Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category

Exclusive Character Bios & Excerpt with Giveaway ~ Dawn Of The Chupacabra ~ It’s Coming!

Posted: May 29, 2015 in Cover Reveal, horror, Interview, Series, Supernatural
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I’ve been following Michael Hebler’s Chupacabra Series from the beginning and I’m always anxious to read the next book.

It may be a bit until I get my hands on Dawn of the Chupabara, but Michael did send me the cover art, along with some characters bios, an excerpt and he even took time to answer a few of my questions. Not that I didn’t hound him a bit. I can’t help it. I love this series!

Check out my Interview with Michael!

Hi Michael. I just wanted to remind you that I’m still waiting for Dawn of the Chupacabra! Not to rush you or anything, but…. LOL Just kidding, kind of.

I know. I’m sorry. The fourth book turned out to be more of a monster than I originally intended.

 

Since I haven’t got my hands on it yet, I was hoping you could answer a few questions about it?

Of course. I would love to, but you know me and how protective I am of my twist and plot details. J.J. Abrams would be proud.

 

The other books take place in the old west. Will this one too?

Partially. Dawn of the Chupacabra is a prequel to the trilogy already released. It begins in the final year of the American Civil War and spans through a couple of years thereafter, which is well into to the start of the “Old West” era.

 

A prequel? Other than the chupacabra, will there be many familiar characters?

A couple. I hope readers will have that sense of familiarity with the book. The story also answers some lingering questions from the previous entries. And although [Dawn] will continue to have a lot of the same fun action (as demonstrated in the excerpt), I will advise that this book will be the most brutal in series thus far.

 

You mentioned familiar characters, is that face on your cover anyone we’ve met before?

No. He’s new. And I can’t say who.

 

And what plans to do you have for the rest of the series? Will it advance in time?

Yes. [Dawn] will be the last novel set in the 19th century. Book 5 entitled, Return of the Chupacabra, leaps into the 1990’s at a time when we discover what happened to the creature after the end of [Legend].

 

And how many books are you planning for this series?

There are six currently, but I won’t be a JKR and say nevermore. I’m just anxious to explore some of my other ideas. In fact, I’ve recently decided to take a year off of the Chupacabra Series to concentrate on finishing a novella I’ve been writing off and on for the last 15 years called, The Ghost of Christmas Past. I also want to write a fan-fiction novel based on a popular horror film series, which I’ll do under a pen name. Don’t ask which film series because I won’t tell, but if fans of the Chupacabra Series comes across it, they might be able to figure it out. I hope to release both in 2016.

 

Does that mean Return of the Chupacabra will not be released until in 2017?

That’s my hope and dream. I have the story outlined already so I don’t see why not.

Thanks so much for the fun interview Michael. I’m thrilled about your other stories too. They will do nicely while I’m waiting for Return of The Chupacabra!

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Are you ready to see the amazing cover for Dawn Of The Chupacabra?

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Go!

Dawn Chup DOTC front cover final_web

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Excerpt

Again, lightning pierced the night, followed by an earth-shattering rumble. In that abrupt moment, Jeremiah’s previous assumptions had been confirmed. The kitchen had been ransacked. Burlap sacks lay torn, drained of their contents. The cooler doors hung wide open with the evidence of broken jars and dishes at the foot, but before darkness settled back into place, he caught sight of a lamp that sat on the counter, undisturbed.

A memory awoke of light beaming through the kitchen’s orifices when last here. The matches would be somewhere near, and unlike the sticks inside the house, these would have remained dry. Patting the counter, Jeremiah found them in no time. He struck a flame and discovered a large ale barrel, untouched by time or wildlife. An overwhelming pungency of lime assaulted his sense once he removed the lid. He dipped his hand into the water then pulled out two eggs. They were two-years-old at best, but the solution of lime water would have kept them from rotting. He broke the tip and drank its slimy filling. Yep, still fresh, though citrusy, and could use a bit of spice.

Jeremiah rummaged through cupboards and soon discovered a shelf of airtight tin canisters. Inside the first was salt. The next was thyme, and then paprika, cayenne, and cumin. Thrilled by his findings, Jeremiah cracked the top of his other egg then sprinkled a pinch of salt and cayenne before he sucked it down.

By his own doing, Jeremiah’s skin crawled. His feeding hadn’t sounded too dissimilar from the creature’s, but his slurping was not his only reminder of the beast at that moment. The pounding rain on the slate roof had masked the demon’s arrival. And what had felt like a bullet to his neck was none other than the elongated leech that drained the blood from his veins.

Jeremiah twisted to the window where it perched and bore its beady eyes into him as intensely as its tongue, but unlike its previous attack, Jeremiah did not hesitate this time. He reached for his sickle and swung. The might behind his strike would have sliced the tongue in two had the blade been sharp, but the attack was not in vain. The curvature of the steel hooked around the appendage and yanked it from his neck.

The beast reeled in its tongue then bounded inside. Jeremiah gripped his knife when the thing knocked him against the counter. The blade fell to the floor, leaving no chance of slicing its throat a second time.

Face-to-face, once again, Jeremiah twisted his head, hoping it would discourage the slimy projectile from entering his eye, when his focus rested on the set of spice canisters he pulled from the cabinet.

He reached for the tin of cayenne then closed his eyes and held his breath before flinging a wave of the spicy powder into the creature’s face. After a short delay, the thing released its hold to shriek and flail throughout the confined enclosure. Keeping his eyes closed, Jeremiah slid beneath the protection of the counter and crawled towards the exit while the monster ripped through the kitchen like a deadly tornado. Its agony sounded severe. He had succeeded in getting away, but at the cost of pissing it off even more.

Jeremiah crawled outside and into the mud before opening his eyes or taking a breath. He glanced back into the kitchen for a mere second only to be continually surprised by the thing. Not only could it cling from wall to wall to ceiling, but the beast had a ripple of spikes that stretched down its back to a tail that he had not yet observed. No doubt, this beast was like nothing he had ever seen or heard before. There was something special about this one-of-kind creature, and judging by its tenacity for him, Jeremiah had a feeling it wasn’t acting of its own cognizance, but serving a master.

chupacabra photo: Chupacabra chupacabra.jpg

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Character Bios

Dawn Chup Atraco

NOAGUNUM “ATRACO” (age unknown) 
This Pniese Indian was thought to have died as a young boy during the white man’s genocide of his people, but Noagunum lived to become a daring and skilled assassin in his youth. The settlers gave the nickname “Atraco” (Latin for “dark”) to their unknown perpetrator; not only for his ability to keep hidden in shadows, but for the dark heart he carried for any white man, woman, or child. Once too old to retain the stamina of a hunter, Atraco retired to the land of his nation in an incessant search for a curse that would cause their mass extinction.
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*****
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Dawn Chup Adam Johnson
 
ADAM JOHNSON (12) is one of the youngest sniper’s to come out of any Union state. At his previous age, Master Adam went from one of eleven Johnson family members to the only living. While playing alone in the storm cellar, he cowardly watched a squadron of graybacks overtake his family’s ranch then proceed to rape and murder his sisters, brothers, and mother on their front porch. To this day, Adam continues to be haunted by his cowardice, having ignored a faultless opportunity to save his gimp father from the soldier’s extensive torture and eventual slaying. Burdened by the weight of regret, Adam and his dead-eye joined his fellow countrymen as a highly proficient sniper in hopes of filling his bottomless pit of grief with Confederate blood.
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*****
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Dawn Chup Alice Stebbins
 
ALICE SAMPSON-STEBBINS (18) – Alice is as feisty as she is stunning.  Country born to a small Dutch family in the Ozarks, Alice had found friendship in two neighboring boys, Jeremiah Whiting and Martin Stebbins, whom she lured her into her mischievous clutches and consistently helped get into trouble.  At the end of her tomboy days, Alice developed feelings for one of the two boys, Martin, which flourished into love.  To her relief, her feelings were reciprocated in folds and the two formed a union of marriage before her husband left to fight for the Confederacy.  Alice awaits the day for her husband’s return.  Should he survive, her hopes are to start a family that same day.
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*****
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Dawn Chup Elias and Silas Stebbins
 
ELIAS & SILAS STEBBINS (14) – Identical twins, Elias and Silas, perceive war as nothing less than glorious.  Raised in a large and loving family, their eagerness to become a soldier once reaching their father’s approved age of fifteen, is amplified by their elder brother’s stories of battle.  After war, both boys hope to marry beautiful women, but that is where their identities split.  Confident and noble, Silas holds onto aspirations of staying in the Ozarks and taking over their father’s furniture business while Elias, ideological and adventurous, dreams of heading to the Alaskan frontier to live a lavish life bathed in its riches.
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*****
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Dawn Chup Kit_Carson
 
CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON “KIT” CARSON (57) – “Kit” was a non-fictional American frontiersman. The few paying jobs he had during his lifetime included fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and American Army officer. Carson became a legend in his own lifetime via biographies and news articles. Exaggerated versions of his exploits were the subject of dime-store novels. Of all his notable achievements, Carson’s supervision of Fort Nichols’ construction is the most relevant to ‘Dawn of the Chupacabra’, a stronghold to protect travelers on the most dangerous part of the Cimarron Cut-off of the Santa Fe Trail from raids by the Kiowa and Comanche Indians.

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Author Michael Hebler

Michael Hebler

Prior to becoming an award-winning author of his dark fiction Chupacabra Series, Michael was a full-time international film publicist who had worked on multiple titles for Walt Disney, Pixar, Lionsgate, Lakeshore Entertainment, Warner Bros., Summit Entertainment, and the 2013 Academy Award-winning Best Foreign Language Film, “La grande bellezza” (The Great Beauty).

Born in the early 1970’s in Los Angeles County to a salesman and homemaker, Michael dreamed of following his passions for entertainment and storytelling by acting. It was while studying theatre arts at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, did he realize his penchant for stories were better suited on the page rather than the stage. But creating tales with suspense, laughter, and heart is not Michael’s only love. Hebler also enjoys volunteering in his local community, as well as aid in the capture/spay/neuter/release feral program.

To date, Michael’s publications include NIGHT OF THE CHUPACABRA, CURSE OF THE CHUPACABRA, and LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRA (Books I, II, & III of the six-part Chupacabra Series) as well as his first publication, THE NIGHT AFTER CHRISTMAS, a holiday picture book for believers of any age. Michael’s fourth book in the Chupacabra Series, DAWN OF THE CHUPACABRA will be available in print and for ebook on October 13, 2015.
Michael currently resides in Southwest Florida.
Author Links:
Email:
Michael also in the beginning stages of organizing a newsletter.  If you would like to be included on the list once it’s up and running, you can email Michael at the link above.

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Last week I shared the new cover art for Night Of The Chupacabra.

I also reposted my review and Michael offered an awesome giveaway!

Here’s what you can win.

 One Winner of either:

 1) a signed paperback copy of the new edition (USA only) OR 2) 4 ebooks (Night of the Chupacabra, Curse of the Chupacabra, Legend of the Chupacabra, and an ARC of Dawn of the Chupacabra when it’s ready sometime this summer) (choice of formats: MOBI, EPUB or PDF)

Go HERE to enter.

Giveaway Ends June 8th.

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!

For all of my giveaways click on the chupacabra below.

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A Science Fiction Dystopian ~ Aftermath ~ Blitz and Giveaway

Posted: May 18, 2015 in Blitz, Dystopian, giveaways, Interview, Science Fiction
Tags: , ,
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Aftermath BlitzBanner

The first thing I did after seeing the cover for Aftermath was rub my hands together and grin. I enjoy a good sci fi dystopian and am thrilled to share with you today!

I have a lot to show and tell.

Enjoy the author interview.

Check out the blurb.

And don’t forget to enter the giveaway!

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Interview with Author Tom Lewis

Tell us about your debut novel:

The book’s called “Aftermath”. It’s a fast-paced, dystopian sci fi actioner that follows a teenage girl’s struggles for survival in the increasingly hostile wake of civilization’s collapse, and humanity’s domination by an alien race of beings. I’m calling it a “Hunger Games” with aliens.

“Aftermath” is the first novel in the “After the Fall” dystopian series, which will follow my heroine, Paige, and the remnants of humanity in their efforts to both survive, and reclaim our world.

 

How did you get into writing?

I started writing screenplays in 1999, and had my first screenplay optioned that year. I followed that up with several other screenplays, a few of which were optioned by production companies and ended up getting me hired for writing assignments. Two of those scripts were made into movies which I produced and directed. The first of those movies was picked up by Lionsgate for distribution, and we’re in negotiations with distributors on the second film, a spooky ghost story called “The Chanel”. It’s about a teenage girl, who after surviving a near-death experience in a car crash, finds herself haunted by a shadowy figure she sees from the corner of her eye – something that followed her back from the other side of death.

 

You’re also an attorney?

Yes. I practice entertainment law from my office in Santa Monica. My clients are mainly producers, so that’s helped with getting my screenplays out there. Before that, I served in the Marines.

 

Where did your interest in post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction come from?

My first exposure to the dystopian genre came about 4 years ago, when I was negotiating movie rights to a best-selling novel for one of my clients. I read that novel, and then read the “Hunger Games” trilogy, and then I was hooked. Dystopian, YA, NA, sci fi action, survival, and post-apocalyptic stories are far and away my favorites.

 

Where did the inspiration for Aftermath come from?

I came up with the idea for Aftermath about a year ago. I was searching Amazon for something post-apocalyptic and dystopian, but with ordinary people thrown into that upside-down world. Most of the books I was finding had either elite commandos, or the threat wasn’t big enough, or there just wasn’t enough action, thrills, or scares. So basically I wrote Aftermath as the story I wanted to read. I originally started drafting it as a screenplay, but then I saw the potential of it as a series of novels. The story is epic in scope – it follows the survivors through the end of civilization, and its conquest by this alien race. And by doing it through novels, I wasn’t limited to budget considerations you have when writing screenplays. But I did have the fun of shooting the trailer I made for the book. You can see that trailer here: https://vimeo.com/124008432

 

What’s next for you?

I’m about halfway finished with the second installment in the series, and hope to publish it later this summer. The working title is “The Whisperers.”

 

About Tom Lewis

Tom Lewis grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where his family still resides. He served in the Marines, before returning to Arizona, where he attended Arizona State University, receiving his BS in Business Management. After ASU, he moved to San Diego, where he attended law school at the University of San Diego. He graduated in 1996, and was admitted to the State Bar of California the same year. Shortly after that, he moved to Santa Monica, where he practices law as an entertainment attorney.

His novel, “Aftermath,” is loosely based on one of his screenplays. In writing “Aftermath,” his goal was to take his readers through a post-apocalyptic America, where civilization had been crushed in an alien attack. The reader is taken on this journey through the eyes of his protagonist, 16-year-old Paige O’Connor, and encounters this hostile new world as she does.

“Aftermath” is the first book in the “After the Fall Dystopian Series,” which will continue to chronicle the adventures of Paige and the remnants of humanity in their struggle to survive, and ultimately reclaim our planet from the invaders.

When he’s not writing, or handling the legal work for his clients’ films, Tom enjoys working out, hanging out at the beach, bike riding, reading, and movies.

 

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Aftermath cover

Aftermath by Tom Lewis
(After the Fall #1)
Publication date: March 28th 2015
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult
Synopsis:

The end of the world came fast. Between the time the warning had sounded on the TV, till when 16-year-old Paige O’Connor awakened sometime later, civilization had been crushed.

The attacks had come by “them” – those things in the ships in the sky that had appeared suddenly, and without warning.

And as Paige would soon discover, the attacks had only been the beginning.

Aftermath is the first book in the new After the Fall dystopian action series, which follows a young girl’s struggle for survival in the wake of civilization’s collapse, and humanity’s domination by an alien race of beings.

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#M9B Friday Reveal & Giveaway ~ Meet Lisa T. Cresswell ~ Author of Vessel

Posted: May 8, 2015 in Book Promos, Dystopian, giveaways, Interview, Science Fiction, YA
Tags: , , , ,
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M9B-Friday-Reveal

Welcome to this week’s M9B Friday Reveal!

This week, we are featuring

Lisa T. Cresswell, author of Vessel

presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Lisa T. Cresswell

Meet Lisa T. Cresswell!

Lightening Round Questions

 

Twitter or Facebook? Twitter by far!

Favorite Superhero? Hulk

Favorite TV show? Um, I don’t watch tv anymore.

Sweet or Salty? Sweet

Coke or Pepsi? Pepsi before I gave it up; now its coffee 🙂

Any Phobias? Heights/fear of falling

Song you can’t get enough of right now? They play it way too much, but
I still like Uptown Funk.

Who is your ultimate Book Boyfriend? That’s tough. I’m sure Peta’s up
there. I’ll get back to you on that one 😉

What are you reading right now or what’s on your TBR? I want to read
the latest Neil Gaiman book. Always!

Fall Movie you’re most looking forward to? It’s really next winter,
but it’s STAR WARS!!

Lisa, like most writers, began scribbling silly notes, stories, and poems at a very young age. Born in North Carolina, the South proved fertile ground to her imagination with its beautiful white sand beaches and red earth. In fifth grade, she wrote, directed and starred in a play “The Queen of the Nile” at school, despite the fact that she is decidedly un-Egyptian looking. Perhaps that’s why she went on to become a real life archaeologist?

Unexpectedly transplanted to Idaho as a teenager, Lisa learned to love the desert and the wide open skies out West. This is where her interest in cultures, both ancient and living, really took root, and she became a Great Basin archaeologist. However, the itch to write never did leave for long. Her first books became the middle grade fantasy trilogy, The Storyteller Series. Her first traditionally published work, Hush Puppy, is now available from Featherweight Press.

Lisa still lives in Idaho with her family and a menagerie of furry critters that includes way too many llamas!

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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LCresswell_Vessel_M9B_eCover_1800x2700

The sun exploded on On April 18, 2112 in a Class X solar storm the likes of which humankind had never seen.

They had exactly nineteen minutes to decide what to do next.

They had nineteen minutes until a geomagnetic wave washed over the Earth, frying every electrical device created by humans, blacking out entire continents, and every satellite in their sky.

Nineteen minutes to say goodbye to the world they knew, forever, and to prepare for a new Earth, a new Sun.

Generations after solar storms destroyed nearly all human technology on Earth, humans reverted to a middle ages-like existence, books are burned as heresy, and all knowledge of the remaining technology is kept hidden by a privileged few called the Reticents.

Alana, a disfigured slave girl, and Recks, a traveling minstrel and sometimes-thief, join forces to bring knowledge and books back to the human race. But when Alana is chosen against her will to be the Vessel, the living repository for all human knowledge, she must find the strength to be what the world needs even if it’s the last thing she wants.

add to goodreadsTitle: Vessel
Publication date: May 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Lisa T. Cresswell

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The book will be sent upon the titles release.

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~~~~~

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M9B Friday Interview and Giveaway ~ The Artisans by Julie Reece

Posted: March 20, 2015 in Book Promos, giveaways, Interview, Romance, YA
Tags: , ,
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M9B-Friday-Reveal

Welcome to this week’s M9B Friday Reveal!

This week, we are spotlighting Julie Reece, author of

The Artisans

presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Julie_Reece_Image_3-253x300

Get to Know Julie Reece in 10 Questions or Less!

 

Twitter or Facebook? -Both

Favorite Superhero? –One hero to rule them all: Thor

Favorite TV show? -Sherlock (British)

Sweet or Salty? -Ice cream is a food group.

Coke or Pepsi? -Tea (I’m a rebel)

Any Phobias? –Sharks and, ew, spiders … oh and drowning.

Song you can’t get enough of right now? –Caroline (or anything) by Kill It Kid *dies*

Who is your ultimate Book Boyfriend? ‘Weaver’ from May Webb’s, Precious Bane *swoons*

What are you reading right now or what’s on your TBR? -Saving Francesca , by Melina Marchetta

Fall Movie you’re most looking forward to? –OMG! Crimson Peak and Mad Max:Fury Road

Born in Ohio, I lived next to my grandfather’s horse farm until the fourth grade. Summers were about riding, fishing and make-believe, while winter brought sledding and ice-skating on frozen ponds. Most of life was magical, but not all.

I struggled with multiple learning disabilities, did not excel in school. I spent much of my time looking out windows and daydreaming. In the fourth grade (with the help of one very nice teacher) I fought dyslexia for my right to read, like a prince fights a dragon in order to free the princess locked in a tower, and I won.

Afterwards, I read like a fiend. I invented stories where I could be the princess… or a gifted heroine from another world who kicked bad guy butt to win the heart of a charismatic hero. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? Later, I moved to Florida where I continued to fantasize about superpowers and monsters, fabricating stories (my mother called it lying) and sharing them with my friends.

Then I thought I’d write one down…

Hooked, I’ve been writing ever since. I write historical, contemporary, urban fantasy, adventure, and young adult romances. I love strong heroines, sweeping tales of mystery and epic adventure… which must include a really hot guy. My writing is proof you can work hard to overcome any obstacle. Don’t give up. I say, if you write, write on!

 

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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The Artisans

They say death can be beautiful. But after the death of her mother, seventeen-year-old RAVEN WEATHERSBY gives up her dream of becoming a fashion designer, barely surviving life in the South Carolina lowlands.

To make ends meet, Raven works after school as a seamstress creating stunning works of fashion that often rival the great names of the day.

Instead of making things easier on the high school senior, her stepdad’s drinking leads to a run in with the highly reclusive heir to the Maddox family fortune, Gideon Maddox.

But Raven’s stepdad’s drying out and in no condition to attend the meeting with Maddox. So Raven volunteers to take his place and offers to repay the debt in order to keep the only father she’s ever known out of jail, or worse.

Gideon Maddox agrees, outlining an outrageous demand: Raven must live in his home for a year while she designs for Maddox Industries’ clothing line, signing over her creative rights.

Her handsome young captor is arrogant and infuriating to the nth degree, and Raven can’t imagine working for him, let alone sharing the same space for more than five minutes.

But nothing is ever as it seems. Is Gideon Maddox the monster the world believes him to be? And can he stand to let the young seamstress see him as he really is?

The Artisans is a delectably rich, layered and dark YA Southern Gothic inspired by Jeanne Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s classic Beauty and the Beast.

“The Artisans has all the elements I love – spooky intrigue, strong friendships, and a romantic tension to be savored.” ~ Wendy Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of the Sweet Evil trilogy.

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Title: The Artisans
Publication date: May 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Julie Reece

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Complete the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win!

The book will be sent upon the titles release.

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~~~~~

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A Mighty Good Man ~ Interview with Author Rebecca E. Neely

Posted: March 10, 2015 in Book Blast, Interview, Romance, suspense
Tags: ,
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Welcome to the blast for A Mighty Good Man by Rebecca E. Neely.
I din’t have time to read this before the tour but the author is here for a quick Q&A!
Come on in and get to know Rebecca and check out her Romantic Suspense novel.
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Please tell us about yourself using 3 verbs, 1 quirk and a pop culture addiction

Verbs – learning, laughing, persevering

Quirk – I have a very bad habit of getting a new glass every time I get something to drink. I have no idea why. It drives my family crazy. I even buy disposable glasses and I burn through them.

Pop culture addiction- The Voice. I love watching the blind auditions, and hearing the stories of the people who are pursuing their dreams, and following their passion. I feel a kinship with these fellow artists; the contestants and the judges inspire me as a writer to work hard and never give up.

Who do you consider the most swoon-worthy man in the literary world? How about on tv/in the movies?

In the literary world, I’m going to go with a few of my favorite characters – Jay Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, Fitzwilliam Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice, and Cameron Quinn, from Sea Swept
My favorite TV personality is Anderson Cooper. Believe it or not, I first remember seeing him on the show, The Mole. He’s incredibly talented and well spoken. His coverage of the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 moved me; he was broadcasting amid the destruction and chaos and at times he was so choked up he could barely continue. I applaud him for doing what he does. His killer blue eyes don’t hurt either!

In the movies, I’d have to say Matthew McConaughey. He’s got a hint of a drawl in his voice and a smile that won’t quit. I especially liked him in the movie Contact, with Jodie Foster.

What’s the last song you listened to?

The last new song I heard was Skinny Love (Birdy), performed on The Voice. It mesmerized me. The last older song I listened to was “One Flight Down” by Norah Jones. At the end of a crazy, busy work day, she takes me to my happy place.
Do you have any advice for anyone that would like to be an author?

Write a book you would love to read. Read Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain. Then read it ten more times at least. Set goals. Be prepared to work hard, make mistakes, suffer setbacks, and never, never give up.
This or That-

*Paranormal or Dystopian? Paranormal

*Winchesters or Salvatores? How about Rachael vs. Guy? I’m a huge Food Network fan! And I can’t decide…I love them both 🙂

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A Mighty Good Man
By- Rebecca E. Neely
Genre- Contemporary Romantic Suspense
 
‘Hank’ Jerry…Her personal and professional life on the skids, a family emergency forces her to return to the small town, and the aunt, she left behind.
 
Jack ‘Gent’ Darcy…Fresh out of prison, he’s bent on cutting ties with the Creds, but when you’re a war counselor in a national gang, they don’t let you just walk away.
 
Injured and on the run, Jack lands on Hank’s doorstep, and makes her a proposition she can’t refuse: write his story about life inside one of the most powerful gangs in the country. It’s simple – she’ll get her career groove back, and he’ll bury the gang, then disappear – his version of freedom.
 
Only problem is, they can’t help falling for each other, and they’ve both got something to hide that could blow up in their faces. With time running out and gang enforcers closing in, will the trust they’ve forged survive the ultimate test?
 
On Sale NOW for just 99 Cents! 
(Limited Time Only) 
  

(more…)

Spotlight on Suzanne Van Rooyen and I Heart Robot with a Giveaway

Posted: March 6, 2015 in giveaways, Interview, Science Fiction, YA
Tags: , ,
2

M9B-Friday-Reveal

Welcome to this week’s M9B Friday Reveal!

This week, we are spotlighting Suzanne van Rooyen, author of

I Heart Robot

presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

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 Twitter or Facebook? Twitter

 Favorite Superhero? Morpheus from The Sandman although he’s not always a hero exactly 😉

Favorite TV show? Tie between Game of Thrones and Penny Dreadful

 Sweet or Salty? Salty

 Coke or Pepsi? Coke

Any Phobias? Grasshoppers

 Song you can’t get enough of right now? Hozier’s Take Me to Church

 Who is your ultimate Book Boyfriend? Ghost from Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite

 What are you reading right now or what’s on your TBR? Currently reading Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

 2015 Movie you’re most looking forward to? Terminator: Genisys, and the new Avengers

Suzanne is a tattooed storyteller from South Africa. She currently lives in Finland and finds the cold, dark forests nothing if not inspiring. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When not writing, she teaches dance and music to middle schoolers and entertains her shiba inu, Lego. Suzanne is represented by Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency.

 

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Sixteen-year-old Tyri wants to be a musician and wants to be with someone who won’t belittle her musical aspirations.
Q-I-99 aka ‘Quinn’ lives in a scrap metal sanctuary with other rogue droids. While some use violence to make their voices heard, demanding equal rights for AI enhanced robots, Quinn just wants a moment on stage with his violin to show the humans that androids like him have more to offer than their processing power.
Tyri and Quinn’s worlds collide when they’re accepted by the Baldur Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. As the rift between robots and humans deepens, Tyri and Quinn’s love of music brings them closer together, making Tyri question where her loyalties lie and Quinn question his place in the world. With the city on the brink of civil war, Tyri and Quinn make a shocking discovery that turns their world inside out. Will their passion for music be enough to hold them together while everything else crumbles down around them, or will the truth of who they are tear them apart?

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Title: I Heart Robot
Publication date: March 31, 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Suzanne van Rooyen

Available for Purchase:
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Lots of good stuff for…No Bad Deed ~ Review, Interview and Giveaway

Posted: December 16, 2014 in Blog Tour, giveaways, Interview, Mytery/Thriller, Paranormal or fantasy, reviews
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No Bad Deed Tour Banner copy

ou are now entering the world of Brimstone, where you’ll get to know M. Ryan Seaver’s debut character, John  Arsenal.

I have so much to share with you.

Check out the blurb.

Enjoy the excerpt.

Read my review.

Read the fun author interview.

And don’t forget to enter the giveaway.

let’s get to it!

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My Interview with M. Ryan Seaver

  • Please tell us a little about yourself

I’m an author raised in upstate New York by a family of writers. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life in Boston, and recently moved to Chicago, where I spend every moment not spent writing exploring this enormous city, finding new places to eat and drink.

 

2) What did you want to be when you grew up?

Not a writer! My mother is actually a novelist as well, so I was constantly asked if I wanted to be a writer too, and I always said no, which I think was more of a kneejerk reaction than anything else. I changed my mind a lot about what I wanted to be as a younger kid, but as a teenager I finally settled on acting. I was in all the school musicals, and did acting camp during the summer. I ended up studying theater in Boston before I discovered that writing was my real love. I feel like I’m still acting, but in a different way. As a writer, I get to play all the parts as I’m writing the story. I get to play roles I would never be able to play in real life, which is a great feeling. I love being able to play some giant thug, or a really sinister bad guy.

 

  • If you were granted 3 wishes, what would you wish for?

Infinite wishes! Just kidding. 1) A home with a beautiful state of the art kitchen, a serene little office, and enough rooms for all my friends and family to come stay. 2) The ability to eat what I like and not end up out looking like the stay puffed marshmallow man. 3) My sister just announced her engagement. I remember how absolutely overjoyed my grandmother was when I called her several years ago to tell her I was getting married, and how much she enjoyed the wedding. She’s since passed away. I wish she was here to see my sister get married too. She would have been absolutely beside herself.

 

  • What genres do you like to read?

I’m a compulsive reader. I just devour everything. I really gravitate toward mystery, but love fiction in general, particularly if there’s a little something magical happening throughout the story (think The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Lovely Bones, In the Woods, The Night Circus).

 

5) Are you working on anything new and could you share a little with us?

I’ve just finished the first draft of the next book in the John Arsenal series. This one is a serial killer mystery, which is particularly interesting because of course in Brimstone, everyone is already dead. But as it turns out, when you’re killed in Hell, there’s something even worse than death waiting on the other side. It was a lot of fun to be able to follow John into this new chapter, because of course he had to go through so much in No Bad Deed, some of those demons are still hanging around for him, and will be for quite some time.

 

Five Fun Shorts

  • Favorite TV show

Just one? Sherlock. However I haven’t been able to get my Sherlock fix lately, since we’re between seasons, so Sleepy Hollow has been standing in.

 

  • Best book ever

In the Woods by Tana French. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve re-read that book. It has everything I love about mystery novels, but wrapped up in this gorgeous prose, and tied up with this cunning thread of something slightly supernatural.

 

  • What animal would you like to be?

Any type of bird. Whenever I feel stuck or stressed I find myself thinking how nice it would be to be a bird. No bills, no deadlines, no drama, just flight.

 

  • Print or eBooks for reading?

Both! But I do love a paper book, and my home is bursting with them. Paper books satisfy the collector in me in a way ebooks never will.

 

  • Flip flops or high heels?

Flip flops. I try to limit my time in high heels as much as possible. They are oh so pretty, but the prettiness is often counteracted by my grimace as I struggle to stay upright.

 

A Dare

Tell us the first thing that popped in your head.

Breakfast. I’ve just returned from a trip, and there’s nothing to eat in the house. Most of the time if you ask me what I’m thinking, the answer will be food.

 

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MY REVIEW

He’s a gumshoe in Brimstone. A P.I. in Hell. He goes by the name of John Arsenal.

On a good day, no one tries to wave him and he doesn’t return the favor.

In hell, you’re already dead, so to wave someone is to erase them. “…something more terrifying than damnation.”   To end their soul’s existence.

Arsenal knows she’s trouble the minute she opens her mouth. The sweet looking Mirelle Bissette. She wants him to locate her missing sister. Her identical twin, Sophie.

That’s a problem. You see, in Hell, no one knows what they did to wind up there. No one remembers their life before they died, or their real name. So how can she remember her real name, or that she even had a sister?

She claims she knew Arsenal before. Before Brimstone. And she uses that knowledge as leverage to get him to take her case. If he does, she’ll tell him how she knew him, what his real name was, and most importantly, what he did to get him sent to hell. That was too hard to resist and he takes the case. Begins the search for Sophie.

I knew I was going to love this book. A P.I. in Hell. I wondered what kind of cases he would have. What kind of clients.

With no money in hell, the author came up with some much desired, plausible, items in exchange for currency.

And what would hell be without some drugs to get you through the monotonous days. Switch is the new drug of choice. It does something that shouldn’t be possible. Could hell get any worse?

John’s search for Sophie takes him to the dangerous outskirts of Brimstone. It’s where “they” roam. The orphans or Brimstone. Mirelle says her sister mentioned them. Worried that they were left to fend for themselves.

Imagine it. Adults had time to mature. To choose to do whatever terrible thing it was that landed them in hell. What must the children be like. I shudder to think. They are frozen in time. Evil in small form. They’ll wave you just for the fun of it.

From first page to last, I was completely absorbed in this story. The writing is excellent, the story reads easily and quickly, and the characters are entertaining or disgusting, as they should be. And the world is incredibly creative and visually alive.

Bravo to the author. An excellent debut novel. Can’t wait to see where John lands next.

D@&n good reading!

5 Stars

~~~

BLURB:

 

Private detective John Arsenal can’t tell you what terrible crime he committed to wind up in a sweltering urban hellscape, surrounded by thieves, drug addicts and murderers—only that it was very bad, and now he’s being punished. That’s because in Hell—or Brimstone, as the damned prefer to call it—your identity, your memories, even your name, are stripped away from you.

John is relatively comfortable in his damnation, working easy cases and making himself at home in the grimy squalor of the afterlife. That is, until a mysterious woman appears in his office, begging him to find her missing sister, and promising him the impossible in return—a glimpse of his old life, before Brimstone.

To track down the enigmatic Sophie, John must delve into Brimstone’s darkest recesses, where murderous children run wild in packs, and a strange and terrifying new drug promises to deliver the user to the heights of ecstasy, but at the risk of being snuffed out of existence altogether. All the while, John must grapple with the vivid nightmares that have haunted him since his arrival in Brimstone, and confront the thing he desires and dreads the most—the truth of what he did to deserve damnation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpt

“How did you get in?” I said.

“Are you going to shoot me, Mr. Arsenal?” Her voice had the slightest hint of an accent. My eyes adjusted to the light, and I could see her more clearly. She was early thirties, maybe, with a heart shaped face, and huge, dark eyes. Tendrils of black hair sprang free from the messy knot at the back of her head and stuck to the nape of her neck, and I wondered immediately, like I always do when I see a pretty woman in Brimstone, what she could have possibly done to end up here.

“Don’t want to,” I said. “You going to tell me how you got in here?”

“Your front door was unlocked,” she said. “You should really be more careful. This city is full of lunatics.”

“Mm-hmm,” I said. “You one of them?”

She smiled and sat on the edge of my desk, and I cringed instinctively, thinking about the film of crud and ash covering everything in this apartment. Her dress was the color of cream, and I wondered how she kept the thing so clean.

“If I said no, would you believe me?”

“I guess not,” I said, and sat up. “Don’t you know it’s polite to knock?”

“I did knock,” she said. “You didn’t answer.”

“So you just let yourself in.”

“I didn’t think you’d pull a gun on me,” she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

Buy link

I was raised in Rochester, New York, in a house that was constantly full of writers. On nights when my parents and their friends were holding court in our living room, I would practice the fine art of evading the little kids in the next room, setting up camp among the grown-ups, and being quiet long enough that they would forget I was there, and that it was past my bedtime. All my best dirty jokes were picked up this way.

I studied theatre performance at Northeastern University, where I spent a little time onstage, and a lot of time reading plays. I fell in love with Sam Shepard, Arthur Miller, and Nicky Silver. Exposed to plays day in and day out, I honed my ear for dialogue, and learned firsthand that if the writing doesn’t ring true, no amount of brilliant acting would make it right. I wrote my first play (terrible, melodramatic, with characters whose names did absolutely nothing to mask the real people they were based on). I showed it to no one. It’s probably still on my computer somewhere.

John Arsenal and Brimstone came to me during a bout of unemployment, in between searching desperately for a job, and baking more bread than was sane or reasonable for my two person household. The idea came to me in my sleep, demanding to be written, and that’s how the prologue of the book came into existence: In my darkened apartment in Boston at one o clock in the morning, my eyes barely able to focus on the computer screen long enough to get the words down. Sleep has continued to be the place where John Arsenal and I meet up to put the pieces of his story together. I’ve never been prone to insomnia, but John, it seems, is, and has never cared much for my sleep schedule.

In my life before Brimstone, I’ve worked as a telemarketer (I’m sorry) administrative assistant, waiter (badly, briefly), clerk and occasional story-time reader in a children’s bookstore, and professional hawker of everything from magazine subscriptions to national television advertising. I was better with magazines. I now live in Chicago with the love of my life, and my snarling, seven-toed demon-cat, Clara. No Bad Deed is the first book in the John Arsenal mystery series.

~~~

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$25 Amazon/B+N GC for a randomly drawn winner

(US ONLY) Signed copy of No Bad Deed for a randomly drawn host.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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For all of my giveaways click on the  Southern Christmas Charm below.

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Thursday Theatre #38 ~ Did somebody say…. Wherewolves ~ Author Interview & Giveaway

Posted: October 23, 2014 in giveaways, horror, Interview, reviews, Theatre Thursday, thriller
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Welcome to Thursday Theatre!

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Grab your popcorn and have a seat.

It’s time for the show!

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First up is an interview with John Vamvas and Olga Montes, authors of WHEREWOLVES.

Then I have my review and some fun videos.

There’s also a giveaway, so don’t forget to enter!

Let’s get this show on the road.

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When and why did you begin writing?

The first thing we wrote together was a two-person full-length stage play that we toured across Canada in 1994 titled Cocaine Eyes. Based on lyrics Johnny had written a few years back, we wrote it for lack of finding a two-person play that we could tour. (Cocaine Eyes was picked “Best of the Festival” in several cities.)

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How long have the two of you been writing together and will we see other books that you will coauthor?

We’ve been writing together for, wow, it’s already been twenty years! WHEREWOLVES is the first novel we’ve written – we’d previously written full-length plays. feature-length screenplays, and short films. We definitely have the narrative bug now. Yes, you can expect more from us. Right now, we’re about a third into writing the screenplay, WHEREWOLVES TOO, the sequel to WHEREWOLVES. We’ll write the novel based on the screenplay after that (like we did with WHEREWOLVES).

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Do you find it helps to write the screenplay first?

Yes, definitely! The screenplay serves as the skeleton for us. It makes us bring the story from A to Z with only being able to focus on the most important details. (It was only after having written WHEREWOLVES the novel that we knew what the characters looked like.) Writing the novel gives us complete artistic freedom; and that is even more exhilarating for us. We get to fatten up and decorate the story. We have the liberty to get into characters heads and hearts and say what on screen cannot be said.

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Do you have a specific writing style?

Perhaps because of our stage and screen writing background, where every word must count for something, you could say that our writing is fast-paced and very visual.

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This question is specifically for John, how does Olga inspire you to become a better writer?

Olga completes me. But most of all, she trusts me. She lets me push my ideas forward no matter how crazy they may be. She gets what I’m trying to say. Before I know it, she’s on the same page with me and together we shape the craziness into something solid.

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This question is specifically for Olga, how does John complement your style ow writing?

Johnny’s dialogue jumps right out of the page. It rings true, is original, and slick. I have fun writing description. I think that together we give our writing a nice balance between seeing and hearing.

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Do you two ever find it difficult to complete a specific portion of a story based on you each having ideas of how something should be played out?

No. We are extremely in tune with one another when we write. Besides, we usually let the scene write itself.

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What was the hardest part of writing your book?

The hardest part, in our opinion, was making sure that the changes in point of view were clear and flowed smoothly. Our editor, Shelley A. Leedahl, was relentless (and we love her for it); she kept scribbling “Work harder!” “Remember whose POV you’re in!” in the margins. She pushed us well beyond what we thought we were capable of.

 .

What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

Olga sometimes looks crazy, hands stiff on the keyboard. Her face acts out the scene so she can find the right word. When she doesn’t, she hits every thesaurus site, program, and book possible until she finds it. She won’t let go of the keyboard until then.

When we get stuck on a scene, Johnny goes out on to the patio and paces until he suddenly visualizes the characters. He then listens to them intently, races down to the office and says, “Move over!” He types away—completely disregarding spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

He’ll also wake me up in the middle of the night after a dream and say, “Let’s go write.”

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This question is for you both individually. Who is your biggest supporter and why?

Olga: I’d have to say Johnny is my biggest supporter. He knows how to bring out my creative best. He lets me run with ideas. He gives me the confidence and push needed to write.

John: Olga is my biggest supporter. I grew up in a tough neighborhood – gangs and such – and never graduated high school. Olga has always seen my potential and believed in my creativity.

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If you had to choose one word to describe your coauthor what would it be?

Olga re John: Einstein – Frankenstein

John re Olga: WordFiend

(okay, we cheated, that’s two words each J)

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What advice would you give to new authors just coming out?

No matter how brilliant you think your writing is, hire an editor. One with experience—or at least a degree—who knows what s/he’s doing. It will make your novel that much more brilliant. Yes, family and friends can act as beta readers and give you great constructive criticism but not all will be able to spot point-of-view mistakes, inconsistencies, redundancies, etc. Agreed, it can be a little expensive, but, honestly, it’ll be worth every penny.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to get to know us. If you’d like to know more about our work or to read the first two chapters of WHEREWOLVES, please visit our website: www.wherewolvestheblog.com

Cheers!

Olga and John

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My Review

I’m a huge fan of B- movies and this reads like a good one. As I read each scene I easily and gleefully visualized it, every bloody bit of it.

A group of troubled teens are taken into the woods for a survival weekend. The teacher leaves them to fend for themselves. I know. Seen ir or read it before…. you think.

The author brings a lot to the table, introducing you to the characters which consist of the typical jocks, bullies, and geeks. You get to know what drives them, what scares them, before they even enter the woods that night.

As dark approaches, they huddle around the campfire telling stories. It might not be a cozy gathering, but things aren’t too bad. Until they sense something watching them.

This is where the story gets gritty. I love character driven novels and how, when a group is faced with a life or death situation, the dynamics come into play. It takes just a few hours for the fight or flight instincts to consume the teens and chaos to reign once some of the group go missing.

The screaming and snarling from the deep dark of the woods scatters the group and they fear each other as much as what’s stalking them.

The authors brought it all to the table, the fear of the dark, the peer pressure, the teen angst, and the will to survive. This book may have teen characters, but I don’t think there’s much difference between how they acted and a group of adults would act. If you’ve watched Stephen King’s The Mist, you can see how quickly adults succumb to their own fears. In fact, I think the teens might be better prepared for something like this. They aren’t that far from when they feared the bogey man under the bed and may be quicker to believe the unimaginable.

From the title you get a clue to what’s stalking these teens. Feral beasts from your nightmares. These aren’t shifters. They don’t turn into humans and they are horrific in their maniacal glee as they rampage through the group.

I knew what was waiting out in the woods, I knew not everyone would survive, and I knew some would turn on each other and that filled me with trepidation, built the tension to a fever pitch, and had me jumping when my dog suddenly barked at something outside. His own special effects to set the mood for me.

I just love a good werewolf book without the shifter glamour and romance. It was a bloody frolic right to the deliciously wicked ending.

5 STARS

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A little treat for ya!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK02Rrn-J4]

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Synopsis

Using a fun, explosive style, full of new slang and fresh dialogue, WHEREWOLVES is the story of a group of high school seniors, most “military brats”, who are headed for an army-type survival weekend.

The underdogs, Jeffrey and Doris, do not want to go as they fear for their safety among the disdain and cruelty of the popular students. Sergeant Tim O’Sullivan, their teacher, as well as their dysfunctional parents pressure them into going, but it is an unforgivable act by their peers that propels the pair to go. Likewise, Elie, a student resented because of his Arab roots, is even more determined to prove himself this weekend. In the background, a news report cautions of a wanted couple with alleged super-human strength supposedly brought on by a new drug on the streets.

In the woods, the students hike, hunt, camp, and soon act in unity as the forest brings them closer together. But does it? O’Sullivan leaves them alone for the night. The students bond, chant, tell campfire tales, and quickly lose their fears and inhibitions. HOO-AH! Though sexual tensions are high, it soon turns to violence and everything quickly turns sour.

When the kids start disappearing one after the other, the remaining begin to unwittingly “act like the natives” carving spears, ready to face whatever is out there. What has gotten into them?

Amid the blood-curdling growls and the gruesome deaths, the story’s underlying layers are revealed. We see how misconceptions, prejudice, greed, fear, and hatred bring out the worst and best in them.

What is out there? Can it really be werewolves?

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKmQnzDiKoE]

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About the Authors

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“BANG-ON DIALOGUE. Vamvas and Montes make it look, sound, smell real.” The Edmonton Journal

“IMPRESSIVE TALENT in this writing/producing/acting team”, The Winnipeg Free Press

“Montes and Vamvas continue to demonstrate their skills with SWITCHBLADE-SHARP EARS FOR DIALOGUE and hard, thoroughly believable plot lines.” The Sunday Journal

“A SEXY and EXPLOSIVE style that pulls the patrons forward to the edge of their seats”, The Edmonton” Journal

“RAZOR-SHARP LINES” SEE Magazine

Wherewolves Scarpe Review Edmonton Sun

Together for over 20 years, John and Olga started as an acting team but soon began to write their own scripts for lack of finding two-person plays they could tour across North America. They wrote and toured four full-length critically acclaimed plays to packed houses across Canada and the United States, including, Bad Boy, which they performed Off-Off-Broadway at New York’s Creative Place Theatre in the heart of Times Square.

Wherewolves Bad Boy 2

 

In 2001, they were approached to star in and rewrite the short film, Things Never Said in Playa Perdida. Playa won the audience award at the New York Short Film Festival in 2002 and tied first place at the Festivalisimo festival in Montreal.

 

WHEREWOLVES was written as a screenplay in 2010. They wrote the novel, edited by award winning Canadian author/poet, Shelley A. Leedahl, to get the story out while they wait for it to hit the screens.

 

Author John Vamvas

John Vamvas

John Vamvas grew up in one of Montreal’s (Canada) roughest boroughs. His high school teachers always told him that he’d be in jail or dead by eighteen. Thank God for the Arts. Actor, playwright, screenwriter and now novelist, he has been writing with his writing partner/wife, Olga Montes, for over twenty years. He loves words, especially dialogue, and has a lot of fun coming up with new ways to say the same thing.

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Author Olga Montes

Olga Montes

Mother, preschool French teacher, avid reader, Olga dreamed of being a writer as a child and spent many high school lunch hours working on her writing with her English teacher. She has a college degree in Professional Theatre and a university degree in Spanish and French grammar and literature. She was on her way to becoming a translator for the UN when she heard of an open audition at one of Montreal’s biggest theatres. She almost didn’t get the role, though, because the director and co-star, John Vamvas, was scared of falling in love with the actress and ruining the play. That was 1992. She and John have been writing and working together on stage, screen, and in life ever since.

.

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I have two eBook copies of Wherewolves to give away!

To enter, pleasure leave your email address so I can contact you if you win and watch the video below to answer this question:

“Which werewolf transformation do you think is the best or tell us your favorite?”

[youtube=https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMl1qGkfyv0&list=PLIN47fZQoFmFY8z9zj-hPiGsLJeXw3k6p]

Giveaway ends October 31st.

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Happy Halloween and thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!

To see all of my giveaways click on the werewolves below and Good Luck!

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A ghost and a host ~ Bob at the Lake by R. Murphy ~ An interview, review, and giveaway

Posted: May 9, 2014 in Blog Tour, giveaways, Humor, Interview, Paranormal or fantasy, reviews
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Bob at the Lake Banner copy may 9th

I have such a fun show and tell for you today.

I’ll be reviewing Bob at the Lake and will also give you a glimpse inside the book.

There’s also an awesome giveaway, so don’t forget to enter!

But first let’s get to the interview!

Hey, Laura, before we get started with our interview, I just have to tell you how much Bob and I enjoyed our brief visit with you and your great readers in February. I’m so glad we’re able to spend a bit more time here today. Thanks so much for inviting us back!   Roz

Thank you Roz. I’m thrilled to have ya’ll back again. So let’s not keep everyone waiting.

1)     I’ve never read anything quite like Bob at the Lake. Very refreshing. Are either of your characters derived from someone you know and, if not, where do they come from?

Thanks so much for your compliment, Laura! There is SO MUCH formulaic, cookie-cutter writing out there right now that the fact that you think my writing is a little off the beaten path is about the highest praise you could send my way. You’ve made my day! As for the characters… I wanted to spend my writing time with a single woman trying to survive the Great Recession, on her own with only a handful of assets. How do single people–who have no soft place to land if they fail–survive? I wish I could tell you where my characters came from; I’m kind of curious myself!

2)     What was the easiest part to write in the book?

My descriptions of the beautiful Finger Lakes scenery were the easiest things to write in this book. Even after living on this lake for years, my breath still catches with wonder sometimes when I look out the window. And our local wines? OMG, so amazing…

3)     What was the hardest part to write in the book?

It took me several tries before I came up with Roz’s ‘voice.’ Once I could articulate that, everything else started to come together.

4)     If your book was made into a movie, who would you cast for your characters?

I know David would be some blissfully yummy combination of Tom Selleck and Colin Firth, and I always picture Kelsey Grammer (when he played Frasier) as Bob. As for Roz, that’s a little tougher. Sandra Bullock’s comic timing would be great, but she’d have to bulk up a bit and not look so dismayingly perfect all the time.

5)     Are you working on anything now, and would you like to tell us a little about it?

In my next Bob book, Roz goes toe-to-toe in a competition with the ghostly members of the Algonquin Round Table. I can’t quite decide if the scene is terrifying or hysterical; probably a little bit of both, as usually seems to be the case in Roz’s world.

6)     What do you do to relax?

In the summer I reinforce the stone wall that theoretically prevents the lake from joining me in my living room during the April floods. If you’re ever out on Crooked Lake, I’ll be the idiot standing knee-deep in water shoveling shale and piling rocks into a wall. I also love music of all sorts, ballroom dancing, opera, and financial planning (yup, sorry about that last one, but it’s true…)

7)     What makes you laugh?

The pitch-perfect timing and ensemble playing in The Big Bang Theory. My sisters. The antics of my extended family. Reader’s Digest jokes. Thurber. Benchley.

8)     Is there anything you’d like to share with other authors about your experiences in publishing?

The constant message to new writers from my wonderful and supportive fellow authors at Soul Mate Publishing is the need to enhance your social media presence. While I completely agree with them, I’d also add that you need to drive yourself to create the best book you can possibly write. Rewrite, polish, rewrite…and then polish some more…

Now I like to do 5 fun shorts.

1)     Swimming pool or beach? Ex-Jersey Girl here. Beach, beach, BEACH!!!

2)     Sandals or high heels? Sandals.

3)     Salty or sweet snacks? Dove Solid Dark Chocolate Easter Eggs. I buy POUNDS of them during Lent and stash them in the depths of my freezer for year-round snacking. (Why do people eat chocolate with corners? I could never figure that out.)

4)     Favorite beverage? Coffee. Couldn’t live without it. (I could live without a good Riesling wine–but I wouldn’t be very happy about it.)

5)     Eat out or cook? Eat out. ABSOLUTELY!

 

Really creative and fun interview questions, Laura. Thanks so much for sending them my way! R.

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Bob at the Lake

By R. Murphy

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BLURB

Take a crabby woman of a certain age, move her to the wintry shores of a New York lake, and then throw in a martini-loving ghost from 1920s Manhattan. Last, stir in the good-looking grape grower who lives up the hill. Now there’s a recipe for a potent screwball cocktail!

 

MY REVIEW

Having gone through the Great Recession, I felt so many connections in this book.

Roz purchased a second house on the shores of Crooked Lake in West New York and then everything fell apart. She got a divorce and the recession hit and her job went elsewhere leaving her with no choice but to live at the lake house and make a go of it with her freelance writing.

It wasn’t long before she met Bob, a ghost with a taste for martinis. Finding out why he was there and what it would take to make him go away was a rip tearing good time for me.

How do you take your ghost? Shaken or stirred?

I thought Bob, being a ghost, would be my favorite character. Not so. While I loved Bob and his humor, which was as dry as his martinis, Roz was the one I felt most connected to.

Being a woman ‘of a certain age’ myself, it was nice to have the protagonist portrayed by one also. It made it easy to connect with Roz and her thoughts and actions were that much more believable. She felt familiar, so like me.

I too have a tradition of spending the week between Christmas and New Years holed up at home, eating the goodies I got, drinking lots of tea, and reading, reading, reading. I too love Irish Breakfast Tea and white wines. But I don’t live in a lake house and I don’t have a Bob.

Roz took me along on her new journey of the Finger Lakes, introducing me to her strange next door neighbors, taking me wine tasting at the local wineries, and keeping me up all night to meet her writing deadlines.

“…it’s hard to describe a good wine; it’s as hard as describing a kiss.”

As the author places her in predicament after predicament I was waiting for her to call for help. And who’s she gonna call? Bob, that’s who. Granted he wasn’t always helpful, and could get her in even bigger pickles, like the time the display got broken in the store and she was kicked out, but sometimes he had good ideas. Roz just had to weed them out.

He can also be tender and quite debonair. Also light on his feet, and no, not from his martinis. Wait until you go to the ball on the lake.

What you get in Bob at the Lake is a story that reads like real life. There’s a character with some years and experience, a ghost who mixes delicious martinis, some local color, a slow blooming romance with a sexy grape grower, and laughs that keep on coming.

4 STARS

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And now a peek inside Bob at the Lake

“At this point, it might be appropriate to interject a few words about me, your narrator. Decades ago, people used to have a phrase for me: a woman of a certain age. Back then, everyone knew what that phrase meant: ‘Young enough to want to (fill in the name of your favorite venial sin here); old enough to know better.’ The phrase implies a certain amount of polish, a certain amount of experience. A woman who’s been knocked down by life, still has the energy to get off the floor, and has learned lessons from her fall. Back then, women of a certain age were hard-bitten newspaperwomen, or glamorous, mysterious divorce co-respondents in courtroom dramas, who wore elegant hats with veils down to their chins. I associate them with words like peplum, and negligee, and I know they were all blondes who wore daring designer suits and genuine silk stockings.

I wish I could afford to wear daring designer suits. Instead my everyday clothes typically involve some form of denim. And, although my short, wavy brunette hair usually has some highlights of blond, the quantity of highlights tends to vary proportionally to my bank balance. The more money I have, the blonder I get.

I don’t know how to assign a specific age to a woman of a certain age in the twenty-first century. It’s especially confusing these days, when forty is the new twenty and fifty is the new thirty. I think it’s mostly a matter of mind and experience.

Anyway, back to our story…

~~~

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

bob at the lake roz murphy (2)

 

Roz Murphy is the pseudonym of a shy, retiring writer who doesn’t want her neighbors to know how nutty she really is. Brooklyn-born and Jersey-bred, Roz now lives on the misty shore of one of New York’s beautiful Finger Lakes. Prior to that, her business writing career took her to many locations, including Manhattan, where she worked for a number of years. As a freelance and corporate writer, Roz won several national and international writing and communications awards.

 

Now Roz is pursuing her first love—fiction. She’s writing the ‘Bob’ books, the humorous chronicle of a crabby ‘woman of a certain age’ who moves to the wintry shores of a New York lake—and gets a ghost. And not just any ghost, mind you. Bob’s a plump, middle-aged ghost from 1920s Manhattan who swans around in a silk smoking jacket and drinks far too many martinis. Stir the good-looking grape grower who lives up the hill into this mix and you get a pretty potent screwball cocktail!

When she’s not reading, writing, hill-walking, staring mindlessly out the window at the lake or piling rocks onto her ever-diminishing lakefront, you can usually find Roz hanging out with her family, travelling, or exploring the amazing wines and wineries of the Finger Lakes.

‘Bob at the Lake’ is exclusively available as a Kindle download from Amazon. Please join Roz Murphy Author on FaceBook for updates on the many adventures of Roz, David—and Bob.

 

Amazon ~ Facebook

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The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

Click on the Rafflecopter below to enter.

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So be sure to show some comment love!

Click on the banner below to follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.

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Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew and Good Luck!

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The Gemstone Vampires ~ Sapphire Angel #1 ~ Author interview and giveaway

Posted: April 8, 2014 in Blog Tour, giveaways, Interview, Paranormal or fantasy, Romance, Vampires
Tags: , ,
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I’ve got a new series to tell you about and it sounds like they can be read as stand alones, which I love!

There’s a very fun interview,  spectacular cover art, an exciting new twist on vampires and a fun author bio.

Oh yeah! And a great giveaway! Don’t forget to enter.

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And now for the interview!

It’s a pleasure to have you on my blog, Khloe, and I’m sure my readers are excited to get to know more about you and your book. Let’s not keep them waiting.

1)      Where did your story and characters come from?

I was part of a blog that had monthly challenge stories. December 2012 was the word “Christmas”. So basically the first 500 words of Chapter 1 was my challenge story. From there it grew in my mind until I had to keep writing it.

2)      Why Gemstone Vampires? How did you come up with that name?

When I started to expand the short story I planned to only write 3,000 words and enter it into the Romance Writers Australia Little Gems Competition. This competition has a different gemstone as its focus each year. Last year was sapphire. So that’s how the gemstone focus came to be.

I away strive to make things original and thought making the Vampire and their bride have matching eye color would be a cool twist in how Vampires have to find their bride. Because the search for their bride is the focus (and each book of the trilogy will focus on a separate couple) I wanted the trilogy name to reflect that. Gemstone Vampires just rolls off the tongue so well doesn’t it?

3)      I’m always curious about how authors choose their cover art? Could you tell us how yours came about?

Rouge Phoenix Press use an awesome cover artist, Gem Designs. She is brilliant and always comes up with stunning covers.

Sometimes I have a picture for the hero or heroine, for Sapphire Angel I couldn’t find a picture for either so I gave Gem the descriptions and she found the stunning couple that now reside on the cover. The book is set in Melbourne, Australia so the other image is a night time shot of Melbourne from the banks of the YarraRiver.

4)      What were the easiest and hardest characters to write?

Oh man! Hard question.

I think the easiest was Dominic (Her Guardian Angel). He was my first hero so I didn’t have to worry about accidently giving him traits from other heroes.

Hardest so far is Sharon (Book 2 of Gemstone Vampires). She’s suffering with PTSD after the rescue, a disease I also have. Getting the level of emotional torment across in words is quite tricky.

5)      Now about you. What do you do for fun?

Fun? Umm. That requires spare time! Lol.

I enjoy going to the movies with my hubby or girlfriends. Next school holidays we’re going camping with another family. That’s going to be great fun I’m sure.

6)      Where do you like to do your writing?

I’d like to have a cosy warm space with soundproof walls and a locked door. Sadly, in the real world most of my writing happens at my desk crammed in the corner of the lounge. Generally I wear headphones to block out the kids’ cartoons.

7)      Choose your dream vacation and tell us about it.

Beach on Fiji. My dream holiday is simple: a peaceful childfree time to lay back and relax. Not having to yell, cook or clean for the entire time sounds like heaven to me.

Now for 5 fun shorts.

1)      Sexiest actor?

Vin Diesel. Hmmm…

2)      Toughest female protagonist in a book?

Xhex. From J.R. Ward’s Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood). She’s totally badass, in the best possible way of course.

3)      Cutest baby animal?

Snow leopard. (I love all big cats, they are all very cute as babies.)

4)      Do you believe in aliens?

We can’t possibly be the only planet with life in the whole Universe. Although I doubt they are little green men with big heads!

5)      Favorite fairy tale?

Princess and The Frog. I like a princess with a bit of spunk.

~~~

Sapphire Angel Book: 1 Gemstone Vampires Trilogy

by Khloe Wren

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Synopsis

Vampires are real… as is the fact they will only ever take one woman. Their Eternal Bride.

When Angelo sees Darcy he knows she is his Bride. Her sapphire blue eyes match his exactly. But he must wait to claim her. He fears he has lost her forever when she disappears.

Five years pass before he finds her again. Just when things start heating up between them, Darcy is taken by their enemies. Angelo must fight to free his one true love. Will he be in time?

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 [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W-K6zBSfpw&w=350&h=263]

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Excerpt

Darcy woke with a start. Her body jerked as she remembered being stabbed. The movement caused her to slip below water. She instantly panicked, not wanting to drown. Was this what dying felt like? Or was she already dead? Suddenly she was back out of the liquid and she gasped in breaths, her eyes tightly closed against the burn in her lungs.

“Piccola, breathe.”

Piccola? Was she with Angelo? Had she died and gone to heaven? Because without him, there would be no heaven for her. She swiped at her eyes to clear the water away. The moment her vision was clear, she looked to where the voice had come from. Tears pricked her eyes and fell as she took in his beautiful face, with his clear deep blue eyes. He was her sapphire angel.

“Am I dead?”

Angelo chuckled at her and hauled her tight against his chest, “No, piccola, you are not dead.”

Darcy nuzzled her face into his chest, taking in deep breaths to fill her lungs with his scent.

“How?” Her throat still burned so she tried to keep her words to a minimum.

~~~

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

sapphire angel Khloe facebook profile

Khloe Wren started writing her first novel in high school, until it mysteriously disappeared from the family computer (her older brother was the lead suspect but nothing was ever proved). She didn’t put pen to paper again after that for a number of years but she did keep reading. Khloe has always loved all things paranormal: sexy vampires and sultry shifters have always been her favourites. So when she picked up writing again, it seemed only natural she would write paranormal romance.

Khloe grew up in the Adelaide Hills before her parents moved the family to country South Australia when she was a teen. As a young adult Khloe moved to Melbourne. After a few years she missed the fresh air and space of country living so moved back. Khloe currently lives in the Murraylands, South Australia with her incredibly patient husband and two young daughters. When she’s not sitting at her laptop writing, she’s spending time with family or friends, kicking butt at karate or feeding her addictions of reading, eating chocolate and drinking Coke.

Khloe loves to hear from her fans, please feel free to contact her at any of the following:

Website ~ Email ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Pinterest ~

Amazon ~ B&N ~ Publisher:RoguePhoenixExpress

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Khloe will be awarding a Handcrafted leadlight blue heart shaped window hanger/wind-chime and a signed A5 Cover to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, a Charm Bracelet and a signed A5 Cover will be awarded to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, a Phone charm and a signed A5 Cover will be awarded to another randomly drawn commenter and lastly, a Key ring and a signed A5 Cover will be awarded to another randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

*
So leave Khloe a comment. Let’s hear it!

Click on the rafflecopter below to enter.

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Follow the tour for more exciting stops by clicking on the banner below. And remember to comment. The more you comment, the more chances to win!

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~~~

Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew and Good Luck!

To see all of my giveaways click on the lucky horseshoe below!

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