CBLS Virtual eBook Tour - Interview / Giveaway - Bloodstone Heart (Blood #4) by T.Lynn Tolles

I am pleased to be able to host Bloodstone Heart by T. Lynn Tolles on my blog today through CBLS Promotions.

The next blog on this tour is Books Like Breathing

SYNOPSIS: (Goodreads) 

Josh Brenner is a good looking guy with an extraordinary talent he thinks is a curse - He's telepathic and he can't find the mute button, so he lives in solitude only coming out at night. But Josh isn't the only supernatural out and about this cold March night, because when Josh returns from his midnight run to the store to avoid people, he runs smack into a hungry agitated vampire looking for something and Josh is in his way.?? Horrified by what he's seen and barely escaping with his life, he confides in a woman he barely knows, but has an instant connection with. When another vampire shows up looking for the first, Josh and his friend Lanie find themselves running for their lives and head to Oljone, California where a friend of Lanie's from college has helped her with a supernatural problem in the past. ?? But when they get to California with the vampire hot on their trail, they find Darby, Lanie's college pal, has moved to Massachusetts in search of her vampire boyfriend Devon. Luckily Darby's sister Rowan and Devon's vampire brother, Blake, step in and help Josh and Lanie as best they can.?? The four work together along with Dean (a werewolf) and his girlfriend Sally (a witch) to figure out this crazy mystery. What does this determined vampire want and why? And is he willing to kill for it? As this mystery unfolds, so do other darker mysteries. Will they figure things out in time before someone is killed? You'll just have to read it to see!

EXCERPT: The chill of March was in the air and the moon shone through a halo of misty fog. Even though the moon was but a sliver, it appeared ten times brighter than normal, due to the refraction of the halo. Josh often walked late at night, even if just to pick up items from a convenience store. He liked this time of night, when most people were home with their families. The streets were quiet without many people about.

He had a hoodie on under his black leather coat and his iPod turned up as loud as he could stand it. This was standard practice for any public outing. Since he had been a young child, Josh could read other people’s thoughts. Though to anyone else, that may seem a gift, he felt it more a curse - a curse that had no on/off, mute, or volume switch.

Imagine being able to hear the random thoughts of everyone in your vicinity. Goofy, dumb thoughts, rude thoughts, thoughts a person never intends for anyone to hear. Everyone thinks out loud at times, but like breathing, people don't think about it. Sometimes it's just to keep oneself company, like having a television on in the background. Other times, it helps in dealing with scary, stressful, or embarrassing situations, but in most cases, people would be horrified if someone heard these thoughts. It made Josh feel like an outsider, a freak, to know what a person would say before they said it or to know their true feelings on any given thing. To Josh, isolation was the key and he was good at isolating himself from others; after all, he had perfected it over the years.

Author Bio: All my life I’ve been fascinated with vampires, werewolves, witches and monsters. Maybe it was all those late night ‘Creature Features’, or maybe I’m just a bit different. Either way, I just can’t put a good vampire or witch book down. Magic, goth, wizards, and fairies - they’re all good. 

I never intended on being an author. It had never been my life’s dream to write, but after reading a stack of books in June and July of 2009, I got an idea, ‘Hmmm. I wonder if I could write a book about vampires? There’d have to be, werewolves, though and maybe some witches just to make it interesting.’ 

And just to talk myself into it, I thought it might be a good way for my teenage daughter to see that if you set your mind to something, anything is possible. Three weeks later ‘Blood of a Werewolf’ was complete.

After its completion, I immediately jumped into ‘Blood Moon’ finishing it in late August 2009. ‘Blood Lust’ followed it and was complete in November 2009.

Life soon reared its head and demanded to be hear, so ‘Bloodstone Heart" wasn't released until August of 2010 and the final chapter in the Blood Series was completed in June of 2011.

Find T. Lynn Tolle on the web:

Website  - Trailer -  Blog  -  Smashwords  -  Amazon  -  Barnes and Noble

INTERVIEW:

Welcome to Obsession with Books, Are you able to tell us a little about yourself and the 4th Book in your Blood series, Bloodstone Heart?

I’m a stay at home mom, bookkeeper who tries to be a writer too.  As you said, Bloodstone Heart is the fourth book in the series and introduces two new characters to the growing group of friends. When you first start reading it, you’ll be thrown back in time a little to meet Josh, Lanie and Dimitri the vampire chasing them.  In fact you may wonder, what the heck does this have to do with all the others? Be patient, its coming. You don’t actually catch up to Book three until about half way through the book where you will go through the finding of Devon and the demise of Libby from a different point of view. It might not be to everyone’s liking but I thought it would cool to see if I could do it and I was pretty pleased with how it came out. For me, it was a neat way to get the reader invested in these two new characters as Josh is a key element in the future of the Larsen family.

When you wrote your first book had you anticipated it being a part of a series?

I had no idea it would be a series until about two thirds of the way through it.

Do you mind telling us how long it took for you to write Bloodstone Heart?

I can’t remember specifically, but I believe it was about six months or so, since I spent a lot of time researching the castle and making its history and the books one in the same.  The castle is an actual place in New York. I used the castle, the island it is on and its surrounding features to play into the book. The only thing that is not true is how extensive the tunnels are under the castle and the addition of the altar room. I spent weeks drawing the island, its floorplan, the tunnel maps and working it all into the book.

Where did the inspiration for your Bloodstone Heart come from?

I’m not sure there was any one thing that was my inspiration.  While I wrote the previous books, I jotted down thoughts of how things could progress in the future. Also when I get a specific idea or mini plot, I jot down What if? Why? How? and a bunch of other questions forcing myself to work out the details. It’s in these notes to myself that I come up with key elements to my books.

When and why did you begin writing?

My teenage daughter is painfully shy and I was hoping that by seeing that her mom could accomplish something that seemed, at the time, impossible, that she too, would find that she could do amazing things if she set her mind to it.

Is there anything about you that would surprise your readers?

That’s kind of a loaded question, but no. I can’t think of anything surprising about myself. I’m just a normal boring gal.

What is your ideal day as an author?

Hmmm.  Get the family out of the house and on their way…still in my jammies and head for the computer.

Are you able to describe what your writing process is like?

It’s never one set way, but I suppose I jot down the basics of the story and then mull those over for a while working out the details of whether they are plausible or not.  But I will admit I do a lot of my plot construction just before I fall asleep.  Something about that limbo time between sleep and being awake is when my brain can be free of the distractions of the day and I can see it all play out. When I wake up I usually jot the idea down or get straight to writing

Are there any books or authors that have most influenced you?

Oh definitely. However, to pick one out and specify that particular influence would be hard. I will say that Jim Butcher and Ellen Schreiber are two of my favorites for their use of humor. I try to bring humor to my books whenever I can, probably because I would do that in real life. Others would be, of course, Anne Rice and Stephan King, since I grew up with their special kind of horror and more recently L.J. Smith who I have been a huge fan of for a long while.

Is there are book you are reading at the moment? And do you tend to favor a particular genre?

Definitely…I read what I write, paranormal romance. I just finished Ellen Schreiber’s Once in a Full Moon and Cryptic Cravings. I’m midway through Lauren Kate’s Torment and have Passion on order. On my nightstand is also Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake and Ghost Story by Jim Butcher.  The list goes on and on, but I won’t bore you with it except to say that there are many indie books from friends I’ve made since becoming an author in that pile too.

If Bloodstone Heart were to be made into a movie, who would you chose to play the roles of your main characters?

Oh that’s simple…all my characters are based on tv or movie stars.

Darby O’Rielly – Blake Lively, Devon Bloomington – Orlando Bloom, Rowen O’Rielly – Amanda Seyfried, Blake Bloomington – Jared Padalecki, Dean Wolfe – Matthew Fox, Sally Keaton – Kristen Kreuk – Dominic Larsen – Tom Selleck, Katarina Jannson – Diane Lane, Anton Larsen – Chris Evans, Julianna D’Angelo – Kate Beckinsale, Josh Brenner – Paul Walker, Lanie Harper – Alexis Bledel, Mark Rosenthal – Jensen Ackles, Allyssa Sarducci – Alyssa Milano…I could go on and on, but well that is pretty much the crew.

Is there a character from any of your books you particularly favor?

Well…this is rather embarrassing, but I swear I had a terrible crush on Devon for the first three books. It seemed so silly since he was a made up character, but then when I brought Josh into this book I think I really crushed on him. Same thing happened when I wrote Somber Island. I guess when you invest so much of your time and energy into writing and imagining all these scenarios, it’s hard NOT to fall for them. (giggles)

What is up next for you?

I spent most of the summer marketing and getting things done that I had been putting off while writing, but I do have quite a few notes and ideas for a new series based on a witch who finds and raises a hellhound pup. I’ve gone through the picking of characters, mulling over the underlying mysteries and worked out a lot of the issues, so I’m hoping that maybe this winter I’ll start writing again. I so love writing while its raining.

Quick Questions:

Fave band / television series / movie?

Band: That really hard. I like a broad range from Norah Jones to Metalica…Loggins and Messina to Nirvana, so I’m not even going to try.

Television: Supernatural, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Castle, Bones Fringe and Rizzoli and Isles

Movies: Sheesh I guess I will go with my two all time faves: Young Frankenstein and Three Amigos

Coffee or tea? Coffee, unless I’m in London than its tea.

E-reader or hardcopy? Hardcopy (preferably Hard Cover)

Cats or Dogs? Both but I probably lean more towards cats.

Ideal travel destination? I’ve always wanted to go to Ireland. Went to Scotland and now I want to go to Ireland even more.

Thank-you so much for taking time to talk to us today! Thank You!

GIVEAWAY

Author T.Lynn Tolle has kindly offered an eBook copy of her novel Bloodstone Heart, to enter:

* Please leave a comment with your email address to make contacting the winner easier.

* Winner will be chosen using Random.org

* This is for International entrants.

* Giveaway will end on October 5th at 11:59 pm aest.

* Winner will be notified by email and announced on my blog, you will have 48 hours to respond before an alternate winner is chosen.

* Good luck!!

Giveaway now closed - please enter the end of tour giveaway through T.Lynn Tolles website, Thank-you :)

+ End of Tour Giveaway (October 16th):

http://tlynnetolles.netfirms.com/blog/end-of-tour-giveaway-oct-16.html