Guest Blog & Contest with Author Maria Lima!

This week we have a guest blog to read! 

My guest this week is author of the Blood Lines series, Maria Lima. The Blood Lines series is growing this month with the release of 'Blood Kin'. So make sure you check out the previous books in the series if you haven't already had the pleasure!

Thank you Maria for sending me this great post to show you all. Oh and a big thank you for the prize one of you is going to win...keep reading to find out what and how!


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There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb*


Urban Fantasy: conjures up tales of the mean streets, doesn't it? Wizards on a case, stomping the alleyways of gritty Chicago with their magic staff; Druid investigators tracking down evildoers in South Boston; PIs joining with a vampire partner searching for demons in downtown Toronto. From vampire executioners in St. Louis to all the amazing and wonder leather-clad kickass female heroes and heroines in today's urban fantasy, we all love these stories set in modern cities.

But what about the country? Small towns, rural areas? There's no lack of intrigue, suspense,backstabbing partners, and all the things you'd find in a large city (except perhaps for the high-rises and traffic).

I chose to set my Blood Lines series in Rio Seco, Texas - a fictional small town very much based on a lovely Hill Country community I lived in during my late high school years, Lago Vista, Texas. The Hill Country, dotted with small towns, rural communities and resorts remains, to this day, a jewel in the bellybutton of the state. Lakes, rolling hills, gorgeous scenery complement the hustle and bustle of the major cities. It's a place to get away and a wonderful place to live. Even as early as the late 1970s, the Hill Country was becoming a mecca for those with money/fame/power to buy a vacation home. Now, in the early 21st century, nearby cities keep expanding into this once isolated area, bringing with it the pressures of new population, new development. Small towns may not have the numbers of people as in cities, but they certainly have the same issues, often magnified because people all tend to know one another.

I describe this in the opening to BLOOD BARGAIN:

Small towns are like glaciers. Moving slowly in their majestic beauty, ideas, mores, thoughts frozen in the ice—pretty to look at. Occasionally, you see things happen, slight changes, tiny cracks in the ice, drips melting away piecemeal as Johnny Rodriguez takes a job in Austin and moves himself, his wife, the kids, Mom and Aunt Betty out of the homestead. SueEllen Parker leaves her husband of fifteen years to live in quietly proud defiance with her best friend of even more years, Mary Rose Messing. But overall, life continues as it was, these small ripples hardly changing the face of the ice. Until suddenly, one day, that which you thought was immutable, fixed in stone, carved into eternal ice sheers away, large chunks tearing away with a shriek, crashing and splintering into a million knife-edged shards.

Seriously, does this not sound like an ideal place for a community of supernatural beings to establish their base? I may be joking a little, but I loved the idea of having this completely closed and fairly isolated group of people smack in the middle of rural Texas--a place not known for their easy acceptance of outsiders. The tensions and everyday worries of life can then be magnified as filtered through the very special lives of Keira Kelly, Adam Walker and their gang of shapeshifters, vampires and other supernaturals. Keira and gang may not stalk the mean streets, but their lives are no less interesting, for the lack of subways, highways and alleyways.

BLOOD KIN takes them to a real city, Vancouver, British Columbia and things get a lot more interesting when all sorts of secrets and family conspiracies come to light as Keira begins her new life. What's going to happen to Rio Seco and how is this town and its people going to handle what comes next?

That, my friends, is the best part of writing...I get to decide all this. It's good to be the queen.

-- Maria Lima

* with a brief nod of thanks to Joss Whedon for a brilliant title




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Contest Time!

Maria is kindly giving away a copy of her new release 'Blood Kin' and I am pretty sure she is going to sign it for the winner as well!

Now you are wondering what horrible question I have thought up for you this week? Well I didn't think up this one! Maria came up with her own ;)

Name your favorite tall tale about Texas or Canada (since Blood Kin takes place in Vancouver).

No Tall Tale = No entry!

The usual rules apply!

Earn another entry for each place you link this contest on the net. Make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries!

You can also earn extra entries by emailing your friends about the contest. Just make sure you send a copy of your email or receipt to me at Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot net.

I can offer more prizes if my Amazon Associates account gets more money!! So please make sure you order at Amazon.com through the links around the site and help keep the contest coming!




The contest will stay open until Sunday 1st of November 2009 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.

If you are claiming a prize, have emailed me and have not heard back before the 7 day limit is up then post a comment here on the blog. Your email may get sucked into my spam filter.