The Dreamer of Dowing Street Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have The Dreamer of Dowing Street blog tour. On my stop there is a spotlight. 

In 1944 Denver, twenty-six year-old Franklin Powell is doing what he does best, helping clients with his psychic gift. Then his brother causes the past to come crashing into the present and a memory Frank has kept buried since the age of six surfaces. Now his life is in an uproar. He must prove that what he remembers is true or his mother may spend the rest of her life in prison. But even if he succeeds, it appears there is a powerful someone behind the scenes who could care less if she is innocent. Why? Because of a seething hatred for Frank. To make matters worse, the woman he loves needs his help with a serious problem of her own—a problem that could get him killed. Frank can’t let that stop him. He dives right in and while his psychic gift doesn’t seem to be doing him any favors, it’s a good thing that a couple of newly-acquired ghosts appear to be on his side. 

Book Links: 

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Roberta L. Smith was born and raised in Southern California.  She is a graduate of the University of Redlands and lives in the High Desert with her husband.  She is an active member of the High Desert Branch of the California Writers Club.  Roberta had always been intrigued by the unexplained.  Her favorite stories growing up involved ghosts and sometimes the macabre. As a child, she wrote a letter to Boris Karloff telling him she knew he didn’t mean to kill the little girl in “Frankenstein,” so it’s no surprise that the four novels she has published thus far are in the paranormal genre. 

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Hidden Monster Blog Tour

Title:  Hidden Monster

Series:  The Monsters Among Us Book 1

Author:  Amanda Strong

Published:  November 4th, 2014

Publisher:  Clean Teen Publishing

Page Count:  297

Genre:  YA Mature Paranormal Romance

Content Warning:  Violence, minor language, and adult themes

Recommended Age:  16+

Synopsis:

For seventeen-year-old Samantha Campbell, running back woods trails usually means freedom from her less-than-perfect life. That is, until the day a morning run turns into a living nightmare. When Samantha wakes up to find herself bound to a dirty, pinstriped mattress, she realizes she’s anything but free. With a masked abductor repeatedly injecting her arm with an unknown substance while holding her captive, Samantha tries in vain to find out what he wants, but he refuses to speak. Until the day he breaks his silence and his twisted words are worse than what she’d imagined. He promises her one day she will fall in love with him but the best part will be that she won’t know who he is… until it’s too late.

Finding herself freed from captivity, with her captor still at large, Samantha is on guard against everything and everyone around her. Unfortunately, walling up her heart proves difficult when eighteen-year-old Blake Knightley moves in next door. When Samantha starts experiencing strange changes within her, she realizes her captor may have left her more damaged than she originally thought. Now she must turn to Blake for help in order to unearth the truth behind the monster who started this all… or risk experiencing worse things than just falling in love.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Excerpt: 

         Step, step, breathe, breathe, step, step, breathe, breathe. My shoes kept a steady rhythm with my burning lungs. I veered off my regular path, opting to hear the crunch of the leaves beneath my feet. The image of my mom’s disapproving face was ignored as I leapt across a gurgling brook. Breathe, breathe, crunch, crunch.

            If I wasn’t mountain biking, I was running. I craved speed and freedom. I had to escape the oppressive perfection of living in the Campbell home. Thinking of my two older sisters, one model and the other a star volleyball player, my legs lunged, lengthening their stride. Not good at team sports and terrified by cameras, I knew my family felt my height was wasted on me.

            Even Jeremy gives me a hard time.

A stitch pinched my side. Breathe, breathe. I knew I was going too fast, not pacing myself right. Something was urging me on, pushing me to scale the hill before me, and plunge deeper into the woods. I refocused on my rhythm, my inhales and exhales, and my body realigned itself, goose bumps shooting across my arms. There it is. I’d hit my second wind and I surged on, not caring where my feet led.

It’s freedom! Complete and—

            There was a rush of air, a whistling in my ear, and a sting to the back of my arm. Instantly, I tumbled to the ground, sliding into the damp morning dew. Cold dirt filled my nostrils as blackness enveloped me.

------------------------------

             I heard my own labored breathing long before I realized I was somewhere in between awake and asleep. Forcing my eyes open, I gasped. My senses took everything in at once—the smell of wood shavings, the scratchy ropes on my wrists and ankles, and the pressure of the mattress beneath my body. I screamed, but the empty room with wooden floors and stacked logs for walls was empty. No one burst through the door in the corner.

Realizing it was useless and only making my throat raw, I fell silent. Panic flooded me. How did I get here? I pressed my thoughts to retrace my steps, but my mind felt sluggish. My last memory was running in the woods just before sunrise. I could still feel the burn from the autumn air hitting my lungs. Now the solitary window painted a yellow rectangle on the floor. The room felt stuffy. It’s probably late afternoon. But is it the same day?

The minutes rolled slowly into hours, the silence suffocating. What had my therapist said to do when I was scared? Breathe deeply and don’t panic. It was too late for that; all the years of therapy after my childhood accident were rendered useless. I’m drowning all over again. Only this time, it wasn’t water filling my lungs but pure fear and terror pressing down on my chest. I gulped in dry air, my eyes burning with tears.

No one’s coming to save me. A sob escaped me as the real horror of the situation washed over me. I’m tied up. Someone knows I’m here. What would happen when they came back? As the last rays of light were snuffed out by the shadows of the night, that someone came through the wooden door.

About the Author:

Born in Dekalb, Illinois, Amanda Strong has called Utah, Arizona, Hawaii, Virginia and now New Mexico home. Amanda has been spinning tales since she was a child. Her family still remembers finding young Amanda with her bright pink glasses, hiding in random corners of the house while scribbling away in one of her many spiral-bound notebooks. You could say that some things never change since Amanda is still writing today. Amanda began her writing career when she uploaded The Awakener, her first full-length novel, on Wattpad where it received over 430,000 reads in four weeks. She was blown away and humbled by the reader support and feedback she received. Because of The Awakener’s success as a non-published book, she was asked to talk on 1400 KSTAR about her story.

In September 2013 Amanda Strong signed with Clean Teen Publishing. The Awakener is the first book in an all-new young adult paranormal romance series called: The Watchers of Men.

When Amanda isn’t writing, you can find her chasing her three rambunctious children around the house and spending time with her wonderful and supportive husband. On some occasions you can still find Amanda with her not-so-pink glasses, hiding in a corner reading her favorite young adult fantasy novels or working out only to blow her diet by eating ice cream.

Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

  

Clean Teen Publishing Links:

Website  Blog  Facebook  Twitter

Giveaway Details:

There is a tour wide giveaway. Prizes include the following:

• A bookmark swag pack, winner’s choice of any Clean Teen Publishing eBook, and a $15 Amazon gift card.

Giveaway is International.

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The Boogie Trapp Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have the Boogie Trapp blog tour. On my stop there is a spotlight and giveaway.

Something happened to two boys over sixty years ago. The backwoods of Alabama in the 1940s set the stage for this edge of your seat thriller. Boogie and Trapper are best friends, known about town for their wild, annoying, obnoxious, and hysterically funny antics. Roaming the woods, swimming in the creek, playing Double Dare, smoking, cussing, drinking beer, and always trying to outdo each other. These two thirteen-year-old boys growing up in this time period have freedoms that would be considered absolutely crazy by today's standards. Riding their bikes on a drizzly April day, goofing off and having fun for hours, looking forward to the boy/girl party they are excitedly anticipating later today, rumors of kissing games and more make them silly and giddy. Then the day goes terribly wrong. They have found themselves in a desperate "no way out" situation. They are thrown into a horrific event that moves faster than a speeding bullet, a wild, white knuckled roller coaster ride, RUN Boogie, RUN, RUN................ A suspenseful, scary thriller, tragically horrific, it is a story that must be told, a promise that must be kept. Their lives will be changed forever - can they get away, and will they ever live to tell the tale?

Kerry Copeland Smith is the pseudonym of Harold (Hal) W. Brewer and also his alter-ego, Brewer will readily confess. “He was there waiting for me when they pulled me from my mother’s womb,” Brewer laughingly says. “Boogie is older, smarter, tougher and more daring, so I have been very fortunate to have had him around all these years.” Brewer, the youngest of four children, grew up in the small coal mining town of Bradford, Alabama, where his father was employed as a coal miner. His mother, a “stay at home mom,” was an accomplished seamstress, an avid reader, and strict disciplinarian, who “kept close tabs on me,” Brewer states. Brewer attended Mortimer Jordan High in Morris, Alabama and the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He was hired by Montgomery Ward Co. in 1964 and spent the next thirty-two years as an executive, in both their Retail and Logistics’ division. After retiring from the retail business in 1996, he formed his own Real Estate Investment Co., which he managed until fully retiring in 2008. “Boogie was there with me every step of the way, Brewer says. When things weren’t right and the going was tough, I called on Boogie and things got straightened out!” Brewer is also an accomplished artist. His paintings hang in numerous homes throughout the south. He currently lives in Tampa, Florida with his wife Tammie and their three cats. He has two sons (from a previous marriage), three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

The Vineyard Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have The Vineyard Blog Tour. On my stop there is a spotlight, review, and giveaway.

Ten years after their college days together, three wounded and very different women reunite for a summer on the island of Martha's Vineyard. As the come to grips with the challenges and crises in their lives, their encounter with a reclusive poacher known only as "the fisherman" threatens to change everything they believe about their world--and each other.  

Book Trailer:

 

Review: 

I enjoyed this story about 3 college friends who have each gone off and lived completely different lives and come together ten years later for the summer to rekindle their friendship and heal new wounds each one is carrying with them. But none of them knew how one man who is called the fisherman would impact them and make a difference in helping to heal from their wounds.  

I got so wrapped up in these characters for different reasons. But I really connected to Charlotte the most. I couldn’t imagine going through what she did. I didn’t agree with her solution and thankfully it got ruined. But I don’t want to say too much and ruin the story of these 3 friends and the fisherman who comes into their lives. 4/5 Bloody Fangs 

Book Links: 

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Michael Hurley and his wife Susan live near Charleston, South Carolina. Born and raised in Baltimore, Michael holds a degree in English from the University of Maryland and law from St. Louis University.

The Prodigal, Michael’s debut novel from Ragbagger Press, received the Somerset Prize for mainstream fiction and numerous accolades in the trade press, including Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, ForeWord Reviews, BookTrib, Chanticleer Reviews, and IndieReader. It is currently in development for a feature film by producer Diane Sillan Isaacs. Michael’s second novel, The Vineyard, is due to be released by Ragbagger Press in December 2014.

Michael’s first book, Letters from the Woods, is a collection of wilderness-themed essays published by Ragbagger Press in 2005. It was shortlisted for Book of the Year by ForeWord magazine. In 2009, Michael embarked on a two-year, 2,200 mile solo sailing voyage that ended with the loss of his 32-foot sloop, the Gypsy Moon, in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti in 2012. That voyage and the experiences that inspired him to set sail became the subject of his memoir, Once Upon A Gypsy Moon, published in 2013 by Hachette Book Group.

When he is not writing, Michael enjoys reading and relaxing with Susan on the porch of their rambling, one-hundred-year-old house. His fondest pastimes are ocean sailing, playing piano and classical guitar, cooking, and keeping up with an energetic Irish terrier, Frodo Baggins. 

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Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Michael for letting me review your book and say Thank You to Jean BookNerd for letting me participate in this blog tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below. 

~Sabrina 

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The Shotgun Arcana Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have The Shotgun Arcana. On my stop there is a spotlight, review, 10 Favorite Books Read This Year, and a giveaway. 

R. S. Belcher’s debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and readers, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.

1870. A haven for the blessed and the damned, including a fallen angel, a mad scientist, a pirate queen, and a deputy who is kin to coyotes, Golgotha has come through many nightmarish trials, but now an army of thirty-two outlaws, lunatics, serial killers, and cannibals are converging on the town, drawn by a grisly relic that dates back to the Donner Party…and the dawn of humanity.

Sheriff Jon Highfather and his deputies already have their hands full dealing with train robbers, a mysterious series of brutal murders, and the usual outbreaks of weirdness. But with thirty-two of the most vicious killers on Earth riding into Golgotha in just a few day’s time, the town and its people will be tested as never before—and some of them will never be the same.

The Shotgun Arcana is even more spectacularly ambitious and imaginative than The Six-Gun Tarot, and confirms R. S. Belcher’s status as a rising star. 

Review: 

So I was a little lost in this book due to the fact I haven’t read book one but it didn’t take away from the book at all. In fact it made me want to go buy the first one and read it so I could re-read this book.

This is one of those books that is the whole package. It has a great plot, interesting characters that suck you into their world, fast paced action, and even laughter. So basically it has everything an amazing book should have in it. I enjoyed it so much that I started reading it with the intention of only reading for an hour before bed and got so wrapped up into this world that I stayed up to finish the book. I literally could not put this book down. I cannot wait to read the first book and do my re-read of this one. 5/5 Bloody Fangs 

Book Links: 

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R.S. (Rod) Belcher is an award-winning newspaper and magazine editor and reporter. He has been a freelance writer for over a decade. He has written for local, state and international publications.

Rod has been a private investigator, a DJ, a comic book and game store owner and has degrees in criminal law, psychology and justice and risk administration, from Virginia Commonwealth University. He has done Masters work on a degree in Forensic Science at The George Washington University, as well as worked with the Occult Crime Taskforce for the Virginia General Assembly’s State Crime Commission.

Rod has written and edited for magazines like Starlog, Virginia Living, Virginia Business, Verve, and The Roanoker. He was managing editor of The Vinton Messenger newspaper and editor for numerous trade publications. He has done technical writing and has ghost-written political editorials and advertising copy. Both the politics and the advertising greatly honed his fiction writing skills.

He has been a writing guest at numerous conventions and writing conferences for many years. He is available for Bar Mitzvahs…

Rod began writing stories when he was 9 years old, selling stories and self- drawn comics to his mother’s beauty shop customers for a quarter a piece. That first quarter was the start of his road to Hell…

In a creative writing course he was selected for in 6th grade, Rod was told his SF/Fantasy writing was “silly trash” ( kinda true, but hey, I was in sixth grade…) but the lack of support from an adult “expert” made him feel like he couldn’t “really write” and he stopped writing for a few years. Thanks to the love, encouragement and support of his mom, Mabel, Rod started writing again when he got a typewriter for his 12th birthday. Thanks Mom.

You can write. Yes, you. You have a story, maybe a bunch of stories inside you screaming to be let out. Don’t let anyone tell you can’t write, or that your writing is no good. It’s good for you, good for the thing inside you that demands you get that story out somehow. Don’t write for praise, or for money, write for you, only you, and to hell with the rest of them.

He was once told by Elizabeth Taylor, he was “hot” and once told by George Takei he “looked terrible” ( he did). He watched a man die in the electric chair, investigated homicides, pissed off politicians and located missing children. The CIA told him to “clean up his act”- this was one of his proudest moments. 

In his spare time ( which he has damn little of these days), Rod enjoys reading, hiking, shooting, gaming ( mostly tabletop RPG or board games, but some console), comics, researching the weird, spending time with his amazing kids, and long, thoughtful, walks in the rain…OK, the last one is crap, but the rest is true.

He lives in Roanoke Virginia with his children: Jonathan, Emily and Stephanie, Three cats and two dogs. 

10 Favorite Books Read This Year: 

1.     Killer on the Road by Ginger Strand

2.     The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

3.     The Thieftaker series by D.B. Jackson

4.     The Blackfire Concerto by Mike Allen

5.     Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

6.     George Washington's Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger

7.     The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel

8.     Fangtabulous by Lucienne Diver

9.     The Secret Architecture of our Nation's Capital by David Ovason

10. The One Percenter Code by Dave Nichols  

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Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Rod for letting me review your book and say Thank You to Jean BookNerd for letting me participate in this blog tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below. 

~Sabrina

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His Ph.D. is in Hypocrisy Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have the His Ph.D. is in Hypocrisy blog tour. On my stop there is a spotlight. 

Blurb

Everyone comes into your life for a reason. And even though they may stay just long enough to break your heart, their ultimate purpose can last a lifetime.

Synopsis

They say everything happens for a reason, but try telling that to a young woman with a newly broken heart.

His PhD is in Hypocrisy…And Other Poems about My Crappy Ex-Boyfriend is a memoir of sorts; a collection of poems chronicling the ups and downs, differences and the dissolution of one of my key relationships. Despite our interracial backgrounds (I'm black, he's white & Palestinian) and inter-religious upbringings (he is Muslim to my Christian), I thought we could and would end up together. But that didn't happen. The assorted poems (some short, some funny, some angry) talk about the love, frustration, and heartbreak, and the whole reflection culminated in an unexpected life lesson that surfaced on 9/11. 

Excerpt: 

Bad, Heathen, Christian Girl   June ‘00

Yes, we are from two different worlds

with different cultures and values,

languages and principals

I’m comfortable with who I am

I can still learn more about his background

and spend time with him

without abandoning my beliefs

It bothers me that the concept isn’t mutual

He worries I’ll make him forget who he is;

His family worries that too-

That I’m a negative influence over him,

Never mind that he’s committed plenty sins

without my help

Never have I complained about his prayers

or have I told him to cut down his beard

even though many of our peers

consider a beard of his length weird

I never tried to encourage him

to go against his religion or his morals-

He does that all on his own

I’m not saying I’m not perfect,

Lord knows I’m no pearl

But how all of a sudden

did I become the bad, heathen, Christian girl? 

Book Links: 

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Books A Million 

Goodreads 

Tayo Oredein is a model, actress and writer. Tayo (pronounced Ty~yo, and which means "Joy" in Yoruba) is from Jamaica Queens, NY though and is of African-American and Nigerian descent (her father is Nigerian). She went to Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA and returned to New York after graduation. She later received a graduate degree from Hunter College, and will soon receive another from Rutgers University

After years of flirting with it, she officially started modeling in 2011 when she was handpicked to be a model for Monica Holder’s “Beauty of the Month” project. Since then she has been featured in online promotional materials, shorts and music videos, greeting card lines, coffee-table books, fashion shows, and other projects.As for her writing, she has long since had a collection of unpublished work, but recently published her first book, "His PhD is in Hypocrisy and Other Poems about My Crappy Ex-Boyfriend", a collection of poems about love, and love lost. It is available on Amazon.com (where it's also available for Kindle), BN.com, and other online retailers.

Stalker Links: 

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Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to RBTL for letting me participate in this blog tour. 

~Sabrina 

Hockey Saint Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have The Hockey Saint blog tour. On my stop there is a spotlight, and giveaway.

The highly anticipated sequel to "The Stereoypical Freaks" and the 2nd book in the "Forever Friends" Trilogy, this is "The Hockey Saint"

Twenty-one year old Jeremiah Jacobson is the world's best hockey player, but he wasn't prepared for the frenzy and scrutiny that came with that title. Tom Leonard is an average college sophomore... just a guy trying to find his place in the world as he sorts through issues that are both very real and seemingly insurmountable. 

Through a chance meeting, these two strike up an unlikely friendship. Their bond is tested when Tom discovers that his idol isn't as perfect up close as he seems from afar. With Jeremiah living a little too much in the moment and with his past catching up to him, will Tom be able to help him before it's too late? 

Review: 

This is the first ever graphic novel I have read and it won’t be my last. I really loved the details in each illustration and I found the story of Tom to be a great read. The author really captures the characters and the problems with his illustrations. I definitely recommend this graphic novel to anyone who loves them and for first time readers like myself. 4/5 Bloody Fangs  

Book Links: 

Amazon 

Book Depository  

HOWARD SHAPIRO lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife and two sons. The Controller for the Pittsburgh-based Visual Effects firm, Animal Inc., he has also written four children’s books and The Stereotypical Freaks will be his debut Graphic Novel. His 2008 book, Hockey Player for Life, has been the #1 downloaded children’s hockey e-book on Amazon’s Kindle chart since its arrival as an e-book in November of 2011. His, Hockey Days book was the only book featured in the December 2007 Sporting News Annual Gift Guide as a Best Buy Gift for Children. Through a corporate sponsorship program he set up (and maintains), since the 2010-11 season, both of his children’s hockey books have been given to NHL teams (over 2,500 copies to date) for use in their community and educational initiatives. Since 2006 his annual charity raffle, which he matches dollar for dollar donated, has raised funds for several hockey-related charities including the Mario Lemieux Foundation, Hockey Fights Cancer and the Keith and Lisa Primeau Scholarship Fund. 

Stalker Links: 

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Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Howard for letting me review your graphic novel and say Thank You to Jean BookNerd for letting me participate in this blog tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below. 

~Sabrina

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