Monday, June 15, 2015

Intuition By Anna Durand




Intuition
Psychic Crossroads
Book Two
Anna Durand

Genre: paranormal romance

Publisher: Jacobsville Books

Date of Publication: 6/15/2015

ISBN: 978-1-934631-71-3 
ISBN: 978-1-934631-74-4
ASIN: B00XK88MB8

Number of pages: 270
Word Count: 106,000

Cover Artist: Lisa A. Shiel,
Five Rainbows Services

Book Description:

Book 2 in the multi-award-winning Psychic Crossroads series

Ultimate power comes at the ultimate price.

Torn apart by their haunted pasts, Grace Powell and her fiancĂ© David Ransom are struggling to reclaim their passionate bond. She yearns for a normal life — one without danger and paranormal powers — but David can't renounce his obsession with hunting down rogue scientist Karl Tesler, who abducts and tortures psychics. David endured Tesler's tactics himself, but despite what Grace believes, he's not out for revenge.

Tesler covets her unprecedented abilities and her connection to a vast and mysterious source of psychic energy known as the Golden Power. He will stop at nothing to possess her, and David will do anything — even abandon and lie to her — to protect Grace from the mad scientist.

With a psychic stalker on her trail, Grace charges into a desperate mission to uncover the truth about David's obsession and his secret past. But Tesler's agents are closing in on her, and a terrifying new enemy is rising…

As events drive Grace and David toward a battle of epic proportions, they must risk everything — their relationship, their lives, and even their souls — to defeat an enemy who wields unspeakable psychic power. Can a bond borne of true love save them, and the world?


Available at Amazon   Smashwords   iTunes   Google Play


Excerpt:

Grace Powell slammed the front door. The cool air inside the house flushed away the sultry October heat pasted to her skin. She stalked across the living room, down the hall, and into the bedroom. She fumbled for the light switch, her fingers slipping off the plastic. Dammit. No one but David Ransom detonated her temper like this. She flicked the switch, and light flooded the room. The bed stood empty, the sheets crumpled at the foot.
They'd fled the house in a near-panic, racing from their home to the Cincinnati airport with tires screeching, all because of a thirty-second phone call David received at one a.m. Another tip from a questionable source. Another threadbare clue in his quest for vengeance. Another search that yanked him away from Grace. Away from their home, their life.
The emptiness of the bed tore at her heart like tiny claws. Sharp. Hot. Fresh tears pricked her eyes, and she gnawed her lip to stave off the downpour. No crying.
She fingered her engagement ring. A tear sneaked out of her eye to roll down her cheek, painting a hot trail on her skin. No crying, dammit.
She resisted the impulse to tap into their telepathic bond and check on her fiancé. It was an invasion, one she understood all too well, but how else could she know David was all right? She had to trust their latent connection, however faint, to warn her. If he stumbled into trouble, though, what could she do from here, over a thousand miles away?
Her heart clenched. Losing her parents ripped her world asunder. She could not lose David too. Her head told her she wouldn't, yet the fear chilled her down to the essence of her being.
She trudged into the bedroom, kicking off her shoes. The lonely tear crept into her mouth, infecting her tongue with a salty tang. She tugged the cell phone out of her jeans pocket and tossed it onto the bedside table. Her muscles, stiff and sore, begged for a rest. She collapsed onto the mattress on her back. Her gaze hit the ceiling, where little acoustic balls clung to the paint, stuck there against their will. I know the feeling.
When they'd reached the security checkpoint at the airport, she'd longed to plead with David to stay. Instead, she cranked her lips into a smile, pecked a kiss on his cheek, and all but shoved him through the gate. Her stomach wrenched into knots recalling that moment, as he strolled into the main terminal. When he paused to glance back, she prayed he would change his mind. But he simply waved, then strode out of sight.
Grace rolled onto her side. Her nose bumped into David's pillow. She drew in a long breath. The spiciness of his aftershave flooded her senses, along with another scent—a subtle, masculine smell unique to David. Indescribable. Delicious. Warmth suffused her, seeping into her heart and mind, smoldering in parts of her that ached for him. She inhaled another draft of his scent, her body responding as if he were there, caressing her. He may drive her nuts at times, but…
Oh, the way he kissed. Her lips tingled from the memory of it.
A chill whispered over her skin. Every hair on her body stiffened. Her sixth sense burst out of its slumber, clanging alarm bells in her psyche. Someone is here.
She bolted upright and whipped her head left and right. Nobody there. She swung her legs off the bed and pushed up onto her feet, nabbing her .357 Magnum revolver from the bedside table. A chill trickled down her spine. Eyes watched. Invisible, ethereal, but real. She turned toward the doorway. Nothing lurked there.
Why couldn't she pin down the source of the sensation? Her paranormal radar was blanked out, as if overwhelmed by  input.
Psychic energy crackled through her. Behind you. She whirled around, thrusting the gun up, clamped in both hands, and confronted—
The lamp.
Hell. She'd let her unease blossom into paranoia. Nobody hunted her anymore. Probably. Tesler wouldn't find her here.
Her cell phone buzzed. A text message had arrived.
David. She snatched up the phone, tapping the screen until the message popped up. As she scanned the words, a shiver rattled through her.
"Come to me," it said, "I can help you. 1325 Meroz Road."
She didn't recognize the phone number the message came from, and no name was given. Oh sure, she'd rush right out to the address texted to her by an anonymous whackjob.
The phone buzzed again. Another text message: "Your lip is bleeding."
Her lip? She dabbed a finger on her mouth. It came away wet. Blood stained her skin. How did the texter know she bit her lip? Her heart pounded. Without moving, she searched the shadows for a figure, a camera, something to explain this, though she knew she'd find nothing. A thick curtain shielded the window. The person sending the messages could either see through solid objects or had another means of viewing her. Extrasensory means.
The phone tumbled from her hand, clattering on the floor.
No, she was jumping to conclusions. An intruder must've stolen into the house. With the revolver in hand, she sprinted out of the bedroom, down the hallway, through the kitchen, and into the living room. Vacant. All vacant. She rushed back to the bedroom and dug through the closet, scoured the dresser, even dropped onto her belly to investigate the space under the bed. No cameras. No stealthy intruders. Not a damn thing. Which left her with one unthinkable possibility.
Maybe she should call the police.
What for? They couldn't help her with this kind of problem.
"You belong with me."
She jumped. Her head smacked into the bed frame. She clutched the gun tighter. Where had the voice come from?
No, no, no, not again. Nausea swelled in her stomach, bile rising high in her throat. The voice did not originate in this room, or from outside. The source was much, much closer. Someone rammed the words into her mind.
A psychic intruder just hacked her brain.



About the Author:


Anna Durand is a multi-award-winning writer, a freelance librarian, and an audiobook addict. She specializes in sexy romances, both paranormal and contemporary, featuring spunky heroines and hunky heroes. In her previous life as a librarian, she haunted the stacks of public libraries but never met any hot vampires hunting for magical books.








 Butterfly-o-Meter Books Author Interview Questions

There are three sections of questions: the first - dedicated to any and all authors, the second - dedicated to self-published authors in particular, and the third - fun facts, dedicated to any and all authors.
If the title we're promoting has been self-published, please consider answering a few of the self-pub dedicated questions.
For each section, answer the questions you feel like.
In all, please make sure you have a minimum of 23 questions answered, or answer all of them if you'd like.

After you've decided what questions to answer from each section, please delete the ones you didn't and renumber the ones you did, so once completed, each section of the interview will have the answered questions numbered 1, 2, 3, etc.

Thank you for stopping by Butterfly-o-Meter Books!
xoxo,
Livia

Please answer these questions with the title we're promoting in mind:

1. If you were to describe your e-book/book in only one word, what would it be? Redemption.
2. What would you say inspired you to write it? This is the second book in a series, and after finishing the first book (Willpower), I knew Grace and David's story wasn't finished yet. They'd rediscovered their love, but they still had some issues to work out.
3. Have you ever been hit by the infamous “writer’s block”? What did you do to escape it? Everyone has days where they can't get in the mood, but for me this is really an issue of motivation. I crank up my favorite tunes and make myself start writing anyway. Even if I'm struggling at first, eventually the words begin to flow. I treat writing like a job, instead of waiting for inspiration to strike.
4. Your all time favorite book? I can't choose one book, but the one series that stands out is Rachel Caine's Weather Warden books. The heroine is awesome, and I love her djinn boyfriend, plus all the terrific secondary characters. I could read the series over and over without getting tired of it. And the audiobook versions are fantastic!
5. What’s the longest time you’ve spent working on a project? I first wrote Willpower back in 2001; it wasn't published until 2013—so, twelve years! I work much faster these days.
6. Would you say becoming an author has changed you? In what way? I've been a published author for over a decade, and I've noticed my thought processes have evolved over the years. Even when I'm doing something else, my brain is always working on stories and popping out ideas. I also find that when I watch movies or read books, I wind up thinking "If I wrote this, I would've done it this way…" This happens whether I loved the movie/book or hated it.
7. Was there ever a time, during your work on the e-book/book, when you felt like giving up? What made you change your mind? Last summer, I started entering Intuition in contests—and the first couple resulted in horrible scores and nasty comments from the judges. But I got great advice and support from workshops, and then I wound up winning first and second place in two contests, as well as receiving high scores and wonderful comments from judges in the contests where I wasn't even a finalist. I realized some judges just hate my kind of story, but most people who've read Intuition loved it, so I must be on the right track.
8. Is this title part of a series? Without giving us spoilers, of course, what can we expect from the next e-books/books in the series? Intuition is the second book in the Psychic Crossroads series. I've already got the seed of an idea for the third book, which will feature one of the secondary characters from the first two books. Sean Vandenbrook, who was a teenager in Willpower and Intuition, is all grown up now—somewhat wiser, much hotter, and in a heap of trouble.
9. What do you have stored for us in the future? What are you working on/planning on next, aside this title/series? I've got tons of stories in the works, everything from more paranormal romances to a hot contemporary romance about friends struggling with their feelings for each other. I'm almost done writing The Mortal Falls, the first book in a paranormal romance series about elemental beings, fae, gods, and the mortal woman who must battle to save two worlds while fighting her attraction to a mysterious sylph.


Fun facts:

1. Name your favorite fruit. Strawberries. Red, juicy, delicious, and they go with just about everything.
2. Coffee or tea? Ginger tea, with a splash of cranberry juice.
3. Favorite season? Summer, because after a long and cold winter, we really deserve sunshine and flowers!
4. Latest book you’ve bought and read? The last one I finished was Devil's Bargain by Rachel Caine, but I'm currently reading Hunter's Moon by Lisa Kessler.
5. Do you collect things like stamps, or key chains, or shoes? When I was a kid, I had a rather unusual hobby of collecting business cards. I still have them all, but I no longer collect new ones. I do have some strange ones—like a coffin-shaped card for a funeral home.
6. Favorite color, you know you want to tell us! Pink. All shades. Everyone who knows me knows to give me pink stuff as gifts.
7. Drama or comedy? Depends on the story. I hate sad endings, which is why I love writing romance fiction.
8. Have a fav quote or personal motto? Shakespeare said "To thine own self be true," and that's how I try to live my life. If other people don't like who you are, then they aren't people you want in your life anyway.
9. Cats or dogs? I have both, as well as horses. Oh, and we can't forget the wolves, deer, bears, squirrels, and myriad birds.
10. What song have you listened to most recently? "Trust You" by Rob Thomas. I just bought the song, and while writing these answers, I had it on repeat. It's addictive!

Full Disclosure:

1. Your top secret, uber guilty pleasure is... Movies and TV shows where muscular men take their shirts off on a regular basis, or at least show off their muscles by wearing tight-fitting outfits. Yes, I'm a sucker for eye candy. Hey, I write steamy romances, so what do you expect?
2. Your oldest memory is... When I was three or four, sitting on a swing kissing the little boy who lived next door.
3. If a character from any book could become real and you could spend a day with them, it would be... from the book... Adam Black from The Immortal Highlander by Karen Marie Moning. He's bad, he's good, he's just so much fun.
4. The one thing that always brightens your day is...A silly joke. Humor is the best medicine.






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