Cougars are Coming to Town--And I mean... Cougars!

Cougar’s Mate: Instinct told her to run…

Shannon Rafferty learns that hanging out with the bad boys could be a dangerous business, but hooking up with a cop is even worse. Now she’s on the run, trying to avoid being murdered by his cougar shifter brothers and uncle. If that isn’t bad enough, a deputy sheriff hunts her down while she’s running as a cougar and trying to survive in the Colorado wilderness. He vows to protect her no matter what she’s done. With three dead boyfriends to her name, she’s sure she will be the death of Chase Buchanan before either of them can prevent it. No matter how much she knows she has to run again, he soon holds her heart hostage. But will that be enough to keep them both alive?

Chase Buchanan—as wilderness cabin resort owner, former US Army Special Forces, and part time deputy of the small town of Yuma, Colorado that boasts a love of cougars—is tasked to track down a cougar reported to be hunting human prey. Chase soon learns she’s a shifter, not a full-time cougar, and she’s on the run. When he takes her in, he vows to protect her. After losing his wife and baby to the human kind of predator years earlier, he’s not letting Shannon’s hunters kill her, too. But how is he going to hold onto the wild-cat woman, who is unpredictable at every turn, without losing his heart to her, and then losing her as well?

***

One of the joys of writing books is writing The End. I have a TON of books I’ve started and are still works in progress, some that I’ve finished that still need a lot of revisions, but there is nothing like the thrill of writing a book from beginning to end!

I’m currently rereading Cougar’s Mate and catching mistakes. Here are a couple that I thought you might enjoy: He’s gone to bed and he’s on his laptop when he gets a call from the sheriff and learns who Shannon is. So he has to talk with her about what they’re going to do about the trouble she’s in.
The mistake in the scene? He went to bed naked. He’s a shifter, what can I say? And he’s alone.

But…. he didn’t throw anything on before he went to talk to her.

I love writing. :)  Sometimes the mistakes we catch are just as much fun!

Another: He’s wounded, has to locate his phone. His police phone is outside. She had used his personal phone in his bedroom as the bad guys are trying to reach her. She drops the phone and shifts and heads out through his window. He realizes she has to have left the phone in the bedroom and he desperately needs it to call for help. So he goes into the bedroom, and sure enough, it’s there. Wait.

The door was locked to keep the bad guys out.

Hopefully after it’s reviewed thoroughly, it will be ready in a couple of weeks. So yesterday after writing the end, I took a break to proof the rest of the 21 chapters of the audio book for The Highlander. And today, I’m rereading the last half of Cougar’s Mate. And I already started rereading the first 12,000 words of The Viking’s Highland Lass so I can get to writing on it again. Then I have to write A SEAL Wolf for Sale.






But I just got the edits for A Highland Wolf Christmas!

Wait! Shouldn’t I have had a celebration in there for finishing another book this year?????
I will when I see my daughter and SIL and we’re going to do lots of fun things. So for now, I’m trying to get as much done before that happens!

This book was a lot of fun. But then, I always have fun writing them! As with all my shifter books, I based a lot of the animal on the real animal–so I always enjoy researching about the animal and its characteristics and behavior while I’m writing. Jaguars love the water and love to swim. I never really thought of cougars caring for the water. But I was looking for references to this and found one where a cougar was swimming after a fishing boat! They caught it on Youtube. And then another was a photographer’s beautiful pictures of a cougar jumping up and into the water to rescue her cub that had fallen into the stream. He caught a picture of the leap, and then of her with the dripping wet cub in her mouth. Really cute.

I’m off to read and then write.

Ready for some cougar shifters?

Have a lovely Monday!!!




Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male!”
www.terryspear.com

Recommended Read! & Heart of the Wolf Video

NEW Review!!

5 Angels & Recommended Read~~Fallen Angel Reviews!!

Heart of the Wolf by Terry Spear is a fantastic new addition to the popular trend of shape shifter stories. I loved this story, not only does Ms. Spear draw the reader into the lives of Bella and Devlyn and the other people they interact with but she has painstakingly researched the behavior of real wolves in the wild to add realism to the behavior of the werewolves in their wolf form and pack behavior. Normally I don’t find shape shifter stories humorous unless it is intended to be a kind of spoof, but this story has a humorous streak running through it. There is a human man who wants to rescue the wolf form of Bella and place her in a zoo for her protection and he is relentless in his pursuit to save the stray red wolf. This man keeps complicating Bella’s situation and adds some funny dilemmas for Bella and Devlyn to work around and right in the midst of all of their life threatening problems.

Heart of the Wolf is full of action, adventure, suspense, and romance and is one of best werewolf stories I’ve read. I hope this is just the first book of a new series because I would love to read more by Ms. Spear about the wolf packs introduced in this tale. There are plenty of great secondary characters that would make interesting spin offs for another book. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves a good paranormal, romantic suspense, and shape shifter story!Reviewed by: Stephanie B.http://fallenangelreviews.com/2008/February/StephanieB-HeartOfTheWolf.htm

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Heart of the Wolf--Publisher's Weekly Review

From Publisher's Weekly--

Heart of the Wolf Terry Spear. Sourcebooks/Casablanca, $6.99 (384p) ISBN 978−1−4022−1157−7
Red werewolf Bella flees her adoptive pack of gray werewolves when the alpha male Volan tries forcibly to claim her as his mate. Her real love, beta male Devlyn, has been out of her life for years, but comes after her when she finds herself accidentally captured by humans. Bella becomes convinced that Devlyn only wants to return her to Volan, but soon realizes that Devlyn loves her as much as she loves him, and is willing to fight Volan to the death to claim her. That problem pales, however, as a pack of red werewolves takes to killing human females in a crazed quest to claim Bella for their own. Bella and Devlyn must defeat the rogue wolves before Devlyn's final confrontation with Volan. The vulpine couple's chemistry crackles off the page, but the real strength of the book lies in Spear's depiction of pack power dynamics, as well as in the details of human−wolf interaction. Her wolf world feels at once palpable and even plausible. (Apr.)
(c) 2007 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Terry Spear,

Heart of the Wolf

www.terryspear.com Sign up on my newsletter for contests coming up!

How to Promote Werewolves...Any Werewolf Specialty Shops out there??

My mother bought me two books on promotions for Christmas and I'm enjoying them, but....it's kind of hard for me to try out some of these super ideas for HEART OF THE WOLF.

One author sold his new book based on being a new father to hospitals, gift stores, etc. This is great.

Yes, go for niche marketing. If you have a book that features travel, hit up all the travel bureaus, airport gift shops, etc. Have a book about a local place where it has a lot of visitors looking for souvenirs, sell to the gift stores in the local area. My mother-in-law bought a mystery thriller, though she didn't usually read them, because it was set in Keene, NH where they had a cabin and it was pushed in that area, local setting, local author.

An author created a book about quilts for the crafter in mind and then self published because, according to publishers, people didn't make quilts anymore. Now since this lady was a quilter, attended numerous quilt shows all over the country, and had won at several shows, but most of all found there were NO books on how to quilt, she knew there was a market for it. So she self published. After selling to quilting craft stores and at shows all over the states....she sold 100K on her own, a publishing company picked her up for the next 100K. She's had several printings and written subsequent books on quilting.

But how do you sell werewolves? :)

For WINNING THE HIGHLANDER'S HEART, since there are plenty of real characters from Henry I's time in the book, I've played up the historical, medieval (I gave a talk about medieval life to a book club where we had wine and cheese!, and am scheduled to have a medieval garden type booth at a garden show), and Scottish aspects (sold to several Scots, and have a lot of Scots in my family tree)....I've been able to market based on several niches.)

But werewolves?

When we were at the movies to see Sweeny Todd (I was very fortunate to see the play in NYC some years ago), there were several trailers for other fantasy shows coming up. Urban fantasy/paranormal/fantasy are all still making their impact on the world.

Vampires...hmmm-hmm...acceptable. But werewolves?

Welcome to my world, where wolves are wolves with a human sensibility, and humans are gifted with the wolf's keen senses. See what happens when the lupus garou break free of the rules of their society, wreaking havoc, and threatening exposure of their special kind. Read how Devlyn rescues Bella only to find themselves in worse trouble than before.

HEART OF THE WOLF is set in Colorado and Oregon. So that's a niche! I went to college in Portland and my grandfather was one of the first doctors in Beaverton, suburb of Portland. Maybe a tie in? I lived in Colorado too. Another tie in?

So you have to find ways to get your work noticed. Finding a niche for more unusual kinds of books might be difficult, but not impossible! You just have to get a little creative!

HEART OF THE WOLF is coming out April Fool's Day. No fooling!

Terry Spear
www.terryspear.com