Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Guest Blog: Prince of Shadows by Nancy Gideon

UFI welcomes Nancy Gideon Author of The Moonlight Series. Thanks for Joining us!!



Location, Location, Location! By Nancy Gideon



Creating an eerie paranormal setting is easy when you base your shape-shifter clan in New Orleans.  Everything about that old, superstition-steeped city is thick with dark legends and shadows. You can expect to find Creatures of the Night lurking in a fog-filled alleyway if you take a wrong turn. Moss-draped bayous and deathly silent cemeteries are the perfect backdrop for supernatural doings. The city, itself, became a character filled with malevolence and mystery over the course of the first seven books of my “By Moonlight” series.



So how do you create that other-worldly atmosphere when you leave the Big Easy and move to a mountaintop in Nevada?



I love to write about places I’ve been. There’s something about soaking up the scents and sights and sounds in person that transcends to the words on the page. When I started thinking about where to base my rival shape-shifter clan, PRINCE OF SHADOWS’s fierce, materialistic Terriots, I first thought Las Vegas or Reno (which I also love!) but that seemed too glitzy and exposed for the secretive, feudal-like warriors.  At a writers’ conference in Reno some years back, I’d ventured out of the hotel and headed for the hills to explore some of those desert plains and rocky crags I’d described in my earlier western historicals.  I fell in LOVE with Lake Tahoe and used it for a setting for one of my series contemporary suspenses.  Hmmm . . . Could this be what I was looking for?  Time to do a paranormal assessment. What would an extended family of preternatural beings look for in a place to call home if they were consulting one of HGTVs house hunting shows? 



  •   Isolation – A fabulously wealthy resort community with secluded properties and constantly revolving visitors, where year around income from even quirky patrons would be avidly courted.
  •   Privacy – High security lakeside gated estate out of sight from passersby and impossible to penetrate where they can keep to themselves under the radar.
  •   Family living – multiple separate accommodations for individual families with separate communal quarters for unmated males and females as well as a main self-sustaining gathering lodge.
  •   Status – luxury living, rockstar-like reception when visiting local clubs where lavishly spending encourages no questions asked, and rugged, protect your own individualism is admired
  •   Proximity to investments- A quick drive away from entertainment properties in Reno and air hop to Las Vegas, the perfect place to watch over their Southwest territories yet stay removed from threats.
  •   Freedom- vast primal pine forests and trails to hunt, train, and run wild in Jeeps, on muscular off road bikes, and unnoticed in their natural state



Sounds like home, sweet home and a fun creative break from the Crescent City.  Breathe deep and enjoy the scent of crisp, invigorating mountain air as you visit PRINCE OF SHADOWS. And run wild with the Terriots.
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Nancy Gideon is the author of over 54 novels ranging from historical and contemporary suspense to paranormal with a couple of horror screenplays thrown in.  When not at the keyboard or working full time as a legal assistant, she can be found feeding her addictions for Netflix and all things fur, feather and fin.


Find Nancy and her books
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Prince of Shadows
Moonlight #8



 
A gentle lady held hostage in a deadly play for power, Kendra Terriot’s only means of survival for herself and her family is to play to a careful courtship game. The one she chooses from the dangerous Terriot heirs will inherit the coveted crown, but the one she longs to have rescue her belongs to another.

Favored son of their cruel Shifter leader, the only calm in Cale Terriot’s necessarily violent life is his childhood love for his delicate distant cousin whom he’s pledged to make his queen. With Kendra at his side, he knows he can become the kind of ruler his clan needs, but first he must learn how to become the kind of mate she desires.

In a treacherous race for control, where weakness means death, Cale must prove he’s not the beast his beauty fears and still protect her, especially once her chosen love returns to free her. The only way to win her respect could mean surrendering his throne. The only way to win her heart could mean letting her go
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New Releases: 5/26-6/1


Tue May 27

Binding the Shadows (Arcadia Bell, #3) by Jenn Bennett
South of Surrender by Laura Kaye
Spirit by Brigid Kemmerer
 
Happy Reading