Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula - #WordWearch Fun no.6 #Paranormal

Mina's Children
Word Search

Greetings lovely people and puzzle fans. I must apologise for last week's lack of puzzle, but things were a little busy over this way.

This week the puzzle is based on my latest novella, Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula, an exciting paranormal adventure with vampires, werewolves and even secret agents. The book is entered into the Kindle Storyteller competition, hence it being exclusive to Amazon atm, and even clicks on the link above would really help me out. Many thanks.😘

So what fun things is everyone up to at the moment? I am learning Italian with Duolingo which is fun. I can say "I write books" and "I drink wine", so I think I'm sorted 😂.

Have fun with the puzzle and see you again next week 💖.

The Puzzle

Options for Solving

1. Click the button below and start solving online. If you create a free account with MyWordSearch.com (you only have to pay to create word searches) you can save your progress and come back later.
   Create account - top left of pop-up.
2. For those who prefer the old school pen and paper, click here to download the PDF so you can print it.

Solution

For those who would like to check their answers or who can't find that last word, here is the solution:

Click to open the puzzle solution in a new window.

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Book of the Week

Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula

Dracula's Heritage Book 1

Regina Harker, immortal, vampire tainted, descendant of the famous Mina, has spent her whole life preparing for one mission: destroy Dracula.

Mina Harker (nee Murry) was changed by Dracula's attentions and so were her descendants. Reggie comes from this line of vampire hunters, nature's definitive balance to the darkness. Her whole life has been building up to this one mission in Romania, to face the evil that started everything for her family.  Unfortunately there are others with their eyes on Dracula too, and Reggie has run right into them. She must make them allies or remove them from the game before she can face the ultimate foe.

  

Currently free to read on Kindle Unlimited

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NEW Book - Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula #Paranormal #Vampires

New Book
Mina's Children

The Legacy of Dracula

Kindle Unlimited, eBook & Paperback

I have a new book out! I know, you're shocked, nothing about this post gave that away before this point did it 😉🤣. Admittedly there has been no build up to this, but that's because I have to admit that I moved the schedule up on this one pretty sharpish.

Regina Harker, immortal, vampire tainted, descendant of the famous Mina, has spent her whole life preparing for one mission: destroy Dracula.

Mina Harker (nee Murry) was changed by Dracula's attentions and so were her descendants. Reggie comes from this line of vampire hunters, nature's definitive balance to the darkness. Her whole life has been building up to this one mission in Romania, to face the evil that started everything for her family.  Unfortunately there are others with their eyes on Dracula too, and Reggie has run right into them. She must make them allies or remove them from the game before she can face the ultimate foe.

Mina's Children is entered into Amazon UK's Kindle Storyteller literary prize, which I didn't know about until an email came through this month, and the entry period is 1st May - 31 Aug. All entries have to be new books, so I went full speed on editing Mina's Children, which I have been meaning to do for a little while.

Now some of you may recognise the title as one I published on Wattpad in 2018 as part of their Open Novella Contest, where it came in the top 5, and it is based on the same novella. However, this is a new version which has been edited to be the beginning of my series Dracula's Heritage, as well as having three completely new chapters at the end.

Dracula, the greatest vampire to have ever lived, is like no other undead before or since. Always returning from death no matter his adversaries, it will take a coming together of remarkable individuals, each one themselves the result of a ripple left by Dracula in the world, to bring an end to his latest dreadful plot.

Mina's Children is a contemporary paranormal action adventure, inspired by Bram Stoker's classic Dracula. I have always loved Dracula, being a vampire fan, how could I not, and some of the film adaptations of the story are easily in my top 10 vampire films of all time. I will admit this series takes as many liberties with the source material as most adaptations, but I hope it will appeal to fans of the Count.

My apologies to those who prefer to use sources other than Amazon, but to be in the running for the Kindle Storyteller prize, the title has to be in KDP select and exclusive to the platform. However, this does mean I can offer it to read for free via Kindle Unlimited.

It is also available to purchase for the introductory price of $0.99, £0.77 for the eBook & $6.99, £4.95 for the paperback.

  

It would be wonderful if you were to pick up a copy, or if you could even just visit the book on Amazon - because both will help Mina's Children's rankings and how much it will be seen. This in turn will help it in the competition. Thank you so much for your support.💖

Of course, as always, while vampires survive on blood, reviews are the lifeblood for authors. If you enjoy the book, I would be eternally grateful if you would leave a review at Amazon.

💜Thank you so much for dropping by.💜

Q. Do you have a book in Amazon's Kindle Storyteller prize? Let us know about it in the comments so we can check it out.

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Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story on the first Friday of every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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Mina's Children is Top 5 in Wattpad's Open Novella Contest

Mina's Children is Top 5 in Wattpad's Open Novella Contest

The Open Novella Contest at Wattpad is over!

They announced the top 5 winners yesterday and my novella, Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula, came in at #5. Woohoo!

I have no idea how many people entered originally, but I can say that after Round 1, 550 novellas went on to Round 2, then 217 to Round 3 and there were 36 finalists. I can only imagine how much work went into organising the contest. Kudos to the organisers.

Wattpad is a free to read platform, so all the winners are there for your reading pleasure. Here's mine :), but check out the other four from the top five too - links below.

Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula

Mina Harker (née Murry) was changed by Dracula's attentions, and so were her descendants. Reggie comes from this line of vampire hunters, nature's definitive balance to the darkness. Her whole life has been building up to this one mission in Romania, to face the evil that started everything for her family.  Unfortunately there are others with their eyes on Dracula too, and Reggie has run right into them. She must make them allies or remove them from the game before she can face the ultimate foe.

genre: vampire, paranormal, action adventure

Other Winners

• 4th place - Branches - Two Fates. One Tale by lovingtimetravel (paranormal, vampire)
• 3rd place - Obachan: a memoir by TaniHanes (historical)
• 2nd place - Feast or Famine by SoelleKhiss (paranormal)
• 1st place - Siggi! by MiloMaia (dark fantasy)

Yay! Mina's Children is through to the shortlist for the Open Novella Contest

Mina's Children is in the Shortlist

Please excuse me while I crow just a little bit :) I found out this morning that Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula is a finalist in Wattpad's Open Novella Contest.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with the platform, Wattpad is a free fiction site where anyone can post stories, and it is a great place to spot new talent and find new readers. It has a dedicated reading ap for most devices, as well as a website, and has millions of users.

After coming second in round 2 of the Open Novella Contest I worked really hard to come up with an ending for the novella that would entertain my readers and those judging the contest. It seems to have worked so far :).

For those who have no idea what I am talking about, Wattpad started the Open Novella Contest back in November last year. It is a multi genre contest run over many of the Wattpad Ambassador profiles with three rounds.

• Round 1: pick a prompt, write 2K in the first 4 weeks of the contest
• Round 2: write another 6K to bring the total up to 8K before 19th Dec
• Round 3: write another 12K to bring the total up to 20K or there abouts before 31st Jan (writing more was an option, but only the first 20K counted in the contest)

I have no idea how many people entered Round 1, but 550 progressed to Round 2, and 217 progressed to Round 3.

That has now been narrowed down to 36 finalists, which you can see here:

Open Novella Contest Finalists

I am thrilled that Mina's Children has made it through to the last 36. I have everything crossed for the final judging.

Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula

Mina Harker (née Murry) was changed by Dracula's attentions, and so were her descendants. Reggie comes from this line of vampire hunters, nature's definitive balance to the darkness. Her whole life has been building up to this one mission in Romania, to face the evil that started everything for her family.  Unfortunately there are others with their eyes on Dracula too, and Reggie has run right into them. She must make them allies or remove them from the game before she can face the ultimate foe.

Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula #FreeRead

Good morning all, sorry for being AFK - I've had an awful cold and it took me out for a few days, then I had to scramble to finish and edit Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula before the deadline, which was yesterday.

For those who didn't see my last post, Mina's Children is a free read, and an entry into Wattpad's Open Novella Contest, which ended yesterday (31st Jan). Wattpad put out lots of prompts, one of which we had to use to inspire a novella. There were three rounds:

• Round 1 - write 2K words
• Round 2 - write another 6K to make it up to 8K words
• Round 3 - write another 12K to take it up to 20K words

There are winners for Round 1 and Round 2, and at each stage the number of competitors was reduced. There will be overall winners once Round 3 has been judged, which is what is going on at the moment.

Mina's Children won 2nd place in Round 2 - yay!

As you can tell by the title, Mina's Children is technically Dracula fanfiction, but it's relatively removed from the original tale of Dracula. It's set modern day for a start, and the main character is Reggie, Mina Harker's great great granddaughter.

Mina Harker (née Murry) was changed by Dracula's attentions, and so were her descendants. Reggie comes from this line of vampire hunters, nature's definitive balance to the darkness. Her whole life has been building up to this one mission in Romania, to face the evil that started everything for her family. Unfortunately there are others with their eyes on Dracula too, and Reggie has run right into them. She must make them allies or remove them from the game before she can face the ultimate foe.

It is based of this prompt:

In the mythic lands of Transylvania, there lies a legend. The legend of he who does not live. The legend of he who will not die. The legend of he who roams the Borgo atop a carriage driven by steeds of rotten mass.
He has terrorised the region for centuries and now he has the free world in sight.
But there is only one person in the world who can stop this legend, this monster.
This person is the last remaining member of Mina's lineage.

I'm seriously considering expanding the novella once the contest is over, because I had so many ideas for extra scenes that I had to cut out because of the word limit (we could write a longer book, but they were only ever going to read the first 20K so it seemed sensible to use that as the limit). There are background characters I want to flesh out and the plot I want to continue.

Dracula is one of those fantastic cases where the original book is out of copyright, so derivative work is publishable too.

This is totally feeding my love of vampires and getting the creative juices flowing. Reggie is a character I was working on before the contest, but she didn't have any direction or proper roots. The prompt gave me a basis to work from that kick started a whole plot. Other characters have been popping up as I wrote.

I have to admit, for the last four or five months of 2017, creativity was in short supply. Without going into why, I am very glad to see the back of 2017 and the less said about it the better. Having a new project, as well as the ongoing one to move all Wittegen's eBooks into paperback feels brilliant.

Do you have any new projects for 2018 you are excited about, be they writing related or something else?

P.S. if you read Mina's Children and enjoy it, I would really appreciate you clicking the vote button on the story parts. It's one of the ways stories go up the rankings on Wattpad, so they are seen by lots of people. Many thanks in advance.

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