#BookBlitz: The Grove by @KarriThompson @XpressoTours #Giveaway $25 Amazon gift card + ebook copy of The Grove

The Grove
Karri Thompson
Publication date: September 21st 2021
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Entering the woods is forbidden. To go in can mean a fate worse than death. At least that’s what seventeen-year-old Laura has been told. But living in a new town with nothing to do, she ignores her mother’s dire warnings and explores the forest near her home.

The trees entice Laura deeper into the woods. A mysterious, soothing voice calls her name, and she becomes lost. When a young man finds her, she thinks she’s saved. But he insists their meeting is more than a coincidence. For centuries, his colony has been waiting for a savior. With his alluring eyes and gentle smile, Laura almost believes his crazy story.

Caught between worlds, and with her life at stake, she doesn’t know who to believe or trust. Her heart tells her one thing and her head another.

Is it her destiny, or will her fate only postpone the inevitable?

#BookReview: 21 Questions by Alexandria Rizik

Synopsis: In Laguna Beach, California, sixteen-year-old Kendra Dimes is preparing for the 2010 USA Surfing Prime West. She’ll be competing this year in honor of her brother, who was a surfer too, but who died from a drug overdose. Kendra has suffered anxiety attacks ever since her brother’s death, and surfing is what’s been helping her heal.

Brock Parker is the new bad boy at school; he deals drugs to the high school clientele for his parents, who work for a Mexican drug lord. Though Brock and Kendra come from two different worlds, sparks fly when they meet at the homecoming dance—their attraction is magnetic. When they start a game of 21 Questions one night, they begin to learn more about each other—and, surprisingly, about themselves too. But some questions aren’t answered with the whole truth; after all, Brock can’t tell Kendra what his parents do for a living.

As Kendra and Brock experience all of life’s most exciting firsts, they prove that even when life throws you the perfect storm, you can make it through and come out stronger than before. 21 Questions is a coming-of-age journey packed with passion and heartbreak, risk and romance.

#BookReview: First Date Stories by Jodi Klein

Synopsis: Ellen meets Jim at a posh restaurant, hoping for an evening of fine wine and better conversation. Maria sets out on a walk with a man she's been looking forward to meeting. In First Date Stories, these women, and others, enter into initial liaisons with well-honed expectations—and come out on the other side with extraordinary tales to tell.

Chances are, every woman in her mid-thirties and over who is seeking a loving companion has a first date tale of triumph or disaster. Each of the candid and memorable stories Jodi Klein shares here imparts a bit of wisdom—with the help of takeaway tips and inspirational quotes—to guide readers through what can be a baffling, intimidating, and sometimes lonely journey.

Before a promising first date, or after an awful one, First Date Stories offers readers the reminder that being single should be celebrated, that not all first dates are created equal, and that every initial encounter has the possibility to become something long-lasting and wonderful.

#BookReview: Ballad for Sophie by Filipe Melo, Juan Cavia (Illustrations)

Synopsis: A young journalist prompts a reclusive piano superstar to open up, resulting in this stunning graphic sonata exploring a lifetime of rivalry, regret, and redemption.

1933. In the small French village of Cressy-la-Valoise, a local piano contest brings together two brilliant young players: Julien Dubois, the privileged heir of a wealthy family, and François Samson, the janitor's son. One wins, one loses, and both are changed forever.

1997. In a huge mansion stained with cigarette smoke and memories, a bitter old man is shaken by the unexpected visit of an interviewer. Somewhere between reality and fantasy, Julien composes, like in a musical score, a complex and moving story about the cost of success, rivalry, redemption, and flying pianos.

When all is said and done, did anyone ever truly win? And is there any music left to play? 


This title will be released on September 28, 2021.

#BookReview: The Sea of Silence (The Nathan Peake, #7) by Seth Hunter

Synopsis: This is the seventh novel in the Nathan Peake series of nautical historical fiction set during the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The war moves to the Americas as Captain Nathan Peake, freed from service in the Royal Navy, is secretly commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to command a naval operation in the Caribbean Sea and frustrate plans to establish a new French Empire on the North American mainland which would pose an existential threat to the infant United States.With Europe temporarily at peace, Napoleon Bonaparte has dispatched his victorious army with a vast fleet to the Caribbean. Its aim is to re-impose French authority in the region, and then occupy a vast

swathe of territory stretching from New Orleans to the Canada border and westward from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. But first they must re-conquer Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) where they are opposed by rebel slaves led by the African general Toussaint L'Ouverture. Nathan is sent from England with a small squadron crewed by British and American sailors tasked with disrupting French supply lines at sea and running guns to the rebel forces. But if they are caught they will be disowned by the British and US governments and very likely hanged by the French as pirates.This adventure will lead Nathan into a running battle with the French Navy in the troubled waters off Saint-Domingue, an increasingly desperate involvement in one of the most brutal colonial conflicts in history, a dangerous liaison with Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon and wife of the French commander, and a battle of ideas and ideologies that persists to the present-day.

#BookReview: The Eastwood Event (A Fistful of Dust, #1) by J.G. Petrichor

Synopsis: Four thousand people went missing overnight. The Eastwood Event.

That’s what everyone was told, but Mary Adelaide knows the truth. Something destroyed the town down to the last brick, but no one died.

In the quarantined aftermath, seven children with incredible powers were captured for study.
Her boss wants them to awaken the entity sleeping at the bottom of the Event’s massive crater.
Mary wants to save them.

Daniel awoke with no memory. All he knows for certain is he ruins everything he touches. Except, this woman isn’t afraid of him. She's teaching him to use his power. And there are other kids here in the Facility. He’d really like to meet them.

It’s almost time now. Daniel is being sent on his first mission. He’ll come face to face with the thing waiting in the crater.

It’s almost time to begin. 

#BookReview: The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Synopsis: In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.

But when the Eastwood sisters--James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna--join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.

#BookBlitz: Beneath the Destiny Stone by @21timetraveler @XpressoTours #Giveaway $25 Amazon gift card + ebook copy of Beneath the Destiny Stone

Beneath the Destiny Stone
Sarah Charles
Publication date: September 6th 2021
Genres: Adult, Time-Travel

A medieval Scottish blacksmith and a millennial from Detroit walk into a bar…

By the age of six, Fiona could sink a bank shot.

By eight she could mix a perfect Manhattan.

By twenty-two, she had a business degree and a concrete plan to save her grandfather’s failing bar.

Then she was pushed through a time-portal.

Now Fiona is stuck in fourteenth-century Scotland with no way home. There’s a good chance time-soldiers are after her. And Henry, the guy she’s shacked up with, is a grumpy son-of-a-bitch who doesn’t get her at all.

He is hot, though.

And brave.

And most definitely the love of her life.

If the two of them can stop bickering long enough, Fiona just might be able to have it all—the tavern of her dreams and the first man who can actually keep up with her. That is, if they can survive the battles, murder, and mayhem of the Middle Ages and the time-soldiers who have a hand in it all.

#BookReview: A Touch of Darkness (Hades & Persephone #1) by Scarlett St. Clair

Synopsis: Persephone is the Goddess of Spring by title only. The truth is, since she was a little girl, flowers have shriveled at her touch. After moving to New Athens, she hopes to lead an unassuming life disguised as a mortal journalist. 

Hades, God of the Dead, has built a gambling empire in the mortal world and his favorite bets are rumored to be impossible. 

After a chance encounter with Hades, Persephone finds herself in a contract with the God of the Dead and the terms are impossible: Persephone must create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom forever. 

The bet does more than expose Persephone's failure as a goddess, however. As she struggles to sow the seeds of her freedom, love for the God of the Dead grows - and it's forbidden. 

Contains mature themes.