Book Blast: Rewind to You

Rewind To You by Laura Johnston
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: September 15, 2014
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

One last summer before college on beautiful Tybee Island is supposed to help Sienna forget. But how can she? This is where her family spent every summer before everything changed, before the world as she knew it was ripped away.

But the past isn’t easily left behind. Especially when Sienna keeps having episodes that take her back to the night she wants to forget. 

Even when she meets the mysterious Austin Dobbs, the guy with the intense blue eyes, athlete’s body, and weakness for pralines who scooped her out of trouble when she blacked out on River Street.

When she’s with Austin, Sienna feels a whole new world opening up to her. Austin has secrets, and she has history. But caught between the past and the future, Sienna can still choose what happens now…

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Excerpt:

I’m increasingly aware of Austin—his shower-fresh scent, every curve of muscle and the rise and fall of his chest with every breath—as he stands behind me and wraps his arms around mine.

“I’ll teach you,” he says, his hot breath against my ear seeping in. Whispering a thrill.

Book Blitz: Worlds Collide (Sunset Rising #2)

Worlds Collide (Sunset Rising #2) by S.M. McEachern
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Dystopia
Release Date: March 3, 2014
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

In a desperate attempt to escape execution, Sunny O’Donnell and Jack Kenner find a way out of the Pit and into a world still believed to be toxic with radiation. 

Under the brilliant sun for the first time in their lives, they not only discover that the earth has healed from nuclear war, but there are people outside the Dome.

In Worlds Collide, the second book of the Sunset Rising trilogy, Sunny and Jack must continue a life of subterfuge in order to stay alive and find a way to free the Pit. 

But in their attempt to save the urchins, they uncover the horrifying truth about President Holt and the evil he could unleash on the world.


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Excerpt:

The drops soon gathered speed and turned into a downpour, as if someone had turned on a showerhead. It made a drumming noise against the hard-packed earth, which came as a surprise. I had no idea rain made a sound.

Everyone on the training field carried on as though there wasn’t a storm in progress. Dena continued with her tour. It wasn’t until a flash of light lit up the sky that Dena said it was time to go inside. The unexpected flash was blinding, but it was the booming noise that followed that sent me careening into Jack’s side. For just an instant I wondered if it was an attack.

Jack’s shoulders shook with barely concealed laughter. I shot him a look. “As if you’ve ever been in a storm,” I said.

Book Blitz: Hale Maree

Hale Maree by Misty Provencher
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 2, 2012
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

Hale Simmons’s life is already bottoming out and she’s only eighteen. 

Struggling on welfare, while trying to keep her alcoholic father on track, her dreams of having a better life fade a little more each day.

But, when her dad witnesses a brutal accident at the bar one night, it changes the entire course of Hale’s future.

Thrust into an arranged marriage with Oscar Maree, the playboy son of a wealthy man, Hale must learn to trust a stranger to give her the life she’s always wanted.

First, Hale needs to figure out if love can ever happen by accident.



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The Art Of Plotting

By Misty Provencher

I don’t know about you guys, but I began as a pantser and I’m constantly trying to perfect the art of plotting. I like the idea of it increasing the amount of writing I can produce in a day, creating a tighter book, and helping me to catch the loose ends even before I go into edits. I’ve been reading goobs of books on plotting and I’ve learned a few things that might help you too, if you’re on the same path.

1) Know this: index cards take the fear out of what can be an overwhelming process. I start each book by scratching down ideas on index cards. It doesn’t feel like plotting—therefore, it must not be. That little lie relieves the pressure of plotting on a big ol’ sheet of paper, knowing I’ve got to fill up the whole thing. I collect index cards the whole time I’m writing my current book, because I never want to be writing my current book. (insert my whine: it’s hard!) I’m always uber excited about the next though, and this gives me a way to have some work done on that next book when I get there. (Less whining!)

2) When I finish up the last book, I finally pull out my pile of index cards. Now’s the time to shoo the dogs and kids out of the living room or do the tablecloth trick to clear the kitchen table. I lay out all the cards and try to put them into a logical order. Some cards will be silly ideas of character traits or details about a setting, so they get stacked beneath the cards that depict the action that furthers the plot. Other cards will be duplicates (I let Larry Dog eat those). Everything gets sorted until I have a line of plot.

Book Blitz: Finding Mr. Darcy: High School Edition

Finding Mr. Darcy: High School Edition by AUTHOR
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: September 16, 2014
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

Sixteen-year-old Liza Johnson takes fangirl to a whole new level of crazy when she decides to take dating advice from her literary hero: Jane Austen.

With the help of her best friends, Liza sheds her ancient-speak and complete Austen wardrobe for something a bit more modern in an attempt at finding her very own Mr. Darcy.

Enter Will, the new kid and Liza's Darcy incarnate. Add her BFF's ex to mix and the sexy Brit who kisses with an accent, and Liza is in trouble.

So, what's a girl to do? Without her mom to go to relationship advice, Liza turns to the only person she can truly trust with matters of the heart via her mother's copy of COMPLETED WORKS OF JANE AUSTEN.

It's too bad Austen's heroines have never played Spin the Bottle or Seven Minutes in Heaven. Liza's determined to find her true Austen-esque happy ending, but if she can't trust herself instead of books, she just might end up in her own tragic love story.

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Excerpt:

Buzzing.

I heard it as I moved closer. Each step raised the tiny hairs all over my body until I tingled. I fought the urge to turn around, but Janie would kill me. Again.

The humming pitched higher. My heart detonated in my chest. Just around the corner and…I was there. Lunch.

I tugged my backpack tighter and held the straps out in front so I felt the security of it on my back. The monkeys were crazy today, jumping, screaming, laughing. All of them, the Geeks, Preps, Loners, Freaks, Smarties, Drama-Ramas, and Jockheads—all high—all with serious issues of ADHD and all put on this earth at the same time, designated to this lunchroom at this very minute, to bug the crap out of me. My skin itched.

I skirted into the room a little more. Just in time to catch this little, lovely, mind-blowing comment from Christopher Kronin, Head Jock. “Hey man, did you check out Miranda today? I swear I saw some cleeeeeavage!” Or, as I like to call him, Head Tool in the Jerkoff Parade.

Book Review: Sendoff for a Snitch (A Jesse Damon Crime Novel)

Sendoff for a Snitch (A Jesse Damon Crime Novel) by KM Rockwood
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Release Date: August 22, 2013
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

Everybody knows snitches get stitches. Or worse.

After years in prison on a murder conviction, Jesse's trying to make it on the street, but nothing comes easy. He's always broke and the police figure he's a natural suspect for almost anything, even without Aaron trying to set him up.

Jesse can't catch a break. His forklift at work is wrecked. His sometimes-girlfriend is furious with him. His basement apartment has a few feet of water in it. And it's still raining.

Wait until his parole officer finds out he's been caught driving Aaron's pickup truck. Without a license. That alone might violate his parole and send him back to prison. Then when Aaron's body is found floating in the flooded stairwell of his apartment, prison looks like a forgone conclusion, unless Jesse can manage to steer the police in another direction.

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There are many things that I like about this book.

The author’s use of the weather as a major element in this story is well done. Throughout the book, the author engaged all my senses with the vivid descriptions. Even though I read Send off for a Snitch during the hot days of summer, I still felt the need to wrap up in a soft quilt and sip on a cup of hot tea as I got caught up in the cold storm of this story and the aftermath it left.

I liked the fact that Jesse Damon isn’t someone with special skills or a bigger than life hero, but an ordinary person who made a bad decision when he was a teenager that sent him to prison for 20 years and left him on parole dealing with the issues that come with it.

Promotional Event: Powerboat Racer (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 4)

Powerboat Racer (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 4) by Thomas Hollyday
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Romance
Release Date: December 16, 2013
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

Harry Jacobsen, disgraced failure of a foreign correspondent and fired from a respected New York City paper, takes refuge as editor for a small weekly in a quiet town on the Chesapeake. The most excitement he sees is when a trio of children comes across the sunken hulk of a racing boat, lost thirty years ago. The black captain, Walker John Douglas, had crashed his vessel after killing two women and burning down half the town in a period of racial unrest.

Hurry’s investigative reporter instincts kick in, and he begins to delve into the history of Walker and the infamous inferno. River Sunday, evenly split between black and white, roils in chaos at his front page headlines. Half the town welcomes the fresh exploration of the civil rights actions, while the other half would rather leave the past alone. The streets are also flooding with tourists as the largest event of the season – a nationally acclaimed powerboat race festival – swells the discussion with high profile personalities and racers who remember Walker’s racially charged legacy.

As Harry unravels the threads of time and reveals the truth of what happened during the racial clashes of the sixties, the heat levels rise in the once peaceful town. Passionate emotions threaten to spark a fresh wave of riots the likes of which River Sunday had not seen in decades. Harry races to discover the full story in time to save lives – and to save the town from burning anew.

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Excerpt:

Rounding a bend the boat almost slammed into a looming state police motorboat, the side of the bigger boat emblazoned with the black and orange Maryland seal, stark and high above the gunwales of Hurry’s boat. Up on its deck two heavy set officers in well fitting dark uniforms looked down at them. One took a megaphone in hand and began barking to them to turn back.

She stopped the boat, idled the engine and called out, “What’s the problem, officer. I’m the Ranger’s wife.”

“We’ve got orders, Ma’am,” he said. “No boats allowed up here.”

Harry said, looking up as he held the sides of the boat, “I’m from the newspaper.”

“Sorry, sir,” the policeman was adamant. He was slender, his face showing an arrogance that Harry had seen all too often in policemen. When he opened his mouth he showed a space for a missing front tooth, and Harry smiled, finding himself hoping that the broken tooth meant someone had once put a fist into the policeman’s too assured face.