Taming the Wolf by Stephanie Nelson

The Anna Avery Series – Book 1

Attacked by a wolf while hiking in the mountains, Anna Avery’s life just got a little hairier. Living in the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming, with a group of werewolves who are more animal than human, Anna must try to hold onto her human side. It’s not easy when the alpha continues to persuade her into his bed, while another wolf is chomping at the bit to become her mate. To top it all off, dead bodies are showing up and it just so happens that Anna was the last to see them alive. She’ll have to work to prove her innocence and taming the wolf who bites first and asks questions never.

Available at – Amazon   B&N   Smashwords

Unbound

Book Two of the Spellbound Series

Toni went from being a doctor to the lover of a god in an instant. Remembering who she was, she’s now torn between her past self and her current love. Ben is stunned when Toni leaves and at the arrival of his long lost love, Catherine, but her arrival doesn’t eradicate Toni from his mind. Unlikely allies will team up to get Toni back from the Lord of the Underworld, Hades, but it’s not Hades they need to worry about.

A little preview of this fantastic new book. . .

“She knew I was a vampire.” I dropped my head as astonishment casted over Kevin’s face. “It is my fault she is with Hades, I’ll take that blame.” I swallowed the lump in my throat that formed around my next words. “Do it, take me this pain away from me!” Kevin pressed the stake hard to my chest, and I closed my eyes, preparing to die.

In a flash, Catherine tackled Kevin to the ground, knocking the stake out of his hands. Dawn screamed and I picked up the stake with the swiftest of movements and drove it through Catherine’s back. She turned to ash while still atop Kevin whose eyes widened in shock.

We looked at one another, both bewildered, in the moment before I offered my hand to help him from the floor. Dawn eased closer toward us. As Kevin brushed Catherine’s dust off him; then he picked up his stake, and returned it to his back pocket. Kevin stared at me for a long moment before he gave a nod. “For now, vampire.”

Today’s stop on the BREATHLESS blog hop:  Midwestern Moms, where Amanda has reviewed Book 2 of The King Series.

Make sure you go by and tell her you’re visiting from my site!

My blog hop tour for BREATHLESS is going on now!

The first stop (11 June) included a review and an interview at Identity Discovery. Please hop over there and comment so that Phaedra knows you’ve been by.

As an author, naming characters can be either a pain or a joy.  It’s not unusual to see a book of baby names on the shelf of a writer; it’s where we go when we’re desperate. Oh, and cemeteries and the birth section of the newspaper are also terrific mining sites!

You see, most characters don’t come to us named. They come to us the same way our children do:  a ready-made person with his or her own needs and personality, and they expect us to find them an appropriate moniker. Sometimes it’s easier than others.

I myself am very picky about names, probably because they have such meaning to me. Having a very unusual name has tremendous impact on a person, and I assume that having a very common name has its own set of challenges. So when I meet a new character, one of the first things I do is jot down his or her name, because if I don’t write that story right away, it will drive me crazy if I can’t remember the name.

In The King Series, almost all of the names have meaning. Tasmyn is an interesting story. She actually began as Tamsyn, but I just wasn’t feeling it.  I switched the letters and liked it better.  I only discovered much later the meaning of her name, and how eerily it fit into the story as it was already written. Pretty cool.

Michael was thus named because it fit his personality–and I learned later that he was named after an archangel. I loved his parents’ names, too–they just fit them.

Nell came to me with her name, but after she had read the first draft of Fearless, my sister pointed out that her name might have some personal history for me after all!  Sometimes these things are more subconscious than we know.

Waiting in the wings, in upcoming books, are Jackie and Lucas, and Sam. . .Carly and Russ and Jake. . .Jesse, Abby and Nat (oh, THAT is a good story. . .).

So what’s in a name?  More than you might think.