House of Ash & Brimstone is a new urban fantasy, paranormal romance from author Megan Starks. Check out an excerpt and then follow the rest of the tour for even more! Leave Megan comments and questions along the way. And remember to enter the great giveaway!
House of Ash and Brimstone
Hell has come to collect……but Gisele Walker has no plans to pay the debt.
As a half-demon paranormal bounty hunter, Gisele is used to flirting with death, but stealing a curio and opening a portal to Hell’s demon court is more than your average day job.
Now, she’s partnered with an infuriatingly handsome demon, Shade, who has more levels of grey than she can count.
Who can she trust to help save the city as Baltimore burns to the ground and ghouls roam the streets?
With a white-hot attraction burning between them and secrets blocking their path, Gisele must face her past and venture into the twisted heart of the demon royal court.
But with no memory of her past…
…will she be able to save their future?
Read an excerpt:
Wings burst from the doppelgänger-Shade’s back, massive and talon-tipped and tensile. They billowed, leathery and black as the forelimbs of a giant bat. Shadows shifted behind them as they spanned, making them appear to fill the width of the room. Patches of skin darkened and pebbled before ripping into tiny, hardened scales that gleamed in the soft glow of the containment tanks lining the walls, and bones elongated, protruding at knuckles, elbows, and clavicle, hulking the creature in both muscles and height until it towered over her. Two thickly ridged, ebony horns cut from its temples, banked in loose ash-brown locks that roiled about its shoulders. A long tail whipped against a tank, shattering glass.
She wanted to scream but couldn’t, numb, frozen like prey before a monster.
Shade’s demonic form speared her with eyes blacker than the depths of Hell, glistening with pure evil. They were the eyes of a creature that would suck out her soul and sanity and laugh at the corpse it left behind. This was what she’d always known in the back of her mind, that Shade was dangerous. That he was a born killer, a full-blooded Devil from the deepest regions of Hell.
No, wait. That wasn't right. Sure, she was scared of Shade’s true form—he was a powerful and nightmarish-looking beast. But she also had flashes of him smiling and protecting her, worried and protecting her, laughing and crying and screaming her name, all while baring those same obsidian wings.
A gun was in her good hand, but she didn’t remember having drawn it. It wavered, trembling where it was outstretched.
Shoot, shoot to kill, a whispered voice not her own pounded in the back of her head, incessant. Shoot him before he turns on you, then shoot yourself.
With a start, she realized she’d aimed her sight at the real Shade’s back. She was a breath away from firing.
Book links
Amazon: https://smarturl.it/Gate1Amz
Amazon Print: https://smarturl.it/Gate1AmzPrt
iBooks: https://smarturl.it/Gate1iBooks
GoodReads: https://smarturl.it/Gate1GR
Publisher (City Owl Press): https://smarturl.it/Gate1CO
About Megan Starks
Megan Starks is the award-winning author of the Gatewalkers urban fantasy series and a game writer at Obsidian Entertainment. A Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® finalist, Writers Guild of America award nominee, and Pitch Wars alumna with an MFA in fiction, Megan enjoys reading and writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and fantasy novels. Whether it's dark demons, brooding vampires, howling werewolves, or feisty witches, Megan loves it all.When she's not penning novels about magic and strong, kick-butt heroines, she enjoys playing video games and spending time with her husband and their cat, Sushi, in California.
Look for Night of Sunder & Sorrow, the sequel to House of Ash & Brimstone, coming in Spring 2020.
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Megan Starks will be awarding a prize pack of best selling urban fantasy romance + a copy of House of Ash and Brimstone to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Good morning! Thank you so much for having me, Andi and readers.
ReplyDeleteThis release as gone absolutely amazingly thanks to you all for checking out the book and helping to spread the word of its sale — for most of the week I've been hanging out in the top 50 books for my romance and fantasy categories next to Neil Gaiman, Shayne Silvers, and Shannon Mayer which is such a dream come true!
I'm a professional video game writer and a long time fan of urban fantasy and paranormal romance. This novel was a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist for paranormal romance. It's the first novel I've written (but many more are to come - book 2 in the series is slated for Spring 2020), so when I was writing it, I wanted to toss in all of my favorite tropes:
- strong, kick-butt female protagonist
- hate-to-love / enemies-to-lovers
- tall dark and broody (and snarly and monstrous but secretly sweet) hero
- forbidden love
- lots of fight scenes with monsters
- danger and suspense!!!
- smoking hot sex
What are some of your favorite tropes in paranormal and fantasy romance, readers?
Don't forget to enter the URBAN FANTASY BOOK BUNDLE give away in the post. I'm giving out books by some of my favorite authors like Ilona Andrews and Nalini Singh.
Love always, and love like hell,
Megan