Lake of Sins series by L. S. O'Dea - Virtual Tour and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. One randomly drawn commenter via Rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN Gift Card. Please click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Today, the author is sharing a little about what makes her afraid as an author. Thanks for visiting our blog!

As an author what scares me the most is handing over my work for the first time. As much as I believe that the story is more inside of me than created by me, it is still mine to protect. I let it out of my mind and nurture it, shaping, editing, and revising. Then one day, I have to let it go. It must be similar to what a parent feels when sending their child off to school for the first time. You desperately want everyone to like (heck, love) your child, but you know that there are going to be some who don’t.

I was so afraid when I handed off the first book. I deliberated a long time on who I should ask. I finally chose my niece. She has the kindest heart of anyone I know. Even with that being said, I was terrified. I wanted her honest opinion but I also wanted her to like it. She later told me that she was also afraid. She wasn’t sure if she’d like the book and was afraid to hurt my feelings. Luckily for both of us, she enjoyed the story.

This fear is getting a little more manageable since I’ve received good feedback on my first two books. I now have a group of beta readers, mostly family, who I can trust to give me honest feedback (I also know that they like my genre and style – so that helps). I don’t think that there will ever come a time when I don’t fear the feedback the first time I release a book. I still get nervous when I see a new review on Amazon. I say a little prayer that it will be a good review and if not that then at least a kind one. However, I do think that this fear will lesson with time and experience. I wonder what fear is waiting in the recesses of my mind to takes its place.

Now it's time to check out the books!

In a world where class distinction means the difference between imprisonment and freedom and even life and death, being chosen to stay in the encampment and breed is the only way to guarantee survival for a teenage Producer.

Every year after harvest, the finest examples of teenage Producers are assigned mates; the rest are loaded onto carts and hauled away, never to be seen or heard from again. Trinity, a sixteen-year-old Producer, knows that she has no chance of being chosen to stay. She isn’t even full-blooded Producer. Her father is a House Servant and she’s spent her entire life hiding her differences, especially her claws and fangs.

She has one week to sneak into the forest and discover what happens to those who are taken. Her plan is simple, but she doesn’t count on being hunted and captured by predators long believed to be extinct. Can she elude her captors to uncover the fate of her kind and return to camp before her escape is discovered?

Trinity's plans have gone horribly wrong and she is now fleeing for her life, but at what cost to her friends and family. Can she save any of them without sacrificing herself?

Hugh Truent, an Almighty, learns of Trinity’s escape and that she is the offspring of two different classes which is supposed to be impossible. If it’s true, it would be the discovery of a lifetime, but he needs scientific proof. In his quest for answers, he soon realizes that there are those who will kill to keep this find a secret.

Trinity’s struggle to survive in a society based on absolute segregation of the different classes along with Hugh’s dogged determination to find the truth at any cost, sets into motion a collision between the groups that shatters the foundation of their world.

Read an excerpt from ESCAPE

She ran blindly away from the sound of the Guards, her backpack slamming against her spine with each stride. If they catch my scent, they will find me. She skidded to a stop. The forest had ended. A rock wall loomed in front of her, stretching to both sides as far as she could see. Little crevices and divots peppered the wall, but it was too steep to climb. She had to make a choice. The wrong one would cost her freedom, maybe her life.

The trees rustled behind her. Too late. They found me. This had all been for nothing. Now, the best she could hope for was to be taken with the others. Her chest tightened. She had to make sure that her mom and Remy weren’t punished because she escaped. She raised her hands to her shoulders and slowly turned. Her breath caught in her throat. A Tracker, the deadliest of predators, stood on its back two legs, towering above her, front legs hanging down like arms. Brindle fur covered its body and its eyes glowed yellow in the shadowed forest. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth, exposing a row of sharp teeth on the other side. Someone should tell it that they no longer exist in the wild.

About the Author: L. S. O'Dea grew up the youngest of seven. She always wanted to do what her older siblings were doing, especially reading stories.

Ill at a young age, she immersed herself in books. Her life changed when she read a short story written by her older brother and realized that normal (somewhat anyway, since her brother was a bit weird in her opinion) people created these amazing stories. From that day forward, she wanted to write.

However, as with all good stories, obstacles rose in her path (mostly self-created obstacles) and it took her many years to put finger to keyboard and type her first book.

Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Website ~ Blog ~ Amazon Author Central

The first book of the series is on sale for $0.99 until the end of the tour.

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Love Spell by Mia Kerick - Virtual Tour and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Mia will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Welcome to It's Raining Books, Mia. I hear you're feeling brave enough to share five things about yourself we might not guess or know.

Thank you for welcoming me to It’s Raining Books on my Love Spell Book Tour! I really like your guest blog post idea. It’s a new one for me. And I’m gonna have to think about it for a while.

Okay. I’m back. I think I’ve come up with a few mini-shockers. Just kidding… but there is some information here you might not have guessed about Mia Kerick.

As a high school student, my goal was to be famous. Yes, I wanted to be a star. I tried to sing my way to stardom (private classical vocal lesson for years), to strut my way there (lots of beauty pageants), to act my teenage butt off (summer stock theater), as well as to model. In my efforts to be a model, in high school I did some stupid things I would be furious at my children for doing, such as following a supposed photographer deep into a woodsy park, hanging a curtain in the trees to change my clothes behind, and modeling bathing suits and jumpsuits while leaning on rocks and trees. Sounds like a Criminal Minds episode waiting to happen, doesn’t it? (Luckily, it wasn’t.) As a freshman at Boston College, I hadn’t yet lost my desire for fame so I went to Newbury Street in Boston, dressed glamorously and carrying a handful of pictures from my potentially hazardous photo shoot in the woods, and visited various modeling agencies. At one agency, a top-dog-like man came out of his office, glanced at me briefly, and immediately proclaimed, “Her nose is too wide.” One agent asked no one in particular, “Why do all pretty girls think they have what is takes to be a model?” Still another told me, “Lose twenty pounds and come back.” (At 5’6”, I weighed 114 pounds back then.) But one agency, a children’s agency, was interested. I returned to Newbury Street within the week for my portfolio to be shot, and I will say, for a children’s agency, the photographer certainly took some risqué pictures of me. This was my last venture into modeling, as I suddenly became enthralled with the notion of being a high school social studies teacher. But I forever worried that my high school students would come across a racy picture of me online that would… um… interfere with my teaching career.

That revelation was long. Let’s count it for two, shall we?

My next revelation will be more of a confession. As far as television goes, I am addicted to crime and baseball. Nothing else is worth watching, in my humble opinion.

Let’s start with the crime shows I love to watch. I enjoy crime of all types. (No, I don’t enjoy it when crime actually occurs in real life, but there’s just something about the detective story—the horrifying crime, the examination of the facts, the science of the forensics, the pressing drama—that hooks me and drags me in.) I enjoy some weekly series, like Criminal Minds, CSI (I only like Miami and Las Vegas), and Law and Order in all of its varieties. I watch the same episodes over and over without getting bored or frustrated. There is nothing better than an all-weekend Law and Order Marathon—ah, there’s nothing like it. And true crime shows—I’m pretty much addicted to them. For some odd reason, they relax me. (Yeah, go figure.) Forensic Files is a favorite, as is EVERYTHING on the new ID television station on my cable. As a matter of fact, a repeat of 48 Hours is on right now. Comforting background sounds for my writing efforts.

And then there’s baseball. Could anything be more different from crime than baseball? Maybe, but I can’t think of it right now. I guess it’s because I understand baseball that I enjoy it. I (for the most part) am cool with the rules and the strategy. I get to know the guys on my team, The Boston Red Sox, by May, and I start to care about them. (I truly want them to be pleased with their own performances on the field. It is my top priority as a baseball fan.) I enjoy the “low-key” nature of baseball that haters call “boring”. Baseball is an in-control type of sport, except for the occasional bench-clearing brawl, and like crime stories, I find it comforting.

I don’t, however, write novels focusing on crime or baseball. Writers are quirky people, huh?

Hmm…. What else shall I tell you about me? Here’s a big one, and it relates to my romance writing. I have wanted to get married ever since I was eleven. Well, when I was eleven, I didn’t see what I longed for as “marital bliss”, but I remember back in the summer after fifth grade when I saw couples holding hands on the beach that I wanted what they had. And since the age of sixteen, I was definitely actively searching for Mr. Right AKA Mr. Permanent. It took me until I was almost twenty-seven to find him. Ironic, isn’t it?

One more interesting fact that you would never guess…. I have never been bored in my life. Never. My mind, like my main character Chance César’s in Love Spell, tends to overthink things. I actually hate to go to bed at night because I like being awake and thinking. So, I push off bedtime until 3AM or so. (I keep very odd hours.)

And now you know things about Mia Kerick that my four children do not know.

Strutting his stuff on the catwalk in black patent leather pumps and a snug orange tuxedo as this year’s Miss (ter) Harvest Moon feels so very right to Chance César, and yet he knows it should feel so very wrong.

As far back as he can remember, Chance has been “caught between genders.” (It’s quite a touchy subject; so don’t ask him about it.) However, he does not question his sexual orientation. Chance has no doubt about his gayness—he is very much out of the closet at his rural New Hampshire high school, where the other students avoid the kid they refer to as “girl-boy.”

But at the local Harvest Moon Festival, when Chance, the Pumpkin Pageant Queen, meets Jasper Donahue, the Pumpkin Carving King, sparks fly. So Chance sets out, with the help of his BFF, Emily, to make “Jazz” Donahue his man.

An article in an online women’s magazine, Ten Scientifically Proven Ways to Make a Man Fall in Love with You (with a bonus love spell thrown in for good measure), becomes the basis of their strategy to capture Jazz’s heart.

Quirky, comical, definitely flamboyant, and with an inner core of poignancy, Love Spell celebrates the diversity of a gender-fluid teen.

Enjoy an excerpt:

Lost: One Rat’s Ass, $10,000 Reward if Found and Returned In Good Condition to Rightful Owner

My parents are what you might call “rather apathetic” with regard to their sentiments toward the one who will, in theory, carry on the César name. Or at least that’s how I see it. Fair warning—I’m a person who likes to call spades exactly what they are. And even if I so badly wish the spade was a club, I still call the frigging thing a spade. So yeah, when I was young, I used to pretend like Mom and Dad gave a crap, but you can only pretend for so damned long. Now that I’m seventeen, any and all remnants of the “I love you, you love me—we’re a happy family” charade are ancient history.

Nope. They don’t give a rat’s ass about their only child, Chance.

Now don’t get me wrong—Mom and Dad possess no wish for lousy shit to fly my way. They just aren’t into the whole parenting thing, and I figure that’s their right.

But on the brighter side, they don’t give a rat’s ass that I’m gay. Nope, there’s no horrific, scarring homophobia going on in the César family home. And get this: my big “coming out of the closet” last year consisted of three lines of dialogue between my parents and moi:

Me: Mom, Dad… I’m gay… and I just thought you guys might want to know.

Dad (yawning): That’s nice, Chance.

Mom: Yeah, that’s great. Oh, by the way, it’s get-your-own-dinner-night… again.

Nope, nothing emotionally scarring there.

Good thing I’m the kind of guy who chooses to focus on the positive. I can walk around the house in full female stripper garb, and nobody bats an eyelash. If I conjure up any reaction at all, it might be that my mother asks me where I bought my sexy stretch-lace naughty knickers, as she’s been looking for ones in that color. And speaking of color choices, neither Mom nor Dad said a single word when I showed up with my hair dyed the flamboyant shade of a Cheez Doodle. Not only do I have complete freedom with how I express my personal style, but when I go all drama-queen mode on their asses, my parents just look at each other and shrug. In fact, I try—and I try fucker-nelly hard—but I just can’t shock these people.

I can barely get them to notice me.

Mia Kerick is the mother of four exceptional children—all named after saints—and five nonpedigreed cats—all named after the next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox players. Her husband of twenty-two years has been told by many that he has the patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about that, as it is a sensitive subject.

Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled young people and their relationships, and she believes that physical intimacy has a place in a love story, but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to Dreamspinner Press, Harmony Ink Press, CoolDudes Publishing, and CreateSpace for providing her with alternate places to stash her stories.

Mia is a social liberal and cheers for each and every victory made in the name of human rights, especially marital equality. Her only major regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods of Technology.

Stop by Mia’s Blog with questions or comments, or simply share what’s on your mind. Find Mia on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/mia.kerick), Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6474518.Mia.Kerick), and Amazon (http://amazon.com/Mia-Kerick/e/B009KSTG9E/).

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Beacon by Angela Brown - Guest post and giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Angela will be awarding a $75 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Please give Angela a big welcome!

Hi! I’m Angela Brown, author of the YA urban fantasy dystopian, Beacon, published by Evernight Teen. For today’s visit, I’d like to share a few things about me that you may not have guessed.

First, I have a daughter nicknamed Chipmunk for her ability to hide chicken nuggets in her cheeks as a toddler - but if you knew me prior to meeting her father, then you’d never guess I’d ever have a child. I wasn’t anti-kiddos. I was thrilled for friends that had children. I just didn’t want any. Puking? Pee that can shoot in your mouth if the little darling was a boy? Crying? Similac smell? Although Chipmunk’s father and I didn’t work out, I’m so glad his season in my life brought about the most precious gift I could ever have. All those things I had problems with were simply par for the course. I just love her so much.

Second, I harbor a secret crush/admiration for the Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki. I personally consider the man an anime genius who could do no wrong, but he’s human, I’m sure he’s imperfect in some kind of way.

Speaking of anime, I love the wide variety of anime at my fingertips. But - and here’s the third thing you wouldn’t guess - I’ve never read a single manga. For those cocking that one eyebrow up just a bit, manga equals Japanese comics. Most anime began as manga. Sadly, I just haven’t gotten a chance to check any of them out *enter sadface*

As an student, I enjoyed English in school, but you’d never guess this fourth thing: in my senior year of high school, I caught a terrible case of senior-itis + rebellion and challenged my AP English teacher on everything! I nearly flunked out from not wanting to do the assignments exactly how she wanted. Thankfully, a bit of common sense slipped in before one more bad grade could send me to summer school.

Lastly, although I write and pray/wish/desire/beg-and-plead-to-readers-to-help-make-it-happen to write full time, I once pursued singing as an option. I was in choir for most of my life and in high school, I auditioned for and was accepted to our high school’s Madrigals. We were considered the “elite” concert choir. But like with English, a bit of senior-itis had my brain in so many places that I didn’t continue on the path of singing in college. I was a part of a singing group with friends, but we did little more than the occasional singing visit to local churches.

All in all, I can say things turned out okay. Here I am getting a chance to share my passion with all of you :-)

And yeah, that’s definitely a good thing.

Tsunamis reduced the USA into a shell of itself, called The Fold. Surviving humans and vampires joined forces to form The Colony, where registered citizens do as they're told.

They donate blood quarterly and dream of being chosen as Attendees for the Jubilee celebrations, that is, everyone except Macie Breen. With high school graduation near, she’s anxious to ditch the rules in hopes of starting a new life with Thane, an unregistered and also her best friend.

Her hopes fizzle when Macie is selected as an Attendee, forever registered. Any future with Thane…impossible. Being chosen comes with another unexpected price.

Truths about The Colony blaze into ashes and lies when she discovers the vampires haven't kept their part of the bargain. Worst still, Macie’s life unravels as her stint in the city of Bliss forces her to face daunting truths about who, and what, she really is.

Enjoy this excerpt:

The corner of Thane’s lips curved in his infamous smirk. “I’m here to protect you from you, silly.”

The elevator dinged our arrival to our floor. Thankfully, floors for the Attendees were guarded by other Surreption agents, to prevent citizens from accessing them by surprise––and to keep out the expected rebel against Bliss.

I fell silent, thinking about Thane’s answer. Any other day, it would have been a joke. We’d ha, ha, ha, laugh it off as Thane being the smartass he was. I’d punch him in the shoulder. He’d feign pain and we’d move on. But now, what if he was right? Not just keeping me from taking my anger out on some pink-haired guy making fun of me. But from whomever—or whatever—I really am. What if it was the world that needed protection from me?

Born and raised in Little Rock, AR, Angela now calls Central Texas home. She's a lover of Wild Cherry Pepsi and chocolate/chocolate covered delicious-ness. Steampunk, fantasy and paranormal to contemporary - mostly young adult - fill her growing library of books. Mother to a rambunctious darling girl aptly nicknamed Chipmunk, life stays busy. Her favorite quote keeps her moving: "You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6476148.Angela_Brown

Angela Brown in the Pursuit of Publishness blog: http://publishness.blogspot.com/

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Angela-Brown/e/B009JJEX60

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AngelaLBrownWrites

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ALBrownwrites

Buy Links:

Evernight: http://www.evernightteen.com/beacon-by-angela-brown/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Beacon-Ripped-Ties-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00PXHHUX0


Nook: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beacon-angela-brown/1120892154?ean=2940046452051

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Savage Winds by R.J. Merle - Guest Blog and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops in the tour.



Author R.J. Merle’s Fascination with Technology

In the Children of the Elements Series due to Top Secret technological advances, a cluster of children within the East Tennessee Mountains develop psychic powers.

Imagine a world a world without cell phones, one in which typing speed out raced existing computer software, and there were a few channels on television, and no home internet access…

All of those tech features have manifested in the last few decades.

To think we’ve advanced so far that in a waiting room people communicate via texts with people hundreds, even thousands, of miles away…

Thus, how could one not be fascinated with the advances of technology?

Taking this fascination with technology and weaving it into a Science Fiction Adventure and depicting potential negative consequences of the use of such supposed technological advances turned out to be a fun and rewarding experience.

Children of the Elements, A Secret City Science Fiction Adventure Series features such fictional—or are they?—advances.

Five full novels, one huge story.

When nature refuses to be controlled, can mankind endure? Brainwaves altered by a covert government project based out of the Secret City of Oak Ridge, the Children of the Elements are brought together and tested as weapons of mass destruction. Their struggle to free themselves and survive in the hostile East Tennessee Mountains creates massive chaos and threatens to bring about an apocalypse.

Savage Winds, the first book in the series, shares the story of a little girl able to direct the wind with her wind play, and features the technique of presenting extraordinary features in a normal, every-day world. The children live in the East Tennessee Mountains and their psychic gifts are a part of their daily lives. Also, techno-geek Stedford Thackett, an eighteen-year-old whose story spans all five books, with his awkwardness and clumsiness tends to ground the story more deeply in reality.

Even in fiction where the worlds are fantastical, there tends to be normal aspects of the characters that are endearing and relatable to the reader, so that the fantasy characteristics of the story tend to be accepted as real and plausible.

Basically, blending the implausible, as seamlessly as possible, within the plausible assists in presenting more believable story aspects and presents the story happenings as plausible when crafting Fantasy fiction.

Savage Winds (Children of the Elements, A Secret City Science Fiction Adventure Series, Book 1)

A dangerous conspiracy unfolds...

In Author R.J. Merle’s whirlwind start of the Children of the Elements series, a clumsy teenage techno-geek struggles to protect kidnapped children from a covert government organization responsible for creating their abilities to control the five elements. A mighty wind…

Eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett’s conspiracy theorist brother ensnares him in a real life children-as-weapons plot, while a determined scientist grooms happy-go-lucky five-year-old Darcie Lynn Carpenter to use the wind as a deadly weapon.

Out of control...

Despite the firm hand of Scientist Nora Hicks, Stedford struggles to rescue the kids and escape, even as Darcie Lynn fights to gain control of the surging power of the savage winds.

A Word-o-Gram for the series would include descriptions to include Psychic Powers, Telekinesis, Apocalypse, Electro-Magnetic Pulse, Zombies, and Mutants.

Enjoy an excerpt:

Dead men don’t tell tales, yet the late project head’s records held revelations kept from Scientist Nora Hicks for far too long.

In an office deep inside an East Tennessee mountain, Nora snapped a black leather-bound book closed.

Except for the carved stone ceiling, the office mimicked a non-descript working office in Anywhere, USA. Bulky military-issue metal and wood furniture stood as a harsh legacy to the covert Secret City project and to the starkness of her life.

Sitting at the borrowed hulk of a desk in a dank underground office, she asked, “Why was this kept from me?”

Across the desk in a guest chair, General Gardner, with thin hair sprouts sprayed into place, said, “Ever since Oak Ridge existed but did not even appear on a map, the city continues to hold and foster more than its share of secrets. As a trusted senior scientist and manager of the project, Dickenson claimed you and your son were the only ones involved.”

“How long have you known there were more of us?” Her grip on the desk’s metal edge forced her gloved hands to stop shaking. The usual underground chill pressed into the heat of her temples and an off-putting tartness oozed over her tongue.

Were Scientist Daniel Dickenson not already dead, she would kill him with her bare hands.

Slowly.

About the Author:

Author R.J. Merle stepped out of the realm of Top-Secret documents (shh, don’t tell…) to write sci-fi and paranormal fiction.

R.J. survived and escaped both the entertainment field and the government-contracting environment, craves the Walking Dead, and entertains what-if tidbits about “supposed” technological and biological advances.

No stranger to the goings on in the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, R.J. Merle blends a down-home flavor with a former in-the-know—hypothetically, of course—technical background to craft the twists and intrigue of Secret City Adventures.

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/R.J.-Merle/e/B00P8E0X5A
BN Author Page: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/r.j.-merle
Website: http://www.rjmerle.com/COTE.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/RJ-Merle-Author/1409155235976147
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10944948.R_J_Merle
Blog: http://rjmerle.blogspot.com/

NOTE: Savage Winds is on sale for $0.99!

Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Smashwords.

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The Possession by J. D. Spikes - Spotlight and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will be awarding winner's choice of two ebooks from Lachesis Publishing (http://lachesispublishing.com/) to a randomly drawn winner via the rafflecopter at the end of this post.

Daphne Wentworth is almost seventeen, definitely a red head, and most likely the tallest girl in her class, which is awkward to say the least when it comes to dating boys in her school. But she doesn’t have to worry about school for the next two months since she’s spending the summer at her aunt Dwill’s lighthouse in Maine.

What she does have to worry about is seeing ghosts in the lighthouse cemetery, having strange dreams, and hearing the voices of star-crossed lovers who lived two-hundred years ago. And then there’s a local boy named Zach Philbrook who works for her aunt. He’s too gorgeous for his own good. He’s also very tall, with midnight black hair, and the most beautiful indigo blue eyes Daphne has ever seen.

Zach is treated like an outcast by the local teens in town. He’s Micmac and therefore not “one of the gang”. Daphne can’t help being drawn to his strength, especially considering that he’s had to live his entire life dealing with ignorance. But the local teens aren’t the only trouble-makers in town. As Zach and Daphne get closer, the lighthouse ghost lovers begin haunting them. When Daphne and Zach try to figure out how to fight them, the spirits get bolder and more dangerous. So how do you protect yourself from something that isn’t really there?

Enjoy an excerpt:

It wasn’t the first time a good idea had come back to bite me in the ass, but I was afraid it might be the last.

The plan had seemed harmless enough. I never intended things to get so out of hand, and I certainly hadn’t expected Zach to get involved. No, wait. If I’m going to tell this tale, write it down so it’s never forgotten, I must tell the truth—the whole truth.

I should start at the beginning . . .

I had always resisted being a redhead.

“My hair is brown,” I’d declare, “with red highlights.”

When you were one of six heads that spilled out onto the sidewalk every morning though, the sun unmercifully spotlighting the fact that you varied in shades from the red section of the crayon box, you eventually had to let that notion go. When I was twelve—we were only four heads bobbing off to Catholic school at the top of the hill by then—Mom tried to soothe me by pointing out my hair was auburn.

Auburn. I’d liked the sound of that. It wasn’t red, it was auburn.

Auburn sounded regal and refined.

So did Daphne Wentworth. That’s my name, but I can tell you truthfully I’m neither regal nor refined. I favor t-shirts and jeans and my battered sneakers. I usually have a basketball in my hands. Or a softball bat. I’m tall, always have been. Do you know what it’s like to go through school like a giraffe above the crowd? Above the boys?

But I digress.

My point is, I’m not at all what you’d expect from my name. And what happened to us last summer, what waited at the lighthouse, in that small copse of trees, well . . . you’d never expect that, either.

Not in two hundred years.

Jeanine Duval Spikes is a spinner of romantic tales with a touch of the supernatural. Lifelong research and experience with the paranormal infuse her stories with ethereal spirit, while her belief that love conquers all suffuses them with heart.

She is a paranormal investigator with a small local group, aspiring to help those in need by advancing this exploratory field both spiritually and scientifically. When not writing, you can find her cooking, gardening, horseback riding, or forever getting lost in secondhand shops. The mother of two grown sons, she lives in Rhode Island, the Ocean State, with her very own hero-husband Tim, and two crazy cats. She is the proud recipient of the Jo Ann Ferguson Service Award for selfless assistance and dedication to fellow writers and the craft.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeanine.duvalspikes?fref=ts

Website: http://jeanineduvalspikes.wix.com/jeanineduvalspikes

Buy Link:  http://lachesispublishing.com/?product=the-possession-by-j-d-spikes

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The Riddle of Prague by Laura DeBruce - Virtual Tour and Giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Leave a comment or ask the author a question for a chance to win a $50 Amazon/BN gift card via the Rafflecopter at the end of this post. Click the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

A special welcome to Laura DeBruce who has stopped by to answer a few questions.

Do you ever read your stories out loud?

Yes! I love to do that if there’s an audience willing to listen. Although I have a dear friend who is an actress so if she’s around I’d rather listen to her read them.

What are your future ambitions?

My most immediate ambition is to publish The Temple of Paris in the summer of 2014. I also plan to finish my film about young women from Afghanistan who are studying in the U.S. I have a couple other film ideas I’d like to pursue, too, and a book series in mind after The Quicksilver Legacy Series. This current series is a trilogy: The Riddle of Prague, The Temple of Paris and The Fountain of Ragusa.

Tell us about your latest release.

The Riddle of Prague was released in September. I have been thrilled by the positive response from readers and reviewers. This month the book made it to #3 on the list for Amazon’s “Hot New Releases” for Teen & YA Fiction in Action & Adventure for Kindle. I was very excited about that!

The Riddle of Prague is about 18-year-old Hana Silna who goes to Prague on a mission for her mother who is too sick to travel back to the land where she was born. Hana meets up with relatives and finds herself on an adventure where she’s trying to decode an alchemist’s riddle to find an ancient flask. Along the way she encounters a number of allies and enemies although it’s difficult sometimes to tell them apart. She meets up with Alex, the son of a U.S. diplomat, who joins her on her journey across Bohemia looking for the flask.

If you could only eat one food the rest of your life, what would it be?

A nice baguette or a perfectly ripe avocado or chocolate of any sort.

When 18-year-old Hana Silna travels to Prague to reclaim her family’s home, she discovers a riddle that may lead to a long-last flask.

The contents of that flask could change the fate of the world. When a ruthless enemy kidnaps her family Hana has to find the flask to rescue them. On her quest she meets a mysterious man with a penchant for poetry, a Gypsy girl with a haunting past, and Alex, an all-American boy who’s trying to save his sister from a crippling disease. It’s hard to trust anyone when the stakes are this high — especially when surrounded by experts in deception.

There’s only one flask, and Hana desperately needs to find it.

Enjoy an excerpt:

“Bonjour, mademoiselle. Good day to you.”

I struggle awake. My eyes feel like they’ve been super-glued shut. A heart-faced flight attendant with her hair in a neat bun is waving a breakfast tray with an omelet, a croissant, and a glass of orange juice. “Your breakfast!”

“Thanks.” I sit up and notice people onboard who weren’t there before.

“Did I sleep right through Paris?”

“Oui, mademoiselle. Is a pity to sleep through Paris.” She gives a perfunctory smile and turns down the galley way.

“You can just leave a tray for him.” I gesture toward David’s empty seat. The flight attendant blinks twice and gives a very French shrug. “He’s probably in the bathroom,” I explain.

“Mademoiselle, no one is assigned to this seat.” She hands out trays to a couple in the next row. I look under the seat. David’s bag is gone.

“At the beginning of the flight,” I say patiently, “someone was sitting here.”

“Possibly. But not now.” She nods to signal the end of our conversation and expertly pushes her cart down the aisle. I shift my breakfast tray in order to stand up. Wobbling at first from not using my legs for so many hours, I walk down one aisle to the back of the plane and then up the other side. I study the passengers carefully. At the curtain that cordons off the upper classes, the flight attendant wags her finger. I duck my head through anyway and take a cursory glance at the passengers. There’s no David Bolton. The flight attendant nods to acknowledge a small triumph.

“There was someone sitting next to me,” I repeat. “And now he’s gone.”

“Perhaps he got off in Paris.” She waves her bright-red nails to indicate that this is the sort of thing men do all the time.

“He was going to Prague.”

“He’s not going there now, at least not on this plane.” She has the last word.

It doesn’t make sense. David Bolton was on his way to Prague. Wasn’t he? I stare out the window, lost in thought, until the pilot announces our descent, and the landscape rushes upward to greet our flight. 
 
Enjoy the following book video:



About the Author:

Laura DeBruce is a documentary filmmaker and writer. She grew up traveling all over the world thanks to her father’s work with the U.S. Embassy. She and her husband spent twelve years living in Europe including Prague, Paris, Amsterdam and London where she found inspiration to write The Quicksilver Legacy Series. In Prague she worked as a lawyer for the first private nationwide television station in the former Communist bloc. It was there that she fell in love with the ancient city of Prague and its legends.

She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband and son and an unruly Golden Retriever.

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