Dark Oracle by Alayna Williams

For years, Tara Sheridan has been a hermit. She was once a criminal profiler, and a tarot-reading oracle destined for the all-female secret society Daughters of Delphi. After a series of traumas, she left these callings behind and retreated to a remote cabin in the woods. But when a brilliant scientist goes missing amid the ruins of his cutting-edge lab, leaving behind a young daughter, Tara reluctantly agrees to take the case.

This means dealing with the Daughters again, along with a former colleague who makes Tara uneasy. It also means running for her life when a couple of very powerful people decide they want her out of the way. And, too, it means a chance to face some old fears and perhaps even to fall in love, though she’s reluctant to reveal her unorthodox methods to a logical man like Harry Li.

Alayna Williams creates a compelling heroine in clever, intuitive ... Read More

Rogue Oracle by Alayna Williams

I have a deep-seated fear of nuclear disaster. If you made a list of Things that Freak Kelly Out, it’d be right up there. I can’t help it — I’m a product of my times. The Chernobyl disaster occurred when I was a child, and I knew just enough about nuclear meltdown to know that it was bad. Really bad. I still remember being sure — but being too afraid to ask and confirm my guess — that the reactor would just keep burning until it destroyed the whole world. When I was older, I learned what radiation could do to a person who wasn’t killed outright, and if anything, that was even more horrifying. I watched large portions of K-19: The Widowmaker with my eyes closed.

So why am I telling you all this? Because when I say that Alayna Williams has written a book that scared the bejabbers out of me (and not in the fun sort of way) and yet made me like it anyway,... Read More

Today we welcome Laura Bickle, author of Embers, Sparks, and the YA novel The Hallowed Ones. The Outside, a sequel to The Hallowed Ones, will be released later this year. Laura also writes the DARK ORACLE series under the name Alayna Williams. Her question for you today is: Where do you want to be when the apocalypse hits? One commenter wins a copy of The Hallowed Ones.

One of the great things about writing is getting to ask those “what-if” questions. When I was writing The Hallowed Ones, I knew that I wanted to unleash a plague of bloodthirsty vampires on humanity. But I wanted to also explore the idea of survival, and I gave some thought into who might be best-equipped to survive if... Read More