Thursday, February 28, 2019

Excerpt from The Soul Searcher by Erin R. Howard


Author: Erin R. Howard

Publisher: Mantle Rock Publishing

Genre: Fantasy

Series

Upcoming Release: The Soul Searcher (The Kalila Chronicles, #2)

Release Date: 2/19/19

Back cover blurb:

Elnora’s parents gave her one rule:

Stay hidden away at all costs.

Elnora Scott is used to her survival depending on the decisions of others. Locked away in her safe house, it is easy to follow her parents’ dying wishes until an angel, demon, and seer show up on her doorstep. Now, waking up in a dirty cell, she wishes she would have gone with them when she had the chance, because the very ones who unknowingly ushered the kidnapper to her location may be the only ones who can save her.

When Thea learns that Elnora may be in danger, she doesn’t hesitate to go find her. Thea thought stepping through the portal would be her greatest obstacle, but it only reveals a more sinister threat.



Excerpt:


"A red blinking light from the safe room door caught her attention as she placed her toothbrush in the holder and left the bathroom. Purple, silk pajamas slipped through her fingers and landed at her feet. The smooth fabric tickled her toes as she tried to get her legs to cooperate and move towards the door, but she couldn’t move. 

This was not a drill.

Someone was in her house. 

She was such a fool. She shouldn’t have let hope come in and take root, because it came in and caught her with her guard down. This hope turned her whole world upside down. Forcing her feet to move this time, she took a step closer to the door, hoping it was an accident, that Markus made a mistake and triggered the alarm without meaning to. This hope kept her taking another step, and another, even though her heart knew what her mind didn’t want to accept yet. Markus didn’t make those kinds of mistakes. The silent, blinking red light taunted her, beckoned her to come to the door and see for herself. To come and see if this was all a mistake." -Elnora, chapter one. 



Bio:

Erin R. Howard is a developmental editor, fantasy author of The Kalila Chronicles, and has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing/English from Southern New Hampshire University.When she's not writing, Erin enjoys spending time with her family, fueling her craft addictions, and teaching writing workshops.Erin is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and the KenTen Writers Group. She resides in Western Kentucky with her husband and three children.

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Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Kristen Terrette shares a scene from Morning Star




Addie
“I’m supposed to wear that on my head?”
“Totally,” Shane said as if I’d lost my mind a little. “You have to keep your hands free to catch those jokers.” I raised my eyebrows, andhe clarified, “They’re really fast.”
“Ahhh.” I nodded as I put the headlamp on. “I feel like we’re going caving.”
Shane reached to my forehead and turned the lamp on. “That’d be awesome. I’ve never done that before.”
“No way I’m ever doing that. I’ve seen too many horror movies.”
“I’ll add it to my list of things we’re doing together one day. Right after skydiving.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, but at once felt an arrow to my heart.
Unless one of our lives changed in the next week, we’d never even be able to fight over attempting his list of things I’d never want to try. Shane’s expression told me the same realization crossed his mind. I snapped to a different, happier emotion, “So, what now, beach master?”
He grabbed a sand bucket that could have possibly been his as a child. “Beach master?” He opened the door from Gram’s garage leading outside. “I like that nickname. Suits me well.”
“You would think so,” I said as I followed him out, closing the door behind me. Shane transferred the bucket in his other hand and reached back to take mine, staying just in front of me. The warmth of his fingers wrapped around mine spread through my limbs, the rushing along my skin set it ablaze.
Our headlamps, combined with the lights from inside Gram’s, helped us make our way on her path leading alongside the house.
“Kick your sandals off.” He stopped at the edge of the dunes.
I did, then he took up my hand again. “Now what?”
“We walk.” He pulled me north along the ocean. “Trust me, if you keep your head down and pay attention, you’ll see them.”
The second he finished speaking, a white spider crossed right in front of my bare feet. I screamed and gripped Shane’s shoulder. He burst out laughing, and I mock-punched him. “Those things are creepy,” I said with a shudder.
“I know.” He taunted, “Try catching one.”
“With my hands?” I held them out.
He crossed his arms over his chest, and his grin held a challenge. “Yup.”
“Fine.” I looked at the sand, which caused it to light up. I took a few steps and saw one a couple feet away. I went for it, never one to shy away from a dare, and wasn’t even close.
“Told you those jokers are fast.”
I’m fast. I’ll get one.” I grabbed for another and missed.
He got beside me. “You have to predict where they’ll go and reach there, ahead of them.”
It seemed logical. I tried again.
“Better.” He took a few steps, leaning over so far I wondered how his back wasn’t hurting, but it left him close to the sand. His snatched one and stood with his hand fisted. “Got it.” He dropped it into the bucket.
“What do they feel like?”
“They have a shell. But it’s not too hard.”
I peered inside. “It’s almost translucent and…ugly.”
“You don’t want to eat one of those?” He elbowed me. “Kidding. And I’m winning.”
“Not for long,” I said, getting serious. I would not lose a ghost crab catching competition to Shane. We both set out a few feet from each other. I reached and… “I got it,” I squealed as the impulse to throw it back to the ground overwhelmed me. I held on long enough to toss it into Shane’s bucket.
“Nice. But mine’s bigger.” His hearty laugh rang out above the waves as my face reddened with anger.
“You’re impossible,” I said, buta smile crept up without permission.
He leaned over and kissed me on the lips, dissolving my irritation. He pulled back, and instead of saying something enchanting, said, “So. Are. You.”
I turned back to my ghost crab challenge, fleeing his piercing gaze. “You’re reallyirritating, but I am glad you finally let go of that scowl you wore for so long.”
Shane concentrated on where his light hit the sand. “I’m trying. And I’ve made progress, releasing some sadness and filling it with…well…” I looked up at his hesitation, and he shrugged. “You.”
The intensity of his words electrified me. I moved to him. He dropped the bucket and caught me in his arms. I grabbed his face and kissed him with everything in me, setting free the desire I’d longed to act on for weeks. Time was lost on us as he left my mouth and kissed my neck, leaving me fighting for oxygen, suffocating on my need for him. He inched his way back up, and I bent my head to meet him, the eagerness for his lips to be on mine overwhelming—
Until our headlamps knocked together.
The sound and force jolted us apart.
I covered my wide-open mouth, but my voice was stuckin my throat at the hilarity. 
Shane seemed to choke on his ownlaugh before picking up the bucket. “Let’s check out a sea turtle nest on the way back, and then watch those Law and Order reruns.” He pulled me into a side-hug to escort me…home.


Addie McHenry, restoration home builder extraordinaire, catches her big break when the House to Home network contracts her to film a reality TV show focusing on how she brings homes back to life. She sets her sights on one of the oldest on Moanna’s beach and has to risk everything just to get it.


Shane Armstrong moved from Savannah to his grandmother’s Moanna oceanside house when his world shattered five months before. He went on leave from his job as a Coast Guard helicopter rescue swimmer, hopeful his grandmother’s peaceful street will help him heal. The reality TV show’s arrival threatens this serenity.

But the construction and camera crews are nothing compared to Addie herself. She’s tough as nails, challenging, and superbly bossy as she works to get her way. But she’s also kind, hardworking, and has a relationship with God Shane can’t begin to understand.

With each encounter, Shane’s walls start to crumble as Addie brings more than just the historical home back to life, but him as well. Addie tries desperately not to enjoy spending time with the irritable and scowling boy from next door. He hides his heartache well, but she sees it there behind his prickly exterior. Soon she begins to uncover the sacrificial hero underneath the façade.

With both of them only temporary residents on Moanna Island, their thin ice relationship crashes to a halt. Can Shane return to his risky job with the Coast Guard? Does he even want to? And can Addie let him go and follow her dreams even when tragedy strikes?






Kristen holds a Master's degree in Theological Studies and served as a Children's Ministry Director for five years. She cherishes her Southern roots and currently lives forty-five minutes outside of Atlanta, GA. With the support of her husband and two children, she stays at home writing Christian fiction, allowing God to take the story where He needs it to go. She blogs for Wholly Loved ministries at WhollyLoved.com and Crosswalk.com. Shealso loves serving her local church on their women's leadership and teaching team. You can check out her current novels at www.kristenterrette.com.



Twitter Handle: @KTerrette
Instagram: kterrette

Buy Links for Morning Star: 





Tuesday, February 26, 2019

No Time For Apologies


No Time for Apologies

(No Brides Club #5)

  • Paperback: 220 pages
  • Publisher: Upstate NY Romance 
  • (January 29, 2019)
  • ISBN-13: 978-1732183636



Kate Lewis left her family’s dairy farm and fell in love with everything about New York City--especially the high-powered, fast-paced world of finance. Once content to lie in the grass and watch clouds float across the sky, her biggest dream now is to work her way to the top of Wall Street.

Jon Smith is so much more than his plain name implies. He’s also a rising star in the world of finance, on a mission to save his grandfather’s cattle farm, and Kate’s former high school admirer.

When a shocking twist of fate puts these two in direct competition for a job they both covet, the last thing they need is any new sparks of attraction. Too bad fate isn’t done with them yet.

Will they give in to their attraction, or is their newfound rivalry too intense to put aside? Find out in this sweet big city twist on the classic second chance romance theme.

About The No Brides Club Series:

Six no marriage vows. Six Mr. Rights. Will a group of strong, independent women break their pledge to one another and choose love over a career? Each book stands completely on its own, but you'll have more fun if you read them all together!


💕¸.•*´¨ðŸ’• ! 💕¸.•*´¨ðŸ’• The authors have put together a fun giveaway to celebrate the launch of the Brides Club with prizes to help you have an awesome night, whether on the town with your gal pals or at home in your PJs. Enter Today!


My thoughts:  NO TIME FOR APOLOGIES is a modern day sweet romance (not Christian).  Kate is a very cut-throat business management type person that I so could not relate to. Even when I worked in the business world women like Kate had me scurrying in the opposite direction.

Jon was nice, sweet, a bit nerdy, but relatable. He might be a numbers geek but as a farmer and a professor he, well, he was just sweet. I was rooting for  him. For his grandpa. For grandpa's neighbor. His career. Everything. Jon won my heart.  And he worked  well with Kate - a plus. 

Not being a Christian romance there is no faith message, and for the more conservative readers there is a lot of drinking. 

If you are looking for a sweet romance then NO TIME FOR APOLOGIES is one to consider. I did NOT read any of the other books in this series, but this stood alone.

I was given a copy free. All opinions are my own.


Monday, February 25, 2019

Josephine Baker's Last Dance Book Tour


Genre: Historical


Guest post: Why did you write your book?



Working as a journalist for 30-plus years, I made little money--but I gained something more valuable: a conviction that I was making a difference in my community and in the wider world.



During my decades as a newspaper reporter and then as a correspondent for a national news agency, I discovered the power of the written word to tear down, uplift, and transform.



So it makes perfect sense that, when I turned to fiction, I would write books about women who made their mark on the world.



From the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite wife to four sisters who became European queens in the 13th century, my protagonists are movers and shakers. Josephine Baker may be the most important of them all because of all she did for her “people”--the African-American community.



Born in 1906 and raised in the St. Louis slums, she knew racism first-hand, abused by the white woman in whose home she worked at age 7; traumatized by the East St. Louis Race Riots in 1917, when white workers and their families set fire to black families’ homes and shot and lynched those who tried to escape; confronted by men in white hoods and “whites only” signs in the American South as a girl of 13 touring on the black vaudeville circuit, and much more.



In Paris at age 19, she discovered a different world, one in which black people and white ate together, sat in theaters and on streetcars and buses together, danced onstage together, and even married one another. She must have thought she’d died and gone to heaven.



But hatred wasn’t so easy to escape. It followed her: to Paris, where white Americans confronted her and even had her removed from the hotel where she was lodging; to Germany, where Hitler’s Brownshirts threatened her; and all around the world, as she performed her famous “banana dance” in spite of protesters’ calling her a “black demon”—and worse.



By the time the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940, Josephine Baker was already working as a spy for the nascent Resistance movement, seducing generals and diplomats to confide in her, then carrying the information across borders.



Empowered by these experiences, she embarked on her third U.S. tour in 1951 with another goal in mind: to put an end to racial segregation. She publicly declared that she would perform in no nightclubs or theaters and patronize no businesses that segregated their clientele.



As a result, many venues allowed black people through their doors for the first time—and Ms. Baker became the target of an FBI investigation into her alleged ties with the Communist Party. Her outspokenness resulted in many canceled gigs and the loss of a movie deal, and ultimately the loss of her castle in southern France.



She never gave up or expressed any regrets about her activism, though. Indeed, she persisted. In 1963, she was invited to Washington, D.C., to speak at the March on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—the only woman to speak.



I wrote JOSEPHINE BAKER’S LAST DANCE to remind the world that the woman in the banana skirt was so much more than that. Josephine Baker was a force of nature and a force for change, and gave everything she had in effort to make a difference for African-Americans.



By telling her story as well as the stories of all my fictional heroines, I hope to make a difference, too. This is why I exist, and why I write.













Write Now Literaryis pleased to be organizing a book tour for Josephine Baker’s Last Dance by Sherry Jones. The tour will run February 25-March 1, 2019. Book your own tour here

Read the first chapter

ISBN-10: 1501102443
ISBN-13: 978-1501102448

Genre: Historical

About Sherry Jones


Author and journalist Sherry Jones is best known for her international bestseller The Jewel of Medina. She is also the author of The Sword of Medina, Four Sisters, All Queens, The Sharp Hook of Love, and the novella White Heart.  Sherry lives in Spokane, WA, where, like Josephine Baker, she enjoys dancing, singing, eating, advocating for equality, and drinking champagne. 

 About the Book

From the author of The Jewel of Medina, a moving and insightful novel based on the life of legendary performer and activist Josephine Baker, perfect for fans of The Paris Wife and Hidden Figures.

Discover the fascinating and singular life story of Josephine Baker—actress, singer, dancer, Civil Rights activist, member of the French Resistance during WWII, and a woman dedicated to erasing prejudice and creating a more equitable world—in Josephine Baker’s Last Dance.

In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones brings to life Josephine's early years in servitude and poverty in America, her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt, her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington, to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century comes to stunning life on the page.

With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings this remarkable and compelling public figure into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor, a powerful woman who continues to inspire today.

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       Purchase copies Amazon
Tour organized by Write Now Literarywww.wnlbooktours.com






Amelia's Hope (Plain Path Book 2)

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