ŷ������

Hi Everyone,

I want to send out a huge “thanks�� to everyone that has contacted me on twitter and ŷ������ this month! Your messages and tweets have been awesome and the Destiny Series has been getting some GREAT ratings & reviews. In chatting with a few of you I heard one consistent theme: "Loved your books, your covers are terrible." LOL!

Never let it be said that I don’t listen to the people that matter most! Danielle from dreamscapecovers.com did a fabulous job with the new Meeting Destiny cover! A special thank you to: Amber from Cape Coral, FL and Kris Kendall. You both energized me enough to have the new cover designed.



I hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I'm sooooo EXCITED! 10 days until Destiny's Wrath releases!!!



Ready for the big unveil? The book’s synopsis is:

In the final installment of the Destiny Series, Lauren and Max still yearn for their normal life together. Although finally united, they’re unable to enjoy their bliss when they learn nine people have been viciously murdered. The murderer is a young man who saved Max’s life months earlier. Lauren and Max must decide how to help the young man and destroy the evil that resides within him. The only thing the Council and the Cabinet can agree on is: Lauren and Max need to stay away. Lauren and Max worry that this time the evil may consume them both. Nobody involved saw the power of Destiny’s Wrath until it was upon them.

If you haven’t noticed yet, Destiny’s Revenge got its new cover yesterday. Dreamscape covers did a fabulous job, again! Any authors out their looking for a great design, I highly recommend their custom work!

Thanks to everyone that has recommended the Destiny Series to your Friends!! It’s an adrenaline rush to get your reviews, notes and tweets!

Many thanks!
Nancy Straight

@NancyStraight

Hello! Today was the day I was supposed to unveil Blood Debt’s cover �� I’m sorry to say that won’t be possible. Dreamscape Covers did such a great job with the Destiny Series that I wanted them to also do the Touched Series. Unfortunately, she’s a little backed up and Blood Debt’s cover won’t be ready for another couple weeks. *Sigh* I’m sure it will be fabulous and I should be able to post it around the first of June.

So rather than spin my wheels for a couple weeks and leave you all hanging, I thought I’d let you all have a sneak peek at the first chapter of Blood Debt. I hope you like it!!

Blood Debt: Chapter 1 (Scheduled release July 15, 2012)

Camille

I stared at the phone. I had his number. I had his name. Twenty-two years. . . after twenty-two stinking years of fantasizing about who he was, what he was like, where he was - you’d think I would have dialed by now. The thing is - nobody, anywhere, could live up to my expectations. I’d always envisioned this successful, educated, lead-singer, movie-star, rich, kind of father. It was great to think that he was this wonderful, benevolent man, who one day would swoop in and introduce himself, then whisk me away in a limo. Yeah, that never happened.

I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t dying to meet him. When I would ask my mom, she would always tell me, “Your father was a wonderful man. We had a few magical days together, and he left me with the most amazing gift to remember him by.�� Sure, that’s what a ten year old wants to hear. She would never tell me his name, where he lived, or anything about him other than he didn’t live in California.

It didn’t matter how hard I pleaded, I think she preferred that he be a mystery. Who would have guessed all those times I said I would trade anything to meet him, I never thought I’d trade my rock, my anchor. . . my mom. Ten minutes before she took her last breath, she grabbed my hand and choked out, “Your father. . .lives in Charleston, SC. His name is William Strayer. He deserves to know you. Tell him . . . tell him I said, ‘Goodbye.’��

A few breaths later, she slipped away as death carried her to her final peace. I cried for weeks. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t process losing my mom and getting the information I’d been begging her for my whole life in the span of ten minutes. All those wagers I’d tried to make with God, to find out who he was: I’d told God I would trade anything - I never meant my mom. I’m not crazy enough to think that God had stolen my mom just so I could find out who my father was, but I had several weeks of erratic thoughts.

I googled him. He was easy to find. He’d been in the same house, in the same job, for better than thirty years. Everything I found out about him on the internet pointed to an average guy, with an average life. He wasn’t a rock star. He wasn’t famous. He wasn’t dead.

I took one final breath, steadying myself. I had my phone in one hand and the slip of paper with all his information on my lap. I dialed the number, wondering what I was going to say to him. Before I could press “send,�� I chickened out and went back to mom’s bedroom to go through more of her things. Peggy, my mom’s closest and only friend, had offered to come over and help me, but I was twenty-two. I shouldn’t need help with this. Even if Peggy was her best-friend, I knew mom wouldn’t want her going through her things. My mom had always been a private person.

Mom knew it was coming. It wasn’t a surprise or anything. She’d been sick for a long time. Her closet, that normally looked crammed with outfits from the last several decades, wasn’t as packed as the last time I’d seen it. Mom must have gone through some of her things before she died because the walk-in closet could actually be walked into.

Tucked in the far back corner, on a shelf, was a treasure box of sorts: a wooden box with the key inserted into the lock. Whatever was inside, Mom wanted me to see it. I found yellowing movie ticket stubs for a title I’d never heard of, an airline ticket from twenty eight years ago, and a tourist shot glass from the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota. It seemed an odd set of treasures for her to have hidden away. I looked at the old plane ticket: it was for an Angela Chiron - no one I knew. I gently closed the wooden box after I’d returned her “treasures,�� to their resting place. As I stared at sequined sweaters, stretch pants, dress slacks and dresses, I found myself wanting to make that phone call far more than I wanted to go through my mom’s life.

William. Did he even know I existed? He probably had a family of his own. What would they think of me? It had always been just my mom and me. She didn’t have any family, at least other than me. Her parents died when she was young, and she’d been an only child. I think her final gift to me �� my father’s identity - was her way of not leaving me so alone in the world.

I went back to the living room, sat on the sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table, almost begging Mom to walk in the room and tell me to get my feet off of it. A lonely tear rolled down my cheek. No one would be walking through the doorway to tell me to put my feet down. I hated the idea of being alone.
I took one more deep breath, picked up the slip of paper, and dialed his number again. This time my shaking fingers pushed “Send.��

A woman’s voice picked up the phone, “Hello.��

I stammered, terrified of this call, not sure what to say to the woman. “Uh . . . hi . . . is William there?��
“Who’s calling?��

“C������������.��

“Camille, is this a sales call?��

“Uh, no. Definitely, no. Is William home?��

“Just a minute.��

I could only assume that had been William’s wife. I wanted to hang up. I saw my hand shaking and prayed that I wouldn’t have full blown convulsions. I had practiced this phone call several times, but realized I should have written things down. My fear began crippling me, and I drew a blank. What would I say? ‘I’m your love child from twenty-three years ago and wanted to say hi.�� Not the best approach.

I heard a gruff voice come on the line, “Hello, this is Will.��

My voice didn’t work. My mouth opened but nothing came out.

“Hello, is anybody there?��

I cleared my throat, closed my eyes and answered, “Uh, yes. Hi, William. I’m Camille.��

A friendly voice responded, “Okay. Camille, who?��

“Right. I’m Angela Benning’s daughter.��

“Angela Benning? I’m still not making the connection. Are you sure you have the right William?��

“William Strayer from Charleston, South Carolina?��

�Ԩ���.��

“You are the only one I found in information. Have you ever been to San Diego?��

“Well, yes. I travel there, but I don’t know an Angela Benning.��

“Not even one you knew twenty-three years ago?�� Silence answered me back. I wasn’t sure if he had hung up the phone, if the connection had been dropped, or if he was too stunned to answer. “William, are you still there?��

“Yes. Yes, I’m still here. I did know an Angela in San Diego. She was a bartender in a hotel.��

“That’s right.��

“Camille, how old are you?��

I did have the right person and at least I didn’t have to draw the connection out for him with big purple crayons. “I’m twenty-two.��

More silence. This was a bad idea. I braced myself for him to deny he was my father, that I was some leech after him for money. His voice spoke softly, “Camille, I don’t know what to say. Your mother is an incredible woman.��

“Was.�� I corrected, “She was an incredible woman.��

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. What happened?�� Sincerity was wrapped in his voice.

“She died of breast cancer a few weeks ago. Right before she died, she told me how I could contact you.��

“So, you’re my. . . I mean she wouldn’t have . . . if you weren’t mine.��

I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head. “Right. I don’t need anything. I just . . . I guess I wanted to talk to you.��

“Camille, you have to believe me, if I had known I would have . . . I didn’t know I had a daughter.��

“That’s okay, William. I knew I had a father �� I mean from a biological perspective. But Mom would never tell me anything about you, well, not until the night she died.��

His voice sounded heavy, “Call me, Will, everyone does. So, she didn’t want you to contact me?��

“I guess not, well . . . she never told me anything about you. I never knew your name until the night she passed.��

I heard hopefulness in his voice I didn’t expect when he said, “When can I meet you?��

This was a question I wasn’t really prepared for. All those practice conversations had more to do with introducing myself and convincing him that I was his daughter. I thought I had prepared for every possible response. I never considered that he would want to meet me. “Uh, maybe the next time you come to California?��

“Camille, I’ve got a lot going on for the next month. Getting out to the west coast would be hard. Would you consider flying to South Carolina?��

My heart started doing cartwheels. Not only did I have a real father - he wanted to see me! Trying not to gush at his suggestion, “Um, maybe. I’ve got a bunch of stuff I’ve got to take care of. You know, estate stuff for Mom, and a job.��

“I could arrange for a lawyer to take care of that for you. Camille, I don’t want to put this off. I . . . I could make arrangements now. You could be on the red eye tonight.��

“Will, you don’t know anything about me. I’ve got a job. I can’t just get on a plane.��

“You’re my blood, Camille. Angela was a magical woman, I . . . I had no idea. If you can’t come to me, I’ll juggle some things around. I have to meet you.��

Huh, that’s the same thing mom had said about him. That he was “magical.�� I had googled him a few days ago. I knew he was somehow involved with finance and investments and ran a firm in Charleston. Since my job was working at a department store as a cashier, reality was that it would be much easier for me to leave my job for a few days. As I looked around the apartment, there was too much of her here. Not that it was a bad thing, but given the last several months, it might be nice to have a change of scenery, for a few days.

I took a deep breath, “Okay, I can call into work and have someone cover my shifts. But I don’t have the cash for a plane ticket or motel or anything.��

“I’ll take care of it. How soon could you be on a plane?��

“I guess tonight, do you need to talk to your wife or anything?��

“Gretchen will be happy to have you as a guest. She’s always wanted a daughter as much as I have.�� I felt a warm glow in my chest. The emptiness of losing my mom would stay with me forever, but I wasn’t alone. I had a father. We exchanged email addresses so we could coordinate the flight. I wondered if this was some sort of a dream. I had run a background investigation on him within days of finding out who he was.

All I really knew about him was: He paid his taxes, he owned several properties, he had never been arrested, and he hadn’t had a ticket or an accident in the last seven years.

I called my best friend in the world to let him know what had just happened. He was so excited for me that he was at my door within twenty minutes. Daniel was like the brother I never had. We looked enough alike that sometimes people assumed I was his sister. He had dark hair, kind of that in between length �� it was short, but shaggy. His eyelashes were gorgeous, for a long time I teased him calling him “Maybeline Eyes,�� and he had this way of looking at girls that made them all melt �� well, all but me.

Daniel was on the surf team in high school and even got a scholarship to surf in college, so there was never a shortage of beach babes looking to hang out with him. We’d never been more than friends and I knew we both liked it that way. We each had a ready-made date for all the big social events, weddings, engagement parties, holiday parties, etc �� but none of the romantic attachments that came with it.

Daniel gathered me in a large bear hug and swung me around. “You talked to him? He wants to meet you?��
“I did, he wasn’t freaked out about it or anything. He’s flying me to South Carolina, tonight, to meet him.��
Daniel’s enthusiasm diminished in front of me, “Tonight? Why the rush?��

I slapped his shoulder, “I’m his daughter. He wants to meet me.��

“Did he say why he never bothered to come see you?��

“I think my mom hid us from each other. He didn’t even know that I existed until I called.��

“Just like that, he wants you on a plane? What about a DNA test?��

“He didn’t ask for any proof. He said he remembered her.�� I left out the part where he said she was magical �� Daniel knew that’s what my mom said about him.

“That must have been some phone call. Are you sure he’s all right?��

“I’m not stupid. I did a background check.��

“That just means he’s never been caught.��
I punched Daniel’s arm a second time and he feigned pain. “I’m just saying, you don’t even know the guy. He could be a serial killer for all you know. There’s probably a reason your mom never let the two of you meet.��

“She told me who he was right before she died. She must have wanted me to find him.��

“Maybe. How about I go with you?��

“Um, I don’t know. I think this is something I have to do on my own, but keep your cell phone on you in case I need you.��

He frowned with his eyebrows furrowed, “I don’t like it. Something doesn’t feel right.��

“Stop worrying. I’ll be back on Sunday. If it gets weird, I’ll come back sooner.��

“If I don’t get a call every day, I’m getting on a plane.��

“Right, to fly to South Carolina and do what? I’ll be fine. He sounded nice.��

“You’ve wanted to meet this guy forever. Don’t get your hopes up. Angela was a smart lady. She must have kept you two apart for a reason.��

“Maybe she just didn’t want the hassle of sharing custody.�� This was the lie I’d told myself when I was little. My mom never had boyfriends. She always told me her life was full, and she didn’t have room for one more person in it.

“Maybe, but maybe he’s a douche, and she didn’t want you to get hurt.��

My heart sunk. I didn’t have the strength to argue with him. I knew he was right. I knew mom hid his identity from me, but I didn’t care why.

Everyone needed family, no matter how weird they might be. I was willing to take a chance: one crazy father was better than nobody.

For the next fifteen hours, through two airports and the whole time I was in the air, Daniel’s words continued to echo in my mind, “She must have kept you two apart for a reason.�� Why would she have kept us apart? Was she ashamed of him? What did he do that made her not want him in her life? She’d never, for as long as I could remember, had a boyfriend �� had he done something to her?

Thank you to Dreamscape Covers for once again, outdoing themselves. I absolutely love Blood Debt's cover and hope you all do, too!!! For any authors out there looking for a great designer, definitely give Danielle a shot!

I've published the first chapter of Blood Debt here at this link. http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

Blood Debt's Release Date: Jul 15, 2012

Blood Debt's Synopsis:
Her whole life, it had just been the two of them. Before her mother’s last breath, she gave Camille the information she had craved her entire life: the identity of her father. Daring to contact him, Camille was welcomed by an entire family she never knew existed. But nothing comes without a price, as she discovers when her family claims a legendary heritage tracing back to a centaur touched by Zeus.

As she learns the secrets of her Centaur bloodline, she is drawn into a forbidden love with Drake. Her life may be the blood debt required to pay for her mother’s transgressions. The same person who once held her mother captive, and forced her into decades of hiding, now controls Camille. Her only chance is to seek a piece of her mother’s past that will win her freedom and the life she desperately wants.

The last contest I held went so well, I thought I’d try another one. Blood Debt will release on July 15 so I thought it might be fun to give away some advanced signed paperback copies. Here’s how it’ll work. You can have one entry for doing each of the below:

1. Add Blood Debt to your, “to-read�� shelf on http://www.goodreads.com

2. “Like�� my Facebook Author page:

3. Leave a comment on my Facebook Author page:

4. Send a tweet that reads: I want to win a PB Copy of BLOOD DEBT by @NancyStraight BEFORE it releases on July 15. Enter to win:

5. Follow me on twitter: @NancyStraight

6. Become a member of my blog at:

For each of the above, you’ll get one entry. If you do all six �� I’ll give you ten entries. In the comments on the blog, insert a comment with either: (1) your email address, (2) your goodreads username or (3) your twitter ID telling me what you did. For example:

@NancyStraight I did 1, 3, 6 or

[email protected] I did all six

The contest will run beginning today through Jun 30. My 7 year old will select a winner EACH day from the entries submitted, beginning Jun 15 through Jun 30. Yes the sooner you enter, the better your chances!

Good Luck & Happy Reading!

Guess what the mailman brought me on Tuesday? That’s right, the advanced PB Copies of Blood Debt are here!!

Thanks to everyone that entered the Blood Debt Contest! Only 11 Days until I hit “publish.�� I ended up with twenty-two entries, so on Jun 30 I made the decision that everyone who helped spread the word on Blood Debt’s release would be a winner.

I can’t thank you all enough. I’ve said since my very first book that I am much better at writing than I am at marketing or blogging �� so I’m grateful to everyone who entered!

Happy Reading!
Twitter: @NancyStraight
Blog:
Facebook:

I'm so excited! BLOOD DEBT is now available!!

Link on Amazon:

Happy Reading!
Twitter: @NancyStraight
Blog: ...
Facebook:

Grab a cup of coffee, because this will be a long post. Keep in mind, I write fiction so you may think some of these events are a figment of my imagination or have been embellished for story purposes �� they haven’t!!

So, I was in Detroit last week and had quite an adventure. I arrived on Sunday and had driven there so by the time I got to my hotel, I was exhausted. I didn’t do any of the normal preparations, like hanging up / ironing clothes for the next day because I was spent. I grabbed my kindle, read a little and went to bed. I have this pesky internal alarm that wakes me up nearly every morning around 5 am. (Detroit is on EST so it was okay but it doesn’t re-adjust when I go to cities in different time zones). I set the hotel alarm clock for 6 am just in case �� a habit I’ve had for years.

Monday morning I awoke, looked at my watch and sure enough, it was 5 am. I reached over to un-set the alarm clock and noticed it was flashing. I didn’t think much of it, other than there had to have been a “power hit�� sometime during the night. I went down stairs, grabbed a newspaper and began my usual morning ritual. When I returned to the room I turned on a light switch and was frustrated to find the light bulb had burned out. I went to another light switch and got the same dark response. “Crap, no power.�� Oh well, I don’t need lights to take a shower, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower and nothing happened. “GREAT, no power and no water.�� I called the front desk and in my most polite voice said, “Hey, this is Nancy Straight in room XXX, I don’t have any power or water in my room.��

A hurried voice answered, “We’re going to make an announcement.�� I heard �� Click as the front desk promptly hung up on me. As I stood there looking at the receiver, the intercom in the hotel blared to life, “There is an emergency in the hotel. Please evacuate the hotel immediately. Do not use the elevators, use the stairs.�� The person making this announcement made it no less than ten times and it’s surprising how loud the emergency intercom is in a hotel. I very methodically picked up my cell phone, my iPad, my kindle and my purse �� always be prepared, right? I looked around the room to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything important. I smelled an odor that I hadn’t smelled since the day my husband and I installed a new oven improperly in our kitchen �� that’s right, melting electrical wires. I joined fifty or so people on the stairs making my way the eight floors down.

As I stood outside I looked at the structure, there was no billowing smoke or spreading flames so I assumed whatever the problem was it would be fine soon. Then it hit me, my laptop was up in my room and the first draft of my latest book, Blood Ties, was on it and I didn’t have it backed up anywhere. YIKES! I kept watching the windows hoping not to see flames appear. Not too long after this revelation, we got the “all clear�� and were allowed to return to the hotel. *Wipes sweat from brow.* (Incidentally, I have since backed up Blood Ties to a USB Key).

I called the people I had meetings scheduled with for Monday morning and successfully moved them to Monday afternoon. Two hours passed, the power and water were still not restored so I went down to the front desk and was told the hotel would have power by 9:30 pm that evening. Obviously, this wasn’t going to work for me so I had the hotel relocate me to another property in downtown Detroit and they worked it so that I could check in early in the morning rather than wait for the customary 3 pm check in.

I loaded up my car, programmed the address to the new hotel into my GPS and was on my way. Three blocks into my trip, the display inside my car gave me a message that I had four flat tires and told me to pull over immediately. Yes - this is the point that I nearly screamed.

I pulled into a parking lot with a few cars. I got out and looked, all four tires appeared to be okay to me. I turned off the car, turned it back on and the car was still convinced that my tires were flat and I shouldn’t be driving. I called roadside assistance and told them what was going on, that I believed some sort of sensor had gone haywire and asked for the address to the closest dealership. After finding my location, the roadside assistance operator said there was a truck that was only a few minutes away and he’d send it just to check me out. No problem, things are looking good now.

I picked up my phone and started checking out emails when I heard: KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK �� there was a man standing outside my window. I rolled it down and he said, “I’m really hungry.�� Without thinking I blurted out, “You know what, pal? I’m really hungry, too.�� Now, when speaking to a homeless man, it’s probably bad form to complain about: a hotel fire, the fact that you’re in a city you aren’t familiar with, your car believes it should not be on the road, or the fact that you haven’t eaten in almost twenty-four hours. I politely told him, “I don’t carry cash�� �� which I don’t. (Cash mysteriously evaporates out of my wallet every time I put some in there.)

The homeless man who was hoping for a sandwich walked away. (I did offer him a bottle of water that I happened to have with me, but he declined). I looked off to my left and another homeless man was standing against a building, with a sword. Yes, that’s right. Not a switchblade, not a hunting knife, not a dagger - a sword.

Right about now a normal person would say, “Screw it, I’m outta here,�� and drive away. Instead, I did a not so smart thing and called a friend of mine that was in Arizona. In my mind, if I was going to be attacked by the Samurai wanna-be to my left, I wanted the attack on record. Yes �� a week after the fact and I DO know this was stupid, but at the time it seemed like a good plan. My window was still rolled down from the first homeless guy that had stopped by so I was sure Samurai-man could hear me. My conversation started with, “You’re not going to believe what my morning’s been like. . .�� I told her about everything up to that point and added, ��. . . and to top it all off, there’s some Fruit Loop with a sword standing 20 feet away from me.�� (Yes, I called him a Fruit Loop and yes, I know this was a dumb idea, too.) Before said Fruit Loop could respond by gouging out my eye or scratching the paint off my car, the cavalry arrived �� the tow truck driver. He confirmed that I did indeed have air in my tires and my car was mistaken.

The tow truck driver noticed the man with the sword and asked if he’d been bothering me. He hadn’t. He hadn’t brandished it, or asked me for money for a sandwich, or anything, but really �� Who carries a sword in downtown Detroit? Isn’t there a city ordinance against something like that? If not, I think one should be passed because homeless people with swords have got to be bad for tourism!

So, I got to the dealership, my car checked out okay, they were able to get the message to stop displaying that I was driving on four flat tires, they washed my car, and even gave me a rose! All in all �� this was a day that I will be talking about for years to come.

Can you believe after all that, Monday still wasn’t the most memorable part of my trip to Detroit? The most memorable part was, Wednesday night when I got to go to dinner with Amy Bartol �� Author of the book: Inescapable. I am a huge fan and I was super excited to get to meet her! For any of you that are also her fans, YES �� she is just as cool in person as I thought she’d be. We had a great dinner, great conversation, and made plans to meet at the Decatur, GA Book Festival over Labor Day!! (Swords will be optional).

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know the Destiny Series (Meeting Destiny, Destiny's Revenge and Destiny's Wrath) is on sale for $2.99 through Sunday (4/7/13)!!

I hope you're all having a great week!!



Amazon:

B&N:

I thought some of you might be interested in a sneak peek at Centaur Rivalry.

I've posted the first chapter on my blog at



I've decided to move the release date up!! It was supposed to release on May 15, you will now be able to find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords on MAY 1st!!!

Thank you to all of you who have sent me messages about being excited to read it. Your messages motivated me to press hard and get it out early!!

Happy Reading,
Nancy