Blog Tour: Alawahea by @saraldaigle @Alawahea #review

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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I loved that this story was so unique and imaginative. The Alien theme was something that while yes, has been done before, is refreshing. Tamara was a great lead character, she was easy to get behind and feel for. 

There are many secrets and twists that make this novel interesting from beginning to end. You will feel like you are constantly learning new things. 

It is just a first in a series, and I am very curious to see where the author takes us next.

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.

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Cover Reveal: Outside, Inside

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.

PROMO: No Good Deed

Historical Romance / Lesbian Romance

Date Published: July 1, 2015

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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Screamin' Skull Press

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

Screamin' Skull Press

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.

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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.

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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.

PROMO: Madison's Song

Paranormal Romance

Date Published: July 15, 2015

Her voice is enchanting; his soul is black…

Madison Carter has been terrified of Scott Lee since the night he saved her from an evil sorcerer – then melted into a man-eating monster before her eyes. The werewolf is a slave to the moon, but Madison’s nightmares are not.

Despite her fears, when Madison’s brother, Clinton, is bitten by a werewolf, she knows there is only one man who can help. A man who frightens her all the more because even in her nightmares, he also thrills her.

Together for the first time since that terrible night, Scott and Madison drive to Clinton’s home only to discover that he’s vanished. Frantic now, Madison must overcome her fears and uncover hidden strengths if she hopes to save him. And she’s not the only one fighting inner demons. Scott’s are literal, and they have him convinced that he will never deserve the woman he loves.

EXCERPT

            “Silence,” David commanded.

            Her throat continued to work, but no sound emerged. She felt like a fish being gutted, choking and spluttering as David returned to the work of cutting into the soft, sensitive flesh of her belly. Yet even as tears refilled her eyes and fear devoured her heart, some part of her recognized that her guts remained intact. Whatever David was doing to her with the dagger involved tracing shallow patterns across the surface of her skin.

            Fight the pain. Take deep breaths. Ground and center. She was not in the empty living room of a house she had not quite moved into yet, she was at church, singing in the choir. Above her, Jesus hung from a cross, a crown of thorns atop his head, a soft glow surrounding him. She usually found the magic within that glow. She reached for it...

            “Stop that!” David slapped her hard across the face.

            Once again her eyes flew open. She saw the dagger dripping with blood – her blood. Had her feeble grab for magic actually made a difference? David seemed to have noticed something, but what?

            “You're just making this harder on yourself,” David said.

            “What do you want?” Madison tried to ask. Her mouth moved, her lips forming the question, but no sound emerged.

            She didn't think he would answer; he couldn't even have heard the question, but to her surprise he only hesitated a moment before saying, “Your soul.”

About the Author

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that affects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams. (You can learn more here.)

In addition to writing, Christine teaches workshops on writing at Savvy Authors. She also does some freelance editing work.

Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children.

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PROMO: Tales of the Winter Wolf

Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Fantasy Thriller/Suspense/Romance

Date Published: July 14, 2015

Long before Nicolina Desmond manifested her powers as a wizard, she was a Normal girl with extraordinary circumstances. In order to prove herself and escape her father’s chokehold on her life, she’s determined to get on the fast track towards an independent life.

However, she never anticipated how meeting Richard Murphy would change her life…

Tales of the Winter Wolf follows the adventures of Nicole and Richard, predominant characters from Witch & Wolf #2, Winter Wolf. Spoilers for the novel are contained within!

Volume One contains the following stories:

Hunted

Nicolina Desmond should have known that her twin’s overly friendly behavior with the eligible Fenerec males would land her in trouble, but she never expected how far young, single werewolves would go to secure a mate.

The Scent of Guilt

When Richard is invited to hunt Nicolina’s kidnappers with her father, he jumps at the chance. With Desmond lusting for blood and violence, Richard is forced to toe the line between mercy, justice, and revenge.

Firecracker

Charles Desmond’s influence isn’t enough to stop those who are determined to take Richard’s rank through force. With Nicolina Desmond out on the hunt to kill him once and for all, he’ll need a lot more than luck to survive his stay with the Desmonds.

Glitter

Richard Murphy has many sides, and Nicolina Desmond is dismayed to discover that he truly has the patience of a hunting wolf and his pranks are just as nefarious as hers. When the bodies of Fenerec turn up in her back yard, however, she might have to kill again, and her target is none other than Yellowknife’s injured Alpha.

Excerpt

Winter was the season of love, romance, and bonding for Fenerec, and I wanted nothing to do with it. In my gamble to escape, leaving my twin to fend off the wolves, I had graduated high school three years early, won early admittance into Stanford, and spent the vast majority of my time in California, far away from my Seattle home.

I had exams in a week, but that hadn’t been enough to deter my father.

It was bad enough having Fenerec parents, but for the next few days, all I had to look forward to was being toted around, put on display, and courted by every single werewolf looking to take advantage of my father’s influence. The werewolves couldn’t even handle the truth; calling them werewolves was a good way to stir their ire, and an angry werewolf had a tendency to hurt people, property, or, as the case often was, both. When they were hunting a mate, their volatile tendencies were doubly worse.

My sister, however, loved every moment of it. Lisa loved Seattle in the winter, with its heavy rain and occasional snowfall. She spent the rest of the year mourning her lost opportunities and lusting for the attention and thrill of being chased by testosterone-poisoned males hoping to win her affections and our father’s good graces.

I, on the other hand, knew better. I was the older sister; I should have been the one with a grip on things, but no. In the eyes of my family, I was the flake, the unreliable one, and the one too stubborn to give in and play the game their way. Attending Stanford at fifteen meant nothing to them, neither did my perfect GPA. I could be a doctor, a lawyer, or anything else I wanted, but that wasn’t good enough.

They wanted me to be the bride of a werewolf, and I wasn’t having it.

While Lisa dressed up when she knew they were coming, I dressed down. Before I had gone off to college, when ratty clothes and a surly temper didn’t work, I left for the city to spend the winter whenever possible, hopping from friend’s house to friend’s house until the werewolves left.

This year, things would be different. I put aside the ratty jeans and bulky sweater in favor of a black skirt and blazer with a pristine white shirt. I wore a silver charm bracelet with a single moonstone pendant, both an acknowledgment of my heritage and a mockery of it. The silver was old that even my father flinched away from it.

If a werewolf did decide to get frisky with me, I’d be more than happy to burn him.

About the Author

RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.

When she isn't playing pretend, she likes to think she's a cartographer and a sumi-e painter. In reality, she herds cats and a husband, and obeys the commands of Tsu Dhi, the great warrior fish.

In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Should that fail, her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until she is satisfied.

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Blog Tour: The Summer Diary by @douglaselyse #excerpt #giveaway

Contemporary Romance

Date Published: May 7, 2015

After her best friend and her husband are killed in a private airplane crash, Keri finds some of her friend’s personal effects, one of which is a diary. When Keri reads it, she discovers her friend had been secretly in love with another man, a soldier. Keri knew nothing about the relationship, even though she and her friend were as close as sisters. 

Determined to find the secret lover, Keri sets off on a journey and discovers the key to her destiny.

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Excerpt

Keri stopped, hovering on the edge of an absurd thought. Should she try to find Ryan? The thought gave her a sudden electric thrill. She stared down into the sand, seeing the eroded ruins of an old sandcastle that had been punished by the hostile tide.

“Ryan,” she said aloud, the sound instantly swallowed up by the beat of waves striking the beach. Keri circled the space, gently kicking at the sand castle, mentally kicking at “what ifs.” What if he’d been killed? What if he’d moved away? What if he was married and didn’t want to remember Sophia? What if Sophia hadn’t revealed the whole truth about the relationship because there was some awful truth about him?

And how could she possibly ever locate Ryan without a last name? Sophia had never once mentioned it. 

In an instant, Keri knew the decision had already been made: She had to find a way to track down and speak to this man. She whirled and marched back across the beach to where she’d left her chair and the diary. There had to be clues in the diary—had to be phrases that could help her find Ryan. At the very least, she could discover what had happened to him.

Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington. Elyse grew up near the sea, roaming the beaches, reading and writing stories and poetry, receiving a Degree in English Literature.  She has enjoyed careers as an English teacher, an actress and a  speech-language pathologist.  She and her husband, Douglas Pennington, have completed five novels: The Other Side of Summer, Christmas for Juliet, Wanting Rita, Christmas Ever After, The Christmas Town and The Christmas Diary.

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Blog Tour: Beach Man

Steamy Contemporary Romance

Date Published: May 30, 2015

Kim is a former Broadway dancer, who feels trapped in a loveless marriage to a jealous wealthy older man.  He blames her for crippling him in an auto accident that he himself caused.

Kim strives to make the marriage work, despite her husband’s blame, verbal abuse and bitterness. 

When she meets a wickedly handsome man on the beach, she fights not to want him, not to want a new life and not to fall in love.  But Derek is seductive and irresistible—a former soldier who recently comes to town to start a landscaping business.  Kim falls hard for him, and he becomes addicted to her.

Although Kim wants a divorce, her husband finds out about their affair, and devises a plot to destroy them both.  They must struggle to survive a web of lies, deceit and dangerous passion.

(Due to adult themes and sexual content, this book is recommended for mature readers.)

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Excerpt

As Derek held the second mug to his lips, he saw her.  Kim.  She entered from the back outside patio and sashayed toward the Ladies Room.  She passed the crowded bar but didn’t see Derek.  Derek’s eyes locked on her and Anita followed his eyes.

The bathroom was occupied, so Kim stood waiting, glancing about.  That’s when she saw Derek and she stiffened in surprise.

Derek smiled and winked. 

Kim lowered her eyes for a moment as if in thought.  A moment later, while Derek was still watching, she turned her shining eyes on him and gave him a coy smile.  She wore red Keds sneakers, deep red lipstick, tight shorts and a yellow clinging T-shirt.  Her hair was neatly rolled up and pinned, revealing that perfect dancer’s neck.  Men at the bar turned and whispered lusty wishes.

After Kim disappeared into the Ladies Room, Natalie hurried by and deposited Anita’s and Derek’s lunches.  Anita dove in, famished, while Derek sat silently waiting for Kim.  She emerged a few minutes later, and drifted over to Derek’s table.  She paused, ignoring Derek, her full focus on Anita.

“Hi, Anita.  It’s good to see you again.”

Kim felt Derek’s eyes moving up and down her body.  She allowed her smoldering eyes to drift toward him.

“Hello, Derek.”

He nodded.  “Are you here with a friend?” Derek asked.

Kim’s eyes lingered on his lips.  “Not a friend… my husband.  He seldom goes out, but he’d heard about this place and wanted to give it a try.”

“How does he like it?”

“Fine… He ordered the fish and chips, just like Anita.”

Derek stared at the shiny luster of her hair, and he fought an irrational impulse to reach for her hand and pull her down into his lap.

“Well, got to go,” Kim said.  “My husband’s waiting.  Good to see you both.”

After she’d gone, Derek ate quietly.  Anita studied him.

“You’re distracted by her.  I’ve never seen that in you.  Be careful, Derek.  Very careful.”

- See more at: http://paranormalbookfairy.blogspot.com/2015/06/beach-man-by-annabel-foxx.html?zx=a71ef8f16ced8b00#sthash.1YI0Lh29.dpuf

I love to read and write novels.  I'm also a loner, who loves to drink copious amounts of coffee--and I won't turn down a good bourbon if it's offered by a handsome man... or indeed, by any kind and generous man.

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I'm a Scorpio, and I love the beach.  I have a background in graphic design and creative writing.  My mother kept diaries and wrote short stories about Christmas, old lovers and travel.

My cat, Count Elvis, loves cognac and Pop Tarts.

Reading on the beach is one of the great delights of life.  Sun, sea and sand.  Ahhh... and then I pick up a book and dive into a story.   I love everything gold: golden tans, golden hair, golden sunsets and golden earrings.

My husband, Dane, is a diver and sun worshiper.

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