Book Promotional and excerpt of Judgement of Souls
Hosted by Bewitching Book Tours
Judgement of Souls
By Margarita Felices
Book
Excerpt:
If you have to find a sacred book in order to redeem your
parents, find and kill Max, the person responsible for their punishment. The same man that broke your heart and turned
your perfect world upside down and try to keep the mortal man you now love safe
from this vindictive Vampire’s sword, then you should read Rachel’s story.
JUDGMENT OF SOULS is
a Gothic horror in which a naïve pureblood Vampire is tossed into the mortal
world. Rachel meets Daniel, a nightclub
owner and his group of friends and after Daniel’s best friend is murdered by
Max, becomes embroiled in the search for an ancient Vampire artefact. Rachel tries to fight off her feelings for
Daniel, even siding with her Vampire friend Arun to think again about Daniel’s
involvement, but he’s her love and she’s going to protect him, no matter what.
Book Excerpt:
EXCERPT FROM JUDGEMENT OF SOULS 3: The
Kiss at Dawn
CHAPTER ONE
Rachel landed softly on the tiled
floor. The rooftop garden had received
its usual hoard of visitors that day but as always, nothing was disturbed. She was glad of the quiet, this was her
place to think and gather her thoughts, even though she could still hear the
faint voices of the usual Friday evening band of office workers making their way
to the most popular bars in their area. By ten thirty Cardiff was a lively metropolis filled with
loud music and voices. Different
coloured lights shone from neon signs, reflecting onto walls and windows and
onto passing cars that seemed oblivious to the petty squabbles that were
starting up in the streets. The smells from restaurants wafted around the city
streets enticing all to come and eat. Rachel remembered back to the days when
the city was just a shipping town that exported coal and steel, but still one
of the greatest ports in the world. She loved to look out from the tower of the
Castle and see the changes that had taken place. The old shanty type shops were now new
shopping precincts; the changes and better health care meant the people seemed
to live longer. She guessed it was probably the main reason why immigrants
descended on the city when their ships made port. They brought their families to
this new city and soon a multicultural area called
Tiger Bay was born. Old terraced houses had filled
with children and laughter, neighbours met on doorsteps to gossip and at the
end of each week, husbands took their wives to the local public houses, each
visit ringing out into the night with songs of old ways and old countries. It was a community so alive and caring that
when eager politicians decided it all should be pulled down to make way for
penthouses, bars and cafes and these people scattered to different areas of Cardiff, they unknowingly
tore away the one thing the city cared deeply about, the heart that was its
communities. For a few years after, it
was a sterile cold place, with odd remnants of the past still visible. But now Cardiff
was about to celebrate its centenary as a city; and a new caring society was beginning
to rise from the ashes of the old; a new life, a new sense of community, a new
Cardiff. And Rachel couldn’t be happier. Few places of the old city were left, which is why Rachel liked to
spend most of her time in the open tower of the castle that dominated the
centre of the city.
With just over an hour left until sunrise,
Rachel leaned over the edge of the tower looking down onto the street
below. She was an alluring woman aged
around thirty-two with shoulder length brown hair; and if it wasn’t for her
porcelain skin and slender physique she would easily be the kind of person
you’d pass in the street, quickly glance at and then glance away from. The blue jeans, the white woollen jumper and
three-quarter-length leather jacket she wore accentuated her slight figure. She
had seen the tower with its sculptured roof garden and ornate Victorian
fountain when she flew over the castle and the scent from the orchids that grew
there wafted up as she past. She decided
to take a closer look and after the first time she came as many times as she
could. Time had passed, and a hundred
and thirty-five years later, she couldn’t think of anywhere in the world where
she felt more comfortable. She could
think here; she often brought books and immersed herself in the mortal world
that at times she wanted so much to be a part of.
And this was her favourite time of the night;
the streets were quiet, except for a few revellers making their way home. The street lamps illuminated the city, as did
the lights scattered around the castle she watched the world from. On the ground, a white mist started to rise
from beneath the city, similar to a warm breath on a cold night. A light breeze brushed passed her and
although it was late autumn, the skies were clear with several stars and a big
bright moon.
But that same breeze drifted Rachel into a
dream-like state, to thoughts of the Elysium and the day of her embrace. She remembered the temple decorated with a
mixture of coloured ribbons, lilies and vines and her parents, Phillipe and
Arianna de Grosnez, who watched as Demitri, the highest ruler in the Ministry
of Elders, prepared her for the next steps in a tradition that had started six
thousand years ago. Demitri had given
consent to her birth - as siring an offspring without Ministry consent was
forbidden – and it was therefore right he would be the one to end her mortal
life and give her this new life.
She smiled as she remembered her feelings of
excitement and the stories her parents had told her as she grew up about the
ceremony and what she would become.
It was her coming of age.
Then she clenched her hands, her knuckles whitened
and her smile faded as she remembered the attack on the Elysium, her parents’
banishment from their home and betrayal by the one person she thought she could
trust; all those memories, a lifetime away, but still fresh in her mind. There was only one person to blame: a man
who had broken her heart and condemned her and her parents to shame. Shaking his image from her mind, she recalled
the night she convinced her parents they should sleep until she could redeem
their souls from the darkness and re-install them back into the centre of the
Elysium. As they lay together, she
kissed them, covered their coffin with a slab of stone and left them to the
darkness.
One last look around and Rachel leapt over the
turret and made her way down the back-facing wall of the tower. It was a twenty foot drop that would have
probably killed or severely injured a mortal, but Rachel landed gracefully and
walked away, almost floating as she hurried.
She had a little under an hour to get back to the safety of the coven.
CHAPTER TWO
The Underground Palace was a refuge for people tired of
the usual designer-clad, boom-cha music clubs that filled the city. Set back in the older part of town away from
the trendy clubs, it was an 18th century Gothic-styled church with
pillars and arches to the front and sides decorated with spirals and stone
roses, that up to three years ago had most of its roof resting between rotting
benches and overgrown plants and was in urgent need of repair.
But when Daniel
and Tobey saw it they knew it was perfect, and spent nearly every penny they
owned in restoring it. With its newly
acquired underground reputation, the club catered to head-banging heavy metal,
Goths and Indie freaks and was ‘the’ place to hide and become someone
else, if only for a few hours. It was a full house tonight as Daniel and Tobey
sat together, transfixed on the dance floor.
It had been Daniel’s idea to hold a Halloween fancy dress party; usually
they didn’t bother, leaving that sort of event to the over-commercialised clubs
in the town, but they needed an excuse to bring more punters in tonight.
Daniel Moore was in his middle thirties, with
shoulder length dark brown hair and emerald green eyes. He wasn’t paying too
much attention to the scantily clad women dancing provocatively close by him to
gain his interest. Instead, he chose to
busy himself by rolling a cigarette and then lighting it; he’d seen it all
before and it was getting to be old hat.
But his friend Tobey Jacobs sat fascinated at
what he saw was on offer; even Daniel’s chatter didn’t deter his gaze from at
least one young woman in particular.
Tobey smiled as the woman made her way towards him. His short blonde
hair glistened under the theatrical lights that bounced off the walls and was
offset by the blueness of his eyes and the playful, yet mischievous look they
portrayed.
Daniel sighed: another typical evening, but at
least the place was full.
Author Information:
I live in Cardiff with my partner and three
little mad dogs and I work for a well-known TV broadcasting company. I love
living in Cardiff because, for all its modernisation, there are still remnants of an old Victorian city. I love
writing and base my stories in Cardiff because it has such character. When I can, I go out to the coast and take
photographs, mind you, we have a lovely castle in the city centre and a
fairytale one just on the outskirts, so when I feel I can’t write anything, I
take a ramble to those locations and it clears my head.
I suppose it was
inevitable that someday I would write a novel. My teachers at school used to limit me
to no more than ten pages. When I
left school, I wrote short stories for magazines, and it paid my way
through college. I am Gothic; I love the
fashion, the architecture and the music. The club in my novel is real. When I
was writing book one, I got all my club material and clientele from here, I
wouldn’t have finished that section without it.
My first full length
novel is called Judgement of Souls: The Kiss at Dawn.
It’s the last story in a trilogy.
I am currently writing story two, the prequel, and after that will be
the very first book in the series. I’ve
written short stories for magazines, one about a fake psychic, one about a
woman who after an accident is given blood and then starts to see grisly
murders in her dreams. And I have a TV
script, it’s a romantic story that needs a re-write, it needs to be much longer
and it needs to be made into a novel. It’s on my to-do list.
Author Question and Answer:
Q: Tell
us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a
writer?
A: I live in Cardiff.
For all its modernisation, there are still remnants of old Victorian Cardiff. I
love the castle in the centre of the city and the fact that you have the sea on
one side and the mountains on the other side of Cardiff.
I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. I’ve always loved to write. My teachers at school used to limit me to no
more than ten pages. I wrote short
stories for magazines, it paid my way through college.
Q: What
genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
A:
Supernatural stories, they are fun and you can let your imagination run
riot. I wrote a romantic story once as a
screenplay. I might re-write it as a
novel one day, I liked the story.
Q: Did
you have any say in the title / covers of your book(s)? How important do you
think they are?
A: Very important.
I loved the cover the moment I saw it.
I did have another idea but I think that will fit nicely in book
two. I chose the title myself and didn’t
want it changed.
Funnily enough each book will be called Judgement of
Souls. But it will have a smaller title
after it… The next is called Judgement
of Souls: The Call of the Righteous.
Q: What
are you working on at the moment / next? Do you manage to write every day?
A: I’m writing book two of the Judgement of Souls
trilogy. I’d like to write everyday but
it’s not always possible, I have a full-time job so I try and fit writing in
when I can. I carry a Dictaphone so that
if I get ideas I can record them for later.
Q: Some
writers like quiet, others the noise of a coffee shop etc., do you listen to
music or have noise around you when you write or do you need silence?
A: I write better at home and usually at night. I have the TV on or I listen to music, I need
background noise.
Q: What
do you like to read?
A: Anything supernatural. It has to grip me in the first few pages, my
time is precious and I don’t like to waste it, I’m picky about what I
read. If you write about a certain object
and take five pages to describe it, I’ll just close the book and not pick it up
again.
Q: If you
could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what
would you cook (or invite three people, hiding the takeaway containers)?
A: I would definitely invite Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker
and Anne Rice. Can you imagine what kind
of conversation we would have around the table?
I’d be frightened to go to sleep that night I can tell you. But I bet I’d get a great story from it all.
I love seafood and pasta, so perhaps that and maybe some Sushi.
Q: Where
can we find out about you and your work?
A: At the moment you can contact me via www.bookstogonow.com
I’m in the middle of having a website made for me
and I’m getting a Book Promo done.
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