#BookReview: Even and Odd by @sarahbethdurst

Synopsis: A half-magic girl learns about heroism and taking action when she and her sister confront a wizard who endangers others for her own gain. 

Even and Odd are sisters who share magic. Lately, though, it seems like that’s the only thing they have in common. Odd doesn’t like magic, and Even practices it every chance she gets, dreaming of the day she’ll be ready to be a hero.
 
When the hidden border between the mundane world the sisters live in and the magical land they were born in shuts abruptly, the girls are trapped, unable to return home. With the help of a unicorn named Jeremy, they discover a wizard is diverting magic from the border to bolster her own power. Families are cut off from each other on both sides of the border, and an ecological disaster is brewing. But the wizard cares nothing for the calamitous effects her appropriation of magic is having. Someone has to do something to stop her, and Even realizes she can no longer wait until she’s ready: she needs to be a hero now.

#CoverReveal: Flawless by @ivy_nelson_ @XpressoTours

Flawless
Ivy Nelson
(A Diamond Doms Novel, #8)
Publication date: July 27th 2021
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Matthew Bruce has a lot of secrets. He’s legally married to royalty, he’s in love with his wife’s little sister, and he’s not really dead like everyone thinks. To top it all off, it turns out his recently deceased grandfather was part of the international underground organization his friends at Club Solitaire have been tracking down.

Faking his death hadn’t been part of the plan, and having Kendall Livingston, his wife’s sister, track him down most definitely wasn’t in the plans.

Now he has to keep them both safe and keep Kendall out of his bed.

#ReleaseBlitz for Graceful Abduction by @VivianFiano and @GiveMeBooksPR

Title: Graceful Abduction

Series: Relentless Trilogy #2

Author: Vivian Fiano

Genre: Romantic Suspense/Dark Romance

Release Date: June 29, 2021

BLURB

Jordan is tired of looking over her shoulder. Relief washes over her when the man they believe is responsible for stalking her is finally behind bars. When her vulnerability weakens, she finds herself in the back of a van. She is scheduled to perform in a dance show, but her abductor won’t have her preforming for anyone but him.

When Jordan discovers the true identity of the man behind it all she is completely blown away.

Grant is a nervous wreck over Jordan being late to a performance he knows means the world to her. Despite her stalker being in jail his gut tells him something’s wrong. When Grant goes looking for her she’s nowhere to be found. His heart is broken and now he has to face her parents with the news.

Time is ticking as Grant races to hunt down the man who has gracefully abducted the woman he loves.

#BookBlitz: Lessons in Sin by @pamgodwinbooks @XpressoTours #Giveaway

Lessons in Sin
Pam Godwin
Publication date: June 29th 2021
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

There’s no absolution for the things I’ve done.
But I found a way to control my impulses.
I became a priest.

As Father Magnus Falke, I suppress my cravings. As the headteacher of a Catholic boarding school, I’m never tempted by a student.

Until Tinsley Constantine.

The bratty princess challenges my rules and awakens my dark nature. With each punishment I lash upon her, I want more. In my classroom, private rectory, and bent over my altar, I want all of her.

One touch risks everything I stand for. My faith. My redemption. And even my life.

As if that could stop me. I need her pain, and her heart, and she needs my lessons in sin.

#ReleaseBlitz: The Last Stop by Patricia Street #Giveaway @PublishingAcorn @RABTBookTours

 

Memoir

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

Date Published: June 29

The true story of a son’s battle with addiction and a mother’s struggle with loss.

David is only fifteen years old when he first feels morphine flow through his veins after his foot is crushed in the hydraulics of a Bobcat. From that moment on he chases the feeling for the rest of his life. Alcohol, marijuana, cocaine – he goes through drugs like candy, but it isn’t until he finds heroin that he is satisfied.

Through his personal correspondence and essays, David’s story unfolds as he goes from being an average American kid who loves sports, racing around on his skateboard, and writing stories, to being a heroin addict. His heartbreaking journey deepens as he takes his family with him down the dark and dangerous road of heroin addiction.

In 2014, David loses the battle, leaving his mother, Pat, to cope. Grieving a death from addiction is two-fold. After already losing her son to addiction, Pat has to find a way to grieve his death.

The Last Stop reveals intimate and detailed scenes of living the life of an addict and explores the mistakes and ways for families who love the addict to cope. David’s story gives hope for families immersed in the life-altering aspects of active addiction and empathy for those left behind when recovery stops being a choice.

#ReleaseBlitz: Harry Harambee's Kenyan Sundowner by @superscribbler1 @RABTBookTours #Giveaway

 

A Novel

Literary Fiction

Date Published: 6/29/2021

Publisher: La Puerta Productions

Intrigue on the white sands of the Indian Ocean. From the award-winning author of Clifford’s Spiral.

A lonely widower from Los Angeles buys a tour package to East Africa on the promise of hookups and parties. What he finds instead are new reasons to live.

Aldo Barbieri, a slick Italian tour operator, convinces Harry to join a group of adventuresome “voluntourists.” In a resort town on the Indian Ocean, Harry doesn’t find the promised excitement with local ladies. But in the supermarket he meets Esther Mwemba, a demure widow who works as a bookkeeper. The attraction is strong and mutual, but Harry gets worried when he finds out that Esther and Aldo have a history. They introduce him to Victor Skebelsky, rumored to be the meanest man in town. Skebelsky has a plan to convert his grand colonial home and residential compound into a rehab center – as a tax dodge. The scheme calls for Harry to head up the charity. He could live like a wealthy diplomat and it won’t cost him a shilling!

Harry has to come to terms with questions at the heart of his character: Is corruption a fact of life everywhere? Is all love transactional?

Harry Harambee’s Kenyan Sundowner is an emotional story of expat intrigue in Africa, reminiscent of The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene and The Constant Gardener by John le Carré.

Praise for Clifford’s Spiral (Independent Press Awards 2020 Distinguished Favorite in Literary Fiction)

We've seen and noted the comparison of this author by other reviewers to literary giants like Roth and Vonnegut. And we can't disagree. Yet we feel there may be yet another strata for Gerald Everett Jones, who arguably is doing the best work of his career. We predict that he lacks only a mention in the The New York Review of Books or, better yet, Oprah, to become a nationwide best-selling author. Five-plus stars to Clifford's Spiral, a true literary novel if ever there was one. We say in all seriousness that if you only read one novel this year, this should be it. - Don Sloan, Publishers Daily Reviews

Preacher Finds a Corpse (NYC Big Book Awards 2020 Winner in Mystery, IPA 2020 Distinguished Favorite in Mystery, Eric Hoffer 2020 Finalist in Mystery)

This is literature masquerading as a mystery. Carefully yet powerfully, Gerald Jones creates a small, stunning world in a tiny midwestern town, infusing each character with not just life but wit, charm, and occasionally menace. This is the kind of writing one expects from John Irving or Jane Smiley.

- Marvin J. Wolf, author of the Rabbi Ben Mysteries, including A Scribe Dies in Brooklyn.