Honor Bound by Kat Loveland - Guest Blog and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Kat will be awarding a $40 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

A Visit from Kat Loveland and Friends

I thought I would do something a little different here and introduce you to two of my characters (well technically three) from Honor Bound and then answer the questions myself.

First up - Twins John and Clara - High fashions models that can speak mind to mind and teleport things back and forth to each other, then Cesco, he tends to move much faster than normal humans can.

“Hello, Kat dragged us into this by threatening to reveal that one super embarrassing moment from our childhoods if we didn’t help her out. So here we are. Clara gets to handle the fun fact and I’ll give you an interesting one,then Cesco can take over. Clara?"

"A fun fact about us? We grew up in Japan where education is highly prized, I am abysmal at math, he’s not. There are perks to being able to talk mind to mind when you’re taking math tests and you are much more interested in flirting with the boy in front of you then actually trying to pass the test. It’s handy when the answers just pop into your mind as a gift from your math genius brother. John?"

"Good job, Clara, let’s just tell everyone we’re cheaters, shall we? An interesting fact. Hmmm, Clara can’t cook worth a damn. She tries; she does but I am a much better cook than she is. I have much more patience and I find it fun to add my own little flair to a recipe. Once Cesco, with his heightened senses joined us it became even more of a challenge to make the food that much better. When someone can smell the food you’re cooking from fifty feet outside the front door of a rather large house or farther if he tries you really want to make sure what you’re cooking actually smells enticing. Cesco?"

"Thanks John, and trust me, I have smelled plenty of craptastic cooking in my life. I appreciate that you take the time actually cook and not just burn things. I guess I can share an embarrassing fact. I’ve always moved much faster than normal people but when I was younger my enthusiasm sometimes got ahead of me. When I started really getting into Parkour I trained a lot at an abandoned building by my house that had several dumpsters that were always filled with stuff in the alley next to it. There was this girl who had seen me pulling tricks and vaults off at school and showed interest, in me and the tricks so of course I had to try impress her. I had her meet me at the abandoned building and there was this spot on the second floor that had a few old desks, a pretty tall filing cabinet and the window had been completely broken out. The dumpsters sat in the alley on the opposite side of a brick wall beneath this window. I had done this run several times, I would vault over the desks, land on top of the last one, use it to vault to the top of the filing cabinet and dive roll out of the window onto some mattresses I had placed on the ground to cushion the landing. I decided to add something extra to it before this girl came to watch me. I dragged a desk out from the bottom floor and placed it on the other side of the mattress, plan being to roll out of the landing from the second floor, vault onto the top of the desk and use that to jump from and land on the top of the wall. Well the first part of it went well; I hopped the desks, landed on top of the filing cabinet, dove out the window, she screamed, I landed, hopped onto the last desk and jumped to the wall. Well, I didn't account for the fact that I had started moving a bit faster than normal people and my extra speed took me over the wall and right into the dumpsters which were filled with who knows what. I was so mad at myself and embarrassed I got out of the dumpster and bolted home without even talking to her. Needless to say that story made it's way around school pretty quick and I got the nickname DD for Dumpster Diver for awhile. Kat?”

"Yikes, that's not exactly the recommended way to impress your date, Cesco. I'm sure it left an impression though, just not the one you were going for. Fun fact about me, I've done and will get back into doing Parkour, sparring and archery when the ball of death that is currently inhabiting the sky here in Arizona goes away again. I love writing fight scenes which I get complimented on repeatedly, rum and coke is my drink of choice and I'm doing GISHWHES this year. If you don't know what that is, Google it. Thanks for letting me entertain you for a bit on a Wednesday."

AWAKENINGS

X-Men meets the Real World. "This was an amazing book while steeped in fantasy it tackles a huge subject , the subject of human trafficking. Instead of a bland preachy PSA against it, this story uses amazing imagery, action, intensity, and heart to keep you reading well into the night."

Children and teens with unique abilities are being sold on the black market. When twins John and Clara made a vow several years ago to help children that had abilities, they never thought they would be forced to fight hardened criminals. Honor Bound Awakenings shows the beginning of the journey they and their friends from idealism to reality and what sacrifices they will be forced to make to keep their vow.

SACRIFICES

Picking up the moment Awakenings end – John and Clara are forced to choose which of them will continue to put themselves in the line of fire, Cesco has to make peace with what he may have to become to keep the others safe, Min-Ji confronts her painful past head on, Sarah and her family must learn to adapt to the results of her Awakening and Jessie has to struggle to keep the group emotionally stable.

Enjoy an excerpt from Honor Bound: Sacrifices:

He couldn't move, Min-Ji was screaming, he felt searing heat and smelled burning flesh, pain raged through his shoulder. Min-Ji, she couldn't!

“Min-Ji! Don't!” Cesco screamed. His eyes flew open, harsh light blinded him. Someone was holding him down. His right arm wasn't moving, his left arm shot full speed at the face hovering over him, the punch connected, flinging the man across the room where he landed against the wall. Cesco tried to get up, as soon as he moved the intense pain in his shoulder and face floored him causing him to curl into a tight ball. “Min-Ji! Holy crap! What happened?” The phrases coming between waves of pain.

“Cesco! Stop!” John's voice barely cut through the pain.

"John?"

“Yes, I'm here. Lay back, you're hurt.”

“Where are we? Is everyone ok?”

John's hands pushed against his chest easing him onto his back.

“My shoulder, I can't move it.”

“You were shot. The bullet shattered your collarbone and put a hole in your shoulder blade. You just punched Dr. Rothstein. He was sewing you up. Clara was shot too but she's all right. Doctor, are you ok? Sorry about that.”

First priority was to try to forget everyone else's emotions. She slowly started unraveling those in her mind, hellish pain and agony, that wasn't her. She had developed a visualization to help her through things like this, she imagined all of the emotions that weren't hers as clothes she was wearing and would slowly strip away the layers until she got down to just her own skin. It worked fairly well.

Layer after layer came off. Eventually she cleared everything away so she only had her emotions left and could take inventory of her mental state. The storage facility office froze in her mind, blood on the floor, dismembered people, Min-Ji screaming and Cesco on the floor. As an empath she had learned how to face her own emotions along with manipulating and controlling others. She took a deep breath and allowed herself to relive the moment. Sheer panic and disgust hit her, her heart started to race and her stomach clenched again as she smelled the blood and charred flesh. How badly she had wanted to run the other way, but she couldn't. She couldn't at the time and she sure as hell wouldn't now. Forcing herself to stand there, she allowed the whole scene to slam into her mind over and over until it no longer affected her.

Eventually she could look at it without her pulse skyrocketing so she moved to the next one, driving the car as John shot the people they were chasing. That wasn't so bad, she and John were focused so their emotions weren't out of control and the blood and gore was manageable for her to look at. The last one she didn't want to face but she had to. Her view of Min-Ji coming out of the office and setting a person on fire, the emotions that Min-Ji had felt had been so intense. She and Min-Ji had bonded so often to keep Min-Ji stable that Jessie was starting to think it had almost become permanent. She picked up on even small shifts in Min-Ji's emotions now without having to touch her.

John went to check on Clara, he had felt her mind start stirring.

“Clara, you need to rest.”

“That's a bit complicated,” a gentle laugh brushed against his mind. “You haven't been blocking all that well. I know about Min-Ji and Cesco. I know about how you almost blacked out. I drifted for a bit and slept but there's too much going on and I am picking up on it. I held back as much as I could until you had a quiet moment. We have a lot to figure out.”

“You're taking this rather well.”

“Not really. Just pushing it down for now.” As she said that he felt her let him in a bit more and was suddenly glad she had been pushing things down. She was in a panic, if he had been feeling that along with his emotions he would be a wreck. He put his blocks up so she wouldn't have to do all the work.

“Thank you,” he told her.

“You're welcome.”

“Sarah is on the way to help with Cesco. I am not sure how much she will be able to do. Dr. Rothstein said he can repair the shoulder later if we are staying in town and wrote prescriptions for drugs. You should be able to walk well enough for the show. Maybe Sarah can heal it fast enough so you're not in pain. It's just a small wound, nothing is broken in your leg. We need to get Cesco in the car and get back to the condo and we still have a million things to do for the show. We have more press tomorrow, we're going to look like hell.”

She squeezed his hand back. “When...I did what I did to you,” she shuddered a bit at the memory, “I wasn't panicking. I know you thought I was but I wasn't. I wanted to protect Chad and hurt you, but I didn't know it was you because it felt like I was being kidnapped again.” She paused, her voice growing soft. “All I thought was what would be the fastest way to make you stop, I wasn't really scared, I was angry. I don't want to say anything else right now, please Dad.” The memory of that moment was pushing her close to the edge. She looked down at the armrest of the seat one of her hands had been resting on it, it had started rippling and shifting form. She quickly pulled her hands away from the chair and away from her Dad's hand then held them up in the air. She couldn't shift things if she wasn't touching them.

“You don't have to. I understand now.” He reached his arm around her and pulled her close. “We will get through this, somehow we will. I promise you.” He said as he kissed the top of her head. They stayed like that the rest of the flight.

About the Author:Who is Kat Loveland? Why does she write?

Good questions. Complicated questions. Questions that make you say hmmmmmmm.

Kat is a person of great charm and grace, she lights up whatever room she walks into. Her stunning fashion sense mesmerizes all who see her. Witty rejoinders and endless amounts of relevant and thoroughly researched facts and tidbits flow effortlessly from her mouth.....

Yeah, ok, Not so much. I've got the witty rejoinders but not the fashion sense. I like comfy, simple clothes and sparring with weapons. I occasionally try my hand at archery and artistic photography, sometimes I'll even hop a wall or vault a bench. I'm a tomboy at heart, what can I say.

Why do I write? My imaginary friends are endlessly entertaining and they always do whatever the hell I tell them to. Besides it's fun to play Goddess, most authors won't admit that but I'm pretty blunt. It's fun to torture, harass, endlessly confound and every once in a while make a character a bit happy with life. Not too often though, that's just silly.

My editor tells me and I quote : “Only a genius can write three books at the same time, work all the time and shoot arrows into the air and hope and pray what goes up does not come down on top of her.” Have I mentioned she's an awesome editor?

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