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Áfram með smjörið

10/28/2016

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*On with the butter - move your butt and keep doing what you're meant to be doing.

So I am officially back from Iceland. Happy to be reunited with Kyle and Yuki and my tea collection, but already missing Reykjavik. Mum and I just completely fell in love with the city and the countryside. We managed to cram in a hell of a lot for just a few days, from geysers to beaches to the Northern Lights to waffles. Even so, I really wish we'd had just one extra day to do a bit more - whale watching was something we fancied but didn't have time for (plus the weather probably wasn't ideal for being out at sea). And I personally could have gone for one more round of waffles.

Look at that perfection.
I took soooooooooooo many photos, and if you want to see the best ones, I made a Pinterest board for them here. I won't clog up this entire post with photo after photo, but I am sharing a few of my favourite with you!


This is in the lava fields outside the Blue Lagoon, a really surreal and stunning location. The water is super-heated by a nearby lava flow, and a beautiful milky blue colour due to the mineral content. The spa itself is a huge man-made lagoon with the same water. It rained a little bit while we were there, and it was a truly unique experience to be floating in that gorgeous hot water while cold rain fell down on us.



This is Reynisfjara beach, my hands-down favourite location from the trip. The black sand and basalt sea stacks make it a completely magical, mysterious place. It was absolutely pouring with rain the day we visited, so we couldn't spend as much time on the beach as we wanted, but even just a short visit was worthwhile.



There was a lot of cool street art around Reykjavic, and this was my favourite piece because werewolves.



Sunset over the harbour in Reykjavic. This was from our first night, when we were supposed to be going out for a Northern Lights tour. The weather wasn't right for it, but luckily we managed to get booked in for another tour on Monday night. We got driven out to Pingvellir National Park at around 10.30pm. Getting off the coach, we were greeted by perfectly clear skies, and with no light pollution for miles around, we could clearly see countless stars - and ghostly white bands that almost imperceptibly moved and changed as we watched. That was our Northern Lights sighting - very beautiful and eerie. It was a shame not to see any colour, but getting to see anything at all felt very special, and the sight of all those stars was amazing all by itself.

So we started back to Reykjavik...only to find the coach driver stopping ten minutes later and the tour guide urging us all to get off the coach again.

And we did. And outside we got those Northern Lights. The great shimmering arcs of green and pink light, dancing overhead, moving so fast and gracefully, I can only describe it as magical. My phone camera wasn't good enough to capture any shots, but I'm glad in a way. It was much better to just stand and watch, and soak it all in, rather than be staring at it through a camera lens. It was icy cold and my neck hurt from staring up so much, but it didn't matter. I fulfilled a lifetime's ambition and saw the Northern Lights in all their glory, and I won't need photos to remember how incredible that felt. I've wanted to see them ever since I read Philip Pullman's Northern Lights (or the Golden Compass to my American friends), and not only did we get to see them, but we saw a truly special display.

It would be hard to pick one favourite experience from the holiday, but the Northern Lights and Reynisfjara will stay with me for a long time. I'd love to go back to Iceland at a different time of year, fit in some whale-and-puffin watching, or go back to Reynisfjara and explore more. Everyone we met was lovely, Reykjavik is charming, and the entire holiday was just perfect. Coming back to reality, and all the bills and housework and emails that entails, you can't help but experience something of a slump.

Well, after a long discussion with Kyle, we decided there was only one way to combat such a slump, and that was to book a holiday.



It will be Kyle's 30th birthday in December, and we've been talking for ages about what to do for it. In the end (like, literally at 11pm last night), we settled on a trip to Morocco! We'll be staying in a mountain hotel near Marrakech for five days. It'll be completely different to anywhere I've been before, and I cannot wait! We need to find a nice cat hotel for Yuki so she can have a little holiday too. So...thank you, Iceland. I love you very much. And on to the next adventure!

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Wednesday Snippet - They had one shot...

10/19/2016

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It's mid-week, so it's time for another snippet! I added 2k to The Last Sin on Monday as part of a 10k writing marathon I'd challenged myself to over the weekend. The story is coming along slowly, but I'm okay with that as it's currently third on my writing to-do list. Any progress is an achievement, really! (And you can see my progress on various works-in-progress here).

So, here's a taster of what I've got so far. Enjoy!
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Luka dispassionately studied the two men he would soon kill. Pyotr, he had always disliked. The bullish man was one of Marya’s bodyguards, trusted by Ivan to protect his princess, and he had fucked up. He had fucked up so badly, it was almost comical. No doubt Ivan had his own punishment in mind for Pyotr, but Luka didn’t intend for him to live long enough to receive it.

The second man, Taras, had been a trusted Boevik in Luka’s brigade for years. But his loyalty was to Ivan first and foremost and so he, too, would have to die once Marya was safely in Luka’s hands.

The three of them sat in a small, warm pub, just two streets from the house where Marya was held. Pyotr and Taras drank local beer and talked about the grim weather. Luka drank water and said nothing. He’d never been one for alcohol, not since reading about the execution of the last Tsar of Russia and his family. The executioners had been so drunk beforehand, they’d botched the entire execution, leaving survivors to be bayonetted. The thought of it, the chaos and unnecessary suffering of that night, had stayed with Luka. He prided himself on always killing quickly and cleanly.

He knew it was a bad thing to be proud of. But he had so little else.

While his men talked, blithely unaware of their impending fate, Luka watched the snow fall outside and ran the plan through his head once again. Rolan’s intelligence said the girls would be moved at midnight, back into Russia. Europe’s boarders were in chaos with migrants surging across the continent, and slipping sex slaves from country to country was frighteningly easy in the midst of such disorder. If the traffickers made it out of Poland it would be near impossible to find them again.
​

So they had one shot to grab Marya.
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Sex Up Your Sunday with April Zyon!

10/12/2016

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I love a good Mafia romance. Wicked men, strong women, dirty sex, crime and intrigue...Yes. Feed me more! April Zyon is here today with her very good Mafia romance, HIS MAFIA PRINCESS. Let's take a look!
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*** Thank you, for hosting me today.  This book was truly one of those books that simply had to be written, it was one that was inside of my head and demanded to be let out. I hope that everyone loves it as much as I loved writing it. ***
His Mafia Princess
Family First, book 1
by April Zyon
Published by Evernight Publishing
Cover by (the amazing!) Jay Aheer
Gregorio Bosco worked his way up the ranks of The Family. He never had trouble killing, selling, or anything he was tasked to do. He'd been trained to take over for Giovanni when he stepped down, but that all changed when Alessandra was taken. She was the only good in his life, and he'd do anything in order to protect her—no matter the cost to anyone around him.
​

Alessandra Morello was born into a life that she didn’t understand. She thought she was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, however she learned it was far from the truth. She's pulled into the center of a war with Gregorio as her only constant. Her attraction for the older man has only grown over the years, but can there be a future for them in their twisted world?
​

Be Warned: BDSM, anal sex, sex toys, orgies
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Buy it now!
Evernight     |     Amazon US     |     Amazon CA     |     Amazon UK
Bookstrand     |     All Romance eBooks     |     Smashwords     |     iTunes

Find April online

Facebook     |     Facebook Fan Page     |      Reader Group      |      Instagram      |     Pinterest
Twitter      |     Website


​Read on for an excerpt...

Read More
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Wednesday Snippet - The Last Sin

10/12/2016

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For the foreseeable future, I'll be largely working on two Naomi Clark projects. But I've got a few Amber stories in various stages of completion that I want to get finished in the not-too-distant future too, so I've decided if I can hit my daily word count goals for the main projects, I can dabble away at the side projects too. The one I'm most eager to finish is The Last Sin, a Mafia romance (though very different to MR. RED) that I'm really in love with. It's set in a city I really want to visit (Krakow), and I'm a tiny bit in love with the hero. So, just to keep myself accountable and hopefully whet your appetite for it, I'll be sharing snippets as I go along! Starting today! So here's your first look at The Last Sin...​
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Marya awoke to darkness and the chilling sound of a woman begging. She flitted desperately between Russian, Polish, and English, but the meaning never changed. Don’t do this. Let me go. Help me.
A man snapped back in a language Marya couldn’t place, but she didn’t need to understand it. His meaning was clear, punctuated sharply by the crack of a fist hitting flesh. The woman yelped, then fell eerily silent.

She couldn’t think too hard about the silent woman or the invisible man and what they meant. Instead Marya took stock of herself as best she could. She sat on cold, wet stone strewn with something that smelled of animals and shit. Her hands were cuffed at her back, her arms aching dully. When she stretched her legs, her feet hit a wall. She tasted blood on her tongue and there was a slow, burning throb at her temple. She thought that might be where one of her abductors had hit her, but her memory of the abduction was still fuzzy.

Abduction. Oh God, she had been abducted. Her, of all people. She could almost laugh. A mob boss’s daughter, swept up by human traffickers. It was ridiculous. It was unreal.

It was terrifying.
​

Her eyes adjusted a little to the smothering darkness, and she saw she was in a small, crude cell. Probably in a basement somewhere. All around her would be similar cells, housing women just like her, ready to be shipped off to China or the Ukraine, or even just back into Russia, sold as sex slaves to the highest bidders. She suppressed a sudden urge to vomit, only because she knew she’d have to sit in it. She was suppressing a lot of urges – the urge to weep, to scream, to make threats. Do you know who I am? she could ask her captors, but she bit her tongue until she tasted fresh blood. Because what if they did know who she was, and that was exactly why she’d been taken?
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Leavin' on a jet plane...

10/10/2016

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Well, not for a couple of weeks yet, but I will be heading off to Iceland at the end of October for a short break with my mum. I can't wait! It's going to be so amazing to go somewhere new. We've got Northern Lights tours booked, a trip round the Golden Circle, a trip to the Blue Lagoon, and the possibility of whale watching or a Game of Thrones location tour (or both!) to keep us busy. We fly out on October 22nd and come home on October 26th, and hopefully I'll return packed with inspiration for perfumes and stories. I mean, it's Iceland. I've long been obsessed with folklore and history from that part of the world, and I can't wait to get out there and see the land that birthed it.

In the mean time, I'm doing my best to get organised, both personally and in my day job, before I go. As you may know, every October I offer some Halloween limited edition perfumes over at Common Brimstone, with the profits going to the British Heart Foundation. This year's set is inspired by legendary serpents, in honour of our dear departed Remic. I want to leave the shop open while I'm away, so that means stocking up now on sample bottles, essential oils, and labels so I don't come home to find myself without any vital supplies. I'm also trying to keep my order queue under control (always verging on an impossible task) so that I can relax and not think about shipping deadlines while I'm in the Blue Lagoon.

This week it will be Evernight Publishing's birthday! I'll be hosting a guest slot over at their Facebook party on Sunday (assuming I've got my UK-US time conversion right), where I'll be chatting about my works both as Amber and Naomi Clark, and giving away a few ebooks. I'll also be taking part in a writing marathon over the weekend, with the aim of getting 10k written on my current WIP. This...is ambitious. It's that time of year when my hands and arms really start to suffer, and the last thing I want to do before I set off to a cold climate is aggravate my problems. That said, 5k a day is not unreasonable and since I won't get any writing done while I'm away, I want to make as much progress as possible. So we'll see how that goes...

So the next couple of weeks are looking to be pretty busy in the best kind of way! If you follow me on Twitter of Facebook, look out for a slew of photos from Iceland!


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    Welcome to the virtual home of Amber Morgan - writer of contemporary romance, MC romance, and paranormal romance. Cat-keeper, snake-charmer. Chaotic good.
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