Cover Reveal: The Awakening

I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Today I get to share with you the official cover for

The Awakening: Book 1 of the Valkyrie’s Curse series!

https://media1.tenor.com/images/6bfbf4938de27861ba931635c2f20160/tenor.gif?itemid=5292331

https://media1.tenor.com/images/1a5ef388675bef5e3323bb2cb9f11327/tenor.gif?itemid=6141069

Are you ready?

 

Available for Preorder NOW on Amazon

Release date – June 20, 2018

Link: The Awakening

I think Shannon at Nemo’s Designs did an amazing job! Thank you Shannon!!!!

My cover model is Savanna Rundel. She will be the model for the entire series.

I”d like to get them all done now,  but $$$$$$.

Patience –  have to learn some.

BLURB:

Helena Eskildson is obsessed with Vikings and Norse Mythology. Neither Helena nor her sister knows they are Freya’s daughters – Valkyries, the shield maidens to Odin.
When her obsession leads her to a remote site at Roskilde and it’s two monolithic rune stones, her destiny is awakened.
While the team wages a battle between a cursed site and a sociopathic killer, time is ticking closer to Ragnarok.
Will her friends be able to save her before the gjallerhorn sounds?

 

Do you want a little sneak preview? I’ve been sharing snippets on Sundays WEWRIWA of this soon to be released book! 

EXCERPT 1:

He felt he had the favor of the Norns, the three goddesses associated with destiny, that were akin to the Greek gods of fate.

Having the favor of the gods meant success in his goals. He was destined to be Lif, the last man standing, the lone man that would repopulate the earth after Ragnarok. In essence, he would become the new Adam.

The rituals were necessary, an integral part of the process before using the key. Unfolding the linen handkerchief carefully, the ancient bronze key looked nothing like what most would think of as a key. A circular piece, about six inches in diameter spanned from his thumb to the tip of his middle finger. Runic writings along the outside edge written within the form of the great serpent Jormungand, the great dragon conquering the gripping animal grouping in a circular band about two inches wide, the design in the eternal triskell pattern. Inside of that, written in runes was the location of the gjallerhorn. At the center were nine swords pointing to an amber stone, nine strands over an open area, the stone center raised with a square notch in the back. It had to be positioned precisely at the solstice.

 

EXCERPT 2:

Helena dreamed of flying. In the past, it seemed that she miraculously flew, but in this dream she had wings. Great wings with silvery white feathers that shimmered in the sun’s rays. Her hair shone in brilliant golden hues. Her skin had a radiance from within, her cheeks rosy, her lips full. She felt an inner beauty and confidence that although unfamiliar fit her perfectly like a glove. She rose into the air, watching the warriors below.

Brave men poured from a hidden passage into the courtyard. Moving with quiet stealth, they moved to stations waiting for a signal from the leader.

Her eyes scanned the scene, watching. Which one was the leader? Then with a quick raise of his hand, the men advance with a great war cry. Waiting, observing the men working as a unit together to accomplish a greater goal. This would please Odin!

A young man poked his head from the tunnel, then ducked back inside. A few seconds later he darted across the courtyard to a smaller building. Drawing his sword he entered.

She dropped lower, so she could see inside, seeing a large wooden cabinet and another man fleeing. The young man approached the cabinet, searched it and found it empty, then pursued the other man.

The encounter was brief, easily taking the treasure from the thief. Confidence flooded over her. At last, a worthy warrior to claim.

 

 That’s right,  it’s ME!!!

Author Bio:

Since leaving the corporate world for the title of MOM, Ellie Mack has pursued her writing dreams. This former columnist is using her sassy opinions to shape her writing in novels. She lives near St. Louis, MO with her husband and two daughters. Ellie is a breast cancer survivor and wants to encourage others who are going through this battle.

When she’s not writing she can be found bullet journaling, crocheting, or cooking. You can find her musings on her blog: https://quotidiandose.wordpress.com

 

OTHER BOOKS BY ELLIE MACK:

Red Wine & Roses

Quotidiandose: 30 Days of Sass

Roxy Sings the Blues

Tempting Fate: Charity anthology

 

Follow my Amazon Author page – Ellie Mack author 

Follow me on BookBub It’s fun and easy, and you’ll never miss out on meeting new authors or having a chance to win great prizes. Here’s the link – Ellie Mack
Follow me on Goodreads – Ellie Mack
Facebook  Ellie Mack author

Twitter- @Mack_Ellie

Pinterest- Ellie Mack

My blog- Quotidiandose  You’re already here!

Be sure to order yours now!

I’m so excited!! SQUEEEEEEE!

Write on my friends, write on!

Viking Battle

Hello everyone!

Weekend Writing Warriors.

HOW IT WORKS

This is the description on their site:

       Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Sign up below with your name, blog, and email and share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Your post needs to be live between 12:00 noon on Saturday 01/27/18 and 09:00 AM on Sunday 01/28/18. Visit the other participants on the list and read, critique and comment on their 8sunday posts. 

I think they said it better than I could.

Look below the linky list for genre categories.
Spread the word, share the love, warriors. Twitter hashtag #8sunday.

It’s simple and fun. Sign up on the linky list with your name, blog URL, and email address on Mondays, 8:00 AM EST. Each week, the list remains open until Saturday, 11:59 PM. Then on Sunday, post 8 to 10 sentences from a current writing project, published or unpublished. Visit other participants and offer opinions, critiques, support. Writers hanging out with writers, a good time with a great group of people.

~~~~~~~~~

For my longtime readers, The Awakening, Book 1 in Valkyrie’s Curse series is slated to release on June 20th – I had to push it back a week as I don’t yet have the cover from the cover artist.  The cover reveal was supposed to go up Wednesday, May 9th. Can’t reveal a cover you don’t have now can you? The preorder is up however – 99 cents until release date! The cover on there is not the final cover – it’s a placeholder.

The Awakening: Book 1 in the Valkyrie’s Curse series preorder

So let’s jump in shall we?

This is from the prologue, continued from last week.

~~~~~

Aella saw a shadow move beyond the curtain. He took the sword from the hand of the second guard he had killed. Now armed with two swords he moved forward cautiously, muscles tensed at the ready. Aella moved behind the altar and found the secret compartment in the back opened. The key was gone!

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement. He had to get that key! Aella moved to follow the thief. Swiftly he thrust his sword forward spun around and struck again with both swords, removing the thief’s arm. As the arm fell to the ground, the key dropped free. For a split second, his eyes followed the key, enough time for the man to raise his broad axe, but Aella was faster and thrust again. One sword found its mark in the enemy’s chest, the other slashed across the man’s throat.

~~~~~

 Let me know what you think!

Be sure to check out the other author’s snippets as well HERE

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

Write on my friends, write on! I need to go read those snippets –  catch ya later, gator!

Weekend Writing Warriors -Awakening

Hello everyone!

Weekend Writing Warriors.

HOW IT WORKS

This is the description on their site: Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Sign up below with your name, blog, and email and share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing on Sunday. Your post needs to be live between 12:00 noon on Saturday 01/27/18 and 09:00 AM on Sunday 01/28/18. Visit the other participants on the list and read, critique and comment on their 8sunday posts. 

I think they said it better than I could.

Look below the linky list for genre categories.
Spread the word, share the love, warriors. Twitter hashtag #8sunday.

It’s simple and fun. Sign up on the linky list with your name, blog URL, and email address on Mondays, 8:00 AM EST. Each week, the list remains open until Saturday, 11:59 PM. Then on Sunday, post 8 to 10 sentences from a current writing project, published or unpublished. Visit other participants and offer opinions, critiques, support. Writers hanging out with writers, a good time with a great group of people.

~~~~~~~~~

Greetings! It’s been a while since I’ve tried to share anything for this. I’ve been plugging away at two shorts and revisions on the next novel. Before I shared from The Blood Key which was one of the shorts I was working on.  The anthology was canceled unfortunately. I will release this one though after I get the first and second books from the Fae series out.

For my longtime readers, The Awakening, book 1 in Valkyrie’s Curse series is slated to release on June 12th.  The cover reveal and preorders will go up soon, I promise.

So let’s jump in shall we?

~~~~~

Olaf, Sven, and Aella glanced between themselves nodding. They had fought together in other battles, but this was the first in their homelands. They touched their swords to their chest and made the family sign, mouthing silently together “united by birth, bound by blood”.

An insurgent had taken their lands, their women, and killed their king. Now it was time to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.

The ship slowed as the V-shaped hull found the soft sand. Jorvic gave the forward motion. Two men steadied the ship as the others slipped into the surf. IT was only knee-deep, the men sloshed forward as quietly as possible. By the stealth of moonlight, they slipped through the secret door on the outer wall.

 

~~~~~

 Let me know what you think!

Be sure to check out the other author’s snippets as well HERE

Write on my friends, write on!

What’s Going on In Your Neck of the Woods?

Forgive me, readers, it’s been weeks since my last confession. I mean blog post. Well, sometimes they are about the same thing.

At the beginning of each year, I make plans.  Often, big plans! One of those plans was to get back to regularly posting. If I could figure out how to get onto my blog from my tablet, it would speed things up tremendously. Sometimes I am technically inept. I’ll figure it out eventually.

My husband is an IT guy. A code monkey. Name the electronics, he masters it. He writes in SQL all day at work. I was lost back in the day when I had to use Fortran and Cobol. Yes, I’m showing my age but oh well.

Until I have the time, (*cackles hysterically* time,  as in extra time – a delusional thought that most authors fantasize about) I’ll keep coming back to the laptop to enter my posts. Now that I’ve met my deadline for the anthology, I can return to a more manageable writing schedule.  Well, more manageable for me anyway.

My friend Vicki Locey is like a writing machine. She doesn’t use any dictation aids,  she just plugs away every day at her writing while managing a small farm. I don’t know how she does it. Other author friends have to juggle their home life, some with jobs whether part time or full time outside the home and still manage to crank out the books.

OK, a year ago I would have been stressed to the max over that,  but not anymore.  It is what it is and if nothing else, I’ve learned over the past year that I have to put blinders on to what “Other authors” do and DO what I can do. PERIOD! So, let’s do a little catch-up, shall we? Since I’ve been in absentia, maybe one or two of you have wondered where I disappeared. You did, right? Right?

January I had big plans! Some, I realize are on the dream level because if you never aim for the stars, you won’t ever clear the trees. I was super focused on decluttering our home and preparing to move closer to my husband’s work. We did great on that,  taking several carloads full of plunder to Goodwill. The estimated dollar value for all of the stuff we removed from our home –  $3500. Yes,  you read that right. Between clothing, (mostly mine in larger sizes that I am proud to say no longer fit!) furniture, small appliances, children’s toys that somehow got stored in a corner of the basement, and a plethora of knick-knacks. I should mention that our kids are adults now. I was shocked to find that we still had toys from their grade school years.

Just a word of advice –  if you are planning to make donations to a charity,   if you limit the donation amount to under $500, you are less likely to be audited.  We wrote off most of the stuff because I doubt that we are going to be able to itemize anyway.

The house was looking better,  after each purge we let the dust settle,  literally. Had to give a day or two between sessions because the dust aggravated the sinuses. Then we found the shop vac –  and began to be more proactive.

One shocking bit of purge –  books.  I know, I know,  y’all are shocked. I got rid of over 100 books. A few of those were my books from college, my husband’s books from college, reference books, and many old novels. I kept my first edition copies, despite the hubs protests.

February – decluttering continued but I was more focused on writing.  Value of things hauled out of our home to Goodwill or set on the curb with a sign  – FREE estimated at $2600.  (Not that I’m bragging if anything it’s embarrassing to admit how much stuff I didn’t need that I purchased with retail therapy over the years.) I had two anthology submissions to have in by the beginning of April.  The doctor appointments,  weekly therapy for lymphedema and aquasize classes kept me more than busy and by the time I got home from the aquacise classes and the therapy, I was drained.  My stamina is greatly improved since radiation treatments,  but I’m still not there yet.Fatigue is a very real issue.

I spent the majority of the month writing The Blood Key for the 12 Realms Fantasy Anthology while I worked out a plot line for my short novella for the Cancer Research anthology. Then I went gangbusters on that one. More about this in a bit.

March – this is where the train comes to a screeching halt while our lives are derailed. Things were going well.  We were making progress on the house. We could start renovations mid-March if we kept going at the same pace.

March 12 – 16, our oldest daughter was home for Spring Break. She didn’t get to go to Ft. Lauderdale or anywhere cool because she had doctors appointments, dentist appointments, and had to get her regular scheduled auto work done. While home she told us her big plans for the following school year, which were quite frankly ridiculous.  Her plans were to move back in with us and commute every day. Now, that may not sound like a problem except that the commute would be an hour and forty minute drive one way, every day, to and from.  That’s three hours on the road on a highway that semis use regularly. Sometimes she works late hours.

Being a mom,  I was terrified!  What if the semis push her little car around and she has an accident? What if she is so tired that she falls asleep driving?  What if she starts skipping classes because she’s tired of driving????? 

The following week I spent a day researching available apartments in Cape.  I set up appointments for the next day when she would be available to go see them.  We viewed 14  apartments in about four hours. They ranged from roach motel to the Bates Motel, to meh, to College Life Resort center. Obviously, we didn’t want her to be in the roach motel, and we couldn’t swing the Resort.

So, our plans for renovations are on hold for a while so that we can help her finish to get her degree. Our plans to move closer to his work are on hold because, . . .  well,  moving costs money. There are closing costs, moving expenses and we have decided that our daughter’s safety is more important.

This put a big kink in the writing for a few days, so then I was back at it like gangbusters when I got news that the 12 Realms Fantasy anthology was canceled. SIGH

I’ll take The Blood Key and work on it some more,  develop it more. 15,000 words were limiting, I was just getting warmed up at 10,000! Now I can put in some of those scenes I had in my mind. It will have to be worked into the schedule for writing though as it’s been pushed from top priority to about fifth down the pipeline.

Now the good news! Break Line is complete! Cover Reveal for the anthology, next week!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought things were getting back on track and then . . .  hospital. People need to stop getting sick and hurting themselves! I’ve been to the hospital more times than I can count over the past few weeks.

Life always throws you a curve ball when things are going smooth, and sometimes the ball machine goes haywire and throws out multiple balls when you’re already under the gun!

For now, things are calm and I’m back to writing or rather revisions. Valkyrie’s Curse has been on my desk for a while, a couple of years. In 2016, I did revisions on it and realized that it wasn’t a complete story. Back to the drawing board. Valkyrie’s Curse: The Awakening is in revisions again. This time I’m checking my grammar before sending it off to my alpha. The release date for this one will be in a couple months,  I’ll have more of a set date next week.

So, now you know what I’ve been up to. There was a funeral,  sickness,  and dealing with anxiety all thrown in the mix as well. More about the anxiety at a later post but for now,  I need to get a couple more chapters done for today.

What’s going on in your neck of the woods?

Thanks for stopping by! Write on my friends, write on!

Ellie