Check out the all new audio book for Spell of Summoning on iTunes, audible.com, and Amazon, voiced by the very talented Elizabeth Siedt.
Our first night in Williamsburg, my daughter and I took a break from touring the Colonial city to find dinner. I had grandiose ideas of eating in a tavern, served by candlelight by actors in period costume. Those of you who have visited the city before could have warned me those reservations sell out days (possibly weeks) in advance. Our next best idea was to dine in a local establishment outside of the historical district. But by the time we found an Italian bistro, we had fifteen minutes to eat in order to make a variety show at the Kimball Theater. We ended up being ten minutes late and frazzled.
So, what did we do for dinner on night two? Rolled up to the Golden Corral. I love the south!
The folk art exhibit at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum at Colonial Williamsburg was overflowing with beautiful and quirky works of art by untrained everyday artists. This bust is extremely lifelike and once graced the bow of a ship. It’s not exactly a mermaid, but I like it!
I fell in love with this portrait at first sight. Isn’t she creepy? Her name was Martha Payne. How perfect is that?
This exhibit of non-traditional carousel animals immediately drew my attention for its whimsical and imaginative design. The cat with a fish in its jaws and a saddle on its back would be my first choice!
A night photo of the Brick House Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg. Like almost every original building in town, it’s rumored to be haunted. See any ghostly faces in the windows?
As a last minute stop, we toured Jamestown, the site of the first successful British colony in America. And I’m so glad we did!
I was jumping up and down to take my picture with this gorgeous statue of Pocahontas.
The drive homeWe ran into all sorts of traffic on the way home, including back to back accidents.
So, my daughter took the opportunity to write in her journal.
And I took pics of myself. :p
<3 Anna
Click here for the entire review.
Wow! It has been some time since I read a book that kept me that on the edge of my seat! I loved Spell of Summoning. The paranormal world reflected in this book was obviously created with both imagination and good research making the story of Holden and Rebecca come to life. The author did an excellent job of dropping clues about who the evil necromancer could be without totally giving the game away. I had at least three people that I thought it could be but wasn’t really sure which is one thing I love about books like this. If I can figure out who the bad guy is in the first twenty or thirty pages I tend to lose interest, this was not the case with this book. The feelings between Holden and Rebecca are sweet, and sensual and the author does an excellent job of showing their budding relationship, and by the end of the book I was truly satisfied with how the ending came about. This is a wonderful, suspenseful love story and great feel good book! If you love happy endings, but like there to be turmoil and obstacles before you get to the end, as well as, story having paranormal paranormal elements, then you do not want to miss Spell of Summoning. I will definitely be picking up this author’s next book!
Regina
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More
<3 Anna
I love history. There isn’t a historical marker I won’t swerve off the road to investigate. And American history is one of my favorites. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, Colonies, Explorers, Native Americans… What’s not to love?
The past few years I’ve taken over Spring Break at my house and turned it into an annual history-seeking road trip. Two years ago we visited Roanoke Island (A lifelong dream of mine), Kitty Hawk, and Fort Sumter. Last year we explored the historical districts of Savannah, Georgia. This year we headed north to Virginia to learn more about the Colonial period in American history.
I don’t know who owns this house or why it fell into disrepair, but I can’t get enough of it. If I wasn’t afraid some Highway Patrol Officer would cart me away for trespassing I’d explore every dusty, cobwebbed corner. Doesn’t it spark images of antebellum ghosts, pale ladies in long gowns, and supper by candlelight?
It started to rain as I trekked toward the Harriet’s Chapel historical site. It didn’t bother me. What’s a little rain when you’re standing on a Civil War battleground? But my daughter wasn’t as excited about this church (not the original) and stayed dry in the car with the iPad.
One of the best parts of visiting Colonial Williamsburg with a kid was finishing their historical scavenger hunt called RevQuest. We followed clues around the village, solved a cipher, met a spy, texted clues to receive more clues, and solved a mystery.
And because I’m a total dork I took a picture of this house because of its plethora of pleasing vertical lines.
Check back next week for part 2!
<3 Anna
Dani shrank from David’s touch. “I’m not sure what’s going on. I woke up a few minutes before you did.”
Her rejection cleared his head like nothing else could have. For a moment he’d forgotten how cold she was. “You’re not sure.” He tried to shake off her obvious revulsion. As if she hadn’t made her feelings clear a year ago. “But you have an idea?”
Spell of Binding ms pg. 13
<3 Anna
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Holden Clark walks into Rebecca Powell’s life, a tall, blue-eyed stranger who stirs long forgotten desires. But nothing, including this man, is what it seems. A dark necromancer is targeting Becca for a full-blown demonic possession. She is thrust into a world she never knew existed—a world where dark casters create chaos and necromancers talk to the dead.
Holden has no faith in his power. A necromancer, he communicates with the dead, but he has never embraced his gifts. Now, he has no choice but to stop the dark caster attacking Rebecca, but accepting this mission means he’ll be delving into dangerous magics he’s never used before.
Under the protection of the damaged and mysterious Holden, Rebecca will question everything …
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Review: Spell of Summoning is an interesting read of magic and necromancy. While I am a fan of paranormal genres, I have never heard of necromancy. When I first read the mention of it, I had a feeling I was reading out of my comfort zone. Despite that I found myself enjoying the book immensely and intrigued with the whole necromancy stuff. While I am used to reading about spells, spell weaving, shape shifting and magical healing; necromancy entails spell circles, cutting yourself and calling on spirits to help and draw energy from.
Spell of Summoning is about Necromancer, Holden Clark and Real Estate realtor, Rebecca Powell. The gist of the story is Rebecca has a demon trying to take over her and it is slowly but surely wearing down her defenses. The story is a race against time to rid Rebecca of the demon before the people responsible finish the spell. Of course this becomes an adventure but this adventure also helps both Holden and Rebecca face their inner demons and open their eyes to their trues wants in life. I do like how the chemistry between Holden and Rebecca builds slowly and that their lovemaking scene is very explosive. Though there are times I did feel like their chemistry fell a little flat at times.
This book kept me at the edge of my seat, guessing who the culprit who is trying to destroy Rebecca and unleash a scary demon out into the world. I liked how this story was a perfect balance between a plot that drags on and a fast- faced plot. I appreciated this very much. Out of five stars I would rate this a 4 for the reason that the plot, necromancy, and passion were spot on with me but with the background story of both Rebecca and Holden along with the twists and turns of the story; I felt sorry for them more than half the time.
Reviewed By Xtina
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<3 Anna
In the Dark Caster Series, I write about necromancers. In my world, they channel a spirit’s power with a lot of self control and the help of a spell circle. Most of my research came from the book A Dictionary of Symbols by JE Cirlot (1971). Here are a few of my own–very amateurish–drawings of what I imagined in my head while writing Spell of Summoning:
<3 Anna
“How old are you?” David blurted out.
“I’ll be fifteen in a month,” Emi said, narrowing her eyes at him. “So, what did you find?”
“Okay.” Truth time. David inhaled deeply and then dove in and swam. “I’m a necromancer. I communicate with spirits. Ghosts,” he clarified. “And I have been hanging out—No that sounds stupid. I’ve been talking to your brother quite a bit. He’s been helping me with some spells. But what he really wants to do is talk to you.”
Emi rolled her large, expressive eyes. “Nice try, but my mom is the one you want. She’ll write a check to anyone who says they can talk to Tony.”
Spell of Binding ms pg. 158
<3 Anna
Author Bio:
Jessie Lane is the writing team of Melissa Pahl and Crystal Leo. The two sisters-in-law share a passionate love of naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them. Because really, it is ALL about the characters.
Crystal and Melissa often live half their lives with their heads in the clouds dreaming of alpha military hunks, werewolves, and kick ass heroines.
Their first YA novel, The Burning Star, was released in May 2012. Big Bad Bite is their second novel, but their first adult paranormal romance, and it was released in January 2013. They are now working on their next three novels, Secret Maneuvers, Walk On The Striped Side, and The Frozen Star. With these projects underway, they are looking forward to showing the rest of the world the crazy stories, heroes, and heroines that often plague their minds until written, and hope you will join them on their journey!
Anna Abner: First, thank you for stopping by to talk about your paranormal novels The Burning Star and The Big Bad Bite. Can you start by telling us how you write as a team?
Crystal Leo: Melissa and I realized a long time ago that we feed off of each other’s creativity. Others might have a hard time writing with someone else, but the two of us are so alike that it doesn’t bother us at all. In fact, it’s common for one of us to pick up the phone when we’re stuck on a sentence or an idea and the other is able to know exactly where we were going with the idea and help get the ‘stuckee’ subsequently ‘unstuck’. That’s very much how the partnership began. I called Melissa to complain about what I was stuck on and she walked me right through all of the problems I had. That’s when I realized that we were on to something. So, the process between us is simple. One of us starts the story and the other adds to it and polishes it. That technique works very well for us.
AA: You’ve written both, but do you prefer writing young adult over more adult stories?
CL: I would have to say that Melissa and I feel like we can be more of ourselves in the adult genres. With the young adult genre we constantly straddle a line between what we want to write and trying to be respectful of what parents would want their children to read. So personally, I try to think in terms of, ‘Would I let my daughters read this if they were 15 or 16?’ That question usually helps me through the books. That isn’t to say that some parents still won’t have issues with some of the things we write, but we do have to be true to ourselves as writers.
AA: I loved Burning Star, book one in the Star Series. What do you have planned for future stories in the series?
Melissa Pahl: Thank you, and we’re happy you loved it! We don’t want to spoil too much, but book two, The Frozen Star, is in the works. Our goal is to release it by the end of this year. What I can tell you is that this book will focus on Kira’s journey into her new life and how everyone is working together to rescue Kay.
AA: The heroine in Burning Star has cancer. What made you decide to give Kay a terminal disease?
CL: This book was inspired by a very crazy dream I had one night. (My husband blames the Mexican food I ate, but we’ll just ignore him.) So in my dream I saw a very sick girl. When I started writing Kay’s story I chose cancer because I was hoping to shed light (and perhaps give a little bit of fantastical hope) to those kids that do suffer from cancer. Cancer runs in my family in many forms, and it’s a very hard thing to deal with. I look forward to a day where it does not exist anymore.
Anyone interested in finding out how they can help the cause of fighting cancer should check out St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and The American Cancer Society.
AA: In your novels you write about werewolves, faeries, witches, seers, and spells. Where do you draw your inspiration from?
MP: Our imaginations are always running wild. Plus, we read a lot. I personally have too many books and encyclopedias about everything ranging from mythology to the creepy paranormal. My husband started this addiction of mine with a book on Egyptian mythology and continues to feed the habit, so to speak.
AA: You mentioned encyclopedias. How much research is involved in your writing?
MP: I think we over research sometimes, which often makes for interesting emails and phone calls to one another. They normally end up with one of us laughing hysterically and spitting coffee on our computer screen.
AA: Who are your favorite authors to read in your down time?
MP: Shelly Laurensten, Kristen Ashley, Cassandra Clare, Jo Davis, Shayla Black…um I read a lot and so does Crystal. I think we will have an endless list if we keep going. Lol.
AA: When did you know you were a writer?
MP: Honestly, I’m not sure exactly when I knew, but when I was a teenager I was always writing in my journal. It was bits and pieces of quotes and poems or even lyrics that meant something. I actually still have all those books…Might need to look in them for motivation for when I get writers block.
AA: Sounds interesting! What advice would you give to struggling writers just starting out?
MP: Don’t let the negativity get you down. Not everyone will like what you write. Take the criticism with a grain of salt and learn from it. But most of all, you wrote it so be proud of it. Remember, you are a writer and no one can take that from you.
AA: What can you tell us about your upcoming projects?
CL: *rubs hands together in glee* We’ve got a lot of exciting things going on right now! Last January we released our first adult paranormal book, Big Bad Bite. It’s made a few of the Kindle bestseller categories on Amazon. That was seriously exciting! We have our first adult contemporary romance, Secret Maneuvers, scheduled to release June 15, 2013. Make sure you put it on your Goodreads ‘to-read’ list! At the end of this year readers can look for The Frozen Star (book #2 in the Star Series) to be released with a new, professionally edited version of The Burning Star. We’ll also be releasing Walk on the Striped Side (book #2 in the Big Bad Bite Series)! We’re very busy girls this year, but it’s all a work of love anyways!
Thank you for having us on your blog today Anna and readers! We enjoyed our visit and hope you’ll stop by our website to enjoy excerpts and playlists for the books!
Visit Jessie Lane at these social sites:
Thanks for stopping by, Melissa and Crystal! I wish you the best of luck in all your future projects.
<3 Anna
I’m so excited to announce the interview of Jessie Lane, author of The Burning Star and The Big Bad Bite, on my blog on Monday, March 25. Come read about how these sisters work together to write fun, action-packed paranormals.
<3 Anna