Descent Into Darkness by Zanne Raby - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hi, lovelies!!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Zanne Raby and her new book, “Descent Into Darkness,” here on FAB!!  For other stops on her Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $15 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Zanne and to increase your chances of winning!!

Thanks for stopping by!!  Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!

Descent Into Darkness

The Chronicles of Deneb

Book Two

by Zanne Raby

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GENRE:  Science-Fiction / Space-Opera

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BLURB:

Descent into Darkness: Mayhem follows the Mayflower in the second book of The Chronicles of Deneb series. Journey along with the crew of the Space Ark Mayflower as they adapt to their new home on the planet Deneb. But along with their struggle to integrate into an alien culture, a new battle sweeps across the planet with the arrival of the human-transmitted Chimera bactovirus, bringing war and fanning the flames of racial intolerance. With a bloody conflict raging across the planet, the crew of the Mayflower is split between the two factions and embroiled in the chaos and destruction. Descend with the crew into darkness, where the only survivors of a global war will be on the right side of the border.

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EXCERPT ONE:

“Pallav? You alright?” Tara’s voice broke him from his reverie and he pasted on a phony smile.

“Sorry darling, I was a million light years away. I’ll be fine,” he promised. Sweat trickled down his back in the unrelenting heat of the Denebian day, his disruptive pattern shirt already sticking to his body as he shrugged into his rucksack.

“Daddy, I’m gonna miss you.” The chirpy sing-song voice of little Jolanta gave him cause to smile at the child as she held out her arms to him. Swooping her up, Pallav dropped a kiss on the little girl’s rosy brown cheek, her eyes glistening with tears.

“And I’m going to miss you too, little one.” Hugging the orphaned girl to his chest, he burrowed his face into the cloud of dark hair that was as soft as a feather before pinching her cheek and gently setting her down. Guilt pierced his heart at the sad resigned look on the child’s face. Had it not been for him, Jolanta would be snug as a bug with her biological parents and not in lockdown high above the capital city living with a pair of humans.

Poor little thing… she’s known so much loss in her short life, he thought. Surrounded by death as the human Chimera bactovirus raged across Deneb, Jolanta had been cruelly abandoned by her mother after Tara retrieved the fallen child from the cobblestoned marketplace in the centre of the capital city. He could still picture his wife walking through the door with the tiny tot in tow. Shocked, surprised, but then captivated, Pallav let the child into his heart. It wasn’t like his two teenagers wanted him around anymore. No, Luke and Isabella were busy chartering their own course in the Wessel world with Gomalan insisting that they attend the best boarding school in the nation.

Taking advantage of his position, Pallav had initiated a thorough search for Jolanta’s parents only to get confirmation that they were amongst the thousands in Styria who had succumbed to the pandemic. Since her arrival, the young orphan had been his little shadow, never leaving his side, following the big man’s movements with her luminous opalescent eyes. He smiled inwardly at the thought of Jolanta climbing into her little cot and begging her new daddy for a bedtime story. Guilt-ridden he realized that he’d miss her more than his own children who were so immersed in their new lives that even their weekly holotalks were rushed and awkward. Laughing at himself, Pallav knew he was totally under the child’s spell.

“I promise to be back in time for market day, so no tears, okay?” Taking the little urchin’s chin in his hands, Pallav stared into her eyes. “And you have a promise to make to me too young lady, don’t you?” The little brown head nodded up and down, serious eyes acknowledging the responsibility her adopted father had assigned to her.

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GUEST POST:

Everyone Loves a Hero!!

A big hello to everyone today and thank you to Fab for having me on your blog. Everyone loves a hero, right? Someone who rises up when the going gets tough and pulls the fat out of the fire. A selfless soul who saves the day and rights the wrongs.  That kind of defines a hero, doesn’t it? When I began writing my sci-fi series, “The Chronicles of Deneb”, I had to reflect on what makes a hero. But even Superman doesn’t have a halo.

Let’s take a trip to the year 2080 CE and meet up with Dr. Daniel Radu in the first novel of the series, The Flight of the Mayflower. Daniel’s an astronautical engineer leading a team of experts in the design and build of a massive space ark. The ark’s critical for the survival of humanity, since our planet is now in its final death throes. When he stumbles across a conspiracy by the world leaders to abandon their citizens to their fate, Daniel takes matters in his own hands. Soon he and his crew are hunkering down in the pirated Space Ark Mayflower and rocketing across space in a quest for survival. They cross the galaxy and arrive safely on Deneb7, but their arrival is anything but welcoming. Oh yes, Daniel saved the day for his team, but not everybody on board agreed with his unorthodox methods. And what about Deneb’s indigenous population? Is it ego or ignorance that blinds Daniel to their fate, or maybe it’s because two of the three Denebian nations are far more advanced than the human refugees? Whatever it is, Daniel’s halo is getting tarnished, isn’t it? If you take a closer look, you might find that it’s being held up by a set of horns, because this hero plays dirty.

Now let’s take a little Descent into Darkness and travel through time and space to the second book in the series. Here, Daniel’s halo gets snagged even further when a scheme for revenge means he’s stuck living with the one Denebian tribe that values tradition over technology: the Geiten, a nomadic people dwelling in an arid wasteland. Imagine that, one of the best engineers from Earth, and instead of working with rockets, he’s working with rocks.

Daniel didn’t get to be at the top through a lack of determination. He’s got grit, guts and gumption. He figures it’s his mission in life to introduce change to the locals and so together with his team, he tinkers away to develop some radical engineering technology that’ll make the locals’ lives more leisurely. Nomadic, no way, cause Daniel’s saved the day. Polish that halo, Daniel. Hey, just wait a minute… you’d better put it away ‘cause the Geiten are telling him that they were pretty happy the way things were. Well, some of them were anyway. Denebian division, anyone? And there just happens to be a nasty war that explodes in the wake of a deadly alien infection. Hmmm… Daniel, I wonder where that came from?

Things just aren’t going his way, are they? So our hero decides Deneb is not delightful and slips away to the water world of Cepheus9. Three strikes, he’s out, but no, not Daniel. Being the heroic type, he makes sure that his team gets out of Dodge as well. Masquerading as an exobotanist for the Collective, Daniel teams up with his courageous boss, Dr. Meera, and brings stability to his new home planet. Now Daniel can grind down those horns and shine up that halo, cause our hero has finally found his home.

So who is Daniel, who inspired this crazy character? Daniel’s the kind of man who can fix pretty much anything and finds the silver lining in a storm cloud. He’s also not afraid of mixing it up, that is, if he has to. He’s a combo of brains and brawn and brilliance, and although I couldn’t put my finger on it for a while, Daniel’s a modern day MacGyvor. I didn’t set out to make him this way, but his character developed into a Jack of All Trades, and a master of most. Now he’s not all good. There are times when he doesn’t reflect on the outcome of his actions and that’s when trouble bites him in the behind. I didn’t want to create a goody-two-shoes type hero and Daniel does have his kryptonite. I’m going to leave it to the reader to find out exactly what that is!

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AUTHOR BIO:

Since the days of the Napoleonic War, there has always been a member of Zanne's family in uniform. Choosing to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors, Zanne joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1980, and was selected to attend the Royal Military College of Canada – the first year that women were accepted into that prestigious academy of learning. After graduation, she studied to become a Transportation and Movements Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

During a career spanning 38 years, some of the most memorable experiences involved command of 8 Mission Support Squadron as part of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, leading a study on support to the Canadian Arctic involving several trips to Northern Canada, including Canadian Forces Station Alert (the most northern settlement in the world), a three–year tour with NATO at Joint Force Command Brunssum, a deployment as the NATO Liaison Officer to United States Central Command, and finally a nomination as the Deputy Commander for the Canadian Forces Recruiting Group.

After hanging up the uniform and putting away the combat boots, Zanne bought a small acreage in Central Ontario and designed her own house. With an office overlooking the picturesque shores of Georgian Bay, surrounded by maps and images of alien worlds, she is pursuing her life-long ambition to become an author. Enough of the reports and returns that littered her desk over her career, now she could turn her attention to unleashing the creativity that had taken a back seat to the analytical world of logistics. The time had come to shake the dust off and begin a new career. The winds of change had called.

Zanne is currently crafting The Chronicles of Deneb, a sci-fi series that will take the reader from a dystopian earth on a voyage across the galaxy in search of a safe haven. But the planets the team discover provide anything but the sanctuary they sought. In her spare time, Zanne enjoys travel, photography, hiking, and gardening. And always, a good story to pass the time.

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CONNECT WITH ZANNE:

Website:

https://www.zanneraby.com/index.htm

Newsletter:

https://www.zanneraby.com/contact.htm

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/zanne.raby

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/zanne_raby

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/zanne-raby-2b4a9b1bb

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21530756.Zanne_Raby

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59716777-descent-into-darkness

Amazon Author Page:

https://amzn.to/35xT2O2

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BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon US Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/3C165UG

Amazon US Paperback:

https://amzn.to/36FL5Hb

Amazon CA Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.ca/Descent-into-Darkness-Chronicles-Deneb-ebook/dp/B09JSVD33P

Amazon CA Paperback:

https://www.amazon.ca/Descent-into-Darkness-Chronicles-Deneb/dp/1777556538

Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/descent-into-darkness-zanne-raby/1139912723

Kobo US eBook:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/descent-into-darkness-15

Kobo CA eBook:

https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/descent-into-darkness-15

Smashwords eBook:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1110453

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Zanne will be awarding a $15 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions.  Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.