Dark Legends Boxed Set Author Spotlight: SHADE by Marilyn Peake - Wilder: The Guardian Series by G.K. DeRosa

by
Rebecca Hamilton,
T.F. Walsh, Monica Corwin, J.L. Weil,
Laxmi Hariharan, JA Culican, Muffy Wilson,
GK DeRosa,
Marilyn Peake, Kevin McLaughlin, Carissa Ann Lynch,
Vivienne Savage, Anna Hub,
HJ Lawson, Emma Nichols, Shelley Munro, J.A.Armitage,
Leilani Love, Demelza Carlton, Xyla Turner,
D.S. Murphy, J.T. Williams

This Collection is packed with more than 20 full-length Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance reads from New York Times, USA Today, and International Bestselling Authors!

Don’t miss this collection of more than twenty unique twists in paranormal romance and urban fantasy, providing over one million words of supernatural suspense that will transport you to new worlds with smoking hot action and heart-throttling adventure!

The DARK LEGENDS boxed set includes: Mermaids, Sirens, Shifters, Vampires, Dragons, Sorcerers, Warriors, Angels, Faeries, Demons, Witches, Psychics, Ghosts, Mythology, Folk Tales, Legends, Dark Magic, Time Travel, and More!

Rebecca Hamilton
T.F. Walsh with Demon’s Mark
Monica Corwin with Soulless
J.L. Weil with White Raven
Laxmi Hariharan with Redemption
JA Culican with The Keeper of Dragons, The Prince Returns
Muffy Wilson and The Para-Portage of Emily
GK DeRosa with Wilder: The Guardian Series
Marilyn Peake with Shade
Kevin McLaughlin with By Darkness Revealed
Carissa Ann Lynch with Midnight Moss
Vivienne Savage with Making Waves
Anna Hub with Beyond the Shadows
HJ Lawson with New Order
Emma Nichols with Blood Moon
Shelley Munro with Claimed & Seduced
J.A.Armitage with Two of Clubs
Leilani Love with Violca’s Dragon
Demelza Carlton with Ocean’s Gift
Xyla Turner with Broken Treaty
D.S. Murphy with Scarlet Thread
J.T. Williams with Winemaker of the North

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Shade
by
Marilyn Peake
@MarilynPeake
Award-Winning
and
Int’l Bestselling Author

SHADE: Girl on a hero’s journey, going from smart-ass to badass.

Thanks to her offbeat mother, Shade’s full name is Galactic Shade Griffin. Having a name like that while being the new girl in school is pretty much catnip for bullies. The summer before Shade’s junior year of high school, her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend and moves them once again to a new town.

This time, they move into a dilapidated old house where Shade has an entire attic bedroom to herself—at least until she discovers it’s haunted by the ghost of a teenaged boy named Brandon Yates. When Shade’s best friend goes missing, her life becomes even more complicated. With the help of Brandon who’s struggling with his own issues in the world beyond, Shade faces the question of whether or not she has what it takes to become a true hero.

Although this novel deals with a number of serious issues—drug and alcohol abuse, cutting, and disturbing world events—it’s primarily a novel about a teenaged girl finding out who she
really is and that she’s capable of so much more than she ever thought possible.

SHADE is a YA Paranormal Mystery novel.

Shade and her friends interviewing Gabriella Underwood, a local psychic, at her home in the YA Paranormal Mystery novel, Shade, by Marilyn Peake.

George started. “How long have you been a psychic?”

Lame! Lame! Lame! I wanted to crack myself over the head with the walking stick leaning
against the wall next to the fireplace.

Gabriella Underwood had grace and style. She answered, as though honored to be interviewed, “I’m not sure, exactly. I think I was born a psychic or came into it at a very young age. I didn’t know what it was, though, or had any sense of its power, until puberty.” She laughed. “Isn’t that the way for all of us, though? Innate forces move within us and make their grand entrance at puberty. Then it’s up to us to make sense of them and become the people we were meant to be.”

At the mere mention of the word puberty, I blushed a million shades of color, I’m sure, running the entire spectrum from pink to crimson red. I looked over at the flames roaring in the fireplace. I didn’t look up to see if George and Kailee had also reacted with embarrassment and shame. Yeah, seriously, me as an old soul? I couldn’t even hear the word puberty without thinking about sex and blushing in shame.

Gabriella continued as though nothing were amiss. “At three years old, I had a frightening dream that my grandfather had died. The next day, my grandfather passed away. When I was four years old, I fell into a daydream and imagined that my mother had taken ill. The following week, my mother found out that she was pregnant. It was a rough pregnancy and in the last few months of it, she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It haunted me as a child that maybe I had caused the death of my grandfather and the illness of my mother that could have affected the birth of my baby sister. But I always tucked the fear in the back of my brain and told myself it was all just a coincidence.” She paused. Took a sip of hot chocolate. “Oh my, that’s good chocolate. A friend in Europe sent it to me.” Another sip. “But then, when I was around thirteen years of age, I started ‘seeing’ all kinds of things before they happened. Also, details about things after they happened, details that no one else knew about. I saw a vague mark on my best friend’s forehead that no one else could see. It was kind of like a black smudge, kind of like the ash that Catholics get on their heads before Lent. No one else could see it. Seven months later, Sophie was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.” Gabriella stopped speaking for a moment and looked away, lost to memory. She returned her gaze to ours and smiled weakly. “It took me years to recognize that what I had was a gift. But a gift without a voice. As long as I was frightened by it and refused to give it voice, I could help no one. If I could find my voice, however, I might be able to inform people of things I could see that would help them.”

Kailee asked the next question, “When did you come out?” She blushed. “I mean, when did you come out as a psychic?”

Gabriella beamed. “Coming out is a great way to phrase that! I got teased so much as a kid just for being different and for having the strange name of Gabriella Underwood, you have to believe I was scared to death to tell people I could tell the future. When I finally did, it was an act of coming out about who I really was.”

I had found a kindred spirit, weird name and all. Although I have to admit, compared to Galactic Shade Griffin, I thought of Gabriella Underwood as a completely normal name—not as American-flag-and-apple-pie as Mary Jane Smith, mind you, but not anywhere near as freakish as the odd name foisted upon me.

Gabriella continued, “Years later, when I was eighteen years old and coming into full possession of my powers, something happened that finally convinced me I had to stop hiding what I had.” Gabriella stood up. She added a few more logs to the fireplace. She stirred the ashes.

Marilyn Peake

Featured Book: Shade

Hi, everyone! I’m so happy to be here!

So glad to have you join us, Marilyn. Let’s get right to it! How long have you been a writer and how did you come to writing?
I started writing seriously in high school. Back then, I wrote poems and short stories. I also wrote articles for three local newspapers and had some poetry published there. When I was in graduate school, I actually enjoyed writing my thesis. In 2002, I published my first novel, a children’s fantasy adventure novel titled THE FISHERMAN’S SON.

How did you come up with this storyline?
For my YA Paranormal Mystery novel, SHADE, which is my book in the Dark Legends Collection, I first came up with the main character, Shade. I really like her. She’s spunky and brave. When her very difficult and chaotic mother moves them to an old rundown Victorian house, I knew there would be a ghost there. That happens early on in the story. I outlined the novel before starting to write, so I also knew what the major mystery in the story would be and why it was important to the ghost to help Shade solve it.

What are the best and the worst aspects of writing?
The best aspects are creating new worlds and storytelling, sharing those stories with readers and hearing from readers who enjoyed them. The worst aspects all involve sitting for too many hours and pushing myself too hard – not exactly recommended by health experts and it’s not great for one’s social life.

What inspires you to write?
Really great books, movies and TV shows. Those always inspire me and get me excited about writing my own stories.

How did you conduct your research for SHADE?
I Googled articles on quite a few subjects from ghosts to psychics to criminal investigations.

What are 3 of your favorite quotes from SHADE?

“Once class started, I only got called on once, to answer a question about why Romeo and Juliet had pretended to die. That was easy. We had discussed Romeo and Juliet a little bit the previous year at my old school…and, well, duh, because the adults in their lives wouldn’t let them be who they really were and date who they really loved, and they had to let everyone think they were dead so that they could sneak away, be themselves, follow their hearts’ desires and have no one look for them.”

“Brandon [ghost who had died in the 1970s] discovered that he loved a cell phone trivia game based on facts about the 1970s. He also found Angry Birds seriously addicting. After twenty games of snorting piggies, I made him turn the sound down. Then I taught him how to mute the phone. He unmuted it, said the game wasn’t the same without the sounds. Well, he got that right. It definitely wasn’t.”

Shade talking about her mom:

“And there it was, once again. Hanging in the air like invisible poisoned fruit, waiting to be plucked from the tree and discussed. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant…with me…so
young, life would have been better. She would have been a great success.

“Sure.

“And monkeys would have grown wings.

“And world peace would have been achieved.”

More Favorites from SHADE:

The tagline for SHADE is: Shade: Girl on a hero’s journey, going from smart-ass to badass.

Shade’s mom was always embarrassing her. I love Shade’s snarky sense of humor. Here’s one of her comments I especially got a kick out of because her snark clearly shows through: “The next day, I remembered just how truly lucky I was. My mom drove me to school in her rusty old van. She was wearing some kind of hippie dress that reached down to her ankles. It was, honest to God, made out of bright yellow cloth covered in purple tulips with neon-green leaves, and she had painted her lips fire engine red and rubbed purple eye shadow all over her eyelids.”

Is there anything else you’d like to mention about SHADE?
Yes. SHADE deals with some very serious subjects, so I include a warning in the book description. Here’s the Book Summary:

Finalist Award in the 2015 National Indie Excellence Book Awards, Young Adult Fiction Category.

Although this novel deals with a number of serious issues—drug and alcohol abuse, cutting, and disturbing world events—it’s primarily a novel about a teenaged girl finding out who she really is and that she’s capable of so much more than she ever thought possible.

SHADE is a YA Paranormal Mystery novel.

What would your friends say is your best quality?
My enthusiasm.

Are reader reviews important to you?
Yes, they really are.

What do you do when you don’t write?
I love hiking, traveling and photography. One of my favorite things to do is travel photography. I also love spending time with my husband and grown sons. Recently, I discovered the computer game, NO MAN’S SKY. (I have 10,000,000 credits in that game!) I also enjoy reading books and watching movies and TV
shows.

Tell us about your other books?
Altogether, I have 31 publications, mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy. That includes novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories and a couple of nonfiction books. My most recent books that I’m really proud of are my MUTATION Z Apocalyptic Zombie series and my SHADE series. When the SHADE series is complete, it will have six books.

If you could share one thing about yourself that you would like readers to know what would it be?
That it means a lot to me when readers enjoy my books and I love hearing from readers.

I really enjoyed this interview! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

I did! It was a pleasure getting to know you better!! Good luck with the new release.

Marilyn Peake is the author of both novels and short stories. Her publications have received excellent reviews. Marilyn’s one of the contributing authors in Book: The Sequel, published by The Perseus Books Group, with one of her entries included in serialization at The Daily Beast. In addition, Marilyn has served as Editor for a number of anthologies. Her short stories have been published in seven anthologies and on the literary blog, Glass Cases. AWARDS: Silver Award, two Honorable Mentions and eight Finalist placements in the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, two Winner and two Finalist placements in the EPPIE Awards, Winner of the Dream Realm Awards, Finalist placement in The National Indie Excellence Book Awards, and Best Horror Award in the eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards.

Author’s website: http://www.marilynpeake.com