Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Buried Dolls by Lynn Hones


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Lynn Hones will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Jody had the misfortune of breaking her ankle. The only available apartment to convalesce in is a derelict mansion just outside of town. The tenants prefer to keep to themselves except when sneaking strange dolls into her rooms. Suffering from loss of memory after a horrific event destroyed her biological family, Jody clutches at straws trying to find out who she is and why some people in the house leave her clues to get out or get murdered. Find out if Jody regains her memory, what happened to her family and who, among her friends, is actually her enemy, working to see her killed.


Read an Excerpt

It seemed odd that this lonely old spinster would go to such trouble to hide a note in the book, simply telling her to enjoy it. Ohjeita. He aikovat tappaa sinut jälleen. Slowly she typed the letters in one at a time. Such a strange language, she thought. When finished, she hit the translate button, and put her hand to her mouth. There in English it read, Get help. They are going to kill you. “What?” she said out loud. “What is wrong with this woman?” Jody pushed her blankets aside and stood. She slowly walked into the living room to double check that her front door was locked and bolted. One could never be too safe. And she was more afraid of Mrs. Junhuton than anyone or anything else. Slowly she walked back into the room and lay down. In between the space of wakefulness and sleep, at a time she reserved for thoughts of what was and what will be, she noticed a crack in the wallpaper. A small, fine line that needed further investigation. She opened her eyes and turned on the light. She followed that crack and rose and scooted over toward the end of her bed so she could reach its craggy edge. She ran her fingers along it. Upon further investigation she noticed there was another similar crack running parallel to that one and she saw one about two feet perpendicular to it. A door.

About the Author:Lynn Hones has been married for 28 years and is mother to two lovely daughters. She has two rescued cats and two dogs who are so big she calls them livestock. She lives in a large, drafty old home on the shores of Lake Erie and loves nothing better than grabbing an armful of books and heading to the beach. She combs the beaches for beach glass and makes jewelry out of it. Living in a historic harbor town, she has lots of inspiration for her books. She loves to write and chew massive amounts of bubblegum; preferably at the same time. She’s an expert bubble blower.

Website: http://www.lynnhones.com
Devine Destines: http://www.devinedestinies.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4028588.Lynn_Hones
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lynn-Hones-Books-392798690821239/
Buy the book at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

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Monday, March 20, 2017

Elektra Chaos by Deanna Roy


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Deanna Roy will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Elektra never wanted to be the good guy.

She’s a troublemaker and a clever Loki magic thief. Nobody gets in her way. All she has to do is zap people with her electric-magnetic power, and they forget where they are or what they are doing.

But a few days ago in the desert, a magnetic sandstorm did more than blow everyone backward. It switched the polarity of the magic world. The good guys turned bad. And the bad guys like Elektra, well, now their magic only works if they are doing good in the world.

Now the Vor are out to steal more power, making the thieves look like chumps. Elektra will have to fight every bad guy code she’s ever stood for to take down the good guys and save the day.

Elektra Chaos is the final book in the Magic Mayhem trilogy.



Enjoy an Excerpt

The Loki stopped for hamburgers a few hours from the mountains. Elektra went into the bathroom, pausing to turn the faucets without touching them. She found she could press the metal button on the drying machine by simply pushing the air in front of it. So her magnet power could either attract or repel, the same way magnets did if you turned them around. Cool.

She turned to the stall doors on their silver hinges. The magnetism didn’t affect the doors themselves, as they weren’t metal. Elektra tried to make the hinges move on their own, but she didn’t know how to apply the force. She tried and tried to open them, but they wouldn’t budge.

If she couldn’t do anything bigger than a thumbtack or a faucet, how would she change the polarity of the magical world?

She got frustrated then, ready to scream at the silly metal, when she was struck by a thousand tiny needlelike pains in her legs.

All the nails and screws in the room were sticking to her.

Uh-oh.

She backed away as half the room collapsed. Without their metal pins and hinges, the stalls fell over, knocking into walls. Elektra pressed against the wood door, then stumbled as it also fell outward with no hardware to hold it in place. The sound was crazy loud as planks fell over and crashed to the floor.

Now she knew to be careful.

About the Author:
Deanna Roy is the six-time USA Today bestselling author of middle grade books, women's fiction, and college romance. She wrote Elektra Chaos for her daughter Elizabeth, who was diagnosed with epilepsy at age six.

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/deannaroy
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/deannaroy
Series Overview - http://deannaroy.com/magicmayhem

Buy the book at Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, or Barnes and Noble.

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Wednesday, March 8, 2017

The Secret Billionaire by Teymour Shahabi


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Teymour Shahabi will be awarding a print copy of "The Secret Billionaire" with a personal message (International Giveaway) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Why do you write juvenile fiction? What draws you to it?

Everyone knows that teenagers are constantly changing. They’re moving in a direction that seems to shift as they approach it. What I didn’t know, when I was a teenager, was that this is true of everyone, of every age. Youth is the time when it is most obvious that simply being alive is an adventure. The life of a young adult is inherently a journey, a quest. But we should never forget that the adventure, the quest, never ends, because no one ever grows up.

What’s your favorite sweet treat?

Make a giant cookie brownie cake in a cast-iron skillet and cover it with nuts, ice cream, and chocolate sauce. The batter must include Nutella.

What would you write in a letter to your teen self?

One day you’ll look back and realize that there could have been a way to understand and befriend every single person you know.

Favorite hot beverage. Why?

Perhaps because I’m originally Persian, tea is our family drink. It’s my magic potion and the aroma of my home. It’s a strict requirement for: mornings, afternoons, any kind of work, brunch, any event with “coffee” in the description, and almost any type of cozy circumstance.

Ideal summer vacation.

Some place where mountains meet the sea, and where every meal lasts three hours.

Coal or candy in your Christmas stocking? Why?

Candy, 100%. And that has to be true of most people in the world. Sure, there’s some real evil out there, but most of us—the clear majority—are ultimately kindhearted.

You’re stranded on a desert island—which character from your book do you want with you? Why?

Andrew Day would have the highest survival skills… but Olivia Gladys might be slightly more fun to survive with.

March 24. Billionaire Lyndon Surway takes off in his private plane and never returns.

His will leaves the entirety of his wealth—one of the largest fortunes in history—to his “dear friend Lucian Baker.” Only there is no trace of anyone by that name. And the fortune itself is nowhere to be found.

Andrew Day knows nothing of wealth and privilege, but he won a scholarship to study at the most exclusive school in the country, in the town where the mystery, decades later, remains unsolved. There he discovers friendship and danger with the aristocratic Cameron and the beautiful Olivia. But watchful eyes follow him everywhere... Until, one night, he comes across a secret that will change his life. As he begins to unravel what really happened to the Surway fortune, the question remains: who is Lucian Baker?

Winner: Northern California Book Festival, Best Young Adult Book, 2016
Winner: Great Midwest Book Festival, Best Young Adult Book, 2016
Winner: Florida Book Festival, Best Young Adult Book, 2016

Enjoy an Excerpt:

They continued to follow the fence on the sandy path along the road. But the House remained hidden. The elms on the other side of the fence barred their sight. They all sensed, without saying so, that the trees would thin out. They were so hopeful for a clearing that they could picture it as they went, lying just beyond the shadow of the last trunk they could see. But the last trunk kept receding, and the curtain of trees kept on going beyond it, as silent and unhelpful as the empty road alongside.

All of a sudden, Olivia stopped. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Neither Cameron nor Andrew could make out what she was staring at in the sand of the path. She brought a hand over her knee and crouched. The boys gathered closer. Their shadows mingled over her. She looked up into their faces. After a few seconds, she asked, “What do you guys think?”

“What do we think of—?” Cameron began, taking another step closer, when suddenly she shouted, “Cameron, stop!”

She jumped up and held out her arms.

“What the hell was that?” he yelled out.

“Don’t step on it!”

“Don’t step on what?”

“The footprint!” she answered in a whisper, as if just remembering the sound of her own voice. She glanced over both shoulders, gave Cameron and Andrew a significant look, and slowly lowered herself once more to the ground. The two of them mirrored her movement.

All at once, Andrew saw it. It was a footprint, unmistakable, elementary, like a picture in a comic book, a single elongated shape with a line separating the heel. Cameron asked in a muted voice, “What kind of shoe is that? It doesn’t have any—any details.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. Not even whispering could soften her contempt.

“It’s a boot,” she said.

“A boot,” Cameron repeated. And after a second’s reflection, “So it’s a boot. So what? People leave footprints every day on every path in the world. Some of them wear boots.”

But he didn’t dare to go back to his normal voice.

Olivia continued to study the print as if he hadn’t spoken. It was Andrew who answered, “But no one leaves footprints on this path.”

Cameron and Olivia looked up.

“There’s nothing along this road, nothing for miles in either direction, right? Nothing but the gate of the Surway House.”

They stared at him without reply.

“Well,” he went on, examining the footprint, “assuming that’s the case, then there’s really no reason for anyone to have come here recently—no reason other than...” His eyes turned to the fence.

Olivia’s gaze followed his.

“It’s not just the fact that someone was here recently—” she began.

“How do you guys know it’s so recent?” Cameron broke in. “The print could go back several days, anytime since the last rainfall. For all we know, someone could have left it over the weekend. No one here’s an expert in detection.”

“No,” Olivia rejoined, “but I’m an expert in shoes. That’s how I know it’s a boot.”

About the Author:
Teymour Shahabi was born in Paris of Persian parents in 1985. He moved to the United States to study Comparative Literature and Mathematics at Harvard University. He lives in New York City where he’s spent the last few years among serious professionals, many of whom probably prefer to read nonfiction. The Secret Billionaire is his first published book.

You can watch him try to figure out writing and life at http://www.facebook.com/Teymour.Shahabi.

Website: http://www.teymourshahabi.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/teymour.shahabi
Instagram: http://www.instragram.com/teymour.shahabi
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/teymourshahabi

Buy the book at Amazon.

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Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Into the Shadow by T.D. Shields


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will be awarding the first book (ebook) in three YA series: Into Shadow by TD Shields; Awaken by Michelle Bryan; and The Other Inheritance by Rebecca Jaycox to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

She’s nineteen. The President’s daughter. They want her dead.

Poppy’s father may be the President of the North American Alliance, but that just makes her a target for those wishing to topple the regime.

Barely escaping with her life, she must travel across a country ravaged by war and climate change to seek safety amongst a people who only recently opposed her. There she must use every skill learned from her military upbringing to survive terrifying beasts, deadly plant life, and lawless gangs before finally finding a group willing to accept her.

But her peace soon proves to be illusory. It’s not only the government that wants her dead now.


Read an excerpt:

The hallway was mostly empty with a bench or two placed along the walls. Open doors lined both sides of the wall, gaping pools of deeper dark opening off the main path. I tried looking inside a couple of classrooms, but it was too dark to make out anything.

At the end of the hallway something caught my eye—a tiny gleam of pale color against the wall where it should have been dark. I turned my steps to investigate and crouched down to look closer. It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at and when realization came, I shoved my hand hard against my mouth to hold back a whimper. The white gleam came from bones piled in a jumbled heap against the wall. Judging by the empty skull peering from the mound, the bones were human.

Even worse, behind the first heap of bones was another. And another. I wasn’t sure how many there might be continuing back through that hallway. I wasn’t going to find out either. Investigating this was not a job for one guard on her first patrol. I stumbled to my feet so I could turn and run for the exit. Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me. Not much, just a whisper of sound like a sliding footstep against the tiled floor. I whirled, trying to locate the source of the noise, but I could see nothing.

“Marcii?” I called. I admit it, my voice shook a little. Silence answered me. “Hello?” I called again.

About the Author:
After writing stories in her head for the last 30+ years, Tara finally decided to take a stab at writing them down to share them with others.

Tara has a husband, 4 kids, and 5 cats to care for along with a full-time job and contract work on the side, so finding time to write is the biggest challenge. Since her most productive hours are from 12-5 a.m. anyway, Tara usually gives up sleep in favor of writing.

FB: www.facebook.com/tdshields.author
Twitter handle: @td_shields
Website: http://taradon.wixsite.com/tdshields
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12042892.T_D_Shields

Buy the book for only $0.99 at Amazon, iBooks, or Kobo.

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