Monday, July 22, 2013

SIZZLING SUMMER GIVEAWAY (TWO KINDLE FIRE HD's): Guest Post with Carrie Butler, author of the Mark of Nexus Series

I'm so excited to be able to bring you a guest post from Carrie Butler, the author of Strength and the soon to be released Courage, as part of the Sizzling Summer Giveaway. And don't forget to enter the giveaway for one of the amazing prizes on offer!!!

About Strength (Mark of Nexus #1)

When college student Rena Collins finds herself nose-to-chest with the campus outcast, she’s stunned. Wallace Blake is everything she’s ever wanted in a man—except he can’t touch her. His uncontrollable strength, a so-called gift from his bloodline, makes every interaction dangerous. And with a secret, supernatural war brewing among his kind, there’s no time to work it out. To keep Wallace in her life, Rena will have to risk a whole lot more than her heart.

10 Ways to Tell Your Crush is Hiding Superpowers
(With Examples from Strength - Mark of Nexus #1)

10. He’s the subject of rumors.

...Word got around last semester that muffled screams and thuds were coming from this guy Wallace’s room every night—and not the kinky kind, either. He’d been isolated since

his roommate went off the radar in September, and from what I’d heard, never had visitors. For all any of us knew, he’d built a torture chamber in there and smuggled his victims in at night. What were we supposed to think with all that noise?

9. He runs into you, and then flees the scene.

He seemed uncomfortable, looking past me. “Sorry.” Without another word of explanation, he edged around me, taking long strides down the hallway.

8. He leaves bruises.

Okay, that was just weird. Faint, purplish blotches marked both shoulders, with five distinctive spots on each arm. They almost looked like—

“Are those handprints?”

7. He’s too hot to be human.

I wondered how he’d never caught my eye before. Even without knowing who he was, I should’ve noticed someone like him. I mean, the man had some serious muscles outlined beneath that thermal Henley. The thick, gray material was stretched tight across his triceps and the wide expanse of his back. It was all I could do to keep from snapping a photo with

my phone.

6. He shows up when you least expect him.

“Rena?”

I looked up as a figure emerged from the white void of snowfall. The snow dusted his broad shoulders as he took long, measured strides toward me, his black coat flapping in the wind.

5. He’s an outcast.

“Of course I knew. You think I don’t notice that people around here won’t make eye contact with me? That they edge around me in the elevator?” He shook his head, a little too blasé

about the whole thing. “I’m not stupid.”

4. He gives cryptic answers.

“I do want to confide in you.” His strained voice broke me free of my musings. “But, you’ve got to understand I just…can’t.”

3. He can’t hide the evidence.

The truck continued to hum, vibrating as it idled. I looked away, about to say something else, when my gaze locked on his steering wheel. It had been completely crushed on one side, cracks branching out from deep, uneven slopes.

2. You’re inexplicably drawn to him.

Maybe that was why another part of me—a very small part—had wanted to kiss Wallace then. Both sides of his mouth, between his brows, and every other place those stupid worry

lines marred his expression. That part of me had wanted to hold him tight and give him the comfort I knew he couldn’t ask for.

But that part terrified me the most.

1. He needs to tell you something.

“No.” He closed his eyes for a long, agonizing moment while I waited with suspended breath. “What I’m trying to say is—“

Oops! We better cut it off there. ;) Thank you for having me!

❤❤❤

Author Bio:

Carrie daydreamed her way through college—until they thrust a marketing degree into her hands, slapped a summa cum laude seal on the corner, and booted her out into a less-than-stellar job market. Instead of panicking at the prospect of unemployment, she used her Midwestern logic to steer into the skid and point her life in the direction she really wanted to go: writing out those daydreams.

In the spring of 2012, Carrie helped found NA Alley—one of the first websites dedicated to New Adult fiction. Less than a year later, Sapphire Star Publishing released her debut novel, Strength (Mark of Nexus #1).