Spotlight & Giveaway: REDEMPTION’S EDGE by Alyssa Day

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Alyssa Day to HJ!

Hi Alyssa and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, REDEMPTION’S EDGE!

 
Thanks! Hello, Harlequin Junkie readers! Happy New Year!
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

Tempting love can be fatal—even for the most dangerous vampire in Savannah. When unstoppable passion meets immovable obstacles, the city … and the world itself … may go down in flames.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Vampire Motorcycle Clubhouse
Savannah, Georgia
Meara Delacourt, vampire, socialite, philanthropist, and
ass-kicker, slammed open the door to the command center,
clutching her phone so hard it cracked. “We’re not going to
London to seek out and take down the Chamber after all,”
she informed the vampires—her adopted brothers Bane and
Luke—who whipped around to stare at her when the door
crashed into the wall with a little more force than intended.
“Why not?” Bane asked, his eyes narrowing. “Is this
about Edge?”
“What?” Thoughts of the irritating, arrogant,
unbelievably hot scientist almost distracted her, but this
was too important. “No! This is about the message I just got
from one of my sources in England.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Nanotechnology meets magic!
• The hero is a brilliant scientist who doesn’t know how to love … but he quotes Shakespeare.
• The heroine is a badass master vampire sometimes referred to as a ninja crossed with a prima ballerina.
• People jump off roofs. Lots of people. Lots of roofs. Even a half-angel who doesn’t yet know how to fly!
• The heroine’s best friend is an angel—literally. The hero’s best friend is a lesbian werewolf.
• Seduction by way of geometric principles may be tried …

What first attracts your main characters to each other?

Meara and Edge are first attracted to each other when they each realize they’ve finally met their match in terms of stubbornness, brains, and deadliness. And the sexual attraction—they’re both hot! —doesn’t hurt, either!
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe your main characters”love affair?

Explosive, forbidden, impossible, inevitable, earthshaking.
 

The First Kiss…

Sebastian Edgington rolled his bike to a stop in front of the
mansion that he now called home and scowled at a car. Not
just any car. No, as a rule, cars didn’t make him mad.

Her car.

Not that the BMW convertible had ever done anything
to him, but its owner certainly had. She’d somehow, without
even trying, crashed through the granite wall of indifference
he’d built around himself. He’d never needed or even wanted
anyone to be part of his life except for his small family. But
Meara—everything about her intrigued him. Her fury when
Bane had nearly died Turning him and Cole, her mercurial
moods, her brilliance, her beauty, and that kiss.

That kiss.

He’d entertained serious thoughts of a sexual
relationship with her, but she’d almost casually used her
powers to hurl him against the wall in the ballroom. And
then, worse, she’d left him there, furious and fuming, while
she and Ryan had gone to find food.

By the time he’d fought his way free of the magical
hold, his fantasies of having her in his bed had cooled
considerably. At least until the next time he saw her wearing
a pair of her ridiculously high heels. The ones that made her
legs a mile long and made him dream about what it would be like to have them wrapped around him, and…

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

When Meara discovers that Edge—the brilliant scientist, deadly vampire, and seemingly emotionless man—has read poetry every day of his life because his mom was worried he’d grow up to be too cold and closed off. He recites a Shakespearean love sonnet to her, which melts her (and made me cry writing it!), but she knows they can never be together, so she asks for one perfect kiss.

Snippet:
Edge and Meara were alone. Alone together. His throat
seized up, and he had to force out the words. “You need to
feed.”
She lifted one shoulder and headed toward the doorway.
“Later.”
He waited, entirely still, until she was almost past him.
Then he shot out one hand and caught her arm. “Please.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to feed. I don’t want to
do anything. How foolish is that?” He stared into her
shimmering golden eyes and wondered how she’d become
so important to him.
“For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?” he
murmured, reaching out, almost in a trance, to touch a
strand of her shining hair. “And for that riches where is my
deserving?”
Meara’s eyes widened, a kind of wonder replacing the
sadness in her golden gaze. “What? What is that?”
Heat rushed up into his face so fast he was surprised his
head didn’t explode when he realized what he’d said. Out
loud.
“Nothing,” he muttered, turning away. “Never mind.
Feed or don’t, it’s not my business.”
This time, she caught his arm. “Edge, what was that?
Tell me. Please.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s nothing. It’s…
Shakespeare.”
There was a silence so loud it almost vibrated behind
him, and he felt every muscle in his body clench. If she
laughed, he’d walk out the door and never come back.
Instead, she circled around and looked up at him, lightly
touching his arm. “Shakespeare? Was that required reading
in your science classes?”
If there’d been even a hint of mockery in her voice, he’d
have snarled something rude and walked away. But there
wasn’t.
“My mom. She…when she realized it was all science for
me, all the time, from an early age, she was determined I’d
have a ‘balanced view of the world.’ She asked me to read a
poem a day. Just read it, even skim it. We could talk about it
or not at dinner. There was no pressure at all. I did it under
protest at first, complaining.” He grinned, remembering.
“I was a little shit. But when she gave me a chemistry set
for my seventh birthday, she also gave me a collection of
Shakespearean sonnets.”
Meara’s smile dazzled him so much he almost forgot
what they were talking about. “When you were seven?”
It was his turn to shrug. “I didn’t understand any of
it, but I loved the words. They felt like magic, almost, to a
boy whose brain was so steeped in the logic and science of
reality. Like jewels.”
“I don’t care what it means and I don’t care because it’s
Shakespeare and it’s like having jewels in my mouth when
I say the words,” Meara murmured, and he couldn’t stop
staring at her lips while she said it.
“What?”
“Frank McCourt in his book Angela’s Ashes,” she said.
“One of my favorite books. When he was a child, he had
to go into the hospital for a long time, and they gave him a
book of Shakespeare to read. I think it’s what started him
on the path of being a writer.”
Edge nodded, making a mental note to find the book
and read it. “I felt the same way. I couldn’t understand the
sonnets, and sure as hell didn’t realize that sonnet eightyseven
was about unrequited love. Not at seven. Or eight,
nine, ten, or so on. But later—well. Some of it began to make
objective sense when I could see empirical evidence around
me in college and grad school. I never felt it, of course, but—
”
“Do you still read a poem a day, Edge?” She touched his
hair, his cheek, standing so close her breath mingled with
his.
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do,” she murmured, stepping closer until her
body touched his. “You don’t have feelings, but you care
about your mother. Everything is about science for you,
but you read poetry. You’re entirely cerebral, but you’re so
tender and passionate when you make love… Sometimes I
think the gods put you here to mock me.”
“What—”
But she shook her head, putting a finger on his lips. “No.
I’ll explain… No, I probably wo

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

The final battle Witches, warlocks, werewolves, and vampires, oh my!

Snippet:
Meara immediately responded: THOSE ARE
RUSSIAN WEREWOLVES, KIN TO THE MIDDLE
RUSSIAN FOREST WOLVES.THE SHIFTERS ARE
KNOWN TO BE VICIOUS AND DEADLY FIGHTERS.
TELL MAX TO WARN OUR WOLVES.

“Now we’re having fun,” she shouted, grinning at Edge
and unsheathing her swords. “Dibs on that big, ugly warlock
on the right corner of the rampart!”

She blew him a kiss and shot through the air, flying at
a speed that shouldn’t be possible. He could only watch
in sheer awe as she twisted and turned through the night,
dodging blasts of magic, her swords held out before her. One
of the oncoming werewolves hurled his body up into the air
trying to reach her, but her sword found his neck before
his fangs or claws could touch her. “That’s one,” she called
back to him, her triumph ringing over the battlefield, and he
shouted out his admiration and then plunged into the fray.

At this distance, more than two hundred yards from
the fort, the Chamber’s magic was mostly ineffective, so
the battle was on the ground. Human fighters, in thrall to
the magic or maybe mercenaries, fought like highly trained
soldiers and backed up the European wolves.

One of them shot Carter, who was leading the wolf
pack, and the big brown wolf flinched but continued toward
the line of fighters as if unharmed. The same soldier aimed
at Carter again, but before he could pull the trigger, Edge
slammed into him from the side, flying at him top speed.
They rolled across the hard ground a couple of times, and
Edge ended up on top.

He hadn’t had much time for combat training, not like
Meara and Bane who’d been training and sparring for
centuries, but he was a damn vampire. He wasn’t about to
let these assholes shoot his friends. He pulled his gun and
shoved it beneath the shooter’s chin but then realized the
man wasn’t fighting back. Or even breathing. He was dead,
his sightless eyes staring up at the night sky. When Edge
jumped up, he saw that the man’s neck was broken. The
collision must have killed him.

“That’s two,” he shouted, and then one of the European
wolves hit him in the back and smashed him down the
ground, face first.

Readers should read this book …

if they love vampires, action, battles, forbidden love, and steamy love scenes combined with a healthy dose of humor!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I’m currently working on the epic fantasy I’ve dreamed of writing for my entire life! It’s consuming my life and even my dreams these days. And I have a new funny paranormal novel in my Tiger’s Eye Mysteries coming out in April.

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

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Excerpt from REDEMPTION’S EDGE:

From REDEMPTION’S EDGE:
The mansion, Savannah
Meara locked her bedroom door before she flopped
down on her bed next to her beautiful, newly rescued cat,
Cleopatra, to settle in for a serious cuddle and purring
session. Cleopatra was doing the purring, mostly, but they
both preferred to do their cuddling in private. Cleo, because
she was regal and—with others—aloof, and Meara, because
she didn’t want her reputation as the most badass of the
badass vampires in the house to take a hit.

The historic mansion, formerly a quiet haven of peace,
solitude, and melancholy, had recently exploded with new
residents and visitors, all of whom Meara liked. Cared
deeply about, even. Some of them had smashed through the
loneliness she’d always denied having with joy and laughter.

Those she loved.

One of them, though, drove her out of her freaking
mind with annoyance.

Okay, to be honest, also with a raging case of sexual
frustration. Maybe she should just sleep with him and get
him out of her system. And mon Dieu, the images that
brought to her mind. Those piercing, silver eyes. His long,
lean, muscled body…

“Enough of that,” she told Cleo, kissing the top of the
cat’s silky head and jumping up. She needed to get dressed
for an evening out before anybody came banging on her door
to find her. She walked into her closet, which had probably
been the maid’s room back in the day, to find something
to wear. And sighed. Even with the professionally installed
shelving and drawers and the marble-topped bureau and
chandelier, the room felt claustrophobic because of the sheer
mass of her belongings. Or, as her brother’s new fiancée,
Ryan, had once said, “How can one woman own so many
pairs of shoes? You only have two feet!”

Honestly, though, the room was only ten feet by ten
feet. Her belongings were practically cramped. She finally
dressed down in a pair of Dolce & Gabbana distressed blue
denim jeans and a copper-colored silk shirt and wondered
which of her many, many pairs of designer heels would be
the most likely to entice tourists to her side in the bars of
Savannah.

So she could eat them.

She wrinkled her nose. Not eat them in a sexual way.

Most of the drunken men she was likely to encounter
wouldn’t know how to find the clitoris even if the Savannah
visitor’s center gave them a map. She certainly wouldn’t be
gifting them with her favors.

No, she meant eat them in an “I’m a three-hundred-yearold
vampire, and I’m going to drain you dry” sort of way.

Not that she ever drained them completely dry. Bane had so
many rules. Probably most master vampires were like that.

Except, she, too, was a master vampire—both of them were
more than three hundred years old now—and she’d never
dream of making anybody follow so many arbitrary rules.

Don’t let people know vampires exist.

Don’t stay out past dawn.

Don’t accidentally murder any tourists.

So boring.

Anyway, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to have
any encounters of the intimate kind—with anyone—since
Edge had joined their little family. Sebastian Edgington,
brilliant scientist, formerly leading a hush-hush research
program. Formerly human, now vampire. And her brother
Bane, her only family who’d known her before, had nearly
died trying to Turn both Edge and his little brother to
vampire to save their lives.

The fury, terror, and helplessness she’d felt watching
Bane so close to death still hovered in the background,
a silent, grim spectator, when she looked at Edge, even
now, more than a year later. That was one problem. The
second was that he was an emotionless, logical, annoying…
incredibly sexy, gorgeous, brilliant man who made her feel
things. Things she didn’t want to feel. Things he clearly
didn’t feel in return, because he claimed not to feel emotions.

“Damn him, anyway,” she muttered, adding a few choice
phrases in her native French, because “hapless offspring of
a rodent and a water buffalo” just didn’t sound as elegant in
English, clunky language that it was.

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Tempting love can be fatal—even for the most dangerous vampire in Savannah—in New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Alyssa Day’s tantalizingly sexy romance…

Meara Delacourt loves being underestimated, especially when it comes to her enemies. Few know that the wealthy socialite and philanthropist is a 300-year-old master vampire—or the horror that rains down when her emotions spiral out of control. The consequences are nothing short of devastating. Which is why she can’t risk an attraction to the irritating, arrogant, and unbelievably hot Edge…even if she wanted to. And oh, she does.

Scientist-turned-vamp Edge knows exactly what it’s like to fear emotions. He keeps a tight rein on his, knowing that—thanks to being the subject of a cruel experiment—falling in love is an instant trigger for his death. Fortunately, he can control himself…he has no choice. But the golden, sexy-as-hell Meara is one temptation he can’t find a cure for.

Now they’re forced to fight the pull of their attraction, knowing that every moment of surrender brings them closer to the edge of disaster. But as the Chamber—a sinister organization of ancient warlocks—decides to seize control of Savannah, they’ll have no choice but to fight together, knowing it could spell doom for them all. Especially when the Chamber reveals the one secret that could end it all…
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Goodreads |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Alyssa Day is the pen name (and dark and tortured alter ego) of author Alesia Holliday. As Alyssa, she is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author with more than a million books sold, and she writes the Vampire Motorcycle Club, Warriors of Poseidon and Cardinal Witches paranormal romance series and the Tiger’s Eye Mysteries, a paranormal mystery series. As Alesia, she writes comedies that make readers snort things out of their noses and is the author of the award-winning memoir about military families during war-time deployments: Email to the Front. She has won many awards for her writing, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award for outstanding romance fiction and the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal Romance novel of 2012. She is a past president of Romance Writers of America.
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