Friday, February 27, 2015

Blog Tour: A Flower in the Snow


Non-Fiction / Memoir
Date Published: July 2014

"Mark Cosman’s message speaks to mothers and fathers everywhere; this is a beautiful and sensitive book." Mrs. Nancy Reagan 


My daughter. Berlyn, was asleep on a fold-out couch at her high school prom party when a former classmate and high school dropout shot her in the head for no apparent reason. Her murder prompted me to leave the rubble of my beliefs and assumptions to go in search of answers to the most profound questions we ask ourselves. “A Flower in the Snow” is the result of that odyssey.

Excerpt

Paul’s friend ventured into the darkened room first and made his way to the wash room. Paul was next to enter the room. Light from the outside hallway splashed over Berlyn, who lay sleeping on a foldout couch only a few feet from the door. 
Belyn’s date looked up and noticed the gun pointing out from Paul’s hip. Having seen Paul’s antics with the gun earlier in the evening, he paid it no heed and dropped his head back onto the pillow. Suddenly, an explosion ripped through the darkness.
Berlyn never made a sound.


Mark Cosman’s writing began when his daughter, Berlyn, was murdered following her high school prom. It was when Mark left the rubble of his beliefs and assumptions to go in search of answers to the most profound questions we ask ourselves. “A Flower in the Snow” is a result of that odyssey.



Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Blog Tour: Stone Guardian by @PaulinaShelf #review #giveaway


Fantasy Romance
Date Published: November 18, 2014

Element – Fire (Healer/Destroyer)
Royal House – Purple


Milcah was born to rule along side an evil mother. Milcah's father was taken against his will and forced to give up his seed to produce a child with unimaginable powers. At a young age she was taken away from the only home she knows and forced to forget, again and again.Raised by a detached stepmother, Milcah learned to depend on herself and her best friend, Mary for support. When Mary suggest a vacation, with a scenic route, to the Grand Canyon Milcah believes she is finally getting the chance to see outside her small town. Packing a few things and climbing into her old beat up car, she never imagined she would find a new side of herself.

Lost on a back road, Milcah meets her destiny in a small town named Beacon. When her mind is unlocked, she finds she has a past that will lead to the salvation or damnation of the world.

This is book one in The Witches Amulet series.


Buy Links





Review 

What a unique and fun new world Paulina Woods has created. Her characters are vivacious and her imagination definitely flows off the pages and into the readers mind. There is a cliffhanger and it makes it hard for me to be happy with the novel as a whole as I dont have the full story and still have unanswered questions. I will definitely be checking out the next in the series. 






Paulina is a small town girl with big dreams. She is the second oldest of three talented siblings.
As early as three she was directing her family around acting out whatever current story was in her head. At four between her older brother and her, a whole universe was created which the younger siblings were introduced into as they were born.
Her natural ability to tell a story took her down many paths. She wrote plays, poems, small children books and short stories all before she entered high school.
When picking a career her councilor told her writing was a dying art and so she went to school for veterinarian science. Three years later she dropped out of university and enrolled in the local community college with a major in journalism
In 2008 she graduated with her BA in Communication/Journalism from Cal State Fullerton.

Life happened and her dreams were put on hold until 2013 when she started a review blog. This year her first book in her Witches Amulet series will be released. 






Tuesday, February 24, 2015

PROMO Blitz: Chosen by @christinejpope with #giveaway and #excerpt


Paranormal Romance
Date Published: February 4, 2015

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It began as a fever of unknown origin that its victims dubbed “the Heat,” but as it burned through most of the world’s population, it became known simply as “the Dying.” And for those left behind, the struggle has just begun….

In the aftermath of the Dying, survivor Jessica Monroe is protected and guided by the gentle voice of an invisible being she thinks of as her guardian angel. When she reaches the sanctuary he’s provided for her, however, she realizes that her unseen companion is no angel at all. The destruction of humanity was only the first step in a much larger plan, and now Jessica must struggle to discover her own role in a frightening new world where everything has changed.



Excerpt

Now was the time to say a few words, but nothing seemed to come to mind. I couldn’t even remember the Lord’s Prayer, or more than the first few words of the Twenty-third Psalm.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” I began, then shook my head. What came next? The lines were all jumbled together in my head, nonsense syllables that sounded like something straight out of “Jabberwocky.” And what did it matter, anyway? We weren’t a religious family; we went to Christmas Eve services some years and some years not, maybe Easter. I’d gone to Sunday school when I was really little, but my parents hadn’t even bothered with that when Devin came along.
For the longest time I stood there under the oak, the sun disappearing altogether, deep dusk falling upon the yard. Then I moved, and the motion-sensor light mounted to the side of the garage flashed on.
“I love you all,” I said finally, then set the Waterford vase and the football trophy on top of their grave.

After that, I went back inside and shut the door behind me. It seemed to echo in the unnatural stillness of the house, and I realized it was hardly ever this quiet — someone always had the TV on in the background, or there was music playing, or somebody talking on the phone. Now the quiet pounded against my eardrums, and I realized how big a three-bedroom, two-thousand-square-foot house could feel when you were the only one in it.

The only one in the world….

The thought whispered through my mind, and I did my best to ignore it. Surely if I were immune, and not just having extremely delayed onset for some reason, that meant other people had to be immune, too. How many? I couldn’t begin to guess. I didn’t know the mortality rate of the disease. Even if 99.9% of the population was dead, that would leave around a thousand people still alive in the greater Albuquerque area, if I was doing my mental math correctly.

I turned on the overhead lights in the kitchen, then went through the house, turning on all the lamps. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do — maybe advertising my presence would do more harm than good. But I couldn’t sit there in the dark, not after everything I’d been through that day. Besides, when I peeked out through the curtains, I saw mine wasn’t the only house on the street that was all lit up. Most likely the others just had their lights on because no one was around to turn them off, but it did make mine seem less conspicuous.

“Are you there?” I asked of the darkness. Even a voice that was only a product of my imagination was better than this deep, deep silence, the kind of quiet you should never hear if you lived in a big city.

No reply, of course. My gaze shifted to the remote control, still lying where I’d last dropped it on the coffee table. I didn’t quite dare to turn on the television, not after what I’d seen the last time around. I could only imagine how bad it must be by now.

But there was still the stereo, and all the CDs my parents wouldn’t get rid of, despite Devin and me telling them all that plastic just took up space and that they should just rip all their music off those CDs and then play it through Apple TV or something. And now I had to be grateful for their stubbornness, because that meant I could get up and choose something to blot out the silence. My father liked country, but old country, like Hank Williams and Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline, and my mother preferred classical. That sounded better to me right then, so I found her favorite, Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, and put that on.

It actually was better, with the sound of an orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy on the piano overriding that awful stillness. Or at least it was better until I realized that no one would ever play that piece live again, that there would be no more symphony orchestras or Arcade Fire concerts or anything, ever again.

“Oh, God,” I gasped, pushing myself up from the couch and running into the kitchen, where I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water in my face. As if that could begin to help. It was all too big to comprehend, so awful and enormous that I could literally feel the horror of it beginning to sink in, like some  noxious chemical seeping into my skin.

And then it was as though strong, invisible arms wrapped around me, bringing with them a soothing warmth. Unseen lips brushed against my hair, and I heard the voice again.

Be strong, my love. Be strong for just a while longer.

Just as suddenly, the presence was gone. I held on to the tile of the kitchen counter, feeling the cool surface beneath my fingertips. In that moment, I truly wondered if I’d lost my mind.

What other explanation could there be?


 
About the Author


A native of Southern California, Christine Pope has been writing stories ever since she commandeered her family’s Smith-Corona typewriter back in the sixth grade. Her short fiction has appeared in Astonishing Adventures, Luna Station Quarterly, and the journal of dark fiction, Dark Valentine. Two of her short stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Christine Pope writes as the mood takes her, and her work includes paranormal romance, fantasy romance, and science fiction/space opera romance. She blames this on being easily distracted by bright, shiny objects, which could also account for the size of her shoe collection. After spending many years in the magazine publishing industry, she now works as a freelance editor and graphic designer in addition to writing fiction. She fell in love with Sedona, Arizona, while researching the Sedona Files series and now makes her home there, surrounded by the red rocks. No alien sightings, though...not yet, anyway!

Author Links








Buy Links

Giveaway

Three ebook copies of Chosen




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Monday, February 23, 2015

Blog Tour: Sex. Coffee. Time Travel by @tymslyder #review #giveaway


Romance / Adventure / Suspense
Date Published: Jan 20, 2015


(Time Frame Series Book Two) 
In Book Two, Adventure-Romance author Lesley Meryn has her 'second date', a little bit of Time Travel, with the volatile yet seductive scientist Miles Sherwood. She wakes up to a spring day in 1765 Yorkshire. Miles should be there, waiting for her, but he's nowhere to be found.
Circumstances spin rapidly out of control. Someone keeps trying to kill her new Eighteenth Century companion and self-appointed protector, Mick Kenning, a handsome and hunky stableman at the New Inn. Lesley helps him to foil these clumsy, but persistent and mysterious attempts on his life.   
As the days pass, Miles remains missing. The clock is literally ticking down the days. She has less than two weeks to find him or she may be trapped in the past. Has Miles fallen victim to the very real dangers of an earlier time?
Complications multiply with the appearance of an elusive, badass, Highwayman. With a hefty price on his head, agents of the Crown have arrived at the New Inn to track him down. For Mick it's personal, he despises the Highwayman. The Highwayman, not satisfied with jewelry, and coins, stole away the woman Mick once loved.
Will Lesley find Miles in time? What has happened to him? Will Mick ever find out who wants him dead? Will he ever find outwhy?
Balancing between high adventure, sword fighting, fisticuffs, pistols, and daggers, Lesley must use her wits, imagination, and every trick from her own books to find Miles, survive the Eighteenth Century, and return to her own time. 


Buy Link


Review



I was so thrilled to be back in the world of Elle Brookes's Time Frame Series. Book #1 really reeled me in and got me hooked on the characters. The time travel aspect is so fresh and fun and adds a quirky sense to the Romantic Suspense and Adventure genre. 

The thing I was most happy with this time was the fact that the story seemed to really flow smoothly. When you are bouncing around in times it can get a little convaluted and Elle Brookes really had a grasp on the story and didn't let that happen. 

Great characters and humor along with mystery and intrigue really make for a wonderfully written and fun to read novel!



Elle Brookes grew up in Los Angeles, California, but lived in Jamaica for three years when she was a Peace Corps Volunteer. She moved to San Francisco and studied at the California Culinary Academy, and went on to become a private chef to a well-known L.A. based television production company.
From an early age Elle was a voracious reader of adventure stories and from elementary school through high school, she started writing her own stories of places foreign and exotic.  She studied Art History and continued writing in college, focusing on short stories. 
A dedicated and passionate traveler, Elle has explored river caves in Jamaica and Costa Rica, hiked glaciers in New Zealand and Iceland, and done dogsledding in Greenland and Iceland. She's danced a fa'a Samoan haka and slept in a fale on the island of Savai'i in Samoa, hiked in the northern mountains of Thailand along the border with Myanmar in the Golden Triangle, and in Haiti, she witnessed a white goat ceremonially sacrificed to Erzuli Freda by a powerful Houngan. For a time she did Performance Driving in Southern California, and has years of study and experience dedicated to fencing, theatrical combat, archery, and horsemanship.
Elle currently lives in the central highlands of Costa Rica with her dog Pixie, and her hedgehog, Quiller.
Website
Facebook 
Twitter:  @tymslyder




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Friday, February 20, 2015

Blog Tour: The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant by @jruthwiebe #review #giveawa


Book Two in the V Trilogy

Young Adult Fiction
Date Published: January 20, 2015


   Life and death, light and dark, spirit and flesh-on Wormwood Island, the lines are always blurred. For Anne Merchant, who has been thrust back into this eerily secretive world, crossing the line seems inevitable, inescapable, destined.


Now, as Ben finds himself battling for the Big V and Teddy reveals the celestial plan in which Anne is entwined, Anne must choose: embrace her darkly powerful connection to a woman known as Lilith and, in doing so, save the boy she loves…or follow a safer path that is sure to lead to Ben’s destruction at the hands of dark leaders. Hoping the ends will justify the means, Anne starts down the slippery slope into the underworld, intent on exploring the dark to find the light. But as the lure of Lilith proves powerfully strong, will Anne save others-only to lose herself?


REVIEW

I was blown away by the imagery and detail Joanna Wiebe was able to create in her novel. I thoroughly enjoyed her writing style. Pacing and characterization were both spot on as well.

Anne's journey in this novel is even more in depth than the first. We learn more about her as a character and the people around her. It is a successful second novel that builds on the first novel without repetition. 

Definitely full of twists and new mysteries. 

Monday, February 16, 2015

Blog Tour: The Long Journey


Political / Non Fiction

Date Published: March 2014

Imagine a world with no electricity...no cell phones...no computers. A world still devastated by the effects of global pollution, of massive climate change, of widespread genetic
manipulation, of nuclear war. Imagine a world where WE are the ones in the history books.
What will they write about you?
Join the Seeker Khadija and her Seeker-Partner, the Gen-a-wolf Ula, as they track a thief into the dangerous Highlands that border the White River. They are to take the thief back west, to the prison of Valley City - the last city on the continent and the sole remaining vestige of civilization. Valley City was built by the head of the North American Corporation just before a series of short and brutal wars that marked final global economic and environmental collapse; what is now referred to as The End. Khadija and Ula live in a world where electricity and technology exist only in stories from the old days, and the leaders of Valley City are said to be descended from the wisest of the Before People. But they are about to discover that everything they've been taught, and everything they think they know about the world around them, is not quite as it seems.


Cara J. Swanson was born in Colorado somewhere around thirty-six years ago, and
immediately leapt to work on her first story. She did not venture into self-publishing until 2006, however, when she formed Nighthawk/Raven Publishing to publish her first book, Blood Cult: Book I of the Elvestran Chronicles. She has since published the sequel, Daígu, a companion
Dictionary, and is working on the third in the series (The Desert Wanderer) as well as a murder mystery (When Demons Dance) and has recently published a futuristic partially fiction book titled The Long Journey. She has two mottos; “Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel,” and “I wish I was capable of working on one project at a time. But I’m not.” All her books are published under her personal four tenants of walking the Red Road: dedication to family, dedication to community, dedication to social justice, and dedication to ecological health. She is a signatory member of the Green Press Initiative. She can be contacted by emailing raven@thewritingraven.com.


Buy Links

Friday, February 13, 2015

Blog Tour: The Devil's Music




Non Fiction

Date Published: August 2014

Certain musical modes, tones, and instruments have been used to represent evil for centuries. From the torturous musical instruments depicted in Hieronymus Bosch's famous "Garden of Earthly Delights" to the dark tones that announce the presence of Darth Vader in the Star Wars films, from the cantatas of Bach and the operas of Mozart to heavy metal, music has been used to represent a gallery of rogues and demons including the devil himself. But can music do more than suggest the presence of evil? Can certain music actually embody evil? Since antiquity many have thought so. And this belief combined with religious and philosophical concepts drawn from Eastern cultures has influenced the direction of Western culture, its mythology, cosmology, theology, and politics, and consequently the structure of Western society itself. This book recounts the history of demonic music and its extraordinary influence on Western culture. 


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Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Cover Reveal: Jayded by @shevaundelucia1



New Adult
Date Published: April 10, 2015

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 Maxine Daniels was made an offer that she couldn’t refuse. She couldn’t think of a better time—after breaking things off with her fiancé—to change cities and merge her company with Saunders Literary Agency. At thirty-three, she isn’t getting any younger, so it’s time to start fresh and leave her past behind.


What she doesn’t anticipate is the diversion that lies ahead. Kyle Saunders is a catastrophic tsunami that enters her life and consumes her world in just a matter of minutes. Everything about him is telling her no, but her heart and the heat between her legs is screaming yes. He was never a factor in her divine plan—nor was she in his.

Kyle is the cliché bachelor; he is a twenty-four-year-old charismatic chick magnet who refuses to settle down. He’s dead set on living the carefree single life—that is—until Max comes strolling in. Then all his ridiculous rules fall to the wayside. Who knew that just one hello could alter their lives forever?

 

EXCERPT

My mouth hangs open. It’s like time freezes, and all I can think is holy fuck! I’m speechless. Never in my life have I been speechless or caught off-guard to this magnitude. The woman in front of me is fucking hot! On fire! I slowly take her in, starting with her high red pumps, long legs, and tight red skirt reaching her knees, hugging one amazing ass and some unGodly shaped hips. Man, those hips though. I can already see my hands being at home on those hips. My eyes drift up to her tiny waist and voluptuous breasts. Yum. Her face is flawless: lips plush and eyes a beautiful iridescent blue, which completely contrasts against her darker complexion and the brown of her hair. Simple perfection.

I must be standing here like a doof, making an ass of myself, because she smiles with a tiny bit of amusement. She reaches her hand out to me. “Hello. You must be Kyle?”

I continue to stare, completely mesmerized. It takes me a moment to snap out of it. “Uh, yes, I’m Kyle. You must be Maxine.” I grab her hand, immediately feeling the softness of her skin. “It’s nice to meet you,” I say with a smile.

“It’s just Max,” she informs me.


About the Author

 Shevaun DeLucia, author of the Eternal Mixture series, lives in upstate New York with her husband, four children, and two dogs. As a stay-at-home mom while her children were young, she fell in love with reading. She indulged in the small moments that took her away from the reality of her loud, rambunctious household, bringing her into a world of fantasy. When reading wasn’t enough to satisfy her, she turned to writing, determined to create the perfect ending of her own.

Author Links

Twitter: @shevaundelucia1

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