Welcome one and all to my stop on the Bewitched Tour! This is perfect for the season, and author Cambria Hebert gave me a special post for you on one of her FAVORITE subjects — chickens!! Now, for those of you that know Cambria, you know that there was a lot of sarcasm in that statement. So, without further ado, I give to you…
Zombie Chickens – Heidi Continue reading Blog Tour: Bewitched
Welcome to the Consumed By Love Blog Tour stop! Don’t miss my review and read through for the giveaway!
Title: Consumed by Love
Author: Pavarti K Tyler
Genre: Dark, Horror, Erotic
Publisher: Fighting Monkey Press
Ebook
Words: appx 5000
Purchase: Amazon
Book Description:
Consumed by Love is the story of a couple who must face one partner’s supernatural transformation. This short piece is written in the style of a classic horror story with a dark take on the addictive nature of love.
Giveaway:
Follow this link to find the giveaway: http://fmbblogtours.blogspot.com/2012/06/tour-schedule-consumed-by-love-by.html
About the Author:
Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway.
Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry as a freelance accountant for several international law firms. She now operates her own accounting firm in the Washington DC area, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and two terrible dogs. When not preparing taxes, she is busy penning her next novel.
Find the Author:
My blog is all ages | My Tumblr is 18+ only | My Fan Page needs your likes | My Twitter likes friends | My Google+ is random |
This tour was put together by FMB Blog Tours
Welcome to my stop on the FMB Blog Tour for For His Eyes Only. Be sure to check out my review and read below for an excerpt of this thriller.
Title: For His Eyes Only
Author: T. C. Archer
Genre: Action, Adventure, Contemporary, Romance, Suspense, Thriller
Publisher: Set
Ebook
Words: 79,000
Purchase: Amazon |
Book Description
Jesse Evans is the most wanted woman in the world. She must prove she didn’t sell out the elite Special Ops team she sent into a Columbian village to rescue a little girl, or her sister dies. Only one man can save them both. But he isn’t who Jesse thinks he is. Continue reading FMB Blog Tour: For His Eyes Only
For His Eyes Only by T.C. Archer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
She had the impression he had reverted to some Cro-Magnon man, who believed he would take care of her. There was a first time for everything.
Jesse Evans is wanted for selling out her elite Special Ops teammates. Only problem is, she didn’t do it. Now, to get her life back together and keep her only family safe, she has to find out who did sell them out–and make someone believe her.
Throughout the book, the reader–and Jesse–makes guesses about Cole, the man sent to kill her but who ends up helping her… or so she thinks. The action has just enough pauses between it to let readers catch their breath before picking right back up, and man, can Jesse pack a punch. The tender moments are well-done and well-placed, allowing the reader insight into both Jesse and Cole’s character. The attraction between the two, while almost cliche, was done in such a gentlemanly fashion (if such can be said about a man trying to kill you) that it worked well.
Full of twists and identity questions, this fast-paced thriller packs a mean punch and keeps readers guessing.
Xor: The Shape of Darkness by Moshe Sipper
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’m a boy named Lewis Nash and today is my twelfth birthday.
Upon waking up on his twelfth birthday, Lewis discovers that he can Shape. Before he can really figure out what to do with this new ability, he is whisked away to Xor with a very important mission – saving the planet from the Realm Pirates. With the help of a few new friends, Lewis sets out to do just that.
The reader is thrown into Lewis’s world, abruptly leaving his “home” to a new planet more advanced than Earth, with Artificial Persons, interactive computers, holographs, werewolves, and magic. It seems like a conglomeration of everything tossed into one book, and since Xor isn’t very well-developed, it is hard to see how these all fit together.
The pacing is varied, with some fast sections at the beginning but most of the book being too slow. Lewis asks a lot of questions – which I would assume of a young person – but the questions he asks are either not necessary, not relevant, or not answered. The plot also gets sidetracked at several points, going of on tangents of minimal importance.
The writing itself is simple – perhaps too much so, though it could be good for a younger reader. While Lewis is twelve and should act appropriately, some of the ideas he struggles with seems to imply he is much younger. The repetitive narrative can wear on the reader, causing a lack of interest in what could be a very interesting story.
Hidden within Xor is a growing up story about a young boy forced to face fantastical things and to overcome the sadness inside of himself.
Tales From The Dew Drop Inne by Kenneth Weene
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“I guess you could say I’m from The Dew Drop Inne. There’s one in every town.”
Set in a local bar and narrated by Calvin, this collection of stories depicts the lives of those who hang on to the bottom rung of life’s social ladder. From strippers to musicians to veterans, the desperate often-drunk people that inhabit the bar and call it “home” are clinging to what little family they have – all the regulars at the bar.
Within these pages are colorful tales of people that could be anywhere. The life they lead is illuminated, showing companionship, competitiveness, and compassion mixed in with the drunken mishaps. Through the collection, the reader watches the characters take shape, though sometimes can still not relate to said characters due to their lot in life.
Tales From The Dew Drop Inne takes a bunch of characters that everyone knows (but doesn’t) and portrays them in a setting many are familiar with to some extent. The slice-of-life collection deals with characters and issues that are considered “beneath” many but shows the goodness that is still present in these run-down people.
Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Then she shut the door and locked it and left him there.
After being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, Alex leaves on a hiking trip to deal with her personal demons and say good-bye to her parents. That’s when it happens: the pulse. Electronic devices no longer work and folks are either dead or have a strange craving for flesh. Set on survival, Alex does what she must to avoid the Changed and save her improvised family.
This book is broken into two parts, and they couldn’t be more different. The first part is a fast-paced, well-written account of how Alex, Ellie, and Tom meet, encounter the Changed, and plan to survive. The characters are well done, engaging the reader to cheer for their survival. It is an easy – if mature in some parts – read.
The second half of the book is a total departure from the first half. Not only is Alex alone again, but there are no more Changed until the very last chapter – no more action. The reader is left wondering what happened to the other characters (which I presume will be dealt with in the sequel) and tossed into a town, meeting new characters and departing from the Alex from the first part – even she questions where the old her has gone. This part is frustrating, though no less intriguing if only to find out where it is going.
Ashes takes teen dystopia to a gruesome level, though leaving the reader questioning the swift change in the middle of the book. Regardless, it is a fast read, with a lot of action in the first part and hopefully a lot of answers in the sequel.
The Rising Moon by Nilsa Rodriguez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s amazing how quickly your life can change.
Lia is a quiet girl. She keeps to herself, pushing people away because she’s cursed to lose everyone she loves. Until she meets Ryan and he refuses to be pushed away. Together, they try to figure out the mystery surrounding Lia and her curse and uncover a lot more hiding in the shadows than Lia ever expected.
As Lia finds out more about herself and her background, she almost blindly accepts the new pieces of her world, though she is given a lot of hard evidence. Ryan was a very interesting character that played a big part in the novel at the beginning but almost faded out towards the end when other characters were introduced. The lack of emotional depth hindered the story, though that could be fixed along with the grammatical errors.
While the idea and concept behind the story was very interesting, the telling of it needed a little polish. There were points that seemed to contradict themselves or were just confusing. There was not a good enough line drawn between Lia’s nature and that of those around her — the reader is told she’s a shifter and an immortal werewolf, but the two don’t sound like they could be the same. The love angle seemed forced, though the idea that a werewolf would love a vampire is interesting.
The Rising Moon is a dark, twisted take on tales of shifters, werewolves, and vampires. While the ethnic side could have been more enriching, the story’s potential drove it forward until the final battle.
Today’s the day! Release day for Into the Desert Wilds! If you’ve been following along for the last few days, you can probably tell I’m a little excited. This has become one of my favorite series from a favorite new author.
Having survived the war near Altis, Estin and his family must make a new life in the desert lands near Corraith more than a thousand miles from home. Unlike Altis, these lands fully accept wildlings, giving hope for the future.
Starting to find her own life, Oria has no expectations of a future. She lives day to day tn this new land. What it means to be an adult is as elusive to her as safety had once been, after growing up watching her friends die.
Surely so far from the invasion by the Turessians, Corraith is safe from the horrors they have already seen elsewhere…
The touch of the mists woke pain in every inch of my body, letting me know I was alive, but warning me that it could kill in an instant. Everything I had known could have and probably should have ended in that moment, with my mate and my children in my arms. I accepted that and let the mists close about me, their burning fingers tugging and tearing at me and likely the others.
The pain and sensation of being dragged away by what can only described as a hurricane made of flames was the last thing I thought I would ever feel again.
When I woke, I expected to be learning what the afterlife of my people looked like. To some small degree, I had looked forward to that, thinking on all those I had lost. It was an ending to all I had known, or so I thought.
Instead, I found myself face down in sand, with Feanne and Atall lying disheveled on the desert ground around me. Panic had taken me for a second, wondering not where we were or how we had gotten there, but instead trying to find Oria. The child appeared almost immediately, spitting sand as she crawled out from under a low drift several feet away.
Even as battered as we had been upon arrival in the desert, we had laughed hysterically at having survived at all.
Knowing that they had all lived another day had been enough for me and initially for Feanne. Her resilience to some things let her cope with the fear of being in unknown lands faster than I could, but it also allowed her to turn her attention elsewhere quickly.
I worried about where we would find shelter, what kind of food was to be found out here, and what might come after us. My eyes swept the horizon for threats that were not coming. I knew nothing of the place we now were, with its endless miles of sand, marred only by tall formations of stone that were so unlike anything I had seen before.
Feanne just trusted her instincts to warn her of dangers. The new scenery was nothing more than another day to her. Where I wondered whether we would starve or die from lack of water, Feanne immediately began complaining about the heat as she collected the kits, as though that were our only threat to worry about.I thought she was kidding, or trying to lighten the mood for all of us. Sadly, that appears not to be the case. Foxes may live in the desert, but a mountain fox surely does not belong there…and if that fox can talk, you will hear about it endlessly.
The only thing worse than putting a person in a land they cannot tolerate is taking a leader away from her people. I truly did not believe that Feanne’s mood was entirely about the climate, but I was willing to humor her in that.
I would tolerate nearly anything to see her and the children safe. Here, the worst we faced was the occasional missed meal and sand in one’s fur. That far outshone the appeal of a land where the walking dead could show up at your home at any moment to murder your family.
I may feel as though the sun is scalding my ears off as I write this, but at least we lived long enough for me to feel even that.
Goodreads | Amazon | CreateSpace
BONUS for those of you in Colorado!! Stop by and see Jim! Get an autograph!
On August 10th through 12th, Jim will be attending the Rocky Mountain Fur Con as a guest author. Signings and discussions are available. His second book, Into the Desert Wilds, will be released the first day of this convention and print copies will be on-hand for purchase, as will character art.
Related:
Today I have author Jim Galford with me to talk about his second book, Into the Desert Wilds, which is due for release on the 10th (tomorrow!). I had the pleasure of reading it early, and let me tell you, if you like epic fantasy, DON’T miss out on this book! As you can probably tell from my review, I LOVED getting back into Estin’s world, seeing what he’s been up to and how he and his family tackle the new problems they are faced with. And if you haven’t read the first book, In Wilder Lands, yet, go check it out!
TK: The first book is told solely from Estin’s PoV. This time, we have two different PoVs – Estin and Oria. Was it hard to make them sound different?
JG: Honestly, no. In my mind, the story happens no different from how one might see a movie. Oria and Estin are most definitely different people, with their unique perspective. It’s a little harder to separate two male point-of-views, but very easy when you’re dealing with a teenage girl (Oria) and her father-ish person (Estin). Estin has more of a “always concerned about what might come of his decisions” feel, while Oria has a carefree viewpoint, where she mostly just thinks about the moment at hand. They’re different enough that the transitions were really easy.
Now, finding Oria’s mindset as an adult male writer was tricky, but making her different from Estin was easy. I had to double-check a lot with my wife to be sure that Oria didn’t come across as a man trying to write a woman’s perspective, which was a fear I had with this particular point-of-view.
Generally, I’m always looking for a new way to broaden my scope of writing and point-of-view is the most obvious. Next comes emotional viewpoint. Into the Desert Wilds pushed my area of expertise on both a little, but I’m hoping to push even farther in the next book.
Tricia Kristufek 