About the Author
 
Q: why do I write?

A: Because they won't let me experiment on live human beings.

Joleene Naylor grew up in southwest Iowa surrounded by corn and very little entertainment – so she made her own. She’s been writing and drawing since she was a child, with a leaning towards fantasy, horror and paranormal. It’s this love of all that goes bump in the night that lead her to write the Amaranthine  vampire series. In her spare time she’s a freelance artist and photographer.  Joleene does freelance book cover art, maintains blogs full of odd ramblings, illustrates a webcomic and hopes to win the lottery.  However, unless she starts buying tickets, she may never actually win anything.

Where can you find me?

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From Shades of Gray by Joleene Naylor, Book 1 in the Amaranthine series: Where vampires live in the shadows and don’t sparkle. 

Katelina’s murdered friend stole something from a powerful vampire, and now that he’s dead she’s a suspect.  Hunted by a coven of vampires, Katelina has only one person she can trust: Jorick. But what happens when her knight in shining armor turns out to be one of the monsters? Katelina will have to examine not only her feelings for those close to her, but her perceptions of good and evil if she wants to survive.


Jorick buried his face in Katelina’s hair, his breath warm against her neck. He inhaled deeply, as though hiding from ghosts that had come creeping upon him unbidden. “We should leave soon,” he murmured. “We might make it before dawn.” She nodded, unable to make her mouth work. Her arms were folded between them, palms pressed against his strong chest. His breath tickled her neck, and she could feel the warmth of his hand through her shirt. She took a deep breath and forced words through her suddenly dry throat, “All right. Let’s go.”

“In a minute or two,” he murmured softly. He pulled her closer to him, the length of his muscular body solid against her.

“All right,” she repeated. She swallowed hard and tried to calm her pulsating mind. A vision of his pale hands moving across her naked skin flickered behind her eyelids and repeated itself until her breath sounded strange in her own ears.

He loosened his hold on her and pulled back. His dark eyes studied her face; pools of deep silk that caressed her with their gaze. She felt herself drowning in their depths, like she had so many times before, and she caught her breath. Nervous tremors ran just beneath her skin and she unconsciously bit her lower lip.  

He leaned towards her and his lips captured hers. Soft and warm, they silenced the small voice in her mind that tried to remind her he wasn't human.

She responded to him. Her body rose to meet his, unwilling to break the contact. She wanted to lose herself in him and forget everything else. Their kiss deepened. His mouth tasted tangy and coppery, like sucking on a penny. She slipped one arm around him and wadded his shirt tightly in her hand. This moment had happened in her secret dreams already, but finding it in reality was something she hadn’t expected. Something she’d told herself she shouldn’t look for, let alone want. But here she was on the motel bed, betraying her conscience and enjoying it.

He pulled away reluctantly, and she let him go, her breathing ragged. A smile danced across his lips. His eyes, dark and suggestive roamed her face and moved lower before they snapped back up to look at the clock. He cleared his throat and said quietly, “We'd better go.”  And though he didn't say it, somehow she knew he meant they'd better go before anything else happened – before they did something she might regret later, something that the other half of her mind was already whispering about.

She managed to nod her agreement, but secretly, she wondered what she was really agreeing with.

Copyright Joleene Naylor 2009

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