Welcome to Uncaged! Your latest book, Out Like a Dragon is the seventh book in a series. Can you tell readers more about the book and this series?
The Chimera Chronicles is a paranormal romance series featuring seven chimera-shifting brothers separated as young children to hide them from their enemies. The youngest brothers don’t even remember they are shifters. Chimeras in my world can shift into three other forms. They can be a lion, a dragon, or a blend of the two. One form, either the lion or the dragon is usually dominant. In each book, one brother must find his fated mate before he goes feral and his animal side subsumes the human.
This final book is about Caleb. He is a former Coast Guard Officer who was captured after going feral. His captors have a drug that keeps him human for a short time and they use him as a hired killer. Mika, the heroine, works for the Ethereal Council, a group of Supernatural creatures who enforce the world of shifters, vampires, and every mythical being that exists in the world of the Chimera Chronicles. She is an enforcer. It’s her job to track him down.
What are you working on now that you can tell us about?
I’m starting a s spin off series with three sisters. I love stories about families, in case you couldn’t tell. This will be another mythical shifter species. The hero is John, the best friend of Kyle, the oldest Chimera Brother. John is a half-demon (demons can be good or bad in my world). My heroine also is in the Chimera Chronicles. She’s in the same boat as Caleb, she’s gone feral and John uses the same drug the bad guys used on Caleb to bring her back and discovers she’s his mate. Unfortunately, being lost in her animal form for so long, she doesn’t remember who she is. In the midst of this, the Ethereal Council is choosing a new mythical-shapeshifter representative. While, the candidates are gathered there’s a murder. So John and his mate’s story will take place in the setting of this mystery.
What is the most difficult scene for you to write? What is the easiest?
The black moment scene is always the hardest to write. I want the reader to be completely immersed in the scene and feel the emotion the characters are feeling. I tend to second guess myself at this point and writing slows down to a crawl. I think the easiest scene is the first meet scene because usually I have had it in my head since before I started the book, so it’s had a lot of time to percolate.
Read the rest of the interview in the issue below.
As an avid reader who read every book in the kids’ section of the library and moved on to Harlequin Presents at age eleven, Karin Shah spends a lot of time reading. Some (everyone) might say too much. Every book she writes, she writes for herself as a reader. She enjoy novels that make her smile even though it seems the happy ending is almost beyond reach. At the end of a book, she wants to feel satisfied, not worried, so she doesn’t do cliff-hangers. All her novels work as stand alones, but her series are best enjoyed in order. She tries very hard to write the fun, emotionally satisfying Romances she adores and make each one better than the last.
She lives in Rochester, NY with her husband, two children, a girl and a boy, and three dogs, a vizsla and two basenjis. Along with reading, she enjoys anime and manga, and is trying her best to start running, but seems to do most of that between the couch and the bathroom. She admits to being a little flaky, having gone to get her teenage daughter at school once when all of a sudden she remembered her daughter had stayed home from school that day. Karin has been known to get so deeply into writing, reading or whatever that a brass band could march through and she’d never notice. Her dogs and children use this tendency to get away with bloody murder.
She loves to hear from readers–please visit her at any of her social media sites and tell her what you think.
Enjoy an excerpt from:
Out Like a Dragon
Karin Shah
Fantasy Romance
Seven powerful shifter brothers torn apart as children, must find their fated mates and each other, before they go feral or their enemies hunt them down…
Mika Satoru doesn’t need anyone. She’s always been glad she’s not a shifter, a mate would only slow her down. She’s a Satori, a supernatural being with telepathic abilities, and an Ethereal Council enforcer. She’s faster, stronger, smarter, and works harder than her colleagues. Being Deaf is just part of who she is.
For the past year or more, she’s been tracking a mysterious killer. The last thing she wants is to be taken off the case to search for a possibly feral chimera shifter.
Caleb is feral. His humanity has surrendered to his dragon side, but he’s a dragon on a leash. The Scorpius Corporation has a serum that keeps him human long enough to kill anyone who threatens their bottom line. Fortunately, until recently, that’s been weapons dealers with bloody hands themselves. Now Scorpius is gone, but his handler, Eris, still holds his leash. She has a job for him, assassinate a member of the Ethereal Council.
When Caleb meets Mika, the fight is on — literally, but circumstances soon force them together.
On the run from the Council Enforcers, Eris, and the police, Caleb and Mika must work to uncover the moles and find more serum before Eris carries out her mission. A talisman aids them in their task, but it has a mind of its own and they never know where they’ll end up. Worse, before the serum wears off completely, Caleb has the impulse control of a kindergartener and Mika shouldn’t find that adorable. Nor should every touch kindle the desire to kiss him.
She doesn’t need a mate —but maybe she wants one.
Excerpt
Mika threw open the fallout shelter door as wide as it would go, which wasn’t a complete arc. The massive hinges must have settled over the years or the floor rose because the base wedged to a halt at about a 70 degree angle. She scanned the shadows inside.
There were no lights in here and she didn’t see another camera. The light bleeding through the window illuminated stacks of dusty plywood, two by fours and the like, lined up against the walls. An old folding chair lay open on it’s side in the middle of the floor. A push cart stood next to it.
The room appeared empty, but that pull in her chest grew. She had to step forward to clear the area obscured by the door.
She’d already passed the threshold when Anand said, Wait.
But it was too late. The door slammed shut, leaving her cut off from the Maras and her team.
The floor vibrated under her boots. Something being shoved. Mika tracked the object to its destination blocking the door. Her heart thumped like a taiko drum at a festival. The stale air felt as thick as sludge, needing extra force to be inhaled.
She spun to confront the threat, but despite the small window, most of the room was now masked in shadow. Her eyes were no longer adjusted to the dark which made it even harder to see. She raised her weapon toward the darker blob she could detect. Her eyes were re-adjusting and she scrutinized the edges of the shape. Dragon? No.
The thing took up a large space, but not that big. It was a very tall man. Twin golden circles reflected the light. Chimera eyes. Caleb.
Air pushed into her lungs. She lifted her weapon to aim at center mass. “Don’t move,” she commanded.
He didn’t listen. He came closer. She should shoot him. Wouldn’t have hesitated before, but something stayed Mika’s hand. She tried to press back against the door. Something hit the back of her legs. It felt like the pile of materials she’d seen against the wall. This must be what had been shoved.
Her pulse raced. He’d trapped her in here with him.
Her eyes adapted further to the light from the door and she saw past the glowing eye shine for the first time.
Her breath snagged painfully in her chest. The floor did a weird dip. There was no disguising the wild beauty of a Mara in human form. The diamond cut symmetry of his face echoed Ky’s. But whereas her admiration of Ky’s looks was purely academic, the sight of this face did something weird to her heart. It fluttered.
She almost shook her head at the thought. Hearts didn’t flutter.
Fear had driven it into a faster rhythm. She confused attraction with panic. Anger cleared her head. This is hardly the time for self-reflection.
She was cornered.
Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below.
