Blog Tour - Her Secret by Tara Fox Hall

Vampires, an excerpt and a wooly giveaway! Take a look!

Blurb

 In a desperate effort to halt her transformation to vampire, and stop her longing for the sultry Devlin, Sarelle willingly takes a drug to kill her desire, even as Danial prepares for the introduction of their son Theoron at a Vampire Gathering on New Year’s Eve. Faced with Theo’s betrayal at the eleventh hour, Sarelle must either trust in Danial to save her, or join forces with Devlin, revealing her secret desire for him.

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Excerpt

 The clock chimed eleven. Worried, I glanced outside, wondering if Aran would call to cancel. He’d said he’d be going by on an errand for Cia, but the sky was dull white now. The impending storm forecasted for noon might begin at any moment.

            There was no sign of him.

            We were supposed to get a foot or more, something that irritated me. We’d gotten three feet so far this season. With no warm days to melt any of it, the drifts were huge, surrounding the plowed driveway like tall mountains.

            I let out a yawn, blinking my eyes. With the completion of the cookies, despite my eagerness earlier, my utmost desire was a long nap under a warm blanket. Grinning, I made a deal with myself that as soon as the snow flew, the couch was where I was headed. Until then, I needed to keep on track. I hurriedly did some light cleaning and laundry. I was just putting the vacuum cleaner away when the clock chimed twelve.

I cast a look outside. Snowflakes had begun to fall. Soon, they were falling fast and furiously, obscuring my view of the barn.

            “C’mon, Aran,” I said, scanning the drive. “You don’t get here shortly, I’m walking down those cookies to the mailbox and you can eat them frozen.”

            All of a sudden, the snow-dampened roar of a motorcycle was heard in the silence. Aran drove down the driveway, his lone headlight catching the snowflakes in its circular light as they fell. He was dressed in his usual black leather.

            “You’re crazy,” I muttered, throwing cookies into a plastic bag quickly. “Maybe werefoxes don’t get as cold as normal humans did, but you still have to be cold in that.” I closed the bag, then headed for the front door. “At least it’s something between you and the pavement.”

            Aran pulled up in front of the deck and parked the bike, but didn’t turn it off. He faced the house for a moment. As I opened the door, he gestured around him, then pointed to my house.

            I opened the door and yelled to him, “Sure, you can stay ‘til it stops. I’m glad of the company. Go to the bottom garage, I’ll let you in!”

            He nodded, the visor of his helmet and his shoulders already covered in snow. He drove on as I shut the front door and ran downstairs. Pressing the button, I raised the overhead door and he drove in.

            Shivering in the cold blast from the door, I quickly shut it as he parked his Harley and shut off the engine. He began brushing the snow off himself.

            “Why’d you bring the bike today of all days?” I said, giving him a sarcastic smile. “I told you it was going to storm. Now you’re stuck here. Cia’s not going to be happy.”

            Aran got off his bike and continued to brush him and it off, melting snow creating puddles on the concrete floor.

            “Why don’t you give me your coat, and I’ll put it near the fire. If you want, we can watch a movie or something. I was planning to head to the couch any—”

            Aran unbuckled his helmet and in one smooth motion pulled it off his head. Gold curls and waves fell almost to his shoulders.

            This was not Aran.

            This was Devlin.

            He stepped off the bike, and came toward me. I was lost from the moment I looked into his golden eyes.

Author Bio

I just spent the morning watching a movie and crying. Sure the story is heartwrenching (child goes on a quest to find his parents, whom he’s sure gave him up for adoption by mistake, and finds the loving family he hoped for). But I wasn’t moved by the images of the certain tearful reunion to come, or the struggle of a family to reunite against all odds. I’m not much for contrived stories that are purposely meant to induce waterworks on their way to the inevitable HEA. It was the movie’s music that captured my initial interest, and what its represents in the movie that captivated me.

 I love music. I always have. Some songs resonate with me to the point that I’m not sure where they began and I end. Music makes me feel alive, and it inspires my writing, which is why there are so many songs mentioned in my stories, and playlists for practically all of my Promise Me Books. My mood shifts easily listening to songs that convey passions, making it easy to enhance a particular scene I'm creating with sorrow, lust, love, or joy by simply turning on a song that brings those feelings to the forefront. I think this is common for most people, and why the love of music is almost universal, no matter which kind of music a person prefers.

Why do people create music? Like the boy in the film, they long to be heard. So simple of a conclusion, and yet so profound. I write stories because I long to be read. I knew that the odds were against me the moment I entered the writing world, and I didn’t care. I love writing. I love it more than food, more than anything. I feel the clamoring inside me of so many other stories that are anxious to get out, so much that I hope to share with others. There isn’t any way not to be a writer, when you feel like this. You just write and hope to God that someone loves your creation. It is like someone calling out to you, telling you the story that you frantically type into the late night hours. It is like feeling chosen, special, like this is the only right path because it was something you were meant to do. And the most wonderful thing is casting out your painstakingly constructed efforts into the world and hearing back the welcoming cries that what you created is magical, beautiful, and above all, meaningful.

 That is the rush I feel now, every day I hear anew that someone loved one of my books, that a particular character feels like a friend of theirs, that they were moved to tears or rage or passion by one of my scenes. It doesn’t get any better than this. And I hope to God it never ends. Because I understand completely what kind of loss it would be to not feel this alive. I look back to the time before I was writing and feel like I sleepwalked through those years in a grey daze. Going back to that existence after being awakened to such passion is incomprehensible.

 I stand with so many books behind me and so many more stretching out in front of me. There’s still so much work to be done. And God, am I ecstatic about that!

Live your dreams. No one is going to make them come true but you. Don’t wait, or rationalize. Take your first step today!

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Giveaway

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