GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY: Shifter Born by A.T. Weaver
Guest Post
They say that to be a writer, you must first be a reader. I agree. I’ve always been a reader. When I was a teenager, you’d find me one of two places, either with my horse, or on my bed reading. Nancy Drew, Ginny Gordon, The Little Cornel, Tarzan. Almost anything I could get my hands on. As I grew older, my tastes were similarly eclectic. Nora Roberts, Agatha Christie, Anne McCaffery, Phyllis Whitney. Although I like some supernatural, especially Nora Roberts’ supernatural, I’ve always avoided horror. I’ve also never liked stories with werewolves and zombies, as I generally associated them with horror. Most werewolves were evil beings bent on killing.
Then a few years ago, I started doing beta reads for a young man in Colorado. Several of his books dealt with werecreatures. Not just werewolves, but also werecougars, werecoyotes, werebears, and even a two-thousand creature that is half dragon/half druid. His creatures were not the usual evil beings, but the good guys.
I decided I wanted to try my hand at a werewolf story and asked him what kind of rules I had to follow. His response was, “It’s you world, your rules.” So I borrowed some rules from his world, some rules from the old Highlander movies, and made some of my own. That’s how I came up with an immortal shape-shifter who could be any animal he chose.
As to a geographical world, I drew on history. Since my shifters could only be killed by beheading, I thought about the French Revolution and the guillotine.
Although there was no immortal shifter at any of the historical events mentioned, they are all actual events: the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans (which was the last battle of that war), the Government movement of the Osage to the west, the smallpox epidemic, the 1843 wagon train to Oregon, the formation of the National Parks.
One reviewer questioned how Marrok survived without a job or money. She apparently missed the fact that for the most part, he lived off the land and the gold he discovered in the nineteenth century. He was pretty much a loner who avoided populated areas.
One thing I did take liberties with was the grandfathering in of his homesteads when the National Parks were formed.
Blurb
After seeing his family betrayed and executed during the French Revolution, Marrock De Clarency, an immortal, natural-born shifter, makes his way to the New World. As he moves from place to place across the American wilderness, he finds not only the means to his revenge, but also love. Even as the world progresses around him, he prefers the quiet life in remote areas, away from cities and homesteads.
He gives his heart again and again, each time hoping that this time, he’s found his mate. A chance encounter in the woods leaves him wondering, has Fate at last led him to his eternal love?
Excerpt
The man from the café stopped at the entrance to the alley. “Are you following me?” Marrok asked. The man smiled suggestively. “I thought you looked like you’d enjoy some company. Judging from the tightness of your trousers, I was right.”
Marrok studied him. Billy had been gone for over two years and they hadn’t been intimate for three years before that. Just because Marrok wasn’t ready for another relationship with a mortal didn’t mean he’d given up sex. “What’d you have in mind?”
“That’s up to you,” the man said. “We can do something here or somewhere else. I don’t care.”
“I prefer somewhere more private. I’m in room 504 at the hotel. Give me five minutes before you follow.” Marrok headed for the hotel. In his room, he removed his boots and shirt. A knock sounded on the door. Marrok opened it and the stranger stepped inside.
Marrok stepped closer and started to kiss him.
Buy Links
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About the Author
A.T. Weaver is the pen name of a grandmother of eleven, great-grandmother of one. She lives with her cat, Cleopatra, in downtown Kansas City, MO.
When she was growing up, the word gay meant happy and carefree and homosexuals were called queer or ‘one-of-those’. However, she never heard those terms until she was married and a mother.
In 2003, through a TV show called Boy Meets Boy, A.T ‘met’ over 3,000 gay men in a Yahoo group. These men educated her as to the inequalities suffered by the LGBT community and she became a staunch ally. She visited one of the men in San Francisco who lived just up the street from the Castro. As he showed her around, they stopped in front of what was once Harvey Milk’s camera store. Her question, “Who was Harvey Milk?” started her education into Gay history.
A.T.’s aim is to move you in some way. Whether you laugh or cry, love it or hate it, she welcomes all comments, whether good or bad.
Links: A.T.Weaver
alixtheweaver@yahoo.com
alixtheweaver.wordpress.com