Ashes in the Sky Review + #Giveaway

Ashes in the Sky

Fire in the Woods Series

Book #2

Jennifer M. Eaton

Genre: YA Romantic Science Fiction

Release Date: March 15, 2016

Publisher: Month9Books

ISBN: 978-1942664413

ASIN: B01AR4ZK5S

Pages: 331

Goodreads Rating: 4.86

My Rating: 4.5

Book Description:

After inadvertently saving the world, eighteen-year-old Jessica Martinez is ready to put adventure behind her and settle back into the familiar routine of high school.

Though when she’s offered an opportunity to photograph the inside of an alien space ship, Jess jumps at the chance. After all, she’d be crazy to turn something like that down, right?

Spending time with David on the ship has definite advantages and the two seem to pick up right where they left off. But when Jess discovers a plot to sabotage David’s efforts to establish a new home for his people on another planet, neither David’s advanced tech nor Jess’s smarts will be able to save them.

ASHES IN THE SKY is an action-packed, romantic Sci Fi adventure that will leave readers screaming for more.

My Take on the Book:

Oh mah lawwddie

This book was literally one massive tear jerker for me. I kinda wish I hadn’t waited this long to read it because a tear jerker and a cold does not make for a happy nose lol.

On that note, I wasn’t absolutely crazy about book 1. I found that I really liked the concept but the execution felt like it was lacking. It didn’t have the drive and for lack of better words but personality and character as book 2. Everything about book 1 that I wasn’t a fan of either went poof or made book 2 all the better.

I feel like the characters got a better chance at developing. While I was reading Fire in the Woods, I couldn’t connect with our main characters until literally the very very end. But book 2 managed to wow me and make me feel for these characters and what they needed to accomplish. Every moment between them left me emotionally invested.

I honestly hope this is not the last of these characters!

In this book you are reintroduced to the main characters of the last book but you get a slightly more mature version. A tougher and slightly smarter version. You also get a glimpse into some characters from book 1 that didn’t get a chance to connect with the reader and boy am I glad that I did. 

 4.5 Quills

If there was a reward for most innovative Sci-Fi, this one definitely be in the running. I felt like this was a massive improvement because I was able to connect with Jess and David in ways that I couldn’t bring myself to do in book 1. In Fire in the Woods, I was just reading about any ole characters, I was kind of just going through the motions but in this follow, the characters felt more solid and developed. A definite improvement! I also enjoyed the action and descriptions more in this book then the last! It was ‘out of this world’… I need to stop making these horrible puns I know!

BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon

B&N | Kobo | TBD

About The Author

Jennifer M. Eaton hails from the eastern shore of the North American Continent on planet Earth. Yes, regrettably, she is human, but please don’t hold that against her. While not traipsing through the galaxy looking for specimens for her space moth collection, she lives with her wonderfully supportive husband and three energetic offspring. (And a poodle who runs the spaceport when she’s not around.)

During infrequent excursions to her home planet of Earth, Jennifer enjoys long hikes in the woods, bicycling, swimming, snorkeling, and snuggling up by the fire with a great book; but great adventures are always a short shuttle ride away. Who knows where we’ll end up next?

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Sugar Skulls Book Blitz Excerpt + #Giveaway

Sugar Skulls
Glenn Dallas & Lisa Mantchev

Publisher: Skyscape
Release Date: November 10th 2015
Genre: New Adult Dystopian Science Fiction

Book Description:

Welcome to Cyrene, a city where energy is currency and music is the lifeblood of its young citizens. Everyone lives on the grid, and the residents of the world’s largest playground are encouraged to pursue every physical and emotional pleasure imaginable.

Vee is the lead singer of the Sugar Skulls, an all-girl band that is Corporate’s newest pet project. Micah haunts the city like a ghost after an overdose of a deadly illegal street drug knocks him off the grid. When Micah and Vee forge an immediate, undeniable connection, their troubled worlds collide.

Trading concert stages for Cyrene’s rooftops and back alleys, they have to evade vicious thugs and Vee’s possessive manager as they unravel the mysteries connected to their dark pasts. And before the curtain falls, Micah and Vee will bring the city to its knees in their desperate bid for love, home, and a future together.

EXCERPT:

M

My shirt’s open in a flash, and her lips are on me, her tongue tracing hot little swirls along my skin. My arms close around her, one hand still buried in her hair, the other stroking along her spine, fingertips trailing along the exposed skin, and she shivers despite the warmth radiating from her.

She’s a whirlwind, a hungry, passionate, desperately fuckable whirlwind, and I’m swept up in her wake.

The only furniture in the room is a little bench against the wall, since you need the space for couples, trios, and other gatherings of willing bodies. I sit down quickly, pull her closer, my hands on her ass as she climbs onto my lap, straddling me. Her afterthought of a shirt brushed aside, her chest against mine, I can feel her heart pounding like a speaker about to blow out.

Grabbing two fistfuls of my hair, she yanks my head back, exposing my neck. She chuckles as she kisses along my jawline, then bites . . . not too hard, but not gently, either, like she’s marking me as hers.

Her hands run down my neck and across my chest, her fingernails grazing my skin, one hand resting on the tattoo emblazoned over my heart. She pauses a moment and whispers the top name aloud— “Bryn”—before her mouth meets mine again. My eyes slam shut as I lose myself in her lips, her tongue, her little gasps for breath before she dives in for more. Our hands roam and grasp and tease, but it’s all background to one endless, ravenous kiss. She’s insatiable, a five-story drop, and I take the plunge, succumbing to gravity and falling falling falling with her.

She tastes like hard liquor and candy and sex and longing and . . . something else. Every brush of her tongue against mine makes it sharper, until it’s all I can think about, until even the promise of a gorgeous girl against me fades.

Apples. She tastes like apples.
Fuck. No.
I tense up and pull away from the kiss, and for the second time

tonight, I think I’ve surprised her. She leans close as if to kiss me again, only to purr in my ear, a rolling seductive sound that gives me shivers.

But the spell is already broken.

Velvet curtains. Bryn. Apples.
Someone in the club is dealing applejack.

“Did you take something? Did you take little green translucent tabs of something?”

Her warm breath finds my ear once more. “I’m sorry, love, I only had the one. But I can get more, enough for both of us, and—”

“Where? Where did you get it?” I shout with a fury that startles us both.

She leans back and takes a moment before answering. “From Adonis. The guy on the dais. He gave me a taste while we were danc—” “I need you to listen to me.” I stand up, awkwardly dragging her to her feet, and I grab her face with both hands. Locking eyes with her. Hazel. Clear. No ruptured blood vessels, no discoloration. Doing quick calculations in my head: skin temperature, time elapsed since she took the tab. If something bad was going to happen . . . It would’ve by now. Lucky girl. “Take anything, anything you want. Sample anything else in the whole place and get as blissed out as you like, but please, please don’t

ever touch that rancid garbage ever again. It will fuck up your soul.” She looks baffled by my spur-of-the-moment plea. I’m sure I would, too, in her place. I pull her close and kiss her again—a gift for me, an

apology for her—and then I bolt.
Making a beeline for the illuminated dais at the center of the Palace

of Wonders, I have no problem spotting him, even if we’ve never crossed paths before. Shirtless, crowned, grinding against a pair of waify young things wearing bioluminescent body paint and spaced-out smiles.

I hustle up the glowing side stairs and onto the platform, barging in on the soon-to-be threesome. “Hey, apologies, ladies, but I need a moment with His Majesty.”

The glow-in-the-dark sexpots step aside, dazed eyes already looking for a new plaything, and he looks suitably pissed. But three magic words make it all better.

“I can pay.”

He sizes me up—torn shirt with no buttons, half-mauled chest, dark jeans with a little bit of roof dust still clinging to the legs—and shrugs, gesturing me toward a side exit. “Fun inside, business outside.”

We step out into the heavy mist of the alley, and the door shuts behind us. Standing with his back to me, he reaches into both pockets. From one, he pulls a handful of silvertip sticks and a lighter; from the other, a stack of green-tinted tabs, individually wrapped and ready to share. “What’s your pois—”

I don’t give him the chance to finish, charging him as he turns and slamming him against the opposite wall. His head bounces off the brick. I’m ranting away in my head, bordering on raving.

That’s for the girl in the alcove and Bryn and Rina and every other person you’ve torn to pieces with this fucking life-ruining shit . . .

He collapses to the ground, drugs still in hand, and I lean close, almost snarling. “Where’d you get this? Huh? Who’s your supplier?” I snatch the whole stack from him, cracking one tab open and sparking the lighter beneath it.

The applejack flares up in an instant, burning hotter than I expect, and I drop it into the garbage can against the wall, dumping the other tabs in after it. Each one bursts into flame with a whoosh, incinerated in seconds. This is some potent shit.

I turn back toward the scumbag dealer. “Who keeps you stocked? Is it Re—”

He punches me in the leg, and pain arcs through me. I crumple to the ground in a heap, twitching.

Fuck. Took too long. My hand still clutches the lighter tight, the nerves frozen and nonresponsive. I can’t even speak.

Standing now, he kicks me in the gut, hard. He leans down and smiles, showing me the glowing set of knuckles on his hand. Brights. Should’ve known. Then two furious kicks to the chest, punctuating them with “should kill you for that” and “wasted all my best shit.” I’m still so rattled by the shock from his modified knucks, I can’t cry out. I wheeze, trying to get my breath back, and he gives me three more kicks, just for good luck, I guess.

The security door swings open, and His Majesty instantly steps away from me. Blinded by the light from the doorway, I can barely make out the shape of the bouncer. “What’s going on out here?”

Slick as bacon grease, His Majesty goes into spin mode. “Guy wanted a hit of riprap and got a little aggressive, that’s all.”

“Should I bring him inside and call the greys?”

Fuck.

But saving his own ass saves mine by accident. “Naw, let him sleep it off in the alley. You know how these little tweakers can be.”

Curled up in pain, I’m in no position to argue. I just lie there on the cold, damp asphalt as he spits in my face and struts through the security door. It slams shut behind him, and everything goes dark.

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About The Authors

When not working on puzzles for Penny Press or writing about them for PuzzleNation, Glenn Dallas is an author of short stories and at least half of one novel. After appearing in the acknowledgments of several outstanding novels, he looks forward to returning the favor in the future.

Lisa Mantchev is the acclaimed author of Ticker and the Théâtre Illuminata series, which includes Eyes Like Stars, nominated for a Mythopoeic Award and the Andre Norton Award. She has also published numerous short stories in magazines, including Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Weird Tales, and Fantasy. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State with her husband, children, and horde of furry animals. Visit her online at www.lisamantchev.com.

Connect with Lisa & Glen 

Lisa: 

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

Glenn: 
Website / Twitter

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Krymzyn Book Blitz Excerpt + #Giveaways

Krymzyn
BC Powell 

Release Date: October 4th 2014
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult, Science Fiction

Synopsis:

Chase was twelve the first time he arrived in a strange land where dark, ominous clouds never move, ancient trees violently spring to life during Darkness, and people seem to live without emotion. Doctors tell him they’re hallucinations, but he knows his visits are real. She’s there-Sash-and she’s more real than anyone he’s ever known.

His visits stop but, as years pass, the memories haunt Chase. Without warning, the young man suddenly finds himself again in a world called Krymzyn. Arriving during Darkness, he’s rescued from death by the extraordinary, beautiful but terrifying young woman he first met when he was twelve.

When Chase is thrust into the war of balance against vile creatures who threaten all who live there, Sash helps him understand his purpose in Krymzyn. A dark secret from the beginning of time reveals he might be able to stay there forever. To prove he belongs in Krymzyn and be with the only woman he can ever love, Chase will have to risk his own life in the ultimate battle.

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Excerpt From Krymzyn 

Two golden-haired figures, a man and a woman holding spears in their hands, walk up the hill towards us. Two children—one an adorable girl with straight jet-black hair framing her round face, maybe twelve or thirteen, and a handsome boy, ten or eleven, stocky, with curly black hair—suddenly dart past the adults. Sash turns to see what I’m looking at.
“Keepers,” Sash says, “with two of our children.”
The Keepers stop halfway up the crimson hill, but the children keep sprinting towards us. The girl’s stride is long and sleek, her speed stunning as she races up the grassy slope. Her face reminds me of my sister at that age as I get a closer look. The boy is wilder, with less control in his young gait, although it’s strong and steady. Fierce determination flows from their amber eyes.
“I thought everyone spends Communal alone,” I say.
“Not the children,” Sash replies.
They stop a few feet in front of us and both quickly bow. Sash nods her head, and I smile to them. They stare at me with a mixture of curiosity and distrust.
“The Teller is well balanced,” Sash says to the children. “There’s no need for fear.”
“In my world,” I say, “I compete in something we call cross-country, a race of speed across hills. Both of you would be champions.”
“Champions?” the girl asks after the word dissipates.
“Winners of the race,” I answer. “Those who finish first.”
“I believe Chase the Teller is praising your speed,” Sash explains.
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “That’s exactly what Chase the Teller is doing.” 
Both kids bow to me in obvious gratitude, glance at one another, and suddenly fling their bodies to the ground. They cross their arms over their chests, stiffen their legs, and roll away down the hill. I’m surprised by the lack of smiles on their faces or laughter filling the air, just the continued look of determination. It’s a test to them, not a whimsy as it would be on Earth.
The girl is the first to reach a flat area partially down the side of the steep hill. She leaps to her feet and bolts towards the Keepers with no stagger at all from dizziness. The boy sprawls onto the flat ground, catching himself with fingers dug into the grass just before he slides off the ledge to another steep part of the hill. He pulls himself forward, springs into a crouch, narrows his eyes, and sprints after the girl. When both children reach the Keepers, the four walk down the hill away from us.
“I believe Tela, the girl,” Sash says to me, “will be a Traveler when her purpose is revealed. She has great speed and a strong mind.”
“Traveler?” I ask.
“Travelers are the fastest of all in Krymzyn. They take things across the Delta and travel between the Delta and the Mount.”
“What about the boy?”
“He’s quite brave,” she answers. “Cavu is a bit reckless, but he already demonstrates mature respect for our trees. He has a tremendous desire to protect the Delta. I believe he’ll be a Watcher, although I don’t know for certain yet.”
I study Sash’s face and eyes. “Do you know things before they happen?” I ask, pretty sure I already know the answer to the question.
“Some things,” she says. When she looks down at the bottom of the hill again, a shadow of sadness falls over her face. “I’m shown visions. They’re like glimpses from waking dreams. While Tela rolled down the hill, I saw streaks of blue in her hair—the color of a Traveler. I know when Darkness is near. I can feel it inside me. Sometimes, I see something directly in front of me that will soon happen as though it’s happening in that instant, and I can change the outcome before it actually occurs.”
“Do other people here see these things?” 
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Only me.”
“Is it hard on you?” I ask, reacting to the pain evident on her face. 
Turning her face to me, she seems surprised by my question. “You’re the only person to ever ask me that.”
“I don’t mean to be nosy—too personal,” I say.
“I don’t mind,” she replies. “It feels right to talk to you about these things.”

AUTHOR BIO: 

BC Powell is a fantasy author from Los Angeles, CA. "Krymzyn" is his debut science fiction fantasy novel, the first book in a series titled "The Journals of Krymzyn."

Powell has a diverse background, having held several creative positions in the entertainment industry, including executive roles at ABC-TV and Technicolor. In recent years, he's authored several non-fiction works, primarily educational books and training programs for trading the financial markets. He dual majored in journalism and philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Writing fiction has been his lifelong passion and goal. "Krymzyn" is his first published novel and represents, in his words, "finally finding the story I want to tell with characters that are able to bring that story to life." He's an avid reader and lists Ernest Hemingway, Frank L. Herbert, Stephen King, Jane Austen, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. as his favorite authors.

Brad, as he prefers to go by in personal communication, lives with his longtime girlfriend, three sons from a previous marriage, and their rescue dog and cat. He enjoys hiking, ocean kayaking, spending time at Southern California beaches, movies, and reading.

Author links:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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Review on Beautiful Wreck by Larissa Brow

Beautiful Wreck

Larissa Brown

Genre: Science Fiction

Release Date: February 1, 2014

ISBN: 9781937513313

ASIN: B00I6SA40O

Pages: 459

Goodreads Rating:  4.69

My Rating: 5

Book Description:

In a bleak future built on virtual reality, Ginn is a romantic who yearns for something real. She designs environments for people who play at being Vikings. But when her project goes awry, she’s stranded in the actual 10th century, on a storybook farm in Viking Iceland.

Heirik is the young leader of his family, honored by the men and women who live on his land. But he is feared and isolated because of a terrible curse. Ginn and Heirik are two people who never thought they would find a home in someone else’s heart.

When forces rise against them to keep them apart, Ginn is called on to decide—will she give up the brutal and beautiful reality of the past? Or will she have the courage to traverse time and become more of a Viking than she ever imagined?

My Take On The Book:

First and foremost, I must admit to a constant struggle while reading this book. On more than one occasion, I had to stop myself from reading ahead to the end of the story in order to prepare myself for what was to come. It was just that emotional, I admit to crying too much.

There was some predictability and a lot of unanswered questions but, it was really beautiful. I felt giddy and just a tad bit childish in the scenes between Ginn(Jen) and Heirik. It was sweet and innocent and as I’ve said before… beautiful. The way the characters start as innocent people and their relationship develops into a steamy, breathtaking, and loving couple is just awe-inspiring.

I fell for Heirik along with Ginn and grew to love each character as she did. The title is also another aspect that I loved about this book. At first glance, it seems like nothing special but after reading the story you come to realize that it holds a great significance to the story, one of which, you probably won’t understand unless you read the story through.

5 Quills

By far one of my favorite reads. A great book with a moving storyline, lots of symbolisim and admirable characters… Proof of the author’s talent. I look forward to reading more from this author.

About The Author 

Larissa's first novel, Beautiful Wreck, will be published on February 1, 2014. Beautiful Wreck is a time travel love story set in a bleak future and in 10th century Viking Iceland. She's already hard at work on a companion book set in the same world.

An eclectic reader, Larissa's favorite book this year was A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. She reads speculative fiction, romance, historical fiction and craft books, and has a special love for knitting stitch dictionaries. A two-time craft author, Larissa has published books, articles and designs with a variety of knitting-related publications. She independently publishes her hand knitting designs.

She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband Martin and son Sebastian, adorable loser-of-hand-made-hats.

Thanks for stopping by,

 “I received a free copy of the book from the author/publisher for my honest opinion. I was in no way compensated for this review and all opinions are expressly my own”