Blog Tour · Book Promo · Books · New Releases · Reviews

BLOG TOUR! – Cast in Shadow (Revelations Series – Book 3)

✯✯Cast in Shadow✯✯
-Revelations Series Book 3-
Releases March 22nd!

Blurb:
The final seals of the apocalypse are within the enemy’s grasp. Our trio—the demon, the shapeshifter, and the succubus—continue to battle the djinn hell-bent on world domination. With God and Lucifer missing, Heaven and Hell are more vulnerable than ever, while Earth has been reduced to a battleground of famine and despair. Will Lenny, Drew and Polly be able to unmask the Master and stop their evil plan? Or will the djinn succeed and our heroes find that their world has been forever Cast in Shadow?

Buy links:
Amazon US: http://goo.gl/J4tZFd
Amazon UK: http://goo.gl/x2Vpmh
Amazon AU: http://goo.gl/QlhTiW
Kobo: https://goo.gl/3ZXzHw
B&N: http://goo.gl/TRRcHj
Smashwords: http://goo.gl/0hPqv3
iBooks: https://goo.gl/WmLhxa

About the Authors

Lisa Lane has been writing dark speculative fiction for over twenty-five years. She has ten published novels and dozens of published short stories. She is married to editor and educator Thomas B. Lane Jr. and currently resides in the outskirts of Sin City.

Her published works include the traditional Gothic horror novel, Finding Poe; the World-Mart trilogy, a dystopian tribute to Orwell, Serling, and Vonnegut; the dark allegorical tale, Myths of Gods; Revelations, a collaborative urban fantasy trilogy; and the dramatic horror novella series, Jane the Hippie Vampire.

Find Lisa online:
Facebook
Website

Jaime Johnesee lives in Michigan with her husband and two sons. She spent fourteen years as a zookeeper before shifting her focus to writing full time. Known for her bestselling horror comedy series, Bob the Zombie, she is also currently coauthoring the paranormal horror series, Revelations, for Devil Dog Press as well as her Samantha Reece series.

Find Jaime online:
Facebook
Website

Christine Sutton is the author of more than fifteen short stories, novellas and novels. While she tends to cross genres within horror, she is always passionate about scaring the hell out of you.

Her passion would have to be serial killer fiction, but she also loves ghosts, ghouls, demons and monsters of all types. Christine’s work ranges from modern day fairy tales to demonic soul eaters to ghostly children that just want to play. Her writing has been called passionate, realistic, gritty, fun, enthralling and tons of other cool adjectives.

You, too can pick up some of Christine’s work and come up with some cool adjectives of your own. It won’t be hard. I promise.

Find Christine online:
Facebook
Website

Blog Tour · Book Promo · Books · New Releases · Reviews

BLOG TOUR – EMANCIPATION by Jo Michaels

Your world is about to change.
The highly anticipated psychological thriller
EMANCIPATION
by award-winning author Jo Michaels
is now available here.

Read on…

Tobias Butler has been sitting on death row since being sentenced for a gruesome murder in 2007. Bored out of his mind, he decided to apply to the online pen pal program in 2012. It’s a pleasant distraction—nothing more, nothing less—for three years, until he’s contacted by a beautiful, smart young lawyer named Jess. She’s convinced he’s innocent and wants to see him freed. As they organize their attack on the judicial system, he wonders how she plans to get his conviction overturned—because he’s guilty, and he knows it. Jess is desperate to release him—and he’s desperate to feel his hands squeeze the life out of her once she does.

This novel will keep you on the edge of your seat. Tobias is planning to murder the beautiful attorney, Jessica, who’s promising to get him released from prison. See what happens as he manipulates her into believing in love, second chances, and justice for the wrongfully accused. She wants his love, and he wants her soul. What will happen when she sets him free?

You’ll pray he doesn’t get the girl.

But you can get him.
Buy your copy on Amazon here.

This isn’t your mother’s romance novel. It’s 70k words of dark, gritty, and terrifying.


Nightlights will become the norm as Tobias sucks you into his world and leaves you breathless.

About the author:

Jo Michaels is…

Hi, I’m Jo. Let’s forget all the “Jo Michaels is blah, blah, blah” stuff and just go with it. I’m a voracious reader (often reading more than one book at a time), a writer, a book reviewer, a mom, a wife, and one of the EICs at INDIE Books Gone Wild. I have an almost photographic memory and tend to make people cringe at the number of details I can recall about them and/or their book(s). My imagination follows me around like a conjoined twin and causes me to space out pretty often or laugh out loud randomly in completely inappropriate situations.

One of my favorite things is hearing from fans! You can find me on social media most any day of the week. Connect! I’d love to hear from you.

Ways to follow:

Website  ~  Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Blog  ~  Pinterest  ~  Instagram  ~  Tsu  ~  YouTube  ~  Wattpad  ~  Amazon Author Page  ~  Goodreads

Just in case you missed that link, you can score your copy of this novel here.

Caption phrase for FB party:
KILLER RED

I hope you all enjoyed the heck out of this post, and I hope you come and join the party on Facebook. I’m over there giving away themed prizes and all manner of fun stuff. Come on down! We’ll be at it from 11AM EST until I’m exhausted and can’t take anymore!
Well, that’s all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!
Jo 

(END BLOGGER HTML)

(PLAIN TEXT)

Your world is about to change.
The highly anticipated psychological thriller
EMANCIPATION
by award-winning author Jo Michaels
is now available here: http://bit.ly/1Q41Nhf

Read on…

Tobias Butler has been sitting on death row since being sentenced for a gruesome murder in 2007. Bored out of his mind, he decided to apply to the online pen pal program in 2012. It’s a pleasant distraction—nothing more, nothing less—for three years, until he’s contacted by a beautiful, smart young lawyer named Jess. She’s convinced he’s innocent and wants to see him freed. As they organize their attack on the judicial system, he wonders how she plans to get his conviction overturned—because he’s guilty, and he knows it. Jess is desperate to release him—and he’s desperate to feel his hands squeeze the life out of her once she does.

This novel will keep you on the edge of your seat. Tobias is planning to murder the beautiful attorney, Jessica, who’s promising to get him released from prison. See what happens as he manipulates her into believing in love, second chances, and justice for the wrongfully accused. She wants his love, and he wants her soul. What will happen when she sets him free?

You’ll pray he doesn’t get the girl.

But you can get him.
Buy your copy on Amazon here: http://bit.ly/1Q41Nhf

This isn’t your mother’s romance novel. It’s 70k words of dark, gritty, and terrifying.

Nightlights will become the norm as Tobias sucks you into his world and leaves you breathless.

About the author:

Jo Michaels is…

Hi, I’m Jo. Let’s forget all the “Jo Michaels is blah, blah, blah” stuff and just go with it. I’m a voracious reader (often reading more than one book at a time), a writer, a book reviewer, a mom, a wife, and one of the EICs at INDIE Books Gone Wild. I have an almost photographic memory and tend to make people cringe at the number of details I can recall about them and/or their book(s). My imagination follows me around like a conjoined twin and causes me to space out pretty often or laugh out loud randomly in completely inappropriate situations.

One of my favorite things is hearing from fans! You can find me on social media most any day of the week. Connect! I’d love to hear from you.

Ways to follow:

Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Blog ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Tsu ~ YouTube ~ Wattpad ~ Amazon Author Page ~ Goodreads

Just in case you missed that link, you can score your copy of this novel here: http://bit.ly/1Q41Nhf

Books · Reviews

KEEPING SECRETS (Saving Zoë) By Alyson Noël

Amazon.com – Keeping Secrets

Amazon.com – Saving Zoë

Keeping Secrets is one of those awesome book reissues involving two stories, Faking 19 and Saving Zoë. I decided to split this review into a “Part 1/Part 2” review, just so nothing gets confusing, and because they both deserve their own attention. I have already posted my review for Faking 19, which you can see here.

Genre: Young Adult/Fiction/Tween

Plot: In Alyson Noël’s newest teen novel, one sister’s secrets save the other’s life–in more ways than one.

Meet fifteen-year-old Echo, a typical teen trying to survive high school without being totally traumatized by boy trouble, friend drama, and school issues. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate, Echo is also still dealing with the murder of her sister Zoë. Although it’s been over a year, Echo is still reeling from tragedy that changed everything. Beautiful and full of life, Zoë was the glue that held her family together, and although the two sisters were as different as night and day, they still had a bond that Echo can’t let go of. When Zoë’s old boyfriend Marc shows up one day with Zoë’s diary, Echo doesn’t think there’s anything in there she doesn’t already know. But as she gives in to curiosity and starts reading, she learns that her sister led a secret life that no one could have guessed–not even Echo.

Opinion: I would first like to say that it was a FANTASTIC idea to put Saving Zoë as the second story in this reissue. If it had been first, than I would have been pretty disappointed reading Faking 19 after a story like this. This is one of those books that will leave your inner child feeling a bit squirmy and queasy, but ultimately leaving a reminder behind about the dangers of the internet and strangers. Books like this need to be required reading in junior high and high schools; but since they are not, I recommend sipping this dose of reality.

Echo is fifteen and starting high school with her two best friends, Abby and Jenay, who are more than optimistic at their chance of meeting new friends and boys. But if starting high school wasn’t stressful enough, the looks and whispers that Echo receives when she walks by her classmates doesn’t help. Readers connect with Echo just one year after the disappearance and murder of her older sister Zoë, and her feelings of loss are more present than ever. Not only are the people around her accidentally dropping constant reminders; but being in the same school with Zoë’s old boyfriend Marc proves to be challenging, especially when Marc was a suspect in her murder.  But when Marc reaches out to Echo one day and gives her Zoë’s old diary, her world is split wide open as she falls into the life of a sister she thought she knew inside and out. Soon Echo realizes the true story behind what happened to her sister; as well as finding herself along the way.

After reading this book, I sat in my chair for a few minutes feeling disgusted and sad. I am really not a big reader of any book that involves sexual abuse, stranger danger, or gruesome murders. Call me a pansy (I dare you 😉 ) but it just gets way too serious for me sometimes. But here I am, reading another book that makes me scream WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO YOURSELF, and not giving one single damn! Though these kinds of stories completely “weird me out”, I still find myself coming across them and getting sucked into every detail of the plots. Most of the time, these stories always turn out great because of the message they leave behind for readers. If an author can make me feel physically and mentally drained and saddened by a fictional story, they have my full attention from then on.

The character of Echo is your typical teenage girl that was cast in the shadow of her amazing and bubbly older sister. Echo is a prime example of a sibling that has faced a loss at a young age, while also trying to figure out how to find who she is and what she wants. I found Echo to be a bit confusing, and I didn’t connect with her character nearly as much as I connected with the story as a whole. I think the reader gets the general sense of her and how she acts/reacts, but I don’t feel like I really got to know her as much as we get to know Zoë. On another note, I loved how to author gave a little bit of what happens to Zoë throughout the story instead of just throwing it all at us at the beginning. I find that I stay interested when I only get hints towards what happened in a story about someone being killed, and it builds towards the ending in such a better way.

I think every female should read this, or a story similar, because it gives us all that little reminder to be aware of who we talk to on the internet. The internet, and the world for that matter, can be a scary and twisted place when we don’t have that constant reminder that terrible things could happen if we aren’t careful. I found that coming across books like this in high school kept me aware for myself, because sometimes listening to your parents repeat it constantly loses its impact. I HIGHLY recommend this to girls, women, boys, and even parents! This is a very insightful and heart wrenching story that I think can benefit a lot of people.

4 Stars

612B40E9C1CD2F68AD9B9A8097CED4FF

Books · Reviews

KEEPING SECRETS (Faking 19) by Alyson Noel

Amazon.com – Keeping Secrets

Amazon.com – Faking 19

Keeping Secrets is one of those awesome book reissues involving two stories, Faking 19 and Saving Zoë. I decided to split this review into a “Part 1/Part 2” review, just so nothing gets confusing, and because they both deserve their own attention.

Genre: Young Adult/Fiction/Tween

Plot: A beautifully repackaged two-in-one reissue of Saving Zoe and Faking 19 by #1 New York Times bestselling author Alyson Noël

Secret wishes, hidden heartaches and painful truths. Everyone has them―but some secrets are harder to hide.

We usually tell our best friends everything. Our crushes, our embarrassing stories, our secrets―but sometimes there are truths so deep and dark that we can’t tell anyone. Not our parents, not our sisters…not even our best friends. Some secrets are so unspeakable that we keep them safely locked away so no one will ever discover them.

But what happens when they become more than you can handle alone? In these two magnificent novels, two girls can’t tell anyone about the terrible burdens they carry. But as they’re about to learn, it’s not our secrets that matter most―but those who still love us once they learn the truth.

Opinion: I truly had no expectations going into these two stories, except for the fact that I knew it was a Tween/YA read that would be light and fun. It proved to be just that: fun and exciting, innocent and mischievous, incredibly secretive but very honest. I think it was a great first start to the two books in this reissue collection.

Faking 19 is about a girl named Alex who lives in Orange County with her mother, and is dealing with the few weeks leading up to her possible graduation from high school. With her best friend M, who also happens to be one of the most beautiful and popular girls in her school, they decide to make their current situation more exciting by going to Los Angeles and experiencing the glamorous lifestyle. After soon meeting Connor and Trevor, two older and wealthy guys from England, the lies about their age any other things start to form. Readers follow Alex and M as they struggle with their social and personal lives, and secrets that they keep buried.

I read The Immortals by Alyson Noël in back in the day, and got completely hooked on her young adult romance writing. Her writing has always been simplistic and real, in the sense that I always get hooked right in but it is also usually an even paced read. Faking 19 proved to keep to the author’s style, but with a definitely more realistic take on a teenage girl. The reader catches up with Alex as she seems to be in quite a funk; she’s failing most of her classes, she isn’t as involved in her school as she used to be, and she is angry at her dad for not helping her and her mother financially when he left. M, Alex’s best friend, might be gorgeous and extremely wealthy but her parents are never home. Alex and M are your stereotypical California girls who are dramatic and “just wanna have fun”. They decide to start visiting L.A. more and eventually meet two older guys from London named Connor and Trevor.

I think the relationships between the girls and the two guys they meet was actually fairly realistic in most ways. I found myself becoming suspicious of Connor though, especially when it came to either of the boys realizing how young they were! I mean come on, I think you would know. …then again, the girls these days do look quite a bit older. Weird. I think the author did a great job of portraying the very different issues that M and Alex share in their home life, but that they are both quite similar in the sense that their parents are a bit absent. I think this read really proved to be a great coming-of-age story, and it dove into a lot of issues that young girls face when they are trying to figure out who they are or who they want to be.

All in all, cute story. This isn’t a genre I would probably read still, but it brought me back to my teen years and was enjoyable. I have no qualms at all with this story, so give it a try if you’re into the Tween/YA genre and want to read something laid back!

4 Stars

612B40E9C1CD2F68AD9B9A8097CED4FF

Books · Reviews

FAR FROM YOU by Tess Sharpe

Farfromyou

Amazon.com: Far From You by Tess Sharpe

BarnesandNoble.com – Far From You by Tess Sharpe

Genre: Young Adult/Fiction/Mystery

Similar Writings: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, The F**k It List by Julie Halpern, Wrecked by E. R. Frank

Plot: Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice.

The first time, she’s fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that’ll take years to kick.

The second time, she’s seventeen, and it’s no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina’s murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery.

After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina’s brother won’t speak to her, her parents fear she’ll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina’s murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina and about the secret they shared.

Opinion:

…Damn.

THIS. This is exactly what I have been looking for in a book. Something that will bring me back to my young and innocent adolescent days. Something that makes me feel guilty for putting the book down, even if it was just for a moment. Something…where the plot and the writing are FANTASTIC. I started reading this book expecting a similar story to many other YA books I have read, but what I got, was pleasantly surprising.

This story takes us through flashbacks and present day surrounding our main character Sophie, her past and present of being an addict, and the murder of her best friend Mina. Not only do we realize fairly quickly that Sophie is accident prone and fantastic at “cheating” death; we learn that she and her friend were attacked by a man in a mask and it resulted in her best friend being shot and killed. Unfortunately for Sophie, due to her past drug use, everyone including her parents believe that the reason Mina was murdered was because Sophie was trying to score drugs. Now, after just being released out of rehab, Sophie is on a mission to find out who really killed the closest person to her. But unbeknownst to the eye, there is more than just a murder mystery surrounding Mina and Sophie.

It’s surprising to find out that this is the first book from author Tess Sharpe, because MAN can that woman write! The creative writing junkie inside me was literally on one (ha ha ha) the entire time I was reading. Not only did I read this in less than four hours, but I was just emotionally blown away with the way the author writes. She is fantastic at diving into serious emotions and describing them with a wonderful and simplistic poetic style. I was absolutely swooning at how she compiled her characters thoughts and dialogue, I felt like I knew these people inside and out.

“Later, I stare at his face in the moonlight and wonder if he can tell I kissed him like I already know the shape of his lips. Like I’ve mapped them in my mind, in another life. Learned them from another person who shared his eyes and nose and mouth, but who is never coming back.”

-Sophie

Not only is this book just bleeding of sorrow and pain and heartbreak, but it takes a spin to a place I wasn’t expecting at all. Not only is there a combination of Young Adult and Teen drama, there is a mystery throughout the story and an even bigger issue than what the reader might think is the most obvious. I am NOT going into ANY kind of depth about what I may or may not be talking about here, this is one thing that cannot be spoiled. That would be incredibly cruel to you and the story.

I think the author did a fairly decent job of capturing the multiple angles of addiction. I was very happy that she put light on the fact that even after an addict becomes clean, they will always be an addict to themselves and most times to everyone else as well. Not only does the reader follow Sophie through her grueling quest to become clean, but we see the aftereffects of it as well. Day by day she has to remind herself of how long she has been clean, as a means to keep her strong, especially when everyone around her believes that she was the reason for Mina’s death. I think the author truly tackled the life and events of an addict by showing that even after Sophie was clean, everyone around her still expected her to relapse and fail. I think moments like this in the story is when the reader will really connect and hurt with Sophie.

“My dad grabs me around the waist, breaking my hold, and lifts me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. It’s gentle, Dad is always gentle with me, like how he used to carry me upstairs after the accident. But I’m done with his gentleness. It’s doesn’t make me feel safe anymore. I pound on his back, red faced, yelling, but it doesn’t stop him. He yanks the front door open, and my mother stands on the porch, watching us, her arms hugging her body like it’ll protect her.

He strides down the driveway and dumps me into the car, his face stony as he slides into the driver’s seat.

‘Dad.’ Tears are slick down my cheeks. ‘Please. I need you to believe me.’

He ignores me, fires up the engine, and drives.”

-Sophie

This is, honestly, one of those books that will make you feel like you’ve been gutted. After you have finished it, if you are like me, you will sit there feeling so many emotions that you can’t even pick one to latch onto. I finished this story feeling angry about what did and did not happen, but extremely satisfied. It was heart wrenching and emotion grabbing, and I guess that is really all I can ask for in a book. Well done Tess Sharpe, you have a knack for pissing readers off in the BEST possible way. 🙂

5 Stars

612B40E9C1CD2F68AD9B9A8097CED4FF