Book Blitz: How We Began

How We Began by Edie Danford, Alexis Hall, Delphine Dryden, Vanessa North, Amy Jo Cousins, Annabeth Albert, Geonn Cannon
Age Group: New Adult & Young Adult
Genre: Romance
Release Date: November 9, 2015
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

How does love begin? A glance, a gesture, an unexpected offer of help from a stranger…or from a good friend. A smile across a counter at a coffee shop or video store. 

A secret revealed in a song from another place and time. Or in a love ballad crooned at a high school dance.

In this anthology of never-before-published sweet LGBTQ+ stories, seven authors explore the beginnings of love between young and new adult couples. 

All proceeds will support The Trevor Project’s work with crisis intervention and suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth.


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Excerpt:

Extinction Level Events by Geonn Cannon

Cassandra loved the town; it seemed as if everywhere else on the North American continent humans set up camp and reformed the land to make it “better.” Then settlers reached the Pacific Northwest and decided to leave everything alone as much as possible. She turned right so she could drive past the waterfront.

The landmass visible across the water was Canada, meaning she was feet away from where America ended. She was moving to Savannah to attend the College of Art and Design. Savannah was another coastal city, and when she arrived she planned to stand on one of the most eastern extremes of town. That way she could say she had bookended the American continent.

Natalie thought it was crazy she had chosen a school on the other coast, but it was a calculated decision. SCAD was her dream school, yes, but she also felt she needed the distance. She needed to find out who she was beyond the confines of her life so far.

Book Blitz: Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming by Cassandra Page
Age Group: New Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: November 3, 2015
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

Who would have thought your dreams could kill you?

Melaina makes the best of her peculiar heritage: half human and half Oneiroi, or dream spirit, she can manipulate others’ dreams. At least working out the back of a new age store as a ‘dream therapist’ pays the bills. Barely.

But when Melaina treats a client for possession by a nightmare creature, she unleashes the murderous wrath of the creature’s master. He could be anywhere, inside anyone: a complete stranger or her dearest friend. 

Melaina must figure out who this hidden adversary is and what he’s planning – before the nightmares come for her.


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Excerpt:

I closed my eyes and looked into Larry’s dreams.

I was expecting to find a tortured psyche, an aspect of his subconscious manifesting itself there. Daddy or mummy issues, arachnophobia, anxiety, even garden-variety stress: I’d seen them all at one point or another. I couldn’t fix his psychological issues, but I could put a temporary block on his dreams until his doctor’s referral came good.

That was what it usually was. What I found was a thing.

The creature was an amorphous black cloud about the size of my torso. Greasy as a burger shop floor, it had yellowing eyes and writhing tentacles … if tentacles could be covered with fine hair and worm into your skin like something from a bad horror movie.

Book Blitz: The Secrets We Kept

The Secrets We Kept by Lily Velez
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 8, 2015
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

One year. That’s how long it’s been since childhood sweethearts Sully Graham and Cadence Gilbertson broke up, since one adoption and one out-of-state move turned their worlds upside down.

Suddenly, Cadence is back in New York City, but something’s different about her. The light in her eyes, the music in her laughter, the warmth in her smile—all of those things have entirely vanished. In their place stand the makings of a girl Sully can’t even begin to recognize, much less understand.

Still, despite the collective history of heartbreak between them, he’s convinced he can win her trust again, and he’s committed to proving the invincibility of their love no matter what it takes.

But Cadence is quietly harboring secrets of her own. Dark secrets. Ugly secrets. Secrets that could break a person. And though broken herself and unbearably lonely, she’s determined to protect Sully from her terrible, biting truths. Even if it means locking him out of her life forever.

The only problem is it seems her heart hasn’t quite received the memo. One glimpse of him is all it takes for her to trip into familiar (and, she’ll admit, addictive) feelings that threaten to all but consume her. Now her biggest fear is that her secrets will begin to slowly unravel one by one…long before Sully’s resolve ever does.

The Secrets We Kept is a moving story about first love, friendship, and forgiveness, and the enduring bonds that forever connect us and give us our strength.

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Excerpt:

The rooftop memory revisited her. Sully had first brought her there on their six-month anniversary, where they celebrated their romance with an afternoon picnic of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and barbecue-flavored potato chips. Dessert was a melting sundae pie from Burger King.

She remembered the way the sun felt on her skin, like it was painting her with fire. She remembered the way the light reflected off the metal steamers, making them glow like pillars of white. She remembered the look in Sully’s eyes.

Book Blitz: Sugar Skulls

Sugar Skulls by Lisa Mantchev and Glenn Dallas
Age Group: New Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: November 10, 2015
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

Welcome to Cyrene, a city where energy is currency and music is the lifeblood of its young citizens. Everyone lives on the grid, and the residents of the world’s largest playground are encouraged to pursue every physical and emotional pleasure imaginable.

Vee is the lead singer of the Sugar Skulls, an all-girl band that is Corporate’s newest pet project. Micah haunts the city like a ghost after an overdose of a deadly illegal street drug knocks him off the grid. When Micah and Vee forge an immediate, undeniable connection, their troubled worlds collide.

Trading concert stages for Cyrene’s rooftops and back alleys, they have to evade vicious thugs and Vee’s possessive manager as they unravel the mysteries connected to their dark pasts. And before the curtain falls, Micah and Vee will bring the city to its knees in their desperate bid for love, home, and a future together.

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Excerpt:
The girl in the mirror is an undead supermodel in search of a catwalk. It’s the handiwork of the new styling team Corporate brought in to deal with my hair and paint my face and glue sequins to my eyelids and shove in the black-light contacts after the old team quit.

Not that I’m admitting I had anything to do with them unceremoniously packing their kits and leaving before the last show. Better to point the finger at Jax.

In the group, Jax is “the crazy one.” Damon recruited her a year ago, just before her eighteenth birthday, and she’s driven every styling team we’ve had batshit insane with her demands.

“Spiderwebs,” she decides for her face paint tonight, then points her index fingers at a case of skunk-striped bedhead so legendary, it looks like mice have nested in it. “Just don’t touch the ’do.”

There’s a continuous rumble coming from the front of the house: newbies, fresh off the nanotech install and frothing at the mouth to get a taste of everything Cyrene has to offer.

Book Blitz: Paper Dolls (Falling Paper #1)

Paper Dolls (Falling Paper #1) by Ketley Allison
Age Group: New Adult
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 12, 2015
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

It’s too bad for Scarlet that no matter how sweet a person is, fate can still screw you over.

Now she’s jaded, half of her torn away and the remainder flesh and bones. In her grief, all Scarlet wants to do is to rebel against the life that betrayed her and her roommate provides the perfect lure…

Scarlet awakens when she enters the New York City underground, where vice and fortunes thrive. Hustling, trickery and savagery allow her to discover her true self—-her forgotten soul reemerging. She just can’t promise it’ll come back pure.

It won’t matter that there is a shadow in her periphery. Theo Saxon thinks he can save Scarlet from a world she craves and protect her from the very elements he’s spawned from. But it’s through his unwitting instruction that Scarlet will become a part of his league and find the danger he wants so badly to keep to himself.

Scarlet thinks the stakes are within her control. But she won’t just be betting her heart on Theo and his seductive sins. She will wager her life.

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Excerpt:

Something was going to come out of the shadows and shank me.

I clung to the wrought iron fence, staying put despite Verily’s tugs on my arm. Our vulnerable bodies could be seen in every direction on the deserted street. Cars lined the road, but they stood silent, their windows shining onyx pits. Columns of brownstone buildings, bricked into two long, looming lines on either side, blocked the moon. Their rows of windows were as black as the cars below.

Blares of horns ricocheted through our residential street, but their echoes were faint. All signs of life were too far away to save me. But I agreed to this. I wanted this.

“Relax, Scarlet. I promise it’s safe,” Verily said to me.

Maybe no knife was needed. All the monsters in the dark had to do was bend me over this waist-high fence and spear my abdomen with one of the fleur-de-lis arrowheads, the skirt of my naughty maid's uniform flouncing in the wind and ruffling around my ass, drawing the eye of anyone who lingered.

Book Blitz: The Girl and the Gargoyle (The Girl and the Raven #2)

The Girl and the Gargoyle (The Girl and the Raven #2) by Pauline Gruber
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Release Date: June 23, 2015
Buy Links:

Amazon ♥ B & N

Book Description:

Being half-witch/half-demon and dating Marcus, a gargoyle and demon enemy, is complicated enough for Lucy. She can almost tolerate Jude, her demon father, forcing her to undergo combat training.

But when Marcus’s long-lost family returns to Chicago, her world begins to crumble. Marcus's mother wants him to leave to join the gargoyle clan; his father wants him to help kill Jude. There’s one major problem with this: if Jude dies, Lucy dies.

Marcus will do whatever it takes to save Lucy and her father. Meanwhile Lucy has her own plan and with the aid of a surprise newcomer, seeks help from the most unlikely—and dangerous—source.


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Excerpt:

“Why did I allow you to talk me into this?” Marcus rubs the back of his neck as he paces beside me. It’s impossible to read his expression in the near-darkness.

“Relax,” Selima says. “You’re going to love it. Tell him, Lucy.”

Marcus moves to the other side of the clearing. A chorus of sounds ring out through the woods, the skitter of nocturnal animals moving over a blanket of twigs, leaves and brush. Two owls hoot, hoot to one another.

“But I tried this before. Twice. It was a disaster.” He clears his throat. “Maybe I can’t fly. You know...like...some protectors can and some can’t.”

Book Blitz: Sweet Tea

Sweet Tea by Wendy Lynn Decker
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Coming of Age, Contemporary Fiction
Release Date: March 12, 2014
Buy Links:

Amazon

Book Description:

The fourth anniversary of Olivia’s daddy and John Lennon’s death is approaching. Like the shot heard ’round the world, TV and radio stations keep the frenzy alive and recognize Lennon’s life, while Olivia’s mama remembers Daddy’s death. Instead of healing, Mama’s strange behavior keeps getting worse.

After viewing an afternoon talk show, Olivia discovers her mother might have more than a case of eccentricity – she may be mentally ill. When those fears are confirmed, Olivia is faced with more decisions than any sixteen-year-old should have to make. With no adult family members to turn to, she is forced to trust the only people who’ve offered help: one strange man and a friend her mother makes at the mental institution.

Facing the intricacies of her mother’s illness one minute and the decision to have sex with her new boyfriend the next, Olivia finds that through faith and determination, she can conquer it all in this poignant story of love, intuition, compassion, and hope.

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Excerpt:

“Well look at you, Miss Trailer Queen, all wrapped up in a fur coat. Did your little brother catch it live and skin it for you, too?” Luke had gone from a baseball-playing typical young boy to a backwoods hick since we’d moved to the trailer park, but insulting him like she did made my chest tight and my face burn.

At first, I felt a spike of anger, ready to thrust from my fist into Monica’s button nose. Instead, I fluttered my lashes and held my head high. “No, Monica. Only your daddy would accomplish such a task by hand. I got this as a gift.”

Monica’s face reddened. I could almost see smoke whistling from her ears as her mind spun fast, trying to outwit me. Regardless of her standing as Landon’s golden girl, my wit sparked of amber and sapphire. Monica’s smoldered like a windblown matchstick. I shared a subtle grin of satisfaction on my way out the door to the hallway.