Blog Tour: Under Realm Assassins

 

 

Box Set 1

Paranormal Romance

Date Published: 07-01-2025

A Bewitching Christmas

It has been seven years since Analette Dyson stopped practicing magic and headed to New York, where she created a new life, complete with a fabulous job, an apartment in Central Park West, and a sexy werewolf fiancé. She never planned on returning to her small home town in Maine, but when she learns her grandmother is ill, she decides to pop over for a visit and what better time than Christmas? Excited for her fiancé to meet her family, they head up a day early.

Worst idea ever!

After doing some last minute Christmas shopping, Analette returns to their hotel to find her fiancé in bed with another woman. Cursing the universe for her never ending bad luck with men and dreading telling her family about her cheating fiancé, she heads to the bar to self medicate.

Not one to celebrate the holidays, vampire and assassin, Cole McRae, has followed a lead to a rustic town in witch territory. But after a few days of research and waiting for his target to show, he begins to suspect he has wasted his time. That is, until he meets a curvaceous blonde with bewitching green eyes at the local bar. One night with the enchanting Analette could make this useless trip well worth his time.

Their passion is undeniable and unbeknownst to them, their fates are intertwined. Magic and romance will strike on Christmas, changing their lives forever.

 

Surrender to the Chase

A year after the tragic death of his close friend and fellow assassin, Ethan Halstead is ready to take up his sniper rifle once more. But his first assignment is nothing he ever expected. Ethan must hunt and retrieve a beautiful, spirited, alluring werewolf.

Knowing no other way to escape an arranged marriage, Fraya flees from her pack. As she contemplates slipping across the border and heading to South America, she is captured by a dangerously seductive vampire who plans on escorting her back to her family. Even as Fraya vows to make Ethan’s mission as difficult as possible, she can’t resist the riotous desire he sparks within her.

But Ethan isn’t the only predator that pursues Fraya. A powerful rival pack’s alpha wants to make her his mate. Will Ethan be able to keep Fraya safe and return her to her pack? Or will he surrender to temptation and claim Fraya as his own?

 

Wicked Passion

James Stonewoll is an Elite Assassin for the Under Realm Syndicate—an expert hunter and merciless killer. As a former pirate, he thrives on danger, the more perilous the mission, the better and he can't resist his newest contract: eliminate a rebel shape-shifting magic thief that stalks the border of the Under Realm kidnapping and murdering innocent Others. But never did the centuries old vampire anticipate playing hero to a mythical temptress with luscious curves, tantalizing lips, and hypnotic eyes.

Captured and held prisoner, Katya Moro was trapped in a seemingly endless loop of unimaginable agony as her magic was slowly being torn from her soul. A gasp away from death, she is rescued by a sinful kiss and awakens in the strong arms of a powerful warrior whose roguish smile, sharp fangs, and intense strength unlock dormant instincts within her, an all-consuming madness that demands complete surrender.

Gazing down at her, James knew he had to kill her. Dark Magic Wielders, like the beautiful female he’d found, were a grave threat to human society and were not permitted to roam the mortal world. But Katya’s smoky voice and sweet kisses stir a fierce hunger inside him. She is unpredictable, uncontrollable and wickedly seductive—his perfect kind of dangerous. To keep her safe, James will protect her from the magic thieves that hunt her and his fellow assassins until he can find a way to return Katya to her home in the Under Realm.

Can Katya’s passion conquer the darkness within his soul?

 

Surrender to the Chase Excerpt

She felt his lips brush her ear as he said, “Run from me again and I will sink my fangs into your pretty little neck.”

Would his bite bring agonizing pain or blissful euphoria?

He took in one last deep breath, inhaling her scent before he pushed himself back. He remained on his knees, keeping her trapped beneath him. Their eyes met as lightning splintered the heavens. Fraya was struck speechless as a blistering curse fell from his lips. His piercing green eyes burned with ravenous desire. She knew his gaze mirrored her own. She wanted him. The animal inside her howled, demanding she surrender to this male. She shifted beneath him, barely resisting the urge to arch her back and roll her hips in invitation.

What was happening to her? She was losing her mind. Yes, that must be it. She had been on the run. The constant stress, lack of sleep, and ever-present hunger must be getting to her.

“Why did you chase me?”

“Why did you run from me?” he countered.

Fraya tried to sit up, but he gently pushed her back down. With an irritated sigh, she answered, “I wasn’t running from you in particular. I was running from the alpha.”

“Stick with me and you needn’t worry about the alpha.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Really?”

He nodded.

She was skeptical. “Why should I trust you?”

“You can run as far and as fast as you like, but the alpha will eventually track you down. An unmated pureblood female werewolf without her pack,” he shook his head, “sweetheart, you’re fair game.”

Fraya couldn’t argue against that, but she wasn’t in the market for a bodyguard. She needed to travel light and fast. She needed to get to Chile like yesterday and he would just slow her down.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll take my chances.”

With a shrug of his large shoulders, he stood. He held out his hand, offering to help her to her feet. She hesitated, staring at his outstretched hand for a moment before she took it. The chilled bite of metal locked around her wrist.

Rage swept through like an inferno. Her lips pulled back, baring her own set of fangs. Her wolf was rising.

“Stay calm,” he said, his voice smooth and way too even.

“What the hell are you doing?” she snarled.

“I politely offered you my protection, but you didn’t want it. Now, I really must insist.”

Fraya’s vision began to turn red. How dare this stranger restrain her? She should rip his throat with her teeth. “Who are you?”

He shook his head. “My name isn’t important, but I’ll be the vampire escorting you home.”

Horror twisted her stomach. “No. You can’t. I won’t go back!” She fought against the cuff, using all of her strength, but unlike normal steel, the bracelet held true. “Are you working for my father?”

He clasped the other cuff around his wrist, binding them together. “I work for no individual man.”

She grabbed his arm. Panic heightened her voice, “I’ll double whatever my father is paying you. I can’t go back. You don’t understand−”

The wind whipped around them, yet he could still smell her fear. With a frown, he asked, “You would rather test your luck against the alpha than return home?”

“Please, I can’t go back,” she begged. “I will triple your pay.”

He raised a brow. “Triple?”

“Yes!”

He captured her cuffed wrist and pulled her hard against him. Desire crashed over her, robbing her of breath. “Money doesn’t interest me.”

Oh, God. Her pulse kicked up, her heart pounded so fast she could hear it. “What does interest you?”

His alluring lips slowly lifted into a charming smile, which was made sexy by his long lethal fangs. “You’re coming with me, little wolf.”

About the Author

Amanda J. Greene is the author of the captivating Rulers of Darkness and enticing Under Realm Assassins series. Fans of Nalini Singh’s, Gena Showalter, and J.R. Ward will fall in love with Ms. Greene’s dangerously sexy heroes and strong, kick your teeth in heroines.

Within the chaos of life she finds time to write and create detailed worlds with exciting characters for her ravenous readers.

"Amanda's vampires are seriously sexy and I can't get enough!" - Kristina's Books & More

"Fans of Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series, Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld, and J.R. Ward’s BDB are in for a treat..." - VampBard review of Caressed by a Crimson Moon on That's What I'm Talking About

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Blog Tour: Ophia's Sister-Soul

Parting the Veils, Book One

 

Epic Fantasy / Visionary Fiction / Magical Realism

Date Published: 04-19-2025

 

 

Colleen Addison fears that the messages she receives from a place called Ophia prove she’s losing her mind. As she grieves for her lost twin sister, Earth’s civilizations, divorced from magic and wonder, crumble.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Partition, Esperidi Mon-Sequana discovers she’s the last surviving Sophryne, a Wakeful Dreamer cast adrift as Ophia convulses beneath the weight of atrocities done to Her, spilling Her anguish in fire and floods.

With naught but dreams and waking omens to guide her, Esperidi ventures across a ravaged land where marauders are a law unto themselves, and the Shetain priesthood demands that Ophia’s children appease the Rupture with penance and blood.

Lost and bereaved, Colleen and Esperidi reach for hope and salvation beyond the camouflage Veils, unsuspecting of the ties that bind them across lifetimes and worlds…

Excerpt

Introduction by Sanyori Mon-Sequestra

The sum of our dreams can be strung into a prop circle, casting our life journeys in the light of a stage production. Within such a play, we may see aspects of the plot that eluded us while we were identified with our roles within that drama. How many times have I witnessed this? The audience yells at the speaker on the stage, trying to awaken him or her to some crucial fact, despite knowing that such a ruckus can never alter the story’s trajectory.

The spectators can't help themselves.

I hope you’ll forgive me for all this dramatist’s jargon. I was—am—a man of the stage, and I speak as my nature and training lean. And I’ve been conditioned by my tenure as a Sophryne, a Wakeful Dreamer. There are times—particularly during historical moments of great unrest, tension, and change—when the dreams of a multitude coincide, creating an even larger, overarching narrative.

I call that narrative living theater. Many others refer to it as myth.

And perhaps (partly) because I'm accustomed to blurring the distinctions between "dream" and "reality," I've been asked to narrate—as concisely as possible—my people’s most beloved myth: "The Twin Souls and the Parting of the Veils."

Within the context of this tale, the lines between dreams and reality are sometimes in stark contrast and sometimes scarcely discernible. On occasion, I daresay, they even seem to trade places. I've heard this is often a characteristic of twins. Who could resist the temptation to at least try it, to explore—to borrow a phrase from Colleen Addison's world—"how the other half lives"?

For art and dreams are life's twin blessings.

Those not native to my home world of Ophia, who share Colleen's points of reference more intimately than mine, might feel that some information about my people, the Shaini, and the origins of our most revered teachers, the Sophryne, might be in order.

Ah, but I ought rather try and catch a golden mahseer with my bare hands, were I currently possessed of fleshy hands, than try to satisfy this demand. You see, little history survives from our earliest ages. Only the most nebulous clues, clothed in symbolism, are preserved in oral traditions. That's because time itself was (is) malleable. Many possible paths were explored. Each of these, in turn, thrust roots into their own “pasts” and “futures.”

During those earliest epochs, the Shaini tangibly felt and participated in Sorsajna, the fire of Creation. Later, when we no longer felt Sorsajna in the pit of our being, our Speakers, the Sophryne, were obliged to find more demonstrable ways to evoke its essence. They had to almost confound and beguile the minds of their kindred in the hopes of awakening them to old inner knowledge.

They reminded us of magical inner movements we felt divorced from in waking. This was the birth of art and drama—and language itself—arising alongside the dreaming life of humankind. Primitive peoples, like the Oskwai tribes you'll hear about, could gesture towards objects in their physical world. But for those more intangible feelings of possibility, magic, and wonder that dreams awaken in us, words were needed.

How else could that wonder be shared when it couldn't be related to anything in one’s surroundings?

And so we early humans tried to convey what we'd experienced in our sleep-time excursions using sounds, gestures, and pantomime. Once upon a time, we'd inhabited a living dream. Then, suddenly, we were Ophia-bound, entrenched in material bodies, and subjected to the laws of Space and Time. We clothed ourselves in flesh as Ophia clothed itself in ground.

And now we had to survive, to pluck Her fruits to sustain ourselves. Might humankind (Shaini or Oskwai) forget that the world's manifest beauty was a reflection, albeit a fractured one, of luminous Sorsajna, from which all existence flows? Could we retain the memory of our origins? These questions led to the birth of all the Sophryne arts, which reminded us of that boundless and nameless realm from which we emerged.

Thus, you’ll find little “hard history” here. We can only approach any version of truth by chasing the wind trails of our most venerated myths. But it’s empowering, methinks, to recall that we all participate in Creation. From the raw stuff of life, we bring forth forms that can be seen, heard, felt, smelt, and tasted. And sometimes, to our eternal enrichment, souls clothe themselves and walk among us to remind us of the dimensions from which we are (seemingly) sundered. The twins I spoke of were—are—two of the most renowned.

Such beings are naturally drawn to Sophrynism, to Wakeful Dreaming, a practice that straddles the lines between life and death, here and hereafter, time and eternity. Powerful Sophrynes can work such an effect upon the minds and souls of those with whom they come into contact that the recipients begin to break through the barriers of the world they know. They begin to perceive and respond to other realms of being. Such epiphanies can also penetrate the sense of separation that we often experience with one another.

A seemingly insurmountable gulf divided the sisters' respective worlds. They needed to experience, in their blessed, fragile bodies, that more pervasive separation I spoke of. Both worlds had lost their sense of magic, and our heroines, Colleen Addison and Esperidi Mon-Sequana, healers at heart for all eternity, instinctively looked for ways to patch the resulting rift. That search carried them through the heart of their mutual bereavement.

In the line of Ophia's tapestry, into which Esperidi became a vital thread, the Sophryne arts were perfected out of necessity. I know because I lived during that cruel and repressive era. It was perilous for any of us to speak our minds. We writhed within a spider's web, our every movement, word, and emotion sending tremors through its strands. To criticize the ruling body with even a whisper... One might as well trumpet protests to a lynch mob.

Such was life under the Cordonne and its Weaving.

Imagine the living conditions of the thousands of Shaini inhabiting Ophia during that age. I, Sanyori, spent my formative years beneath the Weaving's eyes. I knew my community’s quiet desperation. Our security came at too steep a price. But who among us would dare raise voices of dissent? The Weaving would expose us. Even plotting rebellion would alert the Cordonne. One could not even get aroused by the prospect of freedom.

What recourse had we?

Ah, but the Weaving, the chief instrument of the Cordonne’s control, was still a physical construct within a physical world. It could never reach its fingers into the dreaming dimension. And so it was there that we learned to awaken, congregate, and communicate freely.

We who escaped Old Ophia during its last days, its decaying days, planned our emancipation while we slept. Shadowy omens and premonitions illuminated our way, foreshadowing possible perils and treasures. Abandoning the social compass, we oriented ourselves around inner whispers and nudges. They helped us to regain our bearings when we'd lost sight of all shores.

That's how we came to etch the essential structure of this Sentient Library, where I now inscribe these words and struggle not to feel overwhelmed by the responsibility bequeathed upon me. I must remind myself that a living myth is created by all who partake in it. This relieves some of the burden. It soothes my stage jitters, so to speak.

The drama we call "Parting the Veils" touched upon many worlds, altering their mental landscape and changing their historical trajectory. Those reading this testimony with at least a partial knowledge of its underlying myth may grow restless at this juncture. "Yes: We know what the twins achieved in the end. They forged a pathway between the worlds, allowing each to recapture its sense of possibility and wonder. But what did they actually do?"

With that question, the road grows nebulous indeed. How does one recount the travels of two heroines who walked as much in their dreams as in waking? How does one do justice to the supporting cast—again, forgive my theater training—when many of them aspired towards the same thing?

Despite such daunting challenges, I've done my best to limn the journey of Esperidi Mon-Sequana and Colleen Addison and the forgotten art that united them, finally—at least, for long enough to alter the destinies of their respective worlds.

It isn't always comfortable reading. For many beings on both sides of the Partition, existence had grown unmistakably dark. Both worlds were purged in fire, floods, cyclones, and upheavals, whether one might interpret these in psychological or physical terms. And in the depths of their suffering, each world began to long, more and more, for the other.

Sarpienta’s fangs! If I persist like this, I'll likely be out of breath before I begin! But perhaps you can better understand my attachment to this story’s emotional sweep if you consider—and as you'll discover—that I participated in some of its unfolding events. By which I mean I lived them in a physical body.

Remember, always, that the distance between the worlds is, to awakened eyes, akin to the distance between our twins: no more than the breadth of a thought. Or, as my teacher once said, "Naught but a wisp of gossamer gown."

And here I shall sign off for now, consigning myself to an “omniscient narrator” role until more personal commentary might bring clarity. Enjoy this tale as it unfolds. Recognize yourself within its tapestry. If you did not partake in the epic described herein, to some extent or another, on Earth or Ophia, you would not be reading these words.



Sanyori Mon-Sequestra

In the Hereness and Nowness

The Sentient Library

About the Author

Throughout my life's myriad twists and turns, one desire has always stayed strong in me: to write epic tales that illuminate the inner world of our souls. I write fiction that depicts the journey of self-discovery in a dramatic and emotionally cathartic way. I'm inspired by methods of inner exploration like dream-work and shamanism, wherein one takes an inward plunge and then shares the fruits of that deep descent with the wider community. That, to me, is the essence of what any art form is really about.

I think the artistic impulse takes it for granted that the universe is forever unfinished; we all have unique gifts that bring something to Creation that would not otherwise ever exist.

My inspirations/influences include writers like Jane Roberts, L. Frank Baum, Barbara Marciniak, Stephen R. Donaldson, Frank Herbert, Lewis Carroll, Jack Kerouac, and Robert E. Howard.  Though I've enjoyed writing in many genres and styles, speculative fiction remains my biggest passion.

 

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