Love Beyond Sanity tour + giveaway

We welcome Rebecca Royce to our blog today. Royce has written one of our favorite YA series, The Warriors (Book one is Initiation and book two is Driven), and we have also discovered she is a prolific romance writer as well. She has written over 20 novels and she's touring now with her latest, Love Beyond Sanity, The Outsiders Book 2.

Blurb: Eighteen years earlier, Charma lost her destined soul mate. Convinced he must be dead, she kept her fears to herself so as not to destroy the morale of the Outsiders who already live with a shaky prophecy as their only guide.

Dr. Jason Randall is a man used to getting what he wants. There has never been a problem he couldn't out think or a situation he wasn't capable of handling.

Now they are both hunted by not one but two demons as they lead the slowly forming group of Outsiders out of the darkness and back into the light. The two strong souls will have to decide if prophecy alone is enough reason to stay together through insane odds...or if love is their true fate. 

Guest Post by Rebecca Royce
We asked Rebecca Royce the following: What do you think makes the idea of finding your perfect mate so alluring to many? How/what have you added to the lore? And do you think it's more gender based (more females believe than males?). 

Rebecca: I think that in today’s world we are frequently alone. Technology is fantastic, please don’t get me wrong, I love it, but we spend a lot of time by ourselves on the other side of a keyboard. Very rarely do we get personal contact with other people. This isn’t just true for the life of an author. My brother can spend a lot of time doing business with people on the other side of the world, people he may never meet. This happens to my husband, as well.

Reading about your ‘soul mate,’ the other half of your soul who has also been completely lonely until they’ve met you, fulfills something natural within our human souls: the desire not to be alone in the universe.

What have I added to the lore? (Sheesh, I just started to sweat.) I hope that what I’ve added to the lore are some good stories that speak to the heart of readers. I hope that I’ve shown that soul mates can be good battle partners and that true love can appear in the most difficult of circumstances.

It is probably fair to say that women talk about their soul mates more frequently than men do but I do not believe that the desire for a soul mate is a female-only desire. I think men just stay more quiet about it, keeping their romantic wants to themselves until they find their other half when they can quietly congratulate themselves.

Thanks so much for letting me be here today to talk about soul mates, one of my favorite subjects!

Excerpt #1 

"Oh, Dr. Randall, you are so limited. The Fates, Destiny, the Gods chose you, however it is that you are comfortable describing it. Veli Destrand, before he died, used to call it 'the good side'. He was pretty accurate in that." She laughed. "Such a shame he's dead and you won't get to meet him until I send you to death. But in the mean time you're so exciting to play with."

He didn't see it coming. The electrical current struck his body with what he could only imagine was the force of an eighteen-wheeler. His entire being shook from the experience. His insides burned as if he were a mere piece of toast. Without surprise, he fell to the hard ground.

Breathe. It was nearly impossible to perform that basic function. Eventually, it would pass. He knew this because he'd been going through this experience at least once a day since he'd been stuck in his own mind's creation, but each time she electrocuted him, it seemed to get worse.


Excerpt #2

No, she was not nuts. He was here. The nameless man—she'd never learned his name—who had been made for her, chosen for her in heaven was in this room.

And, she had felt him die. Felt it the night he hadn't come to their secret garden. It had been like someone had taken a sledge hammer and demolished half of her body and soul with one hit. She'd known he was dead.

Alone. That was how she'd felt. With other people's problems filling her days, nights, and dreams.

Until now.

Had he been this way since he'd disappeared when he was twelve? Charma's eyes roamed his body for signs. Impossible. He looked too healthy. Muscle tone defined his body. He didn't look like a man who had been endlessly asleep on a bed. His eyes fluttered as if he was in deep REM sleep.

She cleared her throat, afraid to wake him but wanting to at the same time. "Hello."

Nothing. Charma's cheeks warmed. Why had she assumed he'd respond to her? He was in a coma for goodness sake. She was going to have to do more than speak aloud to get his attention.

Jason shook his head. This wasn't going to be easy. Maybe her arrival was a good thing. Maybe she was another piece of the puzzle he needed to solve his dilemma. "Self-loathing, the woman I've invented to come here and cause me tremendous pain as a way to punish myself for killing a man who assaulted me in the parking lot." Jason gestured around the hillside. "This whole thing is one giant guilt trip."

Standing up, her eyebrows pressed inward, and she held a confused look in her eyes. They seemed to be searching for something but he wasn't clear on what.

Finally, she spoke. "Listen to me very carefully. So much of what you just said makes no sense to me and we have zero time to sort it out. I'm not sure how to convince you that what I'm about to tell you is the absolute truth but it is. This is not some grand illusion. Not really."

"That's just what a falsehood that didn't want to be proven wrong would say."

About the author: As a teenager, Rebecca Royce would hide in her room to read her favorite romance novels when she was supposed to be doing her homework. She hopes, these days, that her parents think it was well worth it.

Rebecca is the mother of three adorable boys and is fortunate to be married to her best friend. They live in northern New Jersey and try not to freeze too badly during the winter months.

She's in love with science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal and tries to use all of these elements in her writing. She's been told she's a little bloodthirsty so she hopes that when you read her work you'll enjoy the action packed ride that always ends in romance. Rebecca loves to write series because she loves to see characters develop over time and it always makes her happy to see her favorite characters make guest appearances in other books.

In Rebecca Royce's world anything is possible, anything can happen, and you should suspect that it will.

Author links: Website / Blog

GIVEAWAY: A $50 Amazon.com gift certificate to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour -- follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here. 

We thank Rebecca Royce and Goddess Fish Promotions.