June 2014 - A Life Through Books

Friday, June 27, 2014

Blog Tour: Earth by Jessica Frances @giveaway
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New Adult Sci-Fi Romance

Date Published: June 19, 2014

   
Earth is being invaded. There was no warning and no time to stage any kind of defence. Instead countries started to go silent. They were no longer reachable and no one knew what was happening.
So when Canada went dark; everyone knew America would be next.

Mattie:
My name is Matilda, but everyone calls me Mattie. I was at college in Oregon when the attack began. By the time Canada went quiet, we’d had enough. So two of my friends and I decided to join the fight in Vancouver and find out what was really happening.
That is when everything changed. What we found was death, destruction and machines that were slaughtering humans. There would be no escape for us; no place to go where the machines couldn't reach us.
I had no future, but then I met him.

Marduke:
My name is Marduke and I’m part of the reason Earth is being invaded. I’m from a different planet and even though I look human, I’m not. But when Earth was invaded, I began running from my family and running for my life.
Then she saved me.
She made me feel something I’d never felt before. She saved my life and opened my heart to the possibility of love, she changed me forever.

What are the chances of finding your true love right when the world is ending? What kind of cruel fate places them together under those circumstances?
What is she supposed to do when he tells her he is not from Earth? When she finds out that he is one of the invaders?
What does she do when she finds out everything she thought she knew was wrong?
What does he do when he has to make a choice between protecting her and saving himself?
How can they overcome everything standing in their way?

My Review


Jessica Frances has brought us a New Adult Sci-Fi Romance that delivers on all levels.

I enjoyed the characters and their multi-layered personalities. 

The plot was very well developed and flowed smoothly. 

The Romance was beautiful even if a bit predictable.

Definitely a wonderful sci-fi romance.



Born and raised in South Australia, Jessica spends her days working in a bakery, afternoons catching up on lost sleep, and nights reading and writing. After having the Taken Trilogy taking up space in her head for years, she was relieved to have a break and her mind clear. But apparently the free rent was spoken to Mattie and her friends, because now she is hearing new voices and a whole new story. The Invasion Trilogy was then born.




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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Blog Tour: The Gull Motel by @amiedenman #bookreview
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Contemporary Romance
Date Published: June 2014
   
Savvy Thorpe needs a vacation. Finally finished with college, she heads to her favorite shabby motel on Florida’s Gulf Coast where her aunt and uncle always save her room twenty-four. She quickly finds out, though, that The Gull Motel is not just her home away from home. It’s hers to manage while her aunt and uncle take an extended trip.
 Skip McComber, The Gull’s former maintenance man, has been working on Savvy’s nuts and bolts for years. Now the new owner of the bar next door, his mission is to renovate a pirate bar while being a walking temptation for the girl he can’t get off his mind.
For Savvy, keeping her cool running a motel in Florida heat is one thing, but navigating the steamy waters of a former fling takes a whole other kind of savvy. In addition to the motel and the man next door, Savvy stumbles on a plot to swindle land from the residents of Barefoot Key. Devalued properties tumble like dominoes until Savvy musters her colorful crew from The Gull Motel to make the pillagers walk the plank.



My Review

This is the epitome of a feel good quick read for me. I thoroughly enjoyed Savvy's humor and wit. 

This is a novel that really does have it all. There is humor and romance along with even some mystery thrown in.

The secondary characters were really well done. They each added a new element and I enjoyed that all of Amie Denman's characters were multi-dimensional. 




Amie Denman lives in a small town in her native Ohio with her husband and sons. Her two cats and large yellow labrador are kind enough to share a sunny office where she lets her imagination run wild. Reading books was her favorite escape as a child, and growing up four houses away from the community library encouraged her addiction. When she's not reading or writing, she enjoys walking and running outside. The helpless victim of a lifetime of curiosity, she's been known to chase fire trucks on her bicycle just to see what's going on. Amie believes that everything is fun: especially roller coasters, wedding cake, and falling in love. 



Amie is the author of five contemporary romance novels: 

The Gull Motel
Blue Bottle Beach
Her Lucky Catch
Her Lucky Prize
Will Work for Love
He’s on Her Trail

Twitter @amiedenman


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PROMO Blitz: Playing With Destiny by @DianeEscalera #excerpt
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Playing With Destiny (Latin Heat Trilogy #3) - PROMO Blitz
By Diane Escalera
Contemporary Romance
Date Published: May 29, 2014


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Fate brought them together. Will Destiny keep them apart?

Destiny Quinn lives for her job. She loves being an IT Recruiter, traveling nationwide. But all work and no play has left her feeling restless. It's been a year since she's gone out on a date — or slept with a man. Suddenly, Destiny can't think about anything else. She's not looking for a relationship, just a good time and a sexy diversion. One steamy night of mind-blowing pleasure, then maybe she can get back to business.


Christian LaCosta wants to prove to his family — and himself — that he is relationship material. Lately, it seems like everyone around him is in love. Maybe it's time to give up the fast life and fast women, quit being the odd man out. Christian decides to take the plunge and join an online dating service. When he's unwittingly hooked up with a luscious neighbor named Destiny, the coincidence is too much. Christian doesn't believe in fate, but one look at Destiny, and he's seeing a whole new future. Now he must convince this career-driven beauty that work isn't everything. Take a chance on them, and she can have it all.


WARNING:  Food Play, Hot Sex, Latin Hunk


EXCERPT

What a knockout. He could stare at her all day. “Then let’s do it,” he said, pushing out his elbow so she could take his arm. She went for it, making him one happy dude.

They strode casually and comfortably, like a couple who’d known each other longer than a day. Gliding by the swimming pool, he couldn’t care less who saw him, and he didn’t even make eye contact with anyone. Destiny held her head high, her soft blond hair billowing with the dusk breeze. Every so often she glanced at him, and when she did, his strut grew more pronounced.

Christian dug out his access pass from his back pocket and swiped it. The secured glass door unlocked, and he held it open for her. His gaze rolled over her body dimensions. Crap. He had it bad.

Destiny followed a tiled hallway that led to the main entrance and elevators. Framed tropical artwork adorned the walls. Two mauve, upholstered high-back chairs, a floor lamp, and a small glass accent table made the lobby homey. Usually people were in and out, but right now they were alone. Christian reached for the elevator button at the same time Destiny did. His finger mashed hers.

She looked at him and grinned. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Nope,” he said, showing both hands. But damn, he liked the contact.

Her mouth quirked. “What floor do you live on?”

“Eleventh,” he said, puzzled. “Are we going to my place or yours?”

“Let’s go to yours first.” Her gaze swept him from head to toe. “I want to make sure you’re who you say you are.”

No problem. He had nothing to hide. And he didn’t feel insulted either. The elevator bell chimed and the door slid open. A young good-looking guy sprung out. He nodded at Christian, and gave Destiny a brazen once-over. Christian could’ve popped the jerk.

Ladies first, Christian indicated to Destiny when the path had cleared. They stepped into the elevator, and he pressed number eleven on the panel. The door swooshed closed and soft instrumental music came on. They looked at each other and laughed.

“Don’t take it the wrong way, okay?” she asked, watching him.

He shrugged. “Hey, you can’t be too careful.” Obviously, she’d been spooked by the ex. Bastard had left her paranoid. It made his temper flare, but he didn’t want to think about that right now.

“It’s just that the last guy I trusted...” She looked down and her forehead crinkled.

He lifted her chin with his fingers, forcing her to look at him. “If it’s any consolation, I’m more afraid of you.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?” His finger brushed her soft cheek. “Not that it makes it okay, but I could understand why a guy would lose his mind.”

She smiled. “I think his issues had little to do with me.”

The two of them alone.

An intimate space.

A fierce attraction.

Perfect time for a kiss.

But he held back. “Whatever his problem, it’s not yours anymore.” They stared each other down, her light eyes never wavering from his dark ones.

Her teeth dug into her bottom lip. “No,” she agreed, grasping his upper arm.

He palmed her lower back, drew her body close to his. Destiny wanted him to kiss her. He saw it in her eyes.


Diane Escalera
Author Diane Escalera photo Deepic2_zps737fbf69.jpg
Born and raised in the Bronx, NY, Diane Escalera makes her home in coastal North Carolina. The sultry surroundings are a steady source of inspiration for her hot love stories. Diane is married, has two children and a super cute dachshund she can’t get enough of. She writes contemporary romance and is published with Kensington Publishing and Lyrical Press.




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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Blog Tour: Walls for the Wind by @actuallyalethea #review
1:30 AM1 Comments

WESTERN HISTORICAL

Date Published: April 1, 2014
   
Can an angel survive Hell on Wheels? When KIT CALHOUN leaves New York City with a train car full of orphans from the Immigrant Children’s Home, she has no clue she might end up as adoptive mother to four children in rip-roaring Cheyenne, Wyoming. At twenty-two, Kit has spent most of her life in the Children’s Home. Now she acts as one of America’s first social workers, serving as liaison between the home, the courts, and the children of the streets.
            Kit has little doubt she is easing the plight of the homeless children, until the transcontinental railroad begins to span the country and she is chosen to accompany orphan trains to distribute city children as fast as the rails are laid and farms are carved out of former Indian lands. Eastern cities are overrun with homeless children, their parents sick with consumption or dead of accidents and disease. The farmers who take in the children are required to sign a pledge to clothe, feed, and educate them in return for their labor. Is this distribution of urban children to rural environs beneficial, as the churches that sponsor the dissemination insist? Kit begins to have misgivings.
            Family ties are deliberately broken so that single children will have a better chance of being placed. Even so, Kit swears an oath to a dying woman that she will keep her son and daughter together. But when their train passes beyond the last settlements in Nebraska, Kit is left with no other choice. HANNAH and HELMUT, and teenagers CONNIE and THOMAS, become Kit’s sole responsibility.
            The first time handsome PATRICK KELLEY lays eyes on Kit inside the Casement Brothers store where he works in Julesburg, Colorado Territory, he wants her for his own. But circumstances, and a spectral-looking demented gambler as well as Kit’s certainty no one in his right mind would want her cobbled-together family, conspire to keep them apart. When Patrick and Kit and her brood ride Hell on Wheels into Cheyenne, they’re all forced to leave behind everything they knew and find ways to survive and thrive in the raw new American West.






My Review

This was a very eye opening read for me. I love to delve into the past and get an idea of what life was like for those who came before us and paved the way for what we have now. 

Alethea Williams has managed to give a voice to a character who really connects to the reader. She takes great use of descriptions and imagery to pull us in and make us feel like we are there with the characters. 

This is a great read for fans of Historical Fiction in general or anyone looking to take a step away from the present and get a deeper look at what came before us. 


About the Author



Alethea Williams: Western history has been the great interest of my adult life. I've lived in Wyoming, Colorado, and Oregon. Although an amateur historian, I am happiest researching different times and places in the historical West. And while staying true to history, I try not to let the facts overwhelm my stories. Story always comes first in my novels, and plot arises from the relationships between my characters. I'm always open to reader response to my writing.


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Monday, June 23, 2014

 Blog Tour: Second on the Right by @SantaFlash #giveaway & #review
1:00 AM1 Comments

Fantasy
Date Published: May 9, 2014
   
Spawned from an ancient promise, treachery and intrigue follow the protagonists through our world and one lost to the waves. Bound by an invisible bond, they are thrust into a fantastical world of pirates and demons.
James Benedict is a just man haunted by evil. Pushed to the edge, everything stripped from him, a new man arises . . . a man whose name strikes fear into the hearts of all who hear it: "Captain Hook".
Eileen Davis was a timid woman. Through a fateful cruise she finds herself in the company of the Captain of the Mistral Thief. With his guidance, and the meddling of the local barista, she eventually finds her inner strength.
Will the two of them unite through time to fulfill the promise of their ancestors or will tempers ignite leading all to failure?


My Review
I love novels that draw inspiration from classic fairytales and spin them into something you never could have imagined. That is what Elizabeth Lost has done in Second on the Right.

The detail in this novel is wonderful and really lets the reader feel like they are in the world Los has created. The deeper personalities of the characters is something I really enjoyed as well.

There was mystery and intrigue throughout and even some great twists. A wonderful read.



Elizabeth uses writing as therapy, her release from everyday stress. At night, after work and once the children are finally tucked in bed, for the fifth time, she sits at her laptop and lets her imagination flow.

Elizabeth has produced short stories, one of which will be published in an anthology. She’s had fun writing a Sherlock Holmes fan fiction story, A Case of Need, based on the BBC’s Sherlock. By July 2011, her first novel, Second on the Right, had been completed. She spent several years polishing the story in order to provide a high quality product to the public. Second on the Right is her first professional novel.

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Friday, June 20, 2014

PROMO: Blood Lust by @tlynnetolles #excerpt & #giveaway
4:00 AM1 Comments


Blood Lust  (Blood Series #3) - Week Blitz
T. Lynne Tolles
New Adult Paranormal Romance
Date Published: June 18, 2014

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A surprise visit from Blake and Devon's uncle, Dominic, demanding both vampires, come home immediately to find what is ailing his son Anton, puts everyone on edge. Can vampires get sick? Devon doesn't appreciate Dominic's demands, but agrees to fly back to Connecticut with Darby, since Blake has a job to finish up in California. Excited to meet more of Devon's family, Darby is confused by Devon's distance and coldness since Dominic's visit.

In Connecticut, this only gets worse when a gorgeous Libby, Anton's estranged wife, shows up unexpectedly and seems to have her sights set on Devon. To top it all off, there's seems to be some pent up animosity, Anton and Devon have towards each other.

What is this strange power Libby has over the men in this family? And what's wrong with poor Anton? Why does it seem that Anton and Devon hate each other? These are all questions Darby sets out to answer in this third volume of the Blood Series.

EXCERPT

Dominic smiled at her gesture and said, “I’m sorry, miss, this is a private family matter and I just couldn’t possibly stay. You understand, don’t you?” He said this dismissively as if speaking to a servant; polite, but not sincere.
Darby saw that Devon was irritated by his uncle’s rude behavior and was about to say something, when Blake jumped out of his chair and said, “Sure, Dominic. They understand.”
He glanced at the others at the table and gave Devon an imploring look, all the while helping his uncle with his coat. “We’ll speak in the front yard, Dominic. Go back to your meal, enjoy! We’ll only be a minute,” Blake said rather apologetically to Darby still standing, stunned, in front of her seat.
Darby looked at the rest of the people at the table and said, “I’ll get some champagne flutes, to enjoy our lovely gift.” She excused herself as Devon and Blake led Dominic to the front yard.
They were almost to the black limousine, when Dominic turned to the boys. “I’m in need of your help, boys. Anton is terribly sick and I would like you both to come to Connecticut to help me determine what is ailing him.”
“I’m very sorry Anton is sick, but that does not excuse your…” Devon started.
“What Devon is trying to say, Dominic,” Blake interrupted, “is that we are not boys any longer. We have lives here, jobs, commitments, significant others. We can’t just up and leave.”
“Yes, I see you’ve hooked up with a lively bunch of hooligans. Eating at a table with witches and werewolf swine. How could you? So what, you with your Darby girl, and you with the werewolf crossbreed creature? Both witches, I presume?”
“Yes. I am with Rowan, but you don’t understand, Dominic,” Blake said.
Dominic’s eyes grew large. “How despicable, boy! Didn’t I teach you anything? Didn’t you listen to a word I told you? Your mother must be turning in her grave in shame. We are a family of noble vampire blood. What a disgrace to your heritage. Vile. Disgusting!”
“That’s enough, Dominic. You are wrong about werewolves, like many are wrong about vampires. You are mistaken…” Devon defended.
“How dare you? I am a professor of science. I most definitely am not mistaken. I saw, with my own two eyes, the horrific act of a werewolf. They are animals, not people.”
“You’re wrong, Dominic, very wrong. These are good and decent people. They’ve risked their lives for us on numerous occasions…” Blake tried to explain.
“Don’t bother explaining, Blake. He won’t change his mind. He has his view, and that is the only view he’ll ever see,” Devon said.
“I see your manners have been severely degraded by the company you keep. I demand you come to Connecticut immediately. Maybe you’ll find your manners there and remember your place in society.”
“I’m not leaving. Not for you and most definitely not for Anton,” Devon said.
“Oh, grow up, boy. That was ages ago. Let bygones be bygones already. I won’t take no for an answer. You will both march in there, pack your things, and come home.”
Connecticut is not our home. This is our home, Oljone, California. Right here, with a bunch of great friends who are waiting for us to continue our Thanksgiving feast,” Devon said as he turned and headed back to the house.
“Wait, Devon,” Blake said. Devon stopped and slowly turned. “Dominic, won’t you please join us for dinner. Get to know these people. They are family to us.”
Devon said, “Don’t bother wasting your breath, Blake. Like I said, he’s already made up his mind about them.”
“It’s Thanksgiving. You said yourself, Devon, Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for family, friends and loved ones. Dominic and Anton are our only blood relatives.”
“Fine. You’re right, Blake, I did say that. Dominic, would you please join us for dinner?”
“Thank you for the offer but no. I can’t. No, I won’t sit at a table with two werewolves. I am staying at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. Here are your tickets. We are leaving at 10:50 AM tomorrow. I expect to see you on the plane.” He handed each of them a first class ticket.
“Whoa, wait a minute. I can’t go, Dominic. I have to work. I have a project due, deadlines, I just can’t up and leave,” Blake insisted.
“Fine, you will join us when you are done with your commitments.”
“I’m not going either, Dominic. This is my home, here with Darby. There is no love lost between Anton and me. I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see him. I’m sorry he’s sick, but for God’s sake, he’s a vampire, he’ll heal. I’m sure he will be fine.”
“No, Devon. He won’t. He is rapidly declining. You must help me. I demand that you help me.”
“You demand that I help you? There’s nothing I can do for him. I’m not a doctor; you are. I’m a software engineer. So is Blake. What could we possibly do for him?”
“You’re his family. You can be his family. Maybe he will confide in you.”
“What makes you think if he hasn’t confided in you, that he would do such a thing with me or Blake?”
“Because…you are his age. You speak his language. You’re more understanding, like your mother.”
“Not where he’s concerned,” Devon muttered under his breath.
“You must do this!” Dominic yelled and turned red in the face, pounding a fist into his other hand, tears welling in his ferociously angry eyes.
Blake said, “Hang on, now. You both need to cool off a bit. Dominic, you’re going to blow a gasket. Relax. Devon, if Darby went with you to Connecticut, would you be willing to go and at least talk to Anton? See if maybe he would confide in you? You never know. And if he’s really that sick, don’t you think one of us should be there? We’re family, after all.”
“If Darby were politely invited to come, and treated appropriately, yes, I may consider going to Connecticut.”
“Dominic, would you be willing to accept Darby as a guest in your home, treating her as such, for Devon?”
He mulled this over, taking longer than Devon would have liked, but he reluctantly agreed.
“As long as her mutant sister does not come. Yes, I would accept the witch as a guest in my home providing she behaves in a proper manner.”
“What the he…” Devon started. Blake saw he was about to blow his top and interrupted.
“See, I knew this could be worked out. Now, would you at least join us for a glass of champagne and invite Darby properly, Dominic?”

Dominic grumbled and nodded.


About the Author: T. Lynne Tolles


T. Lynne Tolles can be found most days, juggling one of two cat muses and a laptop, tripping over an ancient Newfoundland dog and washing a never-ending pile of laundry. When life doesn’t get in the way, she writes paranormal romances for new adults.

Her passion for witches, ghosts, and vampires together with a light-hearted wit are reflected in her loveable characters and the adventures of mystery they unravel to find their happily ever after.
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