Summer Giveaway Hop!

Happy Summer! Thanks to I Am A Reader and BookHounds for hosting this giveaway hop! For this hop I've decided to giveaway copies of Songbird, Lie to Me, and Heal Me. 2 winners will receive copies of Songbird, while another 2 winners will receive copies of both Lie to Me and Heal Me. After entering don't forget to check out all of the other blogs participating in the hop for more chances to win great prizes!

Songbird
There are defining moments in life when everything changes. For Dani Mays, it was the day she witnessed her father kill her brother. Now seventeen years-old, she still hasn't put it behind her. After Jace's death, she bounced between her alcoholic mother and foster homes, until she found a permanent place. And a reason to want to stay: Reece Tyler. He's her best friend, yet Dani wants more from Reece. Faced with losing Reece, Dani struggles to define his place in her life and escape the influence her memories of her brother's death have over her choices. Even as she weaves the pieces of her heart back together, the past becomes more than a memory when a former foster brother reappears and Dani begins receiving threatening phone calls.
 

Lie to Me
With a Truth Telling gift that has never worked, Phoebe Matlin accepted long ago that she was broken. Then one simple lie changes everything and suddenly the whisper of liar is ripping through her. Some lies, though, cover darker truths than Phoebe ever imagined. But knowing when someone is lying is the easy part. It's convincing everyone else that's the problem.

Heal Me
Her sisters think Lily has the easy gift. Who wouldn't love to heal people with a touch? But all that pain has to go somewhere and Lily's the one taking it all in. Then someone close to her dies and Lily's life spins out of control. Desperate to feel something, she clings to her friend Micah. When she begins falling for him, she realizes healing others is easy. It's healing herself that is much harder.



 
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Multipart Story Frustrations

I love reading series. There's something comforting about closing a book and knowing that there's a continuation of the characters' lives. I especially love picking up a book and already being invested in the characters before even turning the first page.

There are so many great YA series; Significance by Shelly Crane, The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I could go on for an amazing long time, those just happen to be three of my favs. The key with each series is that they stand alone, although not in a traditional sense of a stand alone novel. What I mean is that each book in the series is a complete book. They consist of a beginning, middle, and end. There is a problem and resolution, even if there is a bit of a cliffhanger at the end.

So what's my point? Well, it has to do with the huge number of indie and self-published books I've been getting from Amazon. I love going on to the Amazon best seller list and finding interesting free best sellers. It's a great way to find new authors and read books that I may not otherwise have considered. But lately I've seen a tendency for multipart stories. Meaning that the book I download and invest three hours of reading into ends before the ending.

I hate teaser novels. I hate how authors are trying to trick me into purchasing the other three novels in the series just to finish one story. It doesn't encourage me to buy the next part, it just makes me mad enough that I will never buy another of your books. If you want me to buy more of your work, then show me you know how to write a complete story, and hook me with your writing skills and character development.

As an author, I can understand this phenomena. It's an easy way to get your writing out there quickly, and a way to build up your log of published works. And I suspect it's a way to increase book sales and thus income. But I have to question if it really works. Do authors who do this really make more money by publishing incomplete works? I would suspect not.

While I can understand it, I don't like it. I truly think that it only perpetuates the bad rep indie and self-published authors already have of putting out poor quality work. And as a consumer it has made me more cautious. I now look at the estimated page count or file size and if it doesn't seem realistic for a full length novel I don't purchase it and that makes me sad. How many good short stories have I missed out on because I am suspicious of it being incomplete?

Maybe I am completely alone in feeling like this. This week I even spent a lot of time debating if this type of storytelling was something I wanted to do. Now I can't even figure out why I would consider it. I don't write to make money. That is simply a nice side effect. I write because I enjoy writing. I love knowing that I have done my absolute best work and that other people can enjoy my storytelling.

I'm not condemning authors who do this. I get it. And I'm sure somewhere out there are readers who love it. I'm just not one of them.

(Please note that I have absolutely no data to back up my assumptions. This rant is simply based on my personal opinion and experiences as an author and reader.)

Review: Kissing Tennessee by Kathi Appelt

Kissing Tenessee: and Other Stories from the Stardust Dance
by Kathi Appelt
Published: April 1, 2004
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Available: Amazon

Synopsis:
Mason and Carrie Marie can't get up the courage to ask each other to dance. Russ's girlfriend has died, and now he's just trying to live without her. Peggy Lee has grown up with Tennessee--how can she ever think of him as more than a friend?

In these moving tales and others, Kathi Appelt captures the sometimes amusing, sometimes touching missteps of some unforgettable students, who come together one last time for the most memorable night of their young lives.

Review:
I picked this up because really who can resist a bunch of stories centered on a dance? Okay, so lots of people. I however am not one of them. I was lucky enough that my junior high had dances every month in addition to the lunch time sock-hops the last Friday of every month (No, I didn't grow up in the 50's!).

I loved the idea of this book, and some of the story blurbs were exactly what I was looking for. That said, it just didn't deliver. I wanted drama, romance, fun, and a few tears. What I got was vague emotions from the characters, little to no character development, and a tiny little book with a large number of stories. I really feel that Appelt should have just focused on a few of the short stories and built them up enough to get the reader to actually care about what is happening. I can understand not wanting to turn everything into a novel, but even short stories need to have some character depth.

This would be a book I'd recommend for a tween with a short attention span.

Book Blitz: Wicked Hunger by DelSheree Gladden

Wicked Hunger (SomeOne Wicked This Way Comes, #1)
by DelSheree Gladden
Published: July 9, 2013
Publisher: GMTA Publishing

Synopsis:
Vanessa and Zander Roth are good at lying. They have to be when they are hiding a deadly secret. Day after day, they struggle to rein in their uncontrollable hunger for pain and suffering in order to live normal lives. Things only get worse when Ivy Guerra appears with her pink-striped hair and secrets. The vicious hunger Ivy inspires is frightening, not to mention suspicious.

Vanessa’s instincts are rarely wrong, so when they tell her that Ivy’s appearance is a sign of bad things to come, she listens. She becomes determined to expose Ivy’s secrets. Vanessa tries to warn her brother, but Zander is too enamored with Ivy to pay attention to her conspiracy theories.

One of them is right about Ivy … but if they lose control of their hunger, it won’t matter who is right and who is wrong. One little slip, and they’ll all be dead.

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wicked Hunger

by DelSheree Gladden

Giveaway ends July 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Excerpt:
Chapter 3: No Happy Endings

"I want you to stay away from that girl,” I say.

“But she’s Laney’s cousin. I can’t avoid her without doing the same to Laney.”

“Maybe that’s just how it has to be, then.” Giving up friends, it’s something Van should get used to, now, because it isn’t going to stop any time soon.

Van shakes her head. “No, Zander. She’s my best friend. I’m not going to bail on Laney like that.”

“You think she’ll be happy you stayed friends with her when you kill her pretty little cousin?” I snap.

Her head drops down, but I can still see the corner of her mouth twitching. “I can control it. I won’t hurt her.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“I won’t live like you,” she says quietly. “I won’t live alone for the rest of my life because I’m scared of hurting people.”

I sigh and close my eyes. “It’s not about being scared, Van. It’s about being smart. Stay away from her.”

For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. Deep down, I’m hoping with everything I have that she’ll listen to me. I can’t go through it again. Oscar nearly broke me. She can’t expect me to go through that with her. I won’t make it. Please just listen to me, I beg.

When she finally speaks, her voice startles me. “She knows something.”

It’s just a simple sentence, but it ignites my anger like a match to a fuse. “She doesn’t know anything! Nobody does. Get that through your head and quit looking for answers, Van!”

My sister’s head snaps up and my hands tighten into fists at the determination in her eyes. “She knows something, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

Then she throws open the door of the truck and runs away.

About the Author:
I live in New Mexico with my husband and two children. I love expressing my creativity through writing and painting and I get a lot of my inspiration from my family and from the culture and beauty of New Mexico. I write mainly Young Adult urban fantasy, but my writing interests are ever expanding. I am also currently in the Dental Hygiene Program at San Juan College, so 90% of my waking hours are devoted to thinking about teeth for the time being!

Author Links:
Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads / Amazon 

Blog Tour ~ In the Winds of Danger by Linda Ulleseit Review

Thank you to all of the bloggers who participated and helped make my first blog tour a success! Thanks also to Linda Ulleseit for agreeing to be my first author on tour!

In the Winds of Danger (Flying Horse Books, #2)
by Linda Ulleseit
Published: February 4, 2013
Available: Amazon

Synopsis:
Nineteen year old Nia is shocked when she is secretly offered the leadership of Third Barn. This new barn full of flying horses will need someone confident, experienced, and innovative, so why are both warring factions pursuing an untried girl? Suspicious that both sides want a puppet instead of a leader, Nia races to discover their secrets before making the biggest decision of her life.

Some of those secrets are unknowingly buried in the disconnected memories of a young groom named Owain. Terror and guilt haunt Owain’s dreams – and then a face from his nightmare arrives in High Meadow. Owain looks for answers in his past and uncovers a dangerous plot that could doom High Meadow's future. How can he foil the plot and save his people as well as the winged horses?

About the Author
Linda Ulleseit was born and raised in Saratoga, California, and has taught elementary school in San Jose since 1996. She enjoys cooking, cross-stitching, reading, and spending time with her family. Her favorite subject is writing, and her students get a lot of practice scribbling stories and essays. Someday Linda hopes to see books written by former students alongside hers in bookstores.

Her first novel, ON A WING AND A DARE, was published in spring, 2012. It is a Young Adult fantasy set in medieval Wales, complete with flying horses, a love triangle, and treachery. The followup novel, IN THE WINDS OF DANGER, was published in February, 2013. 

Links

Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads / Website

Review:
In the Winds of Danger is a beautiful follow up to book 1 in the Flying Horse Books, On a Wing and a Dare. Though you don't have to have read book 1, fans will not be disappointed. New characters take the focus of In the Winds of Danger, but characters from book 1 have carried over and we get a chance to see how they have fared in the years since they moved to High Meadow.

I loved the internal struggle Nia faced when she is offered Third Barn. As much as she wants to jump at the chance to lead the barn, she's smart enough to know that it can't be that easy. Her brains are what kept me reading her story. I constantly was trying to figure out what she was going to do and just as I began thinking she'd do one thing, something would happen and make me think that maybe she'd changed her mind.

Owain's storyline seemed much more active and allowed the reader to see more of Wales as he journeyed across the land to solve the mystery of his past. There was more movement to his story and it was easy to be drawn into his search for answers.

I am really looking forward to the next installment in the Flying Horse Books!

Book Blitz: Rush by Eve Silver

Rush (The Game #1)

by Eve Silver

Release Date: June 11, 2013

Publisher: Harper Teen

Summary from Goodreads:

So what’s the game now? This, or the life I used to
know?

When Miki Jones is pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into some kind of game—her carefully controlled life spirals into chaos. In the game, she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures. There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Miki has only the guidance of secretive but maddeningly attractive team leader Jackson Tate, who says the game isn’t really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival, and the survival of every other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn’t. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn.

Available from:

    

***Excerpt***

There’s a flash of light, blindingly bright. Colored haloes obscure my vision. They dance and flicker and then disappear, leaving only a rectangle of light boxed in by the dark doorframe.

I see then that the door’s gone and in front of me are people. No…they aren’t people. They have limbs, hair, faces, but they aren’t human. After the first glance, they don’t look even remotely human. They’re pure, painful white, so bright they throw off a glare. They look like they’ve been dipped in glass, smooth and polished, but fluid. And their eyes…they’re a silvery color, like the mercury in the antique thermometer that my mom used to have at the side of the front porch.

When I was ten, I knocked that thermometer off with my wooden kendo sword, shattering the glass. The little blobs of mercury went all over the porch. I was a kid. I didn’t know better. I touched them, prodding the little balls until they joined the bigger blob. My mom swooped down on me and snatched me away, telling me it was poison. It could kill me.

I stare at the things in front of me: the Drau. I can’t look away.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember Jackson talking about Medusa. Don’t look at their eyes.

Their mercury eyes.

They’re poison.

They will kill me.

Copyright
© 2013. Eve Silver. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author Eve Silver lives with her gamer husband and sons, sometimes in Canada, but often in worlds she dreams up. She loves kayaking and sunshine, dogs and desserts, and books, lots and lots of books. Watch for the first book in Eve’s new teen series, THE GAME: RUSH, coming from Katherine Tegen Books, June 2013. She also writes books for adults.

Author Links:

     

***GIVEAWAY***

Signed copy of Rush, US and Canada only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Hosts Needed for Book Blitz: Wicked Hunger by DelSheree Gladden

We are looking for people to host a Book Blitz for Wicked Hunger by DelSheree Gladden. I can honestly say that this is one of the best books I've read this year and it will be joining other hot 2013 releases on my Hot List!

For this blitz, we will send you an html code and all you need to do is copy and paste into your blog post. That simple! You don't even have to select a specific date. Simply post it any day during the Blitz that works for your blog.
Click here to sign up

Wicked Hunger 

(SomeOne Wicked This Way Comes, #1)

Author: DelSheree Gladden

Released: July 9th, 2013

Publisher: GMTA

In the Winds of Danger by Linda Ulleseit Blog Tour!

Today is the kick off of the blog tour for In the Winds of Danger! Check back here each day to find links to reviews, interviews, guest posts, and excerpts.

Synopsis

This is a sequel to ON A WING AND A DARE, but it's not necessary to read them in order.

Nineteen year old Nia is shocked when she is secretly offered the leadership of Third Barn. This new barn full of flying horses will need someone confident, experienced, and innovative, so why are both warring factions pursuing an untried girl? Suspicious that both sides want a puppet instead of a leader, Nia races to discover their secrets before making the biggest decision of her life.

Some of those secrets are unknowingly buried in the disconnected memories of a young groom named Owain. Terror and guilt haunt Owain’s dreams – and then a face from his nightmare arrives in High Meadow. Owain looks for answers in his past and uncovers a dangerous plot that could doom High Meadow's future. How can he foil the plot and save his people as well as the winged horses?

July 8th

Edible Bookshelf - review and Interview

Mermother - Review

July 9th

My Crazy Corner - Review

Gotta Have YA - Interview

July 10th

Charles Ray - Review and Excerpt

July 11th

Chicks Writing Rocking YA - Review

Charles Ray - Character Interview

July 12th

Gotta Have YA - Review
Once Upon a YA Book - Excerpt
Mermother - Interview

July 13th

 Hot off the Shelves - Review and Excerpt
Charles Ray - Excerpt

July 14th
The Reader's Suite - Review
Flying Horse Books - Promo Post

July 15th
Turning the Pages - Review 

Book Blitz: Inseparable by Missy Johnson

 

Inseparable

by Missy Johnson
Release Date: 05/14/13

Summary from Goodreads:

Can you imagine losing your twin?

Nineteen year old Lily is still struggling with the death of her identical twin, Abby, a year later when she moves away from home for college. Even in death though, their bond is still strong, with Abby visiting Lily in her dreams.

When a chance encounter with Twenty-One year old Dane Hansen changes Lily’s life, Lily’s friends warn her off becoming involved with Dane. He’s bad news, according to the rumors, anyway.

Dane has experienced loss himself, he understands Lily, and the more time he spends with her, the harder he falls. There is something he hasn’t told her though, something almost nobody knows, and it’s something that might stop Lily from feeling the same way.

Abby holds the key to something that will change Lily and Dane's life forever, but how do you get someone else to believe something you don't quite understand yourself?

Available from:

    

Author Links:

    


***Excerpt #1***

The worst thing, apart from the obvious, was seeing my sister fade away before my eyes.

Looking at Abby was like looking into a mirror, identical in every way, from our long blonde tresses, right down to our emerald green eyes and our curvy silhouettes.

After her diagnosis, the weight dropped off her, her eyes lost their sparkle, and her hair slowly fell out leaving a shadow of who she once was. I’d look at Abby and I’d feel guilty.

Why wasn’t I sick? Why had Abby been given such a horrible sentence?

Why did she deserve to die and not me?

Every day following her death, I’d look in the mirror and see Abby. I’d see the Abby I knew before she got sick. The Abby that was full of life, stuck deep inside her sick exterior right up until the moment she died.

 

 

***GIVEAWAY***

One signed copy of Inseparable and 5 e-book copies of Inseparable (INT) 

a Rafflecopter giveaway



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