RELEASE DAY GIVEAWAY!

Today, my third book, DESPITE THE FANGS, releases in all formats worldwide! Woot-Woot!

To celebrate, I'm giving away prizes! Comment below for your chance to win:

FIRST PRIZE--FREE e-book copy of DESPITE THE FANGS, a SIGNED bookplate, plus a $10 Starbucks giftcard, and a pretty pink tote and mints from my publisher, all guaranteed to kickstart your beach reads this summer!



10 SECOND PRIZES--One of 10 SIGNED BOOKPLATES and a 25% off coupon for DESPITE THE FANGS!

All you have to do to enter is comment below! Check out my book video trailer here, and a little teaser from the novel is below. Good luck!!

DESPITE THE FANGS Back Cover Copy:

Workaholic werewolves have such awesome perks.

Just ask Aribella Lupari, whose hectic schedule tracking missing people in the snowy Adirondacks allows her benefits humans can’t appreciate—wolves never return unopened wedding gifts, never gain weight from late night doughnut binges, and never worry over their encroaching uni-brow. For Ari, walking upright is overrated.

Then she tracks a hiker whose delectable scent calls to both halves of her werewolf self. Not only does Mason Gray look as good as he smells, he may be the only man who can love the beauty behind the beast. Ari should know better than to trust a human, especially after Mason blackmails her into tracking his kidnapped son. But her attraction for the mysterious single father has Ari ignoring her animal instincts.

Can the big, bad wolf live happily ever after, DESPITE THE FANGS?

DESPITE THE FANGS Excerpt:

“Aren’t you curious to know what I’ve decided to do with you?”

Mason turned his bronze gaze on her, and Ari’s pulse doubled even as she scoffed.

“Let’s see…either more dart gun practice with me as your target, or you’ve got some misguided fantasy that if I bite you, you’ll become a werewolf like me—”

Ari stopped speaking, but it was too late. Now her plan to protect Mason from knowing too much was shot to hell. She might as well parade around shouting, ‘I’m here. I’m were’. Get used to it!’

Mason grinned. “Two options I hadn’t considered. I don’t need target practice. However, a little biting might be nice.”

His words rolled over her like a pheromone-scented wave. Ari opened her mouth to reply, yet produced only an airy squeak. Mason’s eyes were doing that intense, dark glittering thing again—the look that made it difficult to concentrate. Or breathe.

With a gasp and a shudder, Ari managed a shaky laugh.

“Watch out. I’m not up to date on my shots.”

Mason voice danced along her spine as he leaned in.

“I like to live dangerously.”

COMMENT BELOW FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN! Winners will be announced tomorrow at noon, so check back to see if you've won!

Brothers and Sisters Day QUIZ

Me and my baby sister, Marleah @ 1975

Today is Brothers and Sisters Day. Sounds fake, but it's real. Even Ryan Seacrest posted about it with a Celebrity Brothers and Sisters quiz , so I thought I'd take some time to quiz you on some famous sibling authors and fictional brothers and sisters!

Brothers and Sisters in Fiction Quiz:

1. Name the three famous sisters that wrote novels in the 1800's under the male pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell?

ANSWER: Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Anne Bronte, respectively. The three had varying degrees of success (Charlotte is most famous for "Jane Eyre"; Emily wrote the darkly Gothic novel, "Wuthering Heights" and Anne wrote "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall")

2. Can you name all four of the March sisters in Louisa May Alcott's novel about the bonds of family, "Little Women" (whose characters were loosely based on the author's own sisters)?

ANSWER: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March






3. Can you name all of the Weasley siblings in the "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling in BIRTH ORDER?

ANSWER: Did I throw you off on the birth order thing? Ok, here's the answer in birth order: Bill (William), Charlie (Charles), Percy, Fred (although they are twins, Fred was born first), George, Ron (Ronald) and Ginny (Ginerva).

4. In my novel, DESPITE THE GHOSTS, total skeptic Parker Sebastian is troubled by the supposed suicide of his brother, whose spirit ends up contacting psychic Nola Richards for help solving the mystery surrounding his death. What is Parker's brother's name? HINT: Parker and his deceased brother share the same initials, P.S.

ANSWER: Parker's brother (now a spirit) is Paul Sebastian. You can watch the video trailer to see what message Paul leaves on Nola's shower door that starts the whole paranormal romance here.


5. What are the real names for the Brothers Grimm, responsible for many of the fairy tales we read today?

ANSWER: Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, who were born and wrote their collected folk tales in Germany in 1812. You can thank them for popularizing Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretal as well as the version we know today of Little Red Riding Hood--a folk tale that my heroine in DESPITE THE FANGS has some issue with the re-telling (her werewolf family tells it verrrry differently!).


So how did you do on the Brothers and Sisters Day Quiz? Anything stump you? I confess I didn't know the names of the Grimm brothers, and I got the Weasley sibling order wrong...but I nailed the rest!

Be sure to follow my blog for more fun and quizzes as I...
Happily My Ever After,
Dylan

P.S. Did you see what the spirit wrote on Nola's shower door in my video here for my first book, DESPITE THE GHOSTS? One of the book's themes is brotherly love!

P.P.S. Want to read more on the interesting lives of the Bronte sisters? Check out this post on the BBC History site. And if you're a HARRY POTTER buff, check out this awesome family tree on the Weasley family and more here. 

Bring Back May Day!

May Day Photo from Library of Congress 

Today is May Day, and at the risk of sounding...well, OLD, I have to say they don't celebrate it like they used to when I was a girl. In my elementary school, we'd make May Baskets, fill them with flowers (although in Upstate NY, they were more likely the paper variety, as typically we still had snow on the ground) and give them as surprise gifts to random friends or neighbors.

It was like Ding-Dong-Ditch, but with a much happier ending.

And we'd do the May Pole dance. Erm, except in my class, they'd give you crepe paper instead of ribbons to wind around the flagpole, and when you're in your snow-boots instead of frilly dresses, it sort of loses something. But still. We celebrated the coming of summer, and that's the point.

In all my years as a mom of elementary kids, there has been nary a single May Day basket. No tromping around a May Pole. No random gifts of flowers to friends or neighbors.

I can't help feeling like we've lost something.

I wonder if it's because the origin of May Day points to the Celtic festival of Beltane (or Gaelic, Beltaine) where the cattle were driven by hand-lit bonfires to mark the return of the sun and promote health and fertility--a custom that is still observed in Ireland.

In Wicca, Beltane is one of the Major Sabbats, or holidays, and is the opposite on the calendar wheel to Samhain. Where Beltane signals the beginning of the growing cycle of the year, Samhain signals the end, and as such, the veils between the worlds are said to be thinnest at these times of great change.

As I've written about Samhain in my novella "ANY WITCH WAY", I'm thinking I need a continuation of
Joshua and Lily's story on the opposite--the growing and fertile--side of the year. It's said on Beltane, you can see fairies, and if you washed your face with morning dew on Beltane, you'd be gifted with beauty. And with all of the Celtic and pagan tradition behind Beltane, I think it would make a lovely follow-up.

Now I've just got to get my writing muse to agree!

Happy May Day. Blessed Beltane. And...

Happily My Ever After,
Dylan

P.S. Want to check out my novel that takes place on Samhain, the ending of the Wiccan year? Check out the video for ANY WITCH WAY here, and read the first few pages of my novel here.

P.P.S. What to read more from the sources I consulted for this article? Check out Witchvox website for more on the Wiccan holiday, or read up on the history of May Day at the Washington Post, or the online Encyclopedia Brittanica.