Hi Everyone!
I am very pleased to be visiting Nikki’s
Blog today to talk about writing and my novel, Forever Man being released by Champagne Books this month. It’s
the first in the Forever Series.
My name is January Bain and I love to
write. There, I’ve confessed my addiction! And now my first book is about to be
released and I would dearly love to share my storytelling journey with you. It
all began a couple of years back when I thought…
“What
if you had been given the gift of healing and could save those you loved? And
furthermore, discovered you could save the one you love from a vampire’s kiss.
There is a catch, of course; the cost of such a healing could mean your own
death…
Ellie
Hightower is discovering such gifts in my first novel, Forever Man. She is
telepathic, young and bright and has been running from these new found gifts
all the way to Nome, Alaska where she encounters the man of her dreams, Mike Stone,
and an ancient evil force out to take him away from her. Will having goodness
and light on her side be enough to save them from Katrianna, a newly
resurrected vampire that looks to enslave Mike in her nefarious web?
To
find out the truth you will need to read, Forever Man.”
Muse behind Forever Man:
Where did the
idea come from? I remember it as clear as if the moment had just happened: I
was watching The Green Mile, and was
mesmerized by the idea that the gentle giant, imprisoned unfairly in jail for a
crime committed by an another, could heal others by taking on their illness and
then just letting the evil flow back into obscurity by exhaling through his
lungs. I coveted that gift with every fiber of my being. I had just lost two beloved
brothers to cancer and had to stand by and watch it happen. My heroine, Ellie
Hightower, was going to have it so much better than me! She was going to have
the gift of healing and save those she loved. I know why I write romantic
stories—the guaranteed happy ending.
It’s been an interesting journey, this
getting a book polished and ready to be published. Though the learning curve
has been pretty steep, I have had the blessing of working with great people who
have made the journey a whole lot easier. I wish the same blessing on all
aspiring writer’s out there!
First Excerpt from FOREVER MAN:
Prologue
Pure evil waited, hushed and cold
in the perfect darkness. The steady drip, drip on the coffin lid above was
soundless next to the crashing waves of the sea. But the creature within was
aware and knew what the substance was: life-giving nourishment.
The blood was pooling, seeking a
way into any tiny fissure that it could search out with thin hungry fingers.
The resurrection was painstaking. Each life-giving drop dripped onto the needy
beast which absorbed each molecule like a monstrous sponge as it built up,
layer by layer. The vampire waited patiently—certain of its imminent
resurrection.
After all, it had already waited
centuries, what were a few more hours to recover what had been lost.
Excerpt
Two:
While I waited for her to return I
looked out the window, admiring the view of snow-peaked mountains when I heard
the screeching of brakes and a thud, then realized someone had hit a dog with a
half ton truck right in front of the restaurant. The driver, a young woman in
obvious distress, jumped out and cradled the animal’s head in her lap. In an
instant I turned and rushed for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
As I reached the woman she looked up at
me with stark pleading in her eyes. “I didn’t see him! Please, I need help!”
Crouching down beside them, I carefully
laid my hands on the whimpering dog. It looked like a husky, probably a sled
dog. He or she was still breathing, but it was labored and loud. I could also
see blood on its soft white fur. My heart instantly melted and reached out to
the poor creature with its pain-filled, whiskey-brown eyes that seemed to beg
me to do something. Despite the gut-wrenching plea, I felt
helpless, sheer happenstance had brought this poor animal to this end and I had
no power to save it from its fate.
Hesitantly, I reached my hands out and
laid them on the poor dog’s head and its eyes seemed to tell me that it knew
its fate. Tears flowed and the image of the dog blurred. I felt its pain as my
own as I closed my eyes in sheer anguish.
Please God, let this beautiful
creature be okay. Suddenly, something
came alive inside me like a dam bursting its banks, and a great tidal wave of
energy flowed through me from my very core. It was so strong it made me shake
and my legs, cramping in the crouch, almost gave way.
A surge of pure power seemed to drive
through my hands into the dog as I concentrated my thoughts on it and then all
I could see and feel was hot, white light surrounding me for a few brief
incredibly thrilling seconds. The light blinded me, its power as strong as the
noonday sun. A sense of pure aliveness electrified me, as if I was at the
pinnacle of my strength and could rise up and fill the world with goodness and
healing. Then, just as suddenly, the floodgates in my mind closed and the white
hot energy retreated back into my hands that began to shake violently with the
excess energy.
The sensation left as abruptly as it had
come and I fell back exhausted from the effort. The dog whimpered, shook itself
and sat up. It looked at the two of us as if nothing had happened, its brown
eyes shining and its tail wagging as if it didn’t even remember the last few
minutes of its life.
The woman, her eyes huge in her round
face, looked at me with complete wonder. “How could this be? One minute I
thought it was dying, then you came along and now it’s up and fine? It doesn’t
make any sense.” The woman shook her head, unwilling to believe her own eyes.
I knew exactly what she meant. Under the
sense of complete exhaustion I was now aware of lurked the feeling that the
world had slid sideways and then realigned itself in a new configuration.
Standing up, I felt immediately
light-headed and woozy and stumbled forward from severe vertigo, catching
myself from falling just in time.
“I don’t know—I guess it wasn’t—as hurt
as you thought—it must have just been stunned.” I tried to put a sensible spin
on recent events, my tongue feeling wooden and clumsy in my mouth. My slurred
words made me sound drunk or slow, I realized from a muddled distance, my voice
echoing in my head.
“But didn’t you see the bright light
just before the dog got up?” The woman was not to be deterred from her new
sense of wonder.
I knew I had to get away, but an
overwhelming sense of fatigue was slowing down my reaction time and was it was
like being forced to move in deep, heavy water.
“Who are
you?” The woman asked, her tone blunted by suspicion now.
Best regards,
January Bain
Storyteller
The Forever Series
Forever
Man
Forever
Woman
Forever
Clan
