Dark Legends Author Spotlight – Shelley Munro

by
Rebecca Hamilton,
T.F. Walsh, Monica Corwin, J.L. Weil,
Laxmi Hariharan, JA Culican, Muffy Wilson,
GK DeRosa,
Marilyn Peake, Kevin McLaughlin, Carissa Ann Lynch,
Vivienne Savage, Anna Hub,
HJ Lawson, Emma Nichols, Shelley Munro, J.A.Armitage,
Leilani Love, Demelza Carlton, Xyla Turner,
D.S. Murphy, J.T. Williams

This Collection is packed with more than 20 full-length Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance reads from New York Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling Authors!

Don’t miss this collection of more than twenty unique twists in paranormal romance and urban fantasy, providing over one million words of supernatural suspense that will transport you to new worlds with smoking hot action and heart-throttling adventure!

The DARK LEGENDS boxed set includes: Mermaids, Sirens, Shifters, Vampires, Dragons, Sorcerers, Warriors, Angels, Faeries, Demons, Witches, Psychics, Ghosts, Mythology, Folk Tales, Legends, Dark Magic, Time Travel, and More!

Rebecca Hamilton
T.F. Walsh with Demon’s Mark
Monica Corwin with Soulless
J.L. Weil with White Raven
Laxmi Hariharan with Redemption
JA Culican with The Keeper of Dragons, The Prince Returns
Muffy Wilson and The Para-Portage of Emily
GK DeRosa with Wilder: The Guardian Series
Marilyn Peake with Shade
Kevin McLaughlin with By Darkness Revealed
Carissa Ann Lynch with Midnight Moss
Vivienne Savage with Making Waves
Anna Hub with Beyond the Shadows
HJ Lawson with New Order
Emma Nichols with Blood Moon
Shelley Munro with Claimed & Seduced
J.A.Armitage with Two of Clubs
Leilani Love with Violca’s Dragon
Demelza Carlton with Ocean’s Gift
Xyla Turner with Broken Treaty
D.S. Murphy with Scarlet Thread
J.T. Williams with Winemaker in the North

One step out of routine changed everything…

Shapeshifter Prince Jarlath Leandros of the planet Viros is a man who understands duty. As heir, he’s had his future as leader of the House of the Cat mapped since childhood. Boring! Jarlath yearns for an indefinable more.

Keira Cloud is beautiful and sexy, she’s independent and confident, and not only is she an enemy from the House of Cawdor, but her stepchildren accuse her of murder. Not a suitable woman for the prince, but Jarlath aches to claim her.

When the House of the Cat comes under attack, Jarlath is thrust into the middle of danger where life or death is the only option. A war is brewing, one that brands Jarlath and Keira enemies, yet their hearts shout otherwise and their animal selves—the leopard and the crow—care nothing for conventional barriers. Right or wrong, passion blooms out of control and with the city under siege soon Jarlath’s life is anything but boring. Now all he
needs to do is survive…

“Jarlath! You should let me go first.”

He ignored Ellard, examining their surroundings instead. Ah, there was someone on the path. The disturbance wasn’t his imagination. He signaled his mount to slow but the cambeest increased his speed.

“Halt, beest!” Jarlath shifted his weight and hauled on the harness reins. Black ignored the command and bolted, the cool air whistling against Jarlath’s face. His cambeest shot past a tree. Too close! Jarlath gritted his teeth at the friction of leg and coarse trunk. Pain reverberated down his limb. He gripped Black’s shaggy hump with pincher fingers to right his balance. “Stop, you cantankerous beest!”

Without warning, Black screeched to a halt. Jarlath shot forward, flipping over his beest’s head. His world slowed, lurching back into place when he struck the ground. Packed earth and gravel punched his head, his shoulder, smacked the breath from his lungs. Fire burned along his cheek. He struggled, wheezed to get air. A groan rippled up his throat as he lay there. Then a familiar snort had him attempting to move. Pain streaked along his arm, and he realized he still held the reins.

“Oh, dear,” a soft, feminine voice said. “Are you injured?”

A murky shadow obscured his vision. Jarlath squinted, desperate to see the source of the musical accent. Another breath sawed down his throat. The roar in his head subsided to a dull throb that sat behind his right eye. Flowers. He could smell flowers. Something cool stroked his cheek, wiped across one eyelid and the darkness lifted. He blinked. Once. Twice, and his world came into sharper focus. A woman? A third blink brought the shimmer into one unwavering vision.

A beautiful, exotic woman.

Her skin was pale, and bore a tinge of pastel green while her sable-brown hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders. He dragged in a breath, his mouth dropping open. She was no figment of imagination. Not with the soft ends of her hair tickling his cheek. Black trews constructed of synleather covered her legs and a white tunic clung to the swells of her breasts. A black vest and knee-high black boots completed her masculine attire. The scent of berries and sugary sweetness, greenery and female filled his nostrils. An enticing combination.

Fascinated, he continued staring. Rude, of course, yet his mind catalogued the differences between her and the women he interacted with at the castle. This one wore a blaster strapped to her thigh. The hilt of a knife peeked from the top of one boot. No doubt, her means of protection against wild animals or the brigands who sometimes frequented the forest. His rapt gaze returned to her face, her berry-stained lips and higher to stare into green eyes flecked with gold.

“Have you addled your head? Beest, shift out of the way, so I can tend to your master. You have blood on your face.”

“No,” Jarlath cried, panic overtaking the pain hammering his shoulder and eye. Black would hurt her. His cambeest disliked contact with strangers and several stable hands bore the scars from his beest’s uncertain temper. He’d raised Black from a youngster, and like all cambeests, Black had bonded with one person and one person only—him.

“Out of the way, beest.” To his amazement, the woman scolded Black and shouldered him away so she could crouch on his other side. Black behaved like an inside pet and nuzzled the pockets of her vest. His cambeest rumbled—the equivalent of a feline purr—and Jarlath felt his mouth go slack.

“Jarlath, my prince.” Ellard thundered into the clearing and was off his cambeest in secs. His weapon cleared his holster, his homely face set in ferocious lines. “Take your hands off him.”

“I’m checking him for wounds,” the woman retorted and brushed Jarlath’s hair from his forehead. Her fingers were soft and stained from picking berries. “Hush your prattle, man. It’s undignified.”

Ellard spluttered, and the chuckle that escaped Jarlath would have shocked his brother. Blood and liver pills, even he was a bit stunned at his amusement.

“Ah,” the woman said in satisfaction. “You were winded. Let me help you sit up. The cut above your eye is still bleeding. I’ll fix it in a thrice.”

Her full breasts brushed his shoulder as she slipped an arm around him to lend him aid.
Something bright and unexpected flared in him then that stole his breath, something inconvenient since his father was discussing alliances with him as a bargaining chip.
Jarlath dragged in her scent again and his cock saluted her proximity, but even more astonishing, his slumbering feline stretched beneath his skin. He hissed, gawking at her in shock.

“Prince Jarlath, it’s my honor to assist you.” She pulled a clean handkerchief from her tunic pocket and pressed it to his eye.

Something about her husky voice tickled his memory. “Have we met?”

“Keira Cloud,” she said. “I’ve attended several of the court gatherings with my husband.” She lifted the handkerchief. “Ah, I think the bleeding has stopped, although you might get a black eye after a bump like that. Can you stand on your own?”

“Yes. Thanks.” She was married. Some of the excitement fizzling in his gut dispersed in a swell of disappointment. Unusual and exotic. Beautiful. A smart man would have snapped her up at the first opportunity.

“Marcus Cloud?” Ellard shoved his blaster back in his holster without taking his gaze off her.

Something in his friend’s attitude made Jarlath study her more closely. As he pushed to his feet, he watched every hint of bright expression drain from her features.

“That’s right.” She drew herself up to her full height and her chin lifted a fraction before she stomped over to a nearby container of berries. The crackle of dried leaves beneath her booted feet signaled her irritation. Black nudged her arm and she absently scratched behind his long rounded ears before scooping up her container.

Ellard scowled and fingered the onyx cat he always wore around his neck. “We should go, my prince. We have the formal ball to prepare for tonight.”

“Everything is in hand,” he said with a sharp glare at his friend. “There’s no reason for haste.”

“I think it would be best,” Ellard persisted.

Featured Book: Claimed and Seduced

Kia ora from New Zealand. That’s welcome and greetings in Maori. My name is Shelley Munro. I’m a romance writer, an animal lover, a world traveler and I like to bake bread. Oh, and I love to read. That’s what started me on my author journey—my love of books.

Hi, Shelley!! I have never been greeted in Maori! How long have you been a writer and how did you come to writing?
Way back in 1998, I woke up one morning with a single thought on my mind. My dream of writing a book would never happen if I didn’t put my butt in from of a computer and start writing. That day, I came across a romance writing course at Auckland University. Kismet, I decided. I enrolled immediately so I’d have a vague idea of how to start. Later that week, I read an article in a local women’s magazine about Romance Writers of New Zealand. I joined that day and thus began my romance writing journey. I wrote my first book in a month, and was very excited to send it off to Mills & Boon, sure that I had written a masterpiece. LOL My heart was broken when I received a rejection letter, but undeterred, I wrote my next book and kept trying. I wrote for another six years, collecting many rejections, before selling to several different publishers during the same month. Exciting times! These days, I’ve embraced self-publishing, which is perfect for me since I like moving swiftly, if need be, and having control over all facets of the publishing process.

How did you come up with this storyline?
Initially, I wanted to write a story about an Earth woman kidnapped by aliens. The House of the Cat series all flowed from this initial idea—feline shapeshifters in space.

What are the best and the worst aspects of writing?
For me, the best part of writing is sitting down and writing a new book, watching all my vague ideas knit into a solid plot. I don’t have a worst aspect of writing, but there are areas that I find challenging such as the marketing and business side. Indie writing is not for the faint-hearted, and I spend as many hours each week completing business-type tasks as I do on the creative side.

What inspires you to write?
I love books and reading and always have since I was a child. Writing came as a natural extension of my love of reading. I wanted to write my own books. Heck, I thought it couldn’t be that difficult. LOL It didn’t take long to disabuse myself of that idea. Writing takes a combination of determination, persistence and imagination. It’s a challenge, and that plus the creative outlet keeps me going each day and inspires me to write each successive book.

How did you conduct your research for Claimed & Seduced?
Claimed & Seduced is at heart a paranormal romance, although the action takes place on a planet called Viros. For the world-building part of the story, I used my imagination, but I researched crows and their mating habits during the writing of this story. I used both the
internet and my local library for research and my imagination did the rest during the writing of Claimed & Seduced.

What are 3 of your favorite quotes from Claimed & Seduced?
“You will choose a wife and marry before this cycle ends. You must follow tradition and do your duty.”

* ~ *

Keira stared at Prince Jarlath, took in the black eye in the aristocratic face, the ruddy cheeks, the dusting of stubble and the curtain of
untidy black hair before his firm lips with the hint of sharp canines distracted her, brought a flash of a warmth. A tingle.

He was real. He was here—standing right in front of her—and he wanted pie.

*~*

“I like the sound of my name on your lips.”
“You’re flirting with me.”
“Yes. Am I doing a good job?”

*~*

What do you do when you don’t write?
I was born with itchy feet, and luckily, my husband enjoys traveling and exploring the world as much as I do. We try to fit in as much travel as time and budget allows, and quite often, things or experiences from our journeys wind their way into my books. When I’m not writing, I enjoy walking and playing with our dog, Bella, cycling and baking. Nothing better than a batch of cookies fresh from the oven!

Tell us about your other books?
I write both paranormal and contemporary romances and have been known to dabble in historical romances too. The common thread between all my books is humor, often adventure, and I like to throw in the odd dead body to make things interesting. Many of my books are set in New Zealand. I have four main series at present. Middlemarch Shifters features a community of black leopard shifters who live in the New Zealand country town of Middlemarch. The Mitchell brothers are the stars of this series. Claimed & Seduced, my story in the Dark Legends box set, is part of my House of the Cat series—stories with
leopard shifters and settings that vary from New Zealand to planets in outer space. I also have my Military Men series, a contemporary series starring military heroes and my Alien Encounter series about aliens who crash land their space ship in New Zealand. You can find details of my other titles plus excerpts at my website http://www.shelleymunro.com

Thanks very much for letting me spend a little time with you. I am thrilled and excited to be part of the Dark Legends box set. Over 20 tales of paranormal romance, urban fantasy and adventure in store for readers. A million words of heart-stopping action. Not bad for 99c, right?

I hope you’ll grab a copy of the Dark Legends box set and join us on the Dark Legends journey.

Best wishes,
Shelley

Shelley lives in Auckland, the City of Sails, with her husband and a cheeky Jack Russell/mystery breed puppy.

Typical New Zealanders, Shelley and her husband left home for their big OE soon after they married (translation of New Zealand speak – big overseas experience). A yearlong adventure lengthened to six years of roaming the world. Enduring memories include being almost sat on by a mountain gorilla in Rwanda, lazing on white sandy beaches in India, whale watching in Alaska, searching for leprechauns in Ireland, and dealing with ghosts in an English pub.

While travel is still a big attraction, these days Shelley is most likely found in front of her computer following another love – that of writing stories of romance and adventure. Other interests include watching rugby (strictly for research purposes), cycling, baking bread and curling up with a good book.

Live ~ Laugh ~ Love

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