Exclusive Ficlet and Giveaway: Dog Days by TA Moore

Today we’re so pleased to welcome author TA Moore to The Novel Approach, on the tour for her newest novel, Dog Days. Enjoy the teaser ficlet she’s brought along to share with you, and then be sure to check out the Rafflecopter widget below where you can enter for the chance to win a $20 Gift Card at Dreamspinner Press.

Good luck and welcome, TA!

I suppose it is a bit predictable for a Brit to write a book about weather, but there you go! Dog Days is my first shifter novel and I had a blast writing it. I love the characters, obstreperous little sods though they could be when I needed them to behave, and the setting in Durham is one I have a lot of time for. So, welcome to my dystopian Winter Wonderland, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

And to whet your appetite, here’s an exclusive ‘Dog Treat’ set before the events of Dog Days.

A bonfire of driftwood and old, dry bones burned on the shore of the loch, the wind picking black smoke from the sullen embers and tossing it up into the night. Bottles glinted in the firelight as they were passed from hand to hand, bodies jostling as laughter veered to anger and back again. Someone tossed an empty bottle onto the bonfire, making it flare with blue flame and sparks, and everyone laughed.

No one noticed the eyes in the crowd that caught the light and spat it back green.

It was a town party. Most of the kids around the bonfire were bored teenagers, struggling to be bad with empty pockets in a small town. It was their cheap booze, their music turned up loud on speakers the wind kept blowing over — but it wasn’t their land.

So when the pack’s young wolves came sloping down out of the hills, with empty hands and sly smiles, they didn’t have any choice but to share their fire and their bottles. Not they knew they were hosting wolves, just the rough kids from the big farm up in the hills.

Slouched in the cup of a weather-worn boulder, Jack watched one of the town boys try to face up to a wolf for his girl’s honour. Lach laughed at him, all teeth and slitted eyes, as he dragged the giggling girl tight against his groin. For a second it looked like the boy would stand his ground, but instead he swore at the girl for being a tart and stalked off. Laughter chased him down to the shore.

Another wolf had a baffled looking town boy nudged back against a tree, his mouth against the boy’s throat and a hand down the back of his trousers.

It wasn’t in full adherence to the catechisms — Gregor, sulking up in the heather, would call it defiance — but the old man had always turned a blind eye to what happened by the bonfires. Maybe it served some sort of purpose: fucking, fighting, letting off steam in ways that didn’t matter. Or it could just be so that the old man could identify the wolves that watched for the bonfire being lit. Those wolves were usually sent away, below the Wall.

Jack wasn’t sure why he was here. At 15 he knew what the other wolves wanted, but he wasn’t interested in playing human for a night.

Down in the circle of stones around the bonfire, a lanky teen with cropped black hair and crooked glasses laughed with the town boys while the wolf that had brought him glared sullenly at the back of his head. The game was meant to have Marie at the centre of attention, while her lovelorn companion mooned miserably over her. Not that she’d be ignored while her wannabe admirers talked — Jack tilted his head, focusing on that murmur of conversation amidst the rest — superheroes and football scores.

Jack knew him. Of course he did. He knew every wolf in his father’s pack, and the dogs that ran the old man’s errands for him too. Danny Fennick was a year older than Jack, the kid everyone went to for homework when the school started to make noises about truancy and social services. Smart enough to be useful, but too stupid to know when to hold his tongue or stay down when he’d lost a fight.

Just another dog. Useful, but not important.

One of the town boys tossed a beer at him, and made a joke about football that made Danny throw his head back and laugh. His grin was huge and ridiculously goofy, creasing his whole face up in service to it.

And suddenly there was something on the shore that Jack was interested in.

About the Book

Title: Dog Days
Author: TA Moore
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Anne Cain
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date: 09/09/2016
Buy the Book: Amazon || Dreamspinner
Blurb: The world ends not with a bang, but with a downpour. Tornadoes spin through the heart of London, New York cooks in a heat wave that melts tarmac, and Russia freezes under an ever-thickening layer of permafrost. People rally at first—organizing aid drops and evacuating populations—but the weather is only getting worse.

In Durham, mild-mannered academic Danny Fennick has battened down to sit out the storm. He grew up in the Scottish Highlands, so he’s seen harsh winters before. Besides, he has an advantage. He’s a werewolf. Or, to be precise, a weredog. Less impressive, but still useful.

Except the other werewolves don’t believe this is any ordinary winter, and they’re coming down over the Wall to mark their new territory. Including Danny’s ex, Jack—the Crown Prince Pup of the Numitor’s pack—and the prince’s brother, who wants to kill him.

A wolf winter isn’t white. It’s red as blood.

About the Author

TA Moore genuinely believed that she was a Cabbage Patch Kid when she was a small child. This was the start of a lifelong attachment to the weird and fantastic. These days she lives in a market town on the Northern Irish coast and her friends have a rule that she can only send them three weird and disturbing links a month (although she still holds that a DIY penis bifurcation guide is interesting, not disturbing). She believes that adding ‘in space!’ to anything makes it at least 40% cooler, will try to pet pretty much any animal she meets (this includes snakes, excludes bugs), and once lied to her friend that she had climbed all the way up to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, when actually she’d only gotten to the beach, realized it was really high, and chickened out.

She aspires to being a cynical misanthrope, but is unfortunately held back by a sunny disposition and an inability to be mean to strangers. If TA Moore is mean to you, that means you’re friends now.

Social Links: Website || Facebook || Twitter @tammy_moore

The Giveaway

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Follow the Tour

September 2 – The Novel Approach
September 4 – MM Good Book Reviews
September 5 – Oh My Shelves
September 6 – Joyfully Jay
September 7 – It’s About the Book
September 8 – Molly Lolly and Kimi-Chan Experience
September 9 – Prism Book Alliance
September 11 – Love Bytes Reviews
September 13 – Boy Meets Boy