Creating Villains - A Guest Post and Book Release From Nicole Zoltack!

Today is release day for Nicole Zoltack and White Hellebore! She's stopping by really quick for a guest post on Creating Villains.

I find villains to be more intriguing characters than heroes, if the villain is created properly. So how does one make a villain everyone loves?

First, villains should not be just evil, just like heroes shouldn't be only good. Real life comes in shades of gray, so should villains.

Second, villains need to have backstory, too. They are villains for a reason. Remember, villains think they are the heroes in their stories. Make us understand where they are coming from, even if we don't agree with their methods.

Third, villains should be memorable. They're more than killing machines with witty one-liners. They have a mission, a quest, a goal. They may be single-minded, but we need to understand their inner workings to be truly terrified by them.

What villain is your favorite and why?

After destroying Skull Krusher, Nicholas Adams thinks Falledge is safe and becomes a security guard at the museum, watching a valuable statue. Unfortunately, the Egyptian statue houses the soul of a scorned witch, biding her time to have her revenge on the descendants of her cheating lover.

Kiya the witch isn't the only new foe in town as the drug that created Skull Krusher has now transformed a scientist into yet another monster, forcing Nicholas to don his Black Hellebore mask again and save Falledge.

Nicholas has no help this time as Kiya gains possession of his love Julianna's body and brings the soul of Justina, Nicholas's high school sweetheart and Julianna's twin, with her. Despite himself, Nicholas is torn between the sisters. If he can't stop the fiends from taking over the world and destroying humankind, he'd never be able to find lasting, true love.

Add it on Goodreads! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21912639-white-hellebore

Find it on Amazon.

Nicole Zoltack loves to write in many genres, especially romance, whether fantasy, paranormal, or regency. When she’s not writing about knights, superheroes, or zombies, she loves to spend time with her loving husband and three energetic young boys. She enjoys riding horses (pretending they’re unicorns, of course!) and going to the PA Renaissance Faire, dressed in garb. She’ll also read anything she can get her hands on. Her current favorite TV show is The Walking Dead. To learn more about Nicole and her writing, visit http://NicoleZoltack.blogspot.com.

Thanks for stopping by, Nicole, and good luck with White Hellebore's release!

Cover Reveal: White Hellebore & Links

Hey, howdy, hey! Nicole Zoltack here and I'm so happy to share with you the cover for WHITE HELLEBORE. The second book in the Heroes of Falledge trilogy kicks off with an amazing cover.

All right, all right, I won't keep you in suspense any longer. I know you're dying to see it!

 Told you it was awesome! I'm not biased at all. Nope. Not even a little bit.

After destroying Skull Krusher, Nicholas Adams thinks Falledge is safe and becomes a security guard at the museum, watching a valuable statue. Unfortunately, the Egyptian statue houses the soul of a scorned witch, biding her time to have her revenge on the descendants of her cheating lover.

Kiya the witch isn't the only new foe in town as the drug that created Skull Krusher has now transformed a scientist into yet another monster, forcing Nicholas to don his Black Hellebore mask again and save Falledge.

Nicholas has no help this time as Kiya gains possession of his love Julianna's body and brings the soul of Justina, Nicholas's high school sweetheart and Julianna's twin, with her. Despite himself, Nicholas is torn between the sisters. If he can't stop the fiends from taking over the world and destroying humankind, he'd never be able to find lasting, true love.

Add it on Goodreads!

So I'm sure you're dying to know the release date and luckily it's not that far away! WHITE HELLEBORE releases April 21st! Be sure to grab it on the 21st! :D

About the Author: Nicole Zoltack loves to write in many genres, especially romance, whether fantasy, paranormal, or regency. When she’s not writing about knights, superheroes, or zombies, she loves to spend time with her loving husband and three energetic young boys. She enjoys riding horses (pretending they’re unicorns, of course!) and going to the PA Renaissance Faire, dressed in garb. She’ll also read anything she can get her hands on. Her current favorite TV show is The Walking Dead. To learn more about Nicole and her writing, visit http://NicoleZoltack.blogspot.com.

Now for some links!

As always, please bear in mind that I am not personally vetting these links, merely passing them along. Always do your due diligence and research publications/contests before submitting.

Accepting Submissions:

Eggplant Productions is looking for fairy tales retold in a more diverse fashion, including disabled characters, LGBT characters, and characters who aren't European. There are two anthologies, one for 8-12 year olds (Spellbound) and one for adults (Spindle). Deadline April 30. Fiction pays $.05/word, poetry pays $1/line.

Sirens Call Publications wants your demented tales for their anthology Mental Ward: Experiments. 4000-8000 words. Deadline April 30. Royalties, plus e-book copy and discount on 5 paperbacks.

Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing has an open anthology call out for Dark Light. They seek tales of darkness and despair. Deadline April 30. I'm unsure of pay.

The current theme for Crossed Genres is Time Travel. They want a new spin on it in your short story. Deadline April 30. Pays $.05/word, plus e-book and paper copy.

Spider Road Press is seeking short stories with strong female characters for the anthology Eve's Requiem: Tales of Women, Mystery, and Horror. Deadline April 30. Pays $20 and 2 free e-books, plus 20% of royalties will go to charity.

Indiana Fiction Review is seeking poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, photography, and art. Deadline April 30 (submissions received after deadline will be considered for the next issue). Pays $75, plus 2 contributor copies.

Falling Star Magazine is open for submissions for their next theme, Point A to B. Poetry, flash fiction, and short fiction. Deadline April 30. Pays $20 for poems, $40 for flash/short fiction, $25 for photography and illustrations.

The British Fantasy Society Journal is taking submissions for two issues, one with the theme of LGBT & Fantasy, but you are welcome to submit outside the theme. They have a breakdown by editor for each type of submission, which is pretty cool, so please do read over that. Fiction, features, nonfiction, poetry, art, and letters to the editor. You do not have to be a member to submit. No payment, other than a contributor copy.

The NonBinary Review has announced its next two themes: June 2014 is Grimm's Fairy Tales (deadline April 30) and the September 2014 issue is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (deadline end of July?? Unsure). Pays $.01/word for fiction and nonfiction, $10 per poem, and $25 per piece of visual art.

Solarwyrm Press is a new publication looking for submissions for its first two issues. Deadline for the June issue, theme Fire and Ice, is April 30. They seek stories that don't fit elsewhere. Pay is variable until they find out how many subscriptions they get, but it is estimated to be $10/story, $5/poem.

Anything you're interested in? Anything to share? Publication news? Isn't Nicole's cover intriguing?

May you find your Muse.

Teaser Tuesday: Fantasy and Horror Make Good Bedfellows

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:



1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

On my Kindle this week: Woman of Honor: Kingdom of Arnhem, Book 1 by Nicole Zoltack. (Cover image from her website.

"Aislinn raised her chin and faced the knight. Although sitting, she knew Sir Variek was a tall man with broad shoulders. He had a white goatee and piercing gray eyes that roamed over Aislinn's form. 'You're the girl who wants to be a knight.' 'Aye,' Aislinn breathed the word." p. 27, or 16% of the way through.






In hard copy, I'm reading The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #21, edited by Stephen Jones.

"She had the sweet smell of faded roses that I associate with polite mortality in decay. I would have preferred talking to someone else at the Selwoods' lunch party - after all, buffets are designed to shuffle sheep and goats - but she held me with deep-set eyes that might almost have been blind, or perhaps they were focused upon something beyond me or the house." p. 274, taken from John Gaskin's Party Talk.

And for another small taste from the anthology:

"They rode west from the slaughter, through the painted desert, and did not stop until they were a hundred miles away.", p. 108, taken from Throttle, by Joe Hill and Stephen King.

What are you reading?

Happy Birthday, Miz B!

May you find your Muse.