Hey all, please help me welcome Emily Ryan-Davis to the blog today.

 BLURB:

There’s only one substance on earth that can create a new vampire–the blood of a Chalice, a rare individual with magic in her veins. Atlanta’s human-vampire Civility Laws demand that if a Chalice is found, she must be destroyed. Vampire Teijon Reyes allowed the mortal girl Dessa Collier to live despite the threat she posed to society. If he ever finds her again, he will kill her, personal desires be damned.

Heiress to a family tradition of ward-working, house painter Dessa Collier has spent the past twelve years pretending vampires don’t exist. When a friend-enemy walks back into Dessa’s life after a decade-long absence, everything Dessa has been hiding from comes crashing down on top of her.

Thrown together on a mission to protect a city under seige, Dessa and Teijon can no longer hide from the powerful attraction that binds them…or the monsters out to destroy them.

Available here: Amazon     BN     Smashwords     All Romance Ebooks

And don’t forget to check out the excerpt after the interview 🙂

What is a typical day for you like writing-wise?

Oh, jeez. Typical isn’t a word I get to use anymore. I have an infant (8 months!) who sets all the schedules. On a day when I get lucky, he only wakes up twice during the night. From wake-up time until 11 am, he and I play in the living room and I check e-mail, try to get blog posts together, peek in on Twitter and Facebook and forums. If he takes a morning nap and I choose writing over breakfast, I manage to fit a few words into that half hour or so. At 11, my husband gets up and takes the baby so from about 11 am until 4 pm, I write as much as I can between feedings, diapers, and general “no more daddy, only mommy!” fits.

The evening nap is another one of those 45 minute spans where I have to choose between food and exercise and writing. When I’m on a deadline, writing wins. After the evening wake-up, I bide my time until my son goes to sleep, then I write as much as I can until my brain stops working.

It’s a rough schedule and some days I miss having hours upon hours to sit and procrastinate and mull and perfect every sentence the first time out, but most days I manage. I’ve even accomplished a couple of start-to-finish projects on this crazy schedule!

Congrats on the little one, Emily. I remember those crazy hectic days, but the good news is, they do eventually sleep on a semi-regular schedule 😉

What’s the first thing you did when you received word you’d sold a book?

I chose a pen name. And ever since, I’ve decided at least three times a year to change my pen name. I never do because I’m lazy, but I almost constantly want to. Aspiring authors reading this right now: be darn sure you want to live with your pen name forever! J

What hobby do you enjoy when not writing?

I love knitting wool socks. I haven’t made a new pair for myself in a few years, between deadlines and pregnancy and being a new mom, but I very much look forward to the day when I don’t have a winter deadline or two, and I have my hands free long enough to dig into a ball of soft Merino wool.

If you could be any supernatural creature, what would it be and why?

I haven’t named this creature yet, but I know it’s spooky secret power is the ability to think a book directly into MS Word without having to plot or type or revise or character sketch or run spell check.

Best answer I’ve ever heard!!

What’s your favorite comfort food?

Don’t gag, but pepperoni sandwiches do it for me. Two slices of cheap white bread piled high with pepperoni, a slice of mozzarella, nuked in the microwave until the pepperoni oil soaks into the bread and the crusts get a little crispy with melted cheese, and my diet is over for days. It’s a throw back from growing up in my mother’s house, where the gourmet meal of the week was potato soup (5 pounds of potatoes, a stick of margarine, a handful of salt in a pot of boiling water; boil to a salty paste).

The pepperoni sandwich horrifies my husband, who has a culinary degree.

I don’t think it sounds too bad, in fact, I’ll have to try that. Hopefully with that degree he does a lot of the cooking 😉

If you could time-travel, where would you go and why?

I’m not sure. I’m not much of a traveler. I prefer my clothes in my own drawers and the freedom to roam around in my underwear (or out of them) at will. Right now if I had to choose, I’d probably do a forward jump just to make sure that forty years from now, my little boy (only 8 months old now) is happy with life and love – and if he isn’t, forty years from now, I’d figure out what went wrong so I could work on preventing it. That would probably get me into some kind of weird Ashton Kutcher Butterfly Effect trouble, wouldn’t it?

LOL, one never knows 🙂

Why are manhole covers round?

Because men aren’t triangular?

Do you have any upcoming news you’d like to share?

All my current news is “just happened” news, but if I can share some “just happened” stuff, then I’m really excited about my August 3 Ellora’s Cave release NAKED & UNLEASHED, which isn’t paranormal but is definitely something different for me. I’m still totally in love with that hero.

And the Following Fast Five:

Coffee or Chocolate? Coffee.

Jewelry: Precious gems or gold? Gold.

Beach or Mountains? Mountains.

Early Morning or Late Night? Late night.

Fruit or Veggies? Veggies.

And last, but not least, where can we find you on the internet:

Web Site: http://www.emilyryandavis.com

Blog: http://emilyryandavis.blogspot.com

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/emilyryandavis

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/emilyryandavis

Newsletter Sign-Up:

http://scorchedsheets.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f1bafe4b2387d167a0edb26d2&id=02995832f4

Paint for Blood

Available Here: Amazon     BN     Smashwords     All Romance Ebooks

EXCERPT:

She turned slowly, only gathering sensory impressions of his alleged safe zone. They faced one another across a sitting room furnished with sofas, chairs, and a writing desk. To her right, the dark shape of an open doorway suggested a more intimate area.

Teijon lifted his shirt over his head, revealing smooth skin, dark and satiny over the pads of muscle beneath. She averted her eyes before they strayed to his waist. The tension was all wrong. She shouldn’t want him, not with his mood switch hanging in the air between them. She should have questions, should demand answers. And he should put his clothes back on.

“What now?” she asked after the silence began to take on a sound of its own. “Earlier tonight…” She licked her lips. “I created vampires, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t by choice.”

“No. I did because Donovan wanted me to.”

“Yeah. And that’s why I have to find Donovan. I need to meet with some people, so you’ll have most of the night to yourself.” He walked past her and went into the bedroom.

Sighing, she raked a hand through her hair. He’d somehow managed to bring his tension under control, but hers continued to run wild. How would she sleep, surrounded by his scent?

He returned to the living room moments later, tucking the hem of a fresh shirt into clean trousers. “I don’t have any women’s clothes around, but you can use anything of mine you’d like. Shower and get some sleep. I’ll be back… late.”

“Wait. I need to know how this is possible.”

“What do you mean, how? It just is.”

“How is it possible that I’m more than one thing? I know I’m not normal. I never have been. But my heritage is…” she hesitated, came up with nothing better than, “good. White-light stuff. Protective. Do you have any idea how long my ancestors have been protecting people from their fears? That’s what I do. Who I am. I can’t be this too. This Chalice.”

He frowned. “Why can’t you?”

“It’s too many roles to fill. I have to make decisions about what I can and can’t work into my life. I have clients already, and my painting doesn’t make me feel like all of me is being sucked away in a mass of yearning. I choose that. I don’t choose you.”

When a flash of something unreadable crossed his features, her chest tightened. Backpedaling, she said, “I mean your kind. Vampires. I can’t protect people from y—from vampires and other fears and serve as a support structure for the creatures I’m warding against. It doesn’t make sense.”

He closed the distance between them and grasped her shoulders, pulling her onto her toes. The rough texture of his beard abraded her jaw when he tucked his face into the curve of her throat and opened his mouth over her skin. His perfectly-normal teeth closed around a tendon in her neck. At the contact, her thighs weakened and her skin tightened over her limbs, heated until her ears and cheeks burned. Teijon’s groan vibrated against her throat. One of his big hands slid into her hair. The other shifted from her shoulder and curved around her breast. He moved, walking her backward, until her spine came up against a wall and she could feel him thick and hard at her stomach.

Memory zapped the strength she had left. She could smell the damp of the cave at Stone Mountain, the limo’s air freshener, the sliver of rose soap from her bathroom. Her body shivered with a backlash of the dread she’d experienced descending into the dark behind Teijon. She recalled every detail of that kiss. And every detail of what followed.

Available Here: Amazon     BN     Smashwords     All Romance Ebooks

BIO:

Emily Ryan-Davis is a lifelong East Coaster whose passion for the written word saw her through jobs writing obituaries, press releases and grants before she decided “I’m going to do this” and sat down to write a book. She made that decision in 2005 and has since published several short stories and novellas with digital publishers including Ellora’s Cave. On May 24, 2012, Emily left supervisors and payrolls behind in order to focus her efforts on writing and raising her son.

Emily has been a member of the Writer’s Digest-recognized writing community Romance Divas, where she volunteers as a moderator and organizes the annual “Not Going to Conference” Virtual Conference, since 2006.