Finishing Up the Party with Dale Mayer Back to Blog
Update: Time to announce the winners! For Dale’s post, we have the following winners:
JackieW–Tuesday’s Child
Dale’s winners: JackieW–Tuesday’s ChildBethie: Hide N’Go SeekB&N card:
Heater
This is it…the last party post of the day. Where has the time gone? Thanks so much for celebrating with me!! And as a thank you, in addition to the lovely prizes that Dale is offering with this post (thanks, Dale!), I will also offer up a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card to a commenter because everyone has been so awesome today, and I want to say THANK YOU!!
I first met Dale Mayer when she and I were paired together for the Brava Writing With the Stars Contest. I quickly realized–Dale knew how to write some great romantic suspense. In fact, her book, TUESDAY’S CHILD has been nominated for BEST PNR – PSYCHIC TALENT (2011) by The Romance Reviews. Go, Dale! And Dale has a new book that I can’t wait to read…
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Here’s the blurb for the book:
Hide’n Go Seek blurb (book 2 in the Psychic Vision series)
A twisted game of Hide’n Go Seek forces an unlikely alliance between a no-nonsense FBI agent and a search-and-rescue worker.
Celebrated search-and-rescue worker Kali Jordon has hidden her psychic abilities by crediting her canine partner Shiloh with the recoveries. But Kali knows the grim truth—The Sight that she inherited from her grandmother allows her to trace violent energy unerringly to victims of murder. No one knows her secret until a twisted killer challenges her to a deadly game of Hide’n Go Seek that threatens those closest to her.
Now she must rely on FBI Special Agent Grant Summers, a man who has sworn to protect her, even as he suspects there’s more to Kali and Shiloh than meets the eye. As the killer draws a tighter and tighter circle around Kali, she and Grant find there’s no place to hide.
Are her visions the key to finding the latest victim alive or will this twisted game of Hide’n Go Seek cost her…everything.
Amazon link – http://amzn.com/B005Y8538W
Allromanceebooks.com – http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-hide039ngoseekaparanormalromanticsuspense-624870-140.html
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And an excerpt…
Twenty minutes later, Kali made her way to the kitchen. She fed Shiloh on the deck in the morning sunlight. Running her fingers through her shoulder-length hair, she remembered last night’s painting. She headed to her studio to take a look. She’d almost reached it when apprehension washed over her.
The door was closed.
She never closed the door after painting. It wasn’t good for the wet canvases, besides, the room only had a small window so the paint fumes built up fast. A frown wrinkled her forehead. Had she simply forgotten? She had been deadly tired last night.
Bolstering her courage, she pushed the door wide and flinched as the fumes rushed out almost stinging her nose. “Oh gross.”
Holding her breath, Kali crossed to the window, shoving it as far open as it would go. Fresh air surged into the small space. She’d love a huge studio, except painting wasn’t exactly a full time career for her – no matter how much she’d like it to be. It was a release for when depression and madness overcame her soul. Maybe later, when she no longer did rescue work, she could indulge her art as a creative hobby instead of as an outlet of pain and turmoil.
Walking around the easel, Kali stopped midstride.
The painting stood where she’d left it. With surreal and strangely enticing clarity, blacks and purples and browns popped off the canvas. Heavy paint splotched at places, then thinned and stretched across the top.
She stepped back and frowned. Up close, besides the heavy amount of paint, the picture resembled a distorted nightmare. Not surprising. Still, she caught a glimmer of an intentional design. She tilted her head and looked at it from a different angle. Nothing changed.
Sniffing the air, Shiloh ambled into the doorway.
Kali smiled down at the dog. “Not very sweet smelling, is it?”
She glanced back at the jumble of colors and stilled. There. She studied the abstract mess, letting the colors move and form to reveal the image hidden within.
Shivers slid over her spine.
Oh my God.
No way.
Kali blinked. It was.
There was no mistaking the image of a person buried under small bushes, civilization of some kind crouched on the horizon with a series of rough rock formations soaring behind the bushes.
“What the hell?” she whispered.
Kali was not a great artist, by any means. Blind escapism kept bringing her back to the process because it worked. She painted with wild abandon. The paint slapped on canvas with no thought discharged her emotions. For some reason it always worked.
And it always looked like shit.
This, on the other hand, was ingenious. Sure the subject matter was gruesome; however, given her volunteer work, not unexpected. Especially after finding the letter.
The artistic abandon was still there. The paint was so thick in spots the picture was almost three-dimensional. The terrain had depth and movement. The light was dark and terse, yet still shone with gruesome clarity—and way beyond her artistic abilities.
“It’s fucking brilliant.”
It was also scary as hell.
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Scary as hell…interesting way to end the day. 🙂 But let’s go with that scary line…what scares you? Leave a comment to be entered to win a copy of Tuesday’s Child and copy of Hide’n Go Seek. And don’t forget, commenters to this post will also be entered in the giveaway to win the $20 Barnes & Noble gift certificate. Good luck! Thanks for coming to the party!
Book sounds awesome added to my wish list.
Cynthia thanks for a great day of excerpts and well making my wish list longer.
As to what scares me, heights and spiders are the worst. Clowns don’t scare me but they do creep me out…although they never did when I was a child but they sure do now..
Hi Jeanna,
Isn’t that a great thing about excerpts? Our TBR piles never stop growing. Lol.
Most people outgrow their fears, not grow into them! Lol.
Thanks for stopping by!
Bugs… scary movies… I am a scary cat. 🙂
Thanks for all the giveaway and the guest author blog. I have had a great time reading it and learned about some interesting books that I am thinking of buying!
Hi May,
Thanks for stopping by. Cynthia sure knows how to throw a good party, doesn’t she?
I hear you on the movies. Love ’em AND hate ’em!
Thanks so much for helping me to celebrate, Dale! And congrats on your success!
Hi Cynthia,
THANK YOU! It’s always so much fun to help you celebrate. Thanks for the congrats! It’s been a fun ride.
Major congrats on your new release – my TBR pile is about to topple over. Lol.
This economy scares me. Oh, and bugs and snakes.
Hi Anne,
Oh, good answer. The economy IS scary right now, isn’t it?
Thanks for stopping by!
I am terribly scared of heights. I am also freaked out by mice. Will scream like a little girl. I would love to win the gift card because there are a few of your books I would love to buy. Thanks Cynthia and congrats on the new release. Love the sexy guy on the cover. Thanks for the giveaway and the chance to win.
Hi Chris,
Mice? Interesting. I hadn’t considered them. I don’t have a problem with them, but then my cat brings me live ones that I return to the garden. :p
Thanks for being part of the party!
What a wonderful and exciting celebration. Congratulations to Ms. Eden on your new release and also to Ms. Mayer on the Best PNR nomination.
What scares me is ticks! They creep me out just thinking about them.
Hi Chris,
It’s been a fun celebration – thanks for joining in! Also thanks on the nomination congrats for my nomination. I have to admit I’m pretty stoked about it!
Ghosts and spirits scare the hell out of me. I think they are real but have never seen one and definitely don’t want to. They are just spooky. Also spiders, ugh, I hate spiders.
Hi Leagh,
Ghosts and spirits don’t bother me – but some of the stories I’ve heard sound pretty scary. If I met a nasty ghost, then that’s a whole different story.
Thanks for stopping by!
I can’t believe I almost missed this, need to pay more attention 🙂 This book sounds great, added to my wishlist
Hi Jolene!
Cynthia’s party was a little bigger this year so I was a little later in the evening – and today, of course!
Glad you made it!
I’m scared of bugs, especially wasps and spiders. Ugh hate them!
Hi Mariee,
Wasps – oh that’s the first that one has come up. But it makes total sense. So many people are allergic and every year there are deaths caused by wasps. Scary indeed!
Thanks for stopping by!
This book sounds absolutely intense and edge-of-your-seat!!! Gotta get me some of that! What scares me beyond anything in this world is the thought of something bad happening to my husband or children (my husband says I have a very overactive sometimes gruesome imagination because I have very vivid, scary nightmares and I can recall them with almost perfect clarity)! I have your average fears of silly inconsequential stuff like spiders, heights (this would be my biggest phobia), but the thought of something bad happening to my loved ones just absolutely shuts me down to a non-functioning pile of person. Thank God that I have nightmares only rarely but the ones I have had are enough to make me totally worthless for the day and drive everyone idiotic with my need to be all sweet and nice to them LOL!
Hi Lora!
It is such an intense edge-of-your-seat book!!! That’s how I like em!
I can so relate on having something bad happening to my family. I can’t think of anything worse. Here’s hoping nothing like that ever happens to you like that.
Thanks for stopping by!
It scares me that our country is in such bad shape…oh, and snakes.
Hi Jackie,
You’re the second one to mention the economy – or the country in specific. It is scary times, isn’t it?
Thanks for stopping by!
Creepy crawlies scares me! They’re so small but their prickly fur, beady eyes and slime eeks me.
Hi Na,
Nice description – prickly fur, beady eyes and slime! Can’t say too many of us would be wanting to have a closer relationship to that! Yuck. Lol.
Thanks for stopping by.
Snakes scare me!
Hi Sherry,
Snakes have to be second on this growing list of things that scare people!
I don’t mind them if I see them first. It they slither out and surprise me…yeah, so not liking that!
Thanks for helping to make Cynthia’s party a success!
weirdly sad, but I’m afraid of being an orphan. recently lost my mom and realized how suddenly you can lose a loved one. now I’m afraid of losing my dad. sorry for the downer.