Please welcome my birthday guest - Ana Raine!
I have been exceedingly lucky to have had many
exciting birthday parties. For my tenth birthday, I got to ride carnival rides
with friends until I felt sick. For my sixteenth birthday, I was up north at a
cottage by the water eating cake and be carried around by my much older cousin
who pretended to be Harry Potter. And for my twenty-first, I drank several long
island iced teas and laughed while my husband and good friends carried me back
to my house.
But by far the most important milestone
birthday was the year I turned eighteen. I had been dating my now husband for
about two months and to celebrate my August birthday, we decided to take a
train to New York City with two of my friends. The train ride was long and
cramped, but we made it without a hitch. That’s when things got interesting.
I had gotten a bad tip on where to stay and we
ended up in a hostel with beds that looked better suited to a hospital horror
film. We all slept with our clothes on and carried everything important we
could when we left each day. Not to mention, I actually paid cash upfront for
the week we were there. Talk about expensive!
After a ton of trips to museums, getting lost
in Chinatown, and finding ourselves stranded in the subway at three in the
morning in Brooklyn, we finally went home. The reason this was the best
birthday milestone is because I finally realized that it was my choice to
decide how to live. I didn’t always have to get perfect grades, I wouldn’t
always be part of a million school activities, and there would be a lot of
mess-ups. Most importantly, I did all of that with my then boyfriend at my
side.
I ended up marrying him four months later and
we are still together six years later.
by Ana
Raine (Dreamspinner Press)
Summary:
Kanji is the last royal Kuro swan, an ancient
race who once served the demonic Sidhee. The Kuro were betrayed and given as
slaves to the Dryma fairies. When a Dryma is born, his soul attaches to a tree
and to sustain their lives, the Dryma conscript the Kuro to protect their
woods. In their servitude, the Kuro are languishing and dying off. Kanji is
desperate to reunite his people with their stolen wings, but the task seems
impossible.
When Kanji discovers a plan to unite the
Sidhee and the Dryma, he tricks the Sidhee prince and attends a masked ball in
disguise. There he meets Prince Tristan, who is nothing like the other fairies.
Kind and compassionate, Tristan has a plan to free the Dryma from their
dependence on the trees—and their need of the Kuro’s protection. It could mean
freedom for Kanji’s people, but it might also mean choosing between them and
the life of the fairy who is—impossibly—his mate.
When Tristan is wounded in battle and left
for dead, his survival depends on the success of his experiments. Can Kanji
dare to believe, or must he come to terms with the loss of his mate?
Buy Link:
R-Excerpt
Long
ago, the Kuro Swans had been friends with the Sidhee and had offered their
wings in service when the soul stealers needed to come to the human world. I
tried to make sense of what Christophe was saying and stuttered a response,
“Y-you, I mean, you can’t expect us to steal them a soul.”
Christophe
played with the buttons of his immaculately tidy shirt. “No, I do not. I simply
expect you to deliver this,” he reached into his pocket and produced a white
envelope sprinkled with colorful flowers. “They will be arriving the night
before the party on the South side of the forest. You will meet them there and
present them with this. Afterwards, you will escort them to the Castle De Mar.
The envelope contains instructions so should they have questions, they will
know who to consult with.”
I
swallowed, my lungs dying from a lack of oxygen. “May I ask why you are not
meeting them yourselves?”
Christophe
stared at me for so long, I thought he was going to tell me to go to hell and
reach for his whip looped through his belt. To my surprise, he said, “Ivan,
Seth, why don’t you go downstairs and see if Nicolai needs some help. I’m sure
Kanji won’t mind speaking to me…alone.”
Zain
tensed beside me, but I gave him a nod. Sensing they didn’t have much of a
choice, Joel and Zain followed the two guards from the room, the door swinging
shut with a soft click.
The
music floated up the stairs and the scent of fried food wafted through the
floorboards. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my pants and waited for the assault to
begin, just like it always did.
“Did
you know the Dryma fairies have a long history of deception and trickery?”
My
jaw clenched, “I can imagine so.”
“So
naturally, we would decide to host a masked ball to celebrate one of our great
Prince’s birth.”
“I
suppose it does seem fitting.”
“Your
kind are not the only ones adverse to forming an alliance with the Sidhee.
Having a masked ball where my kind can congregate without fear is the perfect
way to introduce the Prince of the Sidhee into our community without
opposition.” Christophe paused to pour himself another drink from the crystal
pitcher before taking a step towards me. He took a swig of the drink and then
set it down on the table. Circling me, I could smell his cologne mixed with the
alcohol on his breath. “Sidhees can be ruthless and tend to regard all life as
little more than wrongs of a ladder.”
“So
why unite with them?”
Christophe
parted my hair with his hand so my neck was exposed, my silky strands falling
just above my shoulder. He trailed his hands down my back, resting on my
shoulder blades and gently manipulating the muscle so a forced relief washed
through me. “Kanji, you should know what it can take to survive.”
I
flinched as he snaked one of his hands around my stomach and pushed his cool
fingers up underneath my shirt and jacket so he could touch my skin. “So you
need the Sidhee now?”
“Everything
is changing,” Christophe whispered in my ear. “Your lives are tied to the trees
just as surely as ours are. So why not stop pretending? I can feel your power
in every breath you take. With every movement you make, you are trying to
maintain control.”
“That’s
not true.”
“You
were born to be a Prince,” he said softly, stroking my abdomen and working his
way up to my chest. “You’re father was tricked by the Sidhee and yet you bear
the burden for him. You don’t even know what occurred.”
“I
don’t need to,” I spat. “The fact they betrayed us is enough.”
Christophe
made an indifferent noise before wrapping his other hand around my neck and
tangling my hair in his fingers so I was trapped. “What do I have to do to get
you to give in? I can provide for you, give you things that would make even
Dryma fairies jealous. All you have to do is become mine.”
Bio:
Ana Raine writes because she loves to believe
in magic, dragons, and that there is more to life than what human eyes can see.
Ana lives in Michigan where when it’s not snowy and wet, there are beautiful
state parks and lakes to visit. When she was eighteen, she married her best
friend and they live with their two cats, Mason and Misaki. Ana has celiac
disease, but that hasn’t stopped her from learning how to cook and bake so she
can eat tasty treats. Fudge, enchiladas, and anything involving yucca/cassava
are her absolute favorite.
Ana has studied in Osaka, Japan where she
learned about theater and drama. She would love to go back after she is sure
her Japanese is efficient enough. Ana loves anything to do with foxes,
especially Arctic foxes. One day, Ana will find a way to incorporate her love
of foxes into a novel, but until then, she’ll stay focused on fairies, shape
shifters, and mythology.
Feel free to stop by her blog for tasty
recipes, freebies, and more.
Twitter: @AuthorAnaRaine
E-mail: anaraine@rocketmail.com
Thank you for sharing your important birthday milestones and memories :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing so many of your birthday memoriesand the excerpt to one of your books.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the post so sorry about your Eighteenth birthday a bit of bad luck but you did end up marrying your boyfriend so it turned out all right in the end.
ReplyDelete