RELEASE DAY for SENTINEL LOST by AE JONES!

I am so, so excited to welcome my friend AE Jones to Get Lost in a Story.  We first met in 2013 when we were finalists in the Golden Heart.  AE won RWA’s 2013 Golden Heart ® Award for her paranormal manuscript, Mind Sweeper. Mind Sweeper was also a 2015 RWA RITA® finalist for both First Book and Paranormal Romance.  How fabulous is that?  And she's here to talk about Sentinel Lost the 5th book in the wonderful Mind Sweeper Series.   It released today!!  
If you haven't had a chance to grab these books - make the time!  They are wonderful.

MEET AE JONES

Growing up a TV junkie, AE Jones oftentimes rewrote endings of episodes in her head when she didn’t like the outcome. She immersed herself in sci-fi and soap operas. But when Buffy hit the little screen, she knew her true love was paranormal. Now she spends her nights weaving stories about all variation of supernatural—their angst and their humor. After all, life is about both…whether you sport fangs or not.

AE lives in Ohio surrounded by her eclectic family and friends who in no way resemble any characters in her books. Honest. Now her two cats are another story altogether.

Let's get swept away!

How many supernaturals does it take to screw in a lightbulb? For this particular case, way more than Kyle McKinley has backing her up.

When she stumbles upon a dark museum, missing artwork, and a dead security guard, Kyle and her team are thrust into a new mystery. One involving demons. But not your run of the mill demons—realm demons. Tougher, scarier, and banned from earth, they are escaping from the realm and wreaking havoc in Cleveland, Ohio, of all places.

Now the Feds have shown up, and Kyle has to deal with the one person she prayed she would never see again. Dalton. How can she keep the truth of their past from him without jeopardizing the case? Especially when the Key of Knowledge is part of the mystery. The same Key that almost cost Dalton his sanity and is now threatening hers. Kyle is just starting to get her life back together again with Griffin at her side. And now the Fates are forcing her to choose. But when a demon apocalypse looms on the horizon, her only choice is to embrace the Key to save the world, regardless of what it might cost her.

EXCERPT

How many supernaturals does it take to screw in a lightbulb? In this particular case, way more than I had backing me up.
I walked around the outside of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Even though the pole lights in the parking lot were on, reflecting eerily in the puddles, the inside of the building was pitch dark.
And the museum was never dark.
I pulled Stanley, my .9 mm, out of his holster and clicked off the safety. I didn’t need supernatural senses to know something was hinky.
Damn. This was supposed to be a quick drive-by. Misha was so going to owe me for this one. He’d detected some sort of energy surge on his equipment. Go check it out, Kyle. We’ll be right behind you, Kyle. Ugh. Normally Misha’s energy spikes amounted to nothing.
But then, when could I rely on anything being normal?
I reached for my phone to find out how far he, Jean Luc, and Talia were from my location. Before I could call, a loud thump made me slip into the shadows and then slink along the side of the building until I reached the back.
A metal door slammed open, and a huge man darted down the stone steps, his footfalls echoing across the lagoon in front of us.
Come on. Give me something, big guy. Are you a norm or a supe? I hesitated for a second. If he was a human burglar, I had no jurisdiction here. Screw it. He was getting away, and my gut told me to take a chance.
“Freeze!” I yelled, walking into the light of the full moon and aiming Stanley at the guy.
He jerked to a halt, turned toward me and stared. His eyes glowed like lighthouse beacons. Supe it is. Now we’re talking.
“Bureau of Supernatural Relations. Hands where I can see them,” I barked while I moved closer.
He stood there glowering.
“Did you hear me? Hands up!”
He raised them slowly, and I stepped closer. He clenched his right fist, and I gasped. Even though he was several feet away, invisible fingers clamped around my wrist like a vise. I tried to yank out of his hold. He frowned at my resistance, and as he closed his left fist, I aimed and shot. He howled, clutching his left shoulder. When he pulled his hand away, blood ran down his arm. Green blood.
What. The. Hell?
He flung his right arm outward, and Stanley flew from my grip. Then he raised his hand, palm down, and I dangled in the air, my feet jerking beneath me in a futile attempt to touch the ground. His upper lip crooked up like a demented Elvis. He studied me for a moment like I was a lab experiment.
This was what I got for listening to my gut. My stupid, stupid, gut.

BUY SENTINEL LOST

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A FUN Q&A WITH AE JONES

NAN: How often do you get lost in a story?

AE JONES: Nan, before I answer this, I have to tell you how excited I am to be on Get Lost in a Story, especially spending time with you, my Golden Heart Sister!

Now, onto your first question…I get lost in a story almost every time I read one. Or let me correct that, if I can’t get lost in the story as I read, then I don’t normally make it all the way through the book. As a writer, I have to try and shut off my critiquing and editing brain to jump whole-heartedly into a story. For me, it’s ALL about the characters. Good characters will permit me to get lost. They grab my hand and yank me in and my emotions become entangled with theirs.

NAN:  Squeee!  And you, my friend, are my first guest!

NAN:  Tea or Coffee? And how do you take it?

AE JONES: I’m a tea girl all the way – decaffeinated or herbal. And I normally drink it straight up, sometimes with a bit of honey drizzled in it. Nan is already well aware of this, but if you met me in person, you would know that I am a bit high-strung, or what I like to call ‘naturally caffeinated’. So I don’t need to introduce any more stimulants into my system.

NAN: So true, but in a wonderful naturally caffeinated kind of way.

NAN:   How did you come up with the idea for your book?

AE JONES: I have to tweak this question a tiny bit. Since this is a series, I’m going to answer how I came up with the series concept. It actually stemmed from a joke. As a matter of fact, it was the first line in Mind Sweeper, book 1 of my series. And I thought to myself, what if it WASN’T a joke. What if it really happened? And my series was born ...

An angel, a demon, and a vampire walked into a bar. No seriously, they did. And all hell broke loose.

From there, I decided that I wanted the heroine to be strong woman who dealt with paranormal as part of her job. And then the fun came into play. What types of paranormal would be in my world? From the first line, I knew that I wanted to introduce different types so that readers could see the interplay between them.

NAN:  I love the opening line of your first book!

NAN:  What’s the first thing you do when you finish writing a book?

AE JONES: The very, very first thing I do is dance a little victory dance. Then I call or text my friends and tell them I just wrote ‘the end’. Then I collapse (nap time) and I finally top it all off with a nice dinner or decadent dessert. A bit boring, I know, but it works for me!

NAN:  Works for me too.  But of course, Prosecco might be involved too!

NAN:     Do you read your genre when you’re writing?

AE JONES:  This is an interesting question. I actually do not read paranormal much when I’m writing it. I’m always fearful that I will subconsciously latch onto something and add it into my stories, so I don’t read it much while I am in serious writing mode. I actually read a lot of historical romances while I’m writing since it lets me escape to another world (which is why I write paranormal) but doesn’t impact my creativity.

NAN:  When I was doing my RITA Finalists reading binge, I started to write first person while reading YA!

NAN:  What has been your most rewarding publishing moment?

AE JONES:  That is a tough question for me, so I am going to cheat and list three…

1)       Making the decision to self-publish. When I finally said I was going to self-publish out loud, the closest sensation I can compare it to is hang-gliding (or what I imagine it would feel like to glide through the air with the human equivalent of wings).

2)      Holding the print proof of Mind Sweeper, my first book, for the very first time. I opened the box with my dad and we held the book between us and jumped up and down. We were standing in my garage with the door up, so the neighbors got an interesting view.

3)      Being a double RWA RITA finalist this year for Mind Sweeper, the first book in my series. What a wonderful feeling of validation that this self-pubber had made the right decision to move forward with this series!

NAN: Such wonderful moments. I can see why it was hard to pick one.

NAN HAS GOT TO ASK:  What has surprised you the most about being published?

AE JONES:  I think the thing that has surprised me the most is the surreal feeling I get when I look at my own books on Amazon or iTunes or Goodreads or…well, you get the idea. It feels like AE Jones is someone else. I read the blurbs that I agonized over or pick up one of my books and read a scene and I think, “Wow, I finally made this happen. I am sharing my stories with readers.”

NAN: You not only made it happen -- you did it 5 times!!  

WHAT'S UP NEXT?

AE JONES:   Next year I will be introducing a new series revolving around Paranormal Wedding Planners. It makes me giggle just writing that. I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

NAN: I can't wait.  What a great premise.

AE JONES WANTS TO KNOW:  Who is your favorite kick-butt heroine?

AE Jones  is giving away ebook copy of Sentinel Lost (or Mind Sweeper if they are new to the series and want to start from the beginning)

FIND AE JONES:

Contact: aejones@aejonesauthor.com 

Website: www.aejonesauthor.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/aejones.author1 

Twitter: @AEJonesAuthor

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8190719.A_E_Jones

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/aejonesauthor/

Blogs: www.aejonesauthor.com

Thank you AE for sharing your book birthday with the crew of Get Lost in a Story.  Good luck with your launch!  (I'm hitting BUY now!)