Bell Bridge Books

Everything Old is New Again!

by Nancy Gideon

I’m a big fan of Reuse/Recycle/Repurpose for saving time, money and resources. I was beyond thrilled when BelleBooks applied this principal to my “Touched by Midnight” vampire romance series.  The original three titles came out in the early ’90s. Fans convinced me to continue with six more installments when ImaJinn started up. When I got the rights back to the first three long out-of-print books, ImaJinn (now part of BelleBooks) bought them with the plan of repackaging all nine under a new header (“Touched by Midnight”) with gorgeous new covers,  the chance to sneak in and tweak, and to reach a whole new audience! R/R/R at its finest!

Book 6, MIDNIGHT SHADOWS (my favorite!) comes out this month with a dynamite cover (I’ve been sworn to secrecy!). To celebrate, the first two books of the series are on SALE.  MIDNIGHT KISS is $0.99 and MIDNIGHT TEMPTATION  $1.99 through May 15 – an awesome intro that begins in the Regency era and moves, with characters weaving throughout, into modern times (MIDNIGHT SHADOWS takes place in the modern day jungles of Peru).

Here’s a teaser from MIDNIGHT SHADOWS to whet the need to sink your teeth in for more . . .

“If I’m going to go out there to put it on the line for, as you so succinctly put it, the paycheck, I need to know if you can keep it together. If you have any doubts, you stay behind.”

“I’ll be fine, Cobb.”

“Will you? Are you? Then tell me what you saw earlier tonight in your room. Can you do that?”

“A mask on the wall.”

“Bull.”

“I didn’t see anything.” His steady stare wouldn’t let her leave it at that. “I didn’t see anything real, okay. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I’m nuts, bonkers and all the rest? That I see things that aren’t there? That I have a hole in my memories large enough to drive a Mack truck through? That I can’t trust myself to know what’s real?”

“Trust me.”

His sudden intensity dragged her back from the edge of hysteria.

“Why, Cobb? Why should I trust you?”

“Because I can protect you if you let me. Because I know you’re not crazy.”

“How do you know?” she whispered, fearing to believe it because she didn’t believe it herself.

“Because I know what’s out there, and it’s real.”

What Began as as Whim…

by J.A. Ferguson

Dream Singer, the first of the Dream Chronicles, began as a whim. I’d been writing historical romances for years, and I wanted to write something different. For the fun of it, taking the advice of C.S. Lewis to write the book I wanted to read. I took the characters of Durgan Ketassian and Nerienne and dropped them into the setting and let the story unfold.

The only requirement was that anything was possible.

I wanted the book to have music and color in it. I’ve always admired musicians who create wondrous melodies out of nothing as well as visual artists like my sister and my daughter. They see things in unique ways. I gave music to Durgan, making him a dreamsinger, someone who can see into dreams through music. Nerienne got the gift of being able to discern people’s true feelings by seeing the colors surrounding them.

Right from the beginning, the idea that they were enemies who would have to fight a common foe drove the story. Okay, it’s a beloved romance trope – the bad boy and the good girl. But in this case, the girl is well-familiar with evil because her mother, the leader of their world, is not the nice and cuddly soccer mom type.

I wrote the first chapters, but something was missing. The heroine needed a reflection character, someone she could talk to so the reader (me!) saw the emotions she kept hidden from the hero. I tossed away the ideas of a servant or sibling as mundane. That led me to a pet…a talking pet only she could hear. But better yet, a truly annoying talking pet. Bidge was born.

I’ve been asked a lot about the origin of Bidge’s name. At first, I saw her as the character who not only listened to Nerienne, but nudged her to do the right thing. Her fuzzy-faced conscience in a shell. Nudge became Budge which evolved into Bidge. But Bidge evolved as well, and her name was even more accurate because instead of nudging, she nags. Think of a synonym for nag and say Bidge’s name aloud, and you should be able to pick up on the accuracy of her name!

With my characters in place, I wrote the book I wanted to read. Once it was finished, I went back to work on my contracted books. I never thought I’d do anything with it…until a good friend mentioned a friend of hers was starting a publishing company and looking for odd paranormal books. I sent off an email to Linda Kichline, the founder of ImaJinn Books, asking if she wanted to see my manuscript which definitely fit the definition of odd paranormal. Since then, the first book has grown into five, and my original three characters, especially Bidge, have played a part in each one to the delight of readers.

Pick up DREAM SINGER for just $1.99! On sale til the 15th!

Mama was a Diva

by Marilee Brothers

If you’re looking for a warm, fuzzy, my-mama-was-the best-mother-ever story, you might want to stop reading now. My mother was a diva long before the word became part of the current vernacular. The only daughter of doting parents, she was clad in frilly dresses, wore a giant bow in her hair, learned to read at four and became a concert pianist in her teens. She was a beauty with an independent streak. In the roaring twenties, she bobbed her hair, visited speakeasies and sneaked cigarettes. At age 23, she married my father, an outstanding athlete whose pitching record for the University of Washington still stands.

My sister Beth came along first. Five years later, I was born. I’m not sure what troubled my mother, but some of my earliest memories are of long, sulky silences where we knew we’d done something wrong, but weren’t sure what it was. She was unable to express anger and disapproval and eventually, turned it inward. For years she was stricken with migraines and depression. One of my jobs was to tiptoe into the darkened bedroom and rub her aching forehead.

As my sister and I blossomed into our teen years, things became more difficult for our mother as her beauty began to fade. It was almost as if she resented the daughters she’d given birth to. At age twelve, I was a tall, gawky, shy kid. I remember crying when she refused to help me fix my hair. Fortunately, I had a big sister.

Years passed. My sister and I married into warm, loving families and had children of our own. Both of us stayed connected to our birth family, especially me since we lived in the same town. Mother was in her late eighties when the miracle happened. She had a slight stroke. Yes, I know. That sounds heartless. But truly, my mother, the former hypochondriac, was transformed into a different person. She was physically unaffected by the stroke, but her mental attitude underwent a cataclysmic change. She became the sweetest little old lady on the face of the planet. In her former life, a hangnail was a good reason to take to her bed. When she was 89, she fell and broke some ribs. I said, “Oh, that must hurt!” Her response? “Nope, not at all.”

On her last birthday, the 94^th, it fell on Mothers’ Day. Her May 13^th birthday often did. I have a picture in my office of the two of us posing with her birthday cake. The day she died, my husband received the call first and got to her bedside before I did. Later, he told me she was restless and uncomfortable until I arrived to hold her hand. She then relaxed, looked at me and smiled. I was with her as her breaths became farther and farther apart and finally stopped altogether. I am so thankful that, in my mother’s later years, I was able to make the mother-daughter connection I’d been longing for. It’s never too late.

Pick up Marilee Brothers’s Bell Bridge titles today:

Living the Dreamy Dreamland of a (cray-cray) Writer

Kathryn Magendie

Oh, the joys of being a writer! Why, we see the world in ways unlike mere mortals. Yeah. We do. Of course we do. We walk about with our heads in the clouds, or huddle inside our little spaces with far away dreamy dreamland eyes that rarely blink. I think I once didn’t blink for a week—no! Really! When one of my eyeballs fell out, I thought, “Dang, woman! For gawd’s sake blink!” So I did, and believe you me, I make sure I blink every once and a while. It’s much better that way; take it from me, the voice of experience.

I’m more the reclusive kind of writer. There’s only rumor that I really actually do exist at all. No! Really! There’s no one actually to prove it—okay, there are some who have seen me, waiflike and ethereal, meandering in an otherworldly way with clouds hovering over my wittle head. I’m so incredibly cute!—um, in very very weirdly dangerous to myself way—but I promise I am absolutely not dangerous to others. No sirree. I don’t even see others most of the time to be of any danger to them. Yeah. I just think of really strange things because my characters are doing all this cool stuff and I want to do it along with them. I do! I want to have all that excitement, and mysterious happenings, and!, all that good hot sex. Woooowheee.

Yeah, while writing The Lightning Charmer, I was so in to that book, I actually considered running outside nekkid while calling out to the lightning to “Take me! Take me, lover! I want you! Oh yes yes yes YES!” And without one shameful bone in my little body. Yeah. I surely am telling you the truth. I mean, Laura, that’s the main character, bless her heart, got to have sex with a lightning bolt!—how hot is that, my friends? How dagum hot is that? And Ayron? He’s the love interest, and so much more (I have a crush on him to beat the band so I won’t gush on and on about his awesomeness while I sigh with breathy sighs *cue rising music that fills the chest with longing.*); well, Laura has Ayron, that big hot sexy man who calls down the lightning for her. Oh, to have me an Ayron calling me down some lightning, mm hmmm—why can’t I go find a secret place in the woods and a big hot sexy mysterious man who charms the lightning comes take me in his big ole arms . . . *Kat will return in a moment—she’s having a quick fantasy daydream . . . nothing to see here, move along.*

Welp, luckily I have good sense god gave a goose and won’t go outside nekkid calling to the lighting to give me some hot sex. Huhn. And if I go up in my woods looking for a man, well, I just may find one, but what if I find a Flem and he takes me off to his nasty old shack like he did Laura? Ewww. He was some nasty. Dang it.

Sometimes I think of chunking this writing life. I do! You don’t believe me? Well, buh-leeve me I do. Sometimes I think I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s such a strange business. One that sometimes is unforgiving, and lonely—*sobs quietly for a moment*—and as for money? Good lawd! Let’s don’t go down that sad road.

But then, if I didn’t do this, who would I be? What would my world be like? How would I think of all kinds of cool things I’d love to do, even if I really can’t do them. Even if I can’t sex it up with a lightning bolt or a sexy lightning charming man, my character can, and I can live vicariously through her, and the others I create (or are they creating me?—stop the existentialism, Kat!). And it’s fun. And exciting. While I’m writing it, I am living it, y’allses! I am!

And when I’m not writing it, I’m thinking about it. And when I’m not writing and thinking about writing, on the seventh day, I rest. Dang, that might sound blasphemous, and in the south and mountain south you just don’t DO that kind of thing. Even if you might not believe in God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t matter—you by gawd better respect it! So, let me rephrase that: I never rest. At all! Yeah, even a god will get to rest, but my brain is on electro-dynamic-zippity-do-dah-day seven days a week, even when I’m sleeping—you don’t EVEN want a peek inside my brain, or my dreams. No. No, you do not *shivers.*

Now. If you are a writer, then you might be nodding your head, or you just might be going, “This woman is cray-cray! Good lawd!” And if you are not a writer, you might be going, “This woman is cray-cray! Good Lawd!”

Later y’all! Oh! Before I go: thank you all. Thank you all for supporting us writers by reading our work and encouraging us and staying ten feet back from us when we stare up at lightning with a gleam in our eyes. Teehee. But I adore you all. I do!

(A big P.S. The Lightning Charmer is on promo for one day only! For $1.99—wooowheee! That’s pretty danged cheap, y’all!)

Make  sure you head over to Amazon today in order to get this great deal on THE LIGHTNING CHARMER!! Just click the link!

Every sort of magick collides in these six paranormal tales of magick and romance . . .
Magick Justice from P.J. Bishop, a wonderful new voice in urban fantasy
A man on a mission to save his soul and a young reporter descended from a Samurai magicker must risk everything in a fight against a Rising of Demons.
Spirits Rising from RITA winner Evelyn Vaughn
A little haunted history is what Penny expects when staging a Victorian mansion in Galveston. What this amateur ghostbuster doesn’t expect is a mysterious stranger and a dark curse.
Blood Rising from RITA finalist and Reader’s Choice award winning author Karen Fox
When revenge for her sister’s killer drives a vampire slayer’s every thought, can she put aside her vengeance long enough to trust the one man who can help her?
A Shift in Magick from Golden Heart winner Laura Hayden
Private investigator Jonathan Craft’s tricks-of-the-trade include the carefully guarded secret of his shapeshifting. A routine case turns dangerous and forces him to rethink everything he knows about his life.
Destiny Rising from popular romance writer Jodi Dawson writing as Jodi Anderson
Celeste and Erik have serious history. Centuries ago she doubly damned herself by killing the man she loved to save the world from an evil wizard. Her one chance to bring him back to her has gone horribly wrong.
Wolf Rising from bestselling YA author Parker Blue
Duncan Gray desperately needs a cure for the lycanthropy that is killing him. His last hope is a Wiccan woman with secrets and fears of her own.

Comment below to be entered to win in the MAGIC RISING GIVEAWAY!

We will be giving out Tarot Cards to the lucky winner, so comment away! 

DOWN WITH NARNIA. UP WITH GLOME.

By Ricardo Bare

“Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.” 

Every writer can probably point to a short list of authors or books that are their favorite influences. The stories that left deep impact craters on their souls and set their imaginations on fire. The authors that seemed to speak right into their hearts and spurred them on to want to be writers themselves.

For me, one of those authors is C.S. Lewis. Most of you are probably thinking about Narnia right about now, maybe picturing a golden lion, or Tilda Swinton affecting a coldly wicked glare. But let me stop that train before it leaves the station. Narnia is not why I name C.S. Lewis. Not by a longshot.

Instead, picture a woman with a face so ugly she hides it behind a mask. Her name is Orual, and she’s queen of a country called Glome, a land vaguely north of Greece, lost somewhere in the mists of time. Queen Orual hates the gods for taking everything she loves. These are her opening words, in C.S. Lewis’ masterpiece, Till We Have Faces:

“I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of the gods. I have no husband nor child, nor hardly a friend, through whom they can hurt me. My body, this lean carrion that still has to be washed and fed and have clothes hung about it daily with so many changes, they may kill as soon as they please.”

My experience is probably inverted from what I imagine is typical. I didn’t read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when I was a kid, and I didn’t watch that BBC show with the giant flying puppet of Aslan. The first book of his I ever read was something called Out of the Silent Planet, a strange little science fiction book about a man who travels to mars and meets all kinds of interesting creatures. I read a bunch of other works by Lewis after that, including Till We Have Faces.

It wasn’t until many years later that I finally read the Narnia tales, probably out of some sense of duty. Honestly, I don’t think I even realized he wrote them until I was looking at the cover of one of the books (I’m kind of clueless sometimes about popular culture).

I’m going to make a bold, maybe snobbish, statement. If you’re a fan of Aslan, brace yourself. Narnia is a weak and thin broth compared to the nourishment you will find in Till We Have Faces. The Chronicles of Narnia is Turkish Delight, Till We Have Faces is meat, red and juicy on the bone.

On the surface it’s a wonderful re-telling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but you don’t have to know anything about that to enjoy it. The story is really about love. Real transformative love, and all the other things we call love but are really vanity, or selfish possessiveness. It’s incredibly wise about human nature. It is beautiful and it is moving, and it’s why when I think about authors and stories that have inspired me, I think about Lewis.

This is my recommendation. If you like Lewis, you owe it to yourself to read the best story he ever wrote, Till We Have Faces.

In fact, I’d read it twice.

TODAY ONLY Jack of Hearts by Ricardo Bare is only $1.99 on Amazon Kindle!

PLAYING DRESS-UP

By Trish Milburn

Little girls often like playing dress-up, and I was no exception even though I was a tomboy. And here’s the thing – I still like playing dress-up, only now it’s called cosplay (costume play). I really only get to do this once a year, at the huge Dragon*Con conference in Atlanta every Labor Day weekend, but it’s a load of fun when I do. Imagine about 40,000-50,000 people milling around downtown Atlanta, a great many of them in costume.

Time Lords from Doctor Who.

To date, I’ve dressed up as Alice Cullen from the Twilight series, Kahlan Amnell from Legend of the Seeker, a waitress from True Blood’s Merlotte’s and the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who. And I’m already spinning ideas in my head of what I want to dress up as next year. It’s great fun meeting up with other people who are dressed as characters from the same fan universes. And that’s what it boils down to – we’re celebrating characters we love, shows and writing that have captured our imaginations. That’s no surprise for a writer who immerses herself in characters and writing on a daily basis.

Me as the Tenth Doctor in his blue suit taking on a Weeping Angel.

This year, I was all about Doctor Who since I had just raced through watching all of the episodes from six seasons of the rebooted show. Suddenly, as my friend Lara told me I would, an entirely different slice of Dragon*Con opened up to me. Because of my recent viewing and tremendous love for the show, I was able to pick out other Who-inspired costumes, even ones from secondary characters. It’s no surprise to see a zillion Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, and even a couple of Ninth and previous incarnations, but it’s extra exciting when you see costumes depicting the Time Lords or Cassandra, the last human.

Me (next to the guy in the middle) as Kahlan Amnell, along with the rest of the Legend of the Seeker group in 2010.

That’s what I want to do for next year, come up with a Who costume that anyone would think is cool but only other Whovians will truly get. And hopefully I’ll be at my goal weight by then and perhaps be able to pull off a Selene from Underworld costume. I already have the totally awesome boots.

Me as the Tenth Doctor in his brown suit.

With Halloween just around the corner, lots of people will be attending Halloween parties or dressing up to greet trick-or-treaters. Are you one of them? If so, what are you dressing as? And would you ever consider cosplay? If so, what fictional characters would you want to inhabit?

 Check out The Coven Series by Trish Milburn featured in USA Today!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/happyeverafter/2012/10/24/recommended-ya-assassins-curse-guardian-the-coven-series/1656159/

There were pirates, space aliens, Storm Troopers, Spidermen, Wonder Women and lots more at this year’s gigantic Dragon*Con sci-fi and fantasy festival, held in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. Bell Bridge Books sponsored the writing workshops, hosting an array of famous authors including Carol Nelson Douglas, Kevin Anderson, and our authors  Anthony Francis and Kalayna Price. Here are the first snapshots. Some friendly werewolves, some Angry Birds, and Kalayna in her Con costume.

Bell Bridge Prez Deb Dixon has spent nearly a decade mastering the art of cover design. She taught herself Photoshop from the ground up, and now hankers to learn the digital model-making programs that would set her free to create human figures, critters, dragons—any kind of being we need for the artwork.

Here are her latest masterpieces: FANG ME, the art for Book 3 in Parker Blue’s bestselling DEMON UNDERGROUND series, and PRAISE JERUSALEM, the first of seven titles we’re publishing by acclaimed southern novelist Augusta Trobaugh.