Antony Starr is the cutest Reaper

It's been awhile since I updated my blog. Life has a way of interfering with the best of intentions. Since my husband's death in 2009, I lost the necessary direction to write. It wasn't until the summer of 2012 that I began to pay attention to the signs my Tommy was bombarding me with from the AfterLife.

I had always skipped merrily along the road less traveled. If there wasn't a path to what I wanted, I trampled one into existence. My determination to become a writer had been forged at the knee of my Irish grandfather whose dark fantastical stories thrilled me as a child. I wanted to spin yarns as well as PaPa could. To that end, I was one of the biggest liars in school but you know how the old saying goes: "When I was a child they called me a liar. Now that I'm grown, they call me a writer." 

Nearly every good writer I know was a habitual liar when s/he was growing up. Must have been something in the water that tainted us and skewed our moral compass, huh?

At any rate, I began to write again and since June of last year, I've written, submitted, and contracted nine full-length novels. I'm working on number ten. I have become a writing fool as my best friend remarked just yesterday. That the books were there all along I've no doubt. They were simmering on some back burner of my mind and finally boiled over. 

Reaper's Bounty: a book that needed to be written.

I am known for my signature Reaper novels which began with BloodWind in 1998. Since then I have written an entire franchise around these shapeshifting Alpha males. There are four series of novels in which these bad boys appear: WindVerse, DemonWind, BlackWind, and WesternWind. They also show up in a few other series, as well, but only peripherally.There are three major types of Reaper: Lupine (wolf), Hell-Hound (canine), and Panthera (feline). As of today at 12:15 pm CST, there is a hybrid Reaper who is part Panthera and part Ridge Lord. Makes for an interesting combo, trust me!

Most of my readers know that I have a penchant for patterning my characters after actors and actresses whose work I admire or who have entertained me, touched some chord deep inside my psyche. There are a few of these men and women who have inspired several different stories. One of them is a New Zealand actor named Antony Starr who is just now making a name for himself in the U.S. and gaining the dedicated notice of American viewers. He's been a Kiwi treasure since 2004 when he was cast as the twins Jethro and Van West in the dramedy Outrageous Fortune. He showed up in his first Charlee Boyett-Compo novel a year later. To say the man can act (he's won several acting awards) is an understatement. If you haven't seen him in the Cinemax series Banshee, you are missing one helluva tortured hero who can cry with the best of them. If you haven't seen his movie After the Waterfall, do it. I guarantee you will discover why the man intrigues this woman so greatly.

That said....

When I heard about the On the Hunt series about bounty hunters, I thought of Antony (or Ant to his friends and co-workers. Which begs a question: he has four nieces. Do they call him Uncle Ant?) I'd already made him a Reaper in Dancing on the Wind. I'd made him a black-ops superstud in HardWind. I'd given him a black Stetson, black silk shirt and black leather pants, a six-shooter and a laser whip in the WesternWind series of novels (he's Cynyr Cree, btw), so now I was going to make him a sex-on-a-stick new breed of Reaper in Reaper's Bounty.

I hope you will give Reaper's Bounty a try but if you do, first Google Antony Starr and let that handsome guy with the piercing blue eyes drift through your mind while you read. Put your own face on the heroine and have very pleasant, wet dreams!

Here's the blurb for REAPER'S BOUNTY:

Theron Sarandakos is a Panthera, a species of Reaper that shifts into black leopards. Ronnie puts his stealth and guile to work as a bounty hunter. His assignment is to catch a thief, and he’s determined not to fail. But when he sets eyes on his quarry, Celeste Wynth, he knows at once that she is his one true mate, destined to be his.

Their lust threatens to burn up the jungle world where he makes his home, but their illicit love means that Lettie will be shunned by her people unless she agrees to marry the man she’s been betrothed to since childhood. And Theron’s warrioress family have other plans for him as well. To be together forever, they will be forced to fight for their love.

Read an excerpt at http://www.windlegends.org/reapersbountyexcerpt.htm