A Dark and Stormy Night

Please welcome Terry Spears to NN. We are so excited to have you join our Creep Fest! A Dark and Stormy Night huh? So would say it a bit cliche but I think it is more classic. LOL! Well I will turn it over to you Terry. 

I was in creative writing class at Merritt Island High School and loved writing and making up my own stories, so of course that was my reason for taking an extra English class in high school. If I could have, 

I would have taken several more that year.

I started out one of my papers with:

It was a dark and stormy night…because, I LOVE that start!!!

I lived across the street from a jungle-like swamp in Central Florida, and we crossed over causeways to get to our Merritt Island home where the water was dark and deep and filled with all kinds of scary things—like sharks and horseshoe crabs and stinging jellyfish, water moccasins and alligators and well, you name it…scary things.

Florida has the most lightning strikes than anywhere else and violent storms. In Deidre’s Secret, a YA novel, the heroine starts out her story in her creative writing class with: It was a dark and stormy night. And everyone groans. But she’s psychic and she’s reliving a real experience as she’s relating the story.

In Ghostly Liaisons, ghostly YA, also psychic story, I have where she lives right across the street from that swamp. I used to explore that very swamp as a pre-teen and teen and had a fascination with ghosts and pirates and so the story was born.

My mother also took me to see Dracula, a play at our local Brevard Community College, and I fell in love with the underdog, Dracula. I wanted to run up on stage and be his next “victim,” loved by him for all eternity. “Bite me! Bite me!”

From those early times when I loved all things that go bump in the night, I continued to love the underdog—the vampire needed a happily ever after. And so did the misunderstood werewolf. Which is the basis of my Heart of the Wolf series.

Now, there be jaguar shifters! Which goes back to my earlier days of exploring jungle-like swamps. You see, even though I didn’t know it at the time, my life experiences, including training as an officer in the Army, prepared me for my next bout of writing—Savage Hunger. The jaguar shifters live in Texas, but they explore their more primal jaguar nature with a return to the jungle. And the heroine, Army officer, Kathleen MacKnight, is there also, on an Army mission, when she runs into a hunk of a man, who has a big secret. She thinks hers are top secret!

One year at Halloween when I was a teen, my girlfriend and I made a tent over a ping-pong table after we had run around the neighborhood as fairy princesses wearing used ballroom gowns, and we had given away treats until it was very late. With our candy and a flashlight, to simulate a campfire, and everything else dark as a stormy night, we curled up with our pillows and blankets under the table, and I told spooky stories.

Even in my Medieval Highland historical romance, Winning the Highlander’s Heart, my heroine has psychic powers and in the third book in the series, Highland Rake, a ghost. Yep, back to one of my early loves. Ghosts.

And in my wolf shifter series, in Wolf Fever, the werewolf is a psychic, and in Heart of the Highland Wolf, the castle has a ghost. Of course! What good Scottish castle wouldn’t, eh?

Every world is improved with a little of the paranormal, I say! So bring on the ghosts, the psychics, the vampires, the werewolves and now, some sexy jaguar shifters and let’s party!!!

Have you ever considered hooking up with a jaguar shifter?

A lucky commenter can win a copy of Savage Hunger, US/Canada address only.

Savage Hunger

In the heat of the jungle, jaguars are clawed, dangerous, and hungry for love. With hopes of overcoming night terrors and thanking the man who saved her life, Kathleen McKnight returns to the Amazon. A jaguar at heart, Connor Anderson doesn’t just protect her, but wants to claim her for his own.

About the Author

USA Today bestselling and an award-winning author of urban fantasy and medieval romantic suspense, Terry Spear also writes true stories for adult and young adult audiences. She’s a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has an MBA from Monmouth University. She also creates award-winning teddy bears, Wilde & Woolly Bears, that are personalized that have found homes all over the world. When she’s not writing or making bears, she’s teaching online writing courses or gardening. Her family has roots in the Highlands of Scotland where her love of all things Scottish came into being. Originally from California, she’s lived in eight states and now resides in the heart of Texas. She is the author of the Heart of the Wolf series and the Heart of the Jaguar series, plus numerous other paranormal romance and historical romance novels. For more information, please visit www.terryspear.com, or follow her on Twitter, @TerrySpear. She is also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/terry.spear .

Buy at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Hunger-ebook/dp/B008BWABXU/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345942102&sr=1-2&keywords=savage+hunger

Buy at Barnes and Noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-savage-hunger-terry-spear/1108936806?ean=9781402266928

What a beautiful Cover! I just love shifters in any form. Someone is going to be very lucky to win a copy of Savage Hunger. All you have to do is join the blog and leave a comment. 

It was a pleasure to have you on NN Terry. Hope you join us again in the future. 

Happy Haunting,

Tabitha Blake