Category: Guest Posts

Guest Post by Author Brooke Johnson: More Steampunk + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

If you can’t get enough steampunk after reading today’s featured book, The Brass Giant, author Brooke Johnson has a few more series that will keep you in the steampunk mood until we can discover Petra and Emmerich’s next adventures. And this reader would also include Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, starting with Cinder. Read my review of The Brass Giant to see why.

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Young Adult Steampunk Series You Absolutely Must Read
According to Brooke Johnson

 
The Leviathan Trilogy (Leviathan, Behemoth, Goliath)
          By Scott Westerfeld
leviathan trilogy by scott westerfieldWesterfeld’s Leviathan trilogy is a page-turning adventure set in an alternate timeline where science has evolved in two distinct ways: mechanical inventions and guided biological evolution, divided between the Clankers and the Darwinists, respectively. The science is at times fantastic and alien, but it is seamlessly entwined into the setting, creating this multifaceted world that almost seems like a completely different reality, not just an alteration of our own. The whole series is rife with conflict, science, and mayhem, and filled with a number of colorful characters: Deryn, the brash young airman in disguise; Alek, son of Archduke Ferdinand; and the brilliant Dr. Nora Barlow, female scientist and the granddaughter of Charles Darwin himself, easily my favorite character in the series, hands down. Nikola Tesla even makes an appearance in the third and final book of the series. It’s a must read for anyone who loves steampunk, biopunk, historical science fiction, and military-focused novels.

The Infernal Devices (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess)
          By Cassandra Clare
infernal devices by cassandra clareThe Infernal Devices trilogy falls under the gaslamp fantasy subgenre of steampunk, focusing less on the science—much of the steampunk elements are brought together with magic—and more on the paranormal Victorian setting, but it still delivers a wonderfully engaging story. The trilogy follows Tessa, a girl with the power to transform into others—a power others would kill to possess—and her time with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons. There is romance aplenty as Tessa is drawn toward and torn between boorish, blue-eyed Will and fragile, silver-haired Jem, and there is plenty of teen angst to go along with the save-the-world plot. I enjoyed the series  immensely, and each book is better than the one before. Definitely recommended for anyone who is looking for something dark, romantic, tragic, and magical set in a surreal Victorian London.

The Finishing School Series (Etiquette & Espionage, Curtsies & Conspiracies, Waistcoats & Weaponry, Manners & Mutiny)
          By Gail Carriger
etiquette and espionageSophronia is a kick-ass heroine with an unfathomable sense of adventure, and I immediately fell in love with the characters and setting the moment I started reading. I mean, this is a story that takes place in a flying school for assassin ladies. What’s not to love? This series relies on an equal measure of fantastic and mechanical throughout the books, instead of heavily erring on the side of magic like many other paranormal steampunk fantasy novels. I haven’t read Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, but Sophronia’s adventures are set in the same alternate version of Victorian England as those books. It’s extraordinarily silly and a lot of fun to read. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read more books with  tomboy heroines, assassins, mad scientists, unusual schools, and a lot of humor.

Brooke JohnsonAbout Brooke: Brooke is a stay-at-home mom, amateur seamstress, RPG enthusiast, and art hobbyist, in addition to all that book writing. As the jack-of-all-trades bard of the family, she adventures through life with her fiercely-bearded paladin of a husband, their daughter the sticky-fingered rogue, and their cowardly wizard of a dog, with only a sleep spell in his spellbook.
They currently reside in Northwest Arkansas, but once they earn enough loot and experience, they’ll build a proper castle somewhere and defend against all manner of dragons and goblins, and whatever else dares take them on.
For More Information
Visit Brooke at her website, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Brooke and Harper Voyage Impulse are giving away a $25 Gift Card!
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Guest Post by Author Blair McDowell on The Real Romantic Road + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Today I’m very pleased to welcome Blair McDowell back to Reading Reality. Her most recent book, Romantic Road (reviewed here) was absolutely awesome. Actually, I think all of her books have been marvelous. I first discovered Blair’s work when I reviewed Delighting In Your Company back in 2012. I’ve eagerly awaited every new book, because she writes marvelous love stories with interesting twists and fascinating backgrounds. Every story has lots of lovely layers to immerse yourself in.

The Real Romantic Road
by Blair McDowell

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It was quite by accident that I first discovered the Romantische Strasse, an ancient Roman road that winds through picturesque old walled towns, from Wurzburg to Augsburg in Germany. I had flown into Frankfurt on my way to Budapest for a meeting. With some days to spare, I decided to rent a car at the airport in Frankfurt and drive to my destination in Hungary.

Romantic Road by Blair McDowellWhat I hadn’t counted on was the German autobahn. I realized within the first half hour on this raceway that I was no match for German drivers. I had rented the smallest and cheapest car available, and I was surrounded by Mercedes and BMWs all traveling at the speed of light. Driving at about seventy miles an hour, I was in mortal danger. Not content with merely passing me, drivers pulled up to about three inches behind me and madly flick their high beams. Since I was already in the far right lane I’m not sure where they expected me to pull over. In full blown terror I looked for a way out. When I saw a sign saying “Miltenberg” I took the exit. Within a few minutes I was in a peaceful countryside, on a meandering two lane road, with almost nobody on it but me. An hour or so later, I was on the outskirts of a walled medieval town on the River Main. Exhausted by both a sleepless overnight flight and my hair-raising autobahn experience I decided to spend the night there.

rothenburg-1I parked my car outside the walls and walked through a huge stone archway into a setting that might have come out of Grimm’s fairy tales. Cobblestone streets, ancient houses huddled close together, and best of all, no cars. I checked into the Zum Riesen, an inn so old I had to duck to get through doorways. People were shorter in the fifteenth century.

The bed was heaven; I sank into oblivion with a huge square down pillow under my head and a plump down duvet over the rest of me.
In the morning, as I enjoyed my breakfast of black bread, ham and cheese, and strong black coffee, the proprietor said to me, “You’re traveling our Romantische Strasse, then?

That’s how, quite by accident, I discovered the Romantic Road.

RothenburgWallThe three medieval towns that officially make up the Romantische Strasse are Nördlingen, Dinkelsbuhl, and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. The one that stayed most in my mind after exploring this part of southern Germany was Rothenburg. Surrounded by high stone walls interspersed with vast arched gates, it is a reminder of how perilous life must have been six hundred years ago. Tall houses stand huddled close together. From a small park, I could see the surrounding hilly countryside for miles ­- an advantageous position for a fortress town that had to be ready at a moment’s notice to close its gates and defend itself from attack.

The town center was a wide square with a clock tower, a town hall, and a gate chillingly named the Hangman’s Gate. It was evocative of a distant and dangerous time, especially when seen on a chilly, rainy March day, as I first saw it.

RothenburgHillsI returned to the Romantische Strasse many times over the ensuing years. I knew that someday I would have to bring a story to this setting. It was in Rothenberg that the plot of Romantic Road began to take shape. A heroine, I didn’t yet know her name, would take refuge here, pursued by someone who meant her harm. The title, I decided, would be double-entendre, reflecting both the old Roman road with the medieval towns on it, and the personal romantic road of my heroine’s life.

This was the kernel from which my novel of romantic suspense, Romantic Road, grew.

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Blair McDowell 2About Blair McDowell

Blair McDowell wrote her first short story when she was eleven and has never ceased writing since, although only recently has she been able to return to her first love, writing fiction.  During her early years, she taught in universities in the United States, Canada and Australia, and wrote several highly successful books in her field.Her research has taken her to many interesting places.  She has lived in Europe, Australia, the United States and the Caribbean and Canada, and spent considerable time in still other places, Iceland, the Far East, and the Torres Strait Islands off the coast of New Guinea. Now she travels for pleasure. Portugal, Greece and Italy are favorite haunts.

Her books are set in places she knows and loves and are peopled with characters drawn from her experiences of those places.   The Memory of Roses takes readers to the Greek Island of Corfu, where a young woman finds her future while searching for her father’s past.  In Delighting in Your Company, the reader is transported to a small island in the Caribbean, with a heroine who finds herself in the unenviable position of falling in love with a ghost.  The setting for Sonata is the city of Vancouver, with its vibrant multicultural population and its rich musical life, and the heroine is a musician who finds herself in unexpected danger.

In her most recent release, Romantic Road, Lacy Telchev, is pursued along Germany’s famous Romantische Strausse as she follows clues left by her late husband in order to solve a mystery that she doesn’t understand, while being chased by dangerous and cunning adversaries.

She hopes her readers will enjoy reading these books as much as she enjoyed writing them. Blair is a member of the Romance Writers of America, Romance Writers of America (Greater Vancouver Chapter), the Romance Writers of America (Women’s Fiction), and The Writers’ Union of Canada.

To learn more about Blair, visit her website and blog and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Blair is giving away two e-copies of Romantic Road! For a chance to win, enter the Rafflecopter below.

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Guest Post by Author M.L. Buchman on First Meetings + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

bring on the dusk by ml buchmanI’d like to welcome M.L. Buchman back to Reading Reality. He is the author of today’s marvelous review book, Bring on the Dusk, the latest in his terrific military romantic suspense series, The Night Stalkers. I think he and Jessica Scott are the two authors responsible for my love of military romance. In this guest post, M.L. talks about the importance of first meetings, as well as providing an excerpt of the first meeting between the two leads in Dusk. Not a meet cute, but a meeting under fire.

First Meetings
by M.L. Buchman

First meetings are so much fun! In the following scene from my newest romantic suspense novel BRING ON THE DUSK, my heroine Claudia has just picked up Delta Force operator Michael Gibson from the middle of an operation. To everyone else, Michael is the inscrutable super warrior, the very best there is. Yet from the first moment, Claudia understands him, his odd quirks, and even his little jokes.

What defenses can a soldier, no matter how experienced, have against that? As they fly away from the successful mission, Michael begins to discover that the answer to that question is “absolutely none!”

Michael registered many things about his pilot.

Female by her voice.

She flew well, with a smoothness that he liked, as if she knew exactly who she was and where she was going. It was a trait they looked for in Delta operators; only the very best had it. And no one but the very best made the Delta grade.

There was nothing to see. Flight suit, armor, and vest. Flight gloves, full helmet with projection visor, and even her lower face covered with a breathing mask and radio mike that let pilots breathe and be heard in even the dustiest and noisiest environments.

But he couldn’t stop glancing over.

He’d heard another female pilot was incoming into SOAR’s 5th Battalion, D Company, so this must be her. Making it into the 5D said she was already an exceptional pilot. She hadn’t harassed him about his tapping thing; just checked in with him and then moved on, which said she knew to trust a soldier’s self-assessment. For some reason, his tapping drove a lot of people nuts.

It wasn’t like the jittery leg that so many soldiers had, though that was trained out of Deltas. Actually, not all that many guys with those kinds of nerves made it into Delta to begin with.

The gentle tap, tap was how he let the adrenal rush of action run out of him. The gentle rhythm reminded him of climbing trees in his childhood when he’d been seeking somewhere no one else could go. It wasn’t escape; it was going higher and farther than anyone before him that charged him up.

Right now he shouldn’t be thinking about her, he should be assessing the team’s performance. What could they have done differently to capture all eight unfriendlies? How could they have anticipated the arrival at the camp of four Tier One targets or the presence of so much unexpected intel? If there’d been anything to gather in the other rooms, there simply hadn’t been time to look. They definitely should have had another bird in deep backup; pure luck they’d gotten this one. The entire camp had erupted in blazes of gunfire from the trainers, answered by the dragon roars from the hovering attack platforms responding with rockets and miniguns.

But that didn’t reorient the direction of his thoughts.

This pilot simply allowed him “to be,” which he appreciated. Even Emily Beale, as well as they’d gotten along, had never understood his little jokes. Or quite known what to make of him.

Not surprising, Michael. You’re not the most accessible dude in the Force.

That he knew for damn sure.

He liked this woman sight unseen.

He also knew that, which was surprising.

MLBuchmanAbout M.L. Buchman

M. L. Buchman has over 25 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and Booklist “Top 10 of the Year.” In addition to romance, he also writes contemporaries, thrillers, and fantasy and science fiction.In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

He is now a full-time writer, living on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics.

To learn more about M.L. Buchman, visit his website or follow him on
Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Michael and Sourcebooks Casablanca are giving away a romantic suspense prize pack, including a copy of Bring on the Dusk to one lucky winner!
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Guest Post by Marion Grace Woolley on the Music of the Night + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

those rosy hours at mazandaran by marion grace woolleyToday’s guest post is by author Marion Grace Woolley. Her new book, Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran, is the subject of today’s review. Because the book is a chilling imagining of the life of Erik from the Phantom of the Opera before he went to Paris, music plays an important part of the story. Read on…

On That Note
by Marion Grace Woolley

“[Music is] the purest of all architecture. Buildings are naught but clay and mud, which time eventually reduces them to once again. Scores, now they are designed of an altogether higher material. The universe itself is built on the chords and harmonies of gods.”

When you set out to write the early life of one of literature’s great musical geniuses, as I did in Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran, you’ve got to learn to strike the right chord.

In 1850s Northern Iran, my two main characters, Afsar and Eirik, share many things in common, except that Afsar has little musical ability, whereas Eirik has mastered music itself.

Part of my researching whilst creating the world of Afsar’s Mazandaran was to look into the instruments of traditional Persian music. Here, I’d like to introduce you to a few of them, and to give you a taste of what they sound like.

250px-79-tone_Kanun_on_the_couchQanun: This is the instrument that Afsar tries to play, with little success. It is a wooden board of strings, played throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, similar to the European zither. It is most commonly plucked by hand, using pointy metal rings on the index fingers, which act as plectrums. You can listen to a sample here.

Chang_(instrument)Chang: Eirik has a harp in his music room in Tehran, which Afsar mistakes for a Persian chang, or Angel Harp.  It is said to have been a favoured instrument of the Shahs of the earlier Sasanian dynasty. There is an evocative example here, which claims that the instrument is around 4,000 years old and originated in Mesopotamia.

Tonbak: This provides the rythm for Persian music. The Tonbak is a wooden drum stretched with sheep or goatskin. Rather than simply hitting the instrument with the flat of their hands, musicians tend to drum their fingers against it, even clicking them, as in this example.

Doudouk_armenienDuduk: Behrang and Emad, the Shah’s clowns in my story, are said to torture this instrument. It is a reed tube, similar to a clarinet, originating from neighbouring Armenia to the north of Mazandaran. It has a very distinctive sound, used to great effect by Hans Zimmer and renowned duduk player Djivan Gasparyan in The Gladiator soundtrack.

One of the nicest surprises that has come through publishing Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran is that it has been turned into an audiobook. Whilst writing the novel, I included two traditional lullabies, one French and one Persian. Emma Newman, the narrator of the audiobook, took the wonderful decision to sing these songs, and we had them sung by native speakers so that she could learn to pronounce them correctly. I will never forget hearing Nadia Tariqi, our Iranian translator, sing it for the first time. It was only a short couple of lines, but the sound of her singing was instantly evocative in ways that simply reading the words could never be.

It seems strange to say, but music and sound have had such a huge part to play between the pages of this novel.

 

marion grace woolleyAbout Marion Grace Woolley
Marion Grace Woolley is the author of three previous novels and a collection of short stories. In 2009, she was shortlisted for the Luke Bitmead Bursary for New Writers. She balances her creative impulses with a career in International Development; she has worked and traveled across Africa, Australia, Armenia, and a few other places beginning with ‘A’. She is an associate member of the Society of Authors, and is currently at work on her fifth novel.
Follow Marion on Twitter @AuthorMGW

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

The author is giving away a copy of Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran to one lucky winner. This giveaway is International!
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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Guest Post by Author Allison Pataki on Writing About Sisi + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Please welcome back Allison Pataki, who recently published the fascinating fictional biography The Accidental Empress (reviewed here).

How I came up with the idea to write about Sisi in ‘The Accidental Empress’
by Allison Pataki

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Years ago, I was traveling through Austria and Hungary and the Czech Republic with my family. I am Hungarian-American by descent; Pataki is an odd-sounding and, yes, Hungarian last name. The purpose of the family trip was to visit the places from where our relatives had emigrated, almost a century earlier. This took us, then, to the lands of the former Habsburg Empire—the former realm once labeled on maps as Austria-Hungary.

While on this trip, I kept seeing striking images of the same beautiful young woman. She had this quizzical smile, this rich chestnut hair curled in these elaborate hairdos. I saw her face at every gift shop, museum, even in restaurants and hotels.

The Accidental Empress by Allison PatakiI asked someone who she was and the response was that she was “Sisi,” the most beloved of all Habsburg Empresses. I heard just a bit about Sisi’s epic and tragic life—about the legends that she grew her hair to the floor, that she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world, that every other foreign ruler at the time was in love with her. I sensed that she was a combination of Princess Diana and Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great and so much more.

I read about how Sisi didn’t mean to seduce her sister’s fiancé the emperor, but did, at the age of 15. Just enough to whet my appetite! I went home and dug in, reading everything I could about Sisi’s story; what I found astounded me. Hers is a story of love triangles, love, lust, betrayal, and so much more. It’s an incredibly human story, told against a glittering and beautiful—yet dangerous and duplicitous—backdrop.

Sisi presided over the golden era of the Habsburg Court, in an age that gave us advances in culture and the arts and architecture, as well as advances in science and politics. Her family gave us the castle that we all know of as “The Walt Disney Castle.” Her family gave us the waltz and Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Klimt’s paintings. Sisi ruled at the time that a young Doctor named Sigmund Freud was just down the street in Vienna inventing the practice of psychoanalysis. And this reign of Sisi and Franz Joseph takes us right up to the doorstep of World War I. Her heir was the man who was assassinated (Archduke Franz Ferdinand), prompting her husband to declare war and setting off World War I, the greatest armed conflict the world had known to that point.

We’ve read about Anne Boleyn and the Tudors. We’ve read about Marie Antoinette at Versailles. We’ve read about the Medici in Italy and the Tsarinas in Russia, and yet, Sisi’s story is more compelling and complex than all of those, I believe.
I think people will really enjoy diving into the world of Sisi and the Habsburg Court.

In Sisi’s case, history is even juicier than any fiction I could have dreamed up. I was hooked—and I hope readers will be, as well.

View More: http://triciamccormack.pass.us/allison_selectsAbout Allison PatakiAllison Pataki is the author of the New York Times bestselling and critically-acclaimed historical novel, The Traitor’s Wife. She graduated Cum Laude from Yale University with a major in English and spent several years writing for TV and online news outlets.The daughter of former New York State Governor George E. Pataki, Allison is currently working on her second novel, The Accidental Empress, to be published by Simon & Schuster in February 2015.

A lover of history, Allison was inspired to write The Accidental Empress by her family’s deep roots in the former Habsburg empire of Austria-Hungary. Allison is the co-founder of the nonprofit organization, ReConnect Hungary. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and FoxNews.com, and is a member of The Historical Novel Society. Allison lives in Chicago with her husband.

To learn more about Allison, visit her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or Goodreads

 

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Thanks to Allison Pataki and Simon & Schuster, one lucky winner will receive a $120 gift card to the ebook retailer of their choice (Amazon/B&N/iTunes)! Please enter via the Rafflecopter form. Giveaway is open internationally.

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For more chances to win, please visit the other stops on the tour.

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Author Guest Post and Giveaway: Black Dog Blues by Rhys Ford

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Guest Posts

Back in 2013 I reviewed Black Dog Blues by Rhys Ford, and I absolutely loved it. Loved it to the point that it made my personal best books list for 2013 and I fudged a bit and put it on my Library Journal Best E-Original Romances list for 2013, even though Black Dog Blues is explicitly NOT a romance. She’s now re-releasing it and I’m so happy; I hope that this new release with Dreamspinner will help even more readers find this terrific book. Meanwhile; please enjoy this guest post by Rhys.

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A few years ago, I wrote an urban fantasy called Black Dog Blues. When the book simmered and boiled in my brain, there were a few things I wanted to have in this book: An elf who was unapologetically bisexual and raised human, blood, gore, guns and monsters. I’d released it into the wilds of self-pubbing—mostly because there wasn’t a place for him then—and Kai did pretty well.

Then, one day at a yarn store, Elizabeth North of Dreamspinner Press fame, started talking about a new venture they were trying out—DSP Publications, DSP’s boutique genre imprint. Long story short, Elizabeth asked if I’d submit Black Dog Blues, I did and now, here we are—with Kai making his way into the mainstream.

Repackaged and gone over again for red squiggles, Black Dog Blues is getting a re-release on February 3rd and I can’t be more excited. The story is the same but Anne Cain rocked me a new cover, more in line with the urban fantasy feel of that genre and I’ve had a chance to kick a few of the tires I wanted to kick in editing. The biggest thing about this re-release is that Kai is going out there again and I can put his sequel firmly into my queue.

rhys_ford_dragonSo to celebrate Black Dog Blues’ re-release, I’m holding a 12 stop blog tour where YOU can win a dragon. Well, a stuffed dragon. Who’s kind of goofy. And much less terrifying than the one Kai ran into. Leave a comment or use the widget the blog’s provided and enter to win one of these plush dragons! International welcome. Dragons for all. Mostly because man, they’re HUGE and take up a lot of space in the guest room.

As an added bonus, be sure to collect ALL of the Black Dog Blues trading cards and return to my blog rhysford.com at the end of the tour for a special giveaway. You’ll need the cards to enter. Winner will be chosen randomly from entrants with the correct answers.

Black Dog Blues Trading Cards

These fine collectibles showcase some of the many creatures and inhabitants of Kai Gracen’s world. Just like life, there are no true good or evil creatures. It’s just that some of them are more wicked and deadlier than others.

8_baba-yagiIf you’ve already read Black Dog Blues, thank you. REALLY. Thank you. You rock and you’ve made Black Dog Blues a success and got it notice. I cannot say thank you enough. No need to re-buy the book but if you’d left a review on Amazon—and have the time—repost it onto the new listing. Unlike Goodreads, re-release reviews don’t carry over. *grins*

If you haven’t read Black Dog Blues, ah—Kai really is my special precious, growly kitten. I adore writing him. I adore writing his world and man, there’s so many places to go with his story. I’m really looking forward to digging in.

Thank you again for letting my snarling elf have a space on your ebook reader. You all rock. Thank you.

Black Dog Blues by Rhys FordAbout Black Dog Blues

Ever since being part of the pot in a high-stakes poker game, elfin outcast Kai Gracen figures he used up his good karma when Dempsey, a human Stalker, won the hand and took him in. Following the violent merge of Earth and Underhill, the human and elfin races are left with a messy, monster-ridden world, and Stalkers are the only cavalry willing to ride to someone’s rescue when something shadowy appears.It’s a hard life but one Kai likes—filled with bounty, a few friends, and most importantly, no other elfin around to remind him of his past. And killing monsters is easy. Especially since he’s one himself.

But when a sidhe lord named Ryder arrives in San Diego, Kai is conscripted to do a job for Ryder’s fledgling Dawn Court. It’s supposed to be a simple run up the coast during dragon-mating season to retrieve a pregnant human woman seeking sanctuary. Easy, quick, and best of all, profitable. But Kai ends up in the middle of a deadly bloodline feud he has no hope of escaping.

No one ever got rich being a Stalker. But then few of them got old either and it doesn’t look like Kai will be the exception.

Purchase Black Dog Blues at DSP Publications

Black Dog Blues is also available on Amazon and other fine eTailers.

Tour Information

Jan 28

3 Chicks After Dark

Jan 29

It’s About The Book

Boys in our Books

Jan 30

Joyfully Jay

Jan 31

TTC Books and More

Feb 1

Christy Duke—Christyloves2read

Boy Meets Boy

Feb 2

Reading Reality

Feb 3

Love Bytes

Feb 3

The Novel Approach

Feb 4

Prism Alliance

Feb 5

The Blogger Girls

Rhys FordAbout Rhys Ford

Rhys Ford was born and raised in Hawai’i then wandered off to see the world. After chewing through a pile of books, a lot of odd food, and a stray boyfriend or two, Rhys eventually landed in San Diego, which is a very nice place but seriously needs more rain.Rhys admits to sharing the house with three cats of varying degrees of black fur and a ginger cairn terrorist. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, a Toshiba laptop, and an overworked red coffee maker.

Rhys can be found at:

Her blog: www.rhysford.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rhys_Ford

And at the Starbucks down the street. No really, they’re 24/7. And a drive-thru. It’s like heaven.

Her books can be purchased, folded and first chapters read at Dreamspinner Press.

Guest Post by Jeanette Grey on the Power of What If? + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Book Giveaway> Giveaways> Guest Posts

through the static by jeanette greyMy guest today is one of my favorite authors, which makes this a terrific day for me. And her latest book, and today’s review book, Through the Static, is also a terrific piece of science fiction romance, with just a slice of cyberpunk for spice. If you love SFR as much as I do, Jeanette is also the author of the excellent Unacceptable Risk (reviewed here). And if contemporary romance is more your thing, be sure to check out Jeanette’s contemporary romances, Take What You Want (reviewed here) and Get What You Need, which I need to get a review copy of pronto.

 

The Power of “What if?” according to Jeanette Grey

As the child of a couple of engineers, I was indoctrinated into the world of science fiction young. Star Trek reruns were on constant replay in my house growing up, and I insist to this day—though my parents deny it—that one of my first memories is of being carried into our garage, late at night, after watching Return of the Jedi. (I probably remember actually being carried home from the babysitter’s, where I stayed while my parents went to see Return of the Jedi, but that’s neither here nor there.)

And yet, when science fiction skeptics ask me how I can enjoy that stuff, I like to cite a different childhood favorite of mine as the embodiment of what I love about sci-fi.

220px-Its_A_Wonderful_Life_Movie_PosterNamely, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Bear with me if you will. There may not be any space ships or aliens in this holiday classic, but what aligns it with the larger genre that encompasses sci-fi, known as speculative fiction, is that it begins with a specific kind of premise. It asks, “What if?” What if George Bailey never lived? What would happen?

And in my mind, the most interesting science fiction asks “What if?” questions, too.

Look at The Hunger Games, where Suzanne Collins asks what would happen in a near-future world where people are separated by inequality and ruled by an iron-fisted government that uses fear and the lives of children to control its people.

Look at The Minority Report, which asks what would happen if police could see crimes before they happened, but without the context to be certain about the nature of those crimes. The Matrix, where technology got away from us and enslaved us. The Handmaid’s Tale, in which a crisis of scarcity and fertility leads to the rise of an extremist society that forces women into subservience.

And yes, Star Trek, where civilization has evolved to the point where all beings are seen as equal, and technology has allowed humanity to explore the stars, looking for new life and new civilizations.

All of these stories begin by asking “What if?” And then they create rich worlds in which to explore that question, populated by unique characters.

If you ask me, what’s not to like about that?

In my new book, Through The Static, I ask the question of what would happen if, in some not-so-distant future, we took the technology that is becoming so common in our lives in the form of cell phones and tablets and fitbits, and we integrated it right into our minds? What if we could connect and communicate by thinking?

The answer in the book, unfortunately, is that some people use that power to effectively enslave others. Our hero, Jinx, has had his memory erased and his thoughts tied to those of two other people, together with whom he makes up an elite mercenary unit. But beneath the controls placed on his very thoughts, pieces of his humanity and his former life slip through.

Those fragments of his stolen past are what lead researcher Aurelia to free him from his unit. In the process, though, to combat the damage done to his neural pathways over the years of his service, she has no choice but to link his mind to hers. The result is an intensely powerful mental, emotional and ultimately physical connection that brings them closer than either of them has ever been to another person before. One that leads to them falling not only into bed together, but in love.

Jeanette GreyAbout Jeanette Grey

Jeanette Grey started out with degrees in physics and painting, which she dutifully applied to stunted careers in teaching, technical support, and advertising. When none of that panned out, she started writing. In her spare time, Jeanette enjoys making pottery, playing board games, and spending time with her husband and her pet frog. She lives, loves, and writes in upstate New York.To learn more about Jeanette, visit her website and blog and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Jeanette’s giving away an ebook copy of Through the Static to one lucky winner (Very lucky, this book is a winner!).  To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:
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Omenana: speculative fiction from Africa and the African diaspora

Posted on by Galen Charlton | Author : | Guest Posts

Guest post by Galen

I’m a fan of short stories, particularly fantasy, science fiction, and broadly, speculative fiction. Although many of the print science fiction and fantasy magazines have had struggles in recent years, there’s been an explosion of online publication featuring speculative short stories. Some of the usual suspects include Tor.com, Clarksworld, and Strange Horizons, but for this post I’d like to feature a Nigerian online magazine I’ve run across via a post on Metafilter.

Omenana issue 1 coverIt’s called Omenana, and its first issue was published this month. From the that issue’s editorial:

Science fiction is still very new in Nigeria, but while we could barely find 10 people to contribute to the anthology in 2010, there are now hundreds of writers who will readily try their hand at the genre. Just as I did, more writers are recognising that we have a copious amount of material for speculative fiction here in Nigeria. That means we need platforms where these stories can be anchored. To help this along, Chinelo Onwualu and I present Omenana, a bimonthly speculative fiction e-publication.

And from Chinelo Onwualu’s essay in that issue, The Unbearable Solitude of Being an African Fan Girl:

Being an African fan girl is a strange, liminal thing. You’re never quite sure that you exist, you see. A part of you is rooted in your culture and its expectations for how a woman ought to behave – church, family, school – but another is flying off into the stars carrying a samurai sword and a machete. Not one thing or another, you’re both at the same time.

…

You know you are not alone. There are thousands of women just like you all over the continent. They have fought to forge their unique identities outside of the prescribed roles they were expected to fill. They have kept that childhood sense of wonder and aren’t ashamed to squeal like schoolgirls when they get excited. They run when they are in a hurry and they take the stairs two at a time. Like you, they are still curious and aren’t afraid to ask questions, but they scattered like magic beans across a vast farm. They are growing into their own twisted shapes and no one around them can understand why.

A standout story in the first issue is HostBods by Tendai Huchu. It is set in a time when mind transference technology is possible — and indeed so commonplace that it is possible to rent the use of another person’s body for a period of time. However, being a “HostBod” is a risky and usually short-lived career, and the people who do it tend to be treated as if they had all of the value of purely artificial robots — in other words, they’re disposable. Ordinarily, a HostBod isn’t supposed to be aware of what goes on when another person uses them, but for the protagonist… things are a little different.

Another story, Winter in Lagos by Saratu Abiola, takes a simple premise — Lagos experiencing its first snowfall — and uses it to turn a mirror onto contemporary issues in Nigeria.

Other features in the first issue are an interview with Ibrahim Ganiyu and art by Kelsey Arrington.

I look forward to Omenana’s next issue.

Guest Post by Author C.C. Humphreys + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Today I’d like to welcome C.C. Humphreys, author of the fascinating Jack Absolute historical fiction series, to talk about the creation of his latest book to be released in the U.S. The French Executioner. (reviewed here).

I’m very happy to host C.C. again today. I loved the first two Jack Absolute books, and I’ve been interested in Anne Boleyn and her time since I saw Anne of the Thousand Days lo these many years ago. So I had to ask C.C. why feature the unknown man instead of the very famous queen?

french executioner by cc humphreys original coverWHY WRITE A NOVEL ABOUT THE MAN WHO KILLED ANNE BOLEYN?
By C.C. Humphreys

Where do the ideas for novels come from?

I remember exactly what I was doing when the idea for The French Executioner hit me like a bolt of lightning. I was working out.

I was living in Vancouver at the time. Making my living as an actor. I’d written a couple of plays. But my dream from childhood had always been to write historical fiction.

I wasn’t thinking of any of that, on that day in a gym in 1993. I was thinking about shoulder presses. Checking my form in the mirror.

This is what happened. (It also shows you the rather strange associations in my brain!)

I lift the weight bar.
Me, in my head. ‘God, I’ve got a long neck.’
Lower bar.
‘If I was ever executed,’ – Raise bar – ‘it would be a really easy shot for the ax.’
Lower bar.
‘Or the sword. Because, of course, Anne Boleyn was executed with a sword.’
Raise bar. Stop half way.
‘Anne Boleyn had six fingers on one hand.’

Flash! Boom! Put down bar before I drop it. It came together in my head, as one thing: the executioner, brought from France to do the deed, (I remembered that from school). Not just taking her head. Taking her hand as well, that infamous hand – and then the question all writers have to ask: what happened next?

I scurried to the library. Took out books. I knew it had to be a novel. I did some research, sketched a few ideas. But the problem was, I wasn’t a novelist. A play had seemed like a hill. A novel – well, it was a mountain, and I wasn’t ready to climb it. So I dreamed a while, then quietly put all my research, sketches, notes away.

But I never stopped thinking about it. The story kept coming and whenever I was in a second hand bookstore I’d study the history shelves and think: if ever I write that novel – which I probably never will – I’ll want… a battle at sea between slave galleys. So I’d buy a book on that subject, read it. Buy another, read it.

November 1999. Six years after being struck by lightning. I’m living back in England and I find a book on sixteenth century mercenaries – and I knew the novel I was never going to write would have mercenaries. Twenty pages in, I turn to my wife and say: “You know, I think I’m going to write that book.” And she replies, “It’s about bloody time.”

I wrote. The story, all that research, had stewed in my head for so long, it just poured out. Ten months and I was done. I wondered if it was any good. I sent it to an agent. She took me on and had it sold three months later.

I was a novelist after all.

About the Book: The year is 1536, and notorious French executioner Jean Rombaud is brought in by Henry VIII to behead Anne Boleyn, the condemned Queen of England. But on the eve of her execution, Rombaud becomes enchanted with the ill-fated queen and swears a vow to her: to bury her six-fingered hand, a symbol of her rumored witchery, at a sacred crossroads.
Yet in a Europe ravaged by religious war, the hand of this infamous Protestant icon is so powerful a relic that many will kill for it. Bloodthirsty warriors, corrupt church fathers, Vikings, alchemists, and sullied noblemen alike vie for the prize as Rombaud, a man loyal to the grave, struggles to honor his promise.
From sea battles to lusty liaisons, from the hallucinations of St. Anthony’s fire to the fortress of an apocalyptic messiah, The French Executioner sweeps readers into a breathtaking story of courage, the pursuit of power, and loyalty at whatever cost.
cc humphreysC.C. Humphreys is the author of eight historical novels. The French Executioner, which was his first novel and a runner-up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers award in 2002, has never before been published in the U.S. The sequel, The Curse of Anne Boleyn, will be published in the U.S. in May 2015.
Humphreys has acted all over the world and appeared on stages ranging from London’s West End to Hollywood’s Twentieth Century Fox. He is also an accomplished swordsman and fight choreographer. For more information, visit http://cchumphreys.com/

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Chris is kindly giving away a copy of The French Executioner to one lucky winner! (US/Canada). To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

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Guest Post by Author Jeffe Kennedy on Ebooks and Libraries + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

My featured guest for today is Jeffe Kennedy, the author of the marvelous fantasy romance series, Covenant of Thorns. The series concludes with today’s featured review book, Rogue’s Paradise, which answers so many of the questions that series fans have been waiting for.

In her guest post, Jeffe talks about one of the subjects near and dear to my heart, getting ebooks into libraries.

Rogues Paradise Button 300 x 225

I love that Reading Reality focuses on ebooks and ebook integration into libraries. This is partly because libraries and librarians have always been such a huge part of my life as a reader. As a writer, too, which is less visible to me. But more and more, librarians come up to me at events and tell me how my ebooks are in their collections and I should know how often they’re checked out and how their patrons just love, love, love them! I’m glad they tell me, because otherwise I have no way of knowing that.

I also appreciate that Marlene is dedicated to bringing ebooks into libraries, especially genre books, because I strongly feel that, without Carina and their willingness to take a chance on my digital series, A Covenant of Thorns, then these books might never have seen the light of day. That’s the terrific thing about ebook publishers—they’ve allowed books that don’t neatly fit into genre categories to have a chance.

rogues pawn goodreadsWhen I started Rogue’s Pawn,, I had no idea that I was writing a story that would “fall into the cracks between genres.” My tale of a modern woman, a professor of neuroscience who passes through a magical gate at Devils Tower and ends up in Faerie—exactly as in the tales of old—would maybe be an urban fantasy. Only with more romance. And sexier.

Okay, like many newbie writers, I had no idea what I was doing. I understood my story, but not how the marketplace worked.

Since I first started shopping that book—to praise for the writing and imagination, followed by rejection for marketability—the market has changed. Carina called it Fantasy Romance and now there’s lots more of those books out there. The Covenant of Thorns trilogy doesn’t sit squarely in Fantasy Romance, but it gets to be in the club still. More, the books have found readers and I’ve gotten to write others.

All because people embraced ebooks and the windows they open.

I couldn’t be more thrilled!

Jeffe KennedyJeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook. Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, which released beginning January 2, 2014. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and a fifth, the highly anticipated erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, will release starting in July.

She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.

Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Foreword Literary.

To learn about Jeffe, visit her website or blog or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Because I enjoyed the Covenant of Thorns series so much, I want to give some lucky reader the chance to enjoy it too. So, the prize is the winner’s choice of Rogue’s Pawn, Rogue’s Possession or Rogue’s Paradise. These are all ebook only, so anyone can win!

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