Hi, everyone! Today, author Zoe Winters is taking over the blog–she’s chatting about her new release and offering a giveaway. Ā Thanks for coming by, Zoe!
***
Dystopia: Coming to a Zoe Winters Book Near You: With Free Prize Inside! (And… $2.99 Release Day Sale!)
Thank you so much to Cindy for hosting me on the release day for my newest book! Itās been a while since Iāve been here.
I often feel like Iām the last person on every train. When I started writing vampires (not the only paranormal species in my seriesābut one of them), everyone was saying āvampires are over.ā And of course now ādystopians are overā. But I love them so much. I love these end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories and the Big Brother creepiness. And I love it in all flavors, from Ally Condeās Matched series to Margaret Atwoodās uber creepy and terrifying A Handmaidās Tale.
At some point I wanted to get around to trying something in the dystopian category, and if I could keep my vampires, werewolves, and demons, so much the better. In my current book, Unleash The Moon, I get to start doing that. š
For the past 8 years Iāve been writing in a world Iāve fallen in love with. My mom always said I donāt stick with anything. Apparently there are things I stick with. If it is ābadā, has fangs, and rock-hard abs, Iām so so loyal.
And as I come to the end of this particular series, I find that Iām just getting started with this world and many of these characters, but I want readers to have a lot of little side doors by which to find and engage with world. So there will be series like this one, stand alones, trilogies, and serials all happening in this big sandbox Iāve been quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) building.
If I could sound byte the Preternaturals series for the new people, the basic theme is: āEveryone is the hero of his own story (and the villain of somebody elseās)ā. What Iāve enjoyed about writing this series the most is creating heroes who then become villains (at least from another heroās perspective), and villains who become heroes. And then some you donāt know what theyāre going to do.
I like the amoral shades of gray where no one is absolute good or absolute evil. Itās more interesting to me when good people sometimes do terrible things or bad people extend mercy to someone unexpectedly.
I like when weak characters find their strength and strong characters discover a weakness.
In this series I have many different paranormal factions: Vampires, Demons, Angels, Therians (shapeshifting species), Guardians (fallen angels… also a demon breed technically), Magic Users (of different stripes: mostly human), and of course the garden-variety Humans. (Yes, I really did just capitalize all that. Donāt judge me.)
And they are all at odds which each other over humans finding out their secret, over control of both the preternatural world and the regular world, on how society is even going to run as the ground shifts under their feet.
And in the middle of that running backstory… the backdrop the romance happens against… we meet these couples in each book who develop their own romances as the gang gets created and they all come together to try to find a commonality for survival.
Those whoāve read my series and are up to date, in the 6th and final book (of this series, but not the world!), we will be going 26 years into the future for Sydney and Noahās book. Sydney is Anthony and Charleeās daughter and Noah is Jane and Coleās son. (If youāre familiar with the series, these names mean something. Nobody ever sat me down to explain the difficulty of figuring out how to market a series this far into it. So apologies for the eye-sporking quantity of random information being thrown at you.)
Unleash The Moon, is the book I get to introduce some of the slightly dystopian elements… setting you up for the dark paranormal serial Iāll be releasing next spring which will happen in this world being set up.
The first book in my Preternaturals series, Blood Lust, will either be free or 99 cents by the time you read thisāand depending on which store you go to. (Sales transitions are tricky, and weāre going from free back to 99 cents for the first book. But either way is a great way to get into this series if youāre new.)
Blood Lust can be found for free or 99 cents at:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Lust-Preternaturals-Book-1-ebook/dp/B004183MZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414954235&sr=8-1&keywords=blood+lust+zoe
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/blood-lust-the-preternaturals-book-1
Barnes and Noble:Ā http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blood-lust-zoe-winters/1100247180?ean=2940150489257
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Zoe_Winters_Blood_Lust?id=6tSLBAAAQBAJ
Hereās a description for the new book, Unleash The Moon (which you actually can read out of order like any of my other titles. Readers generally pick the book that sounds best to themāor whatās on saleāthen go back to the beginning to read the rest.):
Unleash The Moon:
ā¦ Can two souls trapped in separate cages ever find each other?
Twenty-six years have passed since the link between heaven and earth was severed and all hell broke loose. The fighting raged until the human magic users took over the cities, driving most of the preternaturals into hiding.
This is the world Sydney Burgess has grown up in, locked inside her fatherās compound. As the daughter of a human mother and a vampire king, she has all the weaknesses of a vampire but none of their strengths. Anthony keeps her on a tight leash, ever-vigilant against the constant imagined threats to her safety. But all she wants is to break free and start a real life.
Noah Riley has lived in captivity for the past twenty years, so long he barely knows how to be a werewolf anymore. Even with a photographic memory, most of his past before the facility feels fuzzy at best. His strongest memories are of the little girl he protected during his childhood: Sydney. When he reaches his full power on his twenty-eighth birth moon, heāll have a chance to break free to find her and finally reunite with his family.
But vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies. Even if Sydney is Noah’s true mate, the vampire king would kill him before he ever let a filthy werewolf near her, especially one of questionable sanity.
Unleash The Moon is on introductory sale, today only for $2.99 (regular retail $4.95) at:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Unleash-Moon-Preternaturals-Book-6-ebook/dp/B00OKIUIAK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1414954307&sr=1-1&keywords=zoe+winters
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/unleash-the-moon
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Zoe_Winters_Unleash_The_Moon?id=teznBAAAQBAJ
Unleash The Moon is also available at Barnes and Noble but unfortunately not for sale (long, boring marketing story you donāt want to hear.):
Barnes and Noble $4.95: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unleash-the-moon-zoe-winters/1120627387?ean=2940046361919&itm=1&usri=unleash+the+moon
If youād like to know more about the reading order for the series go here (Even though reading in order isnāt strictly necessary, some people really like to read in order no matter what. So here you go):
http://zoewintersbooks.com/books-in-the-preternaturals-series/
If youāre a reader/fan and youād like to know what is coming next, go here for that:
http://zoewintersbooks.com/2014/10/29/where-does-the-pretverse-go-from-here/
If youāre new and youāre like āWow, this is SO much information without really telling me anything at all to judge whether or not Iām into thisā… you might want to check out an excerpt for Unleash The Moon here:
Ā http://zoewintersbooks.com/2014/10/23/unleash-the-moon-sneak-peek-pre-order-links-at-the-bottom-new-outlets-added/
GIVEAWAY:
And now… I want to do a giveaway. Iām going to give two signed copies of Unleash the Moon to commenters in the comments section. Iām happy to answer any questions you have about the series or any of the characters or about where weāre going in the future. If your post contains spoilers, please write SPOILERS, and I will do the same if my reply contains spoilers.
Donāt forget to grab Blood Lust on free or super sale while it is that way… and Unleash the Moon while itās on sale for $2.99 (today only!)
And, tonight Iāll be having a release day party with some more giveaways at my Facebook page from 8pm to 10pm Eastern. Be there! Come chat with me! š I love talking to my readers. (And my maybe potential future readers. Also, I swear I have not had any Red Bull today.)
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zoe-Winters/216919815012598
Okay… hit me with comments. š (If you can recover from all that blah blah.)