Special Guest Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy & GIVEAWAY!!

Romance author Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy stops by this week to tell us all about her new release, LOVE KNOTS. Don’t forget to leave a comment to win a copy of your very own!

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Somewhere in the distant mists of time, it began – this human fascination with creatures of the night.  Somehow, for some reason that I don’t begin to fathom, many of us find such beings sexy and sensual.   Even though I don’t understand the appeal, I feel it too and have since I was still a little girl.   Although I feel a pull toward the dark and erotic, perhaps the one that has always fascinated me the most would the vampire.

The mystique exists, however, and continues to grow with the popularity of Edward from the Twilight series, Jean-Claude from Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books, and many others.  If I can believe what some readers say about my truck driving, cigarillo smoking Irish vampire, Will Brennan, then he joins other fictional vamps who will be long remembered.

Will is the hero in my popular Love Covenant series that began with Love Tattoo.  All the novels in the series are told by heroine Cara Riley, a Texas gal singer with a lot of moxie and a thing for Will.  He adds a little from his point of view every few chapters, third person.

This week, the third novel in the series, Love Knots, is out from Evernight Publishing.

Here’s the blurb:

After surviving the wrath of a wicked she-vampire bent on revenge, Will and Cara Brennan have a new task – finding Will’s brother that Sallie Hawkins made a vampire centuries ago.  Both bear the scars of their battle but they’re glad to be alive and together.

Cara wants to find the only family Will has in this world and so they set out on a search for Seamus that takes them from Memphis to the rough bars of Oklahoma, Las Vegas casinos, to Hollywood Boulevard and to New Orleans.  Along the way, their love deepens and the sensual connection they share heightens.

Whether or not they find Seamus isn’t the only issue – they have no way of knowing whether he has gone wicked or if he’s an average vamp like them.   The journey defines their love as the story told in the Love Covenant series continues in Love Knots.

And an excerpt from Love Scars, book three in my Love Covenant series from Evernight Publishing:

I stood, staring at the infinite ocean as it swept out to the farthest horizon, as far west as I could see, spread out north to south as well.   The night sky stretched above me, just as endless and vast.   I felt so small and yet not insignificant at all but empowered.  If I needed a visual to define eternal, to paint a picture of what an everlasting love that I shared with Will, then there could be none better than this moment.   I stared; eyes open wide and made a mental image, a brain snapshot to last forever, something to keep and remember always.

I wanted to sweep all of it into my arms, to embrace the ceaseless space, the immeasurable beauty, and the ageless wonder of the sea, the sky by night.   I have no idea how long I stood there as the waves washed up around my feet, silent and yet filled with more emotion than I could ever select words to express but Will stood beside me, just as quiet, my hand clasped in his.   We were part of this and we remained one.  When I turned to him, eyes brimming with joyful tears, heart overflowing with love, he faced me and with his own eyes shimmering with moisture, he spoke words now familiar to me because he used them before.

Now, however, the beautiful poetry resonated with even more meaning for us both,

“And yet I wish but for the thing I have, my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite.”

The immensity of his love overwhelmed me, the power more enormous than anything, greater than any man made wonder.  The scope of it stretched beneath the timeless stars, the wonder of it expanded through whatever heart I possessed, and brimmed over to flood my soul.  What I had with Will Brennan, I thought, was worth all I gave up to claim it and whatever I might face at the end of time; I could because of this love.

The truth of that sang in my soul, a greater, stronger song that any I ever attempted to sing before.  I wished I knew as much poetry as he did, Shakespeare or otherwise, but instead, the words that came into my mouth came, as usual, from a song.   Suzi Quatro and Chris Norman did a song that I loved back in the late 1970’s, vintage but with lyrics I loved so I sang some of them to Will now,

“Our love is alive and so it begins, foolishly laying our hearts on the table, stumbling in, our love is a flame, burning within.”

He opened his arms to me, as broad and open as the vast panorama of water, wind, and sky spread out around us and I walked into them.  I came home into his embrace and all the emotion, strong and potent, welled up in me and exploded so that I wept in his arms.   I sobbed not with sadness but with immeasurable joy, rich feelings too volatile to contain.   He wept, too, for I felt the rain of his tears, the tremors of his body against mine.   After we spent our emotions, poured them into one another, we sat down on the sand, wrapped together and listened to the wondrous night music of God.

Links:
My Amazon Author page:

http://www.amazon.com/Lee-Ann-Sontheimer-Murphy/e/B004JPBM6I/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1311439921&sr=8-1

My blog – A Page In The Life

http://leeannsontheimermurphywriterauthor.blogspot.com

Facebook: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Twitter: @leeannwriter

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***UPDATE****

AND THE WINNER IS… BRANDY UMPHREYS-BLAKE!!!

Thank you everyone for stopping by!