Pandragon Dan

When I first read A Ranger's Tale, I fell in love with Mysti Parker - um, that is her books (phew, recovered there nicely!). I loved her style of writing, the perfectly formed world of Tallenmere and, of course, her characters. Whereas most Fantasy books seem to always conform to traditional archtypes, Mysti's characters feel realistic and fleshed out. They still have the fantasy edge to them, but you can believe that the characters are real people, with real needs and desires. Because of this, you can relate to them and find them incredibly likeable.

Mysti Parker is an author that I have featured on this blog many times and I am honoured that she's taken time out of her busy schedule to do a guest blog for me again. I won't deny that I am somewhat of a huge fan of her work and the hard work that she puts in. And her blog is really inspirational as well, I read it as often as I can. I've even had the opportunity to post a few times on her blog, which I love doing!

When I heard that there was a sequel to A Rangers' Tale, I was excited and wanted to read it as soon as it came out. And today I'm letting Mysti talk a little about her new book - and she's even given us a little excerpt of it as well. How lucky at we? So, without further ado, I hand you over to Mysti Parker. Take it away, Mysti!

Hiya peeps! And a big thanks to Mr. Dan Wright for letting me infiltrate his blog space again. I'm jazzed to announce the second book in my Tallenmere fantasy romance series, Serenya's Song, available now from Melange Books!

In case you’re wondering, Tallenmere is a fantasy world that is rather Tolkienesque. In the first three books, the focus is on the elves, whereas in The Lord of the Rings, our pointy-eared protagonists existed as more of a whimsical side plot. If you enjoy fantasy mixed with sensual romance, you'll enjoy this series!

Readers from every corner of the world fell in love right along with Caliphany and Galadin in A Ranger's Tale and felt the twang of Jayden Ravenwing's broken heart. Now, Jayden, the sexy wood-elf secret agent, gets another shot at love. He's met his perfect match in Serenya, a beautiful half-elf with a love of music and art that matches his own.

Take a look at the blurb and this exciting excerpt to see what's in store for these two:

In the fantasy world of Tallenmere, no one ever said love was easy...

Serenya Crowe may be a half-elf commoner, but she's no ordinary woman. With the ability to interpret dreams, and a birth defect that forces her to wear gloves, she's endured gossip and the cruelty of her husband, Sebastian, The Earl of Summerwind. All she's ever wanted is to live a quiet life and raise a family. When she meets the new stranger in town, her world and her heart, are turned upside down.

Wood-elf Jayden Ravenwing is an ex-secret agent who wants nothing more than to forget matters of the heart. He left the bustle of Leogard and his failed marriage to make a fresh start in Summerwind. He never planned to fall in love again, especially with the enchanting Serenya Crowe.

When a strange portal opens on the Crowe property, Jayden is thrown into an investigation, knowing that if he fails, Serenya and everyone in the town may die.

Together, he and Serenya must overcome an ancient evil, and their own inner demons, to save Summerwind and find the love they've always dreamed of.

Excerpt from Chapter 25:

Serenya

Jayden caught my gaze. “What is it?”
 “Only that…I wish this dance would never end.”
 “Maybe it doesn’t have to.” He pulled me close, and his lips brushed my ear. “I love you, Serenya. And I’ll do whatever it takes to prove it to you.”
Pain squeezed my heart. In Jayden’s arms, I felt safe, warm, and wanted. The beauty of his words rushed through me, but they were bittersweet, not knowing what the future held. It was too easy to get lost in the illusion. But, just for a little while, I let go and welcomed the feelings I’d tried to suppress for so long.
We moved as one, like the time we spent in his cabin. Heaven itself couldn’t outshine the tiny space we occupied on the dance floor. The crowded ballroom faded to a backdrop for our masterpiece. Every step composed the notes of our secret melody. We searched each other’s eyes with an unflinching song of hope and possibility.
Whispers cut through our heaven and slashed at my happiness.
“Look at the poor thing. Couldn’t have a baby.”
“I’d wager forty gold the Earl has a bastard child somewhere.”
The dance ended. Everyone applauded in polite appreciation for the musicians. I shook my head to try to clear the voices.
Jayden took my hand. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
“I’ll walk you to the bar.”
I put my arm in his and let him lead me there. The voices kept coming.
“Wonder if that wood-elf’s ever seen her claws. He’d run screaming for the hills if he had.”
Jayden leaned close to my ear. “It’s time. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded. He slipped through the crowd toward the ballroom entrance. I scanned the room and pinpointed cliques of guests several feet away. Their whispered voices shouldn’t have been audible, but I watched their lips move as they spoke.
“The Earl’s a saint for marrying her. Or a martyr.”
 I wanted to run outside and bury my head in the cool garden soil.
 I put my hands to my ears and whispered, “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
 The voices died down to a dull drone. Was Lilly wrong? Was I mad after all? A sharp trumpet blast startled me. The crowd parted for a small procession of clowns, acrobats and musicians from the Traveling Opera. Cheers and laughter grew in volume as the people stopped to look.
 I’d completely forgotten that I’d arranged this part for Lilly. She stepped over to me, lifting her shoulders with an incredulous shrug.
 I smiled apologetically. “Surprise!”

******

Mysti Parker is a full time wife, mother of three, and a writer. Her first novel, A Ranger’s Tale was published in January, 2011 by Melange Books, and is the first in a fantasy romance series. She is also the proud writer of Unwritten, a blog voted #3 for eCollegeFinder’s Top Writing Blogs award.

Email: mystiparker@yahoo.com
Unwritten Blog
Twitter: @MystiParker
Facebook Page
Goodreads Page
A Ranger's Tale
Serenya’s Song

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A HUGE thanks to Mysti for taking the time to appear on my blog once more! I'll have a review for Serenya's Song on this very blog very soon. Watch this space!

Until next time...

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(Want to contribute a guest post? Email me at PandragonPublishing@gmail.com for details)

In the first of what I hope will be many guest blogs, I am today delighted to be joined by Author J.S. Council, Author of the Airion Series. I gave her the opportunity to talk about anything that she wanted to and provided me with this extremely interesting post about Japan. Being hugely influenced by Japanese culture in my writings, I found this post extremely insightful - even including some stuff I didn't even know about the country. Some stuff even surprised me!

A huge thanks to J.S for such a wonderful guest post. I do recommend you check her writing out as she writes some extremely entertaining sci-fi/fantasy. I gave her a bit of a hard time about the typing issues in my review of the book (see here ) but I would like to say that I did geninuely enjoy this story and look forward to the next one. Please check out her works (links are below at the end of the post).

With that being said I now hand over to J.S for her post. Enjoy!

10 Things you Probably Didn't Know About Japan

When Dan Wright gave me the opportunity to do my debut author’s interview on his blog site, I was honored. It was one more step in the right direction toward my dream of becoming a successful novelist. One more step toward getting my name out there. I loved every minute of it.  So, naturally, when I found out about the opportunity to guest blog on Dan’s blog site, I jumped at it. There was only one problem… What to write about?

I thought about writing about my second novel AIRION: Light and Dawn. It is the sequel to AIRION: Return to Zire, my debut novel and the first in the Airion Series, which is available, now in e-book and paperback on various purchase sites. The first draft of the novel is finished, but, because I’m taking the Stephen King’s On Writing recommended one-month rest before editing the novel, I’m quite sure that the story will change a bit once I sink my claws into it again. Especially since the time taken to write Light and Dawn was only six months compared to the four years it took to write Return to Zire. So I’d like to see where the story truly ends up before going into details. If, however, anyone is just dying for information, I do welcome questions and comments to my email jscouncil@yahoo.com.

Now back to my problem. As those of you who read my author’s interview on Dan’s blog a while back might know, I currently live in Japan writing and teaching English to children and Adults ranging from ages 3 to 65.  It’s a great job and I love it. Although, if I really want to write for a living I might need to move to a country where people can actually read my work. When someone hears about my book, they always ask me, “Is it in Japanese?” When I say, “No, it’s in English,” I can just see the disappointment on their faces because they can’t read English well enough to comprehend an English novel.

But I decided, for this blog entry I would name 10 things people who have never been to Japan might found surprising or interesting. Or rather, things I was surprised or interested to discover when I got here.

1. Many stray cats – There are not many stray dogs in Japan. In fact, I don’t think, in the two combined years that I’ve lived here, I have ever seen a stray dog. But cats?! Now that’s a different story completely. Staying in hiding unless foraging or begging for food, cats get quite fat living outside of restaurants, schools, or homes.

2. Sorting of trash and the lack of public trashcans – It is very difficult to find public garbage cans in Japan and almost impossible to find one where you can just put all of your trash in one bin. You must (and they are very strict about this) sort your trash into plastic, burnable, pet bottles, plastic bottles (with caps off), glasses, and cans. And that’s just the general separation. This doesn’t include the separations you must make in your own home or the fact that there is a curtain day of the week that different things must be thrown away. For example, plastics (not bottles) are on Tuesdays and burnable items (not furniture) are on Mondays and Thursdays.

3. They have wildlife like bears, monkeys, and foxes – I am an animal lover at heart and I was very surprised and delighted to find out that there is still some wildlife in Japan. Although in relatively small population, animals such as bears, monkeys, foxes, and raccoon dogs (yes they are real) exist in various parts of Japanese’s bamboo forests in Hokkaido and the Main Land, country areas.

4. Anime is more popular in America than in Japan – This is something I found interesting. Anime and Manga like Rurouni Kenshin, Yu Yu Hakoshou, and Inuyasha are not as popular as you would think. One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, and Pokemon are very popular here as well as Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon, but they aren’t nearly as crazy about anime as we are in the states in terms of conventions and things like that. You can buy many things with the popular anime characters on them though, Luffy and Chapper from One Piece being the top runners for that at the moment.

5. Smoking is very popular and the average life expectancy is still high for most Japanese – I was shock to find the amount of smokers in Japan. Although cigarettes are really expensive (averaging $5 or $6 a pack), one out of every 3 people smokes. Smoking is going down a little now but there is still a very high percentage, and the average life span is still about 85 or 90.

6. The worst crime a normal person will encounter is bike theft – Seriously, there is hardly any crime in Japan. No kidnappings, spousal abusive is low, child abduction and abuse is very low, and the only gang activity is buying loud motorbikes and riding them around town (being annoying). This may not apply in Tokyo or maybe Osaka, but for the rest of Japan, the only thing you really have to worry about is someone stealing your umbrella if you leave it unguarded or your bike if you leave it unlocked for too long.

7. It’s a surprisingly good place to write – I wrote much of my first novel and my entire second novel in Japan. This place is a very low stress environment and it is quite easy to develop a routine, which most writers need in order to get any writing done.

8. Cheap rent – Although bigger and more luxurious apartments in places like Tokyo and Osaka will cost you a pretty penny, medium studio or one bedroom apartments in small cities or towns can cost as low as $240 a month. Very nice considering the low taxes and the amount for pay one gets for teaching.

9. No central heating in houses or apt – No matter the apartment size or the luxuriousness of your home, there is NO central heating or air conditioning in places other then shopping areas. Even in school and some business buildings, there is no heating, so they must use floor heaters or fans depending on the weather. There is a heater/air conditioner on the wall close to the ceiling that regulates the room you are in, but if you have to go to the bathroom or the kitchen or anywhere other then that room, the temperature is drastically changed, especially during the winters, which can get very cold.

10. Getting good grades only matter in grade’s school – Just yesterday I was talking to one of my Japanese friends who is going into her forth year of college soon. She told me that she was looking for work for after college, she would know something before she graduated next year. I asked if the company were worried that she might not do well in her last year of school and she said that companies (those who just heir salary men and women) don’t really ask about the grades you get in college. They mostly just look at the college you went to. So basically, you could just barely pass college with any degree and still get a good job.  No wonder Japanese college kids drink so much, Haha.

Airion: Return To Zire is available from the following places:

PAPERBACK

Amazon UK

Amazon Japan

Barnes & Nobles

Borders online

Ailibris

EBOOK

Smashwords

Barnes&Nobles

Author Contact:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Thanks to J.S again for such an amazing guest post. More to follow from other authors in the future.

Kindest

Pandragon

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I recently did a guest blog, talking about conventions (using my most recent visit to London Anime Con as an example) on Carole Gill's official blog page. A huge thank you for Carole for giving me this opportunity. She was a pleasure to talk to and really helpful.

Please check out her blog and follow her. Link to my interview with her is below.

MY GUEST POST

Thanks again to Carole for the opportunity to post on her blog. I hope it was of some help.

Pandragon

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