Spring Fever, Hay Fever...Werewolf Fever? by Laura Hunsaker

 I have an urgent matter that must be brought to our attention! 

Spring has sprung and if you're like me, that means you're suffering from hay fever. I'm also suffering from spring fever after coming off spring break where I live. With all of that in mind, I have to know your thoughts:

 If you're allergic to dogs, would you be allergic to werewolves?

I saw an Instagram reel (linked here) and it was a woman asking an allergist if people can be allergic to werewolves in their human form. He's such a good sport and takes it seriously and professionally stating that yes, you'd probably be allergic to his human form. He goes into the whys and I loved his response. 

When we read fiction, especially Paranormal Romance, we suspend belief. So obviously our heroine isn't going to be allergic to our hero...but I kind of want to write a book where the heroine sneezes every time she's around him and can't figure out why because werewolves don't exist, of course. But how fun would that plot be? And when they finally realize that he's a werewolf, and she's allergic to dogs, so apparently she's also allergic to wolves, and therefore werewolves, they buy him special shampoo and she takes her Zyrtec and they can live happily ever after!

Obviously I'm being a bit dramatic, but I do think it could work. I co-write a hockey romance series with Heather Lire. Together we are Kenzie MacLir. We write a slightly paranormal hockey series, and our latest hero is a werewolf. Maybe his love interest needs to have a wolf allergy? ;)

So tell me your thoughts! Do you think you'd be allergic to werewolves if they existed? Or should be suspend belief and pretend that wouldn't happen? 

Amazon |  Barnes & Noble  |  Kobo  |  Google Play Books  |  Smashwords | Apple 

The New York Empires hockey team is ready for you!

Each book has 3 novellas inside, and they all take place on the same team and during the same main event.

In the latest book, ROUGHING IT, my story is called AGAINST THE BOARDS, and well look at that. Werewolves. ;)

Against the Boards by Kenzie MacLir

Kyle Sandberg is living his best life. He’s one of the top hockey players in the world. Has two amazing best friends and all the sarcastic hockey t-shirts he could wear. After his own family turns their backs on him, he’s happy playing for the Empires and hanging out with his own found family. What he doesn’t want is his pain in the ass twin brother back in his life or a mate.

When paramedic Faith Church left Puerto Rico for New York, she had zero intentions of getting involved in the local pack. Having had her fill of pack politics, she was ready to go lone wolf. But being left alone was too much to ask when her cousin was the Alpha’s mate.

What neither was counting on was Fate, having her own plans for them. A chance encounter at a traffic accident changes everything. Kyle and his wolf are willing to go with Fate’s plans. But Faith, having finally broken away from her pack’s expectations wants nothing to do with Fate, or Kyle. Too bad her wolf disagrees…

Dive Into Romance Recs by Laura Hunsaker

 As I was trying to think of what to write this month, my daughter came in to bug me and as I tried to shoo her away because I'm trying to be creative, but she cured my writer's block! 

Some background information: my kids are swimmers, and this particular child of mine actually coaches swim and teaches swim lessons. One thing she brought up for a post idea was that she would love to read a swim romance.

And it got me to thinking. I know hockey romance is huge right now, and I know football and baseball have been huge in the past. Even rugby has had some time in the sun. But swim? I can't think of a single swimmer romance. I can think of one where the hero was a swimmer in high school (a Julie Garwood novel), but it's not much more than that. 

Obviously, my brain couldn't leave it alone, and I started going through sports romances (that is one very large subgenre!) on Goodreads. Well, I found a list, but not very many of them involved swimmers. Mermaids, surfers, and beaches, yes. Olympic swimmers, not so much.

So, for my daughter's sake, can anyone think of any swim romances out there? Give me all of your recommendations!

And if you'd love some great hockey romance, don't forget that I also write hockey romance as Kenzie MacLir. The New York Empires is a unique series where each book is an anthology with 3 stories that overlap. It's also slightly paranormal. Except for my latest one. Werewolves playing hockey are the best, and Roughing It definitely has werewolves playing hockey.

Amazon   | Barnes & Noble   | Kobo   | iBooks  | Smashwords   | Google Play

Look For the Magic by Laura Hunsaker

 In my free short story Amethyst Heat I wrote in a magical ring from the heroine’s aunt Gilly. She doesn't know that it's magic, of course. Not until something big happens. This ring sends our heroine back through time. When people ask writers how they get their ideas, which we do hear often, that's something that doesn't always have an easy answer. But with this story, I do have an easy answer!

I based the idea off of a ring my own aunt gave me when I was a child. While mine definitely hasn’t sent me through time, it does have a bit of its own magic.

See this ring?

My aunt gave it to me when I was seven. She passed away the next year, so while it was already special, that made it even more so. I wore this ring every day until I was ten when I lost it in the summer camp rec center pool. I searched so much for that ring, I had friends helping, camp counselors, and we didn't even catch a hint of the ring. In a crazy twist of fate, I found it 3 months later in the pool drain (that we'd already searched months ago!) when I was diving for (ha) rings.

I called it my lucky ring and wore it for years, even as beat up as it was from the pool filter incident, until I lost it on a choir trip in high school. We were going up to Utah for a couple of days, and I found it on the bus ride back. It was on the seat. I did not sit in the same seat as I had before. Seriously. Lucky ring, guys. So by this point I put it in my jewelry box so I wouldn’t lose it.

Amethyst Heat was the first thing I wrote (2009) and it's very super short, but even though my ring isn't an amethyst, it was the inspiration for the story.

Around 2016, the magic was still working, because I let my youngest wear it. She was three, and I never saw it again...until about two years later! My youngest found it on the ground in my room. We vacuum daily in my household. Daily. How is this ring just chilling on the ground for two years?! It’s once more in my jewelry box for safekeeping. Lucky ring is lucky.

Amethyst Heat is a very short story, about seven pages long, if that. And it's free!

           Kindle  |  Barnes and Noble  |  Kobo  |  Google Play  |  Smashwords

Add short story Amethyst Heat to your shelves on Goodreads



While out riding, Meg McMurray finds herself on unfamiliar lands. Gone are the long expanses of Oklahoma prairie, and in front of her are the wild Scottish Highlands. How did she come to be there, and did Aunt Gilly's amethyst ring have anything to do with it?

A sweet romance set in the Highlands of Scotland.

IT'S A MAGICAL TIME OF YEAR

By Caroline Clemmons

Is it just me, or does this time of year excite everyone? I suppose I’ve never gotten over a childhood anticipation of the Christmas season. Do you feel the magic in the air?

I no longer venture into department stores on Black Friday, but I have in the past. In fact our youngest daughter and I used to wait in line until a store opened and then weaved our way through the crowd to obtain the bargain we sought. But the season is more than snapping up bargains! For Christians, it's a time to celebrate the birth of Christ--even though we have no idea of the real day of his birth. I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what the season represents for all the other religions, except for those who are Jewish.

But that's not the point. Don’t you find people kinder and friendlier at this time of year? To me, it seems people of all religions are even nicer during the holiday season. No matter the religion, there are holidays from the middle of November through the middle of January. Don’t be offended if someone offers “Happy Holidays.” That’s a phrase to celebrate with everyone. 

The twelve days of Christmas begin on December 25th through January 6th.

We always plan to have decorations up and ready to turn on the day after Thanksgiving. Seldom do we manage that goal. Currently, we’re decorating the inside of our house. The outside lights and figures went up yesterday. Each year we add to our decorations, even though we have quite a few—a couple of wire reindeer, an angel, a small Merry Christmas sign, a wreath on the door, lights along the eaves, and a nutcracker/soldier by the front door. 

Last year, someone stole our lighted candy canes. I suspect it was kids on a dare. The theft didn’t dampen my spirit for the season, but it made me sad for the thieves. This year, Hero bought more candy canes. We’re hoping the thieves don’t return.

Our youngest daughter is as much a fan of decorating as I am, so we should have every surface covered. LOL We find magic in the air during this season, which is my favorite time of the year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. Wishing you the best this year and in those to come, and that your heart is filled with magic.

 

When Words Turn On You by Laura Hunsaker

 Moist, and other words.

Words are beautiful. You can have a bunch of words and turn them into a lush and descriptive sentence. You can evoke a scent, a memory, an entire world with words alone! They can turn you on...

And they can turn on you...

I noticed the other day I had no other word to use at work than moist. Mmooiiiisstttt. I swear this word has texture and heft.

One coworker cringed,and the other said she doesn't get why everyone hates that word? It got me to thinking, I don’t really know either? Are there more words like moist that we don’t like? Is anything worse than moist? My teenagers tell me moist is the cringiest word. So I did what any well-adjusted adult would do. I asked Twitter.

These are all answers I got that were mentioned by two or more people:

Phlegm.

Spunk

Damp

crusty

oozing

spurt

Soggy

squelch

gushy

soppin

turgid

The number one word is so gross I won't actually post it, and it did actually have several mentions.

I noticed most of the words people don't like either have to do with being wet (heh moist), or both sound gross, and mean something gross (phlegm).

So share with me your cringeworthy words. Do you agree/disagree with the list I so scientifically compiled through my Twitter ;)

And I absolutely promise, I don't use the word moist at all in my books!

Check them out here on my website www.laurahunsaker.com

Amazon  | Barnes and Noble  |  Kobo  |  Apple Books  |  Smashwords  |  New Concepts Publishing

Mackenzie Stewart is in Scotland for a much-needed vacation. During the castle tour, Mackenzie becomes completely enamored with a painting of one of the previous lairds. Two gentlemen come up behind her and, begging her pardon, they kidnap her, dragging her through time.

The men are sorcerers attempting to end a feud that has plagued their lands for years. Their patron has begun to dabble in the black arts, and between his irrational thirst for power, and his dark secret, the sorcerers are frightened. They believe Mackenzie can break the Stewart curse. They try to convince her to play along with their crazy scheme: marriage to the evil John Campbell.

Before Mackenzie can protest, her carriage is halted and the door thrown open. For a split-second she is arrested by the same beautiful piercing blue eyes that belonged in an oil painting.

Mackenzie then finds herself the victim of a second kidnapping...

Her new captor, however, does nothing but tempt her body and her temper. Believing her to in fact be the betrothed of his mortal enemy the Campbell, Connor MacRae originally sets out to capture his enemy’s betrothed. He never thought he would be so attracted to her that he’d want to keep her.

Magical Realism

by Rain Trueax

Writers generally, I believe, start with a genre where they feel more natural writing. If they are fortunate, it's one that resonates with readers. If they continue to love writing in it, they can do it for their entire careers. I know writers like that and have enjoyed books by some of them. I actually envy them.

It didn't work that way for me. From the first book I wrote, back in my mid-20s, I would vary between historical and contemporary. I'd write what caught my interest. Since I wasn't trying to publish, sales didn't matter. I could and did follow the muse, wherever it took me. When I began to publish, that changed and I did think whether something would appeal to my readers. I can't say I wrote for getting readers, but I did think about that end of writing. Historicals definitely were more liked than my contemporaries. I might not meet the genre expectation where it comes to contemporary romances-- or I haven't found the right place to get them seen.

What I was not expecting was another change-- that my inspiration would turn to the realm of fantasy for those contemporary romances. The idea for books about witches came from driving around Barrio Viejo in Tucson. It's an old, historic neighborhood and has a strong feeling of mysticism about it. How could it not with El Tiradito, a wishing shrine dedicated to a sinner, in its heart? 

That year, as we drove its streets, I thought what if there were witches here, women who were dedicated to protecting their community and using their powers, women who were very human in all ways other than their ability to apparate, throw plasma bolts, communicate with other beings, etc. In front of one of the homes, I saw a motorcycle parked and it brought it to the physical world.

What if it was four sisters, their widowed mother, and their grandmothers? Committed to their family, these women would work together on all the dangerous things they faced. Although they had powers, they would be perfectly normal in all other ways with needing a job, wanting a purpose, finding a mate, and having a normal lifespan where they could be killed. I kept their powers to the ones I've heard mystics and others have when they are open to receiving earth energies-- things like communicating with the other side-- seeing what others cannot. Now, I have not heard of mystics throwing power bolts but why not if they needed them, since the plasma is from the earth.

Two of the books came pretty fast-- Dangerous Match and Vislogus. I put them out. The inspiration slowed down as I waited for the next ones. The romance of the youngest sister was Complicated Bargain. It took longer to find the last sister her mate, Unfinished Business.  

All along, I knew the mother had to have a romance, but who would be the man at her side? That took another year. Ever as Before went in a direction I had not expected, always fun. It came out end of January, right before Imbolc, when it is set. (I hadn't expected that there would be more in that family's story but there are going to be-- novellas though as these were all full-length novels).

When you are a writer and change genres, which although these are romances, they are also different from the historicals for the plots-- especially the magick, you hope to bring your readers with you. It doesn't always happen. I brought a few but for many, who prefer historicals, a witch is a bridge too far. 

What I've thought about recently is what drew me to write fantasy romances-- especially since I know that historicals are what my readers have wanted. It has to take a strong motivation, and I had it with my desire to tell a story of a mystical family's dedication to community. I saw that they wanted to protect humans, who did not have their powers from enemies they could not see.

I was attracted to the idea of 'spiritual/magical' powers due to the times in which we live. We see so much random violence. We have times we see things going on that we wish we could change. What if we had the power to do just that? How would we use it? Sometimes short-term bad can lead to a higher good..maybe. It would take a family dedicated to teaching a wise use of those powers.

When writing a fantasy, which I also call paranormal but it doesn't really fit the genre's requirements today, it's fun to be able to control the world, to determine which fantasy creatures make the cut. In my books, it's often gnomes, but also elementals, ghosts, and monsters. Not all fantasy creatures are on the side of humans, but some ghosts can be,as they repay a karmic debt. My information on mysticism and especially monsters came from researching prehistoric peoples and the beings they saw and believed were out there. How did their shamans deal with them?

I've written now 7 books in Mystic Shadows. They are not all connected to the Hemstreet witches. The first, Sky Daughter, was written in the '90s where I first explored the idea of a world beyond our normal senses and what witches might actually be. As I wrote that one, I debated whether there would be something 'out there' or was it all the heroine's imagination. The second, Diablo Canyon, in 2014 came as a result of a spiritual dream that led to a desire to share it in a romance. Then came the Hemstreets finally concluding (I thought) with the mother's story-- which went a direction I had not expected.

Little by little, I came to better see the world I had created, where I am currently writing a sixth about the witch family (eighth in the Mystic Shadows series)-- It is more though about being 'different' while it explores family dynamics. What happens when one doesn't fit with the others? 

My books come because of the muse/Muse. And what is the muse? I don't know, but it comes through to me with dreams, coincidences, and being open in my own life to new influences. I follow it to keep it coming.

Following inspiration where it takes me may not make me a lot of money. It does satisfy my creative desire to share what comes to me. I also believe that fantasy will be what readers will come to want as the zeitgeist changes (and it always changes). My stories are more whimsical than violent. These stories of magical realism are set in a world that I'd like to think is out there even if I don't see it. 

Fantasy writing can be exploring imaginary worlds or our own. I don't plan a long ways in the future for my writing (only two stories are lined up). I could go back to historical (I had some in mind for that) but for now, I like setting myself into romantic fantasy with what might be...

For now, these books are exclusive to Amazon for purchase or to borrow in Kindle Unlimited. That will change at an uncertain date, later this year, when they go wide. If you are in KU, you might want to give them a try now.

Dangerous Match

Vislogus

Complicated Bargain

Unfinished Business

Ever as Before 

Blurb for Ever as Before:

Widowed for 16 years, Maria has devoted herself to fighting evil, using her powers under the authority of the Light, and raising her daughters. Now, she has an empty nest, with the last one married, and soon to have her first grandchild. For many women, that would be more than enough, but something new is threatening Tucson, created by a ranking demon with the intent of destroying Maria's family. She uses her degree on psychology to start a talk radio program in order to draw the new risk to her and keep her daughters safe. It won't be enough. She will need help, and it is coming from the other side-- She won't welcome it.
 

Looking for a new read for Imbolc with a vibrant older woman. How about throwing in a few of the living dead as a threat? A particularly determined demon, and a 'surprise encounter' as the seasonal veil is drawn thin before the new light?

Natural born witches, of course as this is 7th in the Mystic Shadows series stories that move beyond what we consider physical reality to something else— something that might be possible says quantum science. With gnomes, warlocks, shamans, and an alchemical aspect to how evil can be fought and contained? A mix of physical reality and what might be?