Spotlight + Interview: The Dybbuk's Mirror By Alisse Lee Goldenberg @AliLGoldenberg @badassmktg #Giveaway

It's here! The sequel to Alisse Lee Goldenberg's The Strings of the Violin is here!

Here's what fans of Young Adult Fantasy said about book 1 of The Hadariah Chronicles, The Strings of Violin:

"The characters quickly come to life in the reader's imagination…it's very easy to get a feeling for the fantastic world they are in. …funny and charming …exciting and fantastical. ….the book touched the hope that there really is some magic out there--just waiting to be discovered by those who still believe in it." -- Kim Anisi for Readers' Favorite

"…a highly enjoyable read. I loved the characters and the story. I have always enjoyed a good fantasy novel, and this one really fed my child-like wonder of all things magical." - Amanda Price, Amazon Reviewer

"A sweet and enchanting little story about best friends, growing up, and just a bit of magic. I was quickly swept away on an adventure to a magical world full of fairy tale creatures both good and bad. …a wonderful chapter book for older kids that love fantasy and magic." - Melanie Rovak, Amazon Reviewer

Start the series! Get your copy of The Strings of the Violin on Amazon.

About The Dybbuk's Mirror

It has been nearly two years since the events in The Strings of the Violin, and Carrie has adjusted to life as a university student far from her friends. However, when the path to Hadariah is sealed, she starts to fear malevolent forces may be behind the other strange occurrences around her. Trying to contact Lindsay and Rebecca to get help in unraveling the mystery, Carrie discovers that her friends are in fact missing. With no way of knowing who to trust, Carrie must find a way back to the land she once saved to rescue her friends from the dybbuks' clutches.

Reuniting with the dybbuk princess Emilia, and finding a new friend in the mysterious farmer Mikhail, Carrie must once again do battle with Asmodeus's forces, and help stop the chaos that threatens to overtake the land while striving to save both Lindsay and Rebecca. For the first time, Carrie is working without the two friends who have helped her through every major decision in her life. Carrie must learn to rely on herself, and find her own strengths to save those she holds dear.

Genre classification: YA Fantasy

Find The Dybbuk's Mirror on Amazon and Prizm Books.

An Interview with Alisse Lee Goldenberg

What inspired you to write The Dybbuk's Mirror?

I wrote this novel as a sequel to my book The Strings of the Violin. I had always envisioned this as a trilogy (though I may have more coming), The Dybbuk's Revenge is intended as a third part. I originally wrote these books as an homage to the stories and fairy tales I grew up with. While most kids I knew were hearing Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White, I was hearing about dybbuks and the shretelech. I wanted to take these stories and make them accessible and relatable to a knew generation of readers.

When or at what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I always knew I wanted to write. As soon as a could verbally form a sentence I was making up stories!

What is the earliest age you remember reading your first book?

I remember reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears in kindergarten, and by the first grade I had graduated do to the book A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. That one has stayed with me and a reread it every so often. I can't wait until my kids are old enough to sit through a book without pictures. I've tried, but they get restless.

What genre of books do you enjoy reading?

I enjoy all styles of books, but I have a soft spot for fantasy, and any book featuring the character if Sherlock Holmes.

What is your favorite book?

It has to be The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It has a real ability to get into your mind and stay there. I must have read it at least a dozen times by now. I love a book that you can read multiple times and find knew ways to relate to the characters.

You know I think we all have a favorite author. Who is your favorite author and why?

I adore Charles De Lint. His Newford books and stories are amazing. The ways he interweaves mythology, folk lore and city life is amazing. His grasp of character is something ideally look up to as a writer.

If you could travel back in time here on earth to any place or time. Where would you go and why?

I would love to go back to Elizabethan England, if only to see a live premiere of a Shakespearean play. I know it would probably smell horrible, but being a groundling at one of those in the original. Globe Theatre would be awesome!

When writing a book do you find that writing comes easy for you or is it a difficult task?

Usually, it comes easily for the first draft. I usually start with an outline of where I want the story to go, so it's only a matter of following the map I laid out for myself, but editing is horrible! I always second guess every decision I made. With regard to the third book I this series, I am seriously questioning something I did. I finally had to just suck it up, since it was best for the characters and story and tell myself to stop picking at it!

Do you have any little fuzzy friends? Like a dog or a cat? Or any pets?

I do! I have a 95 lb Goldendoodle. We named him Sebastian, but the kids have declared him a horse and have renamed him Galahad.

What is your "to die for", favorite food/foods to eat?

I love a good greasy, cheesy pizza. However, when it comes to snacking or "writing" food, I have to go with tostitos and guacamole.

Do you have any advice for anyone that would like to be an author?

I'd say to just do it. Put that pen to paper and tell you story. I believe that everybody has a story to tell, it's just a matter of finding the right words. Also, don't let people tell you it's impossible. Nothing is impossible.

About Alisse Lee Goldeberg

Alisse Lee Goldenberg is an author of horror and Young Adult fantasy fiction. She has her Bachelors of Education and a Fine Arts degree, and has studied fantasy and folk lore since she was a child. Alisse lives in Toronto with her husband Brian, their triplets Joseph, Phillip, and Hailey, and their rambunctious Goldendoodle Sebastian.

Find Alisse on her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

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Review of Flying With Fire By Emma Mills @EmmaMwriter

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Flying With Fire
By Emma Mills
Published: July 17th 2014

Blurb-

Nobody who enters Ravenwood will ever be the same again.

Fifteen year old Brooke has been in care all her life. Now she finally has an adoptive family who don't want to send her back to The Home; but their solution for her problems is much more dangerous.

A secret boarding school for possessed children. A boarding school where any unnatural behaviour will be stamped out. A boarding school with no escape; where witchcraft is punished and vampires are murdered in the sunlight.

Brooke is the only one with the power to escape the security wards, yet she must find a way to help them all before it is too late.

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Excerpt-

'Hi, I'm Ember…well, the teachers keep trying to call me Amber, because they don't like what my name refers to…but, well it's Ember.'

'As in 'embers of a fire'?' Brooke asked, her eyes widening slightly.

'It means 'spark'; I looked it up,' Ember said shrugging, 'but your name, Brooke, surely that comes from water? So why is Erica calling you a fire-starter?'

Ember looked at Brooke curiously, her face open and friendly and yet Brooke felt frozen. Somehow she'd expected to be able to slip into this new school like any other, without her past creeping up and ruining everything. Yet now Erica had changed all that and everyone would want to know. Were these truly all kids with problems? Were Ember & the boy she was with…Blade, fire-starters… arsonists? The fire in her bedroom had been an inexplicable accident, the only one. Well…the only accident where she'd actually set fire to something. She didn't know what to say, or where to start. She bit her lip as memories started rushing in, clamouring for attention.

She'd tried to tell Steve and Mary of the vivid dreams with the stolen baby, the black-clad gang and the light-throwing warriors. She'd explained over and over about how the raging fire had burned in the forest and chased her as she stumbled and tripped her way to safety, scorching her arms with their flame-like tattoos. She'd seen their contempt brewing, so their consequent dismissal was expected, maybe even warranted.

Just like the other families before them, they'd begun by saying she had a wonderful imagination, but then as their patience waned it became 'night terrors'. This led to her meeting Mr Rosencrantz, a therapist, who said she had trouble differentiating between dreams and reality, so much so that when she woke screaming she believed she was still a part of the nightmare. Except she knew that when she woke in her bed she was indeed awake; it was the bit before that confused her. The tattoo-like scorch marks on her arm and the bedroom fire took everything to another level, and now she was declared a liar, a rebellious, tattooed, pink-haired teenage arsonist looking for attention.

What she hadn't seen coming was that they'd keep her, and send her here. They still wanted to get rid of her, of that she was sure, but they didn't want to be seen to give up. Or maybe they did know the implications of sending her back to The Home. Maybe they suspected the beatings, the abuse; and maybe they thought they were doing their best for her.

My Review-

I received a free copy of the book from the author for my honest opinion.

Brooke has been past from foster home to foster home all of her life. And eventually something terrible happens that is beyond her control. She has no more of an idea of what is going on than her foster family but after each incident she is sent back to "The Home" an orphanage. But now at the age of fifteen Brook has hit it lucky she now has a family that cares about her and wants her as their own daughter, so they adopt her.

But when strange things start happening and begin to happen more and more her adopted parents doesn't want to send her back to "The Home" they want to keep her and help her. So instead of sending her back they hear of a private school called Revenwood where they can help children like Brooke.

So off to Ravenwood she goes where she meets some good people and some bad people as well. Brooke finds a few new friends and she also finds enemies too. She finds out that there are people there like her. They help her figure out whom and what she is. They also try to help her learn to use and control her powers.

Ravenwood is not such a good place to be which Brooke finds out pretty quickly after arriving at the school. She finds out that she is one of the most powerful witches there and she maybe the only one that can help her friends and herself to escape the evil head mistress. But saving everyone may cost her more than she is willing to give. Will or can Brooke save herself and her friends?

Emma Mills is one of the best authors that I have run across in a very long time and one of the first authors to ask me to review her books. Flying With Fire is a spinoff of sorts from her bestselling series Witchblood. I have read all of the Witchblood novellas and loved each and every one of them. Emma is an amazing and talented author that you don't want to miss out on. If you have not read any of her books yet then I highly, highly recommend that you do. Flying With Fire is just as good if not better than the Witchblood series. Emma's writing just gets better and better. I can't wait to read more of her work and hopefully it will be in the near future too.

About The Author-

Emma Mills is a stay-at-home mum, who after a recent move 200 miles south now lives in the beautiful county of Somerset, in the UK. She shares her home with her husband, two children, a dog, 3 cats, a house rabbit and a tankful of fish. Emma went to university to study English in the city of Manchester and for the first decade of her adult life lived in a small town on the edge of the Peak District. It was here, looking after her babies and compulsively reading YA fiction that the ideas for her debut novel, WitchBlood began to take root. Emma is now working on a new and exciting YA project. A three book series unlike her last, where all the characters are human, there are no vampires, no spell casting and no demons rising. A series that will rip your emotions to shreds and leave you breathless...

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Cover Reveal: One Wish Away By Kelley Lynn @kelleylynn1 @bloomsburykids @NereydaG1003

One Wish Away

by Kelley Lynn

Release Date: 11/11/14

Bloomsbury Spark

Book Summary:

Be careful what you wish for…

Lyra has always been ahead of the curve. Top of her class in school, a budding astronomer, and with a best friend like Darren she barely has time to miss the mother who abandoned her family years ago. She's too busy planning to follow in her father's footsteps, and to become the youngest astronomer at Space Exploration and Discovery.

When a star goes missing Lyra is determined to get to the bottom of it only to discover her braniac dad is the mastermind of a top-secret government experiment. They promise to build a perfect world, one galaxy at a time, but with every tweak of the present, a bit more of the future starts to crumble.

Lyra has to go undercover to reveal the truth and let humanity decide if the consequences are worth more than wishing on a star.

About the Author
Eventually the day came when the voices in Kelley Lynn's head were more insistent then her engineering professor's. So instead of turning to her Thermodynamics book, Kelley brought up a blank page on her computer screen and wrote. Somewhere along the way she became a Young Adult author.

Kelley was born and raised a Midwestern girl. She's not afraid to sweat and fills her free time with softball, soccer and volleyball. (Though you probably don't want her on your volleyball team.) She occasionally makes guest appearances as a female vocalist for area bands. Music plays a large role in her writing process as well as the characters and plot lines within her stories.

You can find Kelley hanging out at her blog, titled in her name, as well as the group blog she shares with her fellow critique partners, Falling for Fiction. Kelley is a member of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators.

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Release Day Blitz: Unrequited By Emily Shaffer @emilyashaffer @swoonromance @NereydaG1003 #Giveaway

Unrequited

by Emily Shaffer

Release Date: 09/23/14

Swoon Romance

Summary from Goodreads:

In the town of Belle Ridge there are doctors, lawyers and teachers... but there is only one vampire. Will Leighton has become an expert in making a life for himself amongst the unsuspecting small-town inhabitants, as the high school history teacher. He has spent hundreds of years crafting an identity and routine that make him feel almost human, but he is always missing that important final element, love.

Ashton Wallace is beautiful, smart, and angry. She was forced into an eternal existence, and now her family has moved her away from everything and everyone she knows. In Belle Ridge she is supposed to finish high school and start her life again, but how do you make plans for the next several centuries?

Will has never met another of his kind, and is immediately intrigued by Ashton. He longs to show her that the perceived vampire lifestyle, so popular in storybooks, is far from reality...but will she let him be a friend and guide in this new existence? Can Ashton accept Will into her life, or will she be led astray by a dark stranger with whom she shares an unknown connection?

Buy Links:

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Excerpt:

"Ashton, I think you'll be very happy here at Belle Ridge." The principal was talking, but Ashton wasn't paying attention to him. Instead, she slumped in her seat, glaring at her parents.

She couldn't think of a worse moment than sitting in this man's office. Well, there was one worse moment, the moment that brought her here, but she tried to never ever think of it. So instead, she would dwell on this one.

Ashton had begged her parents to let her get her high school equivalency degree. She was already nineteen years old. Her friends had all graduated last year. It had been painful to miss out on her senior year with the people she'd known since childhood. Instead of football games and prom dress shopping, Ashton had spent her senior year at home, feeling confused and alone. Her parents decided to move Ashton and her little brother to Belle Ridge. It was supposed to be a fresh start and a chance for Ashton to finish high school and figure out some way to move forward with her life.

Her parents felt the only way to deal with the uncertain future was to cut ties with the past. Ashton wasn't stupid; she knew she could never go back to the life she used to have. But the thought of letting go of her old hopes and dreams was almost more than she could bear. Even worse, she was sitting in a high school in Belle Ridge, just a few months shy of what should be her twentieth birthday. A twenty year old high school senior? Ashton felt like a joke. "Nobody has to know anything about you that you don't want them to know," her mother had told her more times than she could count. She had said it again in the car just before they arrived here today. Maybe she needed to embrace being a blank page. From her current position, a life of anonymity seemed like the best course.

About the Author

Whether writing stories to entertain her younger siblings, or typing up an essay for a class, Emily Shaffer has been a writer for as long as she can remember.  Her stories may have changed from talking cartoon frogs to angsty young adults, but her goal to write a compelling story remains the same.  When not writing, she lives in Nashville and enjoys all the music, food, and excitement that city has to offer.  Her first novel, the well-received chick-lit title That Time of the Month was self-published on Amazon in 2012.  Her latest novel, as the others before, are fueled by diet soda and pie.

Author Links:

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