ST. PATRICK'S DAY BLOG HOP, Day 1: Excerpt from DESCENT and Ebook Giveaway

Greetings!

Once again, I am happy to be part of a blog hop with some pretty amazing authors, and will even be featuring some of them here in the next couple days.

On this first day, I am giving a couple excerpts from my book Descent (The Birthrite Series, #1) that feature some characters of Irish descent. :) There is also a giveaway of the book after the post. So if you haven't started the series yet, here is your chance. :)

Now without further ado, here is the blurb and the excerpts...

BLURB:

Visions of infant twin boys, clouds, a young woman taking her own life, and a collision of space, time, and realms...
On the eve of Summer Solstice in 1844, four men in different areas of the world share an experience that impacts not only their own lives, but those of the future generations. The first man is Nicolae Ganoush, a young Romany fugitive from a slave village in Wallachia. The second is Jonathan Blake, an eighteen-year-old Irishman in the American Midwest who finds himself falling in love with a young woman from a nearby Sioux village. The third is James Livingston, a prominent figure in colonial America, and the fourth is Hector de Fuentes, a sixteen-year-old from Tuxpan, Mexico with special gifts and visions enhanced by a mysterious and wondrous cave. Each man carries his own inner battle, unbelievable ancient truths deep within their lineages, and demons that are much closer to home than any of them would like. 

Later in 1931, seventeen-year-old Dorothy Blake, a descendant of Jonathan and his Sioux wife, is living in Plains, New York, the town founded by James Livingston. The notorious Fleming Orphanage has long fallen into disuse but kept by the town as a landmark. The buildings loom high on a hill, overlooking the town, taunting the townsfolk with its lore. On Halloween night, Dorothy ventures up with friends, and the group of six expects nothing more than a good time along with a few laughs. But they fall into a dark, brutal evil; one that extends beyond the orphanage and town of Plains, far back into history. Their descent is only the beginning…

The Birthrite Series is an epic journey into the vast unknown, plunging deep into the dark crevices of the mind, begging the question of what sanity really is and if the insane truly are. Are we really shown the whole truth of what surrounds us or is it an illusion? It also tells of deep-rooted love, planted centuries ago and a story of family, forgiveness, and redemption.


EXCERPT 1:

...when he pulled on the reigns, slowing Samson to a halt just in front of her.
She ceased her singing and regarded him with dark, inquiring eyes. His heart pounded as his gaze traveled from her moccasined feet to her long, silky mane of black hair. She appeared a couple of years younger than he (possibly sixteen years of age), and Jonathan immediately figured her to be from the nearby Dakota Sioux village.
I have never seen such beauty before, he thought.
He observed his surroundings, a habit he had developed from living on the frontier. Somehow though, he felt safe within this patch of trees.
In an attempt to put her at ease, he masked his own nerves, offering a friendly smile that was met with apprehensiveness.
Please, lass,” he said. “My intention is not to hurt you.”
The girl relaxed her stance a little but remained silent.
He slowly dismounted and hooked Samson’s reigns to a strong branch on the closest tree. When he turned back to face her, their eyes locked: her near black to his grayish-blue.
The evening’s light wind carried strands of her hair, and Jonathan could feel the world around him fading until he existed with only her on that covered path.
As his feet took him toward her, visions of them together in a paradise with no physical or emotional barriers between them burned his mind’s eye. 'Can I take you away to find the Garden of Eden to find our Heaven together?' he desperately wanted to ask her.
She stood frozen in her place as he closed the distance between them.
The two were close to touching as he struggled with the urge to lift her into his arms and claim her lips. He drew in a breath and opened his mouth to speak again, but before any words could be said, she jumped back and ran toward the other end of the trail.
Please! Don’t run away,” he called after her, but she had already disappeared into the outside field, leaving Jonathan alone on the trail with Samson.

A strong wanting to run after her pulsed in his every fiber, but he resisted. His steps were heavy as he moved down the path, stopping to stare out to the field she had run to…


EXCERPT 2:

The clock on the nightstand pointed to three 'o' clock in the early morning when Kimimela was wrenched from sleep. Perspiration matted strands of black hair to her face and shoulders as she pressed her palms against the cool sheets spread over a goose-feather mattress. She willed her breath to slow, and her eyes turned toward her husband who lay in a peaceful sleep beside her. His bare chest moved with the rhythm of his breathing, and the blanket had slid down, revealing the slightest hint of his defined hip.
A small smile played across her lips; the mere site of Jonathan was enough to bring light to her darkest moments. “What would I do without you?” she whispered.
Her first thought was to wake him. She had done so several times in the last three months after experiencing the terrifyingly vivid dreams. Without question, he always took her into his arms and stayed up for as long as she needed him, even if he had to work or tend to some other business in the morning. On some nights, his protective comforting turned to romance (as a couple regularly intimate with one another, the two preferred sleeping without the barriers of clothing even on the coldest nights). Being close to him quelled her night terrors and in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to hear his soothing voice, feel his strength and the warmth of his skin.
Kimimela lifted a hand to gently shake him but stopped herself. His worrying for her had escalated in the last month after the confirmation of her pregnancy.
I cannot keep doing this to him. The arrival of our little one will bring plenty of sleepless nights...
She brought the lifted hand to her stomach. On the other side grew a baby that was half of her and half of Jonathan. According to her symptoms, she was about three months along with her belly just starting to grow. After being married for a little over a year, this child would be their first.
Kimimela inhaled deeply and turned back to him. “Just sleep tonight, my love.”
She lightly brushed her fingertips down the side of his face before pausing to place her hand over his heart. As she felt the gentle beats, Jonathan stirred slightly.
In the last two years since their initial meeting on that wooded trail, he had given her many firsts. He was the first man she truly fell in love with, the first to kiss her, the first to intimately touch her, and the first to be with her as a lover. Her heart raced as images of their wedding night played through her mind, along with the events that led up to it.
She turned her eyes toward the window at the other end of the room. The waxing moon peered in at them through a small opening in the curtains as she remembered that day two years ago when she ventured out alone against her father's adament warnings about never wandering the frontier.
Kimimela had discovered the small pocket of forest in the spring of her twelfth year. The pocket that seemed out of place from its surroundings. From her first moment setting foot on the canopied trail, she was filled with a sense of belonging she never felt anywhere. In the four years that would follow, a young Kimimela fell in love with its serenity. No one could touch her here and she truly felt free from the confines of her village and the uncertainty of the outside world. In the Sioux language, her name meant ‘butterfly’ and suited her well.
In the time she was regularly visiting her secret place, Kimimela had never seen so much as a footprint on the path other than her own; therefore, she assumed herself as the only one who knew of it. That is, until the day a young Irishman by the name of Jonathan Joseph Blake rode toward her on a large, black horse, catching her by surprise (and slight dismay). It was two days prior to the summer solstice...













*****


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Paperback copies of Descent (The Birthrite Series, #1) and Sacred Atonement:Novelette (The Birthrite Series, # 1.5) available together for the low price of $21.00 at my Official Website


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"The Birthrite Series" and other books at Smashwords and Barnes & Noble NOOK
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