Guest Post + Giveaway with Laurie London

Guest Post with Author Laurie London + a chance to WIN

I am so excited today! I have another fabulous author on the blog and you are going to love her! I discovered author Laurie London last year about November or December just before the release of A Vampire For Christmas. I entered her Twitter contest to review the book and won. YAY! Not only did I get myself a copy of a really fun book, (it’s an anthology with four talented authors contributing), I was introduced to three more fantastic authors through the book, and I made an awesome Twitter friend in Laurie. She rocks! She’s so funny and she absolutely loves keeping up with her fans. For those of you who don’t know, I hold a special place for authors that mingle with us readers. I can’t describe how much more enriched my reading is when I can thank an author for a great book, or just shoot a tweet out to say “hi” and get a response. It is fabulous! But enough about me. Laurie has offered to tell us a bit about her latest release Tempted by Blood. And she just might be offering something special at the end. *nods*

It is my pleasure to welcome back Laurie London!!!

**LAURIE  LONDON**

**GUEST POST**

A Book About Secrets – Tempted By Blood

Thanks, Kendra, for having me on today to celebrate the release of the third Sweetblood novel, TEMPTED BY BLOOD. Jackson is a vampire and Guardian enforcer, sworn to protect humans from evil Darkbloods, while keeping their existence secret from the outside world. Arianna wears two hats—graphic designer by day and paranormal blogger by night.

Tempted is a book of secrets. Many of the characters have them and they’ll do just about anything to make sure others don’t find out.

Jackson hides the fact that he’s struggling with his dark nature, which has been getting stronger and stronger. He fears he’s turning into the enemy he’s fought against for years. The other secret Jackson has is… Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out, cuz I’m not telling. ;-)

Arianna also has secrets. She has a paranormal blog called Paranormalish (www.paranormalish.blogspot.com) that she keeps secret from her employer, computer game maker Xtark Software. They require everyone to disclose their passwords to blogs and social media accounts, but Arianna didn’t tell them about her blog, feeling it’s none of their business that she investigates paranormal happenings in her free time. (This has been really big in the news lately. There’s legislation to make it illegal for employers to require employees/potential employees to turn over their passwords.)

Also, because she’s been belittled in the past for her interest in the paranormal, she keeps it secret from everyone. Her online friends know her only by her screen name Icy_Shadows.

The villain also has secrets, but I won’t go into them here as they’re quite spoilerish. I’ll let you find out those secrets for yourselves.

**TEMPTED  BY  BLOOD**

**EXCERPT**

Arianna grabbed her phone, hit Redial, and a young man answered on the first ring.

“Look, Blake,” she said, not bothering to hide her irritation. “I told you I don’t do this with a bunch of people around.”

“Is this Icy Shadows?” He only knew her by her screen name and Arianna preferred to keep it that way.

“Yes, and don’t tell me your mom is hosting her book club.”

She heard the low murmur of male voices, a muffled curse, and she was pretty sure someone in the room with Blake said, “Do you see her yet?” Good thing she’d parked around the corner.

“It’s just me and the guys who were with me that night. That’s all. I figured you’d want

to talk to them too.”

What part of “I want to conduct this interview alone” didn’t he understand?

Before agreeing to meet with him, she’d thoroughly checked out Blake’s background, as

she did with everyone she interviewed in person. He was a seventeen-year-old honor student at Cascadia High School, on the varsity tennis team, vice president of the French club. In a write-up in the local paper about some community service project, his marketing teacher had called him a leader.

But she knew nothing about his friends and she had her rules. “We’ll have to do this another time then. Goodbye—”

“Wait. Wait. I’m really sorry, but they really want to meet the Icy Shadows from

Paranormalish.”

I’ll bet.

“Sorry. I’m shy.” Not really. Although she did hate crowds, she guarded her online identity with the finesse of someone navigating a minefield. Each movement, each next click could be disastrous.

If Xtark Software found out how she spent her free time, that she lied on her employment application about having a blog, she’d lose her job. The game company was anal when it came to its employees’ use of social media, requiring everyone to turn over their computer passwords so company security officials could monitor their online activities.

They worried about employees sharing too much and other companies stealing their proprietary secrets—as if someone in the graphics department would know anything about software design. But a blog run by any employee was a huge no-no. As far as she was concerned, however, it was no one’s business but her own, and she preferred to keep it that way.

And then there was that business with her ex. When he’d found out about her blog, it had turned her life upside down.

She’d learned long ago that people thought her interest in unexplained phenomena was weird...crazy, even. Sitting on a cold metal chair at the Fremont area police precinct as a five-year-old, having no one believe her had taught her that. They’d tried to explain that shadows don’t just come alive and kidnap people; a real person took her mother.

They’d given her a stuffed animal to hold—Comfy Carl, they called him. She could still picture the bear with crisscrossed threads for eyes that smelled as if it’d spent months in the damp trunk of a patrol car. But she knew what she’d seen and a toy wasn’t about to convince her otherwise.

At a young age, Arianna figured out pretty quickly that if she wanted to be taken seriously and keep a roof over her head, she’d better keep her interests to herself. The blog was her way of exploring topics she couldn’t discuss out loud.

No, she couldn’t risk Blake’s friends finding out anything about her. It could show up later online somewhere, making it easier for Xtark to discover what she was doing. Conducting these sorts of things one-on-one lessened the chances of that happening.

“Okay, okay,” Blake said. “I’ll make them leave.”

**LAURIE’S  GIVEAWAY**

In addition to Arianna, I started wondering what other characters in books are bloggers. The main characters in FEED by Mira Grant are news bloggers. (I loved that book—it’s about zombies.) Also, the main character in OBSIDIAN by Jennifer Armintrout is a book blogger. (I’ve not read this book yet, but it sounds great.)

Can you think of other books where one of the characters is a blogger?

I’m giving away a signed copy of TEMPTED BY BLOOD to a random commenter in US/Can.

And after you comment, come find me online. I love to chat with readers!

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

**DA  RULEZ**

One commenter will be drawn at random to receive a print copy of TEMPTED BY BLOOD, by Laurie London. Must be 18 or older to enter. Contest open to US and Canada residents ONLY! Reader’s Edyn and participating author are NOT responsible for lost or damaged items. Anyone may be disqualified at any time so be sure to follow directions to avoid disqualification. No substitutions allowed. Contest ends April 12^th at midnight MST. That means you will have through the 11^th to enter. When the clock strikes midnight on the 12^th, the contest will be over. Winner will be contacted by e-mail. Winner will have 48 hours to respond, or a new winner will be chosen. Odds of wining depend on the number of entries received. Be forewarned! *serious face* Those who enter and do not follow the tasks properly will have their entries removed. *peers closer* Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I. Will. Check. Them. Not trying to be a pain, Sorry.

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Until next time …

HAPPY READING!!!