Suicide Cheese, Huntress Found, and Golfing

It's day 14 of the book release blog tour. *jiggle dance*

But first... The FABULOUS Alexia Chamberlynn's new book is out! If you haven't read this woman, you're missing out. Humor, awesome stories, wonderful characters, amazing backdrops... So what are you waiting for? Go pick up your 99 cent book!

Title: Huntress Found

Series: The Timekeeper’s War, Book One

Author: A.A. Chamberlynn

Release Day: 11/11/16

Category: New Adult

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy, Mythology Mashup with Sci-Fi and Steampunk

Price: 99 cents!!

About the Book:

From the author of the bestselling Zyan Star fantasy series comes a new world of magic...

Evryn’s got mad skills at playing hide and seek. She can find lost children, hack the most secure databases, pretty much anything. Except for the one thing she desires most: the knowledge of who her parents are, why they abandoned her, and what her special talent means about who and what she really is.

So, when a guy named Seeker appears quite literally out of nowhere, claiming to know about her past and offering her a job, Evryn can’t say yes fast enough. Even if it does mean following him to another realm. As in, mind-blowingly, not Earth. Apparently she’s part of an elite clan of Hunters descending from Artemis who can find just about anything in all of time and space. As the last of Artemis’ direct lineage, Evryn is her clan’s best shot at finding a lost city before rival clans do.

Not just any city, but the flying, realm-hopping city of Skye. Aboard Skye is the Artifex, a magical device with the power to create or destroy worlds. Everyone wants the device, and with Evryn’s super-powered lineage, it means everyone wants her, too. It’s hard to decide who she can trust, even within her own clan. After she discovers a strange, alluring connection to the Artifex, she’s not even sure she can trust herself. Worse yet, the only person who may be able to help her is the Timekeeper, the sadistic ancient being who created the Artifex. An interdimensional war is brewing, and Evryn is right at the epicenter of it all.

Let the hunt begin.

Snag a Copy!

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | iTunes | Kobo 

About the Author:

Alexia lives in Florida with her son, two cats, and a bearded dragon. When she's not writing or reading, she can be found playing with horses, drinking wine, traveling to the next place on her global wish list, or maybe doing yoga. Dr. Who, unicorns and katanas make her very happy. She is represented by Sandy Lu of the L. Perkins Agency.  Connect with her at www.alexiachamberlynn.com.

$50 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And back to our regular schedule...

I hope you don't have epilepsy. Quick, look away! Death by cheese is the theme of the day. 

This is your last chance to guess Joylene Nowell Butler's lie in her Truth or Lie game!

And now to kill you with AWESOMENESS...

The Maiden of Time Series:

The romance of Jane Eyre meets Supernatural.

In a world where people can heal with a touch, kill with a scream, and rob a person of their memories, Alexia is struggling to find her place and learn her gifts--before the Soulless come for her.

BUY

on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or get signed print copies from yours truly!

Tour stops 

November 14

Play off the Page: Why Fantasy & Review

Tamara Narayan: Clean Medieval Funnies & Review

Mama Diaries: Favorite Cheese

H.R. Sinclair: To Improve Editing for Non-techies

November 15

Dianne Salerni: When Characters Take Off the Mask

Writing, Reading, and the Pursuit of Dreams: Medieval Pass-Times (Your Daily LOL)

The Dabbler: How to Create Epic Blog Tours & Book Review

Hall Ways: Book Review

(Email address is required for awarding prizes.)

Have you ever experienced death by cheese? What do you think that would look like? Did you get your copy of Alexia's book? And if not, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!

Follow the cheese golfer to the next stop on the tour. Seriously. I promise there will be epicness!

Orlando Cries: One Local's Perspective

Have you ever had a large tragedy strike your front door?

I woke Sunday morning to a text from a family member asking if we were alright. We regularly get texts like that after a hurricane or tropical storm, but there was no storm that night. Facebook revealed a different story:

20 dead, as many as 50 headed to the hospital in a nightclub shootout.

We watched the police report and absorbed the tragedy, truly saddened. As the day progressed, the report updated. 49 dead, 53 injured. ISIS claimed the attack. The nightclub was a gay nightclub. The gunman was an actual Muslim terrorist. It was a hate crime and an act of terrorism. By a registered security guard. Who was also on a "watch" list for terrorism.

There was a call for local blood donations. Oh, you should have seen the lines. They ended up having to turn people away because there was such a huge response. Prayers and donations and a general sense of sadness have perpetuated our entire area.

And now there's the political debate:

Gun laws? Um, no. The guy was a SECURITY GUARD. He had a licence to legally handle a gun, and no tightening of gun laws is going to change that. Heck, if someone else in the nightclub had a weapon, they may have taken the jerk down rather than being mowed down. Stronger gun laws will not stop terrorists. It will just make their job easier. Maybe we shouldn't make it illegal to carry guns, but illegal to kill people, eh? If it wasn't a gun, it would have been a bomb, or a fire, or something else.

Hate crimes? Why can't everyone just love everyone! Why is everyone so bigoted? Um, no. This was a Muslim terrorist, and frankly, they would kill anyone who isn't one of them. Just for being different. To these extremists, if you're not Muslim, you're an infidel. Gays just rank at the top of their "hate" list. That doesn't mean the rest of the world feels that way, so please people, stop with the ranting.

On the Terrorist Watch List? This is the one that gets me. Why in the world would they approve someone on the watch list to become a SECURITY GUARD? What? Did someone's palms get greased? Is the government that inefficient? (Yes, the answer is yes.)

Regardless of the reasons, motivations, or  political spewing motivated by this event, the reality is this:

People were killed. Senselessly. Because a group of fanatics (who must have the most messed up childhoods in the world) believe it's okay to senselessly massacre others.

There is no correction, no policing, no words that can make it better. I take solace in the fact that in the next life these violent men will one day stand face to face with those they slaughtered, and what will they have to say? In the meantime, there is an outpouring of love toward the victims and the suffering. To all my Orlando brothers and sisters, the world mourns with us.

If you would like to help the victims of this senseless crime, you can donate to a GoFundMe campaign HERE.

This month I'm highlighting fellow authors from:

BUY NOW 

(Unless you already have, in which case, you rock!)

Two weeks ago I shared THE THING THAT TURNED ME, an anthology of close to 30 authors (including me!) about turning points. Everyone who mentioned "cheese" in a comment was entered to win an eBook of the anthology (after its release on the 28th).

And the winner is:

...DRUM ROLL...

Beverly Stowe McClure!

Congrats, Beverly!

And now meet a story from the author of SCRYING THE PLANE in the Parallels anthology: 

Four tales I present to tingle your spine
Four seasons of suspense to let you unwind.
Lives at a crossroad, a breakdown of order
Between life and death, it’s a tenuous border.

(Did I just use poetry to promote a book? Yes, I did.)

Heart Stopper: The disappearance of random household items baffles Dallas Radner and his eleven-year-old daughter Tessa. Ten plastic bags, nine ballpoint pens, and so on as the countdown begins. On the Day of the Dead, Tessa’s birthday, one thing will vanish forever. Will it be her?

Detour: Fed up with her abusive beau, coed Chloe Langley ditches class for a trip home. She’ll never make it.

One Step Away: Darryl James’s acrophobia ruined his marriage and stole his son. On the cusp of completing desensitization therapy, a relapse occurs with shocking consequences. 

Monitor:  Perched on a mountain with a view to die for, Laura and Paul Alderson have it all: new home, new baby, and new challenges. Yet urgent whispers from the baby monitor threaten to turn their American dream into a nightmare.

Get your copy HERE.

Ready to meet the author?

From doling out popcorn to moviegoers to flinging smelt to penguins, Tamara Narayan's taken the “road less traveled”. Her career path veered off into a land of integrals and other strange things while she taught college level math, but these days she’s cruising the fiction highway.

You might stumble across Tamara eating cheddar cheese fondu at The Melting Pot.

Visit her at www.tamaranarayan.com.

Tamara gave me two truths and one lie to test your "lie detector" skills. Those who figure out the lie will go into my magic hat for the chance to win HEART STOPPER in eBook.

You have until Tuesday, June 21 at 2 p.m. EDT to guess. Be sure to come back for the answers on June 22, 8 a.m. EDT.

TRUTH OR LIE

1. When I was a penguin keeper at the Riverbanks Zoo in SC, a local news crew came by to shoot a few clips of our Black-foot penguins. This was in 1992 and Batman Returns was big at the box office. This sequel featured Danny Devito as the villain The Penguin along with several real Black-foot penguins as his minions. I wasn’t in any of the shots, but one penguin did poop on the reporter’s foot. I don’t think that made the cut either.

2. On July 1, 2000 I walked in a protest march in Columbia, SC against putting the Confederate Flag on the SC State House grounds next to the Confederate Monument. The flag was being moved there from the dome of the Statehouse where it had flown since 1962 as a protest against desegregation. (The Confederate Flag was finally removed from the State House grounds on July 10, 2015, less than a month after the murder of nine people in a Charleston, SC church, including state senator Clementa C. Pinckney.)

3. I was in my garden weeding the other day. My cat, Mr. Mistoffelees, came by for snuggles and ended up sitting in my lap. Then two fellows came jogging by, one of which I recognized as Jason McElwain, better known as J-Mac, winner of the 2006 ESPY Award for Best Moment in Sports. J-Mac, a high-functioning autistic, scored 20 points in a high school basketball game in four minutes, nineteen seconds.

So sleuths, which is the lie? Have you met Tamara? What are your feelings about the attack in my back yard? Do you like short stories or prefer longer ones?

Love or Hate Anthologies?

Do you like short stories?

When it comes to writers, it seems like they either go long, or go short. It's rare you have someone who's mastered the art of the short story and the full length novel.

I was always a long distance writer, but could totally appreciate the short story. About 8 years ago I was introduced to flash fiction. (Stories that are 100 to 1000 words long--a paragraph to 2.5 pages.) I was fascinated. It was also my gateway drug to the short story realm.

Fast forward a bit... This year I'm contributing to my 7th and 8th anthologies--one of which I'm super excited to introduce today! (Click on the BOOKS to see the other publications.)

Anthology #7 is one most of you have probably seen about the interwebs, but if not, here it is:

The competition was stiff to get into this anthology, and only 10 pieces were accepted. We (the 10 authors) have started a blog all about the awesomeness of speculative fiction. (Check it out!) We'll be participating in the A to Z Challenge there and may just blow your mind. (In a good way.)

For fun, I thought I'd share a teaser here today from my contribution:

The Mirror People

We think no one is watching behind closed doors, but what if they are? Meet the Mirror People. 

Excerpt:

Every day I look into the eyes of a stone-cold killer. Sometimes he’s straightening his tux bowtie before a fancy shin-dig. Sometimes he’s grinning madly while brandishing a knife. Sometimes he’s spattered in blood.

The point is, it’s my job to look into his eyes, day after day, unable to raise the alarm or warn his victims—like the middle aged woman he’s just finished off—because I inhabit the world on the other side of the mirror.

I’m Jak Ralston’s reverse identity, also known as Jak Ralston. His prisoner.

He wipes his blade clean having already sheared off his trophy, a finger, and turns away from the mirror to the mess of a hotel room. I relax. My shoulders ache from the tension. He is always intense. Always serious. Always angry. But not the explosive kind of angry, the cool, I’m-going-to-rip-your-eyeballs-out-in-your-sleep kind of angry (while he tells you how lovely you look in gray). He’s calculating. Terrifying.

I stand on the other side of the mirror, mimicking his movements like my life depends on it, because it does. Mr. Murder is my twid (twin identity), me in another realm, and if I break from being his reflection while anyone is watching (including him), we’ll both keel over and die. No matter how much I despise him, I’m not ready to die—like Susan, the mirror woman he’s just murdered in my realm. Facing her now, it’s all I can do not to slam my fists into the mirror and scream, but destroying myself won’t bring her back...

Coming May 3, 2016

Preorder HERE

 

Now let's award a WINNER!

Last week Alysia S. Knight shared with us AURORA RISING, along with two truths and a lie. Those who guessed the lie correctly were entered into a random drawing for the chance to win an eBook AND a super cool bookmark.

The Game:

1. I’ve climbed to the top of the Sidney Australia Bridge.
2. Took my son on his first deer hunt. He shot a big buck and I did a controlled slide with a rope to lower the big deer over a 40 foot shale drop off because my son was afraid the antlers would break if we let it roll.

3. I’m preparing to climb Denali.  

The lie: #3. Alysia likes hiking but prefers warm weather--and she doesn't want to hike anything that steep.

Way to guess everyone! And the winner is:

...DRUM ROLL...

Christine Rains!

Congrats, Christine!

And that's it for this week. There will be another fun Truth or Lie game next week for super cool prizes. Go check out the Parellels blog eh? Or order yourself an awesome anthology.

Do you read short stories? When was the last time you read an anthology?