29 July, 2013

Spotlight On: The Piper Anderson Series by Danielle Stewart



I've got a series spotlight here today; Danielle Stewart's THE PIPER ANDERSON series. These books sound like the perfect combination of romance and suspense. Check out more about the author, and note that the first book in the series, CHASING JUSTICE is currently FREE!


About The Author:
Writing is a way to make a lot of different people do exactly what you want them to do. When I can’t get my toddler to listen to me, I turn to my characters. They always cooperate!

I currently live in Charlotte, North Carolina with my husband and three year old son. I have perfected the ability to write in a noisy house and create story lines while folding laundry.

Chasing Justice is book one in my Piper Anderson Series. It follows the evolution of a woman who feels unworthy of love and introduces a colorful and endearing cast of characters who are hellbent on proving her wrong. Due to be released in May 2013 with additional books to follow closely behind.

I love hearing from my readers and always answers all of my email personally. Join my mailing list for updates on contests and new book releases!

Website | Facebook



Chasing Justice:
Piper Anderson has been given a fresh start in the picturesque town of Edenville, North Carolina. But her plans of settling into a normal life are derailed when she witnesses a prominent judge in her community committing a violent assault. Running from her own past and fueled by a passion to make the judge answer for his crimes, Piper is forced to decide if she’ll play by the rules or achieve justice in her own way.

Complicating things further, Piper finds herself fighting a powerful attraction to rookie cop, Bobby Wright. Although she’s increasingly enamored with Bobby, his staunch belief in the justice system is in stark contrast to her own. She may not share his opinions about the effectiveness of the law, but she certainly can’t deny how safe she feels when she’s in his arms or how every kiss leaves her desperate for more.



For Piper, the idea of finally living an ordinary life with a man to love is tempting. However, fate keeps placing the judge, quite literally, in her path. Will she decide the only way to win is to be as wicked as the judge, but with righteous intentions? And more importantly, will Bobby choose to let her go, or follow her as she crosses the line and takes justice into her own hands?


Piper Anderson Series
Book 1: Chasing Justice
Book 2: Cutting Ties (available NOW)
Book 3: Changing Fate (Coming Fall 2013!)


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Both FREE!
Chasing Justice NookBook | Chasing Justice Kindle



Cutting Ties:
Against all odds, Piper Anderson has managed to pick up the pieces of her life. She's holding tight to her budding romance with Officer Bobby Wright, anxious to have her moment with him. Now encircled by fiercely loyal friends, she finally feels like she's standing at the edge of a normal life. That is until reports of a brutal attack at the local college campus turn her dream of happily ever after into a nightmare. The unmistakably familiar details of the attack are an instant reminder of the chains tying her to people and places she so badly wants to escape.

With her life and friends in danger, Piper must confront her past in order to fight for her future. To make matters worse, Piper and Bobby once again find their moral compasses pointing them in opposite directions. But what Piper doesn't know is that Bobby has secrets of his own. How can their love survive when their pasts have shaped them so differently? Piper's choices could bring her the freedom she yearns for, but will cutting ties with the past sever her relationship with Bobby?

Cutting Ties NookBook | Cutting Ties Kindle


As I was putting this post together, it occurred to me that it has been a long time since I myself, have sponsored a giveaway for Read My Mind. So, to rectify that, I decided that I will gift an e-book copy of CUTTING TIES to 2 lucky readers. Easy-peasy entry via the rafflecopter below. Good Luck!

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26 July, 2013

Such Sweet Sorrow by Jenny Trout Cover Reveal + Giveaway

I've got a great cover reveal at Read My Mind today. Please welcome Jenny Trout and check out her upcoming release from Entangled Publishing. It's a Shakespeare re-telling that has Romeo meeting Hamlet. I'm in!

Don't forget, the author and Entangled are sponsoring a giveaway too. Just enter via the rafflecopter at the end of this post. Good luck.



About The Author:
Jenny Trout is a writer, blogger, and funny person.

Writing as Jennifer Armintrout, she made the USA Today Bestseller list with Blood Ties Book One: The Turning. Her novel American Vampire was named one of the top ten horror novels of 2011 by Booklist Magazine Online.

Jenny also writes award-winning erotic romance as Abigail Barnette.

When she's not writing, she's sleeping or otherwise incapacitated.

She is a proud Michigander, mother of two, and wife to the only person alive capable of spending extended periods of time with her without wanting to murder her.

Website | Twitter | Facebook



Blurb:
Never was there a tale of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo... But true love never dies. Though they’re parted by the veil between the world of mortals and the land of the dead, Romeo believes he can restore Juliet to life, but he’ll have to travel to the underworld with a thoroughly infuriating guide.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, may not have inherited his father’s crown, but the murdered king left his son a much more important responsibility—a portal to the Afterjord, where the souls of the dead reside. When the determined Romeo asks for help traversing the treacherous Afterjord, Hamlet sees an opportunity for adventure, and the chance to avenge his father’s death.

In an underworld filled with leviathan monsters, ghoulish shades, fire giants and fierce Valkyrie warriors, Hamlet and Romeo must battle their way through jealousy, despair, and their darkest fears to rescue the fair damsel. Yet finding Juliet is only the beginning, and the Afterjord doesn’t surrender souls without a price...


Coming February 2014, ENTANGLED PUBLISHING

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Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the novel!


***

Prologue

Two figures, both alike in stature and purpose, ducked beneath a bridge in Verona. The swollen river made mud of its banks. The men slid and fought against it, their torches flickering.

"Let's turn back, Romeo," Friar Laurence urged, pushing down the hood of his rough brown robe. "Can we not let poor Juliet rest in peace?"

The younger man fixed his friend with a critical eye. "Peace? My Juliet knows no peace, only eternal torment. She took her own life, and that is my fault."

They pressed on, Romeo's steps becoming more determined the weaker his limbs grew. The poison that had incapacitated him, but not killed him, had ravaged his body. Tonight, he traveled farther beyond his father's walls than he’d dared since the night he'd returned to Verona. Even though the prince had lifted his banishment, the streets still felt unfriendly. A truce had been called between Montague and Capulet there were plenty of young men who would like nothing more than to avenge their kin by killing Romeo.

Their destination lay far from the city center, in a small encampment of hovels beside the river. Faces peeked from behind tattered curtains as Romeo and Laurence traversed the narrow lanes between the dilapidated buildings, coming finally to the very wall of the city itself. It was at this border that they found the strega.

Her door was painted red, surrounded by talismans on long chains that hung from the recessed arch. Romeo ducked beneath a dried and crumbling chicken's foot and brushed aside a crudely shaped metal eye.

"I go no further." Friar Laurence backed away from the threshold, crossing himself. "Romeo, I warn you, this is a fearful path you tread. Your soul will be lost to darkness. You will perish in the flames of hell, I beg you not to do this."

"I am already in hell." Romeo pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The interior of the witch's house was hot. It smelled of earth and the wood-like scent of herbs not used for cooking. A bent shape stood before the hearth, where a sulfurous cauldron bubbled. Romeo covered his nose and coughed.

"Ah, I was expecting a visitor this night." The strega lifted her head, the veil of coins that obscured her face tinkling like fairy bells. "Your man of God could not dissuade you?"

"Nothing will dissuade me." Even as he said it, his doubtful eyes took in the squawking black bird in the cage near the fire, the jars and bottles lining the shelves, murky objects floating in their slimy depths. "Benvolio told me you can communicate with the dead. He said you made him a charm to ward off attacks by ghosts."

The strega shuffled across the room, her coins and jewelry clattering. She pointed a bony finger at a chair, and bade Romeo sit. "You are unwell. Poison, was it?"

"Poison, yes." He could still taste the bite of it, still feel the stinging numbness in his veins. The physical evidence of it lay under his clothes, the dark stain of dying flesh spreading still, a little more each day. "Not enough."

"That’s because you went to an apothecary," the strega sniffed. "If you want poison to kill a man dead, you must see a witch."

"I'll... remember that. In the future." Romeo clasped his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. "I came to you for knowledge of the dead. I will pay whatever it takes."

"The price depends on the knowledge." She rummaged through a trunk and produced a large, black bowl. Setting it on the floor, she reached into her clothes—it seemed she wore layers upon layers of tattered fabrics, in all shades and thickness—and withdrew a vial. The sight of it winking in the light caused something to recoil inside Romeo. Too recently, he had held a similar vessel.

Then everything had gone so wrong...

"What do you wish to know?" the strega asked, emptying the thick, black liquid into the bowl.

"My love, Juliet—" his voice trembled at her name, and he took a moment to repress his anguish.

"It was her you drank poison for." The strega swirled the liquid in the basin. "I see her."

"How do you know it's her?" He leaned forward, peering into the dish. He saw nothing but his own reflection.

"The same as you know the sun rises in the east. I simply know." She clucked softly behind her veil of coins. "Bound to you by the thread of holy matrimony. A secret wedding."

Romeo swallowed back unexpected tears. "Yes, she was my... she was my wife."

It still sounded strange to his ears. A wife was something an older man had, a man like his father. He could not imagine being so old. Perhaps that had been the poison's cruelest jest, to let him believe his life would end in the vigor of his youth, only to return him with none of that youth left in body or mind.

"The young are foolish and brash." The witch's tone softened. "Black of hair, brown of eye. As fair as any maid from Verona."

"Fairer," he corrected her, his hand clenching to a fist. His nails bit into his palm as he struggled to hold back his tears. "Is she happy?"

The strega considered a moment, drawing one finger across the surface of the liquid. When she brought her hand away, it shone wet and red. "No. She is in despair. That is all I can see."

His heart squeezed tightly. He couldn't find his breath. He had hoped to hear that she was in a better place, as friar Laurence had assured him so many times. "There must be some way to assuage her grief. Some way to tell her—"

"Her eyes and ears are as closed as any dead woman's. Whatever torments her will torment her for eternity." There was no comfort to be had from the strega's voice. She reached out one gnarled hand, palm up. "If that is all—"

"It is not all!" Romeo shot to his feet, placing his hand on the dagger at his side. He did not have the strength to use it, but the witch couldn't know that. "You know dark magic. You can bring her back."

Slowly, the strega unhooked her veil, letting the net of coins fall to her lap. Her face was as aged and withered as her hands. One eye protruded grotesquely, a milky blue, while the other, shrewd and black, fixed on him. "I no longer do such magic."

"But it can be done?" Romeo asked, and when she nodded, he unsheathed his knife and prodded her knobby chin with the point. "Then you had better do it, witch."

The old woman did not tremble in fear of him. She grabbed the blade and pushed it away; it felt as though he cut himself instead of her. He dropped the dagger and stepped back, cursing as blood coursed down his arm from the slice that split his palm. Faster than he could have anticipated, the old witch grabbed his wrist and jerked his hand over the basin, letting his blood fall into it.

"I no longer work such magic," she repeated, swirling the blood in the bowl with her fingertip. "But there are others. To bring someone back, first you must find them. Are you prepared to walk with devils, boy?"

He nodded, his quick breaths flaring his nostrils.

"Are you willing to brave serpents and fire, to fight the keepers of the dead and hear ghosts speak?" She pushed his hand away. At once, the blood on his palm stopped flowing, and the wound sealed itself, burning with invisible fire. He gasped and clutched his hand, watching with horror as the old witch's good eye rolled back in her head and she called out words he did not understand.

In the bowl, the liquid lightened, then glowed and turned an unearthly blue. A maelstrom formed in the shallow basin, and lightning crackled on its surface. All the while, the old woman chanted and howled, until the room filled with a spectral wind that seemed to originate inside the blue light. The bird screamed in its cage, and jars and bottles rattled and broke on their shelves.

The surface of the liquid rose in waves capped with frothy blue. As the peaks grew higher, the aquamarine light faded, leaving only a bubbling, roiling fount of blood rising as tall as Romeo himself. The burbling red took shape, into a form so familiar that Romeo at once recoiled from it and yearned to touch it.

His Juliet stood before him, or at least, the shape of her, frozen in blood, monochromatic crimson, but unmistakably her. Thick chains bound her across her neck, her waist, manacles clasped her wrists. Her eyes were the worst of all, open, bloody, blank and unseeing, yet somehow still accusing. Still hating him, for having let her go before him.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his throat raw with emotion. He reached for her, knowing it a foolish thing to have done before his fingertips brushed her bloody cheek.

The vision of Juliet opened its mouth impossibly, terribly wide and a bone withering scream burst from her at the same time the vision burst, raining blood over the room.

The strega braced herself with her ancient hands on either side of the bowl, and lifted her head, the blood running in rivulets down her face. "You must go north. You will find the man who can help you there."

"North?" He conjured up a map in his mind. "Grezzana?"

"Farther." The strega pushed up from the floor, righting herself. She looked smaller somehow, more fragile than fearsome.

"Erbezzo?"

The eyebrow over her good eye arched in exasperation. "Farther. Farther than you have ever traveled. Over the mountains, to a castle by the sea. The seat of a murdered king."

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "I know no more. In payment, I ask only that you never darken my door again." She lifted the dagger from the floor. He reached for it, and she threw it, so that the blade stuck in the lintel. At once, her terrible, craggy face transformed, her skin going smooth and youthful, her spider web hair turning to glossy black silk. She narrowed her eyes, no longer milky but deep black, and pointed to where the dagger quivered in the wood. "Leave it. Let its absence remind you never to cross a sister of the fortunes again."

When Romeo emerged, Friar Laurence rose to his feet, the worry that creased his brow relented only a bit. "I heard such howling, I thought you must surely be in the grips of the devil himself."

"No devils here." Romeo made no mention of the dagger. It

embarrassed him now, to think he had threatened a woman so

powerful. "To find those, I must go north."

***






It's definitely reminiscent of the covers of MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH and DEARLY, DEPARTED. But, I don't feel it's derivative. It's a beautiful image, and I think, clearly evokes the YA historical, romance, paranormal, speculative fiction feel described in the blurb. I am really looking forward to SUCH SWEET SORROW's release!

What do you think?


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15 July, 2013

Cover Reveal: Wings by Elizabeth Richards (Black City #3)

I am so excited to be part of the cover reveal of WINGS by Elizabeth Richards! This is the third and last (sad face) book in Richards' BLACK CITY series, which I adore. See what's ahead!
Also, there's a rafflecopter giveaway at the bottom, so don't forget to enter for your chance to win!

Thanks to Elizabeth Richards and GCR Promotions for sponsoring.



About The Author:
Elizabeth Richards is an award-winning journalist, who spent her early career reviewing videogames before making the bold (or crazy) move into travel writing, despite suffering from terrible travel sickness.

In her spare time, she ran a successful lifestyle website aimed at teenage girls, where she got to interview many of her favourite bands, go to gigs and basically blag loads of free swag all in the name of ‘research’.

Elizabeth lives in Buckinghamshire, England, with her husband.

Website | Blog | Twitter | Goodreads



Blurb:
TBA

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Giveaway OPEN TO INTERNATIONAL entrants!


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Book Blast Highlight: Saved by Lorhainne Eckhart

A warm welcome to Lorhainne Eckhart to Read My Mind today! I've got a book highlight with a giveaway, courtesy of the author and GCR Promotions. As usual, check out the deets and enter via the rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.


Blurb:
Growing up I had dreams that one day I'd fall in love, get married and start a family. Then one night I was taken. But I survived, I escaped and I was saved. Eric didn't see me as damaged. He didn't see my baby as a monster. He protected me, he kept me safe ... he saved me.

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***

Excerpt:

“Thank you, Captain,” was all she said, but he could feel her stiffen even though he was no longer touching her.

“I’ll be back later to see how you’re doing.” He didn’t know why he did it when he reached down and smoothed back the stray wisps of hair that dangled in her face.

“Remember what I said, Abby: You’re safe here. If you’re hungry, you say something. If you’re scared, tell me. If you’re hurting, you have to speak up. No one is going to hurt you here. I don’t know how to make you believe it.”

She was staring at him now, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what was going on in her head. He let out a sigh because there was nothing more he could do here. His hand was on the door, and he was about to yank it open when she said, “Captain, could you do me a favor?” He turned around and faced her and was nearly undone by her eyes, swimming with a sheen of tears.

“Could you keep telling me I’m safe? I think if I hear you tell me over and over, I’ll start to believe it. I think I will.”



***


About The Author:
2012 was an amazing year in the publishing world for me, and it started with The Forgotten Child, which landed on the Amazon bestseller list for western romance and romance series. With the publication of each novel and short story, each one made its way to the top ten for its respective genre. 2013 has seen me posted in the top 100 authors on Amazon for romantic suspense and mystery/thrillers, police procedural.

Where did it all begin? In 2008, I published my first novel, The Captain’s Lady, a contemporary military romance, through The Wild Rose Press. This year I have a crazy writing schedule with four books scheduled for release and six short stories.

I write three genres, edgy romantic suspense (Walk the Right Road Series), western romance (Finding Love ~ The Outsider Series), and young adult mystery, and I warn my readers to expect the unexpected. I’m the mother of three children, one a special needs child. We live on a small Island in the Pacific Northwest, where I advocate for the environment and the rights of special needs children. Somewhere in my busy schedule, I do find time to write. I encourage you to contact me by email; I do answer every email I receive.

Stay tuned. There is more to come from the Walk the Right Road Series and Finding Love ~ The Outsider Series.

And to my readers and all of you who have shared my stories with your family and friends, a big heartfelt thank you.


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