Dragonkin Trilogy Blog Tour and Guest Post!!!

Title: Wytchfire (Bk 1)
Series: Dragonkin Trilogy
Author: Michael Meyerhofer
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Publication Date: April 28, 2014
Genre: High Fantasy

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In a land haunted by the legacy of dead dragons, Rowen Locke has been many things: orphan, gravedigger, mercenary. All he ever wanted was to become a Knight of Crane and wield a kingsteel sword against the kind of grown horrors his childhood knows all too well.

But that dream crumbled—replaced by a new nightmare. War is overrunning the realms, an unprecedented duel of desire and revenge, steel and sorcery. And for one disgraced man who would be a knight, in a world where no one is blameless, the time has come to decide which side he’s on.  

Title: Knightswrath (Bk 2)
Series: Dragonkin Trilogy
Author: Michael Meyerhofer
Publisher: Red  Adept Publishing
Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Genre: High Fantasy

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Rowen Locke has achieved his dream of becoming a Knight of the Crane, and he now bears Knightswrath, the legendary sword of Fâyu Jinn. But the land remains torn, and though Rowen suffers doubts, he would see it healed. His knightly order is not what it seems, though, and allies remain thin.

When Rowen and his friends seek an alliance with the forest-dwelling Sylvs, a tangle of events results in a midnight duel that teaches Rowen a dangerous lesson and leaves him with a new companion of uncertain loyalties. The sadistic Dhargots still threaten the kingdoms, but another menace lurks in the shadows, playing a game none can see. As Rowen struggles to prove his worth—to his allies and to himself—chaos raises its hand to strike. A price must be paid, and not even the wielder of Knightswrath will remain untouched.  

AUTHOR BIO:

  Michael Meyerhofer grew up in Iowa where he learned to cope with the unbridled excitement of the Midwest by reading books and not getting his hopes up. Probably due to his father’s influence, he developed a fondness for Star Trek, weight lifting, and collecting medieval weapons. He is also addicted to caffeine and the History Channel.

His fourth poetry book, What To Do If You’re Buried Alive, was recently published by Split Lip Press. He also serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His poetry and prose have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Brevity, Ploughshares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rattle, and many other journals.

He and his fiancee currently live in Fresno, California, in a little house beside a very large cactus.  

 Favorite Dragon-Themed Book of All Time

Dragons and fantasy often go together like shirtless men and unsanctioned martial arts tournaments. That being said, my favorite dragon-themed fantasy books are the ones where the emphasis is on human character development, and the dragons themselves are almost peripheral. George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is an obvious example, though others that I grew up on included many of the Dragonlance books by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and The Pit Dragon Chronicles by Jane Yolen.

I think my favorite, though, is Martin’s YA novel, The Ice Dragon. On the surface, the story is quite simple: a young girl named Adara befriends an ice dragon, which appears only occasionally throughout her life, set against a background of her homeland being threatened by fire dragons from the North. But, as is true of any good book, there’s a lot more to it than that.

The book is short (just a little over a hundred pages) but it deftly establishes Adara’s character, plus her feelings of detachment from her family, by using the ice dragon as a metaphor. Like all good metaphors, though, it’s visual, fun, and not too heavy-handed. The book also takes a lot of familiar notions and turns them on their head. For example, the ice dragon appears to be good, and Adara’s friend, yet its very presence is the natural harbinger of frozen desolation.

Especially when working in a genre like fantasy where readers come to the table with certain must-haves, it’s important—and tricky—to show respect for the genre by giving readers at least some of what they ask for, but also be unique and original by occasionally turning those notions on their heads. For instance, dragons are a bygone race in the Dragonkin Trilogy. Men covet their bones, and tell stories about their tragic fall, but otherwise, they exist only in dreams and visions.

Or do they?

AUTHOR LINKS: Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Publisher Page

 

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Burnt Edges Blog Tour, Giveaway and Guest Post!!

Title: Burnt Edges
Author: Dana Leipold
Publisher: Booktrope
Publication Date: June 2015
Genre: Women’s Fiction

Familiar abuse or an uncertain future? Which would you choose? This is Laurel Lee Page’s dilemma when she is faced with an unplanned pregnancy at nineteen. Born into a broken family, guilt and shame are all she has ever known. No matter what she does or whom she meets, Laurel appears to be living a condemned life.

However, she is determined to find independence and freedom in spite of her family’s legacy of hatred and self-contempt. Set in Southern California during the tumultuous 1960’s, Burnt Edges is a contemporary novel based on true events that prove strength can emerge in the most horrific of circumstances.

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 Title: Show Me the Money

by Dana Leipold

Work hard and you’ll be successful, right? Well, that’s what everybody says but one thing they don’t mention is exactly how hard you have to work nor do they really define what “successful” means. That’s because it means something different to each one of us.

For me, I was hoping to say good-bye to my day job and become a full-time author. I naively thought I could accomplish that after publishing my first novel. See the word “naive” there? Well, that was me. Now I know better.

The money did not come…and I had to go back to a desk job with my tail between my legs. As I sit in my cubicle licking my wounds I wonder, what did I do wrong? Why didn’t my book sell better? There are probably 1,001 reasons…one of which was the content I chose to write about. Abuse, incest, and family dysfunction is not exactly an uplifting read so my market was very small. But this was a story that I HAD to write, not one I wanted to write.

I’m also an unknown entity since I’m a self-published, debut author. The stigma about self-published books is waning but it’s still there. Most people will not take a chance on a book by an unknown author–especially an indie author–unless someone they know and trust tells them about it. I’m also learning that reviews do not sell the book as much as I originally thought. What sells books is the cover, the blurb, and the sample…but you still have to get the book in front of people.

What also sells a book is…more books. One won’t do it. That means I’ve got to get writing, and writing, and writing. It’s going to be tough because now I’ve got the job but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. But here’s how it really is:

It’s easy to tell yourself that you have all these challenges in life or that you can’t ever get started because you get side-tracked by kids, bills, a day job, the twit in your head, or whatever but that’s just a bunch of bullshit!

You are avoiding the truth: you aren’t sure if you can do the hard work to get where you want to be.

You’ve worked hard in the past and you’ve done some amazing things so just stop all this crap and get to it! The hardest part is getting over that initial “block” that you think is there. Once you get your mind set and you start working, it’s just a matter of momentum.

Once again, you are falling into that rut. You start off with lots of energy and excitement and things look great. You get signals and signs that you are on the right path but then, like always, the universe wants to know if you’re really serious and it asks you to do the work…then you lose your steam, you start to poop out. THIS is the very moment when you need to pull all your strength, your energy, and your determination and just keep going. Don’t stop and have a pity party. You are on the verge of creating what you are meant to create in this life.

Do the work, make it as perfect as you possibly can, and the money will come.

 

AUTHOR BIO:

Dana Leipold is an author and member of the Association of Independent Authors. Her debut novel, Burnt Edges, depicts the unwavering resilience of a young woman in the face of family violence and abuse.

She has self-published two other books: a collection of limericks in Dr. Seuss-style for adults entitled, Stupid Poetry: The Ultimate Collection of Sublime and Ridiculous Poems, and a non-fiction book entitled, The Power of Writing Well: Write Well. Change the World.

Leipold lives with her husband and two children in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Midnight Blog Tour and Giveaway!!

Title: Midnight
Author: Eve Eschenbacher
Publisher: Booktrope
Publication Date: May 11, 2015
Purchase Links: Amazon ~ Barnes & Nobles
Genre: Young Adult

When ordinary girl, Karen, waits out her last year of high school, she hopes for magic. Her small town has nothing for her and she longs for adventure, which she finds at a party of all places. Finally away from the small town minds she meets someone new.

Someone, who with a few scratches of ink on her skin, awakens a part of her she never knew about. All of a sudden Karen is shown a whole new world, and Gabriel wants her to make it hers. All she has to do is love him eternally. Her new life is magical and amazing, until her new powers bring a new threat.

Can she do what needs to be done? The sacrifices and decisions that will need to be made--Is she strong enough?      



Author Bio: Eve Eschenbacher lives in the Pacific Northwest with her son and a very fluffy cat. By day she’s a video game voice-over producer, and by night she writes books and freelances as a Japanese translator. Always with a book and a video game close at hand, she probably spends too much time looking at screens.

Guest Post by Eve Eschenbacher

One of the themes of Midnight is history. I love the idea of someone who (spoiler alert!) gets stuck in the past, and gets to use their knowledge of history as a weapon. Personally, I’d love to have the same opportunity that Karen got, which helped in writing her. Maybe it was a little wish fulfillment there. :)
While Karen has to be careful to keep the world to the timeline she knows in order to avoid erasing her own existence (also known as the “Back to the Future effect”), she still gets a chance to play through historical events.
I have a thing for history, especially some of the gowns that the women got to wear. It was one of the reasons that I had Karen visit eighteenth century France. French language and culture has been a fascination of mine, and those big elaborate gowns are just gorgeous. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to wear one. I’m guessing that it would be pretty heavy, compared to my usual jeans and t-shirt combination.
Admittedly, I’ve never been to France. I studied the language for years, but I’ve just never had a chance to see it. It’s a place I’d love to visit someday, and now that Midnight has been published, maybe I should make it a point to go.
I did spend three years living in Japan, though. I immersed myself in the culture and history there, too. I found it utterly humbling to walk through temples that had been built a thousand years ago, and think that something had been standing for that long. I think I carried that over to Midnight.
As I was writing Midnight, I thought about adding in more historical events, but they were starting to drag down the pacing of the story, and some of them were a bit too obscure. My beta readers helped me pare them down so that they didn’t weigh the story down too much, and I think I got enough in there to keep it interesting without getting too overbearing.
How about you, dear readers? If you could live in any historical time, which one would you choose?

Author Links:

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Jaded Blog Tour, Guest Post and Giveaway!!!

Title: Jaded (3 Part Serial Romance)

Author: Ali Parker

Publication Date: April 15, 2015

As a photographer for the New York Post, Kari Martin was used to seeing heartache and scandal up close. But one night at the club… her whole world changed.

Heartbroken and willing to call off her wedding, she decides a change is in order and moves from NYC to a small town in Maine, where the average age of the residents there is sixty (or thereabouts). She works to fit in perfectly, and tries like hell not to let anyone find out just how very jaded she’s recently become over the lie called love.

Jake Isaac left Texas quite a few years ago; his heart torn from his chest, and his mind set on being a bachelor forever. Maine would welcome him, give him land to explore and a community to belong to. Getting a job as the coach of the local junior high and serving on the fire department kept him busy — and labeled him a hometown hero — but the truth of his damaged heart was forever hidden.

No one would ever know just how jaded he was about love. That is… until he meets Kari.

Purchase Links:

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The next installments in the series:

Box Series Available for only $2.99

Paperback Book Coming Soon...

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!

http://eepurl.com/bjFlZD

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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

Tiffani 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/>.

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By The River Blog Tour, Guest Post and Giveaway!!!!!!!!!!!

Title: By The River
Author: Jae Carvel
Publication Date: March 31, 2015
Publisher: Booktrope

With three young children at her side, Sarah Ann arrives in the beautiful upper John Day Valley in 1869, a young widow whose husband had disappeared in an Indian raid on their way west. In 1870, she marries Thomas Martin and begins her life as a rancher’s wife.

She and Thomas are successful, hardworking pioneers who love their land and take seriously the job of rearing and educating their nine children. On her one trip back to New York to visit her mother, Sarah Ann discovers she has been living a lie.

The truth liberates her from the reserved stoic nature she has portrayed toward others during her first forty years. The last quarter of the century becomes a backdrop for a modern woman of subtle influence. Experiencing a new self-worth, Sarah Ann shares her ideas and wisdom with her family and community while never disclosing her secret.

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Author Bio:

Jae Carvel’s work is inspired by the many stories of her ancestors who all came to Eastern Oregon as pioneers. She is retired from teaching junior high. She and her husband have four children, six grandchildren and one great granddaughter, making them a typically busy family, laughingly known as ‘retired.’ Jae travels, gardens, golfs and writes novels.

  Author Links:

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Guest Post by Jae Carvel!!!

“Keeper of Stories”

My house is full of “story keepers”. They are metal file cabinets, desk drawers, and cardboard boxes. They are filled with old pictures which no one labeled, yellowed newspaper clippings, invitations to weddings and graduations, ancestor charts, and best of all letters written a hundred years ago. The stories I keep are in my head. When I read a letter written by a great, great aunt I imagine what her life must have been. My imagination becomes the story I keep. I then become a keeper of stories and the novel begins.

The stories in my mind will never go away until they are written down. I love the historical novel as reader and writer and expect to share the fun with you.

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Legend of the Light Keeper: Blog Tour, Guest Post and Giveaway!!!!!!!!

Author: Kelly Hall

Title: The Legend of the Light Keeper

Series: The Light Keeper Series

Publication Date: March 25, 2015

Publisher: Booktrope

After a hurricane destroys her home, Lily Jordan is ready for life to get back to normal. That would be easy if her mother’s recent engagement hadn't landed her in a house along Southeast Texas’ most haunted ghost road.

The secluded scenic road is steeped in rich history and legends, but when Lily is given an old diary on her birthday, will she find that those legends hold more for her future than she’s bargained for?

With the help of new friends, Hunter and Owen, and forbidden love, Talon, will she uncover dark secrets from the past and find the key to her own gifts?

Is it fate or circumstance that brought her to her new home?

Normal gives way to the paranormal in book one of the Light Keeper series where mystery and suspense will keep you guessing until the very last page.

Get this awesome book today from these fine retailers:

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Author Bio:

Kelly Hall was born and raised in Southeast Texas, and lives in a small town just a stone’s throw from the ghost road where her Light Keeper series is based. When she’s not busy writing, or spending time with her husband and two sons, this self-proclaimed creative junkie dabbles in many different forms of art, including cake decorating and mixed media.

Author Links:

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I'm extraordinarily pleased to bring you a guest post by Kelly Hall about how she creates her strong female protagonist:

When I set out to write my book, I knew that my main character, Lily Jordan, needed to be strong. I wanted her to be a little independent, at least as independent as a 16 year old girl can be, but I also needed to leave her room to grow.

I’d read many harsh comments about weak female leads in YA books that I knew if I was going to write my own, I needed to give her a backbone and not make her just another damsel in distress.

I could have went the route where Lily is a tough girl, strong-minded, stubborn, and completely content without needing any help from any of the other characters, but quite honestly, how boring is that? As a writer, if I don’t make Lily a little vulnerable where she needs some assistance, there would be no room for her to grow and no need for the other characters. I chose to make Lily a strong girl, but that’s just it, she’s a girl. She’s young, impressionable, in a new place, meeting new people, and then there’s this whole ghost thing too. It would be a little silly if Lily started out kicking butts and taking names without the need for anyone. She’d come across as cold, shallow, and probably a little egotistical if she didn’t need anyone else for anything.

I wanted people to admire, respect, and desire her enough to actually follow her through the adventure or heck, maybe even want to be her.  I wanted her relatable. If you allow your female protagonist to be overbearing and treat her male counterparts as weak minded and useless, then what is there to endear the reader to your characters? Writing and creating characters is a balancing act. We are all flawed. I’ve always liked to consider us perfectly imperfect people. Give your character some strength but remember without the weaknesses there is nothing to strengthen. Does she need to be a bubble-head that cares only about her boyfriend’s good looks and muscles? No, but make something about her endearing and common enough that she seems real and give her room to grow and progress along with the plot. You’ll create a character that people will admire.

Don't forget to enter to win a copy of The Legend of the Light Keeper!

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