Guest Post with Author Nara Malone and Giveaway

Today I would like to welcome to RFTC author Nara Malone. Nara is currently on tour for her book Blind Heat and has stopped by to chat. Before I give the floor over to Nara, lets get to know her some.

Like the heroine, Allie, in Blind Heat, Nara is face blind and lived with the condition not knowing there was a medical explanation for her inability to remember faces. It’s a rare and only recently publicized condition. She hopes Blind Heat will help get the word out about face blindness.

Nara lives on a small farm in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains. When she's not writing, she loves to run, hike, bike, and kayak. Every story she tells incorporates her love of animals, nature, and adventure.

Places to find Nara:

| Site | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | 

Lonely at the Top

Marcus St. Germaine is the high magus of the Pantherians and a millennial being. Not only has he lived longer than any Pantherian in the recorded history of the tribe, but he is still very youthful , with the appearance and abilities of a human male in his thirties. A thousand years of living can impart a lot of wisdom and it’s easy to see why his people regard him as mystical, someone to be revered and maybe feared. He may be wise, but he’s not immortal. He may have been around a long time, but there is one thing he has never had, a true mate. An equal. He knows he never will.

Even if a wasting sickness hadn’t made females a rare and precious resource among Pantherians, it’s not likely he’d find a female comfortable enough to treat him like an ordinary male. He knows he’ll never have a female to share his secrets and dreams. And he’s got a few secrets. Marcus thinks he wants to be treated like everyone else. He doesn’t feel special. He doesn’t want to be special. Maybe that’s why he’s gotten comfortable living among humans. When he runs into Allie, a woman who is so unimpressed with him that she doesn’t even remember him from one meeting to the next, he’s miffed and he’s hooked.

It goes both ways. Allie thinks she wants an ordinary life. She escaped from a crime-boss father. She needs to live in an unremarkable little town and become an unremarkable woman. Attracting a Pantherian shape shifter doesn’t quite fit in with her plans. She doesn’t know Marcus isn’t human, but someone who has been waited on and revered for centuries tends to acquire a regal aura and a touch of arrogance. He’s learned a lot over the centuries, but he still has lessons to learn. Allie is the woman to teach them.

I had fun with this character. I liked the idea of the wise all-knowing magus, who isn’t perfect. I liked that he had to earn his most important life lesson from someone centuries younger than him.

I really love romances where love helps the characters become who they need to be to rescue themselves. That’s what Marcus and Allie do for each other.

~Nara Malone


Allie is determined to build an ordinary life. To survive, she needs to be the sort of woman no one notices. She has a generic job, lives in a generic apartment, and thinks maybe one day she’ll find an ordinary Joe who wants an average Jane sort of woman.

Marcus is anything but an ordinary Joe. Even if humans don’t know he’s a shifter and millennial being, he’s the sort of man women notice. A night of passion spent with Marcus is a night any female, human or Pantherian, won’t forget.

But Allie does forget. She repeatedly fails to recognize him even after an intense sexual encounter. Marcus discovers the source of her problem—face blindness, a genetic disorder with no cure. And he decides to use erotic rituals to teach her to see with more than her eyes. What he doesn’t count on is Allie seeing past the man—and recognizing the beast within.

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The greatest threats from a man were injury or death. She’d known how to read those kinds of threats in a man before she was old enough to read a book. She could see no intent to harm. No evil. He looked at her as if he’d discovered something precious. A warmth seemed to reach from his eyes into her soul, drawing her closer. She made her choice.

The red cloth shimmered with an aura of passion, dared her to press her body to it. The thought sent her blood zinging through her veins. There was something there, something irresistible. His eyes spoke promises she could feel. Her feet wouldn’t let her turn away, but took the risk. Took one step. Then the next. Her lips burned with a need to glide over his jawline, explore planes and angles with kisses and nips. Her heart hammered so loud he had to hear it even over the rain.

True to his word, he didn’t move an inch until she was right there in front of him, reaching to press her hands to the shirt, feel its heat, prove he was real. Her palms sighed with pleasure, like the fabric was a meal to be savored. His strong fingers closed around her wrist then, not painfully but with the finality of a manacle, reminding her that he’d said he wouldn’t let her go until he had what he wanted.

“Good girl,” he whispered, soothing away the little trill of fear that rose with his touch, stroking her face with the backs of his fingers. Her body sang like chimes in the wind, notes shivering down her spine.

“I won’t stop at a kiss,” he said. “But you can start with one. Make it sweet.”

She rose obediently to her toes, finding his lips, feeling them firm, parting under hers. He ordered and demanded with such a low, seductive tone. If he’d told her to go rob the jewelry store, in just the same way, it would have seemed a good idea.

He shifted, turning quickly so she was between him and the tree, cutting off any chance to change her mind and run. He held her face between his hands, and her own hands felt small and fragile against the breadth of his. He kissed his desire into her. Her mind grappled to reassert caution, but her thoughts slipped away, formless as water spilling through fingers. He didn’t stop kissing until she stopped thinking, until the rigidity in her muscles softened, until she kissed him back.

He tasted like spring rain.

His hands were warm through her soggy shirt, his fingers curved under her chilled breasts, his thumbs stroking over the tops. Thumbs and fingers came together, squeezing until she squirmed. His lips and tongue moved over her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone, a warm, sensual touch that made her whimper. He split the worn cotton with a sharp twist. The ripping sound jolted her. Her shirt split down the center, parting to offer her breasts. A wave of fear welled in her belly. of desire trickled between her thighs. She glanced down the puddled path. He pressed her tighter against the tree.

“You had your chance,” he whispered. “It’s the last I’m willing to give you for a while.”

Check out the other book in the Pantherian Passions series:

Click on cover for more info.

Want to win some goodies from Nara? Check out what's up for grabs.

Up for grabs:

• 1 lucky commenter from the ENTIRE tour will win an eBook copy of The Tiger's Tale as well as a $10 Gift Card to Ellora's Cave.
• 1 lucky commenter from the ENTIRE tour will win a Gift Card to purchase a video game targeted for female gamers written by Nara Malone with Orchid Games. 

To Enter:

• Please leave a meaningful comment or question for Nara. 
• Please leave your email address along with your comment to be entered. 
• Giveaway ends July 27th.

Good Luck =)