Blog Tour & Giveaway for Angel Rising: Redemption by LaVerne Thompson

Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Book Tour, presented by Bewitching Book Tours, for Angel Rising: Redemption by LaVerne Thompson.  Please leave a comment or question for LaVerne to let her know you stopped by.  You can enter her tour wide giveaway, for an ecopy of her book, by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can also check out the tour schedule by clicking on the banner above.  My review is running late but will be posted within the next 24 hours.

Angel Rising Redemption

By LaVerne Thompson

Redemption, Book 1

Publisher: Isisindc Publishing

Date of Publication: January 2, 2015

Genre: paranormal/ interracial romance

ISBN: 978-0-9859646-9-6 

ASIN: B00ROSP8YO

Number of pages: 248

Word Count: 91,272

Cover Artist: Fiona Jayde

Book Description:

To walk the earth she must feed her hollow soul.

Some of the most beautiful people in the world are not human they have no soul.  They feel no emotion and are pure evil. You can tell by the color of their dark dead eyes. Samuel Glaus knows this.  He is after all half-human, the son of a human mother and soulless father, and a hunter of the soulless.  He is also in love with one who cannot love him back.

Thalya is a soulless creature, but unlike others of her kind she does not kill to feed her hollow soul. She hungers for emotion and above all she hungers for Samuel’s love. Her enemy. Her redemption. And she’s willing to kill for it.

Excerpt

Opening up her senses, she sniffed out the most depressed in the city block around her. While she had no human sense of smell, the scents of emotions to her were as potent, as humans would say a bouquet of freshly cut roses.

Right across the street a man entered the park. The scent of his depression floated right to her on the wind. Hot, potent and yummy, she would feed on it for a few days. There were no others of her kind in the area, so she wouldn’t have to warn anyone off. Although, quite a few soulless resided in New York, the size of the area ensured she didn’t run into others if she didn’t want to, which she usually didn’t.

Going back inside her penthouse condo, she walked across thick sand-colored carpet. Her artist friend, Franklin, would have both loved and hated the great room. Loved it for the cool colors—reds, beiges, and golds. Those had been his favorites, but then she’d stuck a long, extra-wide black leather sofa smack in the center of it. He hated leather and black.

Franklin, long gone…just another from her past.

She put on her long coat, and headed for her private elevator. She didn’t need it but she wanted to blend in. Tonight she would act normal. Normal, at least for a human. As an additional benefit, when she walked through her lobby to get to the street, she would open her senses to her immediate surroundings, sampling a taste of surface emotions as she passed by.

Not all of her kind could suck out emotion without touch but as an olden, one from a time long past and more powerful than most, she could. But other things also set her apart from those like her. She did not need to kill her providers or have them kill others to satisfy her needs. Draining humans of their depression, her emotion of choice, more than satisfied her. Humans carried it in abundance. She merely put her providers to sleep and afterwards, they usually woke up feeling less depressed. Hers represented a more symbiotic relationship. She actually helped people, much like a psychiatrist would. Only, instead of talking them out of their depression, she drained it right out of them.

The elevator door opened and she got on.

The hotel where she lived also housed private residences, but a few guests milled around the lobby for the evening. Just enough people around with some serious issues to make her grin and tremble within her ankle-length leather coat.

“Delicious,” she purred. Red knee high stiletto boots clicked as she crossed the polished marble floor. She ignored the appreciative looks of the men and women as she glided among them, intentionally projecting a do not approach compulsion. Look but don’t touch, unless she was the one doing the touching.

The doorman opened the door for her and smiled. “Good evening. Cold one tonight.” Bundled in layers and with a wool cap on his head, he stood directly beneath a heating vent to stay warm.

He always spoke. She rarely did and tonight, she didn’t. She flashed him some teeth in the semblance of a smile. At least she hoped it looked like a smile and not a grimace. Happiness. It rolled off him in waves. She’d never tried draining that emotion from her providers, although over the centuries she’d met a few of her kind who preferred it. Anything to fill the void in the soulless place. But stealing someone else’s happiness always seemed unnecessary to her. Depression worked just fine.

Out on the sidewalk, the scent hit her again. Like a shining point of light in dark woods, the depressed man she’d sensed beckoned her to follow him. After crossing the street, Thalya entered the park. It didn’t take long to find him.

He sat on a bench at the other end of the park, leaning over with his head in his hands.

She wouldn’t be able to read his thoughts until she actually touched him. No matter, she sensed his depression.

She sat on the bench next to him; he didn’t even bother to look up. Thalya placed her hand on his shoulder and her inner feminine muscles contracted to the point, she almost had an orgasm.

Depression, and so potent.

“Mmm, good,” she murmured.

At her touch, he raised red-rimmed eyes in her direction.

Finally, she had his attention.

He pulled back slightly, some form of self-preservation kicking in. “Who—are you?”

“Shhh. It will be all right. I promise,” she whispered. 

The man sat up and she wrapped her arms around him.

Unable to help himself, he let her.

Hmm, handsome. She always seemed to gravitate toward the young, good-looking ones, although she’d never sleep with any of them. Well, hardly ever. She nuzzled the side of his neck. Under the alcohol he’d indulged in, he exuded a nice clear human scent. Given his emotional state, she’d expected the scent of alcohol to be stronger. Surprisingly she only caught a slight whiff. No more than a beer. Maybe he just started on his drinking for the evening. Didn’t matter. Whatever he’d ingested, she didn’t care about.

“What—?”

She didn’t give him a chance to say more. Instead, she made her way to his mouth, which opened as soon as she pressed her lips against his. Unleashing her powers, she inhaled his depression into the starving emptiness that should have housed her soul, and at the same time, began to read his memories.

Poor thing. Karl, yes…Karl Hammer. He’d recently lost his job and his wife, pregnant with their first child, didn’t know about it. He’d swallowed his pride and asked his blood uncle of sorts for help. Except Karl hadn’t spoken to his uncle in years. Mmm, interesting. She probed for the reason why.

Samuel and the others like him lived a dangerous life. Samuel, a master hunter of the soulless and Karl, merely—bait.

About the Author:

LaVerne Thompson is an award winning, best-selling, multi-published author, an avid reader and a writer of contemporary, fantasy, and sci/fi sensual romances. She also writes romantic suspense and new adult romance under the pen name Ursula Sinclair.

She is currently working on several projects. Both of her daughters are now away at college. However, she and her husband don’t like the term empty nester. She’s added a cat to the household to keep the dog of the house company. Hopefully writing will keep her sane. 

Website:  http://lavernethompson

Facebook; http://facebook.com/ursulasinclair98

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/lavernethompson   

Facebook Group:  http://facebook.com/groups/lavernesnews

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