It’s the release day for Megan Tayte’s Devil and the Deep, the fourth book in her Ceruleans series! And now it’s time to celebrate!
Below you will find info about the book, info about how to
get free
books, info about how to enter a GIVEAWAY,
and more!
(Ceruleans #4)
Publication
Date: September 30, 2015
Ebook, 314 pages, Heaven A fire
Genres:
YA, Paranormal
STORM CLOUDS ARE GATHERING, AND
THEY WILL RAIN BLOOD.
Scarlett is living her
happy-ever-after, back in the real world. Only the ‘happy’ part is proving
problematic.
For starters, there’s the
isolation. Being a Cerulean among humans is fraught with risk, so her time with
people can only be fleeting. Which means being with Luke but not being with
Luke.
Then there’s her Cerulean light,
her power over life and death. Less awesome talent, as it turns out, and more
overwhelming responsibility. And it comes with rules – rules that are
increasingly difficult to obey.
But what’s really pushing Scarlett
to the precipice is something much bigger than herself, than her life in the
cove. A force to be reckoned with:
Blood.
When long-buried truths are
exposed, will Scarlett keep her head above water – or will she drown in the
blood-dimmed tide that is unleashed?
My Thoughts
Sounds wicked, right? Well, there’s more.
Just keep reading…
An Excerpt
It began with screaming.
Shrill, ear-piercing, horrified screaming.
A girl
shrieked, ‘Blood! Look, look – it’s everywhere!’ and pressed her hand to her
mouth.
A man shouted,
‘Good grief!’ and another, ‘Great Scott!’
An old lady
swooned gracefully and would have tipped over the balustrade of the riverboat
had a lanky lad not caught her.
The cause of
the excitement – a woman lying slumped on the long table on deck, cheek on her
bread
plate,
headdress in the butter dish – twitched a little.
‘She’s alive!’
cried a lad beside her delightedly. ‘She moved!’
‘Did not,’
argued another.
‘Did too!’
‘Gentlemen,’
interjected a short, portly man with a twirly black moustache, ‘if you will
forgive my intrusion, it must be noted that this woman has a bullet hole in her
head and is logically, therefore, quite definitely deceased.’
Another old
dear folded to the deck with a prolonged ‘Ohhhhhh’ and her husband grabbed a
feathered fan and began wafting cool evening air in her face while calling,
‘Smelling salts – does anyone have any?’
I tried to keep
a straight face. Really I did. I bit my bottom lip until I tasted my cherry-red
lipstick. I pinched my leg through the cream satin of my gown. I dug my long
cigarette holder into the sensitive flesh of my arm.
But it was no
good.
The ‘What ho,
chaps’ posh accents.
The buxom woman
sagging in the arms of an elephant hunter wearing Converse All Stars.
The production
of smelling salts in a bottle whose label read Pepto-Bismol.
The corners of
the little round man’s moustache coming looser with his every word.
The
fast-pooling puddle of pinkish blood on the bread plate, buffeted by the steady
in-and-out breaths of the corpse.
Take it from a
girl who’s really died – death on the River Dart, Devon, is hilarious.
‘Dear me, Ms
Robson here appears to be quite overcome with shock,’ said the guy at my side
suddenly, and he slipped an arm around me and turned me away. ‘Come, madam. Let
us get some air.’
I smiled at
him. Then grinned. Then choked back a guffaw. Thankfully, by the time
full-scale hilarity hit me I’d been led to the rear of the boat, away from the
rest of our party, and could bury my face in the bloke’s chest and shake mutely
with laughter.
The gallant
gentleman rubbed my back soothingly as I let it all out and said loudly, for
the benefit of any onlookers, ‘There there, pignsey, there there.’
‘Pigsney?’ It
was the final straw. My high-heeled sandals gave way and I melted into a puddle
of mirth on the deck.
‘I’ll have you
know, Scarlett Blake,’ hissed Luke, my boyfriend a.k.a. gallant gent, hoiking
up his too-tight corduroy trousers so he could squat down beside me, ‘I Googled
“old-fashioned terms of endearment” and pigsney’s a classic.’
I wiped tears
from my eyes, dislodging a false eyelash in the process, and tried to catch my
hiccupping breath as Luke went on.
‘Means pig’s
eye. No idea why that’s appealing, but apparently in the seventeenth century,
calling a lady pigsney was the very height of courting.’
Through his
fake specs Luke’s blue eyes fixed me with a stare so earnest I almost managed
to stop laughing.
‘But this is a Death on the Nile-Stroke-Dart murder
mystery night, Luke,’ I managed to get out. ‘Set in the nineteen thirties, not
the seventeen thirties.’
‘Ah,’ he said,
‘but my character tonight, Mr Fijawaddle, is a historical fiction writer, isn’t
he? So as well as dressing like a brainy recluse – and I’m warning you now, I
won’t hear another slur against this tweed jacket – he’d know all kinds of
obscure terms. Like ginglyform and jargogle and nudiustertian and bromopnea and
farctate and quagswag and philosophunculist.’
His showing off
sobered me just enough to control the giggles. ‘You made those words up,’ I
accused, poking a crimson talon into his mustard-yellow shirtfront.
He blinked at
me innocently. ‘Did not. I told you before we left the house, I did my
homework.’
I narrowed my
eyes. ‘All right then, Mr Fijawaddle, what does that last word you said mean?’
‘Philosophunculist?’
‘Yes, that.’
‘Er…’ Luke gave
me a sheepish grin.
‘Spill it,’ I
said menacingly. As menacingly as a girl dressed up as a vintage Hollywood
starlet with cute little pin curls and rouge aplenty can be, that is.
‘Philosophunculist,’
recited Luke. ‘Noun. A person who pretends to know more than they do in order to
impress others.’
I threw my head
back and laughed. ‘Busted!’
Luke slipped an
arm around me and pulled me close. Really close.
‘Bet you like
it when I use long words,’ he said huskily, eyes fixed on my too-red lips.
‘Bet you like
it when I wear a clingy nightgown as a dress,’ I replied, eyes fixed on his too-kissable
lips.
‘Brazen hussy,’
he growled at me.
‘Randy boffin,’
I murmured back.
Then neither of
us said another word for quite some time.
Free Books
That’s right, you read it right. Megan Tayte is letting her dear, sweet book babies go for free into your waiting hands. This deal includes books 1-3. You can go here to check it out.
I don’t know about you, but free books are the bomb diggity
to me! But you'd better hurry. It's only for a limited time.
The Giveaway
The Author
Once upon a time a little girl told her grandmother that
when she grew up she wanted to be a writer. Or a lollipop lady. Or a fairy
princess fireman. ‘Write, Megan,’ her grandmother advised. So that’s what she
did.
Thirty-odd years later, Megan is a professional writer and
published author by day, and an indie novelist by night. Her fiction – young
adult romance with soul – recently earned her the SPR’s Independent Woman
Author of the Year award.
Megan grew up in the Royal County, a hop, skip and a (very
long) jump from Windsor Castle, but these days she makes her home in Robin
Hood's county, Nottinghamshire. She lives with her husband, a proud Scot who
occasionally kicks back in a kilt; her son, a budding artist with the soul of a
palaeontologist; and her baby daughter, a keen pan-and-spoon drummer who sings
in her sleep. When she's not writing, you'll find her walking someplace green,
reading by the fire, or creating carnage in the kitchen as she pursues her
impossible dream: of baking something edible.
