Book Blitz + #Giveaway: Kahayatle (Apocalypsis #1) by Elle Casey @ElleCasey @XpressoReads @XpressoTours #XpressoBookTours

Kahayatle
Elle Casey
(Apocalypsis #1)
Publication date: June 22nd 2012
Genres: Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Young Adult

NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, ELLE CASEY, brings readers Book 1 of 4 in the YA Dystopian APOCALYPSIS Series, suitable for older teens and adults. 

 KAHAYATLE. My name’s Bryn Mathis. I’m seventeen years old, and I live in a neighborhood outside of Orlando, Florida. I live alone because my dad died almost a year ago, along with all the other adults in the world. I’m almost out of food and the gangs of kids that roam around my town are getting more vicious by the day. It’s time for me to leave and find another place to live … a place where I can find food and shelter … a place where they won’t be able to find me. Alone, it might have been possible, but now I’ve got company. I’m worried that I don’t have what it takes to get from here to my final destination, and I have no idea what might be waiting for me when I get there. 

Content Warning: Mild violence and some foul language. Meant for older Young Adult readers (age 15+). This book is in the Dark Science Fiction / Horror / Post-Apocalyptic genres, featuring teen characters only. 

APOCALYPSIS SERIES READING ORDER 

Kahayatle (Apocalypsis Book 1) **Special introductory ebook price**
Warpaint (Apocalypsis Book 2)
Exodus (Apocalypsis Book 3)
Haven (Apocalypsis Book 4) 

This series is dedicated to the amazing, wonderful Native Americans who populate our nation, continuing their traditions and reminding the rest of us that sometimes, progress isn’t always the best thing for our people. I invite you to learn more about the Miccosukee tribe, their history, culture, and lifestyle by visiting this website: http://www.miccosukee.com/indian-village/

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EXCERPT:

Prologue

I STUFFED THE SLEEPING BAG down into my backpack with angry, punching motions, sick and tired of having to be here and having to do the same thing over and over again. I hated camping, I hated being organized, and more than anything, I hated what this exercise stood for.

“Don’t do it like that. I told you – you have to conserve the room as best you can. You have to travel as efficiently as possible. Take it out and start over.”

“I don’t see what difference it makes.”

“Trust me, it’s going to be a really big deal to you in the not so distant future.” His voice sounded hollow.

“Says who?” I was being ornery. I knew the answer to the question already.

“Says me, Bryn. And the news. Look around, would you?” He sounded like he was pleading now.

 “Stop defaulting back to the rebellious young teen act, and get serious. We don’t have enough time to play those games anymore.”

“They’re not games, Dad. I am a teenager. I don’t care what the news jerks and the government say.”

 I threw my backpack down on the ground. “And it’s not rebellious to not want to play friggin’ survivor in the backyard every day.”

My dad looked at me with a sad expression and sighed, reaching over to pull me into a tight hug. He dropped his nose to my head and inhaled deeply.

My face was pressed up against his shirt, and I could smell his sweat mixed with the sweet scent of his aftershave. My dad always said he was the last of a dying breed, using that stuff. He couldn’t have been more right.

“Maybe it’s not going to happen here … to us.” I said it just to hear the words, but I knew it was only wishful thinking.

I could tell he was getting choked up again when he started talking, his voice now hoarse.

“I wish, more than anything else in this world, that you didn’t have to be standing here with me in this backyard playing survivor.” His whole body started to shake with silent sobs. “Oh, God, Bryn. If I could do anything to change this, anything at all, I would. I swear to God I would. But it’s happening. No one can stop it.”

I put my arms around his waist, letting go of my earlier stubborn anger, now choking back my own tears. “I know, Dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did,” he said, sniffing hard and clearing his throat, shifting to hold me at arm’s length. He was staring at me while he smiled through his tears, giving me that look. The one that always made me confess.

“Okay, so maybe I did mean it. But I’ll shut up about it for a little while.”

“Not for too long, though. You wouldn’t be my daughter if you weren’t complaining about something.”

I tried to slap him playfully but he moved too fast for me. My dad is light on his feet, an expert level-one practitioner of krav maga – a certified badass. He’d only recently taken up camping.

“Pick it up,” he ordered, now back in control of his emotions. “Do it again. Only this time, get the air out of that bag first, condense it down …”

I cut him off. “I know, I know … ‘down into the smallest footprint possible.’ Geez, Dad, I’m not an idiot.”

I shook the sleeping bag out and started rolling it up quickly, using the moves I’d been practicing for four months straight to squeeze it down into a lump the size of a small loaf of bread. I folded the whole thing in half, pushed it to the bottom of the backpack, and then let it unfold itself one time, before putting the other items in on top of it: unbreakable water bottle, half-liter of bleach, square of plastic, cup, hunting knife, and various other tools my father was quite certain I would need … once all the adults in the world had died off, leaving us kids alone to fend for ourselves.


Author Bio:
Elle Casey is a prolific, NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling American writer who lives in Southern France with her husband, three kids, and several furry friends. She writes in several genres and publishes an average of one full-length novel per month.

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Blog Tour + #Giveaway: Triptych By J.M. Frey @scifrey @GHBTours

Triptych

By J.M. Frey

Published By Dragon Moon Press

Genre- Sci Fi, Time Travel, Alien Invasion

IN THE NEAR FUTURE, humankind has mastered the arts of peace, tolerance, and acceptance. At least, that's what we claim. 

But then they arrive. Aliens--the last of a dead race. Suffering culture shock of the worst kind, they must take refuge on a world they cannot understand; one which cannot comprehend the scope of their loss.

Taciturn Gwen Pierson and super-geek Basil Grey are Specialists for the Institute--an organization set up to help alien integration into our societies. They take in Kalp, a widower who escaped his dying world with nothing but his own life and the unfinished toy he was making for a child that will never be born. 

But on the aliens' world, family units come in threes, and when Kalp turns to them for comfort, they unintentionally, but happily, find themselves Kalp's lovers. 

And then, aliens--and the Specialists who have been most accepting of them--start dying, picked off by assassins. The people of Earth, it seems, are not quite as tolerant as they proclaim.

   

Author Interview-

What inspired you to write Triptych?

Triptych began with an interesting thought in a strange place. I firmly believe that the natural habitat of the common plot bunny is the bathroom –that’s why so many people get their Eureka moments in the bath. My Triptych Eureka moment happened on January 21st, 2007I know this because it was my mother’s 50th birthday, but I wasn’t at the party. I was on the far side of the planet, enjoying the public baths in Futsukaichi, Japan, near where I lived.

I was soaking, pointedly and wondering what my Mom’s party was like. I started to think about 50, and what I might be like then. Then I realized that I was exactly half my mother’s age. I began to wonder, what was 25 year old mom like? If I had the ability to travel back in time and meet her, would we like one another? In the end, I concluded that 25-year-old me and 25-year-old Mom would get along fine. But then that damned plot bunny swam along and nipped my ankle and I thought, “But what if we didn’t?”

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

I started reading fanfiction around age 11, and started writing my own at 15 or 16. I wrote it all through highschool and into university, along with plays and screenplays, and around age 20 I decided I would like to try to write a whole original novel. It took years to complete and edit, and in the end I knew it was unpublishable. I started a new novel in 2007, and decided after I’d finished my MA that if I’d sold this book (or another) before I was 30, I would forgo doing my PhD and be a novelist. Triptych came out when I was 28, so I succeeded! It was only just this year, however, that I was able to leave the dayjob and write full time.

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

I always loved the day our class got to visit the elementary school library! The first book I really remember picking on my own and bringing home was the Whisper the Winged Unicorn series (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/195977021260884090/). After that I devoured all of Jean Craighead George’s work, adn worked my way up through Piers Anthony to Anne Rice.

What genre of books do you enjoy reading?

I literally just finished reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which was the last of her six published books I had on the list. I’ve read Lady Susan, and part of the fragment of Sanditon that exists, and I still want to read her complete collected letters and the Juvenilia.

I also just finished Red: A History of the Redhead by Jacky Colliss Harvey, for obvious reasons. I’ve recently really gotten into non-fiction books that take a look at subjects through a cultural lens, and liked Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth Century Britain by Lucy Lethbridge, The Kissing Sailor by Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi, and Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

What is your favorite book?

I have to pick just one? Okay, The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. It’s thoughtful, clever, witty, revisionist, queer, and the poetry-prose is just gorgeous. I love how she took the 11th Labour of Herakles, changed “arrows” for “eros” and got a whole different tale. And as a Classics student, I adore the tongue-in-cheek pokes at the way academics discuss translations and discoveries.

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

Jane Austen, hands down! I think Jane is a fascinating writer, and one of the foremost feminists of her day. She really loved reading, and she didn’t “elevate” or “evolve” the novel so much as saw what else the format of a novel could do outside of shrieking maidens and haunted abbeys, and really showed what novels could be capable of in terms of storytelling.

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

and why?

I am facinated with mythology and cultural rites, so being able to attend a wedding in a whole bunch of different ancient cultures would be really facinating. Definitely on the list would be Japan, Rome, Kenya or South Africa, Mezo-america, New Zealand/Maori, Inut, and Celtic.

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

It honestly depends on what section I’m writing, what kind of day I’m having, whether I’ve eaten or done my physio yet, and if there are other things on my mind. I find I write best when I’m sitting in my recumbent-exercise-bike desk, things seem to flow better, but I have a harder time concentrating completely so the sections I write on it need heavier editing. There are days where I do 10k words, and there are days when I do 1k and have to fight for every word.

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

I had a miniature schnauzer named Nikki all through my childhood, and she passed away when I was in university. I’d like very much to get another one, or another hypoallergenic terrier, but right now I’m in no position to properly take care of one. Someday soon, though, I hope. I look forward to having the excuse to get up from my computer and take long, contemplative walks with my pup!

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

I love a really nice dry Brut Sparkling Wine, and I will never say no to cheese.

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

READ. Read things like what you want to write, but read things nothing like what you want to write. Read textbooks cover to cover. Read more than what the teacher assigns. Read nonfiction books. Read editorials. Read the New York Times, and read The Reader’s Digest. Read pop-science and pop-culture. Read Westerns if you dislike them. Read Harlequins. Read plays. Read screenplays. Read things that are so different than what you love that you have no idea what to expect. When you’re a well-rounded reader, you’ll find wonderful new inspiration everywhere, and you won’t fall into the echo-chamber of only reading and writing the same genre, and tropes, and stereotypes over and over again.

About the Author-

J.M. is an actor, voice actor, and SF/F author, fanthropologist and professional geek. She's appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. She also has an addiction to scarves, Doctor Who, and tea, which may or may not all be related. Her life's ambitions are to have stepped foot on every continent (only 3 left!), and to perform a duet with John Barrowman.

Her debut novel TRIPTYCH was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate's Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.

Her sophomore novel, an epic-length feminist meta-fantasy titled The Untold Tale, (book one of the Accidental Turn Series), debuts December 2015, followed by two more in 2016. The Skylark's Song, book one of The Skylark's Saga, a steampunk action novel about a girl vigilante and her mysterious rocketpack, will be published in summer 2017.

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Cover Reveal: The Beltane Escape (The Two Realms Trilogy, #1) by Ariella Moon @XpressoReads @XpressoTours #XpressoBookTours

The Beltane Escape 
Ariella Moon
(The Two Realms Trilogy, #1)
Publication date: February 2nd 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Lady Fenella, ever surrounded by guards, knows only responsibility and duty. She believes Merlin and the Lady of the Lake are myths, Gran’s warnings about Fairy are superstition, and Fairy was invented to make children behave. 

But then Gran brands her, Lord Argonshire kidnaps her, and the Lady of the Lake makes her a pawn. The Highland heiress must betray her newly betrothed and fend for herself when she dives into a wormhole to save her cousin. She lands in a part of Fairy even fairies avoid, and joins forces with Talfryn, a half-Viking/half-Fairy. 

Fenella must use her wits to find her cousin, free the Lady of the Lake, and reach the wormhole in Glastonbury by Beltane. Nine days to unshackle herself from a sorceress, prevent a war between rival clans, and decide in which realm—and with which lad—she truly belongs. Oh, and The Most Powerful Wizard stands in her way.

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Author Bio:
Ariella Moon draws upon her experiences as a shaman to create magical Young Adult fiction. Her Two Realms Trilogy is a medieval fantasy adventure series with romantic elements. The Teen Wytche Saga is a series of sweet contemporary paranormal romances.

Ariella spent her childhood searching for a magical wardrobe that would transport her to Narnia. Extreme math anxiety and taller students who mistook her for a leaning post, marred her youth. Despite these horrors, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Davis. Ariella lives a nearly normal life doting on her extraordinary daughter, two shamelessly spoiled dogs, and an enormous dragon. 

Ariella loves to hear from her readers. 

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Virtual Tour + #Giveaway: Blood's Force by Ellis Morning @EllisMorning @GoddessFish

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Blood’s Force

by Ellis Morning

GENRE: Sci-fi/Fantasy

BLURB:

Where superstition is law, there is no order!

Dame Jessamine is a knight errant with a spaceship for a steed, a pupil of ancient science and technology who quests on behalf of the downtrodden. She's accustomed to forging her own path through the galaxy—until she's hijacked at sword-point and sent to investigate Nidaros, a remote barony known for bursts of rebellion.

In Nidaros, Jessamine finds a populace short on food and patience, innocents detained for torture, and a court trapped in a web of delusion. The Baron considers her a distraction. The magicians, convinced of a "curse," dismiss her pleas for rational action. Even as Jessamine forges an alliance with the soldiers, an unknown foe seeks to frame her as an agitator.

Stuck amid murderous intrigue and cut off from her mentors, Jessamine must figure out how to save Nidaros from starvation. But the only people who understand the true "curse" have been accused of witchcraft—and if Jessamine's not careful with her ancient knowledge, she'll join them in the dungeon!

Blood’s Force is Book 1 of the Sword and Starship series of science fiction/fantasy adventure.

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EXCERPT:

Adrenaline allowed me to ignore pain and push myself up to my knees. Whatever was going on, I had to reach my feet, take measures to defend myself. They’d left me with my weapons, after all. I’d also take stock of my surroundings. Maybe there was still some way out.

My confines remained plunged in darkness. Straining my ears brought me no closer to abandoning the heavy silence. I retrieved my stick lighter from my pocket; the tiny bead of light revealed dungeon floor and nothing else. No immediate danger, at least. I resolved to scout the room, or cell, more likely.

Something flashed in my peripherals: the glow of lantern light, newly revealed by a door sliding open about ten feet away. Soon after, a burgundy-robed arm lobbed a hand-sized ceramic pot with a lit fuse into the cell.

Grenade!

Without another thought, I threw myself in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the cell’s dimensions were stingy. I hit a wall well before I wanted to.

A boom like thunder rattled my eardrums. Tongues of fire splattered around my feet. Turning, I found knee-high flames covering the floor behind me, surviving on the fuel from the grenade. Some version of Greek fire, it looked like. Radiant heat seared my exposed skin, while a thick smoke stung my eyes and clawed at my throat.

Forget questioning or detaining. Someone was trying to kill me. Either fire or smoke would finish the job in minutes. Ironically, my pockets held plenty of fire-making implements and things to burn, but nothing for smothering flames. Escape was my only hope. I knew of only one option: the door on the other side of the room, the one the grenade had been launched from.

Guest post:

Pick a favorite event in time that you would like to visit. Example: Salem Witch Trials, Civil War, The shooting of Abraham Lincoln ect….. Tell us why you would like to visit them and/or would you like to visit them just to see and know what really happened or would you like to visit as a participate in the event?

I'd be tempted to visit the burning of the Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt. There's disagreement on when it took place, but no one debates that it was a great cultural and scientific tragedy.

For those not familiar with the library, it was established in the 3rd century BC in Alexandria, Egypt. The library was part of a larger facility that contained space for scientific research, lectures, and even a zoo.  The library was dedicated to containing all the world's knowledge. Ships docking in Alexandria were required to surrender any books on board. An acquisitions department would copy the books, then return the copies while keeping the originals. At its height, the library was said to contain anywhere from 40,000 to half a million scrolls.

There are many legends as to how the library was destroyed. The most famous is that Julius Caesar accidentally destroyed it in 48 BC while setting fire to his own ships. In truth, though, there might have been many fires or other destructive acts that led to the library's final demise.

We'll never know what we lost forever. Plays, literature, mathematical and scientific treatises? If ancient artists and scientists hadn't suffered such a blow, just imagine how much more advanced humanity would be today! If I had the chance to go back, I'd certainly try to prevent the burning, but I'm not sure it would've been a one-woman job. Political, religious, and military pressures were all in play, and even if one threat were thwarted, several more might've surfaced later.

The Library of Alexandria has directly and indirectly influenced my fiction. I wrote a short story once where I imagined a new Alexandrian library on the Moon. And in Blood's Force, the Enduring Flame beguinage acts as curators and educators of the Shipbuilder era. They're the ones who teach Dame Jessamine to embrace science and reject superstition.

Thanks for letting me share today—and thanks for reading!

AUTHOR BIO:

Ellis has always loved staging adventures in her head before going to sleep each night. When she was twelve, she started putting these adventures on paper.

For the next twenty years, she wrote with varying degrees of seriousness, but always as a hobby. In that time, she fell in love with Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut, the original Star Trek series, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Science fiction became her favorite domain to work in, but she also enjoyed reading fantasy, horror, Western, and detective stories, and incorporating their elements into her work. One of her favorite things to do was make people laugh.

Ellis denied being a writer for decades. But then she sold articles to The Daily WTF, and a short story to Analog Science Fiction and Fact. After quitting her full-time job to finish her first novel, it was time to own up to writing as her calling. She's currently an editor at The Daily WTF, and having the time of her life penning novels and short stories.

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