He’s quiet, lost in his own head, and most likely, he’s still worrying. So far, with this thing we have going on, he’s never really pulled away from me. Although, the opportunity hasn’t been there before either. That scares the hell out of me. He’s my rock, always has been. How am I supposed to stay steady and strong with him cracking?
When we walk outside and he goes to open the passenger door for me, I stop him. “Trace,” I start, but no other words come.
He sighs. The cold air is making his breath visible. “I know, Britt. I know.” He pulls me against him and wraps his arms around me. I’m glad he knows because I sure don’t. My head rests on his chest, my arms firmly around him, and I relish in the feel of his big, strong, sturdy body. We stand there in silence for about a minute. “It’s going to be hard, you know.”
“Why?” Why does it have to be hard? Why does everything have to be so damn hard all the damn time?
“Because we’re both not quite sane,” he says with a half-sigh and half-serious tone.
I can’t help it; I laugh. I turn my face inward to press my forehead against his jacket, and I can’t stop freaking giggling. We’re not crazy; but he’s right. We’re not quite sane either.
Author Bio:
Lindsay Paige is the author of multiple Young Adult, New Adult, and Sports romances. She also coauthored sports romances with Mary Smith. Along with writing, she loves reading, watching hockey, especially the Pittsburgh Penguins, and finding funny terrible puns and recipes on Pinterest. All the while, she is also focused on completing college.
Lindsay resides in North Carolina and is inspired by the world around her and the people in it. She is currently working on numerous solo works.
Embers Karen Ann Hopkins
(Wings of War #1)
Publication date: March 15th 2015
Genres: Dystopian, Paranormal, Young Adult
There are descendants of angels walking among us. Ember is one of them.
Embers is an epic paranormal adventure/romance about a seventeen year old girl who discovers that she’s immune to fire and any other injury when she’s in a horrific car crash that kills her parents. Following a violent episode with her aunt’s boyfriend, Ember flees Ohio to live with an old relative in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Ember’s exuberance at escaping a bad home life soon turns to trepidation when she learns that she’s a Watcher, a descendant of angels.
While Ember is instructed about her heritage and the powers that go along with it, she strikes up friendships with two teenagers who live in a frightening walled compound in the forest. Inexplicitly drawn to one of the young men in particular, an impossible romance develops. But it’s cut short when Ember discovers that her new friends are fighting on the opposite side of a war that’s been raging between two factions of Watchers for thousands of years. When the compound’s inhabitants threaten the townspeople, Ember takes action, sealing her fate in the ancient battle of good versus evil, and the grayness in between. Ember is up to the challenge, until she realizes that she isn’t only fighting for the lives of the locals and the souls of her new friends. She may be one of the few champions willing to make a stand for all of mankind as the rapture approaches and the end of days begin.
Embers is the first novel in the dark and gritty YA paranormal romance series, The Wings of War.
**Grab Embers – book 1 – for only 99 CENTS for a limited time!**
—
EMBERS EXCERPT:
Sawyer sobered quickly. The obvious hurt on his face made me regret my words.
“You’re right. I’m a monster. I won’t argue on that account. But your kind isn’t squeaky clean either. Just because your ancestors were arch angels doesn’t give you the right to police the world.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you know how many humans have died from wars that Watchers caused?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
I was already suspicious about Watchers. Ila scared the crap out of me sometimes with her demeanor and righteous words.
But Sawyer didn’t need to know that I questioned the Watchers myself. His opinion didn’t count.
When I turned back to him, ready to change the subject, I wasn’t prepared for the darkening of his already almost black eyes. He leaned in closer and our breaths mingled. In and out I breathed, allowing his familiar woodsy scent to fill my nose. I know Sawyer. Oh, I know him.
Don’t do it, Ember.
But I couldn’t stop.
When he kissed me, my lips parted automatically.
Deep down, I wanted him, desired him madly, and had from the first time I’d seen him in my dreams.
In that instant, I didn’t care that he was a Demon.
Author Bio:
You can visit Karen Ann Hopkins at her website: www.karenannhopkins.com.
Karen Ann Hopkins resides in northern Kentucky with her family on a farm that boasts a menagerie of horses, goats, peacocks, chickens, ducks, rabbits, dogs and cats. Karen’s main job is home schooling the kids, but she finds time to give riding lessons, coach a youth equestrian drill team, and of course, write. She was inspired to create her first book, Temptation, by the Amish community she lived in. The experiential knowledge she gained through her interactions with her neighbors drove her to create the story of the star-crossed lovers, Rose and Noah.
Karen grew up about a mile from Lake Ontario in Upstate New York. She was bitten by the horse bug at the age of five, and after diligently taking riding lessons for several years, was rewarded with her first horse at the age of eleven. The feisty horse’s name was Lady, a Quarter Horse-Thoroughbred cross, who became Karen’s steadfast companion. Through the years, the constant force in her life was horses. Eventually, she found her place as a riding instructor herself. Before accepting her fate in the barnyard, she worked a short stint as a paralegal, traveled abroad, and guided tourists on horseback riding tours in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
Karen is currently working on her Amish mystery series, Serenity’s Plain Secrets, along with the YA paranormal/fantasy series, The Wings of War, and the continuation of the Temptation series. Karen is also excited to announce the Temptation series has been optioned for TV by Pilgrim Studios and is available on Audible.
“I loved joining Rose and Noah during their journey in the Temptation series by Karen Hopkins.”-Katie McGarry, acclaimed YA author
The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay by A Algeri is fantasy and science fiction with a little history thrown in. Wrapped within the fantasy, I read about court life and a woman’s place in the world. The Mermaid and the treasure off the Bay is a character driven novel, telling Brinn’s story and sharing the people that surround her.
Brinn is a free spirit that feels like she is being placed in a cage where all her actions will be dictated by others expectations. As she struggles to retain her identity, she also delves into the legend of the lost treasure of Nyar Kaad. Could finding the treasure allow her the freedom she desires so much?
Even though The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay is not really a suspense novel, A Algeri’s writing kept me in a state of unrest…expectancy. A hint of malice followed Brinn throughout the story. I love suspense thrillers, so I kept expecting Gilbert to… or for her to be discovered breaking into…I love how he blended all these elements together leaving me no option but to read on.
I grabbed at the chance to read The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay because of the cover and…MERMAIDS. I am always on the lookout for another “fishes of the sea” story. A Algeri doesn’t hide the fact that Brinn is, or will be, the mermaid. Her love of the ocean drives her to defy her mother and the aristocratic dictates others expect of her. If she had her way, she would never leave Nyar Kaad for the court life. She just needed a way to make that happen. A Algeri kind of skipped over the part where she learns how to transform and I would have liked to have more of that…a lot more. I wanted to swim in the ocean with her, race the fishes and feel the water washing over my “skin”.
I am very impressed by this debut novel and I wonder…is there more to Brinn’s story?
I received a copy of The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay by A Algeri.
4 Stars
SYNOPSIS
“The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay” is the first adventure of Brinn, a young woman who had recently returned to her homeland, Nyar Kaad, after years of being away.
For her mother and sister it’s only supposed to be an episodic stay, because their intention is to return to the capital, Adaria, held by both aristocrats, by then, to be their home. Brinn, however, isn’t interested in living in the golden cage of high society and aspires to a different existence, that will push her to oppose the decisions of her family and to pursue a destiny according to her own wishes.
The accidental discovery of what looks like a map to hidden treasure, buried in Nyar Kaad, according to tradition, by pirates once dwelling in the settlement, will push her to search for the hidden riches- an undertaking that the protagonist will face courageously, at the cost of challenging her fears, the rigid social conventions, and more literal dangers to her person, venturing on a journey into the local legends and the past of her own family, until reaching an unexpected epilogue.
Set to Isara, a fantasy world inspired by the period between the seventeenth and the first decades of the nineteenth centuries, “The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay” is a journey full of mystery in the universe where real and supernatural coexist intersecting in a subtle and insidious way, a world divided between palaces and largely unexplored expanses, an opulent capital and boundless oceans.
“The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay”, is the first publication of A. Algeri, the author of the novel. He began writing while he was a teenager, setting most of his stories in the world of Isara, a fantasy universe of his own creation, where Brinn, the main character of this adventure, is often the protagonist.
EXCERPT
I decided to head towards the beach. I had always felt a special bond with the sea, since I was a child and my return to the ocean shores was for years my secret aspiration that I had long believed would remain unfulfilled. I wanted to fully appreciate it as long as it was possible to stay lost in this fantasy. Beyond the living room window, passing the garden surrounding the manor, there was a beach that went gently down towards the ocean where the waves died on the shoreline in large surf, leaving white foam on the sand of the foreshore. On the horizon the blue green Nahanshe Sea mixed with the sky mottled only a few white clouds pushed by the breeze.
I put my diary and a book I was reading in my bag and upon reaching the door of the house, I walked along veranda and descended the stairs leading to the boulevard and then after opening my parasol, I continued along the same walkway, crossing first the garden then the sparse blot populated by a few plants that grew near the seashore. At the end of the walkway, I took off my flats and walked barefoot on the beach that already scorched a bit and I headed towards the ocean waves. I loved walking along the coast and being immersed for hours in the pristine waters of the shallow sea bottom letting my long brown hair float, almost immobile in the green blue waters.
A very light breeze blew on the beach and once I was near enough to the shore I felt it caress my arms, barely noticeable. In the air, I only heard the sound of the sea whose waves stretched out along the sand and in the distance the call of marine birds. The air however was full of the smell of salt and ocean water that stretched out infinitively in front of me. In the cerulean blue sky I noticed some seagulls and terns flying.
In my diary I wrote down, with a bit of melancholy, my difficulty choosing the right words to describe the beauty of that moment because I already knew that these would be my last weeks in Nyar Kaad surely for many years.
A part of me forced myself to believe in the possibility of making my mother reconsider her decision, persuading her in some way to not cede the Dawn’s Light if not to directly stay in the province of Salaara, yet I realized that this, more than a possible chance, was my only hope.
My glance lingered on the pristine horizon, where the sky united with expanse of the ocean before starting to write again. I wanted that in the following months I could retrace my words and remember how green the sea was and how the sun warmed me, reopening that page on a boring day in the last months of the year in the cold rooms in the manor in Adaria.
I tried to drive away the thoughts of those freezing fall afternoons in which the city seemed just an entire series of gloomy grays of stones and brooding blacks of slate roofs on which the rain fell non-stop where the only colors that stood out were the sad colors of the few bare trees and the dead leaves that rotted at the feet of their trunks. I tried to bring my mind back to the caress of the hot summer sun on my bronze skin sprinkled with freckles.
I observed a crab moving slowly along the foreshore and a fish jump, breaking, for a moment, the peace of the apparently still water. I half closed my eyes for an instant hearing only, other than the gentle coastal breeze, the slow melody of the waves. How many days I had spent on that beach as a child…before everything changed when I still could take for granted a happiness that seemed to me in that moment distant and unreachable, as if it belonged to a time that was over and lost forever.
I found myself thinking about my father, about our long walks on the beach, and the times that, during the day or evening, the coast was hit by the occasional summer downpour or the summer was interrupted by a rare rainy day. Initially I looked fearfully out my window at the sea, the white crested waves and the sound of the gale on the stormy nights during which the thunder accompanied the winds, howling furiously and in which it seemed possible to me to hear the spirits of men lost among the sea waves whose names were by then forgotten for time immemorial. Then the moment arrived in which the storm had passed and the rays of sun broke up the still thick cloud cover, shining onto the beach in flashes until one ray after another, the light came back to illuminate the heavens and the clouds disappeared, leaving space again in the sky that was clear or veiled only by a few clouds.
My memories came in succession, I wrote down the most moving writing with the style on the white pages, smiling, my soul divided between the pleasure of reinvoking those memories and the bitterness of being aware of the imminent loss of those places and those memories.
Before abandoning myself completely to melancholy, I got up off my beach towel, put my diary back in my bag and headed towards the foreshore. A young lady immersing herself in the water, even wearing a bathing suit that had been part of the traditional culture of Nyar Kaad since before the imperial colonization, would have been simply inconceivable in the cold Adaria with all its absurd rules and little rules. On the other hand, I never cared how inappropriate such a behavior could be considered for the daughter of a lady known for the enormous weight she gave to her respectability.
I went down to the shoreline, walking on the wet sand to appreciate the coolness brought by the ocean; I stood still a moment letting the waves brush my ankles. I started taking my first steps into the lagoon, the shallow sea bottom went on for a dozens and dozens of feet before slowly getting deeper. The water was pristine like crystal. When the water started to touch my waist, I let myself slip under the water, coming out a bit later with my head and letting myself float in the water of the bay.
I half closed my eyes- above me was the clear sky, I perceived the caress of the breeze while the warm water cradled me. I imagined that this had to be the closest feeling to what must have been the feeling of a perfect moment, even if a part of my heart remained shadowed. I stayed in the water for several hours, slowly losing awareness of time as often happened to me when I swam.
I was still absorbed in my thoughts when my mother, leaving the house and stopping at the edge of the beach began calling me loudly, making sure that I didn’t have any reason to not be able to respond: “Brinn! Come to the shore, you’ve been in the water half the morning!” Her tone gave away her slight annoyance.
My mother Karen was wearing a faintly colored cotton satin dress, as was used in the southern imperial colonies. It was a simply cut dress, tight at the waist thanks to the corset worn underneath the clothing that modeled one’s profile into an elegant hourglass figure. The neckline was very modest and the sleeves at three-quarters, the only concession to the hot temperatures in which these were worn. Her hair, a chestnut brown the same shade as mine, was gathered up as was required by etiquette when a lady intended to go outside of her home. Her long limbed figure was immobile on the beach, waiting to be joined. In her hand she held a small parasol the same color of her dress, a pink that softened into white. Both Jennifer and I at first glance looked a lot like her, even if in the bay several ladies maintained that, most of all in the face, I took after my paternal grandmother Claire just as much, and it was not as evident in my sister who seemed to have instead inherited mostly from the lineage of the maternal branch of our family.
I ignored my mother for a bit- it was the method I turned to so as to communicate to her my lack of interest in leaving the water. But after being called two or three times I couldn’t stay any longer and I had to start swimming, not too quickly, towards the shore and return to the beach. I laid down on my beach towel after roughly drying myself.
Annoyed, she came over to me and punctually scolded me. “How many times must I tell you that now you are almost eighteen! Do you realize that you are absolutely not decent? You aren’t a five year old child, you are a woman!”
I looked at her for a few minutes: “I know that I am not a child, and anyway I put on a swim suit on purpose mom. Our ancestors used it since before the expansion of the empire into our land.” I responded without losing my composure.
She responded with a slight but noticeable annoyance: “You know perfectly well that for the etiquette of Adaria…” she paused briefly, inhaling while she reflected on the term to use “similar behavior is frowned upon.”.
I smiled for a moment: “I don’t recall ever having taken a swim in the capital, mom. The sea is too far away.” I said, and she looked at me with a look of clear disapproval as her response.
“Come back in the house as soon as you’ve finished drying off” she concluded curtly, taking her leave, but still maintaining that look before distancing herself and then going back into the manor.
I stayed on the beach, seated on the towel that I had laid on the hot sand. I didn’t want to go home nor be involved in the conversations of my mother and Jennifer, who were busy talking only about our imminent return to the capital at the end of the vacationing season. Both were normally so taken by their futile conversations that they didn’t notice my absence so I decided to keep waiting until I could go back in the water with having mom pay attention.
I should have let my bathing suit dry, in which case she would have insisted anyway that I came back in so I decided to wait on the shore. To further discourage my mother from attempting to establish a conversation, which would have probably led to a heated discussion, I opened my diary and began writing some of my impressions of that luminous tropical morning, avoiding so much as turning my head towards the Dawn’s Light.
The sun burned in the sky and its rays caressed my skin; the breeze lightly ruffled my hair and lifted the wide brim of my straw hat for a few seconds. My bathing suit was quickly drying and I continued to observe the aquamarine colored ocean, staying turned towards the shore.
A. Algeri is the author of “The Mermaid and the treasure of the Bay”, his first published novel. He began writing while he was a teenager, setting most of his stories in the world of Isara, a fantasy universe of his own creation.
Drop Dead Handsome by M K Scott has a cover that stopped me in my tracks. I love trees and will always stop and check out a book that shows trees, forests…any of my wooded friends. Add to this a cozy mystery, well, what more can I ask for?
How about you? Would you like to join me in the forest?
The Painted Lady Inn is open for business and limping along in the B and B world. A high school reunion package assembles Donna’s least desirable classmates, including the backstabbing cheerleader, her narcissistic high school crush, and Arnie, whose cheesy poem had everyone calling her, hot mama. It’s all something she liked to forget. These are the normal guests.
An octogenarian self-proclaimed sleuth, Father Christmas, a dognapping couple, and a pair who is copying everything in the Inn to set up their own competitive establishment rounds out the group. Maria, the sister-in-law, has a matchmaking agenda for Donna. Daniel, her brother, finds himself serving as a referee with one guest’s multiple wives.
High school reunions can be murder. Detective Mark Taber is on the trail of the murderer, when he isn’t interfering in a smitten Arnie’s determined bid to woo the no nonsense innkeeper.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
“Hello. Welcome to The Painted Lady Inn. Thanks for choosing the Lady for your weekend getaway.” She held the smile in place, questioning her choice of a name for her bed and breakfast. Daniel remarked it sounded like something out of a horror movie, as if it would come to life.
The woman didn’t answer, but took two more steps closer, then placed her bag on the floor. “I’m glad to be here before the sun sets.”
“You made it.” Her cheeks were starting to ache from continually smiling. Well, that and acting like a genial innkeeper. Why couldn’t she’d just be normal Donna Tollhouse?
“Yes, yes, I did.” The woman glanced around the foyer that had several open doors to the front parlor, library, and dining room. Her lips pursed as her eyes flicked upward.
No dust anywhere and the floors gleamed where they weren’t covered by a floral runner.
“May I have your name, please?”
The woman gave a nervous laugh, which seemed out of place.
“Lorena, Lorena Fitzgerald.”
Convenient, since she was the first name on the list. Her hand gripped the heavy reunion basket and held it out to Lorena. “Compliments of the inn for your stay.” The woman’s French tipped manicured hand wrapped around the basket handle beside Donna’s. “Enjoy the reunion.”
Lorena’s eyes widened. “There’s a reunion? What type?
Donna had relinquished the basket unaware that her guest didn’t merit it. Too late to take it back too, especially since the woman was now poking through it making pleasurable noises. With her luck, the couple out antiquing would hear about it and expect one too. Well, she did have a couple cases of Reunion Red.
“Ah yes, the local high school is having a reunion. Thirty-one years.”
Lorena fanned her free hand in front of her as if overcome by the thought of a reunion. “Thirty-one years. Goodness, I’ve only been out of school barely twenty years.”
Taking a page from Detective Taber’s book, she ran a hand over her face, hoping to hide her smirk. Okay, the woman looked good, but not that good. A woman in her thirties would wear something a little more playful, edgy, or even more casual. The shoes and sweater set declared her mid-forty. Once she recovered her innkeeper face, she dropped her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links
K. Scott is the husband and wife writing team behind The Painted Lady Inn Mysteries. Morgan K Wyatt is the general wordsmith, while her husband, Scott, is the grammar hammer and physics specialist. He uses his engineering skills to explain how fast a body falls when pushed over a cliff and various other felonious activities. The Internet and experts in the field provide forensic information, while the recipes and B and B details require a more hands on approach. Morgan’s daughter who manages a hotel provides guest horror stories to fuel the plot lines. The couple’s dog, Chance, is the inspiration behind Jasper, Donna’s dog. Murder Mansion is the first book in The Painted Lady Inn Mysteries. Overall, it is a fun series to create and read. Drop Dead Handsome is the second book in the series. Killer Review should be out in October 2016.
The author will be awarding a prize to multiple winners such as $50 Amazon Gift Cards, $15 Target or Groupon Gift Cards and other GCs and books to randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.
Defending Hayden L.P. Dover
(Second Chances #7)
Published by: Loveswept
Publication date: June 28th 2016
Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense
No one’s tougher than Carolina Cougars linebacker Derek McLaughlin. But when a fatal car accident claims the life of his girlfriend, Derek finds himself caught in a destructive spiral of drugs, alcohol, and meaningless sex. But not even a string of one-night stands can ease the hurt. Football is all he has left. Then fate leads him back to the scene of the crash, and into the arms of a kind, gorgeous woman who sees past his façade to the man he once was . . . and can be again.
When a chance roadside encounter brings Derek into her life, veterinarian Hayden Hunter isn’t fooled by his bad attitude: All bark and no bite, he’s hiding a wounded heart beneath that gruff demeanor. And Hayden wants to be the one to kiss it all better. Soon they both find that a dose of passion is potent medicine. But when a hidden enemy lashes out at Hayden, Derek steps up to do what he does best: put his body on the line in the name of love.
Guilt plagued me and I felt sick. Getting out of bed, I paced the room, running my hands angrily through my hair. I didn’t want to hurt Hayden. Keeping her away would protect her from my life. She was bound to leave me anyway. I’d fuck up somehow and it would ruin her. What the hell was I talking about? I’d already fucked her up.
“Derek?” Her voice was like honey, silky and sweet. I’d imagined what it would be like to hear that voice screaming my name as I fucked her over and over. Last night had been the best night of my life, but it had scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t shake it. “Derek, are you okay?” she asked. Stopping midstep, I turned to face her, and her eyes widenened when she got a glimpse of my face. I could only imagine what she saw. So many emotions battled inside me. She held the blanket to her chest, and her lips trembled. “Please tell me this wasn’t just a game to you,” she whispered.
Swallowing hard, I sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for her. She recoiled from my touch. “None of this was a game, Hayden. Last night was fucking amazing.”
Her eyes glistened, but her jaw was firm. “Then why are you looking at me like that? Like you regret what we did.”
I wanted to touch her, but last night had been my only chance. She’d never let me close to her again. “I don’t regret it, but eventually you will. You’re not the only one who’s lost someone they cared about. I can’t go through it again. It’s best to stop this before it goes any further.”
“Any further?” she scoffed. She waved her arm around the room, her anger so thick I could cut it with a knife. “If you didn’t want it to go any further, then why did you bring me here? Why would you do that to me?”
“Because I care about you,” I said, knowing it made no sense to her.
“Then why are you pushing me away?” she cried.
Standing, I got up and walked over to the window. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Author Bio:
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author, L.P. Dover, is a southern belle residing in North Carolina along with her husband and two beautiful girls. Before she even began her literary journey she worked in Periodontics enjoying the wonderment of dental surgeries.
Not only does she love to write, but she loves to play tennis, go on mountain hikes, white water rafting, and you can’t forget the passion for singing. Her two number one fans expect a concert each and every night before bedtime and those songs usually consist of Christmas carols.
Aside from being a wife and mother, L.P. Dover has written over seventeen novels including her Forever Fae series, the Second Chances series, the Gloves Off series, and her standalone novel, Love, Lies, and Deception. Her favorite genre to read is romantic suspense and she also loves writing it. However, if she had to choose a setting to live in it would have to be with her faeries in the Land of the Fae.
L.P. Dover is represented by Marisa Corvisiero of Corvisiero Literary Agency.
Between the cover and title for Body and Bone by L S Hawker, I don’t know which drew me in more. I love a mystery thriller and Nessa’s story supplied me with a steady supply of suspense.
Nessa’s mother haunts her every move and even worse, she married a man just like her…gimme, gimme gimme, mine mine mine. Usually a daughter marries a man like her father and I liked this nice little twist that L S Hawker supplied. But…wait…there’s more and you won’t believe where she takes the storyline.
Nessa is a strong woman, determined to manage her life on her own. She has secrets…many secrets…and she protects them by building a wall that no one can climb. No one, until Isabeau, her son’s nanny. I love this woman and she quickly becomes my favorite character. If you have a troll stalking you on the internet, she’s your gal.
But…L S Hawker made me question her motives. Could she be the troll that is stalking Nessa’s every move and trying to set her up for murder? Could the stalker be her crack addicted husband she kicked out and refuses to stay gone thinking she owes him everything she has? Could the stalker be the rapist from her past that was just released from prison? Well…I was kept guessing and I love that. I think you will too.
All the characters are richly developed with personalities that shine through, whether good or bad. Some you will love, some you will hate, but you will not forget them.
Nessa’s life is more than difficult, it is tragic. Bad choices left her with nightmares that follow her, dogging her every move. They have her looking over her shoulder, waiting for the hammer to drop. Imagiine that every noise, every knock on the door, every question asked is the one that will bring your world crashing down around you. How a person could even function at such a high level of leaves me wondering when the dam will break.
Body and Bone is a fantastic suspense thriller that has all the elements for excellent reading. L S Hawker’s writing is fast paced and jam packed with action at every turn. The twists and turns keep the mystery alive and I dare you to anticipate the ending. It blew my mind, again and again. Evil does walk among us and the worst kind of evil is the human kind. I must warn you though, once you start reading you won’t want to put it down, so plan accordingly. L S Hawker is an author I will be placing on my MUST READ list.
I received a copy of Body and Bone by L S Hawker in return for an honest review.
5 Stars
Synopsis:
LS Hawker returns with another atmospheric, twisting tale of suspense that questions the nature of identity and how far a young mother is willing to go to run from the mistakes of her past.
He wants to destroy her reputation.
He wants to destroy her life.
He wants to destroy…her.
Nessa Donati used to be a happily married mother with a successful music blog and satellite radio show. But that was before her husband John relapsed on drugs and went missing. That was before he was presumed dead. And before she was framed for his murder.
When a commenter on Nessa’s blog starts harassing her online, Nessa shrugs it off. Trolls are a part of internet life. But eventually the troll begins threatening her safety and releasing personal details… details only her husband would know.
As Nessa’s life is dismantled piece by piece, her only option is to find John and put a stop to the lies. But when their son becomes a pawn in his twisted game, she must face a disturbing truth: Maybe John isn’t tormenting her, after all. But if he’s not…who is? And how far will this monster go to exact revenge?
Book Details:
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense Published by: Witness Impulse/HarperCollins Publication Date: May 2016 Number of Pages: 303 ISBN: 0062435221 (ISBN13: 9780062435224) Purchase Links:
Read an excerpt:
CHAPTER ONE
Tuesday, May 31
Nessa Donati was going to have to sell her brand spanking new car. And all because the rear-view mirror hung in the perfect position to display an accidental glimpse of her reflection whenever she reached into the back seat. Typically she prepared herself before facing a reflective surface. But when she was caught off guard, without fail, her mother’s disappointed, sour Resting Bitch Face stared back at her.
It wasn’t that her mother was unattractive. She was, in fact, far more beautiful than Nessa could ever hope to be. It was that her mother had always used Nessa as a mirror in which to see herself without ever truly seeing Nessa.
So the new black Chrysler Pacifica would have to go.
It was nearing sunset when Nessa parked it on Crestview Drive by the Randolph Bridge, which spanned not only the Big Blue River but the northern tip of Tuttle Creek Lake as well. This was the last stop on a four-day camping trip, just Nessa, her three-year-old son Daltrey, and their Wheaton Terrier, Declan MacManus.
She checked on Daltrey, asleep in his car seat, listing to starboard, mouth open. He’d be okay for a moment, and she was glad she wouldn’t have to explain what she was about to do. She felt silly enough about it already.
Nessa and Declan MacManus exited the Pacifica, the dog running ahead, while Nessa locked and shut the door.
She walked the eighth of a mile to the river’s edge beneath the bridge as sparse traffic droned by overhead, tires making that phut phut phut sound as they traversed the seams in the asphalt. Nessa stood and watched the water flow past, appearing deceptively tranquil until a tree branch rushed by at break-neck speed. Declan sniffed happily around, pausing to mark every object he encountered with a lifted leg.
Nessa looked around to make sure she was alone, then reached into her pocket and withdrew the six-inch-long braid of her husband John’s hair. He’d cut it before their wedding five years ago. She had kept it in a velvet box all this time, never dreaming this day would come. She looked at the sky and the water, remembering all their good times on the river. This was the right place to let John’s braid go.
The water lapped against her tennis shoes as she wound up and let the braid fly. She watched it arc through the air, hit the rushing water with an inconsequential splash, and disappear. She watched for a moment and let herself cry a little. She needed this sort of closure ritual to move on with her life, like spreading his ashes. Except he wasn’t dead. Yet.
Nessa trudged back to the car, Declan MacManus meandering behind her. She unlocked and opened her door, and the dog jumped in and settled in the passenger seat. Nessa noted that Daltrey hadn’t even changed position while she was gone.
Nessa started the car, put it in gear, and headed toward home.
Forty minutes later, she parked in the converted hay barn garage behind her house and decided she’d wait until morning to unload the camping gear.
Declan MacManus jumped from the car and ran, whining, toward the other outbuildings, hops vines, and woods beyond, as Nessa climbed into the back to struggle with Daltrey’s carseat restraints. She draped him over her shoulder, and took him inside and upstairs to his big-boy bed. There, she pulled off his sandals and kissed his fat little feet before slipping him between the sheets. Good. He was out for the night. She left his door ajar, and went downstairs and out the back door to get their suitcase from the Pacifica.
Outside it was full dark, and the woods buzzed with late-spring insects. When she hit the bottom step, she saw Declan MacManus curled up in front of the outbuilding they called the boathouse. He sprang to his feet as if he’d just noticed royalty entering the room. This slowed Nessa down—what was he doing?—but she continued on to the garage, where she retrieved their luggage. When she closed the garage door, the dog jumped to his feet again, in the exact spot she’d left him.
Nessa stood staring at him, and he gazed expectantly back at her.
And then she saw it. The wooden carriage-house door’s lock was gone. In its place was a jagged hole, as if God himself had punched a massive fist through it in a fit of righteous anger.
Nessa froze, her breath captive in her throat.
She set down the suitcase and, after a moment of indecision, pulled out her phone and dialed.
Marlon Webb didn’t say hello, just, “With a student.” This was his way of saying he could be interrupted only for a very specific kind of emergency.
“Call me back,” she whispered. “I’m rethinking that whole restraining order thing.”
Author Bio:
LS HAWKER grew up in suburban Denver, indulging her worrisome obsession with true-crime books, and writing stories about anthropomorphic fruit and juvenile delinquents. She wrote her first novel at 14.
Armed with a B.S. in journalism from the University of Kansas, she had a radio show called “People Are So Stupid,” edited a trade magazine and worked as a traveling Kmart portrait photographer, but never lost her passion for fiction writing.
She’s got a hilarious, supportive husband, two brilliant daughters and a massive music collection. She lives in Colorado but considers Kansas her spiritual homeland.
Visit LS Hawker –
Tour Participants:
Don’t Miss Out on this Exciting Giveaway:
This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for LS Hawker and WitnessImpulse. There will be 3 US winners of one (1) eBook copy of Body and Bone by LS Hawker. The giveaway begins on June 1st and runs through July 3rd, 2016.
Oubliette by Vanta M Black has a simple, yet awesome cover for a novel that was inspired by true events. Check it out closely and, if you see what I see, you will be eager to open the pages and learn what’s inside.
Be sure and scroll to the bottom of the post for the giveaway!
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Oubliette: A Forgotten Little Place by Vanta M. Black
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Paranormal, Historical Fiction, Genre-Fiction, New Adult, Horror
Veronica knows the monsters aren’t “just in her head”, but no one listens to the headstrong ten-year-old as they tie her to a hospital bed every night.
Years later, after being dumped by her business-partner/boyfriend, Veronica finds herself on the verge of bankruptcy. Then a late-night call promises the perfect solution — a job opportunity decorating a castle in France.
Will Veronica risk what little she has left to chase a fairytale?
When the shadowy things that once terrorized her come back, Veronica must decide how much she’ll sacrifice for them, for her sanity, and for her life.
This epic book consists of interwoven stories with paranormal twists. A horror-filled historical fiction adventure, it spans nearly two millennia.
You’ll be transported to an ancient Pagan ritual, Roman-ruled Gaul, the bloody Inquisition of the Knights Templar, France as it’s ravaged by the Black Death, the duplicitous Reformation, the Paris Catacombs, and the gory French Revolution, while you unravel Oubliette’s cryptic layers.
Veronica didn’t understand why they looked for the monsters in her head, that’s obviously not where they were. Instead of listening, the doctors stuck pads with wires to her temples and increased the dosage of an IV that dripped into her veins.
They also told the nurses to tie her down with thick, leather belts every night.
The tethers didn’t matter though, because when the monsters came, she wouldn’t be able to move anyway. The only thing Veronica could ever do was scream.
The doctors called them “night terrors”. The pudgy lady who talked funny –– she told Veronica it was her accent –– said they were “spirits”. Mommy used the term “shadow people”. Veronica just called them “monsters”, and wished they’d stop scaring her when she slept.
They wanted her. Deep inside, on a primal level, Veronica knew the monsters –– or whatever they were –– craved her, and if given the chance, they would do something very, very bad to her.
The little girl tried to explain this to the doctors, the nurses, the accent-talking lady, and her mother, but none of the adults really listened. Instead they argued and shouted at each other, and huffed in and out of the room –– but the thing that frightened Veronica the most, is when the adults would simply shrug their shoulders, and admit that they really didn’t have any idea what the monsters were at all.
It was almost ten o’clock –– shift-change time. The night staff would come now. The nurse on duty was a plodding and lazy lady who would only check on Veronica at the beginning of the shift, and then abandon her in favor of the nurses’ station and a VHS tape of the day’s soap operas. Veronica didn’t like her. Sometimes it would take “Nurse Lazy” a full five minutes before she’d respond. She never came fast enough.
Veronica tried to tell the doctors that the nurse was too slow, but the complaints of a ten-year-old weren’t taken seriously against the word of the lazy nurse who smiled sweetly and said, “Poor dear and those dreadful night terrors. I always come running as fast as I can!”
Veronica cringed as the television automatically turned itself off. It always happened at ten o’clock; it was on a timer. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt it protected her and wished more than anything it could stay on. The noise, the pictures, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, there was something inexplicable about the TV that kept the monsters away.
Veronica’s pleas to leave the television on all night were never honored by the adults. Nurse Lazy actually once told her, “Oh, we can’t leave the TV on, it’ll give you bad dreams.”
Ha! Little did she know the TV prevented the bad dreams.
The door opened and in walked Nurse Lazy. Her metal nameplate actually read “Lucy”. She handed Veronica a little paper cup with a green pill inside and waited with a thin, forced smile. The longer Veronica took to take her medicine, the longer Nurse Lazy would have to wait until she could watch her soaps.
Veronica plucked the pill out of the cup. “Aren’t they ’sposed to be yellow?”
Lucy flared her nostrils ever so slightly as she replied, “No, your new doctor prescribed the green ones. Hurry up and take it.”
Veronica studied the pill closely, holding it inches from her nose. She looked at it slightly cross-eyed. “I don’t think I like the green ones though. Yellows are better.”
Lucy’s trembling hand clutched a Dixie cup of water. “That’s for the doctors to decide. Now eat it up! Time for sleep.”
Veronica painstakingly laid the pill on her tongue and grunted for the nurse to hand her the water.
Lucy thrust it forward. “Here, drink!”
Veronica pouted, though she knew the cute face wouldn’t work on ol’ Lazy.
“Thanks,” she muttered as the nurse buckled down Veronica’s arms and legs and pulled the covers up to her chest.
“Goodnight,” Lucy grumbled. She snatched the mermaid doll that sat by Veronica’s side, and tossed it on the nightstand before careening out the door.
Random acts of meanness like that weren’t uncommon for Lucy. Veronica sniffed as the silence left in the nurse’s wake permeated the room.
Then familiar, tinny tunes from a transistor radio wafted through the air. It hung from the janitor’s cleaning cart. He always blared it while mopping the halls. There was that song again. Some stupid radio station played it almost every night right around this time. Veronica stared at her doll on the nightstand, just out of reach, as the lyrics began:
Dream the dream that only you can dream
Sing the song that only you can sing
Dance with me, we’ll start slow
Clasp my hand, now lose control
Bite the monster only you can see
And dream the dream you only dream for me
Veronica tried to squish her head into the stiff pillow so her ears were covered, but it didn’t work. The heavy metal song’s pounding chorus kicked in.
Spirits in the maze
Burning brighter
Like a dream within the haze
Dancing fire
Deep inside malaise
Hungry spider
Force your screams to blaze
Spinning spiral
The song frightened her. It seemed to always precede a particularly bad episode. She really wished she had the yellow pills. She felt defenseless as sleep consumed her. The green pills would be no help if one of the bad ones came…the real Bad Ones, that is.
She twisted her head and glared into the large mirror on the wall across the room. People watched her from inside there. Veronica wasn’t sure if they were the doctors, the accent lady, or maybe even her mother, but every now and then someone would move, the light would catch just right, and she would see a figure behind the glass. Dimly, she watched them watch her. They studied her and talked about her and wrote notes about her on clipboards. Knowing they were there gave Veronica little comfort because they weren’t there to help; they were only there to watch.
Her sleepy eyes narrowed at the watchers and she whispered with dopey lips, “What, no popcorn? You gonna stare at me all night and you got no stinking popcorn? You’re all a bunch of stupid heads, ya’ know that? Stooopid heads…”
Sleep quietly took over while Veronica cursed the stupid heads behind the glass. She jerked her droopy neck to force herself awake, but the green pill was powerful. It pushed her into the darkness where the shadow people waited.
Veronica, here we are!
Veronica, time to steal your dreams.
Time to let us steal your dreams and break your bones and slip your soul right out of your slimy sack of skin…Veronica!
She fought to wake up. With all her might she tried to scream, but the green pill seized her motor functions and paralyzed her. She was like a petrified slab of meat laid out on a table –– unable to move, unable to cry out, unable to defend herself.
Do you know the evil that you dream, Veronica?
Do you know the song that only you can sing?
Veronica!
In the limbo between sleep and lucidity Veronica sensed their heinous presence with crystal-clarity. She was hyper-alert and instinctively knew these were the real Bad Ones. Without looking she saw one crouching in the far corner of the room. It glared at her intently and oozed animosity. It waited patiently, almost casually, for Veronica to succumb.
With a sudden surge of intense willpower she cried out — just a little — it was a tiny whimper that was barely audible. It wasn’t loud enough to scare the shadow people away though, and it definitely wasn’t loud enough for anyone living to hear.
Another Bad One pulled itself onto the foot of her bed. This one was small and hairy like an animal. Scrooching under the blanket, it crept slowly along the side of her bare leg. It felt for a nook to burrow — a soft place like her stomach or side so it could squirm and writhe itself into her flesh — where it could rip her apart from the inside out.
“Help,” Veronica whispered one last time before falling into the dark depths of sleep –– deep, down, spinning ‘round, until the darkness took a hold…
About the Author:
Vanta M. Black, author of Oubliette—A Forgotten Little Place, enjoys uncovering the dark mysteries of our Universe. In addition to writing, she enjoys traveling to provocative places and studying all things esoteric.
Black has degrees in English, communication and art. She resides in Southern California with her husband and two pug-mix dogs, and spends her time in support of causes that empower women and advance science and technology.
Welcome to Sortilege Falls by Libby Heily Genre: YA Magical Mystery Release Date: June 12th 2016 Fire & Ice Young Adult Books Summary from Goodreads: Sixteen-year-old Grape Merriweather has just moved to Sortilege Falls and already she knows something isn’t right. A small pack of teenage models, too beautiful for words, holds the town in their sway. The models have no plans on making Grape’s life easy. But no matter how cruel they are to Grape and the other “Normals”, no one can stay angry with them for long.
Grape’s life changes for the better, or so she thinks, when Mandy, the only “nice” model, befriends her. But that’s when the trouble truly begins. Mandy’s friendship places Grape smack in the middle of a medical mystery that has the entire town on edge. One by one, the models fall ill from an incurable disease. Grape quickly realizes that the models’ parents are hiding a secret, even as they watch their children die. To save her only friend, Grape will have to find the truth–and that means putting her life in danger.
Let me start with a confession: I am terrible at job
interviews. Some people say that but
what they mean is that they get nervous or they feel weird about selling
themselves. I mean neither of those
things. I have actually said these words
during a job interview, “It’s okay if you don’t give me the job.” Why?
Because I wasn’t feeling great in the interview and, hey, why not be
honest? Oh, because I have bills to pay,
that’s why. Ugh.
One of my absolute worst moments in an interview did, at
least, lead to an “aha” moment. It
wasn’t quite an epiphany, but we’re not entitled to too many of those in one
life time. Picture it, me with my
theater degree and background in customer service and film work, sitting at a
table with three lab technicians interviewing to be a…lab technician. I had recently discovered a love of science
and a deep need to not deal with the general public anymore. The two led me to a corporation who shall
remain nameless but let’s say that I would have been dealing with blood, urine,
and fecal samples. Sounds gross but, at
the time, I thought lab work would be amazing.
The interview had seemed to go well. I’d been engaging and forthright and had
spoken of my desire to switch careers and do meaningful work. I thought I really had a chance. Then they hit me with the last question:
IF YOU COULD BE ANY ANIMAL, WHAT WOULD YOU BE?
I stared at them dumfounded.
This was something you asked your friends as a joke or to loosen people
up at a dinner party, not something a hiring committee used to find a new
potential employee. Why not ask me what
books I would take to a deserted island?
Sheesh.
I sighed heavily, knowing that this was not meant to
be. “I know I should say something like
I want to be a work horse, but honestly, I want to be a shark.”
The three ladies looked at me, their smiles sliding slowly into disapproving
frowns. I had just admitted that I
wanted to be a predator, and not just any predator, but the one most feared by
humans. Who doesn’t step into the ocean
and, at least for a brief second, think they’re going to be eaten? Who doesn’t read the summer shark-bite
articles with enthusiasm, thinking they themselves had escaped such a fate? If you’ve seen JAWS, you fear sharks.
The ladies thanked me for my time and I was released back out into the world,
jobless and a bit disappointed.
But, I’d meant it.
Being a shark would be so cool.
Sharks don’t sleep. They’re
always on the move. They live in the
ocean and travel miles and miles. I like
all those things. I don’t want to fly or
swing from branches, I want to swim and swim and swim. Okay, I’m not super interested in eating raw
fish all the time, but I’d adjust. I
like sushi. Plus, sharks are
mysterious. We really don’t know much
about them. Except that they cost us
jobs. We know that much.
About the Author
I was born during a blizzard. I’m told it was pretty cool, but I have no memory of that time. I grew up in two tiny towns in Virginia and spent most of my twenties moving around the US. I’ve lived in Virginia, Florida, Missouri, and Washington. I’ve settled down, for now, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
I’m a writer and improviser. I studied acting in college but spent more time rewriting lines than memorizing them. My first play, Fourth Wall, was produced my junior year. Since then, I’ve written several full length plays, one acts, and screenplays. I started writing fiction in my late twenties. Now, I focus mainly on novels but still dabble in theater.Fun facts about me: There are none. I’m sorry to disappoint you so soon. But, I do love to read, write, and run. My hubby is my favorite person on earth. Dogs are my second favorite. All dogs. Know that. I love orange juice, especially when it’s mixed with club soda. Carbonation is better than alcohol. Jaws is my favorite movie. Everything I’ve said so far is true.
I love learning about covers and characters and this is what Mark Morey has to say about The Last Great Race
ABOUT THE COVER: The Last Great Race is based upon the life and loves of 1930s Italian motor racing champion Achille Varzi, so the choice of cover was quite easy. Achille Varzi was a heavy smoker at a time when the health consequences of that were not known. His joining the Auto Union racing team in 1935 set in train a sequence of events which almost destroyed him emotionally. A picture of Achille Varzi in an AutoUnion smoking a cigarette is not only typical of the man at the time, it’s also poignant that a few weeks after that picture was taken at Monaco in 1936, he was about to suffer two savage blows which took him years to recover from.
ABOUT THE NAMES: I have followed Formula One car racing since the early 1970s, and through that I was aware of the story of Achille Varzi, a good driver of the 1930s, until his private life got in the way of his racing career. When I looked into the facts about Varzi I didn’t realise that he was the best racer in a legendary era, certainly one of the best of all time, and that his love affair with Ilse was so passionate and ultimately so destructive. I thought that passionate love, the tragedy that came out of it, and his recovery with the help of Norma who came back into his life, made a great story. Norma Colombo was a woman against the odds. She lived with Achille Varzi unmarried when women didn’t do that, and when Achille broke up with Ilse she came back to him. That was just as amazing as anything that happened between Achille and Ilse. One man and two women who adored him completely, totally and absolutely.
The names of most of the characters are real, except for the fictional characters Paul Bassi and PIa Donati. Paul (real name Paolo) is a straightforward name for a straightforward man, while I thought that Pia Donati was a particularly attractive name.
Thanks so much for sharing Mark. Now…on to the info about the book: The Last Great Race by Mark Morey.
I love reading about any type of auto racing and watch many of the races on TV. How about you? Are you a fan?
This story is based around the life of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic sportsmen of his era, Achille Varzi: multiple race winner, twice Racing Champion of Italy and a hero to his many followers. Told partly through the eyes of Varzi and partly by fictional Italian-Australian racing journalist Paul Bassi, we follow the many triumphs and tragedies of Varzi’s life: his passionate love affair with Ilse, his tragic morphine addiction, his recovery from his addictions, his marriage to Norma and his re-signing to race for Alfa Romeo.
Only war intervenes, and Paul and his wife Pia leave Achille to spy for the British at the naval base in Naples. Paul and Pia endure hundreds of Allied air-raids, they join the partisans who fought off the German army until the Allies could rescue them, and then they survive in a near-ruined city as best they can.
By 1946 Italy is still shattered but life is returning to normal, and no more normal is Achille Varzi winning the Grand Prix of Italy that year. Over the next two seasons Achille Varzi scores more successes, until he makes his only ever driving mistake and is killed in Switzerland in 1948. Even though he died too young, Paul and Pia know that Achille Varzi would never have lived in his life in any other way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
“Achille crashed,” she said and drank some more. “I have never seen anything like it. He was the only driver taking the banked curve at the end of the straight flat-out. Each lap I heard the exhaust note of his car never wavering as he took that curve with his typical, stylish precision. And then on lap fourteen a sudden gust of wind came in from the desert, blowing dust and debris. I held my hat and glanced at the Englishman nearby, just as the wind caught the front of Achille’s car and lifted the front wheels from the track. The car rose higher and higher like an aeroplane, flying away from the track until the rear of the car hit the ground and then the front, and it rolled over and over with the most terrible noise. Over and over until it stopped on its wheels in the middle of an orchard. There were Arab men dressed in robes and they ran to the car. I was on the wrong side of the circuit and checked that nobody was coming before I ran to it as well, and so did the Englishman.” She drank more water. “I thought he must be dead, nobody could survive a crash like that, but he climbed out of the wrecked car and brushed dirt from his overalls. He looked around and saw me but I don’t think it registered.”
“Is he alright?” Paul asked, worried.
“He’s fine although shaken. He didn’t even light a cigarette, and then he fainted. The Englishman Raymond Mays helped him, and he drove us back here.”
Paul contemplated what he heard, and that would have been a terrible thing to see.
“I have never seen anything like it,” Pia repeated and Paul hoped that Achille really was alright. If he was taking that curve flat-out he must have been doing about 300.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Writing technical documentation and advertising material formed a large part of my career for many decades. Writing a novel didn’t cross my mind until relatively recently, where the combination of too many years writing dry, technical documents and a visit to the local library where I couldn’t find a book that interested me led me consider a new pastime. Write a book. That book may never be published, but I felt my follow-up cross-cultural crime with romance hybrid set in Russia had more potential. So much so that I wrote a sequel that took those characters on a journey to a very dark place.
Once those books were published by Club Lighthouse and garnered good reviews I wrote in a very different place and time. My two novels set in Victorian Britain were published by Wings ePress in July and August of 2014. These have been followed by a story set against the background of Australia’s involvement on the Western Front, published in August 2015. Australia’s contribution to the battles on the Western Front and to ultimate victory is a story not well known, but should be better known.
Staying within the realm of historical fiction, one of the most successful sportsmen of the 1930s, Achille Varzi, lived a dramatic and tumultuous life. It is a wonder his story hasn’t been told before, beyond non fiction written in Italian. The Last Great Race follows the highs and lows of Varzi’s motor racing career, and stays in fascist Italy during the dark days of World War Two.
The creepy cover of Marionettes by Kerry Alan Denney hints at the story inside. This supernatural thriller has enough twists and turns to keep me reading and marveling at the thought provoking scenarios David is forced to work through as he battles the evil lurking around every corner.
David Flint awoke in a hospital bed, confused and struggling to remember what happened. All he could think was WTH is going on. Have you ever had an out of body experience? David Flint has, but it goes so much further than that…he is the Marionette Man. He can mind jump. He not only knows what people think and feel, but he can control their actions.
I loved the scene in the hospital with the junkie. I wonder if I would have done the same…or worse, but you will have to read the book to find out more.
The Marionettes takes place in Gulfport, Mississippi, a place I know very well. In fact I just returned from a trip there on Tuesday. I know the devastation of a hurricane, which is what killed David Flint. His wife had died in a senseless accident some time before but her family still welcomed him with open arms. Eleana, his mother-in-law, is a hurricane force of her own, giving and well intentioned. Benny, his father-in-law, has a funny streak and is quite the comic, but can be counted on when needed. Shaina, his sister-in-law, has always been in love with him, yet she is determined to be his best friend, if that is what he needs to recover from Karin’s loss. She suffers from Karin’s loss too. She is quite the character and I wonder what their relationship will be.
When David Flint pisses off the wrong guy who is capable of so much more than David, I wonder how he could come out of this alive. The evil grows and challenges every resource he has.
I chuckled at the shower scene…and it’s 5 0’clock somewhere, so if David’s having a beer, I don’t want him to drink alone…so CHEERS.
What would be the repercussions of mind jumping? What moral and ethical dilemmas would arise? Maybe some secrets are best kept.
Marionettes makes me ask the question, “How far would I go to save the ones I love?”
I haven’t read a story quite like Marionettes and I love it. Kerry Alan Denney’s imagination and creative writing lend the story a sense of reality and brought mind jumping to life as I wondered if I would be able to follow the straight and narrow or would I bend the rules for my own personal gain? As David deals with his demons Kerry Alan Denny gives me food for thought and I feel the questions will linger long after I finish reading
I will be checking out more of Kerry Alan Denney’s award winning work and I look forward to taking another fantastic adventure through the pages with him.
I received a copy of Marionettes by Kerry Alan Denney in return for an honest review.
5 Stars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB
Resuscitated after he drowns and dies in a flood, David Flint discovers he has returned from the other side with an uncanny ability: He can “jump” into people’s bodies and minds, and control their thoughts and actions.
David believes it’s a gift, and wants to use it to help people. Then four members of a ruthless drug ring savagely attack his fiancée and leave her in a coma, and David tries to use his new power to destroy the whole ring. But the ringleader, a voodoo priest known as the Zombie Master, is a formidable man with a deadly secret: He has the same incredible ability as David.
When the two human marionette masters clash in a brutal bloody showdown, using the ring’s members as their puppets, David discovers he’s battling for much more than his life—he’s fighting to rid the world of an evil human abomination.
Marionettes illuminates the greatest achievements of the human spirit and the darkest corridors of our minds, and answers the age-old question: What are the consequences of absolute power?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
My whole life changed after I drowned and died in the flood.
Upon my resurrection, I thought I was dreaming. My head felt fuzzy. A little man inside it was drilling away at my brain with a tiny but immensely effective jackhammer. My mouth felt like it was glued shut, my tongue ten times normal size and made of sandpaper. A crew of little men sliced furrows in my throat with dull rusty swords, cackling merrily as they destroyed my trachea.
Some sadistic bastard apparently burned a branding iron into my corneas.
It was far worse than any hangover I ever had—and I’d had some doozies since Karin died and left me alone, lost, and unmoored in a callous world.
When I woke, the acrid tang of antiseptic mixing with an unpleasant odor stung my nostrils. Through a crimson haze, I saw a pretty nurse gaze down at me and smile. She looked like an angel.
“Hi, David!” she sang, her perfect white teeth gleaming as if lit from within. “Welcome back.” She caressed my face with a warm hand, glanced at some monitoring equipment beside the bed I lay in, and turned and hit a switch behind me. “Laura, page Dr. Yamaguchi. Mr. Flint’s awake.”
The angel turned back to me. “I bet you’re thirsty. We’ll fix that shortly, okay? After the doctor sees you, maybe we can give you some ice chips.”
I shut my eyes to block out the combined glare of her smile and the overhead fluorescence. When I opened them again, an attractive Asian woman in her forties with close-cropped black hair streaked with gray stood over me. Her brow wrinkled, a tentative smile curling the corners of her lips upward.
“Welcome back, Mr. Flint,” she said. “I’m Dr. Yamaguchi. You’re lucky to be alive. It’s a miracle the couple who brought you in were able to resuscitate you. We almost lost you twice last night. Apparently you lead a charmed existence. Don’t try to speak yet.”
I tried anyway, but couldn’t. The miniature swordsmen in my throat were having a blast trying to cut their way out. I nodded, then grimaced as the movement made the mad Lilliputian with the jackhammer pound more little holes in my brain. I shut my eyes again and drifted off.
It was all surreal. I remembered my name and profession, but I couldn’t remember what happened to me. Every time I strained for the memory, it receded while raging torrents of dark waters overwhelmed me.
Consciousness was an assault upon my senses. But in what I initially mistook for dreams, my perception and sense of taste, touch, and smell were immaculate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links
Colleagues and readers have dubbed Kerry Alan Denney The Reality Bender. The multiple award-winning author of the paranormal thrillers Dreamweavers (Juju Mojo Publications, August 2015) and Soulsnatcher (Juju Mojo Publications, April 2014), the post-apocalyptic sci-fi/ horror thriller Jagannath (Permuted Press, February 2015), and numerous short stories published online and in anthologies, Kerry blends elements of the supernatural, paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror in his work: speculative fiction at its wildest and craziest. With joy, malicious glee, and a touch of madness, he writes reality-bending thrillers, even when the voices don’t compel him to. His protagonists are his children, and he loves them as dearly as he despises his antagonists… even when he has to kill them.
On July 24, 2015, Jagannath became a #1 Amazon bestseller. On March 31, 2015, Soulsnatcher won 2nd Place as 2014 Book of the Year in The Drunken Druid’s International Book Award competition. Jagannath and Soulsnatcher each received a rave blurb from New York Times bestselling author James Rollins.
Kerry lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia with his golden retriever Holly Jolly, a veteran professional Therapy Dog, where he is currently writing his next supernatural thriller… and deciding who to kill in it.
Be on the lookout for Kerry’s new post-apocalyptic/ paranormal thriller A Mighty Rolling Thunder, coming December 3, 2016 from Burning Willow Press.
Driving Me Mad 
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4 Stars
Defending Hayden
LS HAWKER grew up in suburban Denver, indulging her worrisome obsession with true-crime books, and writing stories about anthropomorphic fruit and juvenile delinquents. She wrote her first novel at 14.
Vanta M. Black, author of Oubliette—A Forgotten Little Place, enjoys uncovering the dark mysteries of our Universe. In addition to writing, she enjoys traveling to provocative places and studying all things esoteric.
