Susan Squires: Your Magic Touch Guest Post and Giveaway
I’ve always written paranormal romance. People who are out of the ordinary, whether vampires or Saxon witches, brilliant hackers or an Artificial Intelligence, just seemed more interesting. And besides, don’t we all want to be extraordinary? I used to fantasize about getting a magic power. After going through several, I decided the super power I want is the ability to give someone five pounds just by touching them. This may have been triggered by several visits to the Academy Awards (guest, not award winner, needless to say.) In the ladies room, I saw beautiful women who were so thin each vertebrae stood out in their back. I really wanted to give them something I could definitely spare.
My most recent series, The Children of Merlin, is about the Tremaine family, whose members have magic in their DNA. Merlin’s magic was dispersed and lost over time, and now it’s gathering again. When one of the Tremaine children meets another with the magic gene, the attraction results in true love and a unique magic power for each. I get to think up a superpower for everybody. Fun. Sounds fun for the characters too, right?
But if you’re extraordinary in some way, your problems can be bigger too, and that’s certainly true for the Tremaines. For one thing, they’re not the only ones with magic. Some magic came from Morgan Le Fay, and the members of Morgan’s Clan don’t like competition. They want the Tremaines dead.
But for another, is it really so easy to be different? Each of the children must wrestle with the certainty that they’ll get magic, and that they’ll be so attracted to another person they really have no choice but to bond for life. In the first of the series, DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? the bad-boy brother, Tristram, thinks he’s so different from the rest of his family that the magic has passed him by. He’s in for a shock. In HE’S A MAGIC MAN, the oldest sister, Drew, is sure of her destiny. But the man who raises her magic power is an alcoholic who’s still in love with his dead wife. Oooh. That hurts.
Each Tremaine will wrestle with having a destiny, loving almost against their will, and getting a magic power they don’t understand and may not be able to control. The love and support of the family may sometimes be the only thing that gets them through.
I’m having a good time with the Tremaines. I get to see the younger kids grow up. I get to see what it takes to reach your happy ending, what you sacrifice, what you learn. Recently I got a challenge from several readers. They wanted to know how the Tremaine saga began. How did the Tremaine parents, Brian and Brina, meet and marry? So, this month I released a novella, YOUR MAGIC TOUCH, which answers that question. Think of it as “How I Met Your Mother,” Tremaine style, a little spring break surprise. I counted back to when they must have met. Shock—it was the eighties. Leg warmers, the Police, big hair. Okay, I couldn’t give Brina big hair. Just couldn’t.
Now, I’d like to hear from you. What super power would you have if you could?
And tell me, if you lived through the eighties, what would you prefer to leave behind forever?
Follow Susan: Website / Facebook / Goodreads
Susan Squires grew up among the giant redwoods of California. She thought she was being practical by changing her major in college from theater to English literature. Immersed in a PhD. Program, she slowly realized that none of her graduating friends had work. So she dropped out after receiving a Master’s degree to take an paying job in the business world.
As an executive in a Fortune 500 company, she returned to her love of writing while continuing to hold her day-job, much to the amusement of her fellow executives. Her novel Danegeld, had already been purchased by Dorchester by the time she accepted a Golden Heart for Best Unpublished Paranormal Manuscript from Romance Writers of America. It was the first of an eclectic group of historical and contemporary paranormal stories known for their intensity. Body Electric was named by Publishers Weekly one of the ten most influential paperbacks of 2002, for blending romance and science-fiction. Book List compared No More Lies to the works of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton, but it was also a Rita finalist for Best Published Paranormal Romance by Romance Writers of America.
Susan’s Companion Series for St. Martin’s Press, continued to garner attention with admiring reviews and several visits to the New York Times Bestseller List. Publishers Weekly named One with the Shadows a Best Book of the Year, and several of the series received starred reviews. Her books have won the many regional contests for published works of paranormal romantic fiction.
Susan no longer has to use tales of romance and adventure to escape budgets and projects. She finally left her day job, and researches and writes her books at the beach in Southern California, supported by three Belgian Sheepdogs and a wonderful husband named Harry who writes occult mysteries as H.R. Knight.
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Your Magic Touch
Children of Merlin 2.5
by Susan Squires
Release: April 2013
Available for .99¢ from: Amazon / Barnes and Noble /
YOUR MAGIC TOUCH (Release Date March 21, 2013)
Click HERE for our review of YOUR MAGIC TOUCH
Your Magic Touch is a tale of “How I Met Your Mother,” Tremaine-style. The younger Tremaines are growing up and they want details about how their parents met and found their magic, details Brina and Brian Tremaine are reluctant to share. How much can they reveal to their children about the instant and potent sexual attraction of the magic in their genes, the powerful emotions of finding powers they don’t understand? And neither wants to admit what Brian did for a living before he found his destined mate, or exactly who introduced them. This novella shares both Brina’s version and Brian’s version of events, but even as each parent tries to conceal pertinent details from their children, the reader will know all.
Susan is offering a copy of HE’S A MAGIC MAN (the first book in the Children of Merlin series) to one lucky reader. US/Canada winner’s choice paper or ecopy: International ecopy only.
1. Please register using the log-in at the top of the page or by using one of the social log-ins.
2. If you are using a social log-in such as Twitter or Google, please post your email address with your comment as Twitter etc does not allow for email contact.
3. Giveaway is open internationally. US/Canada paper or ecopy: International ecopy
4. Giveaway runs from April 13 to April 16, 2013
Susan, what a magnificent post, thanks for stopping by and talking with us. Your life and writing sound interesting and loads of fun. Yes, I actually lived through the 80’s, busy raising teenagers! I’m not sure I noticed things I would leave behind, I was too busy keeping up! LOL Good luck and I’ll be looking for your books!
Wonderful post, Susan. There are so many wonderful magic abilities, I am not sure which is good. To hear people’s thoughts..forget that, it would drive me nuts. To be able to touch someone and learn everything about them is interesting, but could be too much. To see the future, especially something that might happen and you can be prepared sounds good. 🙂
I think I’ll stick to reading. lol
What a wonderful guest post, Susan. I love your series. As for me, any magic would be fun. At least until we over use it. lol
Great post Susan. Sounds like an amazing series. I am looking forward to checking it out. And the 80s *shakes head* too many bad hair dos and fashion faux pas 😉
Wonderful post Susan. Thanks for sharing with us and this series sounds really good. I love stories that deal with magic and I have your down on my tbr list. Looking forward to checking it out soon.
Wonderful post Susan. It is always so interesting to get an authors thoughts on their own work. Thank you for sharing them with us. And be still my fantasy loving heart….a series based upon decendents of Merlin….decendents of Morgan Le Fay–who has been depicted as Merlin’s greatest enemy in the fantasy genre–as the villians who want the Tremaine’s dead???
*resisting the urge to jump up and down in excitement, and adding this series to my TBR* I am shocked I am just now learning about this series and its premise. I am completely fan girling over here.
And at risk of showing my “advanced” age….*cough* I wouldn’t leave anything from the 80’s behind….It was a great time to grow up in. 🙂
OH MY … Magic of Merlin .. YUP you got me! LOL What a wonderful world you must of created there Susan! Thanks for the amazing interview and giveaway chance! 🙂
scrapbooktops (AT) rogers (DOT) com
This sounds like a great series!
Hi Susan thanks for coming. I have’nt read this series but I’ve read several of your earlier vampire books The super power I would have is nautrally pyshic ability and the ability to fly. Adding your new series to my TBR list.
Forgot to add that shoulder pads never have to come back but I lived the designer Norma Kamali and . Sting
Thank you Susan for an amazing post….the 80s were quite the decade for clothing and hair styles..and the decade my children were born……
Great guest post. When I think of the 80s I envision padded shoulders, big hair especially the big-haired bands 😉
I was 18 when I graduated high school in 1984. Fell in love, got married and had 2 sons by 1988. So the 1980’s was a huge decade for me. It was a great decade, still innocent in a lot of ways, just at the cusp of the cyber age. I look at my sons and now their young sons and think of how much harder it is for them. So I guess it is the innocence, the feeling of being
(Sorry, didn’t mean to end my post so abruptly. )
I was 18 when I graduated high school in 1984. Fell in love, got married and had 2 sons by 1988. So the 1980′s were a huge decade for me. It was a great decade, still innocent in a lot of ways, just at the cusp of the cyber age. I look at my sons and now their young sons and think of how much harder it is for them. So I guess it is the innocence I miss most. It was less restrictive and hostile world. Plus we had lot more privacy.
I have not yet had the pleasure of reading any of Ms. Squires books but I hope to enjoy many of them in the future.
The model on he’s a magic man looks like a vampire kool. Well atleast I missed the 80’s
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