Celebrate my Website Launch with a FREE Novella

Stop by to check out my newly rebuilt, redesigned and rebranded website and you can receive my high fantasy novella Confronting the Demon free – for a limited time only! All you have to do is sign-up to the newsletter and the .mobi and .epub formats will be delivered to your email.

Next stop – blog integration! As you can see, the blog hasn’t changed yet. I run the blog on Blogger, but now the website is powered by WordPress I can migrate the blog over and properly host it on the website. That, however, is another big job and should probably wait until after the release of Stalking the Demon.

If you don’t fancy signing up to the newsletter (I respect not everyone may want to) consider buying instead the Three Realms boxset. For the price of $0.99 you essentially get Confronting the Demon for half-price, making award-winning The Silver Sphere by Michael Dadich and YA epic fantasy The Shadows of the Realm by Dionne Lister completely FREE.  Don’t miss this opportunity – on sale for a short time before returning to the full price of $4.99. 

If you like the new website design, please do share it via social media with the sharing buttons on the right hand side. 

Support STALKING THE DEMON's Release Day

Would you like to help support release day festivities for Stalking the Demon, Book 2 of The Seven Circles of Hell?

If so, there are a couple of options:

• Sign-up for the release day book highlight to showcase the book on your blog; or
• Support the Thunderclap campaign via Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.

If you'd like to participate in the release day tour, please complete the form at this link - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_IaplZsHHwr9MxuHvEg3kuI2f-VgykyToPy71OAfamE/viewform.

If you'd like to support the Thunderclap campaign, which currently has 26 of the needed 100 supporters, please give your support at this link - https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/16504-stalking-the-demon-release-day.

I appreciate all your support!

THREE REALMS: 3 Book Fantasy Boxset for the Bargain Price of 99c – save 90% off RRP!

I’m excited to announce the release of this boxset by Evolved Publishing, on sale for a limited time for 99c. 

The set is a collaboration between myself and fellow fantasy authors Michael Dadich and Dionne Lister and includes:

• THE SILVER SPHERE by Michael Dadich;
• CONFRONTING THE DEMON by Ciara Ballintyne; and
• SHADOWS OF THE REALM by Dionne Lister.

Buying all these books separately would normally cost you $9.97 – how can you say no to 99c? Buy it now from Apple iBooks or Smashwords!

About the Boxset:

THE SILVER SPHERE by Michael Dadich (Multiple Award-Winner)

Shelby Pardow never imagined she could kill someone. All she wants to do is hide from her troubled father... when she is teleported to awaiting soldiers on the planet Azimuth. Here she is not a child, but Kin to one of the six Aulic Assembly members whom Malefic Cacoethes has drugged and imprisoned. He seeks to become dictator of this world (and then Earth by proxy).

His father, Biskara, is an evil celestial entity, tracked by the Assembly with an armillary device, The Silver Sphere. With the Assembly now deposed, Biskara directs Malefic and the Nightlanders to their strategic targets. Unless....

Can Shelby find the other Kin, and develop courage and combat skills? Can the Kin reassemble in time to release or replace the Assembly, overthrowing Malefic and restraining Biskara? 

~~~~~ 

CONFRONTING THE DEMON by Ciara Ballintyne

The powerful wizard, Alloran, lurks in the stinking muck of the back alleys of the city of Ehsan. Posing as a common labourer, he struggles to hide from his lover, his best friend, the authorities – and his past.

But beneath the garbage of the backstreets he discovers a new horror: a trail of gruesome bodies, gnawed on by demons, and left gift-wrapped for him to find. Someone is brutally murdering people from his past, and threatening to finish with his lover, Gisayne. What dark secret from Alloran's youth cripples his ability to fight back?

In a world where hellcats stalk the shadows, and a flaming demon lays waste to the citadel of the wizards, Alloran must risk losing himself to a powerful addiction, or abandon Gisayne to hell.

~~~~~

SHADOWS OF THE REALM by Dionne Lister

Bronwyn and Blayke are two strangers being drawn into the same war. Their world is facing invasion from the Third Realm. While they move unknowingly toward each other, they are watched, hunted, and sabotaged. When the Dragon God interferes, it seems their world, Talia, will succumb to the threat. Can they learn enough of the tricks of the Realms before it’s too late, or will everything they love be destroyed?

The young Realmists’ journey pushes them away from all they’ve known, to walk in the shadows toward Vellonia, city of the dragons, where an even darker shadow awaits.

Monday Morsel: Reality Unravelling - An Excerpt from Stalking the Demon

Alloran led the way into the stairwell and down, summoning a globe of light to illuminate the way. Halfway down, the steps stopped as if they had never been. Alloran cast the light into the depths and peered down. The edges of the break were clean. These stairs had just vanished.

They backtracked to the last level, and wound their way along the halls. An eerie silence blanketed the citadel, and Dek glanced uneasily at each door and corridor they passed. Alloran’s neck prickled. 

The ruin wrought by the planar quake lay at every turn–floors broken and shattered, segments of walls missing or misaligned, smashed stones and collapsed ceilings. Almost it was like walking through the ruins of the square after the first-circle demon, but without the bodies. 

Want a copy of Stalking the Demon before the release date? Sign-up for the ebook advance review copy in the form below (or at this link).

Don't forget, Monday Morsels come from a draft that is pre-editing and as such won't be perfect. If you like what you read, and are so inclined, show your support by leaving a comment. Stalking the Demon is expected to be released 31 October 2014. If you'd like to sample more of my writing, check out the free short stories available on this site. 

If this is your first visit to Monday Morsels, find others in the series by clicking on the ‘Monday morsel’ tag, or go to the first installment for Stalking the Demon.

More about Stalking the Demon:

Alloran lost his hand to thwart his renegade friend–but the world is still going to hell.

Six months after Ladanyon's defeat, Gisayne is fading away from a baffling illness. Alloran is desperate for a cure, but he has a secret–the seven circles of hell are unstable. His worst fear is that the terrible mirror spell cast upon Gisayne has wrought some connection between her and the demon dimensions.

As everything Alloran loves races toward destruction, he does the unthinkable and refuses to obey the council of wizards. The only people who can help him are the two research assistants assigned by the council–but he knows he can't trust them.

All the answers are locked away in the last place anyone wants to go: hell.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out my previous posts if you haven't already. If you're finding yourself here often, you might like to join as a member, sign up to the blog through RSS or email, or sign-up to my newsletter. Check out my July Newsletter if you missed it. 

Don't forget to share the love and spread the word on Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon (or other social networking site of your choice) if you know other people who might also enjoy this. 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting!

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I Was Eaten By A Dragon

OK, perhaps not. Not me, anyway. It was my editor. Well, not by a dragon. But certainly buried under a backlog of edits.

You recall I mentioned the release date for Stalking the Demon wouldn’t change barring a disaster on the scale of being eaten by a dragon. Well, two rounds of edits have been completed by my first editor but the third round (the first of two by my second editor) won’t even start until 16 September. I customarily do three rounds of edits, with a fourth copyedit and then a proofread. Based on my editor’s timeline, I have glumly concluded it would be unwise to try and release the book before 31 October.

So with a heavy heart I must move the release date. :-(

For those who have signed up for the free eARC, this will also change the date the advance reader copies are available. If you haven’t signed up yet and would like a copy of the book before it hits the shelves, follow the link below to sign-up.

I must accept the blame for this debacle. I was on maternity leave when I wrote and released Confronting the Demon, and while I was working part-time from home and looking after a newborn, it’s not quite the same situation I find myself in now, and it was difficult to judge how long everything would take. In addition, I completely screwed up the first three drafts – I say that, but of course each draft was successively better than the last, it’s just that I started in a pretty rotten place that created more work for me.

To put this in context, this is what I have on my plate day to day:

• I work full-time as a lawyer in financial services law;
• My commute is a 3 hour round trip;
• I have two children under 5;
• I am married;
• I am, of course, writing Stalking the Demon;
• I do 2000 exercises daily to repair my abdominal separation;
• I have a (hopefully temporary) eye condition which means I can’t currently wear my contact lenses – to attempt to fix that I must apply eye drops 4 times daily, as well as apply hot compresses and perform eyelid massage;
• I attempt to make it to the gym 3 times weekly as I try to shed the last of my pregnancy weight;
• I run our household.

On top of that mind-boggling list, the additional issues I am struggling with right now include:

• Deciding if our 4 year old should go to school next year;
• I am about to become a partner at the law practice, which has associated stresses with it such as arranging finance, managing additional budgetary and taxation issues, seeking accounting advice, plus all the additional concerns of a business owner such as managing business finance and cash flow;
• I have been completely redoing my website, which is almost finished, but the Blogger to Wordpress transition is still in front of me; and
• I recently had minor heart surgery and I’m still kind of in the grey area where it looks like my condition is probably cured but I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fact my heart hasn’t gone into tachycardia given all the above stress probably means I am cured, but still it weighs on my mind.

I’m so stressed and distracted that when booking Comic-Con tickets for next Sunday, I booked them instead for Saturday. I never make such mistakes.

So all I can say is that after this year’s experience, I have learned, and I promise to do better for the next release.

If you’re as disappointed by this delay as I am, please please please do sign up to receive your free advance copy – that way you’ll get it as soon as it’s available, instead of waiting for the official release date.Fill in the form below (or follow this link if the form plays up).

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STALKING THE DEMON ~ Advance Review EBOOKS by @CiaraBallintyne #HighFantasy #FREEBIE

Available for a limited time

FREE Advance Review ebooks (Review Copies only)

STALKING THE DEMON

(Book 2 in the Seven Circles of Hell)

by Ciara Ballintyne

Date of Publication – 31 October 2014

Genre:  High Fantasy (Adult)

Add it to your Goodreads TBR here.

eARCs may not be identical to the final published version and therefore may contain some minor editing and typographical errors prior to the final proofread. eARCs are expected to be available 2 weeks prior to the publication date. Interested? Sign-up now!

ALL REVIEWERS PLEASE COMPLETE THE FORM BELOW

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Monday Morsel: Prison of Onyx - An Excerpt from Stalking the Demon

Release date is now set firm at 22 September! Barring some dreadful disaster (like being eaten by a dragon) I'm committed to that date. 

* * * 

Frowning, Dek struck a spark from the flint and steel and lit the candle wick from a small clump of tinder. He released the burnt-out tinder a fraction of a moment before it scorched his fingers. The burning mote fell and went out. Dek passed the candle through the bars.

The flame wavered then steadied. Alloran tipped the candle slightly, to allow the fire to lick over the nearest streak of onyx. The tides of the inter-dimensional energies became apparent to him, but they washed over his skin like a soap bubble on water. He drank in the energy, but it was hard, slow work. Perspiration beaded on his brow, while hot wax dripped on his fingers.

His breath hissed through his teeth. Don’t think about the pain. Instead, he drew in more energy, dragging at the thin stream like an addict at the dying fumes of his last piece of opium. 

Thanks for dropping by! Don't forget, this draft is pre-edits and as such won't be perfect. If you like what you read, and are so inclined, show your support by leaving a comment. Stalking the Demon is eto be released on 22 September 2014. If you'd like to sample more of my writing, check out the free short stories available on this site.

If this is your first visit to Monday Morsels, find others in the series by clicking on the ‘Monday morsel’ tag, or go to the first installment for Stalking the Demon.

More about Stalking the Demon:

Alloran lost his hand to thwart his renegade friend–but the world is still going to hell.

Six months after Ladanyon's defeat, Gisayne is fading away from a baffling illness. Alloran is desperate for a cure, but he has a secret–the seven circles of hell are unstable. His worst fear is that the terrible mirror spell cast upon Gisayne has wrought some connection between her and the demon dimensions.

As everything Alloran loves races toward destruction, he does the unthinkable and refuses to obey the council of wizards. The only people who can help him are the two research assistants assigned by the council–but he knows he can't trust them.

All the answers are locked away in the last place anyone wants to go: hell.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out my previous posts if you haven't already. If you're finding yourself here often, you might like to join as a member, sign up to the blog through RSS or email, or sign-up to my newsletter. Check out my July Newsletter if you missed it.

Don't forget to share the love and spread the word on Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon (or other social networking site of your choice) if you know other people who might also enjoy this.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting!