Sharon Ashwood – Possessed by a Warrior – Interview, 
Review and Giveaway
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Description: Release Date May 1, 2014
A dazzling dress is wreaking havoc—and costing lives…
The violent death of her uncle sends Chloe Anderson reeling—and rushing to his estate. As coexecutor of Jack’s will, she assumes that he has left her something. What she doesn’t expect is a bejeweled wedding gown with a note warning her to trust only his business partner—dark, mysterious and sexy Sam Ralston.
Chloe’s been burned in love, but never bitten, and there’s something about Sam that keeps drawing her in, despite her fears. The attraction is mutual, intense, and it takes all of Sam’s willpower to hide his fangs. With Chloe’s career at stake and murderous thieves hot on their trail, the vampire vows to protect her. But can he save her from himself?
Chloe’s been burned in love, but never bitten, and there’s something about Sam that keeps drawing her in, despite her fears. The attraction is mutual, intense, and it takes all of Sam’s willpower to hide his fangs. With Chloe’s career at stake and murderous thieves hot on their trail, the vampire vows to protect her. But can he save her from himself?
Review:
So who killed Death? It was almost a joke. Irony sucked.
It’s up to the remaining 3 Horsemen of La Campagnie (The Company) to discover just that. Especially for Sam, aka, War. This was an affront; Jack was their leader, and a battle Sam would deliver to exact rightful vengeance. Now why on earth would Jack bequeath a spectacular wedding dress (diamond-encrusted bodice) to his niece, Chloe? It must be a clue! With it came instructions to trust Sam, and Chloe was just as blood-thirsty for justice. Hunting alongside Chloe didn’t suck (in his dreams!) Did I just write hunting? Well, yeah…vampire’s hunt! Bury the lead, why don’t I? 😀 It’s why I took the story in the first place (no surprise). But after one visit to Sharon Ashwood’s hilarious blog, I knew I was bound for something special. Possessed by a Warrior was a tantalizing, sumptuous tale of romance and thrills. I already plan on gifting this to my friends!
“War was meant for killing, not affairs of the heart.” Whatever lets you sleep at night, Sam. Hardened against any possibility of a loving relationship, Sam constantly admonishes himself with his credo for the lingering fantasies revolved around Chloe: Women like her die around creatures like you. The mutual attraction sizzled, however, and the observations, the “sizing up”, refused to be ignored. Ms. Ashwood maintained Sam at a discreet distance (heavy on the brooding), but aroused with a silent seduction of luscious and heated monologue.
She was pretty, but it was a sense of poised energy that made her remarkable – like an arrow about to fly. He couldn’t help watching, expectant for the moment, wondering what would happen if she finally sprang lose.
Hell-bent on keeping distance from Chloe, lest his unnatural being taint her (although Chloe doesn’t suspect), Chloe grabs the proverbial reins by the hand, to hell with that “need-to-know” basis, and launches her own investigation. When she discovers Jack’s recent whereabouts included meeting with a famous dress designer *ding*, who died recently *ding*, and now Jack was dead…DING!
Of the three people in that scene, Chloe was the only one who hadn’t been murdered. Yet. What’s the connection? The answer was obvious. Jessica Lark [designer] was –
And then the action really takes off when someone breaks into Chloe’s bedroom, intent on stealing, killing, for possession of the precious wedding dress. A bitter civil war raging between rival families since the Crusades has presented itself in the middle of Jack’s murder, and each side demands restitution. Sam’s hard-fought subdued demeanor disappears, replaced by the lethal predator necessary to protect Chloe.
But there was hunger in Sam’s gaze that went beyond a man thinking a woman was pretty. Beyond lust or possession or control. It was as if he wanted to devour her.
I, too, fell under Sam’s enchantment, by way of Sharon Ashwood, lol. 38% in and I savored every moment, every word – it would end all too soon. If there was one criticism, it was Sam waiting until the “morning after” for the big reveal. I would have preferred full disclosure instead of “you weren’t supposed to remember that part” (and then I would have gone back for thirds!) Unfortunately, breaking the rules leads to lethal consequences in this supernatural world of The Company. Is their forbidden love worth it? Other than that, Sam is one swooooon-worthy vampire and I implore you to read this book!
Maybe it was time War chose his own battles. It meant breaking every other bond he had, but what would he not give for a chance at real happiness?
*Swoon with me…resistance is futile!*
Reviewed by Carmen
Copy provided by Publisher
The Reading Cafe is happy to welcome Sharon Ashwood. Sharon is here today to discuss her new release, Possessed by a Warrior, as well as tell us what she has in store for us in 2014.
Let’s talk to Sharon.
TRC: Sharon, we at the Reading Café would like to thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.
TRC: Please tell us about yourself
Sharon: Here is the bio from my website:
Sharon Ashwood is a novelist, desk jockey and enthusiast for the weird and spooky. She has an English literature degree but works as a finance geek. Interests include growing her to-be-read pile and playing with the toy graveyard on her desk. As a vegetarian, she freely admits the whole vampire/werewolf lifestyle would never work out, so she writes her adventures instead.
Sharon is the winner of the RITA® Award for Paranormal Romance. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and is owned by the Demon Lord of Kitty Badness.
That gives you the basics, but I’ll add that I love cooking, I do most of my reading on audiobooks, and I’m starting a Photoshop course this month. I joined Pinterest, and I want to start working on my own images rather than just posting existing stuff. I draw a little, and I’d like to get back into creating visually as well as just with text.
TRC: Did you always have an interest in writing? When and how did you first start writing?
Sharon: I’ve written off and on as long as I can remember, but I got serious about publishing fairly late in the game. I was working as a freelance arts writer when I ran into the Romance Writers of America, who put on a local conference. What they had and I wanted was knowledge of the publishing industry. I joined and that opened a lot of doors for me. I got published by winning a local contest that put my manuscript on an editor’s desk. That was around 2005.
TRC: What was your first book ever published?
Sharon: Ravenous: the Dark Forgotten came out in 2008 just as the economy collapsed. I have breath-taking timing sometimes. This was the first of four urban fantasy romances. The others were Scorched, Unchained, and Frostbound, which is still my favorite book.
These were the first books published as Sharon Ashwood. Prior to that, I wrote some historicals and a huge number of non-fiction articles.
TRC: How did you come up with the idea for the Horsemen series? How many books are you planning for this series?
Sharon: There are four in the Horsemen series, two this year and two next. The entire series involves a royal wedding between two tiny Mediterranean countries that have been rivals for centuries. The wedding, which is a love match, will bring peace, but there are factions who don’t want that. The Horsemen (three vampires and a werewolf) are a special ops team from a supernatural spy agency. Their job is to make sure the wedding goes off without interference, but the more they get involved, the more tentacles of a huge plot emerge. There are four self-contained adventures, but they paint a larger picture that comes together in the last book. It has been huge fun to write.
As to where the inspiration came from—I was playing around with ideas for a police story and it kind of wandered off and did its own thing when I wasn’t looking. I really liked the idea of a wedding—it’s happy and full of promise—and one day I was watching a wedding party drive by and thought, yes! And then after I turned in the series proposal, Will and Kate announced their engagement and I thought, thank you! I had a real royal wedding to observe as I wrote the stories. I don’t think much crossed over into my story world, but it was kind of cool.
TRC: Possessed by a Warrior is the first book in this series, and was released May 1st. Can you please give us a brief description of this book?
Sharon: In a nutshell, is the Horseman they call War. He’s like James Bond with fangs, all very suave and cool and collected, but then his best friend Jack (aka Death) is killed. He ends up helping Jack’s niece wind up his estate. Chloe is a wedding planner and she inherits a designer dress from Jack that’s covered in diamonds—and it’s at the core of a series of murders. She’s next. Add chase scenes, a horrible mother of the bride, a werewolf with a comic streak, hairspray, and one very conflicted vampire, and you get the idea. Sam and Chloe are a great couple. He’s a straight arrow faced with hard choices, and she’s not backing down when it comes to keeping control of her life and loves. The book is pure paranormal romance. I like to think of it as a fantasy with just enough bite to keep it interesting but not so much it spoils the fun. It’s the kind of book I would read in a lawn chair with a cold drink on a summer Sunday afternoon.
TRC: The second book, Possessed by an Immortal is scheduled to be releases on June 1st. Can you give us a brief description of this story?
Sharon: Dr. Mark Winspear (Plague) is a different character than Sam. He’s a medical doctor now, but as a vampire, he’s got a long, painful history. He lost his human family in a horrible way and now he’s the poster child for Vampire 101: Basic Brooding. So there he is in his cabin on a remote island and Bree literally washes up on his doorstep with her sick child. Naturally, he helps out and before he knows it she has him at gunpoint. She’s desperate, scared to death, and on the run from the same bad guys as are after Mark.
However, they have to get the boy to specialized medical help, which means a long road trip dodging and hiding from their enemies. But while they’re physically running, Mark and Bree have to stop emotionally running. For one thing, she’s got an important tie to the royal wedding, which makes her vulnerable on a bunch of different levels. For another, Mark’s been a father before and really doesn’t want to suffer the pain of losing his family again. And by the way, who is the boy’s real father?
Excerpts to both books are available here:
http://www.sharonashwood.com/horsemen/
TRC Note: We will be reviewing Possessed by an Immortal on June 20th
TRC: Can you please tell us about your Dragon Lord series?
Sharon: These are Cravings novellas, so they’re meant to be short. I wanted to write about dragon shifters, and this was the perfect format to try something a little different. There are two stories, and the first is Lord Dragon’s Conquest. In it, an archaeologist discovers the dragon society and upsets the balance of power that’s held the dragons in thrall for centuries. I love the fact that Keltie is only a junior professor, but she finds something that makes the stuffy old guys in her department drool with envy. Anyway, the real question is how the dragons will react when their whole world is blown apart by a mere human female.
Valkyrie’s Conquest goes in a different direction, and tells the story of one of those dragons a few years later, and what happens when he stumbles into urban warfare between the Norse gods and the legions of hell. Odin has frozen the hearts of his warrior maidens, but his power is fading. Tyra, my Valkyrie, rebels against Odin’s rules after meeting a stunning example of dragon manhood.
TRC: What are you working on today?
Sharon: The fourth Horseman book, Possessed by the Fallen.
TRC: Many authors have friends or family, that they bounce ideas and information back and forth. Do you have anyone you like to discuss your stories with?
Sharon: Yes, I have my critique group and a couple of Beta readers who listen to me ramble and are happy to tell me when I suck.
TRC: On your website, you have a blog which has some cute posts from The Demon Lord (your cat). What is your cat’s name, and how did you come up with idea of posts from the mouth of Kitty Badness?
Sharon: I jokingly refer to my cat as the Demon Lord of Kitty Badness. The name on his vet’s file is Jordan, which is what the shelter named him. By the time I rescued him, there was little hope of retraining him to answer to something else, or much of anything, really. He was a little cuss as a kitten and has never entirely lost that side of his personality.
He started posting early on because a blogger wanted posts from writers’ pets and he got way more response than I did. Of course that went to his head, and he considers himself the real talent in the family.
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Sharon: My greatest wish is that readers have as much fun reading my books as I do writing them! And I love to hear feedback, so never hesitate to drop me a note.
LIGHTNING ROUND
Favorite Food: Produce fresh from the farmer’s market, maybe with crusty bread and a soft cheese.
Favorite Dessert: Something with fruit, like a flan.
Favorite TV Show: This varies. At the moment, Grimm, but I can’t wait to see what happens on Chicago Fire.
Favorite Movie: I’m always up for a good horror classic, like Dracula. I prefer Gary Oldman’s version.
Last Book You Read: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Favorite Fictional Character (not your own): Probably Sam from The Lord of the Rings. He was in over his head, but he always had a solid sense of who he was and what was truly of value. As time goes on, I really admire those qualities more and more.
Milk or Dark Chocolate: Dark
TRC: Thank you Sharon, for taking the time to answer our questions. We wish you the best of luck with both new books from your Horsemen series
Sharon: And thanks to you and all your readers! Now, here’s a question for them: When it comes to reading about authors and their pets, do you think their pets tell the truth? Who are the bigger liars, cats or dogs?
You can learn more about Sharon at the following links:
Website / Twitter / Facebook / Blog / Newsletter / Pinterest / Email
Sharon is graciously offering a signed paperback of Possessed by a Warrior to one (1) lucky commenter at The Reading Cafe.
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5. Giveaway open Internationally
6. Giveaway runs from May 14 to May 17, 2014
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