The Burning Star
Jessie Lane, M.L. Pahl
(Star, #1)
Genres: Star
Seventeen-year-old Kay’s journey of a lifetime started in the woods where she met a beautiful man … along with a monster. The chance encounter led her to an unbelievable world that shouldn’t have existed, a place where myths and fairytales were real and, in some cases, deadly.
Kay knew she would have to brave this new world if she hoped to find a cure for her terminal cancer.
With a strange yet beautiful cast of characters, Kay uncovered truths that would change her life forever. However, before it was all over, she discovered she wasn’t the only one with problems.
Yet another seventeen-year-old young woman was fighting for her life.
Kira had grown up in a magical world. Despite this, her life had not been filled with many good things. She considered her empty, emotional solitude the only positive aspect of her life and fought daily battles to escape abuse and torture.
Trained to be an expert assassin, she was charged with kidnapping Kay and delivering her to Kira’s master, Lord Donovan.
As the two young women set forth on their journeys, their paths would cross in unimaginable ways. There was only one question that remained: who would come out alive?
EXCERPT:
The hairs on the back of my neck
started to tingle. For the second time that day, I felt as if I might be in
some unfortunate Animal Planet documentary. At least this time I was safe in my
house. Well, at least I hoped I was safe.
I stayed
deathly still at my window, thinking movement might draw its attention. I could
have gone to my bed and told myself that it all hadn’t actually happened, yet I
wanted to know what it was. Are there any
white bears in Asheville? I mean, there were polar bears, but I obviously
wasn’t in the Arctic, so that wasn’t possible. No, I didn’t think it was a
bear. It wasn’t burly enough.
The animal
took another cautious step out of the woods and smelled the ground. It lifted
its head up and then smelled the air around itself, searching for something.
Upon the understanding of what it
was, my fascination magnified. It was
an enormous and elegant white wolf. I sucked in my breath, awed by its beauty.
The wolf’s head snapped around to face my direction, almost as if it had heard
me breathe.
No
way. I’m at least a hundred yards away, in a house. It couldn’t have heard me.
But there it was, just standing out
of the tree line, staring at me. It was by far one of the most beautiful
creatures I had ever seen.
We stayed that way for a while,
staring at each other. Me, in my Young Guns concert t-shirt and plaid flannel
pajama bottoms, leaning against the window frame, wondering what the wolf was
doing. The wolf with its gleaming fur, standing on the grass almost a football
field away, studying me with something that almost resembled intelligence. The
two of us were only separated by a house, an enormous yard and a road.
Then there was more movement in the
tree line. A second wolf stepped out of the trees. This one was chocolate brown
in color, walking up to the white one. It sniffed at the ground as it walked
and seemed wholly engrossed in whatever it was that it found there.
As I looked from the brown colored
wolf to the white one, something else caught my eye, but this time I jumped as
it startled the crap out of me.
Another wolf, this one black, stood
in the middle of my front yard. I didn’t know how long it had been standing
there, but I did know that just like the white one, it was staring right at me.
Unwavering. If I thought the white one had been beautiful, then there were no
words for this particular wolf. It was staggering, with its shiny, jet black
fur reflecting the moonlight, its eyes a piercing green.
Is
that color green normal for a wolf’s eyes?
It looked to
be just as large physically as the other two wolves, but it carried itself
differently. It seemed more confident and sure of things than the others were.
Even the carriage of its body radiated certainty and command. The way the wolf
looked at me, I felt like it saw right through me to my soul. I never knew an
animal could see someone so thoroughly the way this one seemed to see me. My
hands trembled at some emotion I couldn’t name. It wasn’t fear; it was more
like an overwhelming sense of knowing and intimacy.
How strange.
I stood frozen, feeling both excited
and scared. So engrossed at the sight of the beautiful black wolf that I didn’t
even see the other two approaching. The black wolf must have heard them coming
because it turned its head in their direction. I followed its gaze to see them
halfway to where it was standing in my yard. Looking back to the black wolf, I
saw that it was watching me intently again, its head cocked to the side as if
it were analyzing me. I almost felt as if it had a question it wanted to ask,
but then one of the other wolves yapped and it turned and trotted away.
The three wolves disappeared back
into the trees. I stood there for a few minutes after they faded out of sight,
wondering if they would reappear again. Today had been unreal. Apparently,
these woods were full of animals.
In just one day I had come across a
rabid dog large enough that I would seem more like a snack to it instead of a
meal and then three wolves. I wondered what else could be out there in the
forest surrounding us as I walked to my bed to lie back down. All of a sudden I
felt a lot like Dorothy in The Wizard of
Oz.
Wolves
and freaky dogs, oh my.
What would tomorrow bring?
The Frozen Star
Jessie Lane, M.L. Pahl
(Star, #2)
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
The journey continues …
Kay discovered secrets, lies, shocking truths, and even love in a strange new world hidden from humans. Everything she thought she knew was turned upside down when she found out three things: she wasn’t human; she had a power she couldn’t control; and there was a possibility she might have found a way to cure her deadly cancer by using that very same power.
Just when she was on the precipice of gaining everything she wanted and saving her own life, tragedy struck. Would she be able to fight her way back to Ryan and save herself in the process?
Kira had lived a terrifying life of servitude and abuse under Lord Donovan and his son, Cole. It was an existence that had stripped away her emotions and reasons to keep fighting.
Just when she thought freedom was within reach, Lord Donovan struck again, ruining her plans and almost killing her. When she awoke from her injuries, it was to stunning revelations that would change her life forever, changes she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted.
Persistent individuals, such as Prince Kane, refused to let her walk away, though. Would she embrace all of her sudden fortune? Or would she walk away from those who needed her most, forsaking their acceptance and love?
WARNING: This is a upper ya/young adult/new adult fictional story that includes some explicit language, graphic violence, and mild sexual situations. Recommended for ages sixteen and up.
*This book is a re-release and revision from the original book published in 2012. Please be aware that some things have been added, deleted or changed.*
EXCERPT:
Kay’s
POV:
As Lord Donovan left me to my own
personal stone hell, the only sounds reaching my ears were the bricks grinding
against one another as they moved this way and that way, reassembling the
doorway into a solid, impenetrable wall once again. Solitary confinement. This
boxed prison was going to be the last thing I would remember. Except I now knew
that I had a sister. Had a sister. Maybe he was lying. He had to be. I mean, I
would know if she’d died, right?
“Why can’t I remember anything?” I thought out loud as I
tugged on my restraints again in hope the unbreakable thread would loosen its
crippling hold on me.
“What’s worth remembering?” whispered a man through the
cracks in the wall.
“Who’s there?” I hissed through clenched teeth in case the
creepy man, or worse yet, his son, could be hiding in the shadows.
“Thoughts are fleeting and forever lost to time.”
“Where are you?” I asked as I shifted my head from side to
side in hopes of catching a glimpse of where the voice could be coming from.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it
so,” whispered the man’s voice as if he was reading a page from a book.
I thought I had heard that somewhere. An old memory perhaps?
Or a newer one that I was meant to hold onto? A name was stuck on the tip of my
tongue and with superglue nonetheless. It hurt to think about it, but I knew I
had to keep trying.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on something,
anything other than the feeling of the stone walls closing in on me.
A flash of blue eyes and messy blonde hair danced in front
of me but was still out of reach. The image shifted, and he turned around to
face me again as his face drew closer. I watched with immense concentration as
a breathtaking smile graced his handsome face and his eyes lit up with his
devious intentions. I felt myself smile and the heat rise to my cheeks with
just the mere thought of him.
He’s real; I can feel it in my bones. There was no way my
imagination was that good. He was looking for me. I knew it just as I knew my
heart was still beating. And I knew he was mine. I analyzed every millimeter of
his face as if he was only an inch away, cementing it in heaps of concrete to
make sure I would never forget the gorgeous man again.
There was a faint buzzing in the back of my head. It wasn’t
strong, but it was constant. I could feel it getting stronger the more I stared
at his eyes. It was a connection; our connection.
“Be alert, my muse, and stand your ground. She comes for
you. Evil comes in the most beautiful forms and smells so divine to those to
whom she feeds on. But to you, my dear, she will reek of the rotting flesh of
her last victim. Hold your breath and look away.”
Wait a minute, hold my breath and look away?
“Is her breath so disgusting that I would need to suggest a
Listerine big gulp, or maybe even a Tic-tac with a battery?” I replied without
missing a beat and instantly heard his laughter echoing off the walls of his
own cell and into mine.
“Full of life you are, my dear child. Hold on to that. It
will be your saving grace in this forgotten prison.”
Full of life? Yeah, right, Yoda. I knew my days were
numbered. It sounded so cliché, but I could feel it coursing through my veins.
Something wasn’t right; it felt as if I was on fire on the inside. Only some
inner voice told me the burning sensation was not only okay, it was good for
me. How insane was that?
Author Bio:
Jessie Lane is a best-selling author of Paranormal and Contemporary Romance, as well as, Upper YA Paranormal Romance/Fantasy.
She lives in Kentucky with her two little Rock Chicks in-the-making and her over protective alpha husband that she’s pretty sure is a latent grizzly bear shifter. She has a passionate love for reading and writing naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them. She’s also a proud member of the Romance Writer’s of America (RWA).
ML Pahl or simply Mel to her friends and family, grew up in coastal North Carolina. With the Marine Corps at her back and the sandy beaches beckoning her face on, she learned that nothing could hinder her imagination.
She wrote and released her first novel, Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles, a lil’ zombie apocalypse novel that had the beginnings of a love story threaded in there, with her brother Matthew Leo in December 2014. (Written under the name Melissa Leo-Pahl
Not wanting to be stuck in one genre, ML Pahl decided to dabble in everything from Science-Fiction to Romantic Comedy and even Paranormal. Whiskey Diaries is book one in the One Night Only series and her first solo project.
Not only is ML Pahl an author she is the owner/operator of IndieVention Designs. A book formatting and book cover company servicing other indie authors like herself.
Melissa currently resides in the frozen north of Minnesota, where she lives with her family and those cute dogs she's always tweeting about.
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