Take the Plunge this Summer into Something New...

The annual Mocha Memoirs Press Anniversary Sale is winding down. It ends July 31st, but you still have time to visit our website, Mocha Memoirs Press, and download our horror, science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal romances for $2.00 or less.

This is an exciting time to try genres you may not otherwise try for an inexpensive price. So walk on the wild child, and take the leap into something new.

You may discover you like it.

After all, a little diversity spices things up.

Enjoy!

http://mochamemoirspress.com

It’s Our Anniversary Month, but We’re Giving YOU gifts…

Happy Anniversary!

 

Mocha Memoirs Press was founded in July 2010. This is our birthday month!

We DO love our speculative fiction (horror, science fiction, and fantasy), and we want to share our love for all things fantastic with you!

So, as our gift to you, all science fiction, horror, fantasy and paranormal romance titles are on sale the month of July for $2.00.

That’s right. $2.00 USD. The sale starts Monday, July 8th EST, so get your e-reader ready to download these fantastic and fun flavors.

Check out fantastic flavors and try something new for less than the cost of a good cup of gourmet coffee.

SK Presents: "Alicia" by E.A. Black

Morning, everyone! Siobhan here, back with aa brand new set of questions on a new book. First we talk about the new book - E.A. Black's DARK MOCHA BITE, Alicia. After that I'll tell you more about it and where to get it. Ready to play?

*****

Q&A #2:

ALICIA by E.A. BLACK

Dark Mocha Bites (Horror)

1. Who is Alicia?

2. Alicia asks Eric for a favor. What is it?

3. Alicia tells Eric she's staying in a specific hotel room at the local Marriott. What's the significance of that room?

4.When Eric goes to find Alicia the next day at her house, what does he learn about her?

5. How does Eric help Alicia?

BUY THIS BOOK: MMP Store | Amazon

When the love of his life, Alicia, calls him in the middle of the night to report she had been raped, Eric drops everything to come to her rescue. She takes him on an eerie ride through turbulent hours he can't quite comprehend. Alicia may need his help, but her situation is not what it seems.

*****

Tune in next month for a new book and all new questions!

My Birthday Is Thursday - Time For An Assessment

E. A. Black writers horror, dark fiction, erotica, and erotic romance. She lives with her husband, son, and four cats near the ocean in northeastern Massachusetts. Visit her web sites. Romance: Elizabeth Black. Horror and dark fiction: E. A. Black

------

Hi, there. My name is E. A. Black, and my birthday is in three days. March 14.

It's also Steak and BJ Day. Oh, joy.

I normally assess my life progress around New Year's Day but the panic really sets in on my birthday. Thursday is also Steak and BJ Day. Steak and BJ Day is the dude's answer to Valentine's Day. Guys who put out for chocolates, fancy dinners, and flowers on Valentine's Day demand payback exactly one month later. They want steak. BJs. Toss in some beer. . . They're easy to please

A month later, on April 14, is Cake and Cunnilingus Day. Women had to have the last laugh.

Since I'm fortunate enough to have my birthday fall on Steak and BJ Day, I can't help but think about my sex writing. I have one story with Mocha Memoirs Press called "Alicia". That one is a short romantic horror story. Most of what I've written is erotica, erotic romance, and non-fiction sex articles.

Yes, I make my living writing smut. :)

"Alicia" is sort of related to this writing in that it's a sweet (albeit dark) romance. "Sweet" means "no sex". You won't find my characters doing the backseat Mambo in that particular story. You'll find explicit sex in my other short stories, novels, and novellas. My question for myself on my birthday is this:  Do I want to continue writing erotic fiction and non-fiction?

Yes, but I want to expand. My horror has been getting published over the past year. "Alicia" was one of the first stories, published October, 2012. I got the idea from an episode of "Medium". Remember that old TV show, starring Patricia Arquette? Alicia is a young, kind woman whose abusive husband regularly beats her to a bloody pulp. She's trying to get out of the marriage intact. Her good friend Eric - who is in love with her - comes to her rescue when she flees home in the middle of the night. But things are not what they seem, as always is the case in stories like this one. Here's a brief excerpt:

 Eric stepped out of the shower and a foul stench—mingled with the crisp peppermint of his shampoo—smacked him in the face and left a coppery taste in the back of his throat. His stomach heaved. Confused, he looked around the room to figure out where the smell came from, but he couldn't pinpoint it. Dread clung to him, dark and sticky, ruining his relaxed mood. The light bulbs over the sink hummed, casting harsh yellow light about the room. He shaded his eyes against the glare, trying to see. 

Why were those lights so bright? Something was terribly wrong in his peaceful world, and not knowing what it was frightened him.

His wife Alicia brushed her teeth as if nothing was unusual, while the stink of rot lurked beneath the cool mint of his shampoo. Why didn't she notice the smell? 

He leaned towards her to place his hand on her shoulder, and she turned her face towards his for a kiss on the cheek. Ugly, purple bruises darkened her eyes. He pulled away, repulsed and alarmed, not quite sure what he was seeing. One side of her face had swelled to a dark mask, not unlike a pumpkin that had been left outside in the damp earth to rot. An angry red welt encircled her throat like a bloody ribbon wrapped around her neck. Frightened, he reached out one hand but he couldn't bring himself to touch her swollen face. Touching her would make the vision real and it couldn't be real. 

Alicia spat in the sink. Two of her teeth bounced against the porcelain. Blood tainted the paste. 

"The girls are running late again." Alicia's bloodied mouth leaked crimson and white toothpaste. Why did she act as if nothing strange was going on? He gaped at her, not understanding what was happening. The safety of his home evaporated as she spoke with her raw, torn mouth. "Make them wolf down their cereal, and toss them out of the house before they miss the bus."

"Alicia, who did this to you?" Eric asked. She did not answer him. She brushed her teeth, running the brush over her ragged gums where the teeth had been knocked out. His stomach heaved again, and he swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. He wanted to knock out the teeth of whoever had assaulted her, but she acted as if nothing was wrong. Why?

The phone rang. Who would be calling him at this hour? It wasn't even 7:30 yet. He asked Alicia again who had done this to her, but she didn't answer him. She dried her torn mouth, and then she smeared foundation over her face. To his horror, the foundation did not cover her bruises. It only made them look uglier and even more purple.

Eric walked to the phone and answered it.

"Hello?"

The phone continued to ring. Eric's steam-hazy mind knew that that wasn't supposed to happen.

"Hello?"

Eric woke up in bed to the ringing of the telephone on the dresser next to him. His wife, Carol, stirred at his side.

Things only get worse from that point on.

This year, in honor of my birthday, I plan to achieve the following:

1. Finish my erotic novel "Alex Craig Has A Threesome".

2. Finish my horror novel "Hell Time".

3. Walk on the beach more often this spring, summer, and fall.

4. Publish more erotic fairy tales.

5. Do more book readings.

Being born on Steak and BJ Day makes me think about sex and writing. I have my work cut out for me this year.

If you like sweet poignant romance with a touch of the macabre, you'll like "Alicia". You may find my other horror and dark fiction stories at my E. A. Black Amazon Author Page. http://www.amazon.com/E.A.-Black/e/B00BBWHMFM

If you prefer your romances with a bit of spice, check out my Amazon Author Page for more of my fiction. https://www.amazon.com/author/elizabethblack

Pick up your copy of "Alicia" at this link on Amazon:

"Alicia" -Dark Mocha Bites

Here's the Mocha Memoirs Press web page for the book:

"Alicia" by E. A. Black - MMP

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy some T-bones.

Two New Dark Mocha Bites

Our month long celebration of all things horror winds down to a close this week. We bring you two exciting new additions to the Dark Mocha Bites series: Robert D. Welsh's OLDE CAMDEN ROAD and Billy London's PLAYING DEAD.

Be sure you have tasted  all the Dark Mocha Bites!
 

Dark Mocha Bite: PLAYING DEAD by Billy London

October isn't over and neither is our celebration of all things sexy and dark. Our resident thrilling and master of stirring romance, Billy London, has penned a fantastic erotic romance story called PLAYING DEAD.

BLURB:

Gearoid (pronounced Garod) McCardle is a former crime journalist who is dying from a brain tumour. He has decided to return to his home in Balham to die in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, no peace and quiet comes because he’s haunted by Dr Aoife (pronounced Eefa) Boyake, who was brutally murdered in his home forty years ago.She shows him her death in a variety of ways to convince him to help her find her murderer. Short of telling her that he doesn’t have enough time to help her, Gearoid concedes and begins to investigate the details of her death.

The closer he gets to finding her murder, the more he finds that he doesn’t want Aoife to leave for the afterlife nowing that there’s a chance they’ll never see one another again. It’s all from Gearoid’s point of view, he can be persuasive, impatient, compassionate and passionate. Aoife is pragmatic, smart, sweet, professional with Gearoid’s condition and sexy as hell.

Between the countdown to the anniversary of Aoife’s death and the ticking time bomb of Gearoid’s tumour, they see hope in the other and despite the futility of love between the dead and the living, they make it work.

---

Grab your copy today from MMP. http://mochamemoirspress.com/playing-dead/

What I Love About Horror by Jessica Housand-Weaver

The genre of horror has always attracted me because of its delightful
contradictions.  It dares to go where we think we don’t want to. It tests the boundaries we put in place to see just how far is too far and forces us to face our deepest and most profound fears equally beside the ones that we are ashamed to admit. The lure for readers of horror is that the horror genre is actually disturbingly therapeutic. When reading, we trespass into tragedies and terrors and somehow make it through; we push on, keep on going, reading on and on into that shocking abyss where some part of us wants nothing more but to look away and stop reading--to escape. As readers, we become enslaved to the story, to the reactions of our bodies, to the terrible need to find out what happens next. And in the end, the most relieving thing of all is to set down that book and be infinitely grateful for the mundane. Suddenly our lives, which had seemed unexciting and monotonous before, are wonderful. Horror frees us from the mundane and then gives the mundane back to us so that we accept it with open arms.

Horror is like a drug. The body feels horror intensely. When we read
thrillers, we react physically as if the events are happening to us—heart
rate increases, pupils dilate, digestion slows, there is trembling, vessel constriction; a whole flood of neurobiological events occur inside the body.  And yet we are in no real danger (hopefully). Therefore, horror
gives us a safe conduit in which we can experience the rush of fear and a full range of uncommon emotions over and over again without consequence.

We can consider what actions we ourselves might take in similar situations perhaps in contrast to the characters. I like to compare horror to an amusement park ride. And who doesn't want to fool our bodies into reacting as if we are really in some danger of falling to our deaths?
  Now here is my confession: I actually am not fond of thrill rides, and I'm certainly not an adrenalin junky. Likewise, I am very picky about my horror. I don’t like anything I can’t escape from, so there better be some
pretty powerful reason for me to stay. I have to be able to be caught up in the story, for it to be deeply psychological, to make me think while I’m shaking in my boots. Trust me, I need the therapy. Writing horror is my addiction, my safe outlet to explore all the possibilities, all the craziness, and every fear that lurks in my demented brain.

What could be better than to share them with readers so that we can conquer them together?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Try Jessica Housand-Weaver's horror story, THE SCREAM OF THE SIREN, today to see for yourself.

Dark Mocha Bite: Hellshift by Tom Olbert

Our continuing celebration of all things horror, Mocha Memoirs Press spotlights our DARK MOCHA BITE series. These stories are dark morsels of delicious horror and horror romance. Just like decadent dark chocolate, some of these titles are bitter, but good for your heart!

Today's Dark Mocha Bite comes from talented and multi-faceted artist, Tom Olbert. His two other MMP titles, Long Haul and Along Came a Spider,demonstrate Tom's various storytelling prowess.

Tom's latest venture, HELLSHIFT, is another tasty bit of fiction.

Blurb: Preston Chandler is a lonely, overworked corporate office drone on the worst assignment of his life. In the dark future world of Preston’s time, low-level clerks like himself must serve a 1-year shift on a corporate mining colony on a hellish alien planet whose indigenous population has been wiped out by nuclear genocide.

He isn’t safe even in his corporate offices, as dismembered human bodies begin turning up. Preston fears he is losing his mind. He desperately wants to return to Earth, but is trapped in an escalating nightmare. Computerized psych-evaluation technology probes his mind with dehumanizing invasiveness.
Preston finally completes his assignment and is looking forward to returning home to Earth at last. But will his Hellshift ever end ?

Grab a copy of HELLSHIFT tonight and find out.

---

Third One's a Trio of Dark Delights: Descent Into Madness

October's month long DARK MOCHA BITES celebration delivers the best we have in dark, delicious horror and dark paranormal romance. Our third offering of the week is anything but dull...it is quite bitter.

Taking us down into madness is our resident editor and author extraordinaire, Michael LaRocca. We've witnessed it talent for suspense and twists and turns in LAZARUS.

For October, Michael has given us something truly fresh and straight out of the Twilight Zone in DESCENT INTO MADNESS.

Blurb: Did you ever feel that your life was but a series of experiments being conducted upon you by forces unknown and unknowable? Does the nature of reality change almost daily, as if someone wanted to see how you’d react? Are there things you knew in your very core you’d never do, until you discovered you were wrong and you did them? Did you ever wish the dead would just stay dead?

Excerpt

Wouldn't life be simpler if the dead just stayed dead?

Bert gazed at Wendy's closed eyes. He held one of her tiny hands in his and noticed how cold it was. Behind him stood the doctor and the nurse who would disconnect the vast array of machinery that all but surrounded them.

"This isn't her," Bert said to no one. "This is only an empty shell."

Bert squeezed Wendy's hand. There was no response. He leaned over her and whispered, "I love you," into her ear. He rose to his feet, released her hand and stepped aside. There was no change, no sign that she was anything more than a rock or a piece of furniture.

The doctor was waiting patiently when Bert turned to him. Bert nodded. The doctor smiled weakly, sympathetically. Bert felt vaguely like an intruder.

The doctor signaled the nurse to switch off the respirator. The nurse complied and Wendy's chest collapsed. The doctor reached for the tube that entered Wendy's nose and led to her lungs. He wiped it with a cloth as he pulled it out—pull, wipe, pull, wipe, pull, wipe—then handed it to the nurse.

The EKG and EEG alarms beeped loudly. Wendy's eyes opened and she bolted upright in the bed. The stunned doctor quickly stepped away.

"Bert?"

"Wendy?!"

"Bert!"

"My God!"

Of course it was a miracle. What else could it have been?

Get your copy of DESCENT INTO MADNESS from Mocha Memoirs Press today.

 

Dark Mocha Bite Celebration Begins: Into the Realm of Mystery and Night

October's month long DARK MOCHA BITES celebration delivers the best we have in dark, delicious horror and dark paranormal romance.

To start, Mocha Memoirs Press invites you to come with us Into the Realm of Mystery and Night, courtesy of talented, multi-genre author, Janet Eckford. This month we're celebrating our DARK MOCHA BITES. These stories are all around the horror genre.

Blurb:It’s hard for me to pick a time in my life when I haven’t enjoyed the thrill of a good scare. The heady anticipation of the adrenaline rush, the heart beating faster, and the prickly feel of tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

This “scare” is of course always controlled and contained. I don’t seek out fear just for the thrill of it but when I read a particularly scary story or watch an especially frightening movie, I am in love with how that narrative is causing my senses to go in overdrive. This collection of shorts is inspired by that feeling and housed within the context of one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. Each day you have the
opportunity to read a story that will hopefully have you checking under the bed each night or sleeping with at least one light on. My greatest wish for you is that by the 31st day of October, you too will revel in all things that go bump in the night and bounce with anticipation waiting for next year’s delights.

Think you're ready to follow Janet into the Realm of Mystery and Night? Download the key here.