Remembering the Unremembered with Rachel Tsoumbakos

I'm joined today by the wonderful Rachel Tsoumbakos, introducing her new book to us.  It's definitely one to watch out for!

Unremembered Things by Rachel Tsoumbakos

Unremembered Things (Wood Nymph Chronicles #1) by Rachel Tsoumbakos Age category: New Adult Release Date: February 10, 2015 Genre: Paranormal Romance

Blurb

One woman, two worlds and nothing but UNREMEMBERED THINGS separating them. Indiana Shamira has a dark secret that could shatter her version of reality and get her killed in the process. Now if only she could remember what it is… When Indiana wakes with no memory of her past life and a vampire called Sam hanging from the rafters in her cellar, she knows things are about to get nasty. Not only does Sam know all about her previous life, but he seems intent on seducing her as well. Of course her boyfriend, Kurt, has different ideas – like making her open the portal to hell! And then there is the nagging suspicion that Indiana is not entirely human, now she can see ghostly images from the Otherworld. Or could it be from the life she can no longer remember? They include the flickering effigy of Kurt and a redwood forest that conjures up deeply repressed magic. Not only will Indiana have to risk everything to keep the door to another dimension closed, she will have to decide whether she is ready to lose her heart to someone who has more secrets than herself. Set in the lush Australian bush, UNREMEMBERED THINGS is a fusion of fantasy, paranormal and forbidden romance.

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Excerpt

“It is time.” Her voice purred like a kitten, but Indiana suspected she was really a feral animal on the inside. “For what?” Her voice was raspy, hesitant and unsure if she really wanted to know the answer. Somewhere, deep inside, she suspected she already knew. “Just remember I’m doing this for us,” Sam whispered into her ear. “So we can be together forever.” Before Indiana could question him further, she felt a flurry of hands over her body. Indiana tried to open her eyes, but a warm hand reached up and carefully covered them. Indiana was bitten – hard, and she groaned in pleasure. Shocked by her unexpected display, she clutched her hands outwards. Feeling the writhe of skin on skin, she tried to pull herself free. The tickle of fingers across her neck and down her spine calmed her with their warm familiarity. “It’s okay, Indiana.” The feathery words danced across her skin, warm like a summer breeze. She stilled and let Sam’s fingers intertwine with her own, relieved by his simple touch. Time seemed to move forward and Indiana was presented with brief snippets of fleeting images; Camilla biting Sam, biting her. Indiana enjoying the pain of Camilla’s sharp teeth as they gnashed at her neck, her thighs and her wrist. The flurry of skin and hands and teeth as they writhed together in the height of passion. Pale hands slithered over her own luminescent skin, then Sam’s darker skin brushed against her own, warming her and protecting her but against what she was unsure. Then Camilla poised over Sam, a knife in her hand. A flash of blood as it splayed out from a gaping neck wound. Indiana’s involuntary gasp and then choking sob at the sight of the cavernous hole. Hungry sucking as Camilla drank her fill. A warm hand, its fingers still laced through hers, slowing turning ice cold.

Giveaway

PRIZE (international):

• 1 x eCopy of Unremembered Things
• 1 x eCopy of Metanoia
• 1 x eCopy of The Ring of Lost Souls
• 1 x $10 Amazon gift card

About the Author

Rachel Tsoumbakos is a stay home mother of two. Her main passions are writing, reading and organic gardening. Rachel lives with her husband, two kids, three cats and eight chickens in the hills surrounding Melbourne, Australia. While she has had several articles published through mainstream magazines, she has also written extensively for True Blood Net and the now defunct Suite 101. When she is not tending to her organic veggie garden, she is working on her cardio as she trains for the zombie apocalypse.

Author Links

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | GOODREADS | GOOGLE + | PINTEREST

              

My Writing Process Blog Tour

Well, welcome to my entry in the "My Writing Process" blog tour. This is verging on the scary for me. I have to decide if I actually have a writing process in the first place. I'm never entirely sure if I have anything remotely resembling something which could be called an actual 'PROCESS' as such. 

But here I am, suckered in. I mean, joining in. I have to thank the wonderful Connie J. Jasperson, amazing author and owner of Life in the Realm of Fantasy, http://conniejjasperson.wordpress.com for roping me in. I mean, inviting me to take part.  Connie has been a friend of mine for a number of years now, so I couldn't really say no.  

So, here goes:

1) What am I working on?

That's easy. Lots of things. 

Firstly, and for some most importantly, there's the sequel to Sin. I say 'most importantly' as I do know of a few people who will breath a huge sigh of relief when they get their hands on Mortal Sin. Sin, himself, will probably be relieved too!

Next, I have Puddlebrain (working title). This story follows the adventures of the youngest of three witches, all of whom have lost their powers. Something is stealing all of the villagers and only Puddlebrain can stop it. The book is very different from Sin and is aimed at a much younger audience.

I am also working on Darker Places, the follow up to my paranormal/horror collection Dark Places (soon to be an audiobook). I keep coming up with ideas that simply must be turned into stories or poems, and both Sin and Puddlebrain end up sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Sorry guys!

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Hmmm. I think because it's personal. Sin, especially, is a very great part of me. He's my 'dark half' of course and writing him is very therapeutic.

Dark Places is very similar. The poems were written when I,  myself, was in a dark place. The stories visit various ideas and ideals I wonder about or have travelled to personally. 

That's to to say other authors' writing isn't personal.  I'm sure, in most cases, it certainly is.  But, with mine, I seem to wander the darker halls of my mind and open doors I, perhaps, wouldn't otherwise.

With the children's books, they show I've never grown up. And don't wanna, nernerner. 

3) Why do I write what I do?

I just do. I don't control it. I simply write what comes. The darkness isn't a conscious effort. It weaves into my writing of its own accord. 

4) How does my writing process work?

Ah, there's that 'process' thing again. I'm not sure how to answer it. I just write.

When I get chance. 

I don't get much time to write. With a full time job and full time family, I squeeze writing into my lunch break - when I don't have a blog post to do or a phone call to make, of course.

When I do write, I just do, as I said in the previous question. In most cases, I begin a story or blog post with the initial sentence - a 'starter'. This can be prompted by something I'm watching on television, as in the case of The Coming, a short story I wrote recently, inspired by an episode of The Blacklist. The starter can come from something someone has said, or someone has purposefully given me. 

I take that sentence, and I run with it. Or my fingers do. I could produce one of Sin's blog posts, a poem or a story. I don't always know. 

I have thought, many times, of trying to plan something out. Have the idea, work out the characters, the main plot points and locations, etc. I haven't actually managed to try it yet. When I do get those brief chances to write,  I generally don't think about outlining. I get into the zone of following the story and Finding out where it's going to lead me. 

I will try it, though. As an experiment. 

Mostly, though, I sit and I write and I see where it goes. I enjoy that. It's a voyage of discovery. 

My three volunteers to lay out their writhing… erm… writing hearts next week are:

Zoe Adams

http://readerwriterzoe.blogspot.co.uk/

Zoe Adams was born in Grimsby, in 1992. The youngest of three children, she has a BA (Hons) degree in Professional Writing at university.

Zoe has a huge interest in reading and writing about the paranormal and the supernatural. Of course, this can range from witches and demons, to vampires and werewolves. Yet, she is not afraid to try other genres!

With her alternative mind, who knows what she will write next?

Lisa Vandiver

Http://lisavandiver.blogspot.com

I have been in love with the art of storytelling since childhood, and found my very first piece published in our small town newspaper at the age of seven.  The subject was Santa Claus.

​I was involved with the arts in school, church, and college.  While in college I wrote my first play, and during acting classes I came up with my first novel idea, Where She Belongs.  Since that time I have written a second novel, Josie's Thorn, as well as a book of poems and short stories, Out of my Head.   My poem, My Life Song was published  in eFiction magazine in 2011, and I have finished my first screenplay, which is now in the editing stage.  I am working on numerous projects for summer 2014.

​I love to meet new people, so please feel free to drop by Facebook or Twitter to say "Hi". 

Scarlett Flame

http://missscarlettflame.blogspot.co.uk/

Although born in Salford, I was raised in the Manchester area and still consider myself a Lancashire lass.

I am a qualified paediatric nurse and have a Bsc(Hons) and a PgDip (masters level qualification) among other qualifications. Yet I choose to write, and hope to make this my full time occupation. 

Although I have always loved to read and write, I only recently began to write seriously. My first blog post was published in February 2013 and since then I have gone from strength to strength. This has resulted in my being voted as Blogger of the Year 2014

My blogs aren't all erotica, far from it. On my blog posts you are just as likely to read about gigs I have attended around Manchester, interviews, book reviews and much more. There is something for everyone on my blogs.

Enter a Dark Place...

My latest book is Dark Places, a collection of thirteen short stories and thirteen poems, all with a dark theme. I’m not sure why I like to write this type of story, to be honest. I’m generally an upbeat, happy sort of person – too laid back to let things get to me. I’m always making jokes and having a laugh. Perhaps it’s because I write such things? The darkness is vented in my work so there’s only light left?

I doubt it, but it’s a thought. I’m normally a very positive person. I call Sin my ‘Dark Half’, so maybe he’s writing them!

The poems contained therein were, actually, written during a time where I wasn’t so positive. Things weren’t going well in my life and various things prompted various poems. The memory of how I was treated by my natural father. Loves lost. I’m sure everyone has these twilight periods to battle through. I didn’t exactly find solace in the words, but I couldn’t seem to write anything else at the time. The stories are different. I can be at my happiest (as I am now) and still produce a piece with shadows and death. I find poetry to be much more personal and so it reflects how I feel at that moment. With a story, I follow the path of the characters, and they have their own moods unencumbered by my own.

As I’m meant to be working on the sequel to Sin, my Muse thinks it mighty hilarious to put all sorts of other ideas into my head and I need to give them form to clear the mist for Sin to continue with his adventure. Hence, I wrote I Am Death. Like a lot of my work, it grew from just the first sentence. I don’t necessarily have any idea what the story will be as I’m writing. It turns out however it turns out. This happened with Sin and with the majority of his blog posts (he has his own diary at http://singularityspoint.blogspot.com).

I Am Death began with, simply, ‘I think...’ and the result was a tale of Death contemplating life as he prepares to take his next soul. My wife saw a writing competition in one of her magazines and said I should enter. The Last Dance was written for this. It didn’t win, but, when my wife read it, it brought a tear to her eye. A friend of mine told me that, when she was 9, her cousin said the sink overflow was where the dragons went in. I used her exact words for the beginning of ‘There Be Dragons’ without any idea of how it would go.

So, it can take very little to inspire me. I go with the flow, caught up by the current of something I’m not entirely in control of.

The idea of the collection came from a fellow writer. She asked me to look at something she’d written ‘while in a dark place’. I suddenly HAD to write using that title, and the collection came together soon after, with the addition of stories that I couldn’t stop writing. I had the bit between my teeth and was being led along at a real pace. The themes of darkness becoming real, of reality and surreality being intertwined, of the helplessness of being pushed to events you can’t control, were almost a whirlwind of words that were finding an outlet through my fingers.

If you know what I mean...

A friend at work created an original watercolour inspired by the stories, and this is featured in the book. It’s between the contents and the first poem and acts as a doorway to the darkness within.

I had started to write a prequel to Sin, intending it to be nothing but a short. I wanted to include it in Dark Places but was asked ‘what about Joy?’ I was halfway through what was to become Prelude, then, and stopped. They were right. What about Joy? Joy is Sin’s sister, and appears in the book as a ghost – either to help or hinder him. She disappears just when he seems to need her most and is unable to give him real information, so has to resort to guidance that frustrates and angers her brother. Suffering a mirror image of Sin’s ‘talent’, Joy has committed suicide. But what of her origins? I wrote Joy to give her that voice, that chance to tell it from her side.

Fittingly, I think, Joy became the final piece in the collection, a place she deserves.

The reaction to Dark Places has been wonderful, with comments such as: “The descriptive passages create fabulous imagery,” and “The author's portrayal of death could lead you to believe he'd actually experienced it.” I’m hoping it has the same success that Sin has enjoyed but, either way, I sincerely enjoyed creating it.

Dark Places can be found on Amazon at:
US: http://amzn.to/DarkPlacesUSEB
UK: http://amzn.to/DarkPlacesUKEB
And at Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/ShaunAllanSW
And in paperback form at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/shaunallan

The ebook and signed copies are available from the bookstore on my website: http://www.shaunallan.co.uk/bookstore.php