Showing posts with label Book Tours. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Tours. Show all posts

Book Blitz Book Tour: The Game by Shawnte Borris

 
 


SYNOPSIS:

Kirsten Backhard is a highly respected senior negotiating executive based in Toronto. She plays with some of the most powerful men in her field. Kirsten is confident, sexy, and hell on heels. She fights with a straight face, doesn’t back down easily, and believes in using her ASSets to get the deal done her way. Kirsten loves toying with the game in a man’s world.

But is every angle of her life this easy to play? One night can easily change everything. What she thinks is all love and fairy tales quickly becomes highly overrated. Will Kirsten be able to overcome? Or will she remain the cool poker player?

Contains crude language, sexual intercourse, and really bad jokes.
 
 
 

Introductions
 
Hey, what’s up? Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kirsten Backhard. Before you ask, yes, during high school, the boys use to call me “back-her-up-hard.” I think that was why I was popular. It had nothing to do with the fact that I had beautiful breasts or what the football team might have accidentally seen while I was in cheerleading practice.
 
I am from a small community, but let’s face it, I’m way more of a city girl. I was the girl that introduced tampons back in junior high in the girls’ change room. Remember that room? It smelled like socks and had six nonprivate shower stalls with mirrors all over. When you think about it, those rooms were kinda like your first introduction to really bad porn. Anyways, there was always a girl after gym classed who yelled, “Fuck, who has a pad?”
 
Before we get into the really good stuff, I should probably talk about where I came from. No, this will not be an education class on the birds and the bees or sex 101 for those that have a dirty mind. Shame on you. J
 
I came from a middle class family where my father worked in construction and my mother was a bank teller. I have two siblings: my older sister, Marie, who has like four kids or something, and my brother, Derek, who happens to be my older twin and who is hot. Yes, I don’t mind telling you that. You know what comes from a hot brother? That’s right— super hot friends that I might have taught how to french kiss. What? Don’t judge me.
 
We lived in a good community with a crap-load of kids. You could tell that most people that lived on our street were Catholic, and they didn’t get the memo on why or how they ended up with so many kids. As for myself, as soon as that first period came, there was no way in hell I was going to have that, so off to the medi centre it was!
In my last year of junior high, we had new neighbors move in. There was a cute girl named Liz. She had blonde hair and brown eyes. I know, it’s a weird combination. Anyways, she was a runner like me, which meant she also had a killer body. Liz and I instantly became best friends. She is totally my better half, and if I ever decided to go muff-diving, I’m totally calling that bitch up. Liz has a brother named Steve, who ended up being gay no matter how hard I tried to convert him.
 
Today I am…swallowing hard here…thirty-three years old. Yes, I am thirty-three, but my ass and tits show that I’m much younger. Thank God! I hold a senior  executive position at a downtown financial firm. I travel all over the U.S., placing bids on stupid-ass shit for men that are trying to compensate for their small penis. But who am I kidding? I love my job. I love to travel and experience new things. I have no one waiting for me back home, especially not a cat, and I’ll definitely know if I’ll receive a Happy Mother’s Day card in the mail any time soon.
 
My mother recently told me that I should start thinking about settling down and start acting my age. Like seriously? What the fuck? If I had a penis, I guarantee you that this conversation would never happen in a million years. She lives her life by double standards. I, however, do not. I like living my life by my penis, figuratively speaking of course. It has never poked me the wrong direction before, so why start doubting it now? Is it really my fault that it’s always on the prowl?
 
Don’t get me wrong. We have had our fair share of amazing, head-shaking experiences. I think it’s only fair to share some of these adventures with you, so you know how much my mother is off her rocker.
 
P.S. I love you, Mom. <3
 
PURCHASING LINKS:

 
 
 
 
 

EXCERPT:

“First of all, Mother, it is called a sperm bank, not a sperm bar.” I cannot believe I am having this conversation right now. “And where did you get this information from?”

Max looked over at me, smirking.

“Why does it matter where I heard it from? What will people think?” cried my mother.

“F**k! Mom, no one is gonna care where or how I get a baby.” I want to crawl into a hole and die. “Mom, you wouldn’t by any chance be talking to Marie, would you? Is that where all this came from? Did she tell you I’m planning to go to a sperm bank? Or did she tell you I should think about going to a sperm bank?”

“That’s not the point, Kirsten. The point is that it’s time for you to settle down and think about having a family. You need to be more like Marie,” my mom lectured.
“Like Marie? My sister, Marie? The one who wears yoga pants and ponytails everywhere.”
 
 
  




Author Bio:

Shawnté lives in central Alberta, with her husband Ricky of 10 amazing years and together they have two beautiful children. Somehow her husband has managed to trick her into running a cow/calf operation. As much as she fusses about it, she loves it. 

When Shawnté is not sitting at her kitchen table hammering away on her laptop while watching the moose chase her cows across the yard, yes this really happens. Then she is busy attend school activities, community events and chauffeuring children here and there. She is big on playing softball and watching hockey.
When the time comes to relax, you will find her snuggled underneath her down comforter reading on her Ipad. Wait…who are we kidding, if the dishes, vacuuming, laundry or the bathrooms needs a hose down, you’ll always hear her say, “Just after this chapter.” She doesn’t have a favorite author or best story because everyday she falls in love with someone new. 
Shawnté is technology challenged so with the help of Lacy you can find her anywhere. Please go like her page and leave a review/star rating on the books she’s wrote.

Ways to stay connected with Shawnte Borris:

BOOK BLITZ HOSTED BY:
 

Review & Giveaway: Eramane

Title: Eramane (Eramane Trilogy, #1)
Author: Frankie Ash
Publication: Archway Publishing, 2013
Reviewed by: Stephanie
Rating: 3 stars
Reason for Reviewing: Ebook provided in exchange for an honest review
In the village of Eludwid, seventeen-year-old Eramane Fahnestock goes about her life, cheerfully disregarding a prophecy made to her parents that she would have a great gift. Not yet wed and beset with boredom, Eramane cannot shake the feeling that something exciting awaits her beyond Eludwid. But when she is invited to picnic with a handsome young suitor, Eramane has no idea that her life will soon change forever.

As Eramane prepares for her date, she is suddenly hypnotized by a strange voice that tells her he will be coming for her that night. Unsettled but determined to press forward, Eramane and her suitor, Lebis, head to the woods to enjoy their picnic. As darkness falls on the forest, however, a beast emerges, transforming their beautiful outing into a terrifying scene. Taken captive and carried away to a mountain hideaway, Eramane finds her memories are soon clouded, even as her family frantically searches for her back home.

In this gripping fantasy tale, evil is summoned to the mountaintop, forcing a young woman to discover her magical gifts and exact revenge against a beast determined to destroy everything she has ever loved.
Seventeen year old Eramane is beautiful, strong and an extremely caring soul. You would think suitors would be lined around the corner bakery in Eludwid, but her family has been very picky with who marries their beloved, Eramane. Her mother wants the man she marries to be the man she loves. On this special day, without Eramane’s consent, her parents and brother Samiah set her up with a long time crush Lebis the blacksmith. Just like parents to totally embarrass a teenager. Haha. On the “date” Lebis is handsome and such a charming gentleman to Eramane that she feels like he could be the one for her. Too bad Eramane can’t fully enjoy her date because this voice in her head keeps saying “I will come for you soon”. In what seemed like a moment, she is separated from Lebis and in front of her stands a huge horned-winged beast with glowing eyes reaching outward.

I must warn you that this story is action packed from beginning to end! I read the first few pages and was shocked by the in-your-face events that occur. I had to stop and check the page number to make sure my kindle didn’t jump to the middle of the book. I know what you are thinking though, and no, this wasn’t one of those stories that show you all their action in the beginning and the rest of the book is a yawn fest. I was at the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next throughout the whole story. Now with saying all that, I did wish I could of known a little bit more about the characters and their abilities or gifts like the story explains. I felt at some parts I needed a little more information to fully grasp what was happening. Since their are two more books in this series, I hope this is explained a bit more.

Eramane is just a beautiful character and I most certainly got attached to her story. She also has so much mystery about her that I want to know more about. The struggles she faces are far too much for just any regular seventeen year old to handle, but she has this fierce strength about her that jumps from the pages. I really look forward to seeing how her character develops in the second and third book. Another character I enjoyed was Samiah. He is Ermane’s extremely protective older brother who would do anything for his family, Lord, and village. I loved his courage and felt his sadness when parts of the story got too intense for him. The author did a great job of mixing in different characters within the story while allowing their side to be told and balancing the whole experience as one.

This is a great YA High Fantasy read that will keep you shocked after each unfolding event within the story. Yes, you will keep trying to guess what the heck is going on, but the further you read the more information you gather and understand. I was a page turnin’ maniac while reading this book, lol. Basically, if you love a different type of YA Fantasy with some shocking situations and a lot of action, then stop reading my review and go and purchase your copy right now. On that note, thank you Frankie Ash for allowing us to accompany you on your Eramane Trilogy journey. *Cheers*

GIVEAWAY
Open to US only and must be 13+ to enter
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Authors Rock Tour: Sidelined by Kendra C. Highley


Sidelined
by Kendra C. Highley

Contemporary YA (Entangled Publishing, September 2013) 

Note: Book cover coming soon!

Eighteen-year-old Genna Pierce (aka Imogen Sawyer Pierce…no thanks to her dad), is the star basketball player on her high school team. After being pushed to excel in her sport since age six, she’s about to fulfill her mother’s dream of playing at the collegiate level. University scouts are taking notice of Genna’s talent, her high school team is on its way to the state tourney, and Jake Butler, the source of Genna’s daydreams since ninth grade, is showing some definite interest. When he asks her out, sparks fly. As their relationship takes off, Genna believes things can’t get better than this.

Then, it’s over.


Genna’s dream shatters in seconds at the state tournament when she comes down wrong from a jump ball and breaks two bones in her leg. In a tailspin, Genna feels like her life is falling apart: her parents are fighting more than ever, her friends don’t get what she’s going through, and Genna’s not even sure who she is without basketball. Jake tries to help her cope, but Genna doesn’t understand why he’d want the broken version of the girl he fell for, straining their relationship to the breaking point. Left to wonder why this would happen to her after she worked so hard for so long, Genna turns to the only solace that eases her pain: Vicodin.
GUEST POST by author Kendra C. Highley

When I first thought about writing about an elite athlete, I laughed. See, I’m a klutz. No, really. I walk into the side of my desk at work all the time, I trip over my own feet and I frequently drop things. If you looked up the definition of an athlete in the dictionary, I’d be listed under the antonyms.

Writing Sidelined took a serious education. I love sports. I love watching the poetry of motion as super talented people play. But getting inside the head of an athlete, a basketball star with multiple scholarship opportunities, was going to be a stretch. Genna Pierce, my main character, is tall, fast and has a near-perfect hook shot. We only have one of those things in common (I’m 5’9”). So how did I get into her head? How would I be able to convey her fears and dreams, and how would I show the crushing despair of losing the game she loves?

I started with stories. Two good friends from high school played varsity basketball for our women’s team. One became a physical therapist who works with leg injuries. The other went on to play in college, and now coaches a high school team in Moore, Oklahoma. I asked them a bunch of questions about games, the camaraderie of a team and most of all, how it felt to play. The emotions, the stress, the all-out desire to win and their extreme dedication to excel. Anybody who wants to get really good at something has to put in the hours, and these women did. I also asked about weird moments on the court (jostling around under the basket and getting an elbow in the chest, being pinched when the ref was wasn’t looking, people throwing up on the sidelines) to add some authenticity.

In the end, the story is as much about Genna’s spiral out of control as it is about her single-minded focus on basketball and how she has to discover who she is outside of the sport she loves. Understanding her motivations was tough at times, but it was a really rewarding process.

  

 Kendra C. Highley lives in north Texas with her husband and two children. She also serves as staff to two self-important and high-powered cats. This, according to the cats, is her most critical job. She believes in everyday magic, extraordinary love stories and the restorative powers of dark chocolate.



Fierce Reads Tour - Miami Stop

A few weeks ago - ok, fine, several weeks ago...this post is severely overdue - I attended the FIERCE READS TOUR at Books & Books in Coral Gables, FL.

The FIERCE READS panel included:

 Emmy Laybourne - Author of the Monument 14 Series
Anna Banks - Author of the Of Poseidon Series
Leigh Bardugo - Author of the Grisha Series
Gennifer Albin - Author of the Crewel World Series
Jessica Brody - Author of the Unremembered Series

This was such a great tour!  These ladies, aside from being insanely talented, are absolutely hilarious.  They are witty, clever, snarky (which we LOVE) and were just an all-around good time!

Our Miami readers were on point, too!  We threw some pretty deep & probing questions at them like: 
  • If you were being chased by zombies, which character (from any of the books on the panel) would you want to have your back? (Asked by local bookworm and associate blogger, Andy)
    and
  • If you could trade lives with ANY book character, in literary history, who would you want to be? (Asked by yours truly ;)
For me, though, the highlight of the night was the signing portion.  It's our chance to get to speak to the authors one-on-one, goof off with them, take pictures, and persuade them to return with promises of Cuban pastries and coffee!


THIS night was a little different than most.  Every author we've met has been kind enough to take pictures with us but Emmy Laybourne took it up a notch. She took some nice classic pics with the fans, but she also decided to have some fun with us and take crazy, goofy pictures.

Now most of you probably know that I am very "petite" and Emmy wanted to do something a little different so I now present to you...THIS!


This was definitely a first...for both of us and I am STILL laughing about it!

Well, here we are weeks later and one of my local book pals found a video on the Fierce Reads YouTube channel where the authors talk about their favorite moments from the tour.

Well, you 'lljust have to watch ;)


I can't get over the coolness of this moment! This was such a surprise! Thank you to Emmy for sharing this, and for pronouncing my name correctly (lol) and thank you to my pal Ursula for finding this!

Just another prime example of why AUTHORS ARE OUR ROCKSTARS!

Book Tour: If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin

Today, we are featuring new YA release "If He Had Been With Me" and author Laura Nowlin stops by to tell us about the top 10 things she wishes she could change about her high school years :)

Title:  If He Had Been With Me
Author:  Laura Nowlin
Published: April 1, 2013 by Sourcebooks Fire

If he had been with me, he wouldn't have died.

Throughout their whole childhood, Finn and Autumn were inseparable—they finished each other's sentences, they knew just what to say when the other person was hurting. But one incident in middle school puts them in separate social worlds come high school, and Autumn has been happily dating James for the last 2 years. But she's always wondered what if...

The night she's about to get the answer is also one of terrible tragedy.
 Top Ten Things I Wish I Could Change about my High School Years 
  1. I wish smart phones had existed, and that I'd had one.
    This seems frivolous, I know, but when I was in high school only the rich kids had cell phones at all, and wi-fi was a rare and wondrous thing. I can only imagine how cool it must be to get into hilarious hijinks with your friends, and be able to post pics of your shananigins in real time. If we did something cool, we had to tell people about it later, and we probably didn't have photographic proof, because pictures were these paper things you had to pay to have made. 
  2. I wish I had broken up with my boyfriend.
    Now, my high school sweetheart was not a bad guy by any means, but looking back I see how I only dated him for my entire high school career because I liked the idea of only having one boyfriend ever. If I had really been following my heart, I would have admitted to myself that he wasn't the one and only guy for me, and I could have possibly had a wider range of romantic experience.
  3. I wish I had broken more rules.
    I was a good kid. A really, really good kid. Sometimes as an adult I wish I had some of the when-I-was-a-crazy-teen stories that other people have.
  4. I wish I had learned to drive.
    In If He had Been with Me, Autumn manages to graduate high school without learning to drive. I managed to graduate from college and get married without a driver's license. I let a small anxiety grow into a massive mental block, and I wonder what the ego-boost of conquering my fear would have done for teenage me.
  5. I wish I had admitted to others that I needed help.
    As an adult I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, but as a teenager I hid my depressive episodes from my loved ones. I can only imagine how different those years would have been if I would have admitted my to struggle  and gotten the help I needed.
  6. I wish I had worked harder in Spanish class, and gone to Spain on the class trip.
    I ended up minoring in Spanish, but I never did get the experience of full immersion, and now my skills are so rusty that I'll probably never be fluent.
  7. I wish our exchange student had lived with us all four years.
    Swantje lived with my family for ten months. She challenged and inspired me, and ultimately changed me forever. To this day I keep a picture of her by my writing desk.
  8. I wish I had cared less about what other people thought.
    I think everyone feels this way about their high school years. At the time, I claimed that I didn’t care what others thought, but when I compare that to how much I really don’t care now...
  9. I wish I’d been less critical of my body
    When I look at pictures of my teenage self, I just want to grab that girl by the shoulders and scream, “Your stomach IS  flat! It is! It really is! And you are not appcreiating how high your breast are! Your stomach is flat and your breats are perky! Go put on a string bikini and feel fabulous! Right Now!”
  10. I wish I had written more.
    To be fair, I think this is something I will always say about any time in my life. I guess it's nice to know that some things will never change. 

  Laura Nowlin holds a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Missouri State University. Her short stories have appeared in The Moon City Review and STEM. In addition to being ambitious writer Laura is also an avid reader who believes that books allow her to live many lives in one lifetime. When she isn’t at home agonizing over her own novels Laura works at the public library where the patrons give her plenty of inspiration for her writing. She lives in St. Louis with her musician husband, neurotic dog, and psychotic cat.


Website | Goodreads | Twitter

Now it's YOUR turn to tell us what are some things you wish you could change about high school!

Author Event: Scarlet Party with Marissa Meyer


My computer decided to take a little hiatus recently so this post is going up a little later than planned, but here it is :)

Jen (formerly from Not Now...I'm Reading!) was my date for the Marissa Meyer Scarlet Launch Party at Books & Books.  Sadly, Vanessa was supposed to go but couldn't make it because she had a bit of a family emergency.  Luckily, all is well now and I got her a little pressie to make it up to her ;)






Important Links
Marissa on Facebook and Twitter 
Check out Marissa's CALENDAR to see if she'll be visiting a town near you :)

 
Blog Design by Use Your Imagination Designs The Artists' Faeries Lovely Papers by Lorie Davison