Author Saturday Spotlight: Sadie Rose Bermingham #Interview #Giveaway

It's Saturday Spotlight day and today we have the talented and lovely Sadie Rose Bermingham. If you haven't read her work yet you'll want to by the end and if you have than you know she's amazing. We have an interview for you, we will look at some of her books, and wrap it up with a giveaway. So, get comfy.

Every breath brings them closer to love, and a killer.
Jake Chivis is the descendant of Fire Elementals with a gift for psychometry, the ability to see memories from touching objects. After a bad breakup and trouble at work, Jake gave up his career as a detective in Detroit and moved to England to join a research program studying Elemental gifts at University College London. It seemed like the perfect way to escape his past and start over, and this time he’s vowed not to fall into the trap of dating a coworker. At least that’s the plan, until he meets Doctor Ilmarinen Gale.
Mari Gale is blond, sexy, relentlessly academic and comfortable in his own skin in a way Jake envies. After a handful of embarrassing encounters, Jake is ready to resign himself to staying under the radar, but when a colleague’s brother goes missing, he and Mari must work together to find him. As they dig into the inexplicable disappearance, Jake is impressed with Mari’s competence and unique skills, and even more impressed by his ability to wrap Jake around his finger. Together the unlikely pair discover murder, betrayal, secrets and just how high Mari can fan Jake’s flames.
Purchase on Pride Publishing

Their passion isn’t the only thing creating flames.
Mari Gale’s life has been a whirlwind since meeting Jake Chivis. A new job prospect and his mother’s health preoccupy him, so when Jake invites him on a date he’s ready to cut loose. Their night out turns into a nightmare when a fire breaks out in the basement of the bar and they barely escape.
Soon Jake learns that the horrific accident is being investigated as a possible homicide, and it’s not the only case. Detective Inspector Cordiline of the London Met hints at spontaneous human combustion, but as far as Jake knows, SHC doesn’t exist.
When Mari looks into a group called Birthright, he finds a connection to the victims of the fires and Jake risks himself to go undercover at the shadowy organization. The race is on to determine the truth before Jake becomes the next target.

Purchase on Pride Publishing

hey’re treading water in an ocean of secrets. When ex-cop Jake Chivis is woken by the police and questioned about the mysterious death of his neighbor, he thinks his day can only get better. Things go from bad to worse when his lover, Mari Gale, brings him a horrific sex tape which appears to show a man being murdered. As they begin to investigate the origin of the video, nothing is as it seems. Will they find the killers before they strike again? Or will dark secrets rising to the surface in their own lives erupt and tear them apart?

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Unearthing the past brings them closer together…and to danger.
A maniac is on the loose in London, drugging young women and assaulting them before burying them in shallow graves.
When Inspector John Cordiline asks Jake Chivis for his unique assistance as a Fire Elemental with the Cemetery Rapist case, he feels he can hardly refuse. What begins as a simple job—trying to get memories from a suspect to aid conviction—soon takes a darker turn when one of the victims dies and an offer of help comes from an unexpected and unwelcome source.
Dr. Mari Gale is disturbed to find that his former lover Tomas Arregui is London and wants to meet with him. Despite his best efforts to avoid the man, fate seems to be pushing him onto a collision course with Tomas. And the impact will cast him into more trouble than he could ever have imagined.
Digging deeper for the truth could be the death of them.

Releases August 28th

Pre-order on Pride Publishing

Sometimes when you don’t know what you want, life gives you what you need.
When Neil Markovic witnesses the murder of his mother by Bone Men, his world is thrown into turmoil. On the run from the assassins that killed her, his sorcerer father and the police, Neil finds help in the form of a tall half-fae alchemist named Malachai. Mal seems more accepting than most of Neil’s demon bloodline but curiously immune to his charms.
Malachai Valentine, disgraced scion of a noble leprechaun clan, back in the Old Country, is happy living as an anonymous scrap dealer. Using his talent for alchemy to make fuel and potions, most days he doesn’t even think of his ruinous past. When a scared young man with a fancy car crashes into his life, at first, Mal thinks he can do without the hassle. But as Neil begins to get under his skin, Mal reassesses his hopes and ambitions.
Harassed by megalomaniac fae and stalked by sorcerous killers at every turn, Malachai and Neil must fight to be free, and to find what they both always wanted.

Purchase on Pride Publisher

Interview 

I’m so excited to have you here with us today as the Saturday Spotlight Author! I have questions for you and I’m excited for your answers.

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. 😊

Let’s start off with how you knew writing was what you always wanted to do?

Well, I’ve been a storyteller since I was very small. I used to make up stories for my little sister and my friends – something I inherited from my late father, who used to invent fairytales for us when we were kids. (King Englebert and the Humper Dinkers was a favourite, as I recall.) My early tales were Famous Five style adventures, involving me and my friends. I think one of them involved a flying carpet and a trip to Blackpool Tower. I was probably eight or nine years old.

I had a wonderful year seven teacher, Mrs Pallant, who encouraged me in my creative writing, telling me, and my parents, that one day I could be the next Enid Blyton.

When I was twelve, I graduated to erotic fiction. Yeah, I know! Precocious, much! I went on holiday to Somerset with my best friend and her family and while we were there I kept her entertained with a mildly salacious tale about a female scientist who falls in love with her service android. I think it was based around a story I’d sneakily read in my mother’s Cosmo. It was truly awful but it was, however, the first example of a trope that I’d reuse quite a lot as I grew older and began to hone my craft – the slightly androgynous, floppy-haired male lead.

Around this time, my dad brought home an ancient, massive Remington typewriter that his office was throwing out and I lugged it up to my room and over the next eleven months or so, pounded out a fantasy novel, based loosely around a theme by Tolkien. (The neighbors could hear me typing three streets away!) This too was awful, but there were sound ideas, and lots of floppy haired, androgynous men, so I was made up about it at the time.

Over the intervening years, work and real life have kind of taken over but I got back to writing in a serious way about twenty years ago and in 2014, I finally got into print with – yes, you guessed it – another floppy haired, androgynous young man, Dr Mari Gale from Elemental Evidence.

You have a book releasing this month, Digging Deeper. It’s book four in your and Bellora Quinn’s Elemental Evidence series. IS this an ongoing story, can it be read as a standalone, and what can you tell us about what to expect?

For anyone thinking of reading the series, I seriously would NOT recommend that you start here. Hahah. No. The earlier books can be read as standalone stories but there is ongoing character and background progression so it really is best to start at the beginning, with Breathing Betrayal.

Bellora and I planned the first four stories - set in London and featuring a pair of freelance paranormal investigators - loosely around a theme of elements, beginning with Air, which is Mari’s element and progressing through Fire (his partner, Jake’s) and the heavier elements of Water and Earth. Jake and Mari are brought together as part of a program to study elemental talents at University College London. Jake is able to review memories captured in inanimate objects and sometimes people. Mari can mind-surf communications networks by touching them, and was headhunted to the department where he works by the British Government, although this is background to the actual stories.

Digging Deeper is a very dark tale and begins to bring together a lot of threads that were sewn through the first three books. It is also kind of a transit story, leading from the first three to a more intense exploration of elementals and Jake’s part-Native American heritage, in the final two (or – at the risk of sounding like George R R Martin here - possibly three) books.

I’m kind of steeling myself for people not to be happy with us about the conclusion to Digging Deeper, which I guess I shouldn’t say when I’m trying to plug a book, but it’s by far the darkest storyline we’ve written for the boys so far. Mari’s horrible ex, Tomas Arregui shows up in London, young women are being drugged and buried alive, and there are threads we haven’t yet tied up which I’m sure will make some folks grind their teeth.

I’m already looking forward to book five though. There will be snow. And hostile relatives. And people setting fire to things. All the good stuff.

Out of all your characters which one would you say is most like you?

Hmm… that’s a difficult one. I think a lot of my characters have elements (see what I did there?) of me in them.

Mari has my borderline-autistic-spectrum tendency to see things in a straight line from A to B with nothing in-between. He gets very frustrated and discouraged when things don’t work out the way he thinks they should.

Rayne Wylde, was a rock-star vampire I wrote with two co-authors -originally with my friend Emily Regent and later, with Bellora, on Literotica and our own blog – and he has my short fuse and love of indie rock music.

In Elemental Evidence, I’d say that John Cordiline is probably the character who channels me the most. He’s older than the MCs and very protective, especially of Jake, plus he has my cynicism and a dry sense of humor.

Are you attending any conventions or signings this year or next?

Not this year. I’ve been out of work for a little while and I can’t really afford it, though I will be attending ShiMMer next year in Birmingham (appropriately). I’m kind of anxious/excited about that.

Bellora will be at GRL this year though, so please go and talk to her, everyone, it’s her first time.

(From Bellora [who is reading this over my shoulder]: OMG Mom, tell everyone why don’t you?)

What inspires you out of a writer’s block?

This is where having a co-writer really comes into its own. Having someone to bounce ideas off is brilliant. It may not always take us in directions we were expecting but it’s great for getting things moving. We wrote Demon Familiar (the first book in a new series, Wanted) earlier last year when we were stuck in the bog of eternal edits for Surfacing Secrets. It started as just a vague idea based on photos of a run-down city, like Detroit, and an image of an abandoned parts-shop covered in graffiti. We knew we wanted Fae in it, as Bellora had been playing around with a Fae based story that didn’t get off the ground. Then we threw demons into the mix and wound up with an alternate future world where Demons, Humans and Fae co-exist. Twelve months later, Demon Familiar was born.

Now we need to get our act together and write book two.

Can you tell us what you’re currently working on or any future projects?

With Bellora, I’m gearing up to work on book five of Elemental Evidence and the aforementioned Wanted part two (neither of which have titles at the moment).

I’ve been working on some old material, myself, which is a long running fantasy cycle set in a world where earth magic given by the gods and closely guarded by elf-like beings, restored a dead planet to life. Fantasy fiction is my first love and it would be great if I could finally get this published.

Growing up what were some of your favorite books and authors?

I would read anything with a horse on the cover up to about the age of eleven. Primarily to shut me up, my Mum gave me her copy of Black Beauty when I was about four and I read it from cover to cover, again and again. The Misty of Chincoteague books by Marguerite Henry were a favorite too, and Elynne Mitchell’s Silver Brumby series, set in Australia.

When I was a kid I loved Tove Jansson’s Moominvalley stories. I still have the original paperback novels and find them a very philosophical read in current times.

I recently re-read The Power of Three, by Diana Wynne Jones, a story of three different races of people living on a moor under threat of flooding and all fighting for their own space. Its characters had a huge impact on me as a pre-teen – I remember making my own cut out and color figures of all the principal MCs. It was my first inkling that kids could be activists too. The book is still amazing now, after all these years. 

How can your readers follow you: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Website?

·       I have an Author Page on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ElementalEvidence/

·       Plus there is a Facebook group for Elemental Evidence and other authory updates –

https://www.facebook.com/groups/529757550720623/

·       You can follow me on Twitter @SadieBermingham

·       Or Instagram – sadie_rose_69

What is the one thing you’d love your readers to take away from your books?

I always hope that people will fall in love with our boys as much as we do. When we’re creating a world, we get completely immersed in it and the characters are like the kids we never had. Sometimes they’re awesome and funny, sometimes they’re a pain in the ass, but we still love them to bits.

Fast Fire Questions

Favorite color:    Purple

Lucky number:    42

Soup or stew:    Stew, I can only cook if it’s something that involves one pot. (Unless it’s mushroom soup, in which case, Soup!)

Cat or dog:    I love both but I’m primarily a cat person.

Day or night:    Night Owl

Favorite season:    Autumn

Go to comfort food? – I’m weird, I don’t really eat for comfort, but I do love crumpets, it’s a British thing.

Thank you so much for talking with me.

Giveaway

$10 Amazon gift card and e-books of any two books in the back catalogue that the winner would like/hasn't read. 

Contest ends August 31st

Thanks

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Tour: Breathing Betrayal by Bellora Quinn & Sadie Rose Bermingham #Excerpt #Giveaway

 
Title: Breathing Betrayal

Author: Bellora Quinn and Sadie Rose Bermingham

Series Title and Number: Elemental Evidence, Book One

Publisher: Pride Publishing

Cover Artist: Emmy Ellis

Release Date: June 7^th, 2016

Heat Level: 3

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 96,902

Genre/Tags: Crime and Mystery, Erotic Romance, Paranormal

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Synopsis

Jake Chivis is the descendant of Fire Elementals with a gift for psychometry, the ability to see memories from touching objects. After a bad breakup and trouble at work, Jake gave up his career as a detective in Detroit and moved to England to join a research program studying Elemental gifts at University College London. It seemed like the perfect way to escape his past and start over, and this time he’s vowed not to fall into the trap of dating a coworker. At least that’s the plan, until he meets Doctor Ilmarinen Gale. Mari Gale is blond, sexy, relentlessly academic and comfortable in his own skin in a way Jake envies. After a handful of embarrassing encounters, Jake is ready to resign himself to staying under the radar, but when a colleague’s brother goes missing, he and Mari must work together to find him. As they dig into the inexplicable disappearance, Jake is impressed with Mari’s competence and unique skills, and even more impressed by his ability to wrap Jake around his finger. Together the unlikely pair discover murder, betrayal, secrets and just how high Mari can fan Jake’s flames.

Excerpt

Rain pink-pink-pinked against the window pane and drip-drip-dripped into the pot that Jake had placed under the leak in the hallway. Murky gray morning light greeted him when he opened his eyes. Another drizzly day. He had thought that was just some persistent stereotype, a comic exaggeration—about how rainy it was in London—but so far, this month, it was turning out to be true. Jake was steadily getting used to the weather. It really wasn’t all that different from his native Michigan. He had been told by his colleagues this was an unusually wet November and that when winter finally kicked off, it wouldn’t be as severe as he was accustomed to. That was something to be glad about, at least. The weather was not the only thing he’d had to get used to after moving a little over three and a half thousand miles away from the only place he’d known. London was worlds away from Detroit. It was still alive for one thing, not a dying husk. It was cleaner too, even with more than ten times the population. London had its crime and its dangerous places just like any large city, but even the urban degeneration here had a certain vibrancy to it that was unlike the desperation and decay of Detroit. Enough of that. Thinking about home was a guaranteed way to put him in a bad mood. At least he didn’t hate his new abode. The apartment was small and leaky but it was clean and bug free and he didn’t have a lot of stuff anyway. Four rooms—kitchen, bathroom, small living room and a closet-sized bedroom that was barely big enough to hold a double bed and the armoire. The kitchen was equally tiny. A small fridge, sink and an ancient two-burner stove. There was just enough counter space to plug in his coffeepot. He was not complaining. The small space made it easy to keep warm and clean and discouraged clutter. It was also paid for, which was another big plus. He hadn’t liked that idea at first. He thought the university should just pay him outright and let him figure out how to deal with the rent and utilities, but he had to admit that having them take care of the bills took some of the worry off his mind. Unfortunately he still had plenty of other things to worry about. No, he told himself firmly. He was not going to start off the day thinking about home and everything he’d deliberately left behind when he got on the plane. That was over. Jake dragged himself out of bed and across the living room to the bathroom. After a quick slash, he washed his face, finger-combed his hair with wet hands then threw on some sweats and he was ready for his morning run. There would be time for a shower and food later. Back in Detroit, he would have started his day by driving to the track or the gym to work out before heading to the station house. Here he could walk or use public transportation to get just about anywhere he needed to go. At first the idea of not having a car, of not being able to just hop in and drive wherever he had to go, any time he wanted, had given him more of a panicky, trapped feeling than being an ocean away from everyone he knew and everything familiar. A car was the very first thing he’d asked about, after moving his meager belongings into the apartment. The research assistant who’d been assigned to ensuring he got settled in and had what he needed had told him to give it a week or two and, if he still wanted to purchase a car, the university would arrange it. At the time, Jake had thought there was no possible way he could survive for so long without a vehicle at his disposal, but by the end of his first week he had explored the Tube, the cabs and the buses, got himself an Oyster card and found he could get around remarkably well without having to fight through traffic behind the wheel. He hadn’t brought up the need for a car again. There was a small park only one street over from where he lived, and several right around the university, but they were little more than decorative green space—compact garden squares hemmed in by the tall, dark façades of houses and office buildings—nice for a picnic maybe, but not big enough for a run. Fortunately Regent’s Park was fairly close to where he lived and the paths and trails there were perfect. The park was never truly empty but this early in the morning, especially on such a wet, gray day, only the dedicated were out. They all had little earbuds or headphones on and their eyes were fixed forward, everyone in their own private bubbles. No one stopped to say good morning. No one drew him to one side to ask if he could touch their grandmother’s wedding ring and tell them if she’d hidden cash somewhere in the attic. It was great. It was almost perfect, except for one thing. There was one other person from the university that liked to run the same route he did and while Jake didn’t see him every morning, it happened often enough that he’d started looking for the guy while he ran. That annoyed him. Running was his time to clear his head. It was meditative. He could tune out and think of nothing. Or at least he could until he started paying more attention to the people he passed than he did the simple rhythm of putting one foot down in front of the other. Now during his morning runs, he was distracted by looking around to see if he’d catch sight of a particular slender figure whose long legs ate up the distance like the wind. Jake told himself that he was only looking so that he could avoid him, and thereby avoid having to make polite conversation. It definitely wasn’t because of the way the ridiculously tight Lycra leggings he wore outlined every muscle in his lean thighs or the way his perfect ass looked so tasty in them. No, not at all. Jake never had been very good at lying to himself. Even so, admiring that sexy little derrière from a distance was all he would do. He had learned his lesson about getting involved with coworkers. Anyway, it was unlikely he’d see him today, given the dismal weather. He could stop looking around and just concentrate on pushing himself. * * * * The park was usually Mari’s first call of a morning, though he sometimes gave his running a break when the weather was this grim. Today the rain was that fine, persistent drizzle that evaded umbrellas and invaded just about all items of clothing that weren’t a wetsuit. He was used to it, having spent almost the last three of his twenty-seven years here, at UCL, but after the sunshine of his previous job in Barcelona, it was still kind of a comedown to walk out of his front door on a morning like this. Fortunately the park was just around one corner, and the university campus just around the other, one of the perks of living in town. Papi had wanted to pay for a place out in the countryside, arguing that it would be more peaceful, but his Mama would hear none of it. The London house had been her grandmother’s then her father’s. He had been renting it out for years while the family lived abroad but now it was finally useful, even if the reason behind its new purpose was a less than happy one. Plus, Mama argued successfully—because no one, not even Papi, would dare to fight with her right now—it was also a short cab ride to the hospital, not an ungodly trek through the suburbs every time she had treatment or saw her oncologist. He pushed those thoughts away, determined not to dwell on what might be, knowing she would not thank him for it. She had not wanted him to come to London at all, but on that point he had dared to defy her and anyway, he’d already been offered and had accepted the post at University College London. It was a decent job, even if London was not Barcelona. There was no one quite like Tomas here, but maybe that was a good thing too. Mari put his head down and pushed on into the clinging miasma of the chill London rain. Tomas Arregui was something else he would rather not think about right now. With the clarity of hindsight, perhaps it had been for the best that the job had come up with UCL when it did. Given longer to chew over the frustration of his on-again, off-again lover, he might well have been driven to do something he would most certainly regret. Damn it, though! The memory of Tomas was like a persistent tic that wouldn’t let go of his hide once its nasty little fangs had sunk in. He was glad of the distraction presented in the form of another early-morning loper and his spirits perked up even more when he was able to make out the familiar form and easy gait of the new guy who was working with the Web Security Team. Mari had spotted him striding through the park before, though they had never spoken. Lester in the print room said he was American, though Mari thought there was a slightly Hispanic look to his rough-cut, thick black hair and darkly handsome features. Maybe Romani, even? He couldn’t be sure. He was well built without looking chunky, except when he was bundled up in several layers of damp running gear, and almost as tall as Mari’s six-foot-two-inch frame, which was a plus. It got embarrassing trying to flirt with men who were forced to look up at him all the time. Not that he had any idea if Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome was even that way inclined. But that never stopped him testing the waters. Alicia in his department said that one day some guy was going to punch his lights out for flirting the way he did, as if every man in the world was automatically gay and, by definition, hot for him. He’d made her laugh with his mock-horrified response. “You mean they aren’t?”

Purchase

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Meet the Authors

Bellora Quinn: Originally hailing from Detroit Michigan, Bellora now resides on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida where a herd of Dachshunds keeps her entertained. She got her start in writing at the dawn of the internet when she discovered PbEMs (Play by email) and found a passion for collaborative writing and steamy hot erotica. Soap Opera like blogs soon followed and eventually full novels. The majority of her stories are in the M/M genre with urban fantasy or paranormal settings and many with a strong BDSM flavour.

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Sadie Rose Bermingham: A storyteller since before she started school, Sadie also enjoys reading, photography, live music and long walks on the beach. Sadie has worked as a bookseller, a pedigree editor for the racing industry and a local and family history researcher. Originally from the north of England, she has been working her way across the UK ever since. She currently resides on the south east coast with her long term partner, where she hopes to buy a mobile home and establish a whippet farm.

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Tour Stops

6/7 The Novel Approach 6/7 Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 6/8 Diverse Reader 6/8 MM Good Book Reviews 6/8 Attention is Arbitrary 6/9 Prism Book Alliance 6/9 Boy Meets Boy Reviews 6/9 Sinfully 6/10 Love Bytes Reviews 6/10 Joyfully Jay 6/10 Inked Rainbow Reads 6/11 Molly Lolly 6/11 Bayou Book Junkie

Giveaway

Rafflecopter Prize: One winner will be selected to win an eBook copy of Breathing Betrayal a Rafflecopter giveaway