Blog Tour + Review + #Giveaway: Legacy by Ellery A. Kane @ellerykane @XpressoTours

Legacy
Ellery A. Kane
(Legacy #1)
Publication date: September 5th 2014
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult

How do you want to feel today?

In 2041, the choice is yours.

San Francisco is deserted, the Bay Bridge bombed, and the BART subway trains grounded. The Guardians, members of an elite and mysterious government-appointed military police force, are maintaining order at all costs—thanks to emotion-altering drugs like Emovere that suppress fear and anxiety. Lex Knightley, daughter of a prominent forensic psychiatrist, risks entering the devastated city to partner with the Resistance, a group of rebels intent upon exposing the dangers of Emovere. Lex discovers an ally in Quin McAllister, a magnetic Guardian Force recruit with a haunting past that binds them together. As she uncovers the secrets of the Guardian Force and confronts the truth about her family, Lex begins to realize that even those closest to her are not quite who they seem.

Legacy is the first book in the Legacy trilogy but can also be enjoyed as a standalone.

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My Review:

If you could live in a world where you could take a pill and said pill controlled you emotions, would you take it? Sounds sort of like a great thing right? Sounds like depression meds right? Wrong. Well Alexandra or Lex lives in a world just like this. She lives in a world where pharmaceutical companies make drugs like this that will control how you feel.

Lex is the daughter of a forensic psychiatrist who created one of the drugs. She thought that it would be a good thing for a soldier going into battle if said soldier could do their without any emotions. It would help the soldier plus you would have a killing machine that would do his job no questions asked.

Lex’s mom after a few years or more of seeing the drug in action more or less comes to the realization that the drug may not be what she was thought it was or what she intended it to be. She now sees that use of the drug has to be stopped. Especially after how it is being used by the Guardians a military group that is using the drug and even more drugs that controls emotion plus the way they take young kids and talk them into to joining them and taking the drugs.

With what these kids have been through it is not hard at all to dragging them to their side and getting them to become a part of their team. All these kids what to do is just forget the things they have been through. So anything that might help them with this probably sounds like a winner to them.

Lex’s mom wants to help the Resistance a group of people that is trying to stop the use of the drugs and the Guardians from the evil things they are doing. So Lex takes off into a city ran by the Guardians more or less. She is afraid and must hide until the Resistance finds her. She has to help the Resistance put a stop to the Guardians and their evil ways.

Lex meets a few wonderful people while she is with the Resistance. Like Quin, Max and Elena. All of them have had a hard life growing up. Quin, Max, Elena and Lex all become very good friends and would give their own lives for each other. Most of the people at the Resistance headquarters are good people and they all want the same thing but there are some that just might not be exactly what they say they are. Some people can change and some cannot. Once someone has taken the drug can they change? Or will they be forever the person they were while taking the drugs? Will the drugs take their emotions away forever? Can the Resistance stop the Guardians? Or will the Guardians stop the Resistance? Good question. Pick up your copy to find out.

I loved the world and the idea of the drug altering emotions that he author created in Legacy. The characters were well developed and thought out. They were real good people and really had big hearts and cared a lot about each other. Well most of them. I liked that Lex could tell if someone was on the up and up when meeting someone for the first time. I can’t wait for the next book in the series. 

Author Bio:
Forensic psychologist by day, young-adult novelist by night, Ellery Kane has been writing—professionally and creatively—for as long as she can remember. Just like her main character, Lex, Ellery loves to ask why, which is the reason she became a psychologist in the first place. Real life really is stranger than fiction, and Ellery’s writing is often inspired by her day job. Evaluating violent criminals and treating trauma victims, she has gained a unique perspective on the past and its indelible influence on the individual. An avid short story writer as a teenager, Ellery recently began writing for enjoyment again, and the Legacy series was born. 

Ellery’s debut novel, Legacy, has received several awards, including winning the Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, young adult, e-book category. Ellery was recently selected as one of ten semifinalists in the MasterClass James Patterson Co-Author Competition. 

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Blog Tour + #Giveaway: Blood Rose By KL Bone @kl_bone @starange13

 Title: Blood Rose

Series: Black Rose Guard Series #3

By: KL Bone

Publication Date: April 7, 2016

Genre: Dark Fantasy

..".a story of strength and determination, actions and consequences, deep love and dark desires."- Greg Wilkey, Author of Growing Up Dead 

"May the Black Rose protect you in life and avenge you in death." - Vow of the Black Rose

A woman with no memory of her past. Another unable to forget. Both haunted by a sinister creature of roses and shadow with an unquenchable thirst for royal blood. Return to the world of the Black Rose Guard. Mara, Captain of the Black Rose for over eight hundred years, thought she had taken her last immortal life. But now, with her sub-captain dead at the hands of the Arum Court, she again must don the blade she vowed to never raise again. However, the task will prove ever more dangerous as the shadow of Mara's past returns to awaken the long-dormant roses. Reunited with her lost love, Mara must also come to terms with her past in order to embrace her future. Can she forgive the man she loves for betraying her heart? And can she redeem herself for the death of the princess she failed to save? Across the sea, Sandra is haunted by the same presence, leading her deeper into the pieces of her mysterious past. Echoes of memory. Glimpses of fate. And a secret that will change everything for both herself and the captains who seek to rescue her from the hands of Mathew, King of the Arum Court, who has a dark agenda of his own.

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Black Rose - Black Rose Guard #1

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Heart of the Rose - Black Rose Guard #2

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K.L. Bone is the author of the Black Rose Guard dark fantasy series. The Rise of the Temple Gods fantasy series. And a stand-alone science fiction novel, The Indoctrination.

Bone has a master's degree in modern literary cultures and is working toward her PhD in literature. She wrote her first short story at the age of fifteen and grew up with an equally great love of both classical literature and speculative fiction. Bone has spent the last few years as a bit of a world traveler, living in California, London, and most recently, Dublin. When not immersed in words, of her own creation or studies, you'll find her traveling to mythical sites and Game of Thrones filming locations.

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Book Blitz + #Giveaway: The Boy with Words by C.E. Wilson @CEWilson1 @yaboundtourspr

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Cover Reveal: Fall of Thrones and Thorns by Jennifer Ellision @JenEllision @XpressoTours

Fall of Thrones and Thorns
Jennifer Ellision
(Threats of Sky and Sea #3)
Publication date: September 27th 2016
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

War hurtles in, a typhoon over the sea.

After Bree’s life was torn apart, Nereidium had represented a haven to her. A place that—if she could save it—was beyond the King’s reach.

And, at last, she’s arrived upon its shores. But things in Nereidium are not what they should be.

The land is plagued by a rash of mysterious earthquakes, the likes of which it’s never known. The governors are distracted by old traditions, while Bree and her friends grapple with changing identities and the sense that the longer they wait to take action… the greater the danger from Egria grows.

Bree is tired of living under the shadow of King Langdon’s power. And she’s tired of waiting for him to be the first to act.

In this final chapter of the Threats of Sky and Sea series, it all comes down to Nereidium or Egria. To Bree or the King. It’s kill… or be killed.

And not everyone will escape the battle unscathed.

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Previous books in the series:

Author Bio:
Jennifer Ellision spent a great deal of her childhood staying up past her bedtime with a book and a flashlight. When she couldn't find the stories she wanted to read, she started writing them. She loves words, has a soft spot for fanfiction, and is a master of the fangirl flail. She resides in South Florida with her family, where she lives in fear of temperatures below 60 Fahrenheit 

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Blurb Blitz + #Giveaway: Marionettes by Kerry Alan Denney @KerryDenney @GoddessFish

Marionettes

by Kerry Alan Denney

GENRE: Supernatural thriller

 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?

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EXCERPT:

My head was turned sideways, and I struggled to push myself into a sitting position only to find another sadistic little swordsman was trying to slice his way out of my gut.

“Let me adjust your bed. Take your time, sweetie,” the angel said. She used the bed’s controls to raise it so I could sit up.

The combination of the brutal swordsman in my gut, the vicious little bastards in my throat, and jackhammer-man in my head made me want out of this bad dream. That’s when things got mega-weird: I found myself inexplicably staring down at… me. My face was slack, my features drooping, and my open eyes looked empty and barely aware.

It scared the hell out of me, dream or not.

I saw the angel’s delicate hands gently adjust my shoulders and brush strands of my long dark hair out of my eyes from her perspective, as though her hands were mine.

I’m Cynthia, a nurse, I realized. I have two kids—Johnny and Leah—and a doting husband named Paul who is a wonderful father to our children. I want more than ever to help my patient, David Flint—the subject of much gossip among the second floor nursing staff—to be well and whole again.

“Little pieces, David,” Cynthia said, feeding ice chips from a spoon to the bedridden zombie who looked like me. I worried about the slack look on my face. “Let them melt in your mouth.”

Cynthia knew about Karin’s tragic death, and felt sorry for me at the same time that she felt hopeful for my continued recovery. This screwed with my mind, and because pity is something I can’t tolerate, I found myself jerked out of Cynthia’s perspective and back into my own.

I felt the cool, soothing comfort of the melting ice slide down my throat and wash away some of the little swordsmen. Take that, you bastards. But the pleasant sensation triggered a darker, nasty memory of brackish waters involuntarily swallowed recently.

My body shook with spasms as the memory rose to the surface of my mind and hit me like a sledgehammer blow crushing my skull. The surrounding dark waters engulfed me, and I panicked.

“Can’t… breathe,” I rasped, grabbing Cynthia’s arm. “Save me.”

“Oh honey, you’re remembering, aren’t you?” Cynthia took my hand and set the cup of ice chips on the rotating bedside table.

“Drowning,” I croaked, squeezing her hand. “Save me.”

“No, David, you’re not drowning. You’re in the hospital, safe and alive, and I’m right here with you.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I looked up into her kind eyes, and saw worry etch lines in her brow. I suddenly remembered the razor-sharp chunk of glass penetrating my gut as I submerged beneath dark waters, unable to stay afloat any longer. That was when I gave in to the merciless deluge, seeing Karin’s face before me as I drowned.

AUTHOR BIO:

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.

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DREAMWEAVERS

Amazon

JAGANNATH

Amazon

SOULSNATCHER

Amazon

Kerry’s short stories

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Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: Homicide in the House by Colleen J. Shogan @cshogan276 @GoddessFish

Homicide in the House

by Colleen J. Shogan

GENRE: Cozy Mystery

BLURB:

During a government shutdown, Kit’s congresswoman boss is found standing over the dead body of a top staffer she tangled with in front of the press. The police are about to name her as the prime suspect. The weapon was the Speaker’s gavel, an item entrusted to the congresswoman the previous night. The killer knows Kit is on the case. Can she solve the mystery in time to save her job and her life?

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EXCERPT:

Smartphones are great time wasters. I fiddled with various apps as I waited. The next level of “Angry Birds” was within my grasp when I heard footsteps and voices across the hallway. I got up and stood in the doorway to greet my boss.

From the look on her face, she was not pleased. She charged like a linebacker to the exit of the Speaker’s lair with Jack Drysdale on her heels.

“Stop, Congresswoman Dixon. You’re not listening to reason!” From behind, Drysdale placed his hand on Maeve’s left shoulder in an attempt to prevent her from leaving the suite.

Maeve had impressive reflexes. She turned her body toward him and grabbed his wrist with her right hand. “Don’t touch me! Is this how the Speaker’s staff treat members of the House?” Her voice was loud and filled with vitriol.

The gaggle of reporters who had been relaxing inside the anteroom trailed behind me. This was better than a boring pen and pad session. One of them murmured, “I think that’s Dixon from North Carolina.”

This was not a good development, but Maeve didn’t know that the press had a front row seat to her implosion.

Maeve clutched Drysdale’s wrist for several seconds until she let it go. Apparently her physical assault didn’t intimidate him. He ran ahead and stopped directly in front of her.

Stretching his arms out wide to slow her down, Jack made his last stand. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have done that. Please come back in the office so we can sort this out. You’re a valuable part of this caucus and the Speaker wants to work with you on this deal.”

Maeve shook her head. “You guys in House leadership are typical politicians. You can’t take no for an answer. I’m not ready to make a decision. Now get out of my way.”

Unmoving, Drysdale locked eyes with Maeve. She didn’t look away and squared her shoulders. I could almost feel the tension around me as the reporters anxiously waited for the outcome. What was Maeve going to do? Knee him in the groin if he didn’t back down?

After a moment that seemed like an eternity, Drysdale gave in and stepped aside. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and hurried into the hallway to catch up with her. As we exited the corridor, I glanced back to the doorway where I’d been standing. Every reporter was on his or her phone, ostensibly calling in the most salacious story of the shutdown thus far. A junior member of Congress and the Speaker’s top aide had nearly come to blows in the Capitol. A high school reporter could make that story fly.

Guest Post:

The Writing Process of a Moonlighting Novelist

No matter if I’m talking about the Washington Whodunit series at a bookstore or on a panel at a festival, I’m often asked how I find the time to write novels. The short answer is the one Jim Lehrer often provides: “Butt in seat.” In other words, the only way to publish books is to devote significant time to writing them.

However, most readers who ask the question don’t want a glib answer. They really want to know about the writing process itself. In a nutshell, here’s a brief description of my methodology.

I begin with a premise. In a few sentences, what is this story about? What happens to whom? For example, in my first book Stabbing in the Senate, the premise was: “A congressional staffer arrives early to work on morning and discovers her boss has been murdered. She’s immediately named the prime suspect and has to find the real killer to clear her name.”

After I have the premise, then I work on developing the characters. In my series, I have four recurring characters that drive the action. How will they help solve the mystery? What other characters can I create to support the action and interact with Kit, Doug, Meg, and Trevor?

The characters help me figure out a general arc of the story. I don’t write a detailed scene-by-scene outline, but I do try to come up with a general sequence to ensure the story develops. This helps with pacing. If there’s not important information revealed throughout the novel, the reader’s interest can wane. At a writers’ workshop I attended earlier this year, crime novelist Laura Lippman described the middle chapters as “where stories go to die.” She’s absolutely correct. Writers need to figure out how to keep and hold a reader’s interest.

Once I’m satisfied I have a good story to tell, then I start writing. Because I work a full-time job at the Library of Congress, progress on my novels moves slowly. Most weekdays, I write for an hour in the evenings. On the weekends, I usually squeeze in longer sessions. It will take me seven or eight months to produce a first draft. Some authors say most novels should be written in half that amount of time. I think that’s a luxury enjoyed largely by those who can devote all their energy to writing.

Because I’ve followed my outline during the actual writing, my subsequent drafts require considerably less time. Yes, scenes are added and others are deleted or changed. But the sequence of the story works at this point, so drastic edits are not needed or desirable.

Of course, pesky little problems do present themselves, and those glitches need to be fixed. Mysteries must be tightly written. Everything doesn’t have to twist and turn on a dime, but the logic of the solution need to make plausible sense. I spend a lot of time with the second and third drafts thinking about how careful readers might find flaws or inconsistencies.  An additional clue or red herring might make the story more enjoyable or robust, for example.

Even when a draft of the novel is delivered to my publisher, the work does not stop. Editors read the book several times. The first read examines the basics of the storyline. The second read might be a careful line-by-line edit. The third read makes sure the changes to the story have been executed properly. A fourth edit, usually done by someone who hasn’t read the novel previously, provides yet another check for consistency, flow, grammar, and typos.

There’s one last challenging aspect of the process. When sequential drafts are completed on a novel, I’m usually ensconced in writing my next book. Then I need to make certain I keep my stories straight!

AUTHOR BIO:

Colleen J. Shogan has been reading mysteries since the age of six. She writes the Washington Whodunit series published by Camel Press. A political scientist by training, Colleen has taught American politics at Yale, George Mason University, Georgetown, and Penn. She previously worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative staffer in the United States Senate and as the Deputy Director of the Congressional Research Service. She is currently a senior executive at the Library of Congress. Colleen lives in Arlington, Virginia with her husband Rob and their beagle mutt Conan.

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