedom could cost him his life. Without any magical defense of her own, she is plunged into a lethal game of sorcery and deceit. Now Alyrra must decide whom she can trust and what she’s willing to fight for—before her silence proves fatal.

The author, Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad and traveler. Born in Wisconsin, she has lived in five different states as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. She first remembers seeing snow on a wintry street in Zurich, Switzerland, and vaguely recollects having breakfast with the orangutans at the Singapore Zoo when she was five. She now resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband and young daughter. Intisar writes grants and develops projects to address community health with the Cincinnati Health Department, which is as close as she can get to saving the world. Her approach to writing fantasy reflects her lifelong passion for stories from different cultures. She is currently writing a trilogy set in the same world as Thorn. This is her first novel.

Writing Scenes

I started out writing scenes by the textbook: following the much vaunted advice about moving action or character development from point A to point B over the course of a scene, developing in-depth character descriptions, having beats in your dialogue, etc. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes writing scenes was excruciating, which meant loads of revision before it was ready to be shared. I’ve since learned to scrap the advice I’d so carefully gathered and focus on how my imagination works.

Here’s an example: I am working on revising the first novel in a trilogy set in the same world as Thorn. I knew there needed to be an interaction between the main character, Rae, and a thief called Bren. Because Rae had just come out of a harrowing experience, I needed something light. For a couple weeks, I wrote stilted scenes trying to go from A to B and didn’t like my results. Then, all of a sudden, I had a vision of Rae and Bren sitting on the floor, their backs against a bed, laughing like the best of friends. That was it: the heart of the scene. I started building the moment first, asking myself what was on the floor, whose bed it was, what the light was like in the room. Then came the questions of how they got there, and what would happen next. The scene spun out from there, connecting to the previous scene and opening up possibilities for the next one.

Sometimes I stumble along building a scene until I find the heart of it, and sometimes all I have to go on to build the whole scene is that kernel at the heart: a line of dialogue, a glimpse from the corner of the main character’s eye, a touch. Once I have the central moment of the scene, I start building outward—forward, backward, over and around—until the rest of the scene falls into place. Eventually, I line up my scenes and build in the connectors that are missing to shape the scenes into a full storyline.

My best advice, then, is to find works for you. Writing should be fun. It’s work, there’s no arguing with that, but it should be the kind of work that you look forward to doing. What kind of writing advice has worked for you? What hasn’t? 

Pavarti K. Tyler blog tour

Check out Pavarti K. Tyler at http://www.escapistpress.com/pavarti-k-tyler.html

Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway.

Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry as a freelance accountant for several international law firms. She now operates her own accounting firm in the Washington DC area, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and two terrible dogs. When not preparing taxes, she is busy penning her next novel.

Throughout history, literature and the art of story-telling have influenced politics, religion and culture. The power of the epic tale is universal. Why is it that those who never read The Iliad know Helen of Troy? Her story, Homer’s story, transcends the written word and has become a part of our human lexicon. The power of the written word is undeniable and Pavarti is honored to be part of the next wave of literary revolution.

Recai Osman: Muslim, philosopher, billionaire and Superhero? 

Controversial and daring, Shadow on the Wall details the transformation of Recai Osman from complicated man to Superhero. Forced to witness the cruelty of the Morality Police in his home city of Elih, Turkey, Recai is called upon by the power of the desert to be the vehicle of change. Does he have the strength to answer Allah's call or will his dark past and self doubt stand in his way? 

Pulling on his faith in Allah, the friendship of a Jewish father-figure and a deeply held belief that his people deserve better, Recai Osman must become The SandStorm. 

In the tradition of books by Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie, Shadow on the Wall tackles issues of religion, gender, corruption and the basic human condition. Beautiful and challenging, this is not a book to miss.