Dawn of a Dark Knight, Zoe Forward's #Paranormal #Romance #Newrelease!

Good morning, everyone! I'm honored to have author Zoe Forward with me today. Zoe is a fellow Wild Rose Press author whose new book is Dawn of a Dark Knight, which releases today! She's a very busy, multi-faceted person who's kindly agreed to let me ask her five nosy questions. So let's get started!

 Hi Zoe! Thanks so much for being here today. You write action-adventure paranormal romance—are there any favorite books or movies in the action-adventure or paranormal genres that have inspired you or that you love?

I’m grew up heavily influenced by Indiana Jones, James Bond, Star Trek, and Star Wars.  For books I started with Ann Rice and then got sucked into the paranormal romance world (and never looked back).  So, writing paranormals was a no brainer.  For Dawn of a Dark Knight everything came together at the right creative moment — my love of Egyptian mythology, my long-time passion for archaeology, my ideas about a new type of paranormal hero and more. It all just gelled.

It's great that you've been able to combine your many interests into your romance novels. Besides being a romance author, you are also a small animal veterinarian! We love animals here at The Divas of Desire. What inspired you to become a vet and are there any pets in your life?

Dr. Zoe gives a guinea pig an ultrasound. **Awww**

I knew being a vet was the right job for me in the fourth grade, and I never gave up on my dream.  I was a barn rat as a kid and thought horses were the end-all-be-all until vet school.  Then, I gravitated towards small animal medicine. Now I care for dogs, cats and all the small furries. 

Another of  Dr. Zoe's special patients!

                      

Our household pets number shrunk a bit over the past year with the loss of two of our beloved older souls.  Right now we’ve got a food-obsessed Chesapeake Bay Retriever who retrieves anything that fits in her mouth, and an ornery cat who insists on going outdoors but is terrified of anything small that moves.  We’re not ready for more additions at the moment, but somehow animals seem to find us.  So, I’m sure there will be some new friends moving in over the next year or so….hazard of the job.

Wow, I really admired your dedication to your veterinary practice AND your writing. Since you have such a demanding career as well as a family, how do you find time for writing?

How I wish I had the luxury of oodles of time to devote to writing.  I’m thrilled to steal a few minutes in a busy day to pen some pages.  This usually happens very late at night. Most plotting and brainstorming happens on my work commute or walking the dog. Bottom line is that I make it happen.  I cannot say it is easy, and I’m certainly not as prolific as I’d like to be.  But I find the time because I love it.

Your romance Dawn of a Dark Knight is Book 1 in The Scimitar Magi Series—can you tell us a little more about the series in general?

For the Scimitar Magi series I created a new hero.  As a passionate reader of paranormal romance I’ve read my fair share of vampires, weres, fae, shape shifters and demons. And loved them all. But I wanted something new. In Dawn of a Dark Knight the Scimitar Magi are ten pseudo-immortals that live within our world, but struggle to remain incognito. The guys are not exactly thrilled to discover they vowed their eternal soul eons ago to serve the Egyptian gods, and now must execute daemons for the rest of their life.  With no past-life memory, they’ve got no clue how to wield the powers gifted to them by the gods.  Man to super warrior in five minutes with no instruction manual.  So it takes a long time for each Scimitar to work it out. At first losing control at random is the norm, and irritates the bejesus out of the more experienced guys. Incidents happen like blowing up a gas station, which is misinterpreted by the government as a terrorist act.  And then there are the women. The Scimitars each get matched to one woman for all-time, and she is also reincarnated.  But when…and if this woman shows up is entirely up to the gods, who love to muck things up for their entertainment.

Can you share a bit more about Dawn of a Dark Knight with us? We can't wait to hear more!

I just love both main characters in Dawn of a Dark Knight.  The heroine, Kira…who wouldn’t want to be her? She’s an adrenaline junkie good at handling weapons with a cousin that drags her on black market art deals.  And she’s got a magical ability to heal by touch, which propels her towards a mind-blowing relationship with the world’s hottest, yet tormented hero.

And then there’s the raw, tormented Ashor. He struggles to obey the rules laid down by the gods he works for, but stresses when he can’t.  He desperately desires the woman destined to be the sacred healer for the Scimitar magi (Kira), but the gods’ rules dictate he cannot be involved with her. On top of this he keeps blacking out and going on hunts to take out the guys that do most of the daemon summoning, the Hashishins.  Killing these guys, even though they are clearly hostiles, violates the no-killing-humans-unless-attacked rule.

Dawn of a Dark Knight blurb:

In the shadows of our world, a secret band of warriors fights to protect us. They are the last line of defense against an evil no human can stop.

An ancient nemesis has resurfaced. Duty demands that Ashor Vlahos, Scimitar Magi commander, recruit a magical healer to fortify the remaining eight magi. The gods' choice is the woman who helped him escape torture a decade ago. Ashor couldn't have imagined a better punishment for his vow-breaker homicidal incidents than for the gods to bind him irrevocably to the only woman in the universe he cannot have. The soul-searing desire she ignites in him is strictly forbidden.

Kira Hardy, M.D. is a brilliant, hardworking internal med resident with big secrets. But when Ashor asks for aid after a brutal daemon attack, she is sucked into his dangerous, secret world. Enslavement to the magi, no matter how hot they are, may be an unattractive life plan, but being targeted for death by their enemies is less tolerable.

She must trust the sexy, tormented Ashor to keep her safe while he must deny his ultimate desire and keep Kira at arm’s length lest he bring destruction down on them both. As a centuries-old evil catches up to them, they face a crucial decision—follow the gods' rules or follow their hearts.

Dawn of a Dark Knight excerpt:

Her captor dragged Kira deep into the shadows of a recessed doorway. He clinched her chest so tight that she couldn’t breathe. A dizzy terror hazed her mind.

Keep it together.

He rolled her inwards until her face pressed tight to his chest as if he feared she would scream.

“I’ll shoot,” she murmured against his rock-solid pecs, burrowing the muzzle of her Glock into his abdomen.

“Go ahead, sweetheart. Add it to the tally for the night. It’ll sting like a bitch, but I guarantee it won’t kill me.”

He sounded disappointed about the last part. Something about that lightly accented baritone struck her as familiar. Kira reined in her escalating fear enough to do an aura screen. He had none of the inherent darkness of a Hashishin. He radiated mystical vitality and ancient power. But not evil.

With a good push, she got herself some space. Yet he didn’t release her. She cricked her neck upward. It was a good ways up since this gladiator dwarfed her by almost a foot.

“Ashor?” She shook her head and whispered, “This can’t be real.”

Dawn of a Dark Knight available at:

The Wild Rose Press                 Amazon

It's been great having you with us today, Zoe! Thanks so much and I wish you much success with your awesome paranormal series.

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Nona Raines
Hot Contemporary Romance
Edgy ~ Emotional ~ Erotic
www.nonaraines.com

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