Book Blitz & Giveaway: Now or Never by A.J. Bennett
Now or Never by A.J. Bennett
Publication date: June 19th 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Synopsis:
Twenty-one year old Grayson Alexander finally breaks away from an abusive relationship and finds herself free for the first time in three years.
Determined to enjoy her new-found freedom, Grayson is intent on sticking with ‘no strings attached’ relationships—one-night stands, and steamy sex.
But she didn’t plan on Derrick.
Her attraction to the sexy man in uniform quickly turns into an unhealthy relationship. They both try to resist the pull, but neither can stay away.
When tragedy strikes, Grayson realizes it’s now or never—walk away or make it work.
A.J. Bennet Interview Ten Quick Questions
1. Coffee or tea?
I have to choose one? I love coffee in the morning and tea anytime during the day.
2. Morning or Night person?
Night owl. I do most of my writing at night. I also love to stay up late reading a good book.
3. Favorite season?
Fall. I love sweaters.
4. One thing you can’t live without?
My macbook air. It’s my lifeline.
5. Favorite dessert?
Ugh, this is a tough one. Cheesecake? Brownies? Cookies? Depends on the day I guess.
6. Do you ever write in your PJ’s?
All the time. I love christmas pajama’s for some reason. It’s the middle of July and tonight I’m wearing snowman pajama’s.
7. Do you believe in soul mates?
Yes! I believe there is someone out there for everyone. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes longer than we’d like to find them.
8. Do you believe in magic?
Of course! Life is magic.
9. Favorite bumper sticker?
I saw one the other day that made me laugh. It was 0.0 instead of the marathon distances.
10. Love at first sight?
That’s a tough one. I do think there is an instant attraction but that’s more about sexual chemistry. The love part comes later.
AUTHOR BIO:
A.J. Bennett lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and bulldog. She’s addicted to coffee, popcorn and books. Becoming an author has been a lifelong dream, and she’s extremely excited about her debut novel Now or Never.
Author links:
Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter
Giveaway
To make it simple if you would like to win a ebook copy of Now or Never leave a comment about the post, along with your email and format preference.
Trailer Reveal: Soul Taken by Katlyn Duncan
I am super excited to be able to participate in the trailer reveal for Katlyn Duncan’s SOUL TAKEN which released on June 4th!
This book sounds absolutely amazing and I can't wait to share the TRAILER and the EXCERPT the author provided, both of which are below.
There is also an awesome GIVEAWAY for an eBook Kindle copy of the book to one winner. So be sure to check that out, too.
With its gorgeous cover, it's intriguing description, its totally captivating excerpt and awesome trailer, I am thrilled to be able share SOUL TAKEN with you. So without further ado....
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The SOUL TAKEN Trailer
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Title: SOUL TAKEN (The Life After #1)
Author: Katlyn Duncan
Publisher: Carina UK
Release date: June 4th
Formats: eBook
After-life just got a lot more complicated
Maggie is a Soul Collector. It’s her job to transport souls from the Living Realm to the After – but during a mission to find a stolen soul, she ends up stuck in a teen mean girl’s body.
Trapped, Maggie’s soul is catapulted into Ally’s life – and the human world she hasn’t experienced for one hundred years. But, as a descendant of the most powerful beings in the After, Maggie must rescue Ally before the girl’s soul dies…
To survive, Maggie must uncover devastating secrets – because with one soul taken by a terrifying enemy, Maggie’s could be next!
***
Katlyn Duncan was born and raised in a small town in western Massachusetts. Her overactive imagination involved invisible friends, wanting to be a Disney Princess and making up her own stories. Her bibliophile mom always encouraged her love of reading and that stayed with her since. Even though she works full time in the medical field Katlyn has always made time for books, whether she is reading or writing them.
Katlyn now lives in southern Connecticut with her husband and adorable Wheaten Terrier and she is thrilled to finally share her stories with the world.
***
I attempted to open my eyes, to move one finger, a toe maybe, but the pressure immobilized my body. The burning sensation tore through me over and over until I had just about given up the fight.The SOUL TAKEN Excerpt
A suffocating heat pressed all points of my soul. Even though I hadn’t breathed in a hundred years, I felt the need to inhale, yet I couldn’t. A fire burned in my chest.
But, just as quickly as the pressure came, it lifted, bringing a seemingly endless barrage of images. I was experiencing someone else’s memories, as if I took a back seat in her mind and watched her life flash before our eyes. I caught her image in a mirror, a small golden-haired girl.
Ally?
I tried to slow the images or possibly make sense of them but, just as I grabbed a hold on one of them, it slipped through my fingers and moved onto the next. I followed this girl through all the moments of her life as her memories flashed before my eyes.
Darker emotions overlapped the girl’s happy memories. I saw a young red-haired girl in an old-fashioned dress; her demure eyes looked back at me. Jealousy flared through me. My heart squeezed, watching this girl who was not part of Ally’s memories. A rush of energy pumped through my body; the power touched every fiber of my soul. Then the vision dissolved and I was forced back to experiencing Ally.
Was I dreaming?
Souls didn’t dream. I told myself firmly.
The visions started to slow and I was able to focus on one.
I had to tell them, even though Dad said I couldn’t. But in a week I wouldn’t be the same girl. Or would I? I still wasn’t clear on everything. Becoming a Guard: it was my life’s mission, he had said. A life that was no longer my own. Would it be easier to let this life slip away? I would regret each day if I didn’t. Maybe I would start with Seth. Sweet Seth. He’d be crushed, but someone would take my place. Dad had said something about people—humans— was I not human? Humans were drawn to those like me. Maybe Seth only liked me because I was different, unexplainably different.
I ripped the paper off the coffee sleeve. It was now or never.
***
The SOUL TAKEN Giveaway
eBook Kindle copy of SOUL TAKEN to ONE (1) winner.The SOUL TAKEN Giveaway
- Must be 13 or older to enter
- Must be able to accept Amazon Kindle eBook gifts from the U.S.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Feature and Follow
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I put them on bookshelf as it runs out of space. I can't get give them away or throw them out. I love them all and their covers. Plus I have this idea in my head that my daughter is going to be an avid reader like me and want to read them herself. Plus so many of mine are actually signed. I'm lucky enough to live an area that has a good amount of signings. I do sometimes go back and reread my favorite parts.
With ebooks they stay on my reader, same with audiobooks. Then of course there are the ones that I'm not so impressed by the cover so I just check them out from the library and return them.
Blog Tour: Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman
Series: Forever First #1
Publication date: June 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Synopsis:
Maddie Martin's first weekend at college is nothing like she's used to. It's wild, like the wilderness on which the University of Bellam Springs sits. Roped into going to a frat party, she literally runs into Kyle Hadley. The boy she's loved since she was nine. The boy she promised all of her firsts to. But that was before his father killed her parents.
Determined to stay away from him, she throws herself into her music. Practicing piano eases her heavy heart, calms the sadness, and pushes away images of Kyle's face.
Until it doesn't.
Her music professor asks her to play a duet for their annual Graduation Gala. Doing so means she'll be assured another full ride scholarship. It's an opportunity she can't pass up.
But Kyle is the other half of the duet. And that means hours and hours of practicing.
Days and months of seclusion - just the two of them. And it's more than just music. It's passion like Maddie never believed was possible.
The inevitable happens. She falls in love with him all over again.
But, will loving him be enough to erase all the hate in her heart for his father? Can she look at him, and not see the evil in his family tree?
And maybe it's all a set up. Maybe Kyle is only pretending to care so he can finish what his father started, and kill her too.
My Review:
Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman is a story about love, healing and letting go.
I liked that Maddie gets tattoos to help with her pain. It’s a lot better than her doing drugs and or something else that could be worse. She only does it on the anniversary of her parent’s death because that is the particular day that is hardest for her to handle. It’s like she is wearing her battle scars on the outside and by doing so also letting them go. She is one tough kid; you can see some of her actions are based on the fact of the traumatic event she had to experience and from her sheltered life after the event. I like that she also has a therapist that is there to help her through some of her sticky moments. It makes her a little different than a lot of characters that are struggling with issues. Rather than it being like oh look she’s okay now she has love in her life, no it’s showing that her healing process is ongoing and can be for a long period of time.
Kyle is kind of interesting because there are many things that are alluded to about him but I’m not sure if he really confirms or denies them. He is a guy who remembers his first love, who misses her but did move on. He tried even though her ghost still haunts him. He has also had a tragedy and we get some insight of his home life growing up in flashbacks of his and Maddie’s relationship. I like Kyle and his not so perfectness.
Music is a coping mechanism for both Maddie and Kyle; it’s also what brings them together. They have to perform a duet for the Winter Gala. Maddie has no choice but to perform it, even with Kyle being her partner because it could insure her another full ride scholarship for the next year.
Evan....I don’t even want to talk about that guy.
I was a little bothered by Gina, Maddie’s roommate, there was potential with her character but at times she seemed to lack. I did like how midway through the book she seems to be there for Maddie more and I actually think she would almost be a fun roommate. I remember someone similar to her in College. There is an issue of rape that is very lightly addresses, along with the drug use. It’s one of those if you knew this happened to someone what would you do. Gina tells Maddie about some of it and then Maddie chooses to keep her secret rather than tell anyone. I think in reality it’s confusing to both girls about what to do in the situation. I wish it was expanded on a little more.
There were some things that come out in the end that I actually did not expect. We have to wade through the web of the reason her parents were murdered. It’s really an interesting plot. It’s what intrigued me about the book in the first place and I found myself needing to know why they were killed. So it does a good job of keeping your curiosity peaked. I wasn’t as much interested in how Maddie deals with college, which to me was a side thing but more about how the heck do you deal with why her and Kyle are apart. I keep wondering in my head what I would do.
RaShelle Workman is the bestselling author of the Dead Roses series ("Sleeping Roses" is being translated into Turkish, and will be available in print wherever Turkish books are sold in 2014), the Immortal Essence series, and the Blood and Snow series. She's sold over two hundred thousand copies of her novels worldwide in the past year, including Japan, Canada, and Europe. You can find RaShelle all over the web, but the best place to start is on her blog: www.rashelleworkman.com.
Author links:
Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter
Giveaway:
Grand Prize Giveaway
75$ Amazon GC (INTL)
Sizzling Summer Giveaway: C.C. Hunter Guest Post #YABoundTours
I Cried for Nothing: It’s Not Time for Goodbye
A lot of people ask me which of the Shadow Falls books was the hardest to write. I think by far it was Chosen at Nightfall. You see, when I was writing that book, I thought it was goodbye. Chosen was supposed to be the last and final book in the Shadow Falls series.
So, that was supposed to be a farewell to Kylie and all her friends—friends, that over the last three years, have become a huge part of my daily life. Every day I stepped into my office, I had a roomful of paranormal, teenaged campers in there waiting on me—each of them trying to talk to me at the same time, and each with a different idea of what we should do that day. Sometimes they were impossible.
Don’t worry, I’m not completely loopy, I know Kylie and the whole gang are characters in a book and not real beings. I know they aren’t . . . real. Oh heck, just go ahead and think I’m crazy. Because darn it, Kylie and all the Shadow Falls characters feel real to me.
After writing five books, spending hours upon hours visualizing these characters, hearing them talk in my head, plotting their struggles and their triumphs, uncovering their pasts, laughing with them, crying with them—Well, call me a few French fries short of a Happy Meal, but they are real to me. And saying goodbye is not just hard, it’s a capital B with an inch. I didn’t just cry writing those last chapters of Chosen, I sobbed. We’re talking big alligator tears.
Ahh, but then Della, the one person who has the hardest time saying goodbye, had to put her two cents in. Do you recall her issues with Kylie leaving for her grandfather’s at the end of Whispers at Moonrise? Yeah, she doesn’t do goodbyes very well. And if you know Della, you know she has a mouth on her.
Well, right after I’d finished Chosen, Della just walked right into my head and plopped her skinny little butt on one of my brain wrinkles and said . . . “You haven’t written about the mission you sent me on with Steve. I mean, you hinted about it in Chosen at Nightfall, but you didn’t give details. Are you really just going to walk away acting like some high and mighty author princess whose crap doesn’t stink and not finish what you started?
Now my mama would have grounded me for a week for talking like that. Unfortunately, you can’t ground imaginary characters. So I had to hear Della out.
And whether I wanted to admit it or not, she had a point. I had hinted at what happened on the mission but I hadn’t written about it, or even completely fleshed it out in my head.
So . . . as that bossy vamp left my head, I started plotting and I wrote Saved at Sunrise. Then I called my editor and told her I’d written a novella about Della. She was a little surprised because she hadn’t asked for novella. She read it, and quickly called me back.
“Well,” she said. “It’s obvious that you aren’t ready to say goodbye to these characters.”
“It’s not me,” I wanted to tell her. “It’s Della’s fault, she started nagging me.” But I didn’t want to come off too crazy, so I just said, “Maybe.”
That’s when she asked me: “What would you think about writing two or three more books from Della’s point of view?”
Hmm? Della’s point of view? That bossy little twit? It’s hard to make her do what I want her to do. She’s always misbehaving in scenes. She’s got attitude to spare and seldom knows when to keep her mouth shut. But dad-blast it, I knew that’s what made her a memorable character. It’s what made my readers love her. What made her . . . okay, I’ll admit it, it made her fun to write.
And, because Della was so secretive, I had a lot of stuff to uncover, a lot of questions to answer. She, like Kylie, is also one of the characters who had the most heartache. Hurt by her parents, who seemed to have abandoned her. Hurt by her ex-boyfriend who she loved more than O-positive blood. Hurt because a part of her still sees herself as a little bit of a monster. Yes, the truth is, the more damaged, the more flawed, the spunkier the character, the more I’m inspired to write about them.
So . . . it ended up, Chosen at Nightfall wasn’t really goodbye. I cried all those alligator tears for nothing. And while I’ve gotten lots of emails from readers worried they’ll never see Kylie again, I have to tell you, Kylie’s not going anywhere either. Heck, if she did, Della and Miranda might kill each other. Don’t you remember the scene where Della threatened to sell Miranda’s blood on eBay?
So, while the new series is from Della’s point of view, all the wonderful Shadow Falls characters will still be there. They will all be waiting for me when I step into my office. Kylie will still be learning to deal with her powers, Miranda will still be messing up her spells, and probably swooning over Perry. (Who, I wonder, will Miranda turn into a skunk next?) Della, in typical Della fashion, will be stirring up trouble. All the other characters will be causing havoc as well. There’ll be a lot of mayhem, there’ll be romance, and of course a lot of laughter.
Della will make sure of it.
Oh . . . and I have titles and release dates now. The spin off series is called: Shadow Falls: After Dark. I really like it because it’s sort of spooky and well, sort of sexy, too. The first book in the series is called Reborn, and it will be out April of 2014. The second book, Eternal, should be out in October 2014.
So hang on, we’re not saying goodbye, we’re just taking a little bit of a different route, and this time Della will be in the lead. So get ready for an exhilarating ride.
Oh, if you haven’t read Saved at Sunrise, you might want to pick it up, it will give you a taste of Shadow Falls: After Dark, and Della’s sassy attitude.
C.C. Hunter grew up in Alabama, where she caught lightning bugs, ran barefoot, and regularly rescued potential princes, in the form of Alabama bullfrogs, from her brothers. Today, she's still fascinated with lightning bugs, mostly wears shoes, but has turned her focus to rescuing mammals. She now lives in Texas with her four rescued cats, one dog, and a prince of a husband, who for the record, is so not a frog. When she's not writing, she's reading, spending time with her family, or is shooting things-with a camera, not a gun.
Website / Twitter / Facebook / GoodreadsGIVEAWAY
1 - Kindle Fire HD with NA/Adult e-book prize pack (shown)
1 - Kindle Fire HD with YA e-book prize pack (shown)
Sunday Post: Book Haul
Hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer
Cover Reveal: Behind Closed Doors By Ashelyn Drake
Blog Tour: Romancing the Bookworm by Kate Evangelista (Review)
It's Kind of a Funny Story...Taste the Heat and my crush story
Book Blitz: Endure by Laura Diamond
Blog Tour: Catching Liam by Sophia Bleu (Review)
Trailer Reveal: Frigid by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Blog Tour: Taste the Heat by Rachel Harris (Rachel's Playlist & Review)
So it was pretty busy and almost all of these post have giveaways included. Next week not so busy but I do have a stop/review for Touching Melody you will have to come back for that.
As for my book haul this week, nothing too crazy. I feel like I've been doing mostly pre-ordering.
I did get some awesome Seige and Storm nail polish that now matches my Shadow and Bone nail polish. It was from pre-ordering the book. I forgot about it and when it came in the mail it was a happy exciting surprise!! I have my nails painted in it already.
I also got some Fierce Reads swag from Book Brats...although not Let's All Privateer button. I'm not sure why I'm so obsessed with obtaining one of those buttons but I am.
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