{Review & Giveaway} Tropic of Darkness @TonyRichardsdfw

Available on ebook, an original full-length supernatural thriller set in Havana, Cuba, from an acclaimed Bram Stoker Award-nominated author.Jack Gilliard is a man with a dark past, and he hasn’t been back to the United States for more than a decade. But when he washes up in Havana, Cuba, he finds himself being drawn into a business darker than he ever dared think. Ancient passions, ancient treacheries, an age-old curse, and the evils of his past are now consuming the present—and Jack is caught in the midst of it all. To survive, all he has to do is leave the country—a prospect much more difficult than anticipated. But the real question is: can Jack escape before the darkness claims him altogether?

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Biography

Tony Richards' novels have been published by HarperCollins, Tor, Headline, Dark Regions Press, and Pan Macmillan, with his latest book -- TROPIC OF DARKNESS -- due out in 2013 from Simon and Schuster. His debut work -- 'The Harvest Bride' -- made the shortlist for the HWA Award for Best First Novel, and in 2008 his collection 'Going Back' was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award. He has seen into print more than a hundred short stories, with his tales appearing in Asimov's, Hitchcock's, F&SF, Weird Tales, Cemetery Dance, and many top anthologies including Best New Horror. Widely traveled, he often uses places he has visited as settings for his work. His fiction includes the Raine's Landing dark fantasy adventures, a group of stories set in the imaginary town of Birchiam-on-Sea on the south coast of England, his Future Africa tales in Hitchcock's, and his Immortal Holmes series on Amazon Kindle.
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Last year I had started to expand on what I was reading.  And its books like this one that I am so happy that I decided to go ahead and do that! This is a deff must read and at $1.99 ebook why not pick it up!  Now as for the giveaway below it will be for a PRINT ARC that I was sent by the publisher!  

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

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{Review + Giveaway + Guest Post} Somebody Up There Hates You @AlgonquinBooks

Chemo, radiation, a zillion surgeries, watching my mom age twenty years in twenty months: if that’s part of the Big Dude’s plan, then it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Somebody Up There Hates You.

SUTHY has landed me here in this hospice, where we—that’s me and Sylvie—are the only people under 30 in the whole place, sweartogod. But I’m not dead yet. I still need to keep things interesting. Sylvie, too. I mean, we’re kids, hospice-hostages or not. We freak out visitors; I get my uncle to sneak me out for one insane Halloween night. Stuff like that. And Sylvie wants to make things even more interesting. That girl’s got big plans.

Only Sylvie’s father is so nuclear-blasted by what’s happened to his little girl, he glows orange, I swear. That’s one scary man, and he’s not real fond of me. So we got a major family feud going on, right here in hospice. DO NOT CROSS line running down the middle of the hall, me on one side, her on the other. It’s crazy.

In the middle of all of this, really, there’s just me and Sylvie, a guy and a girl. And we want to live, in our way, by our own rules, in whatever time we’ve got. We will pack in some living before we go, trust me

BIOGRAPHY

Corporeality, Hollis Seamon's new collection of stories, published by Able Muse Press, will be available in January 2013.  Alan Davis has called this “. . . a wonderful collection of stories, dazzling and unsentimental, full of everyday tragedies, fairy-tale motifs, and rambunctious, life-affirming characters.” Hollis's young adult novel, Somebody Up There Hates You, will be published in September 2013 with Algonquin Books.

Hollis's mystery novel, Flesh, was published by Memento Mori Mysteries of Avocet Press in 2005. Hollis's book of short stories, Body Work, was published by Spring Harbor Press in 2000. A Publishers Weekly review (April 10, 2000) described the book: “The lives of women and girls are unconventionally and richly explored in Body Work by Hollis Seamon. With precise prose alternately chatty and subtly resonant, Seamon delves into female adolescence, body issues, sexuality, relationships between mothers and daughters, and other themes, often keenly revealing the magical, uncanny and symbolic meanings in everyday life.” Douglas Glover called the book, “A sexy, edgy collection of stories about women on the brink.”

Seamon's short stories have recently appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Fiction International,The Greensboro Review, The Nebraska Review, Persimmon Tree, and The Chicago Review.  Her work has been included in anthologies such as The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review (Bellevue Literary Press, 2008), Celestial Electric Set (Emrys Foundation, 2008), and The Strange History of Suzanne LaFleshe and Other Stories of Women and Fatness (The Feminist Press, 2003).  Her short story “Death is the New Sleep” won the 2009 Al Blanchard Award for Short Crime Fiction and was included in Quarry: Crime Stories by New England Writiers (Level Best Books, 2010).  A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction Fellowship, Hollis is Professor of English at the College of Saint Rose in Albany NY and teaches for the Fairfield University MFA in Creative Writing Program.  She lives in Kinderhook NY.

When I received this book I was scared!  I have read books about death and dying and I always end up crying my eyes out. Well with this one. Seamon creates a wonderful story about a teen whom is dying is cancer. But within these pages you will find humor, laughter, and more!  This book is a powerful story about a boy whom doesn't want to give up and will never surrender. I really loved Sylvie but I wish we could have gotten a little more of her. I have heard that this one is like The Fault In Our Stars. Which is not a bad thing. This is deff one book to grab. 

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Hollis Seamon On Writing Somebody Up There Hates You

Somebody Up There Hates You began many years ago when my four-year- old son started going to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, to the hospital known then as “Babies,” for multiple surgeries and other treatments. Between 1976 and 1990, he was a “repeat offender.” That’s what the kids who returned for frequent hospitalizations called themselves. These kids often met up during coincidental visits to Babies, instantly falling back into hospital friendship mode. When well enough, they played video games in the playroom, reluctantly attended school sessions in the mornings, and raced the ancient wooden wheelchairs through the corridors. They learned to use their IV poles as scooters, pushing off with one foot and then putting both feet on the bottom of the pole and sailing down the halls, bags of IV fluids waving above them. That was the fun side of being in Babies. The other side was pain, suffering, and a constant longing for home. My son always did get to go home, and we celebrated every time. But some of those kids never left the hospital. And in many ways, I’ve come to realize, Babies has never left me.
The patients at Babies who made the biggest impression on me were the teenagers, at once heartbreaking and hilarious. No matter how ill, how miserably uncomfortable, how very real the mortal danger, those kids remained, stubbornly and defiantly, teenagers: rebellious; foul-mouthed; irreverent; pains-in-the-ass to nurses, doctors, and parents alike—and wonderfully funny. Often, the teenagers on our floor would gather at the nurses’ station late at night, talking, laughing, and flirting. I would lie on the cot beside my son’s bed and listen. Their voices spun stories through those long, sleep-deprived nights, and when sleep did come, their voices wove themselves into my dreams.

That’s where Richie, the seventeen-year-old narrator of Somebody Up There Hates You, came from. He represents all of those smart, mouthy, indomitable, fiercely alive kids. Sylvie, the girl he falls in love with, came from there, too. Richie and Sylvie are in hospice; they are dying. But they are still alive, growing up in that intense hospital space where time flows at a different pace and every moment is heightened. Things happen, to them and around them, every day. As Richie says, “Dying is pretty boring, if you get right down to it. It’s the living here that’s actually interesting, a whole lot more than I ever would have imagined.”
Richie’s right: hospitals are bursting with stories. Walk down any corridor and glance, only briefly, for hospital etiquette requires that you never stare, into the patients’ rooms. Listen for a minute: in every room, a drama is occurring. Fights and struggles, triumphs and devastating losses, in every single room, every single day. Everyone there is a character, and every event becomes part of a plot. Nothing is certain; everything seems dependent on some arbitrary roll of some strangely loaded dice. Everyone is a gambler, and the stakes are sky high. What a training ground for fiction writers.
One other thing, more recent, helped create Somebody Up There Hates You. In 2005, my beloved brother-in-law Matt was admitted to a hospice unit in a small hospital in Hudson, New York. In the corridor there, beside the elevator, was a harpist. The effect of stepping into that place and encountering harp music was, well, just totally weird. That harpist appears on the very first page of the novel. That’s also where my original “SUTHY Syndrome” story began, with Richie describing the weirdness of the harpist and then telling us how he and Sylvie lit up their hospice on the night before Halloween. After that story was published in the Bellevue Literary Review in 2009, I thought I’d heard the last from Richie.
Nope. Richie kept right on talking. Clearly, he had much, much more to say and to do.
So that story grew into this novel. The echoes of all those kids’ voices somehow came together, mixing with the notes of a harp. This composition played in my ears for years and then emerged as Somebody Up There Hates You, a book written to honor repeat offenders everywhere. 

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{Review & Giveaway} The Returned/Resurrection @JasonMott

Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That's what all the Returned were.

Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time ... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.

All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.

With spare, elegant prose and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and responsibility. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction.

About Resurrection 

The people of Arcadia, Missouri are forever changed when their deceased loved ones suddenly start to return. An 8-year-old American boy (Landon Gimenez) wakes up alone in a rice paddy in a rural Chinese province with no idea how he got there. Details start to emerge when the boy, who calls himself Jacob, recalls that his hometown is Arcadia and an immigration agent, Martin Bellamy (Omar Epps), takes him there. The home he claims as his own is occupied by an elderly couple, Harold (Kurtwood Smith) and Lucille Garland (Frances Fisher), who lost their son Jacob more than 30 years ago.  While they look different, young Jacob recognizes them as his parents. Those closest to the family try to unravel this impossible mystery, including Sheriff Fred Garland (Matt Craven) whose wife Barbara drowned 30 years ago trying to save Jacob. But this boy who claims to be the deceased Jacob knows secrets about his own death that no one else knows—secrets that Fred’s daughter Gail (Devin Kelly) will begin to investigate and discover to be true. 

Resurrection stars Omar Epps (House) as Martin Bellamy, Matt Craven (Crimson Tide, A Few Good Men) as Fred, Devin Kelley (Chernobyl Diaries, The Chicago Code) as Gail, Frances Fisher (Titanic) as Lucille, Kurtwood Smith (That 70s Show) as Harold, Sam Hazeldine (The Raven) as Abel, Samaire Armstrong (Entourage, The O.C.) as Elaine, Nicholas Gonzalez (Off the Map) as Connor, Mark Hildreth (Dragon Ball Z) as Tom and Landon Gimenez as Jacob.

Written by Aaron Zelman (Damages, The Killing), Resurrection is executive produced by Aaron Zelman, JoAnn Alfano, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Jon Liebman, Brillstein Entertainment and Plan B. The pilot was directed by Charles McDougall. Resurrection is produced by ABC Studios.

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Biography

Jason Mott lives in southeastern North Carolina. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction has appeared in various journals such as Prick of the Spindle, The Thomas Wolfe Review, The Kakalak Anthology of Carolina Poets, Measure and Chautauqua. He was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize award.

He is the author of two poetry collections: We Call This Thing Between Us Love and "...hide behind me..." The Returned is his first novel.

The Returned has also been optioned by Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, in association with Brillstein Entertainment and ABC. The pilot is currently being filmed.

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Ok this one I am BEYOND WORDS!!  When going to write this review I was over joyed to find out that this was becoming a tv series coming this fall to ABC!  If you havent read this book you need to!
What happens when those you have loved come back as if a day hasnt passed!  How would you deal with this?! I know that I dont think I would be able to handle this!  But being able to have a second chance to spend time with those you love I could only think that I wouldnt let that time end. This is a heart griping, heart wrenching story of when those we love come back from the dead!

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Check out the trailer for this upcoming book to tv series! 

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{Review & Giveaway} Skulk @rosiejbest @StrangeChem

When Meg witnesses the dying moments of a shapeshifting fox and is given a beautiful and powerful stone, her life changes forever. She is plunged into the dark world of the Skulk, a group of shapeshifting foxes.  As she learns about the other groups of shapeshifters that lurk around London – the Rabble, the Horde, the Cluster and the Conspiracy – she becomes aware of a deadly threat against all the shapeshifters. They must put aside all their enmity and hostility and fight together to defeat it.

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Wonderful book!! New fresh take on shifters. Heard that this was going to be a 2 book series. So hopefully we don't have to wait to long for it. Ate this up in two days and so can't wait to read more!! Wonderful debut ya novel!!





"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

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{Review & Tour} The Emblazoned Red @DawnMcCulloughW

Once, in another world—a dark world, the world of Faetta—there lived paladins and pirates, tyrants and scallywags, vampires and the undead. In this world a revolution is brewing. The royalty of Sieunes are in chains, and those priests and paladins who follow the holy word of the gods are under attack. In the west, the kingdom of Kellerhald receives the fleeing priests in their temples of the paladins of Silvius, god of the Sky.

Here, a young woman has just passed her tests to become a paladin. A pirate crew raids along the Azez Sea. An undead creature, wielding great power, roams the graveyard of Yetta. And a lost soul, crying out from beyond the veil, seeks out a pure hearted warrior to hear its plea.

Amid the turmoil of the revolution, Ilka’s mettle is tested. Rescued by pirates, she ends up with an unlikely ally: the pirate captain himself. The newly trained paladin finds herself collaborating with the undead, working with a vampire, and worst of all, longing for revenge against the man who has ignited the revolution in Sieunes: Francois Mond.

Death of an Innocent. Rise of a Paladin.

About Dawn McCullough White

Dawn McCullough White is known for her strong female protagonists, and gritty dark fantasy.

Ms. McCullough-White has lived the majority of her life in and around Rochester, NY with a brief stint in Tucson, AZ. She is pursuing a degree in psychology at R.I.T. Dawn is a history buff and was a member of the Society of Creative Anachronism for years, active as a heavy weapons fighter. She currently resides with her husband and son in a quaint neighborhood next to an old cemetery.

Find Dawn:

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Find The Emblazoned Red:
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I really loved this book and was so glad that I got to be on the tour! This book is a combo of many different genres.  The only thing that I didnt like was that the book as a series wraps up to nicely.  It would have been better to have some kind of cliff hanger so I would be crying until the next book comes out.


"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Tour Schedule:

Friday, August 9th – The Fiction Fairy 

Monday, August 12th – Moosubi Reviews
Tuesday, August 13th – Tween 2 Teen Book Reviews
Wednesday, August 14th – Auggie Talk 
Thursday, August 15th - Bibliophiles Thoughts on Books
Friday, August 16th – The LUV’NV
Saturday, August 17th - So Bookalicious

Monday, August 19th – Eater of Books
Tuesday, August 20th – Books Besides my Bed
Wednesday, August 21st – Books Complete Me
Thursday, August 22nd – Books and Things
Friday. August 23rd – The Irish Banana 
Saturday, August 24th – The Reading Hideaway 

Monday, August 26th – The Book Galaxy 
Tuesday, August 27th – Breath In Books
Wednesday, August 28th – Crossroad Reviews 
Friday. August 30th – Curling up with a good Book

{Review} Blood & Ashes @MHiltonauthor

How does one man stay alivewith a dozen assassins targeting him?

Ex-soldier Joe Hunter once employed his killer instincts for Don Griffiths. Together, they brought down extremist groups and domestic terrorists before they could implement their destructive plans against the country. It was a job that nearly cost Hunter his life—and his humanity. So he severed all ties with Griffiths.

But when Griffiths' daughter is murdered and the rest of his family is targeted by supporters of Carswell Hicks, an enemy from his past and long believed to be dead, Hunter knows he can't stand by and let innocent people get hurt. Agreeing to help Griffiths protect his family, Hunter sets out on a suicide mission—for a dozen merciless killers are bent on avenging a dead man . . .

Biography

Matt Hilton has worked in private security and for the Cumbria police department. He is an expert in kempo jujitsu, holding the rank of fourth dan, and he founded and taught at the respected Bushidokan Dojo. Hilton is married and lives in England. This is his fifth novel.

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This is another one of those books that I kinda wish I would have read the others in the series before reading this one. But although at times I felt a little lost.  It was still a pretty good book.  This is also one of those books that you are either going to love it or hate it.  There will be no middle ground.  So grab it and check it out and make your own choice. If I get the chance to read the first 4 books I will DEFF come back and update this review!

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

{Review & Giveaway} The Misty Harbor Inn

Three sisters. A charming inn. Hints of mystery and romance. And a gorgeous seaside setting. Escape to Misty Harbor Inn.

As Nantucket reaches the pinnacle of its summer glory, and the Marris sisters welcome guests at Misty Harbor Inn, youngest sister Sam Carter enters her mother’s cobbler recipe in the Summerfest baking contest. But she faces a formidable opponent, a past winner who is determined to keep her title even if it means stooping to dirty tactics. Can Sam’s newfound faith help her rise above the fray and reach out to this lonely woman? Meanwhile, an elderly guest arrives who knows the inn’s history, and the sisters are stunned to learn that their late mother lived there as a child. But she told them she’d never been to Nantucket until her honeymoon! Through the woman’s reminiscences and photos, the sisters make an intriguing discovery — not only about the mysterious Hannah Montague, the young woman who disappeared from the house in 1880, but also about their own family history.

Readers will delight in the inviting Nantucket setting and be enthralled by the adventures of these sisters who reunite to bring their mother’s Misty Harbor dreams to life.

Purchase a copy here.

Evangeline Kelley is the pen name for the writing team of Patti Berg, Pam Hanson & Barbara Andrews, and Camy Tang, the four authors who collaborated to create Postcards from Misty Harbor Inn. Each of them has published novels individually, but this is their first series together.

Book three in the Postcards from Misty Harbor Inn series, Whispers on the Dock(Guideposts Books) is now available. Come back to Nantucket and be enthralled by the final installment of the cozy intrigue of Misty Harbor Inn.

Enter to win the entire set of Postcards from Misty Harbor Inn.

Three winners will receive:

• Seaside Summer, Sunflower Summer and Whispers on the Dock by Evangeline Kelley

Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on August 31st. All winners will be announced September 2nd at the Litfuse blog.

Don't miss a moment of the fun; enter today and be sure to visit the Litfuse blog on the 2nd to see if you won one set! (Or better yet, subscribe to our blog (via the box in the top right sidebar) and have the winner announcement delivered to your inbox!)

This was such a great book.  I am so happy that I got to read the first two books. This is deff. one of those books where you want to read the first books first!  This book would be very good for people whom are over or near the age of 50!  Its such a fresh new idea!  I love that this one is written for the older reader. This was a wonderful fast read. It was quick and enjoyable!  I will be giving it to my grandmother soon!

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."