Spotlight & Giveaway: Immortal Angel by Lynsay Sands

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Lynsay Sands to HJ!

Hi Lynsay and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Immortal Angel!

 
Hi Sara! Hi everyone!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

G.G. and Ildaria finally get their story!
We first met G.G. in Marguerite’s story, Vampire Interrupted, and then again in Elspeth’s story Twice Bitten. Now it’s GG’s turn and the decision is his on whether to accept the rare gift fate has given him, a true life mate, or fight it like he has his family all these years. As for Ildaria, we met her in Vampires Like It Hot where she was one of Vasco’s most fearsome crew members. Having been on the run for so long, she has a talent for dealing with bad guys, and won’t hesitate to come to the aid of the defenseless. Unfortunately, this skill has also garnered her some unwanted attention forcing her to relocate to Toronto. Luckily there’s a job opportunity there and a potential life mate.
Readers have been asking after G.G.’s story for a while so I’m happy to say it’s here!
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“My goodness, don’t they look fine,” Mary said, sounding a little breathy.
Ildaria glanced at the woman with surprise. “But Robert is wearing a Mohawk.”
“Yes, dear. I can see that, and it makes him even foxier than usual,” she said, her eyes starting to glow.
Ildaria blinked in disbelief at those words. “I thought you hated G.G.’s Mohawk?”
“No. Actually, I think it’s adorable on my son. It’s hot, though, on Robert,” she added.
“But you were always telling G.G. he would be handsome if he only did not have the Mohawk and—”
“Oh, that was just so he’d feel he was being rebellious,” Mary said, waving away her comments. “Boys need to rebel. It’s in their coding or something. So, I complained about his hair, and he didn’t have to go out and do more drastic things to feel like he was being adventurous and naughty.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Ildaria is forced to go to Toronto and take day classes because her vigilante ways were witnessed, caught on camera and posted online! It was either that or face the council for punishment, which could possibly end with her being staked and baked if she wasn’t careful.
• G.G.’s dog in Immortal Angel, named Eddie, was fashioned after my Bichon Frise/miniature poodle mix, Teddy, but nicknamed H.D. after he did something similar to what our yellow Lab, Allie, did. Allie ate a cheque and G.G.’s dog also ate a cheque only it was a Cashier’s cheque worth a hundred thousand dollars, which earned him the name H.D. or Hundred Thousand Dollar Dog!

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

The first thing that caught G.G.’s attention was the fact that H.D., his little Bichon Frise who doesn’t like anyone but G.G., took to her like a duck to water. He enjoyed talking to her and appreciated her openness and honesty. Plus, he couldn’t take his mind off the leathers she mentioned wearing when she was on the hunt for bad guys so obviously G.G. is also very physically attracted to Ildaria.
Ildaria was immediately attracted to G.G., from his foot high green mohawk, to his linebacker shoulders, all the way down to his boots. And she couldn’t help but like someone who showed such tolerance and gentleness with the little white fur ball that was happily humping his leg in the hopes of getting food. Ildaria also instinctively trusted G.G., told him her real name, and the truth about why she was in Toronto and was forced to drop out of a semester of University.
 

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I was crying through parts of this scene because I was laughing so hard.

This is when Ildaria, G.G. and H.D. first meet and – Yeah, I’ll leave you to find out for yourself rather than ruin it for you, but it’s soooo something a certain dog I know would do. LOL.

“It’s not for you.”
Ildaria blinked at that growled announcement in a thick British accent and dragged her gaze from the delicious smelling food to the man’s face to see that he wasn’t looking at her. He was peering down toward . . . his groin? Confusion filled her at that realization. He couldn’t be talking to his penis. She didn’t think. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t presume it was for me.”
The big man stopped walking and jerked his head up at her words, his eyes widening when he saw her standing there. “Marguerite’s Ildaria?”
“Si.” She started forward again.
“Hi.” He smiled and then added, “Sorry. I wasn’t talking to you, I was addressing my . . . Arsehole!” he ended with irritation and did a little shuffling dance.
“You were addressing your arsehole?” she asked, amusement curving her lips as she reached the bar and stopped between two stools.
Looking flustered now, the man shook his head and then scowled down at something she obviously couldn’t see below the bar. “No. I—” Pausing, he did another little shimmying dance and barked, “Dammit H.D.! Stop that! You aren’t getting any food.”
Curiosity rising within her, Ildaria stepped up on the brass rail that ran along the bottom of the bar and leaned over the dark stone top to peer at the floor on the other side.
“Oh, my,” she murmured and then bit her lip to hold back a burst of laughter when she saw the tiny, cream-colored ball of fur that was presently humping the huge man’s ankle. It looked like a fluffy teddy bear come to life, and he was really romancing the big guy’s ankle.
“Your dog?” she asked mildly.
“Yeah,” he grunted, giving his leg another shake in an effort to dislodge the determined little guy.
“What kind?” she asked with interest.
“Bichonpoo,” the man said still glaring down at the dog, and explained, “Bichon Frise and toy poodle mix.”
“Oh.” Ildaria nodded, a grin pulling her lips wider as H.D. refused to be removed and continued to hump at the big man’s lower leg. Lifting her gaze to the plate the man was holding, she snatched a french fry from the pile and tossed it to the dog. The pup was immediately off the man’s leg and leaping to catch the treat. Really, it was an impressive catch. He got some serious height in his jump to snatch that fry out of midair. As the dog dropped to the floor to gobble up his prize, the man heaved a sigh, drawing her attention back to him.
Ildaria’s gaze moved with interest over his muscular body before sliding up to his head. When Marguerite had asked her if she’d mind stopping to pick up some blood from the Night Club on the way back from the university, she’d said the man she would be getting it from was G.G. which stood for Green Giant. Ildaria had immediately asked why he was called that, but the other woman had merely smiled and said she’d understand when she met him. Her gaze moving over the green strands of hair standing up stiff on his head in a Mohawk, Ildaria understood.
“That’s what he was working for and what I was trying to avoid,” G.G. announced now, reclaiming her attention to the fact that he was scowling between her and the dog.
It took Ildaria a moment to return her mind to the conversation, and then she gave a disbelieving laugh and asked, “He was humping your leg for food?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” G.G. pointed out dryly. “He humped my leg and you gave him food to get him off.”
“Ah.” She shifted her gaze down to the dog who had finished his fry and was now staring up from her to G.G., his tongue coming out repeatedly to lick his upper lip as if he was trying to tell them he wanted more. Shaking her head, she shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. But I couldn’t resist. Damn that’s one cute dog.” Opening her eyes wide, she smiled at the pooch and added, “Aren’t you, H.D.?”
When the dog focused his attention on her, she found herself using that cooing voice all humans resort to when faced with cute creatures like babies and puppies. “Aren’t you a pretty puppy? Hmm? Yes you are. You look like a little teddy bear. I just want to cuddle you all up.”
That elicited a high-pitched bark from the little fur ball, and then he turned and charged to the open end of the bar by the swinging doors and careened around it, his little nails clacking on the hardwood.
“H.D., no!” G.G. said with alarm, dropping his plate on the bar and chasing after the dog even as he warned, “Get on a stool. He doesn’t like women and he’s an ankle biter.”
Ildaria ignored the warning, and turned to face the dog as he sprinted into view around the corner of the bar, still yipping as he came. Rather than climb up on a stool, she stepped down off the brass rail and crouched down to greet the little fluffy dog. When he reached her, she caught him under the front legs and lifted him fearlessly to her face so she could press kisses to his furry cheeks. He immediately began licking wildly at any part of her face he could reach.
“Well, damn.”
Lowering the dog, Ildaria cuddled him to her chest and petted him soothingly as she glanced at his owner. The giant gave a huff of disbelief.
“That dog doesn’t like anyone but me. Usually, anyway,” G.G. added, his gaze shifting to the dog now licking her hands, neck and chin.
Ildaria shrugged almost apologetically. “Dogs like me.”

Readers should read this book….

This book explains G.G.’s resistance to turn immortal even though his entire family and most of his friends are immortals.
It gives us background on Ildaria, how she became immortal, the reason behind her fierce determination to defend the innocent even when it puts her at risk, and the reason she’s now in trouble with the NA Council because of it.
And, of course, you just have to find out how they overcome G.G.’s resistance to turning and Ildaria’s attraction to trouble.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

As for what I’m working on?

I just finished working on the next Argeneau… Quinn (Pet’s sister from The Trouble With Vampires) and Jet (Abigail’s friend from Immortal Nights) get their story! Woohoo!
And I’m about to start working on the next Highland Brides book. I have plans for Alick in the future, but think he needs a little seasoning first. So, in the meantime we’re going back to the first book and a relative of Ross and Annabel’s. Well, that’s the plan, we just have to wait and see if they cooperate. If not, I’ll switch to another story. There are so many family members to play with that the options are wide open if the one I want to write gets difficult.

As for what’s coming out?

And Book #9 in my Highland Brides series, Highland Treasure, will be coming out January 26th! This is Rory Buchanan’s story, another character readers have been asking after for quite some time. Rory is the second youngest Buchanan brother and a renowned healer. When he was younger he always had his nose in a book but as you can see by the cover, Rory is all grown up now. Also I think this story has the largest subset of secondary characters of any of my stories… an entire town! LOL

Book # 32 in my Argeneau series, Meant To Be Immortal, is set to come out April 27th. This is about Mac and C.J., two new characters to the scene.
Mac Argeneau, one of Katricia’s brothers, is new to town. No one knows him so it’s strange that someone setting his house on fire would be the first thing to happen to him.
CJ is a no nonsense CSIS agent who’s there to investigate a list of complaints against a local officer. Due to a shortage of local manpower, C.J.’s been asked to help out with the recent arson case. they’ve been thrown together and Mac discovers he can’t read her.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Two signed paperback editions of Immortal Angel!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you had immortal abilities, would you use your powers for what you deemed the greater good even if it meant getting into big trouble with the “immortal police”.

 
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Excerpt from Immortal Angel:

“Sit,” Lucian said firmly when the three of them stood stiffly in front of the desk like naughty children in the principal’s office.
Ildaria sat, taking the nearest chair, which happened to be the middle of three in front of the desk. It left Tybo and Valerian to take up chairs on either side of her.
Once the three of them were seated, Lucian turned the portable computer on the desk toward them. A frozen image of an obviously running Tybo and Valerian was on the screen.
Both of her escorts immediately began to speak, but Lucian held up a hand for silence. When they snapped their mouths shut, he hit the play button on the computer. They were all silent as they watched the action play out; Valerian and Tybo were as fast as cheetahs as they raced across the parking lot. Unfortunately, the parking lot was huge, and despite their inhuman speed, the attacker had dragged the woman into the van, slammed the door closed and somehow subdued her and got in the driver’s seat before they arrived at the van.
Reaching the vehicle just as it started to pull away, Valerian leapt onto the roof like a monkey leaping into a tree and ran along the top of the van toward the front, probably intending to swing in through the front passenger window. It ended up being unnecessary, however, because instead of joining him on the roof, Tybo—just a couple of steps behind Valerian—caught the bumper and lifted the back of the vehicle off the ground in a beautiful display of superman strength that had the tires spinning in midair and brought the van to an abrupt halt.
Valerian then jumped off the van roof on the driver’s side, reached through the window to turn off the vehicle and pulled the hulking driver out with one hand to let him dangle in the air. Meanwhile, Tybo set the van back on all four wheels and moved around to open the side door and retrieve the unconscious young woman inside. Valerian was still holding the would-be kidnapper by the neck and Tybo had just brought the girl back to consciousness when the campus police showed up on the scene.
“We didn’t know she was filming,” Tybo blurted when Lucian hit the button to end the recording. Turning a scowl on Ildaria, the dark-haired Enforcer added, “I still can’t believe she did. She knows we aren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves.”
“This is not Ildaria’s footage,” Mortimer said when Lucian remained silent. “It’s by someone who goes by T.O.eyes, and their caption was Holy shit! Superman times two in Toronto.”
“Shit,” Tybo muttered, slumping back in his seat.
“Ildaria’s video was from a different angle,” Mortimer continued. “And hers was captioned, Special project for Film class. Awesome job peeps! Looks so good even I almost believed it was real.”
When Tybo and Valerian both blinked in surprise and then turned to her, Ildaria shrugged irritably. She’d been rather enjoying their chagrin and anger, but the jig was up. “I thought I should do some damage control.”
They were all silent for a minute, and then Valerian frowned and asked, “This will not affect the arrest of the bastard who tried to take the woman, will it?”
“We read his mind,” Tybo put in with concern. “She wasn’t his first victim. The bastard’s a serial rapist. If the police think it was just a film class stunt—”
“No,” Lucian interrupted firmly. “I will see to it that he is brought to justice.”
The two men nodded, and then glanced from Ildaria to Lucian, looking like they wanted to say something. Whether it was to stand up for her, or thank her for what she’d done with the video, she didn’t know, and never would since Lucian turned to her then and said, “You have been naughty, Angelina.”
Ildaria noted the startled expressions on the other men’s faces at his use of her first name, but ignored them and said quickly, “I only did what Tybo and Valerian did on that tape. I just wasn’t lucky enough to have someone with me to do damage control. I promise I wasn’t playing the vigilante like in Montana. I wasn’t wearing my leathers and didn’t go looking for bad guys to beat up. I was just walking along minding my own business when . . .” She shrugged rather than say, “the shit hit the fan.” Which was what had happened each of the three times she’d stopped to save a fellow student. The first time it had been a girl getting mugged. Ildaria had chased down the culprit, got the girl’s purse back and returned it to her before walking them both to the campus police office so the man could be charged.
The second time it had been a drunken asshole beating up his less inebriated girlfriend. She’d taken them both to the campus police as well, having to control the girl to make her admit what had happened. Something Ildaria still had trouble fathoming. The minute she’d got involved, the girlfriend had sided with her boyfriend as if Ildaria was the bad guy.
The last incident had been a man who had attacked a student out for an evening jog and pulled her off the path into the woods intending to rape her. She suspected that was the one that had been videoed and got her in trouble. It was the only one where she’d been “tossing around” someone twice her size as Valerian had put it earlier.
Ildaria’s mouth tightened at the memory. She’d known she shouldn’t do it, but she’d been infuriated. She had a special hatred in her heart for rapists. She’d taken great pleasure in beating the man and wiping the path with his face before the campus police had arrived to take him into custody.
Unfortunately, while Ildaria had noticed that others had arrived at the scene, she hadn’t even considered someone might record it and post it online until she’d spotted it this morning. She’d known then that she’d probably be in trouble once Mortimer or Lucian saw it. Ildaria just hadn’t been sure when that would happen . . . until Valerian and Tybo had shown up at her class.
“Hmm,” Lucian said finally. “There appears to be a lot of crime on campus at night.”
Ildaria gave a small shrug. “It’s a university with loads of beautiful young women. It’s nirvana for perverts and draws them like flies to shit at night.”
“At night,” Lucian echoed thoughtfully.
“Si. Well, it’s generally safer during the day. More people about and fewer dark places to hide,” she pointed out.
“Yes.” Lucian nodded. “That’s the answer then.”
Ildaria tilted her head to the side, positive her confusion was showing on her face. “The answer?”
“You will switch to day classes,” Lucian announced.
“What?” she asked with disbelief.
Lucian considered her briefly and then said, “At Jess and Raffaele’s wedding your old captain, Vasco Villaverde, told me you were a trouble magnet, but had a good heart.”
Ildaria sighed inwardly over the fact that the man had tattled on her about her tendency to get herself into scrapes. She’d been in trouble several times in Punta Cana. In fact, if it weren’t for Vasco, she probably would have been executed long ago. He’d saved her hide repeatedly, and Ildaria would be forever grateful for that. She just wished he hadn’t felt the need to mention it to Lucian.
“It seems obvious to me that Vasco was right,” Lucian continued now. “If there is trouble around, you will find it. So, to ensure I do not have to execute you, it would behoove me to ensure you avoid situations where trouble might occur. That means no more night classes. You will switch to days. Immediately. You will never again be on campus at night,” he ordered imperiously.
Ildaria stared at him nonplussed for a moment, anger building slowly inside her, and then she burst out, “Are you kidding me? First you pulled me out of school in Montana and dragged me up here to Canada, making me miss my finals there and have to take those classes over again, and now you’re going to drag me out of my night courses and make me take day classes?” Scowling, she informed him, “I won’t be able to get into day courses now. The summer term will be lost and I’ll have to start again in the fall. Which means paying for them all over again, again. Do you know how expensive these courses are? Not to mention the extra blood I’ll need to consume if I attend day classes. I’m trying to save money to get my own place and stop being a burden to Marguerite and Julius. I’ll never be able to swing that if I keep having to pay for courses I don’t get to finish and extra blood to attend day classes . . . which with my luck, I again probably won’t get to finish anyway. I need those courses to get my degree.”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “I pulled you from university in Montana because you were playing vigilante down there,” he reminded her icily. “You were utilizing your abilities in front of mortals and drawing attention to yourself, and by extension, our people. Which is against our laws. My choice was to either move you or execute you. Would you have preferred execution?”
“Of course not, but . . .” Ildaria hesitated and then slumped in her seat with defeat.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

In a sizzling new Argeneau novel from New York Times bestselling author Lynsay Sands, a gorgeous mortal encounters his greatest temptation…

For almost a century, Ildaria Garcia has been on the run, a trouble magnet with a knack for taking down bad guys. Lately, her vigilante tendencies have drawn unwelcome attention to her fellow Immortals. Forced to relocate, Ildaria is supposed to lay low in a new town. Instead, she quickly entangles herself with six and a half feet of muscular, tattooed trouble.

Joshua James Simpson Guiscard, aka G.G., knows a lot about Immortals—enough to make him wary. Yet from the moment Ildaria walks into his club, he feels desire stronger than anything he’s known. Accepting the fact that they might be life mates is disconcerting. But when her past catches up to them, G.G. faces a choice—confront his demons at last, or lose a passion that’s hot as hell.
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Meet the Author:

My name is Lynsay Sands and I’m the author of the Argeneau series and many hysterical historicals (as my readers tend to call them). I have written over sixty books and twelve anthologies, which probably tells you I really enjoy writing. I consider myself very lucky to have been able to make a career out of it.
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