Thursday, April 30, 2015

Fleeting Visions by Rene Natan

A Brief Summary: On a cold snowy night a dangerous chain of events that bring three lives together for better or worse. There is Louis Saura a young man who was dragged into a prostitution ring due to debt, Jocelyn a pharmacist who was in the wrong time and Detective Stevenson the person who's trying to put all the pieces together. Add in illegal immigration, underage prostitution and one very dangerous kingpin and you've got a recipe for a story that keeps surprising you at every turn.

My Review:
This book is an incredible read. You switch POV's constantly so you get a true feel of what's going on. You get into the head of nearly every one from Louis our protagonist to Camlio our antagonist. This lets us understand the characters motivations and makes the book just that much more realistic.

There's also a lot of interweaving story-lines, that are masterfully done. Smaller plots woven throughout the main story that keep everything moving and help keep the reader interested.

This book deals with the kidnapping of minors and underage prostitution. There is nothing explicit but if that's a subject you're uncomfortable with I'd suggest not reading this book.

I received this book courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for my free and honest review.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Baited Blog Tour, Interview and Giveaway!!






Title: Baited (3 Part Serial)

Author: Ali Parker

Publication Date: April 12, 2015


Rebecca Martin has achieved most things one might hope to by thirty. She is a successful business owner, drives a nice car and is wrapping up the details on a custom built home on the lake. The only thing she is missing is someone to share her accomplishments with.
One man has never been far from her thoughts – Kade McMillian, but his return to town after far too many years of chasing his dreams couldn’t be more poorly timed.
With a younger man demanding Rebecca attention at the office, she has to decide between reconstructing a relationship from her past or diving in deep to something new and seemingly forbidden.
Purchase Links:
The next installments in the series:

                              BK 2 Baited E-Book Cover BK 3 Baited E-Book Cover

Box Series Available for only $2.99

Baited Series Box Set

Paperback Book Coming Soon...
Baited Series Printable Cover 5x8 171 cream

Author Bio
Ali Parker is a contemporary romance writer who is looking to flood the market this year with lots of great, quick reads. For those of you who love a full-length novel, we'll be boxing up the serial trilogies into a box set a week after the last release.

We're looking forward to putting out both Baited, and Ali's latest project, Jaded in the month of April.


Want to know when Ali releases something new? Join her mailing list!

Interview with the wonderful author Ali Parker!!!


  1. Tell us a little about yourself!
I have the best hubby in the world and we live in a house that fits us perfectly. Small pool in the back and lots of woodworking tools in the garage for him. We’re in our early 30’s and love life. I’m a lawyer most days of the week, but my books give me a creative outlet.
I’m a free spirit, helpful, loving and dream in violent colors. Life is a gift and I’m the kind of person who lives it to the fullest.


  1. You just released two romance novels, back to back. Tell us what’s next or are you done for a little while?


Done? I’m just getting started!! I plan on releasing Justified in May/June to tell Marc and Lisa’s story. They are two of the characters you are introduced to in my Jaded serials. After that I will move over and work on the serial for the last couple, Sicily and Drake. I have a million other projects underway, one with a good friend of mine, Lexy Timms. We’ll be co-authoring something this year too, or several things really. Now that Baited and Jaded are out and doing so well, I’ll start pushing forward on these other things too.


Big project for me will be to connect with my fans. I’m interested in knowing what they love and want – that’s where I want to focus my time honestly.

  1. Work on the street is that you write a Billionaire Series under a pen name. Tell us about this?
The hookers are telling my secrets, I see? Yes. I write under Zoe Reid, a name I just opened to really test out the truth of Billionaires and Step Brothers being the latest craze in the world of romance. I can see why both topics would be, so I figured I’d write something to see how people reacted. My stories will be serials again, part I and II being on Amazon now.
I’ll have another two parts out in the next few weeks and hope to write up the eight part serial by the end of June. The stepbrother part seems like it would hold incest at its core, but I’m not down with that, so mine are new siblings later in life – no blood relationship. Just the taboo of loving someone that society would deem inappropriate.
http://www.amazon.com/Zoe-Reid/e/B00WC5555Q/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


  1. Why Romance for your genre? Tell us about how you ended up here verses another genre.
Well, my favorite genre is paranormal romance, but I wanted to focus on starting my writing career in a world I knew, exploring the various dreams and fantasies in my own heart. Where I love the supernatural elements, they leave something to be desired for those of us a little grounded in the “what if” truly being a possibility. I’m not likely to run into a vamp (oh please let it happen?), but a sexy guy at the office? Absolutely.
I love the idea of creating a story with a clear line to a happy ending too. Too many of us don’t get the happy ending in life – I have it now, but it hasn’t always been that way – and we should get to experience it in one way or another. Love is beautiful and precious, the feelings of it washing over us whether we’re living it or reading it. That’s why I chose it.

  1. What’s the difference between Erotica and Romance? I feel like it crosses the line nowadays. Tell us your thoughts on the two. Any plans to cross over to erotica?


Great question. I researched this not too long ago because Baited was my first romance novel and I was UBER careful to have one small sex scene that was hot (in my opinion), but not explicit. I was concerned with being labeled as erotica when it really wasn't. I watched my verbiage and ensured that it was as “clean” as could be.


With Jaded, my male character just wouldn't corporate, his hormones giving way to several sex scenes and a few more details. I’ll never write the physical aspects really of love-making, but I can paint the emotion well enough around it (again my own opinion) to push the feelings of what’s happening. After finishing it, I was worried about crossing the line again. So I researched it.


Basically, the industry says that the verbiage and level of detail isn’t the defining factor – the focus is. Is the story about love and emotions with some sex? Romance novel. Is it about sexual fantasy and finding yourself sexually with a little bit of relationship and romance? Erotica.


Not sure if I’ll ever cross over. I love telling a good story and in the world of adults, that includes sex. To leave it out or overdo it would be a travesty to me.


  1. What encouragement would you give to a new indie writer, or someone who’s just starting to get that famous writers itch, to pick up the proverbial pen and get busy creating?


I would simply say that we’re all capable of doing anything we believe possible. Nothing is out of your reach with enough “want-to” and work put forth. Pick up that pen and write your heart out. You can worry about the details later, but get the story out while your muse is pushing it through you. The editing and next steps, the struggle with going indie or with a publisher, the cover art – all details for later. For now, create and breathe life into something new to share with us. You can do ANYTHING you put your mind to.
So get to it…
GIVEAWAY


This tour was organized by Good Tales Book Tours.


Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Cover Reveal for A Neophyte's Tale!!!!!

Title: Neophyte’s Tale
Author: CK Dawn
Publication Date: May, 2015

Abbey Thorne hears voices. Well, one voice repeating one word, over and over again. Soft and sweet with the promise of power, it calls to her. The twelve-year-old has no idea that the tender little word is actually a catalyst that serves to reveal a world hidden to most humans. Abbey has yet to discover that following the word’s call to its origin will change the course of her life forever.

Abbey and her mother don’t have much, and depending on the day, sometimes they don’t even have a roof over their heads. She wants more out of life than just wondering where her next meal will come from. So she shouldn't be wasting her time daydreaming about going on a selfish quest… or should she? Does she have the strength to leave behind what little she has? Will she have the courage to break through the illusions surrounding her and lift the cloak of shadows?



Author Bio:
Coffee lover, gamer girl, Sci-fi enthusiast, and overall crafty individual, CK Dawn graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in Interior Design and a minor in Architecture (I know, right?). Loving to be creative but feeling stifled by invoices, custom orders, and curtain patterns, she decided instead to follow her favorite philosophy: if you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life. So, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... she finally decided to pick one of the stories that had been bouncing around in her head and boom, Cloak of Shadows came to life.
CK lives with the love of her life John, his cat Scout, her cat Hagrid, their mutually adopted and socialized feral kitten Pepper (yes, cats have favorite humans. It's a thing), and their dog Diesel (aka Methane-- Please, don't make her explain).
She credits her mother for the strong independent woman she is, her father for her inner peace and beautiful outlook on life, and the summers of sweaty, manual labor on her grandparents' farm for her strong work ethic.
In writing, CK has truly found her bliss. Stay tuned, because there will be a lot more to come in her Netherwalker series. Seriously, things have only just begun.

Author Links:


This cover reveal was organized by the lovely people at Good Tales Book Tours.  Have a great day everyone!


All This Time Blog Tour, Guest Post and Giveaway!!!!!




Title: All This Time
Author: Tiffani Burnett-Velez
Publication Date: April 3 2015
Publisher: Booktrope
Book Links: Goodreads || Amazon || B&N

Syrian-American, Lydia Fadoul, has spent a year waiting for her fiancé to return from war in Iraq, only to discover that he is broken by trauma and the devastating effects of PTSD.

Just when he finally agrees to seek help, he takes his own life and leaves behind a story of murder, betrayal, and mystery.

In her second, contemporary fiction novel since Budapest, Tiffani Burnett-Velez weaves a fast-paced literary tale about the rumors we believe and the prejudices we create in order to protect our hearts from the truth.  



Author Bio

4580300Tiffani Burnett-Velez has been a freelance since 1996. Her non - fiction work has appeared in magazines and newspapers in the US and Europe, including Pennsylvania Magazine, Country Discoveries, St . Anthony Messenger, Health.com, Yahoo! News, and many more online and in print publications.
Her first novel, Budapest, was featured in the New York Book Festival and the 4 2nd Annual Conference of Jewish Librarians and it's re-release became a 2014 Amazon Bestseller in Literary and Inspirational Fiction.

Her second contemporary novel, All This Time, will be released by Booktrope in 2015, and the second, A Berlin Story, in her bestselling WWII novella series, Embers of War, is an Amazon Historical German Fiction Bestseller.

She has studied English Literature at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania and holds a BA in Cognitive Science from Ashford University. She is currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing.

Author Links Website || Twitter || Goodreads

 An Extreme Case of Battleshock

By Tiffani Burnett-Velez
In 2012, there were more suicides by active duty servicemen and women than there were combat deaths. Every 65 seconds, one of our brave soldiers commits suicide (Haiken). For every American, this is troubling, this is disturbing, but we don’t always know what do about it. The feelings of helplessness when anyone takes their own life is intense, but when those trained to protect and serve their country finally just give up and leave this world of their own volition, it is even more devastating.
I pondered this subject quite a lot when I began working on the manuscript for All This Time, which I started in the spring of 2011. That year, my family experience some trauma of our own, and it changed who each of us were. We’ll never go back to the parents, the children, we were before those events, but we have come through the other side. I know there were times when everything seemed very desperate to me, and I remember laying in bed and realizing, for the first time, that I was incapable at that moment of inspiring my family’s happiness. That’s a hopeless feeling. That happiness was something each of us had to discover for ourselves.
My own uncle committed suicide several years before that, and I was reminded of that sense of loss, as well, while I watched my children and husband endure our own troubles. The questions I had from his suicide informed my thoughts at that moment. How do we help our loved ones who are on the edge, on the brink of leaving us because they just can’t take anymore? The answer is not a simple one. Even when we offer the most far reaching aid, a well-spring of support, sometimes, it is just not enough to cover the pain a soldier has endured. This is where faith comes in, for me, at least. I pray even before all else fails, but that does not mean that I can save everyone I love who needs saving.
I come from a military family, from a long line of American veterans leading all the way back the Revolution itself. A Burnett has served in every war the United States has engaged in since the late 1700’s, and there has been a lot of PTSD within our clan.
In the Civil War, one of my third great grandfathers experienced a head wound at the Battle of Seven Pines, and was partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He spend the remainder of the war at Chimborozo Hospital struggling with what his doctors called “soldier’s melancholy”. The physicians who cared for him reported that he needed special care, because at night he would have “all manner of terrors” and was “unable to find a restful sleep”. Someone wrote in ironically neat and flowery handwriting, “Under a severe state of battle shock”.
These words stand out to me when I read statistics like the ones above, and my heart breaks for the grandfather dead and gone 40 years before my birth. He lived until the early 1930’s, well into his 90’s, and people spoke of his sometimes frail state, of his shakiness, of his inability to render the war over in his senses, because he felt the triggers deep in his nervous system for the rest of his life.
When I wrote out the modern day effects of PTSD onto Pvt. Thomas Miller, the Marine who commits suicide in my novel All This Time, I thought of all the men I have loved who have endured the scars of battle. I thought of both of my fathers – my biological father and my stepfather – and how war changed them both irrevocably when they were called to it in the 1960’s.
There’s a brilliant essay by writer, Tim O’Brien called The Things They Carried, and nothing has ever better expressed, in my opinion, that glassy-eyed stare of desperation that comes over the faces of those who have seen death up close on numerous occasions. In war, soldiers pack on the weight and continue to add to it even at war’s end. It’s how PTSD works. Yes, there are treatments, and many are very effective, but if every politician were to stop and consider how this young woman, this young man, will be permanently changed by having to fight for his or her own life, or worse, to take another’s, I believe they’d be less likely to send out war decrees.
I wish I could have a moment with Congress the next time they even considered sending our young people off to war. I’d hold up the grainy image of my third great grandfather’s service record and I would read the words his own surgeon wrote in 1862 as a warning for all our US service men and women. I would read it out loud, and I would warn, that we as a nation are all “Under a severe state of battle shock” and that we need a long stretch of peace before making anymore decisions with other people’s lives. Yes, sometimes, war is unavoidable and brave people take up the task of defending strangers with their bodies and their psyche, but other times, we could hold back, I believe.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder presses hard against the tightly knitted love of families and friends, and the strain is sometimes too hard to bear. Yes, many endure, but at what price? The human mind does not heal itself by constantly dodging those who aim to end it. It’s simply not natural.
Resources:
Haiken, Melanie. "Suicide Rate Among Vets and Active Duty Military Jumps - Now 22 A Day." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 5 Feb. 2013. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2013/02/05/22-the-number-of-veterans-who-now-commit-suicide-every-day/>.


This tour was organized by Good Tales Book Tours.

Monday, April 27, 2015

All This Time by Tiffani Burnett-Velez

A Brief Summary:
Having a loved one with PTSD can be extraordinarily difficult but when they decide to take their life it's tragic. Lydia's fiancee took his life just after he started getting help. However what happened while he was on tour wasn't what was reported to the media. Join Lydia as she tries to find the truth of what happened to her fiancee while he was overseas.


My Review:
This book was so incredibly touching. Throughout enormous hardships Lydia stands by her fiancee's memory as she searches for the truth.

I love that this book deals with some harsh realities. The fact that if you happen to be the same race as a small group that has caused atrocities, you will be judged even blamed for their actions. That our military has and will cover up things that don't paint them in the best of lights. Life is a spectrum of grays and this book portrays that exceedingly well.

Lydia is an incredible character. Dealing with the repercussions of going against her family's wishes, reconnecting with them, and dealing with who her fiancee became after coming home from his tour in Iraq, her strength is incredible.

All in all an amazing book that I recommend for everyone.

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow I'm hosting a blog tour stop for this incredible book and a new cover reveal.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Spring Fling Blog Hop!!


A book that you would give up anything for. I couldn't decide so I picked a series. The Testing series to be specific. I chose this series because I got completely obsessed with it when I found it. I read a night reading the entire series.

The books are all fast paced and keep you hooked from the moment you pick one up. It's a dystopian fantasy series that focuses on Cia, a girl who goes through the the testing. This testing determines the future for gifted children, that is the ones that pass any way.

I wrote a more detailed review of the first book here if you'd like to check it out. I highly recommend this for fans of the Hunger Games.


Since this blog hop is hosted by the lovely people at Good Tales Book Tours, they have decided to include a giveaway with each blog helping with the blog hop. So get in on it!


Here are links to all of the other blogs participating in the blog hop so go check them out!!!

https://lauriestarkey.wordpress.com/blog/
http://wackymommareads.blogspot.com
http://obsessedwithmyshelf.com
https://gloriouspanic.wordpress.com/
http://www.mythicalbooks.blogspot.ro/
http://soulcleverbooks.blogspot.com
http://bfdbookblog.net/
http://www.anovelkindofbliss.blogspot.com
https://bookandbastille.wordpress.com/
http://onceuponawish.weebly.com 
https://blogtasticreviews.wordpress.com/
http://lovelyparanormalbooks.blogspot.co.nz
http://thebookish-life.blogspot.com
http://herbookthoughts.reads-it.com
http://mnonmklreviews.blogspot.com
http://athousandwordsamillionbooks.blogspot.in
http://romanticreadsandsuch.wordpress.com
http://theapbookclub.blogspot.com
http://themistresscase.blogspot.com/
https://bookandbastille.wordpress.com/
http://recklessindulgence.wordpress.com
http://thebookishowl.net
https://blogtasticreviews.wordpress.com/
http://www.naturalbri.com
http://aamzybookwonder.blogspot.co.uk/
http://mistralkdawn.blogspot.com/
http://archiestandwoodsreviewsandwritings.blogspot.com
http://britishbookwormblog.com
http://lexicalcreations.weebly.com/jens-blog
http://www.naturalbri.com
http://aamzybookwonder.blogspot.co.uk/
http://mistralkdawn.blogspot.com/
http://archiestandwoodsreviewsandwritings.blogspot.com
http://britishbookwormblog.com
http://lexicalcreations.weebly.com/jens-blog
http://shadetreeblogging.blogspot.com



This was organized by the wonderful Good tales Book Tours so be sure to check them out along with all of the other lovely blogs linked above!




Monday, April 20, 2015

Travels with Penny Blog Tour, Giveaway and Top 10!!!!




Travels Cover Title: Travels with Penny
Author: David Alan Morrison
Publication Date: April 2015
Publisher: Booktrope

Two things flashed through my mind when I opened the door to the sex shop to find my mother standing in front of the display case talking to a tall salesman wearing a leather harness, jock strap and a dog collar. The first was, "Oh, crap." The second was, "I hate when Dad's right."

Following the sudden death of his father, a single, middle-aged gay guy struggles with his own mortality be reminiscing about the travels with his gregarious mother. It is a look at the transformation of the baffling, complex relationship between children and their parents.
 



DAMheadshot.jpeg
 
Author Bio:

Dave Morrison (CI & CT, NIC-A, SC:L, NAD-5). Dave received his A.A. in ASL/ENG Interpreting from L.A. Pierce College in 1989. In 2000, he obtained his M.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Kentucky. He has interpreted in a variety of venues, from the courtroom to funerals to underwater conservation forums. As an actor, he has been seen on stage, TV and film. He is currently an adjunct instructor of Drama at Skagit Valley College and works with local theatres as a director, actor and instructor.
Author Links:
Facebook| Twitter | Website


DAVID'S TOP 10 REASONS TO love DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS

10. Junk food is a required element.  Junk food is good.
9. All those dice!
8. Nobody panics when you say things like, "I bash his head in!"
7.  Nobody calls 9-1-1 when you say things like, "I talk to the wolf and ask him..."
6. At a party, when that cringe-worthy person speaks to you, just start talking "Saving Throws".
5.  A good excuse to get out of any social event.
4.  Showering before attendance is frowned upon
3. All those dice! Seriously...have you seen them?!?
2. Never be at a loss for an unusual ice-breaker
1. Who doesn't want to be a Hobbit - even for a day?


Who doesn't love an author who's also a D&D fan?
 
GIVEAWAY
a Rafflecopter giveaway  



This tour was organized by Good Tales Book Tours.

Rae of Hope by W.J. May

A Brief Summary: After a tragic fire that killed that destroyed her childhood, Rae is taken to live with her aunt and uncle. Her parents history was left buried only to be unearthed when Rae is invited to attend Guilder, a prestigious boarding school that until this year was males only. Now she has to live down a legacy that she didn't even know that she had.

My Review:
I really liked this story. You have a girl who has no idea of her history, but everyone else does. She's judged and feared because of her father. Now on the verge of getting her tatu (her power) she's treated as sort of an experiment.

The tatus themselves were really neat. Some are extraordinarily useful, whereas others are kind of so-so. When Rae discovers hers she decides to help everyone realize how special each tatu truly is.

I also liked the relationship dynamics in this story. None of them are  forced so everything flows really well and feels very natural.

This was a part of the Arcane Forest Anthology that has the first books of several amazing series. If you're a fantasy lover I highly recommend checking it out.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Cover Reveal for The Light by Kate Thomas!!!!










Title: The Light – Equilibrium II
Author: Kate Thomas
Publication Date: May 26, 2015

With the truth of Ellie’s place among the Balance Keepers finally coming to light, training now begins. She must learn to harness the powers that are growing within her, some spiraling out of control. Confusion and frustration become her constant companions, as her search for answers does nothing but push her further from the man she’s come to love.
David is The Light, the speaker of truth, the whisperer of good in the world. His desire for more than he can have with his new apprentice tears at the fabric of his own stability, bit by bit. He knows what the future holds — and just how damning it will be for Ellie if she’s not prepared to handle it — but he’s forbidden to help.
As tragedy becomes reality, will she reach for The Light, or run into the soothing arms of The Darkness?
 

The Core: Equilibrium I is available at Amazon ~ BN


Author Bio:
Kate Thomas, is the author of the upcoming Equilibrium Series, a five-book supernatural new adult series and the Resounding Series, and eight-book series, with plans for a few more series in 2015.

She is a CPA by trade, a church planter and entrepreneur at heart; however, writing and reading are passions she just can't help but indulge in. With more ideas than one person should be allowed, she is blessed to have a muse that doesn't seem to take a vacation and more energy that one might consider healthy.

She writes under the following pen names:
L.A. Starkey - Young Adult & Middle Grade Paranormal
Isabella James - Sci-fi/Fantasy

Author Links: