My Reviews of Rivka's work
Masquerade
Carnevale
A little about Rivka in her own words….
I'm a bestselling author living in the Highlands of Scotland. I've been writing and publishing for more than two years now and I'm still as much in love with it as I was when I first set out. Before that I was writing for my own pleasure and the books are best left forgotten! I actually have a fiction graveyard in my craft room known as the drawer of forgotten dreams for all the books that don't make it past first or partial draft stage. I also do work as a freelance editor for other authors and I'm in the process of setting up a digital publishing imprint. Other than writing, I have way too many hobbies. I make textiles and jewellery and I'm always on the lookout to try new things. I'm an avid reader of most genres. I love jelly beans and Christmas and singing too loudly when I think no-one can hear me. This is usually the part of the bio where people say they live with their husband, six kids, twelve cats, two dogs, pet mouse and twenty exotically coloured birds of excessive plumage. That's not me. I'm a single girl, happily chasing my dreams.
My books -
Masquerade
Carnevale (Masquerade series)
Obsession (Masquerade series)
Sage (Last Ancient series)
Marked (Last Ancient series)
Summer Loving
The Broken Souls
Beautiful of Heart (novella)
I'll have two books coming out in the next couple of months (hopefully! One is with an agent right now) - A Kiss from the Grave and Bloodlines.
Excerpt's (we are lucky enough to get two!)
A Kiss from the Grave:
(In this scene the two main characters are doing their first overnight ghost hunting mission together. Kat is an experienced investigator and Mike is a journalist that's along for the ride.)
“Is it a cold spot?” Mike was getting excited and could barely stay still as she shrugged.
“I’m not sure what it is. Let’s go and see what’s underneath this.” They went back down the stairs and into the dining room, which was directly under the master bedroom. She pointed the camera at the ceiling and the same pattern appeared. “That’s exactly the same shape and place, isn’t it?” She scrolled back on the video feed to compare the images. “I think I’ve figured out what it is.” She led him back upstairs into the bedroom and made him crouch down, holding the thermal imaging camera, so she could rummage in the backpack, a torch gripped tightly in her teeth.
“What’s that?” He asked, as her hands reappeared holding a new instrument.
“It’s a tool to measure humidity.” She let it calibrate to the room and then bent down and waved it over the area. The reading spiked and, in the faint light from the read out, he could see her teeth sparkling. “It’s a water leak. It must have come either from the wall or the ceiling and it’s reading as cooler than the surrounding area because it’s waterlogged.” Returning the humidity meter to the backpack, she pulled out a digital thermometer and held that over the patch. It read three degrees cooler than the rest of the room.
“That’s enough to be noticeable.” Mike didn’t need to ask to know what she was trying to prove. “That must be why the contractors were experiencing cold spots.”
“Especially given where it is.” She rose to her feet and pointed at the windows to either side. “It’s in a corner of the room that isn’t going to get sunlight, but is perfectly positioned to catch breezes from the windows. At least we can debunk that one.” She returned the thermometer to the pack and took the thermal camera back from him.
They did a slow sweep of the last bedroom and nothing appeared on the screen, so they decided to put that camera away. They were heading down the stairs when there was a blood curdling scream that echoed through the house.
“Holy shit!” Mike leapt, startled, and almost wet himself. “What the fuck was that? Kat! What the fuck was that?” She’d paused on the step and tilted her head to listen, but she appeared calm. A couple of moments later the scream sounded again and Mike thought he was going to have a heart attack. His adrenaline was spiking and all the hairs on his neck were standing up. “What the fuck?” He shrieked hysterically.
“It’s a vixen.” She calmly continued on down the stairs. Mike could barely hear her through the blood rushing in his ears.
“Is that a certain kind of ghost?” He gasped.
“No, you idiot.” She stopped on the bottom step. “It’s a female fox.”
He could see her shoulders shaking with laughter as his legs went boneless with relief. “I’ve never heard a fox sound like that. I thought they barked?”
“Male foxes do.” She was still chuckling. “Vixens scream. I’ve heard it before.”
“Oh my god.” He didn’t think his legs were going to hold him up any longer and he half sat-half collapsed on the step. “I actually thought I was going to wet myself for a moment there.”
He thought she’d make fun of him, but instead she came back up the stairs. “Lower your head between your knees.” Her voice was gentle and he complied, grateful for the soothing hand she placed on the back of his neck. “Just breathe through it. It is really scary the first few times it happens. I still freak out sometimes, but I’ve got a lot of experience to call on. The first time I heard that sound I went running from the house I was investigating and Chris had to persuade me to go back in with the lure of chocolate. I wasn’t laughing at you for freaking out; it was the image of a ghostly fox in a skirt that tickled me.”
There's a book trailer for the book here: https://www.youtube.com/
Bloodlines:
(This is a YA post-apocalyptic reimagining of A Handmaid's Tale)
Noises in the hall let us know that it is time for dinner and we reluctantly get up. I check my face isn’t still blotchy from crying and he straightens his clothes from lying on the bed. It is strange to see him in ordinary clothes, not in his green and red uniform. As we head down for food, I laugh as I tell him that his clothing reminded me of Christmas the first time I saw it. He didn’t know that people still celebrated the old festival. He slips an arm around my waist as he tells me we can celebrate it every year together and I shake my head at his optimism, but I am warmed inside.
We join Asten at his table and over food I ask him if he would mind coming up to our room after dinner. He readily agrees, although I suspect he thinks I want some sort of advice that I am too embarrassed to ask of Kael. The thought makes me feel strange. After the panic of the morning, the defiance of lunch time, the exhaustion of the afternoon and then the trauma of the papers, it had almost slipped my mind that I am to sleep with Kael tonight. I don’t know if he expects us to do the deed and despite my deep affection for him, I’m not sure what I want. This all still feels too new and too fresh, but then I think back to that night at the way station when he kissed me and we almost burned out of control. If he kisses me like that again, will I even want to stop him?
He catches me eyeing him speculatively across the table and his gaze heats. I want to look away but I can’t. Something about him just draws me in. I am reminded of this concept of gravity, that the natural way of the world is to fall. I think this must be what love is – you meet a person and they become your solar mass and you hurtle into togetherness because you cannot break the bounds that form your orbit. It strikes me that the gravity of love is a state of being. You cannot break away because you cannot turn it off. You meet, you love and you fall. It is the way of the world.
“What are you thinking about?” He asks and he is smiling. I know it’s because it reminds him of our journey to the Enclave when he was forever asking me where it is I go when my thoughts drift away.
“I was thinking about gravity and solar mass.” I say and conversation around us falls silent as everybody turns to me with incredulous looks on their faces. “In relation to love.” I try to qualify the statement. “It was a metaphor.” Silence still reigns and the faces are now reflecting confusion.
“What she’s trying to say is that she’s thinking about love.” Kael rescues me, capturing my gaze again. “She’s thinking about a love that is so boundless it has the power of the sun.”
I am about to protest that he wasn’t entirely right with his explanation, but I see his lips quirk and I know he knows that he was off the mark. It was just his way of moving the conversation forward. A chorus of sweetness ripples around the table and I blush. It’s a unique experience to feel like being the smartest person in the room also makes you the biggest idiot in the room.
No comments:
Post a Comment