Thursday 30 April 2015

BLOG TOUR + GIVEAWAY - Life Unaware by Cole Gibsen

WELCOME TO THE LIFE UNAWARE BLOG TOUR
 
 
Life Unaware
by Cole Gibsen
Release Date: 04/28/15
Entangled Teen

Book Summary
Regan Flay has been talking about you. 

Regan Flay is on the cusp of achieving her control-freak mother's "plan" for high school success―cheerleading, student council, the Honor Society—until her life gets turned horribly, horribly upside down. Every bitchy text. Every bitchy email. Every lie, manipulation, and insult she's ever said have been printed out and taped to all the lockers in school. 

Now Regan has gone from popular princess to total pariah. 

The only person who even speaks to her is her former best friend's hot but socially miscreant brother, Nolan Letner. Nolan thinks he knows what Regan's going through, but whatnobody knows is that Regan isn't really Little Miss Perfect. In fact, she's barely holding it together under her mom's pressure. But the consequences of Regan's fall from grace are only just beginning. Once the chain reaction starts, no one will remain untouched... 

Especially Regan Flay.



5 Unknown Facts About Life Unaware

1.      In the book, Regan’s—the main character’s—mother is a United States Senator. In real life my uncle is a United States Congressman. I grew up attending political functions, press releases, and campaign events. While my Uncle is nothing like Regan’s mom, I was able to use my own personal experience with politics to develop her character.

2.      Regan suffers from anxiety and debilitating panic attacks. So do I. Each panic attack Regan suffers is a detailed description of my own, which is why writing those scenes was so difficult for me.

3.      My biological dad took off when I was a toddler. My stepdad was verbally and emotionally abusive. Because of this I had a hard time writing “good” dads because I had no idea how they behaved. It wasn’t until I got married and had a child of my own that I was able to see my husband interact with our daughter, showing me for the first time in my life what a “good” dad looks like. Life Unaware was my first attempt at writing a “good” dad.

4.      In the book Regan has an ex-racehorse. That horse is a tribute to my own ex-racehorse Dancer O’ Day that I owned for several years until my stepdad got rid of him while I was at work. I came home just in time to see the horse trailer pulling away. One of my life goals is to find out where he went and if his last years were happy.

5.      I drew on my own experiences with bullying when I wrote Life Unaware. When I was a freshman, my family moved and I had to start a new school mid semester. Some cheerleader got mad because she thought her boyfriend was flirting with me. I can’t remember, but I think he’d only asked me for a pencil. Still, that was all it took to start nearly two years of torture.
 
Buy Links


 
About the Author
Cole Gibsen first realized she different when, in high school, she was still reading comic books while the other girls were reading fashion magazines.

It was her love of superheroes that first inspired her to pick up a pen. Her favorite things to write about are ordinary girls who find themselves in extraordinary situations.

 
Author Links




 
 
 
Giveaway
 
Book Tour Organized by
 


Tuesday 28 April 2015

Upcoming Events - Stacey O'Neale

 

RT Booklovers Convention in Dallas, Texas! Stacey O'Neale will be signing on Saturday, May 16th in the YA Alley! She's bringing print copies of THE SHADOW PRINCE to giveaway to the first 100 readers she meets. She'll also have signed swag!!! You can get more event details here: https://www.rtconvention.com/ 

UTopYA Con 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee! She will be signing on Friday, June 19th and Saturday, June 20th. She's bringing print copies of THE SHADOW PRINCE to giveaway to the first 100 readers she meets! She'll also have signed swag!!! You can get event details here: http://utopyacon.com/ 

         

Cover Reveal - Implanted by Heather Letto

 
Cover Reveal - Implanted by Heather Letto
Implanted by Heather Letto 
(Ascension #2)
Publication date: June 2015
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult

Synopsis
After a narrow escape from the city of Impervious, Fran’s heart aches for the ones she left behind. Will her brother ever connect the dots? And, what about Pete? Could he, along with the remaining Rebels, have survived the Council’s violent oppression?
As Fran ponders the fate of her friends, an even more disturbing revelation drops into her world—the knowledge that she, along with anyone who had lived underground remains implanted with the sinister presence of the Council. A fate rendering her powerless to save.
Yet one with pure blood, untouched by the Council’s defiling, lives among them. Could he be the new lifeline of hope? Is salvation of the city worth risking the life of this one-and-only?



Purchase book 1: In keeping with the spirit of celebration--for reveal day only--all IMPERVIOUS (Ascension Series Book 1) Kindle downloads will be .99! This new edition of Impervious includes a Glossary of Terms and thought-provoking Discussion Questions. 
 

Author Bio
I’m a book-writing, selfie-taking, latte-drinking, social media gal. I’m living a good life on the road as a full-fledged Bedouin (Well, except, my tent is actually a fully-equipped RV.) Me and my partner-in-crime (Benj) tend to hunker down wherever the skies are clear and the temps stay in the 70’s. We call ourselves Gypsy Nerds because we aimlessly wander the U.S. with glasses perched upon our noses and faces jammed into computer screens (for the first half the day... The second half of the day is typically devoted to playing because we’re also somewhat immature.)

Like most authors, the characters I create are my extended family.  And like most readers, when the story ends, I get a little sad. In real life, I have two handsome, hardworking, grown-up boys who know how to make their Mama proud! *Waves to Joey and Mike!*

The Ascension Series is my debut into the world of YA fiction.

I’m living what I love and loving what I live! 

Author links

Saturday 25 April 2015

Pre-order End of Days by Susan Ee now!

ARE YOU READY FOR END OF DAYS?
 

End of DaysEnd of Days by Susan Ee
Expected publication: 12th May 2015
 
Summary from Goodreads
End of Days is the explosive conclusion to Susan Ee’s bestselling Penryn & the End of Days trilogy.

After a daring escape from the angels, Penryn and Raffe are on the run. They’re both desperate to find a doctor who can reverse the twisted changes inflicted by the angels on Raffe and Penryn’s sister. As they set off in search of answers, a startling revelation about Raffe’s past unleashes dark forces that threaten them all.

When the angels release an apocalyptic nightmare onto humans, both sides are set on a path toward war. As unlikely alliances form and strategies shift, who will emerge victorious? Forced to pick sides in the fight for control of the earthly realm, Raffe and Penryn must choose: Their own kind, or each other?
 
 

Angelfall
 
  Penryn and the End of Days Book 1
 
World After
 
 Penryn and the End of Days Book 2
 
End of Days
 
 Penryn and the End of Days Book 3

Cover Reveal - Rebounding by Shanna Clayton

COVER REVEAL - REBOUDING BY SHANNA CLAYTON


Rebounding by Shanna Clayton
Publication date: June 2015
Genres: New Adult, Romance

Synopsis
Goodbye.
Charlotte Hart will do anything to escape the life she once adored, even if that means moving in with a mysterious guy from her past.
Hello.
When the girl who saved Max Archer’s life shows up on his doorstep, he knows he can’t turn her away.
Neither of them can let go of their pasts. Both of them are living a lie. If they can’t figure out how to rebound, they’re destined to crash and burn.





Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25366393-rebounding



Author Bio
I'm not sure if my mother predestined me to become a romance author when she named me after her favorite Kathleen Woodiwiss book, but that's what happened. Now I live and breathe all things books. When I'm not glued to my desk writing, I can be found eating too much chocolate, obsessing over Game of Thrones, and cyber stalking my favorite authors. Keep up with me on Facebook and Instagram. I love hearing from readers!

Author links
 
 
 
Cover Reveal organised by:
 
 

Friday 24 April 2015

Cover Reveal + Contest - Eternal Sacrifice by Stacy O'Neale

 Cover Reveal and Contest - Eternal Sacrifice by Stacy O'Neale
 
If you're new to the series, this is the BEST TIME to check it out!!!
 
THE SHADOW PRINCE & MORTAL ENCHANTMENT are currently available for FREE on Amazon from April 24th through April 28th. I promise, this the ONE AND ONLY TIME I will do this, so pick up your copies NOW!!!
 
 
And now, here is the cover of the last book in the series, ETERNAL SACRIFICE!!!
Drum roll, please...
 
EternalSacrifice.v2-Final.v2

 
As promised, here is the Gift Card CONTEST!!!
 
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Post written by Stacy O'Neale

Thursday 23 April 2015

BLOG TOUR + GIVEAWAY - A Necklace of Souls by R.L. Stedman

WELCOME TO THE NEXT STOP IN THE
A NECKLACE OF SOULS
BLOG TOUR!


A Necklace of Souls
Release Date: 12/19/14
339 pages
Summary from Goodreads
‘A true dream is when the events I see in my sleep have, or will happen. It’s a talent that runs in my family. I was thirteen when I had my first true dream.’

Will’s Aunt says the Kingdom of the Rose is the most fortunate of lands. But Will hates the place – his uncle and aunt are horrible, and he misses his parents. Oh, how he misses them.

Dana wishes she wasn’t a princess. She’s always being told how to behave, what to wear. There’s a strangeness in the castle – why will no one talk about the Guardian, or the necklace that protects the land? And why does her father look at her with such sorrow? The collier’s cart seems the perfect escape. Only she didn’t realize she’d become so dirty, or so lost. Fortunately this boy, Will, has a sense of direction. And next to the forbidding stranger, N’tombe, he seems reassuringly normal.

Welcome to A Necklace of Souls: a story of love and loss, of shattered lives and desperate hopes. In the Kingdom of the Rose, bravery is not always measured by strength and magic is real, if only one has the courage to dream.
Shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel Award, A Necklace of Souls was awarded the Tessa Duder Award for Young Adult Fiction, Best First Book at the New Zealand Post Children and Young Adult Book Awards and is a Storylines Notable Book.
Buy Links

Character Introductions


Character Introduction - Will:



Will was twelve years old when the plague began. Winter in North Wales is always a dreary, damp season, but that year seemed particularly harsh. The winds blew strong and cold and the people were reluctant to leave their homes. Will’s parents, the town bakers, still kept their shop open but now customers arrived singly, and said little while waiting for their bread.
As the plague spread, Will’s familiar world began to change. First, the school closed. Normally this might have been something to be celebrated. But not now, not with the town locked in fear, and no one going in or out. Then the fishing boats at the quayside didn’t sail, either. Eventually even the church shut its doors. But by then the plague had spread, growing like a big black cloud, until it seemed to smother all the light. And in the bakery Will and his parents lay ill, unable to move, unable even to think, as the world spun slowly about them.
Will didn’t remember much of the illness, just a vague recall of heat and burning and endless, heaving nausea. Like seasickness but far, far worse – the sort of seasickness you might feel if the ship on which you were sailing had suddenly caught alight. For days he tossed about, thrashing his head on his pillow, calling for Ma. For anyone. But no one came.
Finally Will woke and lay blinking at the ceiling. His throat felt thick and tight, as though he’d been screaming for the longest time. Outside the world sounded eerily quiet; no shop bells, no wagon wheels creaking. No horse’s hooves, or people calling to one another across the street. Only the distant wash of the waves and the creaking of the shop sign in the wind.
All his life, Will remembered the feeling of waking into silence, the bitter knowledge of his loneliness in a wide, wide world. Because after the plague, everything had changed.
I hadn’t meant to write something quite so gloomy. So here’s another lively little piece. There are heaps of side characters in A Necklace of Souls. This is Nurse, written in Nurse’s voice.
Character Introduction – Nurse:
‘You want to ask me questions? Why would you ever want to do that? Not to say that there ain’t plenty of things I could tell you about the goings on in this place, if I had the mind to do, but I don’t. Well then, I haven’t got all day. Go ahead and ask me your questions, then, if you must.
What’s that? How long have I been in the Castle? Goodness! Truth be told, I don’t rightly know. ’Tis many a long day since I arrived, that’s for certain.
My earliest memory? Well now, let me see. When you’re my age things jumble themselves together, and ’tis hard to remember anything in particular. I do remember waking from a long nap, and seeing the light sparkling on the water and thinking how pretty this place was. That must have been after I’d only just arrived, when everything was new-looking. The place has certainly changed since then. Things never change for the better, I reckon, only for the worst. At least, that’s been my experience anyway.
Take that blamed necklace. Used to be the simplest thing, only a ruby on a silver chain and never caused anyone any grief. But I knew it would change. Soon as I saw that little man holding it in that courtyard I knew it was evil. But them at the top didn’t listen. No, they thought they knew better than old Nurse, even though I warned them, so I did.
“Get rid of it,” says I to Her Majesty – the Queen that was, I mean. “Thing like that, ain’t to be trusted.”
But laughed and told me I was too gloomy. Me, gloomy? Anyways I was right, because now that necklace chains the Guardians down, so it does, and takes them young. Oh, ’tis a sad and sorry world, when people don’t listen to them as knows more than they.
Speak up, speak up! I can’t hear you. What do I do in my spare time? ’Tis crazy you are, thinking I’ve got such a thing as spare time. Up early I am, getting the Princess ready for the day, and like it as not I’m the last to bed too, cleaning her clothes and so forth. What with her with her fighting and her knives and her hose, sometimes it takes me hours to get the stains out. For shame, thinking I’d have “spare time”.
Mind you, I do enjoy working with wood. Made a whole bedstead once. Princess sleeps in it now, I know she likes it. Never told her it was me as built it. Strange in a way, ain’t it? I mean, when you look at me, you’d never imagine in your wildest dreams that I’d be one for woodwork. But then, you never can tell what folks get up to.
What’s my biggest regret? What fool of a question is that? You think I’m the sort of person who’s likely to be going telling that to a total stranger? Me, I don’t have regrets. Save for that ruby. I wish, well, ’tis crazy for sure, but I wish that they ain’t never found that thing. I know they all did it for the best. Still, look at the grief it’s caused.
Now, get along with you. Ain’t got all day to be standing here gossiping. Yes, lovely to see you, too. And do drop in again.’


About the author
My name is Rachel Stedman. I’m a physiotherapist (physical therapist) by background, but now I work as a freelance contractor. I live in the wild and windy place of Dunedin, New Zealand, with my husband and two kids.
I write mostly for children and young adults. In 2012 I won the Tessa Duder Award for an unpublished YA work and my first novel, A Necklace of Souls, was published by HarperCollins in 2013 (available in the United Kingdom and on Book Depository from June 2015). This year, A Necklace of Souls was awarded Best First Book at the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards and won a Notable Book Award from Storylines. Inner Fire is my second novel.
Author Links
Book Tour Organized by:

Tuesday 14 April 2015

The Reluctant Bachelorette by Rachael Anderson

THE RELUCTANT BACHELORETTE BY RACHAEL ANDERSON

PUBLISHED: 16TH SEPTEMBER 2012


Summary from Goodreads
Luke Carney has no idea what possessed him to move back to Shelter Springs, Colorado, to set up his veterinarian practice. His parents have long since left, the small farming community is on the brink of extinction, and only one close friend from his childhood remains--Taycee Emerson, his best friend’s little sister, who isn’t so little anymore.

Then there’s the matter of Shelter’s Bachelorette, an online reality dating show created to raise some much needed funds for the town.

Unwittingly cast as the bachelorette, Taycee wants out, especially when she discovers that Luke, her childhood crush, is back in town and will be one of the bachelors. To make matters worse, it's up to the viewers--not her--to decide which bachelors stay or go. And they all seem to like Luke.

Unwilling to let him break her heart again, Taycee launches a subtle attack on Luke’s good name with the hope of getting him voted off the show. But she’d forgotten that Luke's an eye-for-an-eye kind of guy, and when he discovers what she's up to, it means revenge.


My Review
*I received an eBook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

The Reluctant Bachelorette is a book by Rachael Anderson. It’s about Taycee, whose friend made her take part in a reality dating show called Shelter’s Bachelorette. Luke, her brother’s best friend, comes back in town after ten years and also takes part in it as a bachelor.

I give this book 4 stars.

I really liked this book. I hoped it would be fun and light to read and it didn’t disappoint me at all. I loved the story and I loved Taycee and Luke and all the other characters. I enjoyed every meeting of Taycee and Luke. The story is fast-paced, easy to read and the humour made me laugh.

The Reluctant Bachelorette is one happy and cute book!

Ever Darkening by Janeal Falor

EVER DARKENING - JANEAL FALOR

PUBLISHED: 28TH JANUARY 2015

Summary from Goodreads
Perfection. Goodness. Elimination of evil. It's what seventeen-year-old Kaylyn has trained her entire life to achieve. But no one is prepared for the consequences of her actually defeating all evil people on the planet. Finally successful in her mission, Kaylyn faces an unfamiliar world, full of good people doing good things, in which she no longer has purpose.

When the skies grow dark, and a stranger from another village pleads for her help, her instincts roar to life. It turns out their perfect world isn't exactly what it seems. Kaylyn's new quest, harder than any she's been on before, will rip apart her friendships, her life, and her soul more than any evil man ever managed to.


My Review
*I received an eBook copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.*

Ever Darkening is a book written by Janeal Falor. It’s about Kaylyn who is chosen to exterminate the evil. She has trained all her life to destroy the The Malryx. When she does, something goes wrong and she has to bring them back. Will she be able to do it?

I give this book 3 stars.

I found the storyline a bit confusing and that’s why it didn’t interest me very much. It took me time to understand some of the things. The pace was slow, but became better in the second half. I also didn’t like the love story, because of Marsa.

But there are some really nice suspenseful moments. Janeal Falor has created a very adventurous world. The idea of this book was also interesting.

Ever Darkening could be fun to read, but it just wasn’t for me.

Cover Reveal - Illuminate by Tracy Clark





Release Date: 10/06/15
Entangled Teen
320 pages

Summary from Goodreads:
Can one girl be the light in a world spiraling toward darkness?

Haunted by the loss of her loved ones, Cora Sandoval, one of the remaining few of an extraordinary race known as Scintilla, holds the key to disentangling the biggest conspiracy in human history...and its link to the fate of the human race. As Cora follows a trail of centuries-old clues and secrets, she collides with a truth not only shocking, but dangerous. 

With enemies both known and unknown hot on her trail, Cora must locate each of the ancient clues hidden in the art, religions, and mythologies of humankind. And through it all, she must keep her heart from being torn apart by the two boys she loves most. One is Scintilla, one is Arazzi. 

 Save herself. Save the Scintilla. Save the world.

Or die trying…


Books in this series:
(covers linked to Goodreads)
 

Buy Links for Scintillate:

Buy Links for Deviate:


About the Author
Tracy Clark is a young-adult writer because she believes teens deserve to know how much they matter and that regardless of what they’re going through, they aren’t alone. In other words, she writes books for her teen self.
She grew up a “Valley Girl” in Southern California but now lives in her home state of Nevada, in a small town at the base of the Sierra Foothills. Her two children teach her the art of distraction and are a continuous source of great dialogue. She’s an unapologetic dog person who is currently owned by a cat.
Tracy was the recipient of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Work in Progress Grant. A two-time participant in the prestigious Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program where she was lucky enough to be mentored by bestselling author, Ellen Hopkins, who taught her so much about the art of writing and cured her of her ellipsis addiction.
Her debut novel was inspired by her enchantment with metaphysics as a teen, seeing it as the real magic in life. Tracy is a part-time college student, a private pilot, and an irredeemable dreamer.

Author Links:
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Cover Reveal Organized by: