I’m delighted today to feature guest Author Poppet and  promote her latest release, “Master of Umbra.” Poppet is a prolific author of Horror, Paranormal Romance and Children’s books. Always intense, always well written, her novels will keep you on the edge until the very end. This author does her research and it shows in every crackling detail.

To give an idea of how many books she’s written, I’ll only list the ones I’ve read…in no particular order: Indigo Vamporium, Seithe, Venix, Zauran, Sveta, Erra, Erra Mor, Djinn, Demenion Book 1, Demenion Book 2, Demenion Book 3, Dusan, Darkroom, Quislings, Fey’s Adventures, Blindsided. I’m probably forgetting some! I am excited about this one because it takes place in Scotland!
You can link to Poppet and her books in the following ways:
Facebook
Goodreads
Twitter
Website
Blog
Pinterest

Links to buy Master of Umbra:
Amazon US: http://amzn.com/B00D4E8UWE
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00D4E8UWE

But now, as promised, Master of Umbra, which I’ve just barely started. And as a special bonus, the fifth person who makes a comment on the blog gets a free copy of Master of Umbra.

Title: Master of Umbra by Poppet
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Book description:
Deliah is in grave danger, running for her life from a man who needs her dead, when serendipity plants her in the path of the Master of Umbra.
Inducted into the mysterious Eagle clan of the Scottish highlands, Deliah is torn between her fate and destiny when kin clash for her
affections. Falling for the scandalous villain who heads the Berserkers of the Hebrides, her fragile hope is snuffed out early by revelation and impending war. The only mantra she can cling to is the one uttered in heartfelt promise; that love comes back.
Because that’s what love does.

Here’s an excerpt:

The solid door hefts up, reinforced with metal, magnetite, and a ton of
finfolk magic. Ducking under the spikes I bolt into the ring, charging
the waiting bastard straight on. Delivering a full body blow with my
shoulder, I hook his neck under my elbow, yanking him down to meet my
fist, which I pummel into his face repeatedly.
Blood bathes my hand and I only stop the assault when bone meets bone. Releasing him to collapse on the battle scarred floor, I saunter to the basin, rinsing my hands of his inferior blood.
He’s doubled over, cradling his face, hacking a choking cough.
“What’s your name, son?” I demand, taking a slow stroll back, restraining myself because every urge I have is demanding death. I want to kill him.
“D..ominic.”
It’s a faint agonizing squeal and I look up at the gathering audience. Finding Alan in the crowd, I ask him, “Is that true?”
“No chief. His name is Dias. The scouts located his hotel room and inside the false floor of his laptop cover we discovered his ID documents,” he shouts down to me.
Lifting the fuck-up off the floor by his shirt, I hold him out away from me, the way I’d hold out a soiled diaper from a newborn, “You want to lie to me again, Dias? You sure you want to do that?”
Dropping him from shoulder height, he oofs pathetically, rolling and curling into a fetal position. The bone is exposed in his cheek, his face already puffy, his nose broken. He’s in a world of suffering and I still need answers. Breathing is his only priority right now, a
priority I’m going to undermine. Gripping the man’s hand, I snap his elbow over my forearm. Scream number four delivers music to the chamber of pain.
He’s a small assed runt. Humans were made to feed to the haug-bui. They are too small, insignificant, weak. Gripping his fist in my hand, twice the size of his, I apply
pressure until two knuckles pop,
“Dias, you’re a man who likes to hurt women. Tell me son, how does it feel? Do you enjoy it?”
His answer is the shrill wail you’d expect from a man waking to his morning glory only to discover a wendigo’s cold mouth is inducing his hard-on.
I crack the next knuckle, his hand becoming limp and useless encased in mine, “Dias, how did you torture Deliah?”
I can’t hear his answer as the crowd looking down on me go apeshit.
“Blood blood blood blood!” chants manically from the witnesses. Discovering he hurt one of our own has signed his death warrant.
Slashing my hand at them, I yell, “Quiet!” The hush is ominous as the tension ratchets. If I don’t end him, they will. Good eagles! “I didn’t hear your answer, son. Tell me exactly how you tortured Deliah.”
After three spits of bloodied gob, he wheezes, “Jumper cables–”
I don’t hear anything else, my fury erupts and I’m out of control, delivering justice in the peaceful zen calm of a berserker within the bliss of Odin.
This is my happy place, my peaceful place, where my mind wanders as if in a dream, where Odin’s girls surround me with whispers and teasing smiles, urging me to give them another soul.

Bombed backward, my lip split with the impact, I snap out of it, focusing on Gunn as he forces me down, holding me back, restraining my arms while he bodily harnesses me to the ground.
“Enough!”
“Gunn,” I smile at him. He’s the rightful one to take Dias’ life.
“Finish him. He’s yours to destroy.”

Another excerpt to really get you interested…

Leaving the Blackmount forest he takes me directly to the Ring of Brodgar by planting his glowing sword in the ground, igniting an iridescent bridge across the sky from our lofty mountain lair.
Somber clouds scurry overhead, obscuring the sky’s sunny hearth with atramentous oppression, making the day as dark as the moment Odin bequeathed his eye for insight. The wind thrusts nebulosity with turgid speed, driving the murky brume with the ferocity of a baron scattering the illegitimate from the firstborns.
“Quickly sweetheart, the gata only lasts long enough for us to transport.”
“But we’ll fall through it! A rainbow is nothing more substantial than vapor,” I object, my stomach doing the heave ho at how high we are. “What’s gata?” I shriek belatedly, wobbling on the cliff’s precipice.
“Gata is olde Norse for road, this is the gata of bifrost, which means the road of light to god. It’s called faith in the gods for a reason, poppet. Trust me, Liah. I’ll never let harm befall you.” He takes a firm hold of my hand, pulling me forcefully with him onto the coruscating colors of the sevenfold firmament.
It yanks us, barreling us across the sky in a time warp hallucination, the only sound an eerie whistling of dirge-like keening.
Deposited directly into the middle of a wide flat henge surrounded with frosted heather, a clock of rugged slabs salute the sky, aside a loch so moody it mirrors the eyes of scrying hags on every pique in the choppy water. My heart is hiccuping when I turn to see the rainbow flickering out of existence.
“What the fuck, Ewan?”
“I’m Odin’s grandson. This is nothing, wait until you meet my cousins.”
“I thought all those men back in the Umbra catacombs were your kin?” I argue, my head reeling to keep up with this weirdness.
He gives me a ravishing grin, “I am a complex man of many talents, Liah. I am the modern equivalent of Odin, there’s much within my power to execute. This is your reality now, this is your heritage and your birthright. You’ll learn these talents yourself in the following months.”
“So, why are we here?” I ask, looking at the infinite ring of craggy bones.
“This is where we knock to enter. Then we have a quick stop-off at my sire’s stones, and then we go calling on the draugr.”
Abandoning me, he circles deosil, along the inside of the ring of stone, touching each jagged tooth with that strange sword of his which glows with stellar mystery; the blade dancing with starbursts within its boundaries, as if it encapsulates nuclear fission and China’s horde of exploding fireworks.
Returning to my side, he plants the point of the sword in the earth at our feet and a new rainbow arcs across the ominous sky, unveiling a new Asgardian way to travel. I wonder if he gets frequent flier credits for this? The next location is so close I merge into the blur as a new henge zooms at us from just across the way.
Accelerating through a warp to a point outside a much tighter circle of stones I recognize what they call the watchstone, the sentry protecting the inner circle. Water flows either side of us, roiling with secrets and dark tides.
Walking silently side by side, huge menhirs rise out of the misty wraiths like a citadel for death dreamers. The specters stand erect and desolate, glistening wet with hazed breath, wearing enigmatic shrouds of tenebrous fog.
Ewan wraps his arm around me, saying softly, “These are the standing stones of Stenness.”
“Stane-is?” I whisper back, looking at the looming monstrosities.
“It comes from the Norse words meaning stone headland. Be careful of the ditch, here let me help you over.” Strong hands circle my waist and he lifts me as easily as a child, putting my feet down on the grass next to the towering slab. “We enter on the north side, come poppet,” he says, taking hold of my hand and leading me around the ghostly circle. “One thing few people know about the geology sketch map of ancient Orkney, is that the monuments when they have a line drawn from one to the next mirrors the constellation Serpentarius and Serpens. It’s an ancient oath of our holiest, a celestial and landlocked effigy of the almighty subduing the toxic influence of the sly.”
“Why are we here?” I ask, keeping my voice low. This is like walking into a holy library, the atmosphere bidding me to subconsciously show reverence.
“To look through the Odin stone. I want to show you my original home.”