Nov 30, 2014

Showcase Sunday #42 - November 2014


Inspired by Pop Culture Junkie and the Story Siren, the aim of Showcase Sunday is to highlight our newest books or book related swag and to see what everyone else received for review, borrowed from libraries, bought in bookshops and downloaded onto eReaders each week. For more information about how this feature works and how to join in, click here.
~Vicky @ Books Biscuits and Tea


Hello everyone! Welcome to this months Showcase Sunday where I will be showing you all the new books I got in November. After writing up this post and listing all my new books, I realize I might have gone a lit wild on my book buying this month. Hopefully I can restrain myself a bit more next month.







Scion of the Sun | The Noru | Branded | Beast

A Few Words:
I've got quite a few books this month and read only 7 of them so far. This means my TBR mountain is getting even bigger. I actually counted my physical TBR pile and found that I own 209 unread books. This is insane. Hopefully I can reduce that number to below 200s before the year is over. This means reading more and buying less. I don't even want to know how many unread e-books I own, because I remember a while back that that number was over 200. I am really excited for the Sci-Fi books I bought this month, Hyperion, The Old Man's War and the Ghost Brigades, cause I really want to get into Sci-Fi, I believe I've never read a book for the genre and I love Sci-Fi movies and science in general, so I am pretyt sure it's a genre for me. Also, finally I got my hands on King of Thorns. I had such a huge book hangover after reading Prince of Thorns, the first book in the series, I still do actually. Unfortunatelly I haven't had the time for much reading lately and I still haven't started it.

Nov 29, 2014

Book Review: The Witch Must Burn (Dorothy Must Die, #0.2) by Danielle Paige


The Witch Must Burn (Dorothy Must Die, #0.2)
by Danielle Paige

In the second prequel of Dorothy Must Die, we get a little insight on Jellia, the head-maid for the first book and life in Oz after Dorothy becomes its ruler. Jellia is working on the palace under Dorothy but knows that things aren't looking good for Oz. One day Glinda appears and asks for Jellia to spend the summer working for her. But Glinda isn't looking for a maid, but someone with enough magic to start up her magic-sucking machine. In Glinda's palace Jellia will learn a few secrets about the people planning to destroy Oz and the ones fighting to save it.

The Witch Must Burn was a really fun short story. I really enjoyed learning more about Jellia and the life in the palace, getting the scoop on how life was and how life became after Dorothy for the people of Oz. Jellia was a surprisingly great character and I really hope to see more of her in the future, we also learn how she first came in contact with Nox and the Army of the Wicked. These prequels are just as fun as the actual books of the series and I am really looking forward to more, since we get a different cahracter in each of them.

Nov 28, 2014

Black Friday Deals by Clean Teen Publishing and Crimson Tree Publishing


CTP HAS BLACK FRIDAY BOOK DEALS! 

Our team and our authors at Clean Teen Publishing and Crimson Tree Publishing are thankful for all of our amazing readers. We are offering some exclusive special deals that are going on now through Black Friday! Check them out below and enjoy your holiday weekend! 

LIMITED TIME FREE BOOK DEALS:

These books are either free right now or will be free on Black Friday. These titles will only be free for a limited time so go grab your copy while you can:

$0.99 PRICE DEALS- ON AMAZON:

  • Lingering Echoes by Erica Kiefer ($0.99 on Thursday and Friday only!) SAVE $4!
  • Leighton's Summer by K.C. Finn ($0.99 on Thursday and Friday only!) SAVE $4!
  • Finding ELE by Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels ($0.99 on Thursday and Friday only!) SAVE $3!

EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT COUPONS:

WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THESE DEALS! 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 


Nov 27, 2014

Cover Reveal: Wicked Luck by Shannon L. Maynard

Stranded on a mysterious island with a handsome stranger. His dream come true, but her wicked luck. 



Series: The Wicked Luck Series
Publisher: Crimson Tree Publishing
Release Date: June 23, 2015
Genre: New Adult Romance
*This book is New Adult due to the characters being college aged and older. This book would be appropriate for the YAm audience as well. 


How can Ava Starr’s worst nightmare be Dax Miller’s dream come true?

For the past three years, Dax has been stranded on Lamarai Island with his stepsister and two tribes of cannibals. But now a beautiful girl named Ava has washed up on shore. After secretly reading her journal, he believes she is a perfect match to the girl of his dreams. He’s determined not only to keep her alive, but also to win over her heart by convincing her to forget about her past and the secrets that continue to haunt her.

Ava Starr has always been the epitome of bad luck, but she never imagined she would wake up and find herself on a cannibal-infested island with no memory of how she got there. The last thing she remembers is boarding a plane with her pilot boyfriend, Preston. But now he and his crew are missing, and she must find him before a tribe of hungry cannibals finds him first. But Ava’s troubles have followed her to Lamarai, where once again she’s surrounded by danger and people who want her dead. She finds herself caught in a web of deceit and soon discovers the answers to her mysterious past can be found in the most unlikely of places, and that no one is actually who they seem to be.

ABOUT SHANNON L. MAYNARD:


Shannon L. Maynard lives in Colorado with her five girls where she is a legal assistant by day and an author by night. In between working and writing she can be found driving kids to soccer, folding mountains of pink laundry, or eating her weight in chocolate. Other addictions include shoe shopping, reading YA, and Australian and British accents (which may be partly to blame for her massive crush on Thor). If she had one wish it would be for more hours in the day to spend enjoying all of the above. Okay, everything except the laundry.

Shannon studied art and criminology before getting a license in cosmetology, but eventually wound up an expert daydreamer; a skill that occasionally leads to getting lost while driving, but has been a huge asset to her love for writing. Her debut novel WICKED LUCK is set to release June 2015 and is the first book in the Wicked Luck Trilogy.


More from Crimson Tree Publishing:




Nov 26, 2014

Cover Reveal: FOREVER FOUND by Nazarea Andrews & GIVEAWAY

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Today we are revealing the cover for FOREVER FOUND by Nazarea Andrews. This is a novella that will be released on December 30th and it is the stunning conclusion to the story begun in Girl Lost.

 

BOOK BLURB:

Losing Gwen was one of the hardest things I've ever had to survive. I've never loved anyone the way I love her.

But finding her was never about that. And now that I have found her--now that she knows the truth about me and the Island, I have to trust her to believe. Because her leaving me didn't just destroy me--its killing Neverland.

I need her to love me. But we all need her to believe again.

Peter Pan has grown up and found the girl who left--but the stakes are higher than ever in this romantic conclusion to the story begun in Girl Lost.

 

CLICK HERE TO ADD FOREVER FOUND TO GOODREADS.

   

EXCERPT:

Gwen is leaning against the window. Every time I leave her, I forget. She’s not all gangly limbs and huge eyes and dirty hair hanging in her face, flinching at her own shadow. Not anymore. That Gwen still haunts my island, but this—this Gwen is breathtaking.
She thinks she’s broken. Fractured pieces of a broken mind, held together by medication and stubborn denial. But she doesn’t see herself, not the way I do.
Lane had that right. She’s breathtaking—even now, when I know she’s sad and broken. She stands straight, a pair of thin sleep pants curving around her ass before falling loose and free to the floor. Her shoulders are back, graceful and strong, under the thick sweater she’s wearing, her hair pulled into a messy knot at the top of her head.
She can see me, my reflection in the dark glass. And I see the tension in her tighten, drawing her up and sharp, until she’s almost vibrating with it. “Why are you here?” she asks, her voice low and hoarse.
She sounds like that when she’s been crying. I know—I’ve heard her so many times, heard her tears. Wiped them away. Whispered happy thoughts until I teased a smile from her.
“Peter,” she snaps, and I jerk, out of the memories and into the moment.
“You ran away.”
She gives an unladylike snort. “You decided you were a delusion of my past, and then you expected me to sit there and listen to your insane ramblings. Thanks, but no. I can’t do that. I’ve had enough crazy for one life.” She bites her lip, and then blurts, “You stole my file, didn’t you? That’s how you know about the Boy.”
“Do you remember the firefly meadow?”
She goes still, and I smile, gently. “You do.”
“That wasn’t real,” she whispers, and I feel the shudder.
“We’d hide there, from the lsot boys. And you’d fall asleep telling me your happy thoughts, and wake up to a galaxy of fireflies, and we’d chase them until you made yourself sick, laughing. And then I’d hold you and we’d stare at the stars, and you always said they were different. It smelled like jasmine and honey-“
“And wild woods and freedom,” she whispers, her blue eyes impossibly wide in her pretty face. I take a tentative step toward her, and touch her fingers.
Why are your stars different?
“It wasn’t a delusion, Gwendy. You know it wasn’t. Trust yourself.”
She shudders. “Can’t. My mind lies. It wasn’t—“
“Gwendy,” I say, desperately. Her eyes are filling with tears and I can feel the disbelief, the way it will tear apart the world I’ve known, and the girl I’ve loved, and I can’t. I move without thinking, catch her head and bring her lips to mine.
 
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NazareaAndrews AUTHOR LINKS:

Site - http://www.nazareaandrews.com/ Blog - http://www.nazarea-andrews.blogspot.com/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/NazareaAndrews Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nazarea-Andrews/43623123516

Street Team - https://www.facebook.com/groups/427502530700422/

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Nov 25, 2014

Book Blitz: Anomaly (Schrodinger's Consortium #1) by Tonya Kuper & GIVEAWAY


Release Date: 11/25/14
Entangled Teen

Summary from Goodreads:
Reality is only an illusion.
Except for those who can control it…

Worst. Birthday. Ever.
My first boyfriend dumped me – happy birthday, Josie!- my dad is who knows where, I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl, and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening…


Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.
When hot badass Reid Wentworth shows up on a motorcycle, everything changes. Like, everything. Who I am. My family. What really happened to my brother. Existence. I am Oculi, and I have the ability to change reality with my thoughts. Now Reid, in all his hotness, is charged with guiding and protecting me as I begin learning how to bend reality. And he’s the only thing standing between me and the secret organization that wants me dead…


Buy Links:

Random Facts About Tonya Kuper
Thank you so much for having me on your blog. I’m excited to be here! I thought instead of me answering the usual author question, readers may enjoy some absolute randomness.
So here is a list of random facts about me:

  • I taught yoga for over three years. I haven’t practiced, let alone taught, in years.
  • I once partied with Keith Urban’s band and road crew until four in the morning. Keith was in his room but his bald guitar player said I had the sexiest hair he’d ever seen. So that was…coo/interesting/weird.
  • My kids have life threatening food allergies. My oldest son went into anaphylaxis when he was just over a year old and was gray by the time we got the ER. It seemed as if people came from the walls, appearing out of nowhere to save his life. Scariest day of my life.
  • I have a reaction to a stomach medication that makes my brain think I have Parkinson’s Disease. Yeah, I found that out the hard way. My speech is slurred, my tongue presses to the roof of my mouth, my bottom jaw slides to the side. It’s pretty crazy.
  • There was a movie, a biographical drama, in 2000 called The Perfect Storm, staring George Clooney and Mark Walberg and nominated for two Academy Awards. I sat next to the friend of the crew members lost at sea that served as one of the consultants for the film on the sailing/fishing elements. It was the most interesting plane ride!
  • Anyone watch 24 starring Keifer Sutherland? Well, my friend and I were in NYC in 2011 and ended up at the same bar as him and Jason Patrick (his co-star in a play and Lost Boys, the vampire movie from the 80’s). And Keifer mooned us. Like, ten feet from us.
  • I’m obsessed with accents. Southern drawl, East coast, Canadian, English, Irish, Scottish, whatever. So…cute men + accents = automatic points from me. It’s probably because I grew in rural Illinois then moved to Omaha, Nebraska after college, which is the call center of America because we have such a flat accent, basically no accent. It’s very…generic American.
  • My family, between all four of us, is allergic to almost every mammal on Earth, therefore we have no hairy pets. We literally can’t be enclosed with most mammal dander. It’s so bad, we can’t even have the “hypo-allergenic” dogs. We had fish. They died. And they were boring. My boys wanted to interact with something – so we got a leopard gecko, a desert dweller. I had no idea they were so cute and have such personalities! I post pics and videos of Mo (short for Mo’o, the Hawaiin word for lizard/gecko) on my Instagram account every once in while.
About the Author
Tonya Kuper's debut, ANOMALY, the first in the Schrodinger's Consortium young adult scifi trilogy, releases November 2014 by Entangled Teen. She lives in Omaha, NE with her two rad boys and husband, is a music junkie, and a chocolate addict. Star Wars & Sherlock fan.

Author Links:
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GIVEAWAY:
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Book Blitz Organized by:

Book Blitz: Moonlight in Winter Park by Samantha Chase & GIVEAWAY



Moonlight in Winter Park by Samantha Chase
Publication date: November 24th 2014
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

“Moonlight in Winter Park” – A modern-day Beauty and the Beast style Christmas.

All Hope Cooper needed this year was to have the kind of Christmas her family always cherished. But with her parents gone and her only brother having to work, it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out for her. There’s nothing she can do about her parents, but she most certainly can voice her annoyance at her brother’s boss for making him work out of town all through the holidays.

Beckett James hates the holidays and everything that goes with them. They were important at one time, but now the only thing that mattered was his company and it’s continued growth and anyone who worked for him better feel the same way. If not, then they could find employment elsewhere and good riddance. With a major expansion deal on the line, Beckett needs to focus. What he doesn’t need is Hope to come barging into his mountain retreat demanding that her brother come home immediately due to an emergency.

Suddenly it’s two alone in a snowstorm. Two alone for Christmas. And two alone to fight an attraction that had been there all along. Hope soon begins to realize she may have misjudged Beckett while he comes to see that there really is something special and magical about Christmas. But once they leave their private winter wonderland and return to their normal lives, will the magic still be there?

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23509233-moonlight-in-winter-park

Purchase:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Moonlight-Winter-Park-Samantha-Chase-ebook/dp/B00P9RU6SK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416593493&sr=8-1&keywords=Moonlight+in+Winter+Park




AUTHOR BIO:
New York Times and USA Today Bestseller/contemporary romance writer Samantha Chase released her debut novel, Jordan's Return, in November 2011. Although she waited until she was in her 40's to publish for the first time, writing has been a lifelong passion. Her motivation to take that step was her students: teaching creative writing to elementary age students all the way up through high school and encouraging those students to follow their writing dreams gave Samantha the confidence to take that step as well.

When she's not working on a new story, she spends her time reading contemporary romances, playing way too many games of Scrabble or Solitaire on Facebook and spending time with her husband of 25 years and their two sons in North Carolina.

Author links:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1250276.Samantha_Chase
http://www.chasing-romance.com/
https://twitter.com/SamanthaChase3
https://www.facebook.com/SamanthaChaseFanClub

GIVEAWAY

Nov 24, 2014

Book Blitz: Shadow Dragon by Marc Secchia


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Shadow Dragon
by Marc Secchia
Publication Date: December 10, 2014
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Chameleon Shapeshifters, uncontrollable storm powers, and the rise of Sylakia’s Dragon-elite. The battle against evil scales new heights, but the price of victory grows ever dearer. 

Once, a Shadow Dragon ravaged the Island-World. Insatiable. Unstoppable. A Dragon-killer. Now the Shadow Dragon has reappeared, on a collision course with Aranya and King Beran’s campaign to liberate the Islands from the scourge of Sylakian tyranny. He is dark, beautiful and deadly, a predator of untold power. 

Meantime, Thoralian weaves his web of guile and betrayal right in the hearts of Aranya’s friends and allies. He will bring them to an encounter only he can win. 

Incredible aerial battles. An Ancient Dragon bent on enslaving Aranya. The treacherous secrets of Dragon magic. This is the fight for which destiny has shaped a heroine of rare courage–Aranya, Princess of Immadia. Criminal. Shapeshifter Dragon. A woman who will confront evil at any cost. Spite her at your peril.

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Nov 23, 2014

Let's Talk Series

Inspired by Juhina's Post, I decided to list all my series, finished, unfinished, never to be finished. It took me a while to list all of them but I finally did. However, it would be a huge post (which I am bored to write) if I had to name them all, so I will just share some numbers with you and the few series I plan on finishing until 2015.

All-Time Stats
Finished Series: 21
Unfinished Series: 41
Never To Be Finished Series: 42

This Year's Stats
Series Finished in 2014: 5
Series Started or Made Progress in 2104: 18
Series Started That I Will Never in 2014: 6

Now, that I have written all the series I've read down, I realize that I have a problem with finishing series. And no problem starting new ones... So by the end of 2014 I plan to finish a few (or at least try to).

Series to Finish (or Get Caught Up With) before 2015
The second and third books in the Grisha Trilogy

The second and third books in the Predator & Prey series

The second book in the Penryn and the End of Days series

The fourth and fifth books in the Elemental series

The fourth book in the Eden series