​Isobelle Cate is a woman who wears different masks.  Mother-writer, wife-professional, scholar-novelist.  Currently living in Manchester, she has been drawn to the little known, the secret stories, about the people and the nations:  the English, the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh, and those who are now part of these nations whatever their origins.  Her vision and passion are fuelled by her interest and background in history and paradoxically, shaped by growing up in a clan steeped in lore, loyalty, and legend. Isobelle is intrigued by forces that simmer beneath the surface of these cultures, the hidden passions, unsaid desires, and yearnings unfulfilled.

Website: www.isobellecate.com
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​A city run by shifters? In Alpha city, wolves, bears, tigers, panthers, and jaguars live together in peace, centered and led by the Council of Alpha’s. Ryder Malone, is the Alpha of his werewolf pack. He carefully balances his responsibilities as the official head of the Council, and older brother to his sister Zoey, but when she decides to leave for college, he finds himself drawn to her roommate. Like an obsession, London Grey is under Ryder’s skin. To his shock, the young witch orphan, and her best friend decide to move back to Alpha City with Zoey to create a new business. But someone in Alpha City doesn’t want them to succeed. 
Like a bad itch, mysterious happenings haunt the newcomers and the town’s Alpha. Can they figure out the mystery before tragedy happens? Or will Ryder and London’s own chemistry cause them to miss the obvious?

​Zoey Malone has it all. Her best friend is now her sister in law, and her partner in a new and thriving business, she’s treated like a princess by the members of her pack, and she’s found the man she wants to give her heart to in Kayden Lynn, Alpha of the Panther Pride. When business takes her to sunny Las Vegas and puts her in the path of Alpha wolf Johnny Ringo; she has to make a decision between the guaranteed security Johnny offers, and a deep soul-stealing love with Kayden. 

Forced back to her hometown, and hurt by the man who’s held her heart for years, she and the rest of the Malone Pack are threatened by outside forces. Will Kayden be the man she knows he can be, and come to her rescue, or will his pride put an end to their future before it starts?

​As the Alpha of his Jaguar clan, Judd Walsh is supposed to be open minded and objective in all decisions. However, he draws the line when it comes to vampires. A vampire stole the life of someone important to him, and he would rather be protecting anyone else. Until a pretty vampire sparks his jaguar like no one else ever has.

Maggie Lamont came to Alpha City to join in the fight to protect her people and others like them. As a healer, her blood can bring shifters and other magical beings back from the brink of death. Her life unexpectedly takes a left turn when she saves the life of a pack princess, and she comes face to face with Judd Walsh. 

Once lit, the fires of the mating call can’t be extinguished, and these two reluctant souls are caught between a rock and a hard place. Neither desires a mating, but neither can walk away. Faced with the continuing battle for all their lives against the dangerous Claudia Blackwood, the choices they make today, will certainly affect all of their tomorrows.

​Sage Wingate is fighting for control in her chaotic life. A bad-ass Bear Shifter intent on mating her, a deadly war with a powerful witch, and Sage’s overwhelming need to get revenge for her own past hurts, all bringing her to brink of madness. Brody King is an Alpha in the truest sense. His need to protect his pack and his loved ones, is only over shadowed by his desire for the pretty witch running for her life. She may have doubts about her destiny, but his nose knows best, and he’s going to pursue her with everything he has. The war only grows more deadly as shifters are pushed to their brink. Will Brody and Sage stay focused and alive, or will they get lost in the seductions of the mating lust. Only time will tell…

​Nolan Banks, Alpha of the Bank Tigers faces many things in his role as the leader of his kind. When he meets Skylar, she’s the most intriguing woman he’s ever seen. His instincts scream at him he can trust her, but she represents everything he hates most; Dragon shifters. He has to decide if she is gathering information for her brother, and use her to discover their weaknesses and use that knowledge to wipe out her entire clan, and kill her at the same time. 

Skylar is known throughout the shifter world as the last Dragon Princess. Her brother Jamal is hated, and now that she’s pledged her allegiance to fight with the Alphas of Alpha City, her brother will be after her as well. What she hadn’t planned on, was the Alpha of the Banks Tigers to mean so much to her. 

Time has run out in Alpha City for the Alphas who run it. They must band together to face a danger more powerful than anything they’ve ever known. With all their lives on the line, it’s not a question of when, but who, will die next.

​As a mother, wife, and career law enforcement officer, Bryce Evans deals with a variety of people on a daily basis. With her days packed full of packing lunches, fighting crime, and taxiing kids around, she uses her nights to dream of exotic worlds and intriguing characters and bring them to life. Her characters are strong, and resilient, but harbor enough heart to make you fall in love with them. 

[email protected]  ​

Let’s take a break from characters and backtrack a small bit. As a writer, you might be plagued by an idea so insistent that you’re forced to stop everything you’re doing and focus on this new little bunny that just made it to your CPPC (central plot processing center). As you pause from your current manuscript, you turn to look at the new arrival only to stare in abject horror as you recognize the rotting flesh of an old discarded idea come back to life!

You run from the room and grab the nearest source of fire at your fingertips. In my case, that would be a propane tank and a lighter. Grabbing the zombiefied creature, that hardly resembles the once vibrant hopeful little bunny it once was, you tape it to that propane tank and light it off!

Fleeing the flames, you take shelter back inside your writing cave with peace of mind that the horrible creature is dead. Never to bother you again. Until you hear a rapping at your door and the scampering of furry feat across the floor.

​You back up against the wall, reaching for the nearest blunt object. Your fingers close around the handle of a baseball bat, I have no clue why you have one in your writing cave but you do, and you slowly creep towards the door. You reach out, and quickly, throw the door open and swing at the bunny standing before you. You swing and swing and swing some more until all that’s left is a pile of rotted goo. 

Slumping against the door frame you wipe the sweat and blood from your face and think finally it’s dead. No way it can come back from that! But even as you think it, the goo starts to move and take form. The bunny rises from the pool of decay and rot.

​Having no other options at this point, you move swiftly! You get the vacuum and you suck that little bastard up. You deposit his half liquid, half solid remains in a metal box, and you jet out to the ocean. Because we all have private boats on standby. You sail at full speed out to the deepest part of the ocean and you drop that horrid creature right off the side of your boat. You watch. Counting the seconds and minutes as that box slowly descends to the dark crushing depths. Imaging the entire time, the box getting smaller and smaller, the bunny being destroyed from the inside out as it implodes.

You release a sigh of sweet relief and steer your boat back toward shore. You go home, you sit at your desk, and your fingers are now once again poised above your keyboard. You’re ready to get back to that book!

No you’re not!

He’s back, standing by your chair and smiling up at you. You look upon his lifeless gaze knowing this will be your last moments of sanity. Nothing will work. You can never escape the undead insanity of the plot bunny before you.

So, you cave in. You pull up a new document and you write a story you know has no originality to it but you try to make something good out of it. Maybe the characters can salvage this train wreck of an idea. Or, you can try a new angle… if there even is one!

As a writer you might find yourself locked into an idea that has been done time and time again. As the saying goes, there is nothing original anymore. Everything has been done. Just like that undead plot bunny that continually rises from the grave to be rewritten over and over again.

It is up to you to come up with something new, even for a tired old story idea. Maybe you want to write something similar to a Beauty and the Beast style story. It is your job as the writer, as the interpreter of the undead plot bunny, to weave a tale with a different spice to it. A new approach. Maybe the beast is half man, half machine. An outcast in society because of his mechanical parts. He’s neither human nor robot. Maybe your beauty is an employee of this beast, and already knows of his gentle heart. Your beauty is desperate to show the beast that it’s okay for society to not accept him, as long as they have each other. There is no curse to be broken, just the jaded and lonely heart of one man to overcome! (this is my idea, stay away from it)

So, even as this Halloween comes around and you are faced with the idea of the insanity of the many undead plot bunnies abounding, remember it could be a blessing in disguise. Wait, I say before chopping off that rotting creature’s head! Listen to the tale he wishes for you to spin. Lend the insanity an ear, and just maybe a bit of it will find its way into your writing.

​Happy Halloween!

I’ve mentioned it a few times on my Facebook page, but I LOVE a good villain. Nothing is more disappointing for me as a consumer of literature/film/comics or as a writer as when a story has a weak, dull, or stereotypical villain. With that in mind, let’s talk about how you can make a good villain for your story and how I go about fleshing out mine.
 
Firstly! Like with your MC, your big bad needs a backstory. How did he come to the point he’s at now? Why did she turn to a life of crime? What does the villain have against the MC? Where did their paths cross? Is their struggle something intimate or is it more grand and large scale?
 
Examples of MC to villain interaction is something like cops and robbers, hero and villain, arch enemies, rivals, parent and child, school bullies, century old grudge, the hero spilled coffee on the villain at just the wrong time and now they want him/her dead! Okay, that last one was a bit over the top, but if you set your villain up as someone who is on the verge of breaking it could work.
 
For me, I mostly use a business or family approach to my villains. In Galaxia Pirates my primary villains are the mercenary group the Red Falcon crew, and the Allied Navy. Seeing as the “heroes” of the story are pirates it would make sense their primary foe would be a form of law enforcement. The Red Falcon and crew get involved because they are often taking a job that puts them in direct opposition with the Galaxia Pirates.
 
In Itáyu Lake, the first antagonist is Jason Strand’s own family. Fueled by a centuries old grudge and misguided hate the family is bitter and prejudice. Jason’s life was hard because of his father’s views, views his siblings later reflected and pushed onto him.

Your antagonist should be just as complex, if not more so, than your protagonist. I’m not saying you need to give your reader the complete life story. They don’t need to know how their first pet goldfish died and their parents just left him in the bowl to be found later… unless that plays into their spiraling path of seeing the world as a fleeting nothingness. See! Any little thing can lead to a good starting point of villainy.
 
Personally, I love the intimate connection with the hero. As I said, in Galaxia Pirates one of the primary antagonists are often put into the Galaxia crew’s path because of the jobs they take, but the captain of the Red Falcon has a past with the Galaxia’s captain and first mate. This personal connection drives him to greater leaps in logic when handling them. He wants his revenge!
 
Revenge is a perfectly acceptable drive for your villain. Revenge also works well for a hero. Maybe they both see the other as having wronged them and they want mutual revenge against each other? The part you focus on and show in the more positive light would show which is your hero vs villain.
 
Remember, a lot about your villain is perspective. Another example from my own writing, in the first Itayu Lake book, A Dragon’s Dream, Jason’s brother Jared is shown to be an antagonist. He’s against Jason’s mating to Mikhail. He even seems to share his father’s prejudice opinions. He’s completely unlikeable!
 
Until he gets his own story and the reader gets to see things from his perspective in the second book of Itáyu Lake, A Cougar’s Cry. Then he goes from being a villain to a sympathetic victim that you want to cheer for.
 
So, quick recap. You villains needs a backstory that justifies their actions. Some kind of connection with the hero needs to be made, even if it is only in passing. Use the correct perspective to frame your villain.

​Now, for a final bit of advice, that’s a bit contradictory to what I just said. You story doesn’t need to have a villain. The conflict between the two characters, say in a love story, can push your plot along just fine. Villains are more for an external conflict. If you’re going for more of an internal thing, then you can bypass the villain entirely and just focus on what your character is going through, and the conflict he’s fighting within himself. Of course all good stories have both an external and an internal conflict.
 
Whether you chose to use a villain or not though, the tone should fit and be something that flows with the entirety of your narrative. It doesn’t make sense to suddenly have a villain thrown in the middle of your book if you haven’t lead up to it. So it’s always a good idea to think about the story as a whole and whether or not a villain is needed to propel the plot forward.
 
Good luck!

​Exotic new worlds, excitement, danger and a dragon-shifting alien. What more could you ask of a science fiction anthology? 
Check out these new stories from authors Rose Nickol, A.M. Halford, KD Jones, and Bethany Shaw.