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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Shapeshifting Wolves Battle for Life and Love. Desert Moon by Anna Lowe.



Today it’s my pleasure to welcome over Anna Lowe, author of Desert Moon, Book One in The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch.

Genre: PNR 
Publisher: Twin Moon Press
Date of Publication: March 4, 2015 
ASIN: B00TEEHDPS 
Number of pages: 133
Word Count: 38,800 (roughly 40k) 
Cover Artist: Fiona Jayde

Book Description


Lana Dixon knows well enough to steer clear of alpha males, but Ty Hawthorne is as impossible to avoid as the sizzling Arizona sun. Her inner wolf just won’t give up on the alpha who’s tall, dark, and more than a little dangerous. One midnight romp under the full moon is enough for Lana to know she’ll risk her life for him — but what about her pride?

Ty puts duty above everything — even the overwhelming instinct that says Lana’s the one. She’s the Juliet to his Romeo: forbidden. And with a pack of poaching rogues closing in, it’s hardly the time to yield to his desires. Or is love just what this lonely alpha needs to set his spirit free?

There’s more than meets the eye on Twin Moon Ranch, home to a pack of shapeshifting wolves willing to battle for life and love.

Available at Amazon

Giveaway! Be sure to enter the Rafflecopter after this post for a chance to win 3 ebook copies Desert Moon.

Let’s Interview!


How did you come up with the title?

The title comes right out of the setting and the story. There's something magical about the desert at night, and a full moon brings out the impulsive and unpredictable side in all of us. It's a perfect place to throw a destined mates together – just let them try to resist the temptation! (And they do try, silly things.) 

What made you choose the main setting for your book?

I wanted a strong, moody location that could act as a character in itself and immediately knew Arizona would be the perfect setting for my dark and dangerous series. I come from the East Coast (like the heroine of Book 1, Lana) but I fell in love with Arizona the minute I arrived there for a job on a ranch. That special place quickly inspired the Twin Moon Ranch of the books, from the gateway to the dining hall with its massive stone fireplace, in addition to the overall ranch layout and the overall issues that influence the ranch management (land and water rights, environmental issues, etc). It didn't take long for my imagination to sprinkle werewolves and hot alpha heroes into a place I love and make it even better!

Tell us a little bit about the conflict in your story.

Desert Moon is a second chance love story between a thorny Romeo and his stubborn Juliet.

Lana Dixon knows well enough to steer clear of alpha males, but Ty Hawthorne is as impossible to avoid as the sizzling Arizona sun. Her inner wolf just won’t give up on the alpha who’s tall, dark, and more than a little dangerous. One midnight romp under the full moon is enough for Lana to know she’ll risk her life for him — but what about her pride? 

Ty puts duty above everything — even the overwhelming instinct that says Lana’s the one. She’s the Juliet to his Romeo: forbidden. And with a pack of poaching rogues closing in, it’s hardly the time to yield to his desires. Or is love just what this lonely alpha needs to set his spirit free?


If you had to sell your book based on one run of dialogue (start quote to end quote), which would it be?

This is one of my favorite scenes, when Ty and Lana talk for the first time in the ranch's dining hall, where everyone shares meals a couple of times a week:

                “Hi, she mumbled, her eyes meeting his. The blue hues of her irises were so varied and vivid, he could swear they were swirling and changing as he looked on.

                “Hi,” he said. Well, he tried to. His lips moved but the sound didn’t quite make it out. He struggled to remember where he was and why.

                Right, dessert. He reached for a piece of pie exactly when Lana did. Their hands froze halfway to the platter, both wavering over the key lime pie. The last slice.

                “Cody!” He cursed his brother under his breath.

                Lana pulled back. “You take it.”

                “No, you.”

                Her eyes narrowed at him. Crap. He hadn’t meant for it to come out as an order, but she was already gritting her teeth.

                “No, you,” she ground out.

                “I’m good.” He tried taking the edge off his voice, but he was badly out of practice.

                Lana studied him so closely he would swear she could see into his childhood memories. Her nostrils flared, and he saw her catch a breath and hold it. Then she slowly exhaled and turned to the platter, scooping the last piece onto the last plate. She forked it roughly in half and held it between them with icy determination.

                “We’ll share,” she growled.

                The alpha in him both bristled and admired her pluck. The wolf licked his lips — and not for the pie.

                Her eyes flickered, focusing on something in his. He noticed an outer edge of green in her eyes that he’d missed before, like the foam that slid off the crests of waves.

                “Trouble today?” she asked, keeping her voice down.

                Trouble? So she’d noticed the meeting. “No trouble,” he insisted.

                She snorted. “I do that, too.”

                “Do what?”

                “Pretend.”

                Ty blinked. “I don’t pretend.”

                “Then what’s the trouble?” She took a bite of pie and licked a smudge of cream off her lips.

                A breath caught in his throat, and a word slipped past his lips before he could catch it. “Rogues.”

                Her face hardened as some dark memory rocketed through her eyes. “Confirmed report?”

                “Not yet, but…”

                She nodded, letting him trail off. In an absent movement, her right arm rubbed briefly over her left, where a wicked scar trailed out of her sleeve.

                “Trouble?” he murmured, eyes on the scar. For a shifter to scar, it must have been bad.

                She yanked the sleeve down. “No trouble.”

                I do that, too, he wanted to say. Pretend. His gut warmed with something strangely close to pride. This East Coast wolf wasn’t just sassy; she was tough, too.


What genre/genres do you prefer to write? Are there other genres you’d like to write in the future?

I loves putting the “hero” back into heroine and letting location ignite a passionate romance, whether that's in my dark and dangerous werewolf series or the exotic and exciting travel and adventure romances I will release starting in July. In all cases, I like creating a heroine who is independent, intelligent, and imperfect – a woman who’s doing just fine on her own. But give her a good man – not to mention a chance to overcome her own inhibitions – and she’ll never turn down the chance for adventure, nor shy away from danger.

Do you prefer to write short stories, novellas or novels? Why?

I love variety, so I write a bit of everything. The Twin Moon Ranch stories are all long novellas (about 40,000 words each) while my travel romances are short novels, and the adventure romances are fast-paced novellas of 30,000 words. In between, I love writing short stories that show couples living their Happily Ever After – whether that's Lana bringing Ty home to meet her parents in Desert Wolf, or a marriage proposal up a New Zealand mountaintop between the hero and heroine of Island Fantasies (a travel romance set on a tropical island near Bora Bora). As a reader, I like variety too: sometimes I prefer a long saga, other times a weekend read, and sometimes just a quick escape into a world and characters I love.

Do you write books in series? If so, share a bit about the series you currently have published or are coming soon.

Desert Moon is the first of the Twin Moon Ranch series. Book 1 focuses on Ty, the ruling alpha's oldest son – a man whose life is heavy in responsibility and light on privilege. In Book 2, Desert Blood, his brother Cody gets center stage. The brothers are opposites: if Ty is a thundercloud, Cody is a ray of sunshine, and his life is the other way around: heavy on privilege but light on responsibility. Cody yearns to be trusted with more – and gets his chance when his destined mate Heather comes along, on the run from vampires. Book 3 is about Kyle, a cop turned shapeshifter in a biker brawl who was taken in by Twin Moon Ranch. He's still not quite settled into pack life until childhood buddy Stefanie comes along and gives him something to believe in again. Books 4 and 5 are about Ty and Cody's sisters, and you'll love them, too. All the story have different villains and different outside conflicts, such as land rights, inter-pack rivalries, and rogue incursions. And all end in sweet epilogues (I just can't resist those).

The adventure romance series I'm writing right now is set around a group of six cousins who inherit their grandfather's sailboat, Serendipity. The grandfather's last wish was for each set of siblings to reconnect by going sailing together in the Caribbean. In Uncharted Waters, responsible Seth is sailing among the gorgeous reefs of Belize with his party-boy brother Tobin when he meets Julie, an archaeologist on the run. In Uncharted Territory, Tobin gets his second chance at the woman who turned him down at the altar six years before. Now Cara is stuck in a remote Panamanian village, and Tobin's the only one who can get her out. The question is, will she let him back into her life? The series continues with Tobin and Seth's cousins as they get their turn to sail the boat, two at a time. The sailboat lives up to its name as it brings each cousin to true love through serendipito 

Excerpt


“One of Tyrone’s boys is coming to get us,” Jean said, looking up and down the road.

                Lana looked too, gnawing her lip. It figured the kid would be late. While the two older women stood in the shade of a bus stop, catching up on twelve years of news, she paced. Out into the piercing sun, then back into the muted shade. Out and back, out and back again, each footfall a step into the past, then a determined about-face into the future. She tried to numb her senses, but they kept darting around, tasting the arid flavor of this place, listening to its emptiness. Everything felt so familiar, yet so strange, like visiting a childhood home after someone else had moved in.

                That was the strange part. Arizona had never been her home and it never would be. She’d only visited once before. She went stiff at the memory, as if the old emotions might creep up and carry her away. Emotions like hope and love and unexpected passion, blazing bright. She’d been so young and impressionable back then — only twenty, and that was the problem. Too young to know better than to fall in love with a vague scent in the hills. For a while, she’d even imagined the scent came with a man.

                But it had been a siren song at best, and it had ruined her. There was no man, no promise, only a ceaseless whisper that stirred her during the day and haunted her at night. And now she was back again, right in the thick of it: the heat, the dust, the lying air.

                “Oh, there he is,” Jean called.

                A faded Jeep Wagoneer pulled up to the curb and creaked to a stop. From what Jean had said, Lana had been expecting the driver to be a newly licensed teen — a kid delighted for any excuse to get out on four wheels. The type with narrow shoulders, a pocked complexion, and gangly limbs.

                She was not expecting this.

                Lana gaped as the “boy” emerged from the car with a smooth, easy step. Evidently the state of Arizona was now issuing driver’s licenses to rugged, six-foot-two slabs of muscle and raw power. Authority bristled off him in waves, as if he were facing an entire platoon and  not just a couple of guests. Dark. Sensual. More than a little dangerous. This was their ride?

                “Hello, sweetie.” Old Jean gave him a cheery peck on the cheek. The gesture made Lana’s inner wolf hiss so fiercely that she wobbled and took a step back. Since when did a man affect her like that?

                Since right now, apparently.

                But why? She didn’t want or need a man in her life, especially one who was so…so…alpha.

                And yet every molecule in her body was screaming Mine!  

About the Author



Anna Lowe loves putting the "hero" back into heroine and letting location ignite a passionate romance. She likes a heroine who is independent, intelligent, and imperfect — a woman who's doing just fine on her own. But give the heroine a good man (not to mention a chance to overcome her own inhibitions) and she'll never turn down the chance for adventure, nor shy away from danger.

Anna is a middle school teacher who divides her time between coastal Maine and a village in view of the Austrian Alps. She loves dogs, sports, and travel — and letting those inspire her fiction.

Once upon a time, she was a long-distance triathlete and soccer player. Nowadays, she finds her balance with yoga, writing, and family time with her husband and young children. On any given weekend, you might find her hiking in the mountains or hunched over her laptop, working on her latest story. Either way, the day will end with a chunk of dark chocolate and a good read.





  


1 comment:

Mary Preston said...

A great post thank you.