Promotional Event: Queen & Commander (Hive Queen Saga #1)

Queen & Commander (Hive Queen Saga #1) by Janine A. Southard
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: March 10, 2013
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

On a world where high school test scores determine your future, six students rebel. They’ll outrun society as fast as their questionably obtained spaceship will take them.

Rhiannon doesn’t technically cheat the Test. She’s smarter than the computers that administer it, and she uses that to her advantage. She emerges from Test Day with the most prestigious future career possible: Hive Queen.

Gwyn & Victor are madly in love, but their Test results will tear them apart. Good thing Rhiannon is Gwyn’s best friend. Rhiannon can fix this. Queens can do anything.

Gavin is the wild card. Raised off-planet, he can’t wait to leave again... and he’s heard of an empty ship in orbit. The Ceridwen’s Cauldron.

Both Luciano and Alan fit in the system. They don’t need to leave. Only their devotion to Rhiannon spurs them to join the Cauldron’s crew.

Spaceships. Blackmail. Anywhere but here.

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Excerpt:

Winning a ship means surpassing the competition.

The three competing Queens swiveled their heads, hare-quick, to home in on new prey. They’d ignored her until she’d made that noise. Now they had the scent of fresh insecurity and would peck away until they laid her meager confidence bare for the massacre.

“What a sweet little girl,” gushed the one in red. “Where’s your mother?”

Promotional Event: Wide Awake

Wide Awake by Shelly Crane
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: March 22, 2013
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

A girl.
A coma.
A life she can't remember.

When Emma Walker wakes up in the hospital with no knowledge of how she got there, she learns that she's been in a coma for six months. Strangers show up and claim to be her parents, but she can't remember them. She can't remember anyone. Not her friends, not even her boyfriend. Even though she can't remember, everyone wants her to just pick up where she left off, but what she learns about the 'old her' makes her start to wish she'd never woken up. Her boyfriend breaks up with the new girl he's dating to be with her, her parents want her to start planning for college, her friends want their leader back, and her physical therapist with the hazel eyes keeps his distance to save his position at the hospital.

Will she ever feel like she recognizes the girl in the mirror?

♥ ♥ ♥

Excerpt:

The next couple of weeks brought plenty of action and events. I focused harder on the therapy and tried to focus less on Mason. He seemed to be doing the same. I had renewed vigor, which led to stamina, which led to more workouts, which led to exhaustion, which led to tons of sleep, which led to healing, which led to me walking.

All.

By.

Myself.

This simple task, this simple thing that we all take for granted, that's so cute and monumental when a baby takes his first steps, but these first steps were so much more than that. Though I cried like a baby, I wasn't one.

Promotional Event: The Last Witch (Incenaga #1)

The Last Witch (Incenaga #1) by Debbie Dee
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: September 12, 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

For generations the Incenaga Witches have been forced to use their power to fulfill the wishes of others until they are drained of their magic and left to die. Desperate to protect his infant daughter - the last surviving witch - Emmeline's father escapes with her to the forests where he vows to keep her hidden from the world and from the truth.

Sixteen years later, Emmeline is discovered and finds herself in the grip of a traitor who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even if it means abusing her power until she dies. She is taken to a distant country and told she must marry the Crown Prince or her own country will be overtaken, its people slaughtered. But what sort of prince would marry a witch? And why would she be the difference between war and peace?

As she fights to regain her freedom, she is faced with a choice between a prince who offers a lifetime of security and a common gamekeeper who has no idea of her power, but offers his heart.

But who can she trust when her power can be used against her?

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Excerpt:

"Stay here,” he ordered.

Emmeline nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. This was it. This was how all the other witches lived out the end of their days. Cold, alone, and chained to a relentless master.

“Pace yourself as you near the soldiers, Emmeline. When they recognize you many will try to run. Kill them.”

Promotional Event: The Undesirable

The Undesirable by Sara Celi
Age Group: Mature Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 28, 2013
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

What if everything you knew turned out to be a lie?

Charlotte Walker knows how to live under the rule of The Party. She has managed for 18 years. She helps out her drunken mother and keeps life going at a familiar, steady pace. She doesn’t ask questions, even though she has many of them in her heart.

Fostino Sanchez knows how to live under the rule of The Party, too. For 19 years, he’s worked to be the perfect Party member. He knows what must be done to keep Maxwell Cooper in power, and how find the The Undesirables that threaten to take away everything that matters.

As the months go by, what matters most to Fostino is Charlotte Walker.

While their love blooms, danger comes to Charlotte and Fostino’s small hometown of Harrison Corners, OH. Threats they never knew existed could take away all that they care about. And just when these two teens think they know what will come next, Charlotte learns the truth about a secret she has long suspected.

What Charlotte finds out changes everything.

Should Charlotte trust Fostino with what she knows? Can she trust anyone? Will she find it in herself to rise up against terrible odds? What if the ultimate Undesirable is her?

*This book is Mature YA/ New Adult. It is recommended for readers 14 and over.

♥ ♥ ♥

Excerpt:

Fostino’s frown mixes with his tightened jaw. “Are you serious about this, Charlotte? Really serious? I just — I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me.” His eyebrows pull tighter than any seam I have ever sewn.“God. I’m so stupid.”

His mouth sets in a hard line. My heartbeat jumps to my ears. I bite down hard on the inside of my bottom lip. Oh, God. Did I make the right choice? Will he understand? Will he always hate me? My breath quickens as the air constricts all around the two of us. I almost taste the awkwardness in the air. I pray my pain doesn’t show on my face.

Promotional Event: Shades of Summer

Shades of Summer (The Haunting Ruby Series, Book 1) by Joy Elbel
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date:
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

Love…the only thing more powerful than death. Seventeen year old Ruby Matthews spent the last year of her life crippled by guilt and grief over the death of longtime friend and boyfriend Seeley “Lee” Lucas. Feeling that a change of scenery might snap her back to reality, Ruby’s father moves the family out of their home in the Philadelphia suburb of Trinity and into small town life in Charlotte’s Grove, Pennsylvania.

Life is better here for Ruby—she quickly makes friends with handsome Zach Mason and his twin sister Rachel. Every moment spent with Zach makes life and love seem possible again. But passion comes with a high price. Things are not what they seem at Rosewood, the Matthews’ historic plantation-style home. Paranormal activity at the mansion intensifies as she draws closer to Zach.

Is it Lee—coming back to claim her heart and maybe even her soul? Or is something more sinister hiding in the shadows? Ruby must delve into her own past and the history of Rosewood before it is too late.

♥ ♥ ♥

Promotional Event: Undertow by Kiri Newton

Undertow by Kiri Newton
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Release Date: November 12, 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N ♥ BookPal

Book Description:

For far too long these sailor-drowning, ship-sinking sea sirens have been portrayed as happy, peaceful creatures who want nothing more than to fall in love with a prince and live happily ever after. Undertow is an unconventional twist on one of the oldest mythological creatures known to man.






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Drawing the Line

When I sat down on that Saturday morning and began penning the opening words of Undertow I was initially just writing the story of Zoe Lawinsky, a young girl whose life is taken from her but returned to her as a mermaid. But as the story began to develop and progress I found myself setting down some very strong guidelines for the story. For starters I never wanted Undertow’s mermaids to be these happy creatures who sit on rocks combing their hair and singing to one another.

That notion irritates me just slightly less than the one of angels sat on clouds playing their harps in heaven. And we have Disney to blame for this. No doubt when they decided in 1989 to make the movie The Little Mermaid they read the Hans Christian Anderson tale and immediately began panicking. ‘We can’t promote suicide!’ they yelled. ‘We can’t have an unhappy ending!

Promotional Event: Scarlet Woods (Scarlet Woods #1)

Release Day Blitz

Scarlet Woods (Scarlet Woods #1) by Brooke Passmore
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasty
Release Date: December 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

Past, future, and love all exist in the door through time.

Modern and independent seventeen year old Morgan Westbrook thought she had seen all there was to her home town of Scarlet, Georgia, but one day while walking in the woods behind her house she discovers a mysterious door masked behind the trees. After admiring the door’s timeless beauty she walks through its entrance to venture into more woods, but what she doesn’t know is that the door is a gateway through time that takes her back to the year 1863 during the days of the Civil War in Scarlet.

Without knowing that she had traveled back in time, she stumbles upon Danny Carson, an attractive young man who is appalled to see that Morgan is wearing skimpy modern clothes instead of a nineteenth century dress. Although they find each other completely different than anyone they’ve ever known, they cannot help but feel drawn to one another. After spending time in another century, she discovers that she's time traveled back to the year 1863 and that the door took her there. For months she and Danny journey back and forth through the door to experience the joys of traveling to both of their centuries. When dilemmas of unwanted marriage, slavery, and war are thrown at them, they must face the perils that time travel has delivered them in both the future and the past.

♥ ♥ ♥

Excerpt:

March 14, 1863, Danny Carson was riding his black horse underneath the budding trees of the woods. He heard the crackle of rushing water hit against the pebbles and sharp rocks in the creek as the orange sun descended from the face of Scarlet, Georgia.

Promotional Event: Altered (The Academy #1)

Altered (The Academy #1) by Aubrey Coletti
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery, Horror
Release Date: June 6, 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N ♥ Smashwords

Book Description:

When Toni, Joseph and Charlie arrive at their new boarding school, they are glad to leave their families - and respective problems - behind. Isolated as boarders, they meet a handsome senior with a personality like iced snake's blood, teachers with a penchant for physical punishment, and four other outcasts who reveal that their being brought to the Academy wasn't random at all.

When the arrivals discover that their new school is engaged in "behavior modification" through electric shocks, isolation, restraints, and an ever-evolving set of methods to "fix" them, they declare war on their Academy. During their campaign of sabotage, they fight, hate, scorn, love, and begin to uncover the reasons why they were brought to the school.

But as their war against the school escalates beyond their control, will they become the very things the Academy believes they are: dangerous, delinquent - and mad?

♥ ♥ ♥
What was the plot of your very first piece of unpublished fiction you ever wrote?

Oh wow, I don’t even know. Probably something about teenagers with super powers, doing the sorts of things you would expect teens with super powers to do.

Writers tend to have a pretty active imagination for obvious reasons, if you had to describe what the inside of your head was like what would you tell us?

Release Day Blitz: Veer by Alyssa Rose Ivy

Veer by Alyssa Rose Ivy
Age Group: New Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 29th 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon  ♥  B & N 
Kobo Books

Book Description:

Only when you let go can you learn to live.

Between the death of her mother and pushing through law school without her best friend, it's been a tough year for Becca. Needing a break from Boston, she moves to a tiny coastal North Carolina town for a relaxing summer. After bumping heads repeatedly with a local cop, she realizes her summer will be anything but quiet.

Three years after a career ending injury ruins his chance to play Major League Baseball, Gavin has a distrust of northerners and lately girls in general. He wants nothing to do with a girl who is only in town for the summer.

When the two give in to their impossible attraction, they realize that they may just have found the key to freeing themselves from the ghosts of their pasts.

♥ ♥ ♥

Giveaway: 1 Swag Pack

Blog Tour: Awaken by Kristen Day

Awaken (Daughters of the Sea 2) by Kristen Day
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: October 2, 2012 
Blurb:

The sacrifices we make have the power to shift the very fabric of who we are, and ultimately who we are meant to be…

After learning of her true destiny as the intended Leader of the Tydes, Anastasia Whitman must now embark on a perilous quest to the Underworld before the age of eighteen in order to plant the seed of immortality and complete her essence to become a true Sea Goddess. But before she can make her legendary journey, an unexpected new student transfers to Lorelei; initiating a sequence of events that will unravel Stasia’s new life, and test the boundaries of her relationship with the mysterious, dark, and sexy Finn Morrison.

The line between the Underworld and the Living begins to blur as gruesome ghosts, morbid reveries, and pure evil haunt her waking hours as well as her sanity. Once the details of Finn’s own startling destiny are revealed, the dangerous secrets he’s been hiding will threaten the very love Stasia believed to be indestructible. As time begins to run out, she will be forced to choose between the one she loves and the destiny she cannot escape.

Amazon  ♥  B & N
♥ ♥ ♥

Excerpt:

Directly in front of us was the quintessential haunted house of childhood nightmares and horror movies, positioned on a decrepit acre of dead leaves. The ragged branches of a lone live oak tree had been stripped of its foliage, which now lay below. No other trees on the island had begun to lose their leaves yet, and the stark contrast chilled me to the bone. Once you were able to move past the layer of brown leaves and the overgrown stone path that used to be a driveway, the main attraction took your breath away.

Promotional Event: Forbidden Forest by Tenaya Jayne

The Legends of Regia: Forbidden Forest by Tenaya Jayne

Age Range: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Pages: 236

Book Blurb:

Born in shame. Cast from society. Shape Shifter/Elf hybrid, Forest must fight for any respect she can get. Targeted in her youth by a vampire noble who placed an illegal slave mark on her, she is forced to obey him, no matter what.

Slipping the grip of her master and abandoning the prejudice of Regia, her native world, Forest takes a job on Earth, guarding the portal, using her skills as a warrior to enforce Regia's laws. Now, called home for a black ops mission, Forest must put aside her own prejudice to transport the vampire prince, Syrus, through enemy territory in a time of war.

Prince Syrus, mage and master of the Blood Kata, wants Forest more than he's ever wanted anything. In spite of their mutual mistrust, their attraction cannot be denied. Through the danger of their mission, and the secrets they both keep, it doesn't matter what they feel. Forest is forbidden.

Buy Link

Amazon
♥ ♥ ♥

Excerpt:

Forest pressed her back against the cool concrete wall, wanting to remain aloof from the entity of the crowd. She chose her position in the shadows, out of the paths of the roving, multi-colored spotlights. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the undulating human pheromones flying around on the air. At the beginning of every shift, she allowed herself a few minutes of this alien/human experience, though she didn't fully comprehend the combination of dancing, drinking, and ear-breaking sound waves. They loved it, however, and never seemed to deviate from the recipe.

These were the people she was sworn to protect. She had developed a light affection for the human race and considered them a benign, if not slightly silly, bunch of creatures. Her religious passion for her job was rooted in hatred of that which harmed the humans, not a superhero tendency to protect the weak.

Release Day Blitz & Giveaway: The Modified by C.A. Kunz

Young Adult Novel Readers Promotional Event

What would you sacrifice to save the one’s you love? To save the one who holds your heart? To save the world?

Kenley Grayson is all too familiar with these questions.

After Earth is thrust into its first intergalactic war with an unknown race called the Bringers, our military forces begin to suffer heavy losses. Desperate for a solution, the Allied Federation issues a worldwide draft for every able seventeen-year-old to enlist. As Kenley turns seventeen, she finds herself thrown into the very war that took her older brother’s life.

This year’s draft is a little different than in the past though. A new program, known as the Magnus Project, has been introduced, and only the best and brightest qualify. Kenley is amongst a select few whom are chosen to join this elite group of soldiers, and as a part of this project, undergoes a modification procedure that leaves her and her peers endowed with powers beyond their wildest dreams.

Blog Tour: Phantom by Laura De Luca

Hosted by Young Adult Novel Readers

Phantom by Laura De Luca
Publisher: Pagan Writers Press
Pages: 270

Buy Links:

Amazon  ♥  Smashwords  ♥  B & N

Blurb:

The “Phantom” was a musical phenomenon that Rebecca had always found enchanting. She had no idea that her life was about to mirror the play that was her obsession. When her high school drama club chooses “Phantom” as their annual production, Rebecca finds herself in the middle of an unlikely love triangle and the target of a sadistic stalker who uses the lines from the play as their calling card.

Rebecca lands the lead role of Christine, the opera diva, and like her character, she is torn between her two co-stars—Tom the surfer and basketball star who plays the lovable hero, and Justyn, the strangely appealing Goth who is more than realistic in the role of the tortured artist.

Almost immediately after casting, strange things start to happen both on and off the stage. Curtains fall. Mirrors are shattered. People are hurt in true phantom style. They all seem like accidents until Rebecca receives notes and phone calls that hint at something more sinister. Is Justyn bringing to life the twisted character of the phantom? Or in real life are the roles of the hero and the villain reversed? Rebecca doesn’t know who to trust, but she knows she’s running out of time as she gets closer and closer to opening night. Only when the mask is stripped away, will the twenty first century phantom finally be revealed.

Excerpt: