Air: Merlin's' Chalice ~ Excerpt from Meredith Bond

As promised, today I bring you Meredith Bond's excerpt from Air: Merlin's Chalice.  Got to tell you, I love the title.  This is book one in the Children of Avalon Series. Book two will be released shortly. Read on. 

Blurb:

In one day Scai has gone from being considered just unusual by the people of her little Welsh village to an outcast fleeing for her life. Left on the church steps as a baby, she knows nothing of her history—or her abilities. Did she really stop the rain just by wishing it to stop? But she is determined to learn all she can. Travelling alone to find her family seems to be the only way she’s going to find the answers she seeks.

Her journey leads her to the comical old knight Sir Dagonet, who tells her that she is one of a magical people called the Vallen. Together they continue on, joined by the handsome Dylan and the fiery Bridget on a new quest—to find the fabled Merlin’s Chalice, said to hold all the power of the entrapped wizard. Together, Scai, Dylan and Bridget discover that they are the long awaited Children of Avalon, destined to save the world from power-hungry Lady Nimuë—unless she kills them first. 

Along the way, Scai finds magic—both in the wind and air that she can control at will, and in the sweet ache of a first love that she cannot.

Excerpt: 

“Hiyah!” Galloping hooves raced toward me from behind. “Hiyah!”

I turned and stood frozen with shock. I knew I should get out of the way. I was about to get run down, but my legs wouldn’t move. My mind refused to believe that what I saw was real.

A knight in full, gleaming armor was bearing down on me, his horse coming at me at a full gallop.

I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I couldn’t breathe.

The knight continued to race toward me, his hand raised above his head clutching an enormous sword. He came closer, faster, raising his sword even higher, ready to strike me down.

I was dead. There was no point in moving because I was dead.

I just stood in the middle of the path as my death came closer and closer. At the last second, I closed my eyes and clutched my arms against my body.

The heat and the smell of horse invaded all of my senses. Galloping hooves came within inches of me. My hair flew in the gust of air. And then he was behind me.

He had gone straight past!

I spun around and watched as, with a great war cry, the knight struck his sword into the side of an oak tree. The sword wobbled up and down with the force of the blow as the knight let it go. He continued past until his horse slowed down enough to safely turn about and return.

Ignoring his sword, the knight rode straight up to me. “You all right? Tell me you aren’t hurt, wot?”

“What?”

“What, wot?” replied the knight.

“I…I’m sorry?” I looked past the knight at the tree where his sword was still waving gently.

“I’ve just saved your life; have you nothing to say?” the knight said, puffing out his chest.

“You have?”

The knight pulled up the visor on his helmet to stare at me.

Behind the shining metal were pale brown eyes crinkled with the lines of one who had spent a great deal of time smiling.

“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t…I mean, I hadn’t…er, thank you,” I said. Remembering my manners, I dipped into a deep curtsey. “Thank you, good knight, for saving my life.”

The knight gave me a small bow from atop his horse.

“Er…” I began, glancing back at the sword. “May I ask exactly what you saved me from?”

“What?”

“What was it that you saved me from?”

“Oh. Er, that, er…” The knight gestured randomly toward the tree. “That, er, oak.”

“The oak?”

“Yes. It was reaching out toward you and, er, oh, hobnobbit!”

A laugh burst out of me, releasing all the fear I’d pent up just a moment ago. For a minute there, I hadn’t been entirely certain that the knight was in his right mind, but clearly even he couldn’t keep up the pretense.

There had been nothing attacking me. 

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Bio: 
Meredith Bond is an award-winning author of a series of traditionally published Regency romances and indie-published paranormal romances. Known for her characters “who slip readily into one’s heart,” Meredith’s heart belongs to her husband and two children. She loves knitting and traveling, but isn’t too sure she’d like to actually travel back in time to the eras she writes about. She enjoys her creature comforts much too much. 

Author Meredith Bond Travels Back In Time

 Today, I'm pleased to bring you time traveler, Meredith Bond, and don't forget her except from Air: Merlin's Chalice on Saturday.  Welcome Merry. 

Thanks, L.A., for having me as a guest on your blog.

I love to travel. I’ve been to a good number of countries in my life—mainly in Europe and Asia. I haven’t yet been to South America or Africa, but they’re definitely on my to-do list. But even better than traveling around the world, I like to travel through time.

Yup, that’s right, I have figured out a way to travel back in time and into the future. No, I don’t have a Delorean tricked out with a nuclear time machine—I’ve got my books. All I have to do is to walk over to my bookshelf or turn on my tablet and within minutes I can be anywhere, anytime, from ancient Greece to the Regency to a post-apocalyptic world or soaring through space and time with Captain Kirk (oops, sorry, that was supposed to be my little secret, but, yes, I have read some Star Trek books). Not only that, but I can enjoy staying in the present—with a vampire, a Vallen (magical people of my own invention), a werewolf, or in a world where people can jump in and out of books at will.

I love going places in my mind. I love to live vicariously where magic really can happen. I love the dresses, the food and the dancing. I want to solve the mystery or fight the bad guys and protect those who need protection. I love hiding in plain sight and running through the forest feeling the wind ruffling through my fur. I love it all, all that I find in my books. As I said, I love to travel.

For the past few years I’ve been travelling to medieval England and hobnobbing with the descendants of Morgan le Fey and Merlin. In mid-March I released the first of my Children of Avalon series, Air: Merlin’s Chalice about a young woman named Scai who is most definitely not a witch. But she is magical. The second book Water: Excalibur’s Return will be released on April 16th, and the third book of the trilogy will be released on my birthday (a little gift to myself to have all these books published, which I’ve been working on so hard for so long), May 12th.

Blurb:

In one day Scai has gone from being considered just unusual by the people of her little Welsh village to an outcast fleeing for her life. Left on the church steps as a baby, she knows nothing of her history—or her abilities. Did she really stop the rain just by wishing it to stop? But she is determined to learn all she can. Travelling alone to find her family seems to be the only way she’s going to find the answers she seeks.

Her journey leads her to the comical old knight Sir Dagonet, who tells her that she is one of a magical people called the Vallen. Together they continue on, joined by the handsome Dylan and the fiery Bridget on a new quest—to find the fabled Merlin’s Chalice, said to hold all the power of the entrapped wizard. Together, Scai, Dylan and Bridget discover that they are the long awaited Children of Avalon, destined to save the world from power-hungry Lady Nimuë—unless she kills them first. 

Along the way, Scai finds magic—both in the wind and air that she can control at will, and in the sweet ache of a first love that she cannot. 

Buy:
Apple
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Smashwords

Bio:  Meredith Bond is an award-winning author of a series of traditionally published Regency romances and indie-published paranormal romances. Known for her characters “who slip readily into one’s heart,” Meredith’s heart belongs to her husband and two children. She loves knitting and traveling, but isn’t too sure she’d like to actually travel back in time to the eras she writes about. She enjoys her creature comforts much too much. 

Don't forget Meredith's excerpt on Saturday.

Excerpt From Meredith Bond's Magic in the Storm

I was lucky to meet Meredith Bond when I asked her about her classes on formatting a digital book. 

I took the class, and while it was intense, it was worth the time and effort to learn the tricks.  I already knew some HTML and knowing where to put the code and how it affects the manuscript was worth the price alone.  If you know nothing about coding, Merry tells you why this and that is done and what it will do. 

If you'd like to be on her mailing list for the next class, please email her directly at

merry@meredithbond.com or find the sign-up on her website www.meredithbond.com.

Now you get to read a bit of her latest book and wow, what a cover!

Blurb:

In the magical world of the Vallen, it has always been the high priestess who was the most powerful. Tatiana Vallentyn has long anticipated the birth of her daughter, Morgan, who was prophesied to be the most powerful priestess in generations – until the child born turned out to be a boy. Now a man, Morgan, must find his place in the world on his own. In the magic of a storm, his potential appears in a form he never would have expected.

Regency society is not kind to orphan girls. Adriana has been at the mercy of her cruel guardian since she was a young child, and now she is being married off to the highest bidder—but she will not go without a fight. She’d rather sell her precious paintings than marry Lord Vallentyn and have to deal with his scheming mother. But everything changes with the wind of a storm that blows her into a world she could never have imagined existed within ordinary society.

Excerpt:

She turned off the path and picked her way through the wood toward the sounds.  There was a clearing not too far ahead, but Adriana was stopped by the sound of a voice — a man’s voice. More carefully and quietly now, she made her way to the edge of the clearing and peeked out from the trees.

Adriana’s breath caught as she watched a dark head emerge from under the water.

It was him!  He hadn’t been a dream or her imagination. He was real! 
Morgan flipped his long black hair back out of his face, sending a spray of water flying toward Adriana. As he did so, he turned around to face her and she very nearly took a step forward to let him know that she was there. Her hand was half-way raised, her foot in mid-air about to step out from the trees when she noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything – at all.

Adriana stopped and caught her balance on a tree. How embarrassing! 

She couldn’t allow Morgan to see she was there, not when he... she could feel her face heat and was sure she was blushing furiously.

She resolutely tried to keep her eyes on his face, but they disobediently darted down his exposed body. Strong muscles defined his bare shoulders and chest. Below that Adriana couldn’t see anything because of the water, and she was extremely grateful. She had never seen a naked man before, and was certain that she never should – at least not until after she was married.

In her mind, Henrietta’s stern voice told her in no uncertain terms she was to leave immediately. Adriana knew the voice was right – she shouldn’t be here at all. She started to turn away, but Morgan gave another bright shout of laughter. She looked over at him playing in the water and knew she just couldn’t go.

The thought of leaving without drawing even one little sketch of Morgan and the river was unthinkable. Surely it was all right from an artistic point of view.  Men painted naked women, so why couldn’t she draw a naked man? 

No, neither Henrietta’s voice in the back of her head, nor the threat of being caught in so compromising a position could force her to leave. She would stay, but only for a very short time. Just long enough to do one quick sketch, she told herself sternly.

Buy Links:

Amazon
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iBookstore

 

Bio:

Meredith Bond is an award-winning author of traditionally published Regency romances and indie-published paranormal romances. She is known for her characters “who slip readily into one’s heart.”

Meredith’s second favorite pastime is teaching others to write and format books for
self-publication.

Find Merry at:

Facebook
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Book Formatting Class For Self-Publishing ... Don't Miss This!

"Your book is completed and you finally wrote the words “The End!” Now you have to publish it. This class will teach you how simple it is to format and upload your manuscript for self-publishing. We will go over advanced techniques in Microsoft Word, learn the basics of HTML to create a beautiful e-book, and format for CreateSpace. Join traditionally and self-published author, Meredith Bond, for this interesting class on what to do next." ~Merry Bond

Wow, did that blurb intrigue me.

But I had questions so I emailed Merry.  Here is her answer.

"Hey Leslie!
Actually, I've designed this class so that advanced writer/formatters will be able to get as much out of the class as absolute beginners.

 

I know that I love taking formatting classes just to find out how other people do it, so I've designed the class with such people in mind.

 
As I'll explain on the first day of class, I've got a teenage daughter who is always keeping me up to date on the latest "tech speak" and memes. Over the summer she told me about this thing that was popular -- tl;dr (too long; didn't read). It's basically a summary of everything that came before it (or after, in some cases). I make use of this and all of my lectures have a tl;dr section which allows people who know what they're doing skip the detailed explanations written for those to whom this is a whole new world. So you can read the tl;dr section and jump right into your formatting.

 

If you don't "get" something, you can then go back and read that section of the longer explanation. And if you still don't get it, I'm always around to answer questions, and I'm more than happy to discuss any and every aspect of the formatting process. :-)
In the class I'll teach you how to format your book into HTML to be converted into a mobi and epub document. KDP itself does not recommend that you upload your book in a Word document because they can't guarantee that it will look the way you want it to on all devices. HTML is the way to go. 

 

It's just a really intense one week with lectures every day detailing the formatting process for that day or discussing self-publishing (and I'm really hoping to make use of everyone's knowledge and experience to have a good discussion).
Because it is so intense, I make myself available afterward to answer questions (which reminds me, I need to check with Savvy to see how long they'll keep the bulletin board open for these discussions -- if they close it early, I'll ask people to switch over to a yahoo group I've got already set up).
If you have any other thoughts or concerns (or suggestions), please write back!
Thanks so much!
Merry"

Okay, I'm in, how about you?  Want to be truly independent?  Fix everything that needs fixing without waiting? 

 

Check out the link below, and hope to see you in class.

 

https://ce.savvyauthors.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventId=1796.