I meant to post this on Wednesday, but I've been weirdly exhausted for no reason this week and didn't get round to it. I've spent most of my evenings curled up on the sofa desperately wishing it was Friday. And now it is Friday! Yay! So I finally feel like I have time to post a snippet from Keys to the Kingdom. And here it is! Happy Friday!

Hopper leaned forwards, clasping his hands together in a prayer-like pose. “What did the coroner tell you about Mickey’s death?”

“Me personally? Fuck all. Told Andrea it was heart failure.” Finn shrugged, ignoring the prickle of pain in his own chest. He thought he’d done the mourning part, well before the funeral, but every now and then he felt that prickle, a small, sharp reminder that grief wasn’t on a timetable. “Not surprising, not really. Mickey was a boozer. Chain-smoker, too.”

“Well, technically every death is ultimately caused by heart failure,” Hopper said in a way that made Finn think he thought he was telling a joke. “I’m not completely convinced Mickey’s was caused by booze and fags, though. I’ve got a friend in the coroner’s office. She noticed a clerical error in Mickey’s report. Nothing serious, spelling mistake or something. She took it to the coroner and he told her not to worry about it. Said it he’d take care of it himself.”

Finn’s gut tightened. “Sounds ominous.”

“It does rather, doesn’t it? When she went back to check it had been amended, there was a totally different report on file. Not different enough to raise suspicions…unless you already thought something strange was going on, of course.” Hopper tapped his fingers together, frowning. “The original report showed elevated levels of potassium in Mickey’s blood. Now, that’s not unexpected as such, because the body releases high levels of potassium into the bloodstream if muscle tissue is damaged, right? Like in a heart attack?”

“Right, if you say so,” Finn said, that twisting sensation in his gut growing sharper.

“The second report showed normal levels.” Hopper sat back, eyeing Finn expectantly.

Finn knew he was waiting for him to make some genius leap of logic, to cry aha or something, but he was blanking. “So…?”

“So you don’t think that’s strange?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know why. I don’t know anything about potassium levels or heart attacks. Did they mix his report up with someone else’s?” Finn shrugged. “You’re the detective, help me out here.”

“I’m a sergeant,” Hopper corrected. “And I don’t know why it’s strange yet. I just think it is. Someone changed the report. Who, and why? You’ve got to know, Finn, Mickey had a lot of enemies in the force. Plenty who’d look the other way if something suspicious happened to him. Plenty who’d see it as one less thug in London. Nobody to cry over.”

Finn’s blood chilled. “You think he was murdered? And someone on the force is helping cover it up?”

Hopper sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I want to be wrong,” he said. “But my gut says something shady is going on here and it’s going to nag at me until I figure it out. I’m telling you because, if he was murdered, it had to be someone close to him.”

“Shit,” Finn said, feeling a sickness now that was nothing to do with his hangover. “Fuck.” A thought occurred. “You don’t think it was me, do you?”

It's that time of year again! Evernight are holding their fourth annual Readers' Choice Awards, where you guys get to show your love to your favourite authors and books by pitting us against each other in fierce, bloody competition. Or, well, not, but still. The awards are definitely happening, and I'm thrilled to say that WOLF'S HUNT has been nominated for Best MC Romance! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I can't believe it! I love this book so fucking much. I loved writing it and I love Wolf and Grim and Clea and everything​, so this really does mean the world to me.

How good do those graphics look together like that? I'm especially honoured, because I know how good the other books in this category are <3

The final round is now open, so if you want show some love/pit us against each other in fierce, bloody competition, visit Evernight's blog to vote for your winners! There's a pretty sweet prize up for grabs too, as it happens! Thank you again if you voted for WOLF'S HUNT and I'll see you tomorrow for a Wednesday snippet :)

So November is kind of disappearing fast, right? In exactly three weeks, I'll be off to Marrakech! Ahhh! So much to do still! In the mean time, I've added a little more to Keys to the Kingdom so, since it's Wednesday, here's a snippet! And here's a picture that kinda reminds me of my heroine, Daisy. Enjoy!

Daisy left the funeral with a spring in her step, which felt morbid, but she couldn’t suppress it. There had been something empowering about attending in the first place, against her family’s warnings and wishes. And there had been something oddly inspiring about the packed church, despite the life of the man they were there to mourn. Then there was that flicker of hope that she’d met someone who might actually talk to her about Mickey Cross without hysteria and hyperbole.

That he was a hot guy with a hipster beard and a cage-fighter’s body certainly didn’t hurt, but Daisy wouldn’t have cared either way. All she’d wanted was to connect with someone who knew Mickey, really knew him. She didn’t want to hear about the criminal empire – she could find all that online and in the papers. She didn’t want to hear her mother’s bitter tales of betrayal and abandonment, or her grandparents’ dire mumblings about the tainted family tree. She wanted to know what the man was like. What kind of dad he was. What films he liked, what his favourite pizza topping was. She craved mundane details, something beyond the sound and fury she’d always been fed.

He was her dad. Her blood, and she knew nothing real about him. It had eaten away at her all her life and she wished she’d had the courage to reach out to him before he died. Talking to a friend of his might be the closest she’d get now.

So yes, as she drove back to Islington, she did feel lighter than when she’d left. It was a lightness that quickly dissipated as she parked outside the period home she shared with her mother, step-father, and step-sister. She loved that house. The right mix of elegant and cosy, set in a huge garden and sheltered from view from the road by a row of pretty laburnum trees, it was usually welcoming. Stella loved to bake and the house was always redolent with the scent of fresh bread, spices, and burnt sugar. At this time of year, with the cold air and icy ground, those smells were a siren call, ushering you out of the cold and into pure, wholesome home.

Not so today. When Daisy pushed the front door open, there was no smell of baking, no music playing. She kicked off her boots in the hall and cautiously made her way to the lounge, where she knew Stella would be waiting.

The lounge was toasty warm, the open fire roaring. Her mother sat wrapped in the same silky bathrobe she’d been in this morning when Daisy left the house, her face bare of make-up and her hair piled on her head in a messy bun. She looked artfully distraught, Daisy thought, then felt a flash of guilt. She knew her mother wasn’t faking her distress, but as with everything, Stella always had to put a bit of gloss on it all.

Sooooooo my deal with myself was, if I hit a good steady word count on my Naomi Clark project every day in the week, I'd work on other stuff at the weekend. I was thinking that "other stuff" would be The Last Sin. But last week, inspiration hit and suddenly I found I had 4k of a brand new story. Oops? I mean, I can't be mad at making that much progress so quickly, but I am in danger of being swamped with half-finished stories, which is a sure way to accomplish very little. I would love to finish and submit one more Amber Morgan story this year, and since this new project is coming along fairly well, I think that's the one I'll go for. The working title is Keys to the Kingdom, ​and since it's Wednesday, here's a snippet!

Title: Revenant Investigations

Books 1-3 Bundle

Author: Libby Bishop

About the Author

Libby Bishop is a paranormal romance/erotic romance author. She also writes dark fantasy/horror under the name October Weeks.

She loves reading, writing, movies, Lindt dark chocolate, autumn, the SyFy Channel (Haven and Bitten!), and spending time with friends and family. She has one fat, fluffy cat who thinks she’s queen of the house…and really, she is

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Thank you for having me! Ruler’s Concubine represents two different species attempting a connection, and proves that regardless of distinct differences, love will carry the day.
 
Title of book:  Ruler’s Concubine by Peri Elizabeth Scott
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Released: September 2, 2016
Word count: 66,204                                                       

Meridia is headed for extinction, unless a compatible species can be found. The backward planet, Earth, the one the Meridians stripped of technology now holds the only promising species in the Galaxy. As Ruler, Lysett Daboort will do his duty and choose a royal concubine from those women ‘liberated’ from Earth, but that is all it will be—until he meets Celeste Raynor.
 
Celeste is barely subsisting on Earth and isn’t enamored with becoming one of Meridia’s concubines, despite the esteem afforded their females. But there is nothing left for her at home and she isn’t averse to having a child to love, not to mention a caring, supportive partner. Until she meets the Ruler himself.
 
The Ruler resists Celeste’s appeal and she refuses his arrogant approach, yet they must somehow come to terms. Lysett rules supreme, or does he? Because love has the most power of all.
 
 

Happy November, everyone! To those taking part in Nanowrimo, good luck and may you write ALL THE WORDS. I don't take part myself, as I've learned over the years that it only aggravates the various joint/muscle problems in my arms, especially combined with the colder weather. I usually do set myself some kind of writing challenge though, as all that good energy and enthusiasm around Nano is pretty contagious!

This year, my main focus will be on my Naomi Clark project, Through Fire, and you can follow my progress on that over at my Naomi blog, if you're interested. I usually aim to post a snippet every Wednesday, with progress updates on Mondays and Fridays.

If you'd rather keep up with my Amber Morgan writings, I do plan to keep working on The Last Sin, providing I hit a good daily word count for Through Fire, and I'll try to share snippets of that here on Wednesdays too, assuming they don't get too spoilery. Hopefully I can get The Last Sin finished before Christmas, at any rate, leaving the New Year clear for Wild Blood MC #3.

So that's how my month looks from here! Provided that my hands don't pack up on me (which they might, as I seem to have cracked a bone in my right hand somehow...), it should be a creative and productive month. Fingers (gently) crossed!