Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those
neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you are anything
like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in
your stacks.
He was born a miracle. It will take one to save the world.
Kain Richards is the last of his kind—and a man on the run. So when this mysterious drifter falls for a beautiful and sensible Iowa farmwoman, he knows full well the perils of getting too close. And yet, for the first time in his miserable existence, life feels normal … feels real. But as those around him soon realize, reality is not what it seems. For when a tragic accident forces Kain’s hand, his astonishing secret—and godlike power—changes their lives, and the world, forever.
I haven’t read any of his work, but this has been sitting on my shelf since 9.18.12. The last of his kind…what kind is that? I am curious. Velvet Rain is a bit of the supernatural, time travel, romance, science fiction, suspense and mystery, so I feel this should be a good one.
I would like to thank Net Galley and Entangled Teen for the opportunity to read and review Sting by Cindy R Wilson. Just looking at the gorgeous cover, I felt this would be a good one.
I was scrolling through the books on Net Galley one day, and stopped when I saw this great cover. The tag line: Revenge is poison, also did it’s job. It leapt off the page, and, when I read the blurb, I knew I had to have it.
Tessa. The Scorpion. Robin Hood of the Dark District.
She robs from the rich who live in the Light District and give to the poor in the Dark District.
Climate change has wreaked havoc on the world, making once was habitable, inhabitable. Their country is the place of last resort, and, of course, the privileged claim it as their own.
Tessa had started out the apocalypse on her own, but quickly added to her ‘family’. She does have a love interest in River, a best friend from the wrong side of the district, Elle, and Cass, a child, who she has taken in as if she were her very own. She feels now is not the time for love and romance and fights her attraction to River.
Tessa is a tinkerer, creating bots that she calls Scorpions. She sends them out ahead of the search party, scouting for danger. They scavenge for what little they have, on the verge of starvation, even setting traps for rats.
Everyone needs a champion in desperate times and Scorpion, a humble, young girl, rose to the challenge, believing that someone has to do something. She never saw herself as a leader and questions how that even became possible.
She is betrayed, ending up in prison, where she finds an unlikely ally. I saw the betrayal coming very quickly.
I love the inventory she takes at the beginning of each chapter.
I love the dystopian world Cindy R Wilson created. I felt the need, the desperation, the urgency for the characters. At times it unrolled like a movie playing in my mind, the writing making it so easy to visualize them skulking through the streets, patrolling, battling for survival.
This may be an ARC, but it read as if it could be the final product.
I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of Sting by Cindy R Wilson.
4 Stars
Sting by Cindy R. Wilson Genre: YA Dystopian Release date: March 3rd 2020 Entangled Teen Summary:
They call me the Scorpion because they don’t know who I really am. All they know is that someone is stealing from people with excess to help people with nothing survive another day.
But then a trusted friend reveals who I am―“just” Tessa, “just” a girl―and sends me straight into the arms of the law. All those people I helped…couldn’t help me when I needed it.
In prison, I find an unlikely ally in Pike, who would have been my enemy on the outside. He represents everything I’m against. Luxury. Excess. The world immediately falling for his gorgeous smile. How he ended up in the dirty cell next to mine is a mystery, but he wants out as much as I do. Together, we have a real chance at escape.
With the sting of betrayal still fresh, Pike and I will seek revenge on those who wronged us. But uncovering all their secrets might turn deadly…
My breath catches. My fingers curl around the handle of my
knife, but my feet are glued to the ground three steps outside the door.
There’s only one Enforcer, but the others can’t be far away. His gun is aimed
at my heart, and a dark smile plays on his lips.
“Are you the only one here?” he asks, voice deep.
“Just me.” I hope River and Elle are already hiding. Or maybe
they left through the back. I resist the urge to look at Atticus’s and
Magellan’s transmissions on my watch.
He narrows his eyes. “Out here all alone. What is it you’re
doing at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the night?”
“Delivering a pizza.” I give him an easy smile, but my voice
isn’t as steady as I want it to be. When he glares, I shrug. “I saw the
warehouse and got curious.” But I’ve heard pizza is really good.
“In the middle of the night,” he says. “Hmm. And what’s in the
satchel?”
It’s not my satchel he should be worried about. It’s the
throwing knife in my hand.
“Nothing special.”
“I’ve been hearing stories about a girl they call the Scorpion,”
he says.
My heart stops. The Scorpion. How do they know? I pinch the
blade of the knife between my fingers.
He smiles. “Is that you?”
My throat is too dry to answer.
There’s movement behind him. He whips around as River appears
near the dumpsters, hands up. Crap! With a flick of my wrist, I fling the knife
at the Enforcer. It lodges in his thigh, and he howls in pain. Before he can
recover, River yanks the gun from his grasp. Elle is right behind him, eyes
wide.
“Out of here. Now,” I growl, racing away from the warehouse.
River and Elle are close by my side as we rush through the streets, dodging
dumpsters and bags of trash. The slow burn of asphalt from the heat of the day
reaches my nose. Lanterns shine in some windows, but it’s late, and, for the
most part, we can only see our path by the glow of the moon. From here, the
Light District is countless blocks away, a firefly of light buzzing with
energy.
“Are you hurt?” River asks, glancing over.
“Not as bad as the Enforcer.” I brush off his concern even
though my leg throbs and blood rolls down my calf. I shut down my receiver to
save power. I’ll summon Atticus and Magellan later. “Lost my favorite knife,
though.” One of the few mementos I have from my dad.
He lifts his arm. “Got a gun.”
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Elle says, breath short. “I
heard what he said. The Enforcer.”
I slow down after we’ve put some distance between us and the
warehouse. My heart still races, and my mind whirls. The Enforcers know about
me.
“So did I,” River says. “That’s why they were there tonight.
They were looking for the Scorpion.”
About the Author
Cindy lives at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and loves using Colorado towns and cities as inspiration for settings in her stories. She’s the mother of three girls, who provide plenty of fodder for her YA novels. Cindy writes speculative fiction and YA fiction, filled with a healthy dose of romance. You’ll often find her hiking or listening to any number of playlists while she comes up with her next story idea.
I love books that involve photography in some way, so when I read the blurb, I had to check out Hollow by Rhonda Parrish.
The accident changed her world.
Her only solace was running…and Sevren.
An abandoned hospital. An evil doctor. A camera. A magpie.
Life is full of ups and downs, good times and bad times, good people and some not so good, but we all have a story to tell.
It’s hard to talk about Hollow without giving too much away, but Morgan faces her fears and tragic events.
I enjoyed Hollow by Rhonda Parish and it kept me curious. This is an easy reading story that I finished in one sitting.
I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of Hollow by Rhonda Parish.
3 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
A car accident shattered sixteen-year-old Morgan’s family. Now her brother’s dead, her mom’s paralyzed in more ways than one, her dad lives at work and her seven-year-old sister Amy tries too freaking hard to salvage everything. What’s more, high school is its own special kind of hell, where her ex-boyfriend delights in spreading rumors that shred her reputation and make her feel like a loser.
When she finds an old camera in a creepy abandoned hospital, it seems like her luck is finally changing. And it is changing–from bad to worse. Because of course it is. Each time Morgan photographs one of her classmates they become corrupted versions of themselves. It’s like the camera steals their goodness, their essence, and leaves them hollow.
Then her sister uses the camera to take a selfie.
No matter what the cost, Morgan will find a way to reverse the effects of the cursed camera and save Amy, before her already-fractured family completely self-destructs.
ABOUT RHONDA PARRISH
Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She founded and ran Niteblade Magazine, is an Assistant Editor at World Weaver Press and is the editor of several anthologies including, most recently, Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles, and Grimm, Grit and Gasoline.
In addition, Rhonda is an award-winning writer whose short work has been in publications such as the Rhysling Anthology and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012 & 2015).
Her YA Thriller, Hollow and her paranormal non-fiction title, Eerie Edmonton are both coming in 2020.
Print Length: 404 pages Publisher: 47North (March 1, 2020) Publication Date: March 1, 2020 Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC Language: English ASIN: B07RJQPB63 Praise for THE KILLING FOG
“Wheeler (Broken Veil) opens the Grave
Kingdom series with this winding tale of valor and sacrifice, set in a
realm where using magic summons a heavy fog that kills every living
thing it touches. [T]he threat of the fog looming in the background adds
atmosphere and tension…This excellent introduction to the prolific
Wheeler’s work will appeal to fans of Asian-influenced fantasy.” —Publishers Weekly
The Wall Street Journal bestselling
author of the Kingfountain series conjures an epic, adventurous world
of ancient myth and magic as a young woman’s battle with infinite evil
begins.
Survivor of a combat school, the orphaned Bingmei
belongs to a band of mercenaries employed by a local ruler. Now the
nobleman, and collector of rare artifacts, has entrusted Bingmei and the
skilled team with a treacherous assignment: brave the wilderness’s
dangers to retrieve the treasures of a lost palace buried in a glacier
valley. But upsetting its tombs has a price.
Echion, emperor of
the Grave Kingdom, ruler of darkness, Dragon of Night, has long been
entombed. Now Bingmei has unwittingly awakened him and is answerable to a
legendary prophecy. Destroying the dark lord before he reclaims the
kingdoms of the living is her inherited mission. Killing Bingmei before
she fulfills it is Echion’s.
Thrust unprepared into the role of savior, urged on by a renegade prince, and possessing a magic that is her destiny, Bingmei knows what she must do. But what must she risk to honor her ancestors? Bingmei’s fateful choice is one that neither her friends nor her enemies can foretell, as Echion’s dark war for control unfolds.
You can purchase The Killing Fog at the following Retailers:
Bingmei turned back to watch the struggle between Kunmia and
the Qiangdao leader. If only it were the man who had murdered her grandfather.
She’d hoped to find him this season, to make him pay for what he’d done. But
this was the first band of marauders they’d come across.
Kunmia’s weapon was soon the only one shining, and the fog’s
sickly haze was drawn toward it like a flock of moths. Magic lured the fog. It
was why the artifacts were used sparingly, if at all.
And then the leader went down, his skull cracked by the staff.
“Lieren!” Kunmia shouted in warning. The valiant man continued
to fight, not seeing the creeping mist that licked at his adversaries’ ankles
as if to taste them. He was still surrounded. And then the fog suddenly surged
forward, engulfing him and the others near him.
“Please!” Marenqo gripped the young man’s arm, hoisting him to
his feet. The fisherman’s boy saw the fog then, the scene illuminated by the
glow of Kunmia’s staff. No further warnings were needed. The boy leaped into
the boat and began unfastening the ropes, working quickly. Screams of panic
started. The fog had begun its deadly work.
“Kunmia!” shouted Zhuyi. “The boat!”
Kunmia stood transfixed, gripping the weapon that had helped
summon the death of her friend, her companion in arms. Bingmei saw the anguish
in her face, which was quickly replaced by implacable determination. The leader
of the ensign rushed toward the boat, the staff’s glow slowly decreasing. Still
it lured the fog to follow her. Knee-high tendrils of mist snaked through the
grass, chasing after Kunmia.
Photo Content from Jeff Wheeler
Jeff Wheeler took
an early retirement from his career at Intel in 2014 to write
full-time. He is a husband, father of five, and a devout member of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeff lives in the Rocky
Mountains. His books have been on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller
list 5 times (for The Thief’s Daughter, The King’s Traitor, The Hollow
Crown, The Silent Shield, and Prism Cloud) and have sold more than 4
million copies. His novels have also been published or will be published
in many languages: Italian, Chinese, Hungarian, Turkish, Polish,
Spanish, Russian, and German.
He is also the founder of Deep Magic: the E-zine of Clean Fantasy and Science Fiction (www.deepmagic.co), a quarterly e-zine featuring amazing short stories, novellas, and sample chapters.
You can usually find Jeff at Emerald City Comic Con, New York Comic Con or at writers conferences.
He welcomes hearing from readers: jgwheels /at/ gmail dot com
If you are interested in purchasing signed
copies of his books for friends, family, or your own collection, please
e-mail: WOJWbooks /at/ gmail dot com
College Life: Friends, Finals, and the Fae trying to kill you.
Attending college your first year is exciting! Unless you fall victim to a siren’s love spell.
The Leopold Otto University, in mysterious Bewachterberg, invites both humans and those from the fairy lands to attend classes.
Beware though, the administration doesn’t guarantee your safety.
American college student, Logan Dannon, quickly discovers a student body composed of creatures from mythology and folklore are tricksy and dangerous. Only if he can navigate the fae’s tangled code of honor, might he survive the semester.
Brigit, a fae runaway, didn’t plan on getting a human roommate. Or that she would be placed under a fairy debt. Will the dryad be able to save Logan from a siren’s love spell or fail the semester?
A contemporary fantasy world where beings from the Perilous Realm make university life for humans precarious. The first book in the College Fae magic series about friendships between humans and the fae.
After gaining her B.A. degree in journalism Byrd worked as a reporter for a bunch of newspapers you never heard of in small towns you never heard of. Eventually she realized she could starve just as as easily writing her own stories as reporting on local vegetable festivals.
Happy Monday everyone and welcome back to Music Monday! Let’s share
some songs we’ve been enjoying lately! If you would like to play, and
I really hope you do, please see the rules and link up below.
Rules:
Every Monday share a few songs you’ve been enjoying lately. It
doesn’t have to be a specific genre, new, or one of your favorites –
just something you’d like to share with others. If possible, share a
music or lyric video of the song and your thoughts on the song(s),
artist(s), and/or music video(s).
If you would like to participate in Music Monday, please join the link up by sharing your post’s url HERE
How You Remind Me by Nickleback was #1 on the US Billboard chart for 2002. They were even dubbed rock group of the decade. I absolutely love them, and this song!!!!!!! I feel the Chad Kroeger’s passion. A Youtube commenter described him as a combination between Nicholas Cage and Jesus. Excellent!
From Wikipedia: Nickelback is a Canadian rock band formed in 1995 in Hanna, Alberta, Canada. The band is composed of guitarist and lead vocalist Chad Kroeger, guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist Ryan Peake, bassist Mike Kroeger, and drummer Daniel Adair.
Traumatized by events of her past, Charlotte Bennett is not a fan of strangers. When she sees a man touching her daughter at the park, she reacts without listening. It’s only later when her daughter is rushed to the hospital that she realizes how wrong she had been.
Doctor Wesley Young only wanted to help the tender-aged girl he witnessed fall, but when her mother attacks him at the park, he’s left stunned. When the little girl arrives later in the emergency department, he comes face to face with the mother makes more of an impression on him than the cut she left on his face.
Things heat up quick when Marisol is no longer his patient, but when things from the past are revealed, Wes isn’t sure that Charlotte is the woman for him. Can Charlotte find a way to explain it all so that Wes will accept both her and her daughter before it’s too late?
Being a wedding planner is hard, especially when someone is always trying to steal your business, and your family doesn’t support you. However, Roxanne Novak is determined to keep her business afloat. When Roxy’s in a car accident hurrying to meet a potential bride, she’s injured and scared, but paramedic Henley Young takes good care of her.
Henley loves his job and thrives on the adrenaline of helping people in need. Maybe that’s why when he meets Roxy, he’s inclined to help her with more than just medical care. Hooking her up with his older brother Wesley and his bride-to-be could be just what she needs. It might also be the start of something between the Lee and the spunky little wedding planner.
When a position at a country club is offered to Roxy, she finds herself rethinking her entire business plan. Excited to start someplace new, Roxy and Henley begin making plans for the future. Just after she starts her new job, Roxy learns of Lee’s past relationship, and everything she knew about him is questioned.
Can Roxy and Henley put the past to bed and move forward to something that might be more than what both of them had ever hoped for?
The Loving A Young Series is about a family of six siblings finding love in today’s world. Wesley, Book 1 and Henley, Book 2 will soon be joined with Huntley, Riley, Bradley and Kayley.
Stacy Eaton is a USA Today Bestselling author and began her writing career in October of 2010. Stacy took early retirement from law enforcement after over fifteen years of service in 2016 due to a second serious concussion. Her last three years on the job were in investigations and crime scene investigation. She now writes full-time.
Stacy resides in southeastern Pennsylvania with her husband, who works in law enforcement, and her teen daughter. Stacy also has a son who is currently serving in the United States Navy. She is also very involved in Domestic Violence Awareness and served on the Board of Directors for her local Domestic Violence Center for three years.
Stacy writes a variety of genres, but mostly romance. She enjoys writing real-life stories that people can relate too with real-life problems, emotions, and solutions.
Her favorites: Classic cars, photography, Disney, music, coffee and her favorite sweatshirt that says, “You are dangerously close to getting killed in my next novel.”
Visit Stacy’s website for more information on her and her books.
I won both these books through IReadBookTours. From warm and fuzzy to cold and dangerous, I loved both the books and want to thank IReadBookTours, Sunny Weber and Elizabeth McKenna for my beautiful copies. They look wonderful on the shelf.
Told from Kaya’s point of view, From Wild to Mild by Sunny Weber is a wonderfully sweet and easy reading adventure story of a kidnapped puppy and how he makes hard decisions in order to find his place in the world.
An isolated lodge in the woods, a blizzard, and I’m sure nothing can go wrong (LOL) as family and friends, along with one stranger, unite to put the past where it belongs in this novella that quickly turns into a mystery filled with suspense and a killer that goes on a rampage.
Street of Storytellers by Dough Wilhelm Genre: YA Multicultural Thriller Release Date: September 2019 Rootstock Publishing
Summary:
Luke is 15, and he’s mad at his dad. He blames his parents’ recent divorce on his father’s obsession with finishing a book about a lost ancient civilization in a dangerous part of Asia.
But his father badly wants his son to understand — so he brings Luke to Peshawar, an age-old crossroads city in Pakistan’s North West Frontier. To punish his dad, Luke refuses to learn anything about the project; instead he’s drawn into the strange, intriguing Old City, where a frightening new extremism is on the rise.
Luke is dazzled by Danisha, but in the city’s strict Pashtun culture they can’t ever be seen together. He’s recruited by her brother to assist the jihadis — but he also bonds with Yusuf, an Afghan refugee who knows what could happen. Then there are the musicians Luke befriends, and a mysterious Sufi teacher who opens his eyes.
Street of Storytellers is intensely suspenseful. It’s about three
families across two cultures … about two world religions, Islam and Buddhism
… about music, Western and Eastern … and about how modern extremism affects
ordinary families. It’s about an ancient true story the world has almost
forgotten. And it’s about learning to think for yourself, even if that puts
your life at risk.
Doug
Wilhelm is a fulltime writer and editor in Weybridge, Vermont. His 16 previous
books include The Revealers (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), a novel
about bullying that has been the focus of reading and discussion projects in
well over 1,000 schools, and continues to be part of the curriculum in middle
schools across the country.
As a young journalist
in the early 1980s, Doug left his newspaper job to spend two years in Pakistan,
India and Nepal. He traveled, wrote, taught English and worked on what he
originally planned as a nonfiction book about his experiences, which years
later grew into Street of Storytellers.
Doug’s other books
include three more young-adult novels, a biography of Alexander the Great for
young readers, and 10 books for the Choose your Own Adventure series.
Where We Belong Shann McPherson Published by: HQ Digital Publication date: February 21st 2020 Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
An emotional, compelling page-turner from your next romance obsession, Shann McPherson, about the power of friendship and finding love where you least expect it.
When Alice ‘Murph’ Murphy’s beloved mother died, she promised to keep the family bakery in Graceville, Georgia afloat—even if it meant letting her high-school sweetheart, Nash Harris, go. For years, Murph has been biding her time, waiting for Nash to come back for her.
So when he strolls into Piece O’ Cake, Murph’s heart skips a beat—until he hands her an invitation to his wedding… There are painful secrets in both their pasts that only the two of them share, and Murph can’t bear the thought of Nash belonging to someone else.
There’s only one thing Murph can think of to do: fake a relationship with local bar owner and old friend Harley Shaw to remind Nash of what he’s losing, and win him back for good.
Nash is Murph’s best friend, a vivid reminder of her childhood and all the things she’s lost—but the more time Murph and Harley spend together, the more the lines between real and pretend begin to blur. Can Murph choose between the one who got away and the one who never left—and heal her aching heart?
I push my glasses up my nose for the millionth time, and while holding my breath and with one eye narrowed, I wipe a tiny smudge of frosting from the silver turntable holding Mr. and Mrs. Robertson’s fiftieth wedding anniversary cake. It may have taken me two full days and most of last night, but I’ve finally finished. Exhaling the breath I’ve been holding for a beat too long, I take a step back to really appreciate my craftsmanship. Four layers of lemon and blueberry perfection, covered in a fluffy whipped buttercream frosting, decorated with beautiful red roses, delicate peonies, and a smattering of baby’s breath, all of which have been hand-piped by yours truly.
I place a hand on my hip, smiling proudly. “Alice Murphy, once again you’ve outdone yourself,” I whisper under my breath, mentally high-fiving myself.
The bell above the door to the shop jingles, pulling me from my musings, and I walk through from the kitchen to the front of the store, still smiling at the thought of my latest masterpiece.
“Welcome to Piece O’ Cake,” I sing in a cheerful customer service voice. “How can I help yo—” Stopping dead in my tracks, my eyes go wide as I gawp at the unexpected figure standing in the middle of the shop. He’s shadowed by the afternoon sun shining in through the windows, backlighting him to nothing more than a darkened silhouette, and I blink hard, unsure whether or not I’m imagining things. But then he speaks. And I would know that voice anywhere. This is definitely not my imagination playing tricks on me.
“Hey, Murph.” The shadow takes a step forward, coming in to the glow of the overhead lights, and I’m immediately enamored by that all too familiar grin.
“N-Nash?” I gasp.
His smile is bright and those eyes. I’d remember those eyes anywhere after spending such a big part of my life dreaming about them.
“Oh my God!” I scream, covering my mouth with trembling hands until I finally come to, ripping off my apron before practically throwing myself over the counter. Jumping up, I wrap my arms around his neck, and emotion gets the better of me as I stand there in the familiarity of his warm embrace with tears of happiness streaming down my cheeks.
He’s here.
The love of my life.
He’s home.
Author Bio:
With big dreams of being a published author since she was an eleven-year-old girl writing Beverly Hills 90210 fan fiction before fan fiction was even a thing, Shann McPherson has been writing angsty, contemporary romances for most of her thirty-something years.
Living in sunny Queensland, Australia, when she’s not writing Shann enjoys making memories with her husband and cheeky toddler son, drinking wine, and singing completely off-key to One Direction’s entire discography.
