Kay Phoenix: Author Laura McGinnis

My very favorite place in the world to escape to is Sanibel Island, Florida. I’ve been going there since 1969, just after they built the first bridge over to the island. I remember when most of the roads were sand (or crushed shells), and most of the island was deserted. It’s more built up these days, but almost half of the island remains protected wetlands, which preserves its natural habitat. Heading over that bridge still seems like I’m heading home.

We’re fortunate enough to go for two weeks every year, and the shelling and the beaches are outstanding, as are the restaurants! We usually hit up The Eye Opener for breakfast (there is usually a wait), or Doc Ford’s for shrimp and mojito’s, before heading to the beach for the day. Dinner is either Matzaluna’s, The Green Flash or Trader’s (who sometimes has live music), and we head to Captive at least once to Mucky Duck for lunch- their grouper sandwich is awesome.

The Ding Darling Wildlife refuge is a must see, as is the Shell Museum (my dad is a docent there, so shameless plug), but if you don’t make it to either of these, there is wildlife everywhere. On Sanibel’s beaches and canals we’ve seen manatees, alligators, iguanas, dolphins, skates, and turtles. If you want to go see where Jimmy Buffet wrote “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, you can get on a cute little tugboat and take a cruise up to Cabbage Key for the day, and have a cheeseburger for lunch, and leave a dollar on the wall. For an all-day shelling adventure, take the boat (and plenty of sunscreen) to Cayo Casto- the shelling is great!

If you want nightlife, head over the bridge to Fort Myers or Naples- there’s plenty of shopping and fun stuff there as well!

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Title: The Moon

Series and Book # (if applicable): The Banished Gods, Book Two

Author/pen name: L.A. McGinnis

Genre: urban fantasy

Publisher: Fools Journey Press

Date of Publication: April 2, 2019

ASIN: B07NVX5FDS

ISBN: 978-1-970112-02-3

Number of pages: 278

Word Count: 82,000

Blurb:

It's always darkest before the dawn.

But they've never seen the place I came from.

For four years, life has been good for Celine Barrows.

But when the God of Chaos comes calling, Celine must answer. Her one chance at salvation is a stranger who makes no promises, and leads her on a journey into the very darkness she thought she had escaped. As the world shatters around her, and war looms on the horizon, Celine discovers that sometimes it takes a monster to defeat a monster.

Buy links:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2NMukwo

Nook B&N: https://bit.ly/2UvQDJi

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2XJy3zp

Apple/IBooks: https://apple.co/2ER0vYR

Excerpt:

Lying in bed next to Fen, Celine was quiet for a long moment before she finally spoke again.

“When I opened up my eyes, in that…place, and I saw you, for the first time, you weren’t a man. You were a wolf, Fen. But somehow, I…recognized you. I knew who you were, and I wasn’t afraid.” She went quiet again. “What do you make of that?”

Rolling onto his side, Fenrir propped himself upon an elbow and reached out, kissed her hand, feeling every ounce of strength and frailty contained in those bones. “When I found you, I thought you were part of my dream, until you stared straight into me, only then I believe you were real. I didn’t think. I didn’t have time to think, or stop to think, I just plunged in and swam over and until I reached you.”

“And you’re the wolf, the whole time you’re in the Otherworld?”

“I suppose. I never knew what I looked like. In there.”

“How do you think I think I knew you, that first night? In my apartment, in the dark? How could I have possibly known who you were? I recognized you Fen, right away. Otherwise, I would have hit you with the bat.” His lips hovering an inch away from her hand, he smelled her skin, the clean, fresh scent of it.

“I think…” Fen couldn’t explain the sense of certainty he’d felt when he’d seen her, the absolute sense of inevitability the moment the mists had parted and revealed her to him. “I think in my dream, when I found you, I was meant to find you. I think I was meant to bring you back here, and help you figure this thing out. We’re all bound together by the Fates, Celine. Life itself is a web, made up of the weft and warp of a billion lifelines woven together, pull a thread and the entire thing unravels, but tighten one up, and the whole thing holds.”

We’re woven together, you and I. Somehow, in all of this, you and I are entwined.

“Well, I’m glad you found me.” She murmured peacefully, her eyes beginning to drowse closed. “Are you more often the wolf? Or the man? Is that why there’s no furniture in your room?”

“I was struggling with that very issue, the night I crossed over to the Otherworld and found you. I was trying to piece myself back together.”

“Why? I would think it might be wonderful, to be two things at once.” Her eyes opened slightly. “To be able to switch back and forth, like you do. Besides, you changed tonight...well, you started to change. When you were angry.” She reached up and traced his mouth, pausing on his upper lip, her fingers tracing the place where his fangs grew from. Such a look of quiet expectation on her face that made Fenrir want to run his hands over her, bury her underneath him. But he stayed right where he was, holding her hand, a respectful distance away.

“That was different. What you saw wasn’t the change, it was a melding of me and the beast, an amalgam of the temper in us both, mostly me, though. When I remain on this plane for too long without visiting the Otherworld, then my beast becomes difficult for me to control. The wolf is a monster, Celine. He’ll kill anything and everything in its path. Including you.”

Her eyes softened as she laughed. You wouldn’t hurt me, Fen, I know…” He gripped her arm and tipped her face up so she looked at him in the eye.

“You need to listen to me. I was created to be a monster, with only one purpose, to bring about the end of Asgard. Transformed, the wolf does not have the capacity to choose, Celine. It has no empathy. It only kills. You might think you know me, but I am not the beast and the beast is not me.”

His voice grew harsh, demanding, as he warned her, “If there is ever a day I tell you to run from me, Celine, promise me just one thing.” Her eyes did not break from his. “That you will run.”

Author bio:

From the very first time she picked up a book, Laura was hooked. When she wasn’t running through the woods or rescuing animals, she could be found curled up in the backyard reading, escaping to even greater adventures.

But then came high school, boys and fast cars, and somewhere in between, her dream of writing the really, really big story got lost. Until finally she walked into a classroom at KSU , discovered Old English and Norse Mythology and her love of writing began anew.

An In'D'Tale fantasy finalist, Laura lives in northeastern Ohio, at the edge of a national park with her husband and one very spoiled German shepherd, writing paranormal, fantasy and dystopian romances.