July 2015 - A Life Through Books

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Blog Tour: Life's Too Short for Leftovers: 9 Lessons from a Third World Kitchen #review
1:00 AM1 Comments


Non Fiction
Date Published: July 23, 2015


Part inspirational rallying call, part first-person, autobiographical narrative, part eulogy for a treasured friend and mentor, “Life’s Too Short for Leftovers” takes the reader on a highly personal journey of self-discovery. Best-selling author Michael Ditchfield’s  “9 Lessons from a Third World Kitchen” – cleverly presented as courses on a menu – conveys a singular perspective on what it means to be human, and what is required of us as individuals to be active, engaged participants in humanity.

With delightfully dry wit and profound understanding, Ditchfield introduces us to Chef Noel Cunningham – his guide and teacher – along with a kitchen-full of congenial and extraordinarily noble real-life protagonists that have served as both lightning rods and light posts in the author’s relentless (albeit sometimes reluctant) pathway toward personal transformation. 

Ditchfield is a master storyteller, and his conversational style skillfully relates timeless philosophies to contemporary challenges and opportunities that face Third World countries today. Based on his extensive experience in Africa, Ditchfield brings a generous portion of lucid insights and aha moments to the table, leading the charge toward improved, positive outcomes – in our own lives, and in the lives of others. “Life’s Too Short for Leftovers” is a stimulating and memorable must-read for students of Life.


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Review

This novel is equal parts inspiring and clever. The writing style of Michael Ditchfield really had me tuned in from the very beginning. Each story had its own lesson, thought provoking situations, and recipe/food spin that makes it unique. The best part about this novel is that it wont be until the end that you realize just how much it affected you. It will stick with you. 





Humanitarian Michael Ditchfield—bestselling author, sought-after speaker, entrepreneur, and former professional athlete, is committed to addressing the humanitarian plight of developing countries. Ditchfield speaks widely on how to inspire change and promote empowerment among cultures and individuals. 

He has worked extensively with children in Africa using sports and culture in furthering the peace process. He remains dedicated to transforming lives by advocating for human dignity across the globe.


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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Blog Tour: Brain by @CandaceBlevins #interview & #giveaway
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Paranormal Romance / Motorcycle Club
Date Published: July 17, 2015


Someone has hacked past Brain’s firewalls and sold the MC’s information. Brain and Bash are on a mission to catch the hacker, find out who hired him, and then make him pay.
Until Brain discovers the hacker is a woman, and just as smart as him. She’s so clever, he chases her a full week before he finally catches her.
She’s the enemy, and yet his wolf wants to protect her from Bash. Worse, his wolf is beginning to decide he wants to claim her.
This isn’t going to be pretty.

Warning: Fights with full-on violence and lots of blood, as well as descriptions of horrendous tortures to a captured female.





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INTERVIEW



What is the hardest part of writing your books?


Cutting and slicing. I love the initial writing, and then the second pass, where I add in details, emotions, thoughts, smells, sounds, caresses, and other tactile input. But then comes the part where all of the unnecessary scenes and conversations are cut, and I have to tearfully say goodbye to them.


What songs are most played on your MP3?

I write to Strauss and Bach. I can’t handle lyrics when I’m writing — too many extra words floating around in my head, I guess. When not writing, I’m either listening to 80s’ music, or my thirteen year old daughter’s choices. Thankfully, I love her choices, so it’s all good.


Do you have critique partners or beta readers?

I have an alpha reader, and then about a dozen beta readers, with a core group of five beta reader who won’t hesitate to tell me when something doesn’t work. I also use a content editor as well as an editor who focuses on grammar and structure.

I don’t know what I’d do without my beta readers. My stories are so much better after I’ve made changes based on their input.


What book are you reading now?

I’m currently in a manic writing stage as I work to finish Bash’s story. When I’m finished, my reward will be Dark Heir by Faith Hunter.



How did you start your writing career?

Ten years ago, there were so few writers in the BDSM genre writing the super-intense stuff. I read all of them, ran out of reading material, and decided to give it a go myself. I’d been writing Urban Fantasy, with no intentions of actually of publishing it, but thought perhaps I could tackle a book with two characters and no worldbuilding. It took me several tries before I had something ready to submit.

I wrote and published BDSM romance for five years before I felt capable of writing an Urban Fantasy with the intent to publish. Only Human was published at the beginning of this year, and now I’m having fun writing UF and PNR as well as the intense BDSM Romance of the Safeword series.




I’m so excited about Brain’s story. I’m married to a geek, plus I’m a computer geek, so I’m partial to them in my books as well.

My bikers are the werewolves who don’t want to join the Pack. The Alpha has total control over his people, and not everyone wants to submit their will. The Pack is run as a dictatorship, the MC is run as a democracy. The first book in the series was Duke, and Brain is the second. I’m currently writing Bash’s story, and I’m having a blast playing around in this world.

Thanks so much for having me on the blog today! I’ve enjoyed the questions.

Readers can find out more about the three series in my paranormal universe here:  http://www.candaceblevins.com/kirsten-osheas-universe/

And, they can see the books in my Safeword series here: http://www.candaceblevins.com/safeword-series/





Candace Blevins is a southern girl who loves to travel the world. She lives with her husband of 17 years and their two daughters. When not working or driving kids all over the place, she can be found reading, writing, meditating, or swimming.
Candace writes BDSM Romance, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and a smoking hot Motorcycle Club series.
Her Safeword series gives us characters who happen to have some extreme kinks. Relationships can be difficult enough without throwing power exchange into the mix, and her books show characters who care enough about each other to fight to make the relationship work. Each book in the Safeword series highlights a couple with a different BDSM issue to resolve. Books are standalone and can be read in any order, with the exception of the two Davenportbooks, and the four Matte books.
Her urban fantasy series, Only Human, gives us a world were weredragons, werewolves, werelions, three different species of vampires exist, as well as a variety of other mythological beings.
Candace’s two paranormal romance series, The Chattanooga Supernaturals and The Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club, are both sister series to the Only Human series, and gives some secondary characters their happily ever after. Her three paranormal series are written so you can read one series, or all three, should you prefer only a particular genre.
You can visit Candace on the web at candaceblevins.com and feel free to friend her on Facebook at facebook.com/candacesblevins and Goodreads atgoodreads.com/CandaceBlevins. You can also join facebook.com/groups/CandacesKinksters to get sneak peeks into what she's writing now, images that inspire her, and the occasional juicy blurb. You can visit Candace on the web and sign up for her newsletter at candaceblevins.com.

Only Human series (Urban Fantasy)
• Only Human
• Book two – title tba (late 2015)

Chattanooga Supernaturals (Paranormal Romance)
• The Dragon King
• Riding the Storm
• Acceptable Risk (June 2015)

Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club (Paranormal Romance)
• Duke
• Brain (July 2015)
• Bash (late 2015)

Safeword series (BDSM Romance)
• Safeword: Rainbow
• Safeword: Davenport
• Safewords: Davenport and Chiffon
• Safeword: Quinacridone
• Safeword: Matte
• Safeword: Matte – In Training
• No Safeword: Matte – The Honeymoon
• No Safeword: Matte – Happily Ever After
• Safeword: Arabesque


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Cover Reveal: Outside, Inside
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Children's Book (4-8)
Date Published: August 25, 2015


Have you ever felt like all of your friends had forgotten about you?  Have you ever felt left out?  This is exactly what happens to Birdie in Outside, Inside.  When Birdie does not see his friends around, he decides to go out and look for them.  He quickly finds that something strange is going on.  Birdie’s friends are really planning a super fun surprise that gives Birdie a change of heart.  Outside, Inside is a simple story about the joy of friendship and giving.  Using 35 easy words and vivid, colorful characters, this story is enchanting for the youngest of readers.





EXCERPT





About the Author


Cindy Helms is a visual artist, author and illustrator known for designing unusual projects. For Cindy, art is created from curious and whimsical combinations of shapes, textures and colors.  In her unique and simple children’s books, Cindy’s art work comes to life in characters that enchant children and adults alike. Cindy lives in the Denver, CO area with two artistic boys and two fat black cats.  She loves road trips, camping and discovering new places.


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Monday, July 27, 2015

Blog Tour: Of Gods and Madness by @justindherd #review and #giveaway
1:00 AM1 Comments


Fantasy Noir
Date Published: 7/21/2015


A mobster learns he's becoming a god, only to discover they die too. 
The right hand of the dominant mob family, Raine Morgan is tasked with hunting down two miscreants messing with the bottom line. He finds them on the docks, but, in the confusion of the fight, accidentally kills their victim and lets them escape. Horrified at what he's done, Raine seeks redemption as well as revenge. 

Things spiral out of control when a greedy middleman overthrows Raine's mob organization. It's only with the help of a friend inside the crumbling mob as well as a streetwise artist that Raine remains undetected as he searches for the men who started this all. Raine doesn’t realize, however, he has caught the attention of a disparate conclave of gods in the process. 

As the pantheon returns to the city they'd abandoned, old conflicts re-emerge, causing divine civil war. Both sides try to pull Raine to their side, expecting to find a naive god for them to manipulate. Instead, they find a man stripped of everything, intent on playing both sides as they learn an awful reality - even gods can die.



REVIEW 
This is a very different novel than others out there. There is a lot of thriller aspects and the Mob setting and characters were definitely great to read about, but the author also introduces a fantasy element that sets it apart from other novels that may otherwise be similar. I think that the balance between the genre's was very well done. I loved the fact that the author kept me invested in the story and the characters to the very last page. 



Justin D. Herd is a Fantasy Noir author who has been writing novels for ten years. He absolutely loves dark, twisted stories that take readers into unexpected places. Horror movies are his passion and he often takes stories to task for not logically thinking out their concepts. His home has been invaded by two eccentric children as well as a cat which is obsessed with all things digital.


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Friday, July 24, 2015

Blog Tour: Alawahea by @saraldaigle #review
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Fantasy/Sci-Fi Romance
Date Published: 7/16/2015


Tamara Carrington always felt different. One event in high school left her wondering if maybe she really was a freak, although she’d managed to leave that experience in the past—buried deep in her psyche. With the arrival of the exchange students from the planet of Azelle to her college, Tamara’s long buried memories threaten to erupt. As Tamara’s emotions build and her friendship with the Azellians grows, so does the knowledge of secrets within her own family.
With the deterioration of her mother’s health, Tamara doesn’t know where to turn for answers or solace. What has her family been hiding? Why does she feel inexplicably drawn to the Azellians? What will happen if she unleashes her long-suppressed passion? Will she survive or even recognize herself afterwards? Wanting answers, yet being afraid of what she might find, Tamara wonders if it would be better to remain asleep.




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Review

A journey into a new world that I can get behind. I liked the imagination shown by Sara L. Daigle in this first in the Azellian Affairs Series. The character development and story development were definitely key and I believe she executed both very well. 

The romance was a great addition to the story and I loved the way it was balanced out with everything else. It didn't feel rushed or forced, just felt natural. 

I am looking forward to reading more in this series and from Sara L. Daigle in general. 



Sara L Daigle has been creating stories since she first forayed into the world of writing at the age of eight. As an avid reader, growing up in a small town without much access to a library, and before the birth of the Internet, Sara devoured her mother’s extensive stack of science fiction and romance novels to keep her literary thirst quenched. Soon afterwards, she began writing her own stories and entertaining her friends by composing plays for them to act out.
A passionate interest in astronomy, anthropology, and linguistics, coupled with this early background in science fiction and romance, led Sara to merge the two fields and create a series of interlinked stories built around a fictional planet’s culture and its interaction with ours.
Sara currently lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and three very loving but energetic dogs.

Novel Twitter: @Alawahea 
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Thursday, July 23, 2015

PROMO: No Good Deed by @marydbrooksfic
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Historical Romance / Lesbian Romance
Date Published: July 1, 2015

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Eva and Zoe Lambros are back in the fifth novel of the historical lesbian romance Intertwined Souls Series. They have left Greece and Germany behind, taking their secrets and their love back to Australia to finally settle down for that normal life they so desire.
Eva is offered a new job and it looks like they're finally ready to settle down into a contented life. Fate has other plans for both women when Eva is involved in a life-threatening accident that reveals a shocking secret from Eva's childhood.
Zoe finds out their wish for children will soon be fulfilled when she finds out she's pregnant but she has to contend with the possibility of losing the woman she loves.
Eva's accident reveals yet another family secret. A decision taken by Eva's mother to protect her child has major repercussions. Eva's wish for an uneventful life is shattered by the accident and the revelation. She must now accept the gifts that are her destiny.
Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.




About the Author

Mary D. Brooks lives in Australia and has been writing for forty years including short fiction stories for various Australian magazines and some non-fiction articles. Mary published her first novel "In the Blood of the Greeks" in 2001 and that soon became evident that there was more to the characters and their story that needed to be told so the Intertwined Souls Series was born. Mary works as a web and graphic designer in addition to being the chief editor and owner of the AUSXIP News and Multimedia Network of sites. When she's not writing, reading, creating art or designing new sites, Mary travels when the travel bug hits and is always on the lookout for new adventures. You can find Mary's sites at www.ausxip.com and her official author site at www.nextchapter.net


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Monday, July 20, 2015

Blog Tour: Every Choice by @AuthorSamRey
8:53 AM0 Comments


New Adult
Date Published: June 13, 2015


Red.

Red is everywhere.
Not just red, blood.
Blood is everywhere.
It is all over me.

Cassie Whitlock has relived that day countless times in her dreams for the past four years. It left more than just physical scars, it has caused her to close herself off to everyone. She no longer believes in love. Love only ends in pain.

That’s why when she meets Luca, she is surprised by the immediate and undeniable attraction between them. She doesn’t want complicated and she knows he’s about to make everything complicated. As their lives become more intertwined, it becomes harder to hide her secrets, and harder to resist him, but when she discovers he has secrets of his own, she begins to question everything. Cassie has to make a choice: hold on to the ghosts of her past or be brave enough to imagine a future.




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Samantha Rey graduated from the University of Mary Washington in Virginia with a degree in theatre and a Master’s in elementary education. While her full-time job is currently teaching third grade just outside of Washington, D.C., her love of theatre, entrancing characters, and never-ending drama has not subsided. She has always loved creating stories and the Every series is culmination of a lot of hard work and following her dreams. When she is not writing, she is reading way too much, choreographing musicals, grading papers, and spending time with her husband and their dog, Paisley. You can follow Samantha on Twitter @authorsamrey, on her website, samantharey.com, or on Facebook, facebook.com/authorsamantharey.
Twitter: @AuthorSamRey



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Screamin' Skull Press
8:50 AM0 Comments



Searching for Rebellion: Two Indie Authors Form Edgy Publishing Company

Tony Nesca and Nicole I. Nesca have one question – where have all the fearless artists gone? Unable to find a mainstream publishing outfit that suited their taste for grittier writing, the Nescas formed their own – Screamin’ Skull Press.
Creators like Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Lucien Carr courted debate and made careers out of pushing the proverbial envelope with their poems, books, music and other creative expressions. Living on the fringes of society was considered to be more exciting and fulfilling than conforming to the mainstream.
Authors and married couple Tony and Nicole Nesca feel connected to that Generation through their own work, and their innate understanding of what it means to be artists whose work cannot be deemed ‘conventional’ by anyone’s standards.
Currently writing, editing and publishing their works through their self-publishing venture, Screamin’ Skull Press, Tony Nesca and Nicole Nesca have both cultivated individual styles but have the same mission.
 “To be frank, we see too much pushed out into the world today that is bland and formulaic,” says Tony Nesca, whose unique, humorous and lyrical sixth novel, ‘Hobo’ is out now. “Every other book is a rip-off of another rip-off. The bookstores are packed with these endless vampire stories and dystopian fairy tales. Where is our Anais Nin? Our Hunter S. Thompson?”
 Screamin’ Skull Press exclusively publishes the works of the Nescas, and along with ‘Hobo’, released Nicole I. Nesca’s collection, ‘Kamikaze White Noise’ this year. Raw, electric and with a free flowing mix of prose and poetry, the companion pieces are explorations of sexual freedom, art, death and love.
 “We knew that mainstream publishers wouldn’t have the courage to publish the kind of work that we want to create,” says Nicole Nesca. “It’s interesting – sometimes we wonder, could Charles Bukowski find success in today’s market? It’s as if bravery is a dirty word in literature. Fearlessness, to me, is everything to a writer. Although we have our own styles, I think that’s one thing that Tony and I saw in each other when we met – that drive to find truth and peel back the layers in our own work.”
 “I think we first fell in love with each other’s writing,” says Tony. “Which was a fitting beginning to our story.”
 Tony Nesca and Nicole I. Nesca have published 18 distinct works through their Indie Press, and their journey toward a more rebellious future for literature continues
For more information about Screamin’ Skull Press, and for details on Tony Nesca and Nicole I. Nesca’s individual works, please visit their website: http://screamingskullpress.blogspot.ca/



All books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu and Itunes as paperbacks and Ebooks – also available directly from Screamin’ Skull Press via credit card or Paypal


All books cost $15.00




Tony Nesca was born in Torino, Italy in 1965 and moved to Canada at the age of three. He was raised in Winnipeg but relocated back to Italy several times until finally settling in Winnipeg in 1980. He taught himself how to play guitar and formed an original rock band playing the local bars for several years. At the age of twenty-seven he traded his guitar for a Commodore 64 and started writing seriously. He has published six chapbooks of stories and poems (which he used to sell straight out of his knapsack at local dives and bookstores), six novels, four books of poetry and has been an active contributor to the underground lit scene for ten years, being published in innumerable magazines both online and in print. He currently resides in Winnipeg.

Tony Nesca and his wife, Nicole-Isabella Nesca, are the editors of the underground publishing company Screamin' Skull Press.





About a Girl
About a girl is a short novel that begins with two strangers, a man and a woman, who meet at a bus-stop and go on an impromptu bar-crawl on a cool, winter day. Taking place in twelve hours it recounts the oddball, hardcore, characters they meet and their increasing emotional connection as they fall for each other almost immediately. Infused with sexual energy, pop-culture references, intellectual debate and literary allusions this is an unapologetic, uncensored look at our society through the eyes of the outsider. It is written in a free-flow, spontaneous style with long unhindered sentences that enable the reader's eye to glide down the page as the story flows and moves to an urban beat of strippers, punk rockers and nightlife happenings.















The Do-Nothing Boys

The Do-Nothing Boys is Tony Nesca's brand new novel, a raucous tale of teenage rebellion recounting the exploits of a teenager named Ziggy, recently returned to Canada after a three year hiatus in his native country of Italy, and the group of friends that spontaneously gather around him. A result of parental divorce, he turns to sex, drugs and rock and roll and in the process discovers deep friendship, love, loss, disintegration, and the beautiful, sad and wondrous experience of living. Written in an incendiary and gritty stream of consciousness, the words cascade down the page in a free-flow waterfall of ideas and happenings, hallucinatory at moments with surreal jaunts of what Nesca himself calls "word music", but never straying far from the downright gritty and street-tough prose, laced throughout with a constant sexual/erotic underpinning.



Crazy Legs
Crazy Legs is a collection of poems written in Tony Nesca's incendiary white-light/white-heat stream of urban consciousness. Both lyrical and street-tough, often in the same breath, the words cascade down the page in a free-flow waterfall of ideas and happenings and what Nesca himself calls "word music". A romantic, sexually charged discourse on life, Crazy Legs reads like latter-day Beat Poetry, but edgier and much more alive.





Dishpig
Dishpig is an experiment, an unconventional approach to writing, a first draft without a single sentence, word or comma altered from the way it was first laid down on the page. Written in five weeks, spontaneously and in a free-flow style, sentences go on for pages, undisciplined and full of vitality, exuberance and sexuality. It chronicles the bawdy adventures of a dishwasher/unpublished writer as he tries to make sense of what it means to be alive. From the fifteen year old Brazilian Maria, to the young, beautiful, wayward Betsy, to the protagonist, Tony, cynical but full of life, Dishpig takes you through the streets and bars of urban Winnipeg and the trendy strips of little Italy. With a keen sense of confused insight and humor, the language whips through a landscape of lost dreams and oddball characters, serious at moments, downright grim at others, but never collapsing to the point of complete defeat. It’s a rush of vitality. It's a sense of living. There hasn't been a book like this in quite some time...





Nicole Nesca was born in Ohio. She developed a love of music, painting and writing early on and continued that love throughout her adult life. While living in Canada, she completed her first three works of poetry and prose collected in the anthology piece, KAMIKAZE WHITE NOISE., and her latest release of poems, Diamond Scarred Alley. She has been published in several E-Zines and has been a part of two anthologies.





KAMIKAZE WHITE NOISE
Kamikaze White Noise is a collection of three books by Nicole I. Nesca, The Sexual Repression Collection, Kink and Canned. Though not a formal trilogy, the books were written as companion pieces and follow the themes of sexual freedom, emotional frankness and street-carnival logic, all written with Nicole Nesca’s usual free-flowing sardonic wit. Kamikaze White Noise is prose and poetry that assaults the senses, liberates the mind and celebrates life on the edge like a perfect quarter-mile drag race.






diamond scarred alley
Poems written with the rebellious angst of a 40-something human who's been driven from the madness and frenzy of the ballrooms of mars.
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