City of Ghosts by J H Moncrieff is a predictable, at times realistic, horror story that had me rapidly flipping the pages as Jackson Stone was chosen to tell a ghostly tale of pain, anger and vengeance.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Winner of the 2018 Kindle Book Review Award for best Horror/Suspense.
On the day the villagers were forced to flee Hensu, not everyone got out alive.
Jackson Stone is touring the abandoned Chinese city when he slips away from the group to spend the night, determined to publish an account of his ghostly experiences there.
Then he meets Yuèhai, a strange, soft-spoken woman who can tell him the city’s secrets—secrets the Chinese government would kill to keep hidden.
As Jackson uncovers the truth about Yuèhai and the ghost city, he’s drawn into a web of conspiracy, betrayal, and murder. He must risk everything to save himself and bring honor back to Yuèhai and her family.
The Dalya series by Katie Zaber needs to be read in order.
Below Dark Waters is told by three points of view.
Princess Mega is on the run, with her friends by her side, running from her father, who wants her dead. Does it get much worse that that?
Carmia is a free spirit, an adventurer. She felt the call of the sea and had Octavia built so she could take to the sea, where she felt at home. A woman pirate, gotta love it. She is on the hunt for treasure, leaving her family behind, though they didn’t miss her much.
Lily…love her. She is a master of disguise.
Seeing this is Book II, I don’t want to spoil the wonder of Princess Megan’s world. I want to be at her side, saving children, being taken to an underwater world where evil is afoot, growing, changing, evolving into the leader she never asked or wanted to be. She has devoted, loyal friends and gathers more, as they see her for who she is, a warrior, a fair and determined woman who knows right from wrong. She grabs what moments of happiness and love that are at her fingertips, knowing she may have to sacrifice her own desires and do the right thing for their worlds to survive and prosper.
The end is not here and I can hardly wait to see where we go to next.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Below Dark Waters by Katie Zaber.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Princess Megan, who never had a reason to assume she was anything but human, has been on the run, protected by her friends. With each step toward the city of Delmont, she hopes they will have time to regroup before setting sail to the Ka’Pamau Islands, their final destination. Instead, her bad luck shadows her and chaos continues to ensue everywhere she goes—including a new part of the world that most air breathers have yet to explore.
Confronted with another royal family and a smitten prince whose advances turn cold, she faces another life-altering decision with ramifications she can’t possibly begin to guess at.
Back on land, Lilly reveals more of her secrets, her story, and her goals. Monumental changes and challenges are headed her way as she embraces her new role in life.
On the sea, Aunt Carmia is stirring up trouble while continuing her hunt for the treasure she most desires. She experiences upheavals, but she is always prepared for the unknown.
As their stories unfold, they remain unaware how fate connects them in the world of Dalya
ABOUT KATIE ZABER
Katie Zaber is originally from Southern New Jersey. Her childhood
home is just minutes from the Long Beach Island Bridge. When not
writing, Katie can be found at wine tastings, sun bathing at the beach,
going for hikes, screaming at Six Flags, reading, or in her favorite
place, her kitchen, baking desserts and breads. She currently lives in
Morris County, New Jersey with her boyfriend.
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 HERE
.
Lyrics
Tonight they’re shutting down the borders And they boarded up the schools Small towns are rolling up their sidewalks One last paycheck coming through I know you’re feeling kind of nervous We’re all a little bit confused Nothing’s the same, this ain’t a game We gotta make it throughAs we wave outside the window Older loved ones stay inside Moms and babies blowing kisses May be saving someone’s life They had to cancel graduation It ain’t fair to Skype the prom Our kids sit home in isolation TV news is always onWhen you can’t do what you do You do what you can This ain’t my prayer, it’s just a thought I’m wanting to send ‘Round here, we bend but don’t break Down here, we all understand When you can’t do what you do You do what you canThe chicken farm from Arkansas Bought workers PPE Not before 500 more Had succumbed to this disease Honest men and honest women Working for an honest wage I got a hundred point one fever And we still got bills to payWhen you can’t do what you do You do what you can This ain’t my prayer, it’s just a thought I’m wanting to send ‘Round here, we bend but don’t break Down here, we all understand When you can’t do what you do You do what you canThey built a hospital on East Meadow In Central Park last night Doctors, nurses, truckers, grocery store Clerks manning the front lines I saw a Red Cross on the Hudson They turned off the Broadway lights Another ambulance screams by (screams by) If by the grace of God, go IAlthough I’ll keep my social distance What this world needs is a hug Until we find the vaccination There’s no substitute for love So love yourself and love your family Love your neighbor and your friend Ain’t it time we loved the stranger They’re just a friend you ain’t met yet OhWhen you can’t do what you do You do what you can (do what you can) This ain’t my prayer, it’s just a thought I’m wanting to send ‘Round here, we bend but don’t break Down here, we all understand When you can’t do what you do You do what you can When you can’t do what you do You do what you can
**images are linked to Amazon (I am an affiliate)**
Hello fellow bloggers. Today, Saturday, is a beautiful day. The sun is shining and there is a light breeze. I’m watching some college football. It is such a trip. So many games keep getting cancelled or postponed because of Covid. The pandemic has been a boon for some of the lesser teams. I mean, who would think that Liberty and Coastal Carolina would be ranked higher than Michigan. Oh, and Jimmy, sorry, but you have to go. Michigan has been playing terrible. The coaching sucks and the players act like they just don’t care. It’s been interesting watching, but the National Championship? I love that they are playing, but I think it is ridiculous, as the pandemic rages across the country.
I am getting down about not being able to go to the beach and grab some wings at Hooters, watching the waves break on the beach or going to my favorite Mexican restaurant.
Of course, I keep forgetting to share my Hurricane Sally photos, but the hurricane took out the new bridge to the beach and it is about an hour there and back. It will be like that for the next six months. So glad we decided not to live on the beach. Maybe we’ll hop down to Perdido Bay and do our Christmas photo this year, instead of Pensacola Beach.
Mr Wonderful has been working a lot of freelance. They held the Sunbelt Soccer and Volleyball tournaments over in Alabama, which is close to us. I am sure this was only done because of Covid, but with him being out of work and his last paycheck coming in December, we will gladly take it. This is one of those situations, when a door closes a window opens.
Even though it may not feel like it right now, this too shall pass. So keep the faith and stay safe.
I got the idea and the motivation to start doing Tackling The TBR from All The Book Blog Names Are Taken. It has helped me to keep track of my reading shelf as far as current events and I also started doing a post for Books From The Backlog, from Carole’s Random Life in Books, to tidy up my shelves. I feel better about my out of control TBR and have even knocked off a couple of those old ones that had been hanging around for years.
COME ON….JOIN IN.
Previous Total: 2445
I read books from my TBR, and some that were in Documents on my KIndle, but not any of those under currently reading, which are mostly review books. My mood is BLAH, but I plan on knocking some review books out this coming week.
Join us for this tour from Nov 18 to Dec 22, 2018!
Book Details:
Book Title: MagesUnbound: Book 2 of the Fifth Mage War Seriesby Laura Engelhardt Series: Fifth Mage War Series Category: Adult fiction (18+), 480 pages Genre: Paranormal Women’s Fiction Publisher: Laura Engelhardt Release date: Nov 2020 Content Rating:
PG-13 + M for battle sequences, bad language including F-words, and
adult-themes mildly referenced. Euphemisms are used in lieu of graphic
descriptions of sex/violence. There is NO sexual violence or child
abuse.
Book Description:
It’s ironic to find out your whole life has been a lie when you’re married to a truth-teller. If only Mary could find some humor in it. She’s drowning her sorrow in vodka and song when a surprise visit from her youngest sister jolts her into accepting the magical reality hidden from her for fifty years. Mary’s epiphany can’t come soon enough because her fresh start may be the only thing that can save her siblings and the world from an utter melt-down. As the two Bant sisters grapple with sirens, faeries and the FBI in America, their brother is trapped in a high-stakes game of mage politics in Australia. Meanwhile, middle-sister Amy’s malfunctioning mage-sight forces her to seek help from the very same mages who tricked her once before.
Can Mary pull herself together in time to rescue her family from the coming war? Mages Unbound is a paranormal women’s fiction novel, told from the perspective of the Bant family members. This is Book 2 in the Fifth Mage War Series, a magical epic about sirens, fae, and family ties.
Book Title:Sirens Unbound: Book 1 of the Fifth Mage War Seriesby Laura Engelhardt Series: Fifth Mage War Series Category: Adult fiction (18+), 548 pages Genre: Paranormal Women’s Fiction Publisher: Laura Engelhardt Release date: July 29, 2019 Content Rating:
PG-13 + M for battle sequences, bad language including F-words, and
adult-themes mildly referenced. Euphemisms are used in lieu of graphic
descriptions of sex/violence. There is NO sexual violence or child
abuse.
“Loved it! Members of the Bant family become entwined in an upcoming mage war in this epic urban fantasy novel about sirens, fae, and family ties.” — Michelle Hogmire, Reedsy Discovery
“a unique take and meshing of different established ideas… Sirens that feed and aid? Fae trapped in England as a prisoner camp? Mage’s getting optical surgery for magick sight? I really loved the combination of ideas and I thought they all worked together surprisingly well … I found myself immersed in watching the fae emerge and interested in Amy’s work. I appreciated not being talked down to on either side, as a reader. Some writers over-explain or use too much jargon. This was just the right mix for me. And the descriptions placed me in each scene. I’d definitely buy this.” — Mel Candea, Ink & Insights
Book Description:
Amy’s day starts with three things: Coffee, breakfast, then brains. In that order. Relax, it’s not what you think. She’s just your everyday neurosurgeon who can fix everyone’s brain but her own. It doesn’t matter if she has fifty years of life experience and regularly works with mages—she’s still a mundane.
She’s turning fifty, and her last achievement was what, ten years ago? She’s not sure if anyone even remembers it.
Determined not to be a one-hit-wonder, Amy jumps head-first into a new opportunity. Literally. Some people have affairs to deal with a midlife crisis—Amy has brain surgery.
The results are even bigger than her career ambitions, and Dr. Amy Bant will need the help of her siblings to survive what comes next. Cordelia, an agoraphobic underwater photographer, Thomas, a playboy with a Brazilian tourism business, and Mary, a choir director with a truth-teller husband are all keys to unlocking secrets a whole lot closer to home than any of them could have realized.
Turning fifty doesn’t have to be mundane—not when you’re in the Bant family! Sirens Unbound is a paranormal women’s fiction novel told from each member of the Bant family. This is Book 1 in the Fifth Mage War
Series, a magical epic about sirens, fae, and family ties.
An avid sf/fantasy reader, Laura Engelhardt writes the kind of book she likes to read: fantasy with intricate worlds and complex characters facing moral dilemmas. She started writing plays in college, then moved to Germany, where she continued to write while teaching ESL to executives. After moving back to the U.S., she supported her playwriting by teaching ballroom dance and working retail. Deciding that living in her parents’ attic wasn’t for her, Laura went to law school and then spent the next seventeen years as a lawyer and compliance officer in New York City. In 2017, she quit Wall Street and began helping people resolve disputes as a mediator and arbitrator. She now lives in New Jersey with her family.
“When the shit hits the fan, that’s when having a God to pray to or curse is really satisfying…”
No Hacket House or the town of Bramley showed up on the internet when Jane researched the offer for a live in caregiver, but the lucrative paycheck had her packing and moving. Maybe the lack of information should have been a warning?
There are clocks of every variety cluttering the house. What’s up with that? It made me think of my father in law. He loves tinkering with clocks and has them all over his house, but, they are not like these clocks.
The house sounds more like a mansion or museum, with twisting, turning hallways and hundreds of rooms.
Jane is running from someone and thought Hacket House would be a great place to hide. If she can’t find anything about the house and town, maybe nobody else could either. The reason she is running is even sadder than I anticipated.
The man she is there to take care of is in dire straits, uncommunicative. He has dementia (?), with hands like claws and his body stuck in the fetal position. Is it dementia? Is he being tormented? Haunted? And who…or what…is Nark?
As the secrets are revealed, I wonder about Jane and what will become of her. Looming clocks that seem to move on their own, shadows running from clock to clock, people in robes…
The Haunting of Hacket House is a creepy, deliciously spooky tale that kept getting creepier and creepier as I read. It would make a fantastic movie.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Haunting of Hacket House by Astrid Addams.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Some places don’t let go….
Offered a lucrative job at the mysterious Hacket House, Jane agrees to travel across country to live at the mansion. After all, a fresh start is just what she needs. Besides, the remote house is a long way from the past she is still running from.
Arriving at her new home, she finds a strange red house set in a wood of red, gnarled trees. The same trees used to build the house and the grandfather clocks that haunt every room and dark corridor.
Jane quickly realises that there is something very wrong at Hacket House and the village of Bramley.
Why is there a graveyard in the garden of Hacket House? Who are the people in hoods who haunt the house at night? What are they doing with the old man in the bed? Why is somebody moving the grandfather clocks? Who is the strange woman no one will admit exists? What are the shadows that scoot across the walls like cockroaches? Who is Erazmus Nark whose grave nothing will touch?
As the sinister behaviour of the village escalates and her own past closes in around her, Jane learns that just because something is dead, doesn’t mean that it’s gone.
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.
Clio Kaid may be 17 and just beginning the last summer before her senior year, but her life is anything but typical.
She’s just discovered she was genetically altered before birth and is now headed to a top-secret Army campus to explore the surprising results of the experiment.
Follow Clio and the other teens as they develop fantastic super-abilities, forge new friendships, and find love as they search for answers.
I won Solid by Shelley Workings and added it to my TBR on 10. Everything about the book appeals to me. It is a YA novel, which I do read a lot of when they are also the paranormal and supernatural type. Apocalypti/dystopian/science fiction/fantasy makes me want to know about these kids and their powers. I love a simple cover that says a lot and this one stands out. I wonder how much it pertains to the story and I shall find out. How about you? Do you every get a bit peeved when the cover in no one matches the story inside?
The Dead Meat series started out as novellas and I am so excited that Nick Clausen has so much to share that now he has a full scale novel.
Nick Clausen takes a view from current events and expands on his Zombie virus, crossing borders and hop skipping across the water. He introduces new characters, some that I quickly grew to care for, and, of course, he is not afraid to kill them off. Goes to show ya, when your time is up, it is up.
Bloody, gory, horrific, people come and people, go, zombies walk and zombies fall, everything I look for in a good zombie story. Non stop blood and guts action, killing those who get bitten or scratched.
City to city, country to country, the virus spreads like wildfire, with no one able to curb the spread, let alone stop it.
You will want to read the series in order and I can hardly wait to see where Nick Clausen takes me next.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Dead Meat: Day 5 by Nick Clausen.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Mille is aboard the ferry headed for Sweden, and so is the living dead. She tries desperately to stop the infection from spreading before the ferry reaches its destination.
By Day 5, the infection has reached several countries across Europe, leaving death and chaos in its wake. The fate of the world seems still closer to the brink.
ABOUT NICK CLAUSEN
Born 1988 in North Jutland,
where I still live with my wife, who also happened to be my earliest
childhood girlfriend. From 2017 I have lived as a full-time writer. Up
until then, I had different jobs beside the writing. I have been
studying as a carpenter for three years, and have also read two years of
psychology at Aalborg University. It turned out that the writing had a
much more powerful pull on me.
I decided early on that I would be an author when I grew up. In
fact, the decision came to me already when I read my first book,
Snevampyren by Dennis Jürgensen. My first “real” stories I wrote at
14-15 years of age. They were rejected by the publisher, but still got
praise. There were some years when I was busy with being a teenager and
trying to get an education before I suddenly remembered that I should
be an author.
That day I made a promise
to write 1,000 words a day until I got a book published. I sat down and
started writing. I continued to write every single day for a year and a
half. I sent the finished manuscripts to different publishers, and the
rejections piled up. Twelve of them by the end. But each time I could
feel it was a little bit better. The criticism became more positive. The
thirteenth story was called Tidevandet, and it was adopted by the
publisher and came out a year later.
I have always enjoyed writing, although in the beginning I put a lot
of pressure on myself. My approach to the process has become much more
free over the years. For example, I no longer plan my stories. That
way, I feel that I’m experiencing the story while writing it and the
characters feel like real people. I do not know where the ideas come
from, but I’ve never had trouble finding them.
Book Title: Incandescent Visions by Lee Hudspeth Category: Adult fiction 18 yrs +, 64 pages Genre: Poetry Publisher: George Lee Hudspeth Jr. Release date: December 2019 Content Rating: PG-13. Curse words:
Three total, of the “mild” variety (godd*mn, hell, sh*t… one use for
each). No f-words. No violence, no sexual content, no drug use, no
underage drinking.
Book Description:
Having
written numerous works of nonfiction, this is Lee Hudspeth’s debut book
of poetry. Incandescent Visions explores the meaning of the human
experience, as the author encourages his readers to ponder the universe
and their place within it, and to catalyze their own creative potential.
From the sublime shores of the Mediterranean to the majestic
expansiveness of deep space, this book contemplates nostalgia,
perspective and the gift of love. Through five short yet powerful,
thought-provoking chapters of contemporary poems—and a dash of elegant,
evocative haiku—Hudspeth takes his readers on a journey across the inner
landscape of struggle, triumph, self-realization and imagination.
Lee Hudspeth is a poet, writer, musician and fellow human being.
Incandescent Visions is his first book of poetry. He is the co-author of
ten nonfiction books in the field of Information Technology. He has
written articles for professional journals like PC Computing and Office
Computing. He is the author of over one hundred articles in the online
magazine The Naked PC, which he co-founded and co-published. He lives in
Southern California with his wife, two sons and their cat. Find out
more about Lee, his books and his music at LeeHudspeth.com.
