Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Luminous Blog Tour


Today on my blog I have the Luminous tour. On my stop there is a spotlight, guest post, excerpt, and giveaway.


Jasmine was born in Tucson, Arizona, the oldest of two children. She spent her teen years living in Phoenix, Arizona and then attended the University of Arizona in Tucson where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing. She married and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah where her husband attended graduate school at the University of Utah. There she adopted a love for the changing seasons, snowboarding and the beauty of the mountains.
She spent several years working on a literary novel but found her heart wasn’t in it. Finally she quit her day job to write full time and embraced her life-long love of fantasy fiction.  She wrote Luminous, the first novel in the Psyne series (pronounced "sign") and followed it up with the sequel, Prism, due out the summer of 2014.  With a third series novel in the works and no end in sight, Jasmine will be spending a great deal of time in the Psyne Universe over the next several years.  When she’s not writing or spending time with her family, she loves to horseback ride, dance, make elaborate costumes just for the fun of it, and is always planning her next decadent tea party.


Stalker Links:



What would you do if the world you loved was taken from you forever?
...and what would you sacrifice to get it back?

Magical, Mythical, Mesmerizing…
A powerful race of beings lives and works among us and we don’t even know it. To us, they are known as mermaids, sirens and water nymphs, but they call themselves the Psyne. They have lived on Earth since ancient times, wield powerful magic and have only one weakness—love.
When Psyne suddenly start disappearing around the globe, the remaining aquatars are evacuated to their home world and a ban is placed on Earth. Ilauria, a devoted servant to the Psyne Council, can’t abide abandoning the missing eight, and with the help of her long-time friend, Shivan, and a subversive member of the Venvian Psyne named Adante, she embarks on a harrowing rescue mission to uncover who or what is powerful enough to subdue her kind.
What Ilauria discovers will cause her to question her loyalties, re-examine her dual nature, and will shake the very foundations of the truths her society holds dear.


Excerpt:


The breeze sailed through the branches causing the afternoon light to glisten off something shiny and smooth.  The glimmer caught Gavin’s eye and he approached the thicket with caution.  He quickly dropped to his knees, peering into the bushes.  His eyes adjusted to the dimly lit underbrush and danced across a shiny area of blue-green fish scales. 
His breath stuck in his throat as he followed the scales upwards.  They gave way to a narrow waist of milky skin that led to the torso of a woman with long, red curly hair.  He swallowed hard as his eyes took in the woman curled up on her side and the glistening fish tail undeniably apart of her.
The same memory from before of the woman in the ocean flashed across his mind.  The soft glow of her skin contrasted against the water as her black hair streamed behind her.  Her blue eyes sparkled like flaming sapphires and her fish tail swayed beneath her. 
Gavin’s heart pounded against his chest as he attempted to steady his breathing.  When he shook his head and focused on the woman before him, he couldn’t believe he was staring at a living myth right before his very eyes. 
In stunned silence, Gavin spread the branches apart and crawled into the thicket, pausing to take in the spectacle of the mermaid before him. 
The luxurious flukes of the abundant fish tail were curled beneath the woman’s body, pressed into the moist earth and wrapped around her hips.  The delicate blue-green tail reminded him of the showy dorsal fins of Siamese fighting fish.  Smaller fins adorned the sides of her slender hips and the iridescent scales of her tail faded below her navel, giving way to smooth skin that covered the rest of her body.  Her hair obscured her face and her thin arms were folded against her chest with her hands wrapped tightly under her chin. 
Hesitantly, he touched the shiny scales of her tail and goose bumps broke out on his arm. 
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
She was cold to the touch but she was real, as real as he was. 
His mouth hung open in disbelief as his mind raced, struggling to process what he saw before him.  The seconds ticked by but only one thought hovered in his mind: he had to get her out of there and he had to get her somewhere safe.  

Guest Post:

Letter from the Hero


This letter is written by Ilauria, the main character of the novel, Luminous, to her first love, a man named Phaedrus.  This is a look at Ilauria’s feelings and regrets long before the start of Luminous.  Rest assured, this letter is spoiler-free.

My dear Phaedrus,
By now, enough years have passed that I know your short human lifespan has come to an end.  In some ways I envy you.  At least you could look forward to an end, a release from this life and the suffering that comes with it.  For me, an eternity is all that awaits:  endless days, weeks, and years and all the while, I mourn the loss of our love and the life we might have shared. 

Do I now regret the decision I had made to leave you?  I do.  I had regretted it the very moment I had made it but that still had not changed the fact that I had to do it.  As Psyne, it is forbidden to love a human, let alone become one permanently in order to live out our lives together.  I would have brought the wrath of the Bahree down upon us both.  I hope that you realized how pointless it would have been for me to stay with you.  The Bahree would have hunted us down to the ends of the Earth.  We would not have been allowed to lead normal lives, we would have been fugitives.  My people were too strong, their laws too great for us to have overcome.

Even as I write this, trying to convince myself that I made the correct decision, I know in my heart that I did not.  Love is a curious thing.  I did not expect to feel as I do.  The love I felt for you is as powerful now as it ever was.  It makes mourning your passing all the more painful.  Pain…it too is something I am not familiar with, that is, until I had made the decision to leave you.  Pain is like a shadow, it follows me everywhere I go and I can never be free of it.  Pain is not something Psyne normally experience.  Perhaps this is my punishment.

I think about our time together, Phaedrus, and I marvel at how you had put me in touch with my human side, something I had never known before meeting you.  My people pride themselves on shunning their human half in favor of their magical half, the mermaid form.  I wonder if they realize how cold and logical our magical side truly is.  Learning about my human half taught me warmth and connection, passion and emotion.  Sometimes I dream about how your fingertips had traced the designs across my back, how warm your touch felt across my skin, skin that had never been touched before.  How I had longed for you to know me as no one else ever had, showing you my luminaea for the first time, the magic sigils adorning the entirety of my back, something we Psyne always kept hidden with our abundantly long hair.  To see the love and wonder reflected in your eyes when you looked at me, words cannot describe how you made me feel.

 I do regret leaving you, with every breath I take, with every heartbeat.  There, I have said it.  How funny what we hide from ourselves and how hard it can be, sometimes, to be truthful with what lies in our heart.  I know there can never be a second chance for us now but our love has not died with you.  I carry our love in my heart and that is where it shall remain. 

If second chances were real, I would do things differently.  I would relish in being a fugitive with you, running from the Bahree, if only it would mean I could have one more minute with you…one more second.  I was afraid before but no longer.  If only I had done things differently, we could have been together, at least for a little while, and I assure you, I will carry that pain with me for eternity. 

I love you, Phaedrus.  I always will.
Ilauria


Book Links:

Thank you for stopping by my  blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to RBTL for letting me participate in this tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina

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It Started With A Kiss Book Blast


Today on my blog I have the It Started With A Kiss Book Blast. On my stop I have a spotlight, excerpt, and giveaway.

Lindy has lived on an acreage in country Western Australia for the past two years, after moving from the big city of Perth. She shares this laid back lifestyle with her long suffering and handsome husband, Big G, her two dogs and a flock of sheep named after the Brady Bunch characters. She also has two fabulously talented children who are pursuing their own creative careers and will one day be famous! Lindy began writing at University but never really wanted  to be 'an author'. She wanted to be a Princess or at worst a Kindergarten teacher. Her first novel, Heart of Glass was penned in 2007 and since then she has developed her voice as a Chick Lit and Women's Fiction author. Her greatest achievement to date is having a Top Five Bestseller on the Short Stories List with Amazon early in 2013. Filled with hilarious and sweet moments the novella, A Cupid Kind of Day, is a good representation of Lindy's hunorous writing style.

On a good day ~ when not at her day job teaching literacy ~ you can find Lindy lurking around Twitter and Facebook generally seeing how much useless information she can impart in 140 characters or less. She's a hopeless U2 and Bon Jovi fan, a rugby union fanatic, coffee lover, chocoholic, over-exaggerator, trashy TV, music and iPhone addict. If you can't Google it then it's not worth knowing!

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Out for a jog one Saturday afternoon, Georgie Bird is greeted by two things she never expected to see ~ a huge lump of dog doings on the sole of her shoe and her old boyfriend Nate. Nate and Georgie had been the only peas in the pod growing up and in the twelve years since they’ve seen each other, neither of them seems to have forgotten. Over a cup of coffee and a series of shared recollections, Georgie and Nate begin to rekindle the embers of the love they lost.
But can they save the relationship or will their one night of passion bring the closure they never had?

Excerpt:
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Nate peered at her closely. He was struggling for recognition that she could see wasn’t coming.
Georgie removed her sunglasses and cap. Her ponytail swung carelessly and flopped over her shoulder as she looked into his eyes, trying to trigger his memory. He had to remember her. It would be soul destroying if he didn’t. Not to mention, more humiliating than having her name and some rather untrue accusations plastered on the boys’ toilet wall in her last year of school. One of the male teachers had seen it first. When he’d confronted her, Georgie didn’t know whether to be embarrassed about the fact that it was there, or that she had no idea what the lewd action mentioned was. Georgie and Nate had been together a long time. He’d kept her sheltered.
“It’s me,” Georgie said, hoping that if she stared straight into Nate’s eyes he’d remember. It was either that or run. If she did that, his only memory would be of the kooky chick that’d stopped him on the bike track thinking they knew each other. She’d be an amusing story to recall at dinner parties.
Nate looked again. Then visibly, his face began to change. There was a small glimmering hint of recognition and he was trying to hide it but Georgie saw it. She’d always been good at reading his expressions.
“Georgie?”
Georgie almost collapsed with relief. “Yes.”
Nate’s face burst into the grin she remembered so well. He flicked his sunglasses to the top of his head and rubbed his hand over his face in disbelief. Mischief wrestled in his eyes, just as it had when they were young.
“I can’t believe it. Jesus, how long’s it been?”
Georgie could see him mentally calculating the time.
“Twelve years.”
If you rounded off the three months, five days and oh, two hours.
Nate’s grin broadened, as he looked her up and down, taking in her soggy, ripped leggings, sweaty tank top and missing shoe.
“You’re still a fashion plate, then?”
“Don’t be smart. I stepped in dog poop.”
“I wondered what that smell was. I, sort of, remember your perfume being a heap nicer than that.”
“Sorry. I was trying to get rid of it when I saw you.”
“By taking a dip in the river? I gather that’s how you got so wet or do you sweat a lot when you run?”
Georgie glared at him, remembering how he’d always had an answer for everything.  Once upon a time it used to be endearing, funny even. Now, it was plain annoying. Sort of. God, Nate was here. Here. This was unbelievable

Book Links:

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Jaidis for letting me participate in this blast. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina

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Shadowed Book Blitz


Today on my blog I have the Shadowed Book Blitz. On my stop there is a spotlight, excerpt, and giveaway.

Ken Hughes dreams of dark alleys and the twenty-seven ways people with different psychic gifts might maneuver around each corner. He grew up on comics and adventures before discovering Steven King and Joss Whedon, and he's written for Mars mission proposals and medical devices, making him an honorary rocket scientist and brain surgeon. Ken has created the Unified Writing Field Theory and the Power Plays guide for characters and readers to manage paranormal abilities.  Don't get him started on puns.

Stalker Links:


He can hear a whisper a block away… and can’t remember why.


Paul lives in hiding, struggling to control preternatural senses no secret is safe from, and certain that nobody suspects he exists. And now he must risk everything to protect the family he left and face enemies more ruthless than his worst fears… because the one person who knows what happened, is the one who did it to him.

Excerpt:
The pigeons moaned. It was the only word for their frantic cooing from the cardboard box he’d crammed them into. Even winter had its uses, at least it made the birds desperate enough for food that he could net half a dozen within walking distance of Quinn’s building. And as that brick shape came in sight, Paul stopped to pour more seed into the box to quiet the birds again.
He left the cooing box halfway up the block, in the alley behind the buildings, and moved forward to Open and study his target again. Same dog, same window and alarm, and he waited until he could just make out the guard still patrolling inside.
Alright then.
First, he walked under the window and along the alley, back and forth, scuffing his feet around until the still-light layer of snow looked as if a whole gang had marched through it; a clumsy camouflage, but he could hope the guard wouldn’t look too closely. And with any luck, this would be finished before enough snow fell over those to make his later tracks clear.
Then, he hefted the biggest discarded bottle he’d been able to find, and flung it straight through Quinn’s window.
An alarm shrilled and the dog exploded into barking, both sounds ringing down the streets through the window’s broken pane. The dog fell silent again, almost at once… too well-trained to keep going when nothing more was happening.
When the alarm cut off and Paul could hear the guard moving inside again, he darted up the block with the box of pigeons. Then he waited in the cold until the guard had made his sweep around the building and settled back inside. I thought some of those wires were in case someone broke the window. But that’s all I need for now.
He poured another helping of seed into his cardboard pigeon-coop and began easing the four-way overlap of the top flaps open. With all the care he could manage, he parted them just enough to reach both hands in—wishing he could use his thicker winter gloves when they pecked at him—and pulled out one struggling bird before closing the top again. He placed that pigeon in his second, smaller box, and carried it under his arm to the fire escape and up.
The dog stood right under the window, a brown and black brute that looked like a Doberman but seemed a bit heavier than most. It growled but didn’t bark yet, and for a moment Paul wondered if his plan would work.
Then he raised the box up to the high window-pane he’d smashed, and popped the pigeon through the hole.
The dog went mad. The bird beat its wings to catch itself in the air and fluttered around the room with the dog chasing it and barking in a frenzy. The animals hopped from one desk to another as the pigeon circled but couldn’t turn tightly enough to stay airborne within the walls…
Paul slid back down to the alley and ducked around the corner. He strained his hearing to focus past the barking and the echo of his memory, praying that the trick would work.

Book Links:

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Jaidis for letting me participate in this book blast. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina

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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Eternal Echoes


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

Angela Corbett graduated from Westminster College with a double major in communication and sociology. She started working as a reporter for her local newspaper when she was sixteen and won awards for feature, news, and editorial writing. She has also done freelance writing. In addition to writing, she works as a director of communications and marketing. She loves classic cars, traveling, and listening to U2. She lives in Utah with her extremely supportive husband and their five-pound Pomeranian, Pippin, whose following of fangirls could rival Justin Bieber’s.
Angela writes under two names. Young Adult and New Adult titles are written as Angela Corbett. Adult titles are written as Destiny Ford.
Stalker Links:

She thought she stopped the evil.
She thought she was safe.
Everything she thought was wrong.
Almost four months have passed since Evie Starling learned she was a Tracker and helped defeat a Daevos Clan that was taking others like her—but that wasn’t the end of the abductions. As an unknown evil emerges, Evie vows to help solve the mystery of the missing Trackers, regardless of the risk.
With new powers she doesn’t understand and can’t control, she turns to Alex and Emil, her two soul mates, for help. But her feelings for them both are tearing her apart. She knows she has to decide between them; however, her memories are only making that choice more difficult.
As the world around her is thrown into chaos, Evie is confronted with what could be a destiny-altering truth. Will she accept her history, her memories, and her role in this life, or choose to ignore the echoes of her past?
Book Links:

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say thank You to Book Nerd Tours for letting me participate in this tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina
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Thursday, December 5, 2013

Gadget Girl Book Blast


Today on my blog I have the Gadget Girl book blast. On my stop there is a spotlight, and giveaway.

Five-time Pushcart Prize nominee Suzanne Kamata is the author of the novels Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible (GemmaMedia, 2013) and Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press, 2008), and editor of three anthologies – The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan, Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, 2009). Her short fiction and essays have appeared widely. She is the Fiction Co-editor of literarymama.com.


Stalker Links:



Aiko Cassidy is fourteen and lives with her sculptor mother in a small Midwestern town. For most of her young life Aiko, who has cerebral palsy, has been her mother’s muse. But now, she no longer wants to pose for the sculptures that have made her mother famous and have put food on the table. Aiko works hard on her own dream of becoming a great manga artist with a secret identity.

When Aiko’s mother invites her to Paris for a major exhibition of her work, Aiko at first resists. She’d much rather go to Japan, Manga Capital of the World, where she might be able to finally meet her father, the indigo farmer. When she gets to France, however, a hot waiter with a passion for manga and an interest in Aiko makes her wonder if being invisible is such a great thing after all. And a side trip to Lourdes, ridiculous as it seems to her, might just change her life.

Gadget Girl began as a novella published in Cicada. The story won the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award in Fiction and was included in an anthology of the best stories published in Cicada over the past ten years.



Book Links:



Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Book Nerd Tours for letting me participate in this blast. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina


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Tuesday, December 3, 2013

31 Days Best Of 2013: Day 3

Today on 31 Days Best Of 2013 I have author C.J. Pinard. I absolutely love and adore C.J. and her books are amazingly addictive. I just devour them when they come out. On top of C.J.'s top ten books, and her book news she is also donating 2 print books for a giveaway and 2 ebooks. SO make sure you say Thank You in the comments. So let's get started and see what her Top Ten Books are:

Top Ten 2013:

Top 10 books I read this year and loved ---

10. Vengeance (Night Roamers) - Kristen Middleton
9. Finding Obscurity - Emma Shade
8. Escaping Reality - Lisa Renee Jones
7. Moonbeam - Tim O'Rourke
6. Blood Seduction: Vamp City Novel - Pamela Palmer
5. Jet - Jay Crownover
4. Rule - Jay Crownover
3. A Bit of Bite - Cynthia Eden
2. City of Lost Souls - Cassandra Clare
1. Hopeless - Colleen Hoover

Book News 2014:

"Soul Rebel" - Paranormal book about a man who gets his soul taken by a succubus. 
"The Lunar Effect" - a 4-book series about a werewolf who gets bitten by a vampire and becomes a vampire hunter. 
"Until The Dawn" - a vampire book
"Beneath Broken" - Contemporary Romance about a cop and a widow
"Unravelled" - The sequel to "Unscathed" (paranormal romance with Tim O'Rourke)
"The Love Boat" - 3 short story collaboration with Kristen Middleton and LR Potter for valentine's day
There may be an Enchanted Immortals 5 - it's up in the air right now!

Signings in 2014:

 UtopYA Convention in Nashville, TN in June!


C.J. is a west coast native who has lived on both coasts and now lives near the middle, in Colorado! Coming from a family of writers and editors, she feels writing is in her blood and hopes people will lose themselves for a little while in the fantasy and fun of her stories.

Stalker Links:

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to C.J. for participating in my 31 Days Best Of 2013 and for doing a giveaway for all my awesome blog followers. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina

Giveaway:
signed paperback of Enchanted Immortals (#1), signed paperback of Patriotic Duty, and ebook copies of Patriotic Duty and Enchanted Immortals 2: The Vortex (domestic only on the signed paperbacks - international on the ebooks).
To enter tell us your favorite Holiday memory. Don't forget to leave your email so I can contact you if you win. 
Good Luck!!!
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Monday, December 2, 2013

31 Days Best Of 2013: Day 2

It's Day 2 of my 31 Days Best of 2013. On today I have author Gladys Quintal. She is telling us her Top Ten favorite books of 2013, what she h as planned for 2014 book wise, and she is offering up a couple of paper backs of her newest release Succubus (book 4 in her The Dream series) So let's get started and find out what Gladys's top ten books are for 2013:

Top Ten Books for 2013:

Fifty Shades of Grey (1, 2 and 3) by E. L. James

Falling into You by Jasinda Wilder
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Ash by James Herbert
The Ghostchaser's Daughter by Emily Hill
Candy's Man by Jeanette Hornby
Beautiful Inside and Out by Gena Lee Nolin and Mary Shomon
Birthright Bestowed by Erika Szabo


Book News for 2014:
I am currently writing book 5 in The Dream Series (A Match Made in Hell) and will be releasing that at some stage in 2014. Book 4, Succubus will be released on Dec 1st of this year.


A survivor of sexual abuse, I have recently written the true account of my childhood, titled: Life After Hell: Surviving Sexual Abuse. I have tried to convey what happened to me as well as my journey to finally getting justice. 

A lot of my real life experiences have gone into my fictional works, especially The Man of My Dreams where I created a vigilante vampire who kills rapists and child molesters..... I've loved Vampires and the paranormal ever since I can remember and always envisaged myself writing a book or two on the subject! I have written 4 books in The Dream Series so far: The Man of my Dreams, Be Careful What You Wish For, The Chosen One and the 4th book in the series: Succubus: An Erotic Companion which is due for release December 1st. All Paranormal Romance novels with Vampires(of course) as well as a bit of blood and gore thrown in and the 4th one is slightly on the erotic side! 


I also recently published a short story (Why Won't Someone Help Me?) about my health issues and the trouble with getting diagnosed or treated for invisible illnesses.


Stalker Links:


Succubus is book 4 in The Dream Series, written as a novella to fill in a few gaps – which you know by now is something I love to do. Rather than continuing the plot from book 3, it takes the reader back in time to just after Elizabeth “dies.” You’ll find it a bit more erotic than the first three books, so fair warning! 


What happened in the 400 years between Elizabeth dying in her castle tomb and the birth of The Chosen One? Take an erotic step back in time and learn more about what Elizabeth and Sebastian were up to as they prepared for that monumental event to take place. They certainly didn't get bored while they were waiting, that's for sure!


Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Gladys for participating in my Best Of 2013 and for offering up a giveaway for all of you awesome readers. So don't forget to enter it below.
~Sabrina

Giveaway:
What is your favorite paranormal creature to read about in the erotica genre? Don't forget to post your email so you can be contacted if you win. 
Good Luck!!
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