We’re so pleased to welcome the writing team of Ari McKay to The Novel Approach today to celebrate the release of their new book, Blood Bathory: Absence of the Sun, book two in the Guardians of Gaia series. Ari is here to chat a bit about the book, and there’s also a giveaway so be sure to check out those details below.

Welcome, Ari!

Hello, everyone! Ari of Ari McKay here again. Can you believe it’s June? The year is almost halfway over already! Soon we’re going to have to start writing our holiday story, and sometimes it is a little weird to be writing about snow and sleigh rides and snuggling in front of the fireplace when it’s 90 outside. But before we dive into thoughts of Christmas and Hanukkah, we have a few releases to go, and this time, we’re here with the re-release of Blood Bathory: Absence of the Sun, Book Two of The Guardians of Gaia.

If you haven’t read book one of the series, Blood Bathory: Like the Night, don’t worry, you won’t be lost (though we do hope you’ll go back and read book one as well!). We wouldn’t want you to feel lost or out of place, not the way our MCs, Tyr and Adam are!

Absence of the Sun is not only a story about the continuing fight of the theriomorphs against the vampires, it’s a story about loss, forgiveness, and redemption. Theriomorph Tyr Gustavson loses his lover, Aaron, to a fight with vampires while they’re on a mission near the end of World War II. The pain of watching Aaron being slaughtered is so terrible that Tyr retreats into his tiger form, shutting out the world in an attempt to forget. But the war with the vampires is still ongoing, and he is pulled back to help with the fight. Not that he’s happy about it, especially when he finds out there is a vampire on the team!

The current struggle is fighting ghouls in France, where Tyr and his team discover one of Elizabeth Bathory’s prisons – a mausoleum where she locks away vampires who have displeased her. They swiftly dispatch the remaining vampires, except for one — because Adam Carson is someone Tyr knows.

Adam had been a pilot during the war, and was captured by the Germans. Tyr and Aaron had been part of a team who’d been sent to rescue Adam and his fellow POWs, a mission that had gone horribly wrong and resulted in Aaron’s death. Now Tyr feels a fresh pain as he realizes that the failed mission cost Adam his life as well, because being turned into a vampire, to Tyr, is a fate worse than death.

While Adam is glad to be rescued and be given the opportunity to help defeat Elizabeth, he isn’t immediately certain why Tyr, the one person who knew him when he’d been alive, is so opposed to him. He’d like to be Tyr’s friend, or perhaps even something more, but Tyr has no interest in an “evil” vampire. But the attraction between them is strong, and they grow closer, until Tyr, out of fear, pushes Adam away. Hurt, Adam accepts a mission that is almost certainly suicidal, to locate Thrace, the creator of all vampires. Now not only Adam’s life, but the lives of everyone depend on Adam’s success — because Thrace feels Gaia owes him a debt, and it’s one he means to collect, no matter who he has to kill to do it.

Thanks so much for giving us a few minutes of your June! Check out our giveaway, and don’t be afraid to send us an email to tell you what you think of our stories — we LOVE to hear from our readers!!

About the Book

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK
Cover Design: Lou Harper @ Cover Affairs
Add to Goodreads
The Guardians of Gaia Series: Blood Bathory: Like The Night (Book #1) Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb: Tyger tyger, burning bright…

As theriomorphs in the service of Gaia, Tyr Gustavson and his lover Aaron fought against the vampires aiding the Third Reich during WWII. But even the fierceness of Tyr’s tiger form couldn’t save Aaron from being torn apart when a mission went horribly wrong. Lost in his pain, Tyr remained feral until he was unwillingly recalled to Gaia’s service seventy years later.

In the forests of the night…

When fighter pilot Adam Carson’s plane was shot down, he thought the worst that could happen was being sent to a Nazi prison camp. Little did he know there were other monsters in the shadows, and one of them wanted to claim him. But refusing Elizabeth Bathory had a price. Adam was turned against his will and trapped in a coffin as punishment for his resistance.

What immortal hand or eye…

While hunting ghouls, Tyr and his colleagues discover Adam’s prison. Believing he could be an asset, Marielle Du Lac frees him. Adam joins the team and is drawn to Tyr, despite Tyr’s hatred of vampires. When Tyr rejects Adam out of fear, Adam accepts a suicidal mission to find Thrace, the original nosferatu. If their desperate plan works, the theriomorphs could destroy not only Elizabeth, but the sire of all vampires as well. But if it fails, they could unleash a force leading to the destruction of them all… and perhaps of Gaia herself.

About the Authors

Ari McKay is the professional pseudonym for Arionrhod and McKay, who have been writing together for over a decade. Their collaborations encompass a wide variety of romance genres, including contemporary, fantasy, science fiction, gothic, and action/adventure. Their work includes the Blood Bathory series of paranormal novels, the Herc’s Mercs series, as well as two historical Westerns: Heart of Stone and Finding Forgiveness. When not writing, they can often be found scheming over costume designs or binge watching TV shows together.

Arionrhod is a systems engineer by day who is eagerly looking forward to (hopefully) becoming a full time writer in the not-too-distant future. Now that she is an empty-nester, she has turned her attentions to finding the perfect piece of land to build a fortress in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and baking (and eating) far too many cakes.

McKay is an English teacher who has been writing for one reason or another most of her life. She also enjoys knitting, reading, cooking, and playing video games. She has been known to knit in public. Given she has the survival skills of a gnat, she’s relying on Arionrhod to help her survive the zombie apocalypse.

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