Christine Amsden's Blog: Christine Amsden Author Blog, page 23

Secrets and Lies Review Blitz Highlights

Here are the highlights from yesterdays amazing review-day blitz with Innovative Online Tours!

 Books, Books, and More Books “OMG!  I reviewed the first book in this series (here) and loved it, but this one was SO much better.”

T B R “Wow where do I begin? I feel awe at Cassie’s deductive abilities and strength and bravery but My heart breaks for her as well. “

Pure Jonel  “Amsden does a great job of introducing new and unique concepts as part of the story’s action rather than as a separate narrative. She keeps you guessing and on your toes throughout with her imaginatively suspenseful storyline. By mixing relationship drama with a murder investigation and a few other twists en route Amsden creates a masterpiece that you won’t be able to put down.”

The Insane Ramblings of a Crazed Writer  ”There are so many layers to the story, Christine has done a fabulous job at ensuring that she has kept everything straight and not overly confusing.”

Love, Laughter, and Friendship  “This series just keeps getting better and better.  I can’t wait to see how book #3 will turn out.  Bring it, Ms. Amsden.  :)”

 Pink Fluffy Hearts “ I can’t wait for the next book to come out. Seriously. I need it right now, please. ”

Lissette E Manning “Another great addition to this series! ”

My Kindle Fever “Christine Amsden draws me in every time with her talent and command of the quill or should I say Keyboard.  I would love to see this series turned into a television series.  I can so see this on the CW! “

Cassie Scot and Secrets and Lies Ebook Sale Today Only

 

 

Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective is $1.99 in ebook format today only:

Buy Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective at Amazon.com

Secrets and Lies is $3.99 in ebook format today only.

Buy Secrets and Lies at Amazon.com

Sale Details

Today is the last day to buy both books in my Cassie Scot series ad a discounted price. This is part of my BOOK BOMB promotion, a celebration of the release of Secrets and Lies. 

For those of you who have read the first book, Secrets and Lies picks up right where it left off. . As in a few days later. Cassie is struggling to find a job, secure her independence, and deal with a man she’s not ready to want.

Review Blitz

In addition, today I’m having a review blitz at Innovative Online Tours. At least 10 new reviews will be popping up all over the Internet…

Secrets and Lies

Cassie Scot, still stinging from her parents’ betrayal, wants out of the magical world. But it isn’t letting her go. Her family is falling apart and despite everything, it looks like she may be the only one who can save them.

To complicate matters, Cassie owes Evan her life, making it difficult for her to deny him anything he really wants. And he wants her. Sparks fly when they team up to find two girls missing from summer camp, but long-buried secrets may ruin their hopes for happiness. Sequel to Cassie Scot:ParaNormal Detective.

From Publisher’s Weekly:

“Amsden continues the story of the only mundane member of a supernaturally-gifted family in this middling sequel to Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective. Cassie, stubborn and proud, is bravely trying to live on her own after her family disowns her. Struggling to make ends meet, she accepts a case involving a pair of magical girls who disappeared from summer camp. With the aid of the handsome Evan Blackwood, to whom Cassie is attracted despite her family’s disapproval and her own better judgment, she follows the trail of the missing girls. What she finds is a dark side of the magical world, and the hidden depths of her family’s past force her to reconsider long-held assumptions. The growing complexity of Cassie’s world makes this an entertaining installment, focusing as much on the will-they, won’t-they romantic chemistry between Cassie and Evan as on the primary mystery. An inconclusive ending is clearly intended to feed into the next volume.”

A Secrets and Lies Book Bomb Celebration

 

Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective

$1.99 November 18th and 19th

Secrets and Lies

$3.99 November 18th an  19th

 That’s right, today is the day! We are BOMBING Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective and its brand-new sequel, Secrets and Lies! Both ebooks are on sale for TWO DAYS ONLY. This is $2 off the regular price. 

I’m calling on friends, family, and fans to help me coordinate a massive buying frenzy today. I’m helping you by reducing the price, but you help me even more by getting those sales numbers up. The more people who buy the book on about the same day, the better! Amazon notices, I get on bestseller lists, I sell more books, and I can write sequels! 

Celebrating All Over the Internet

Tune in tonight at 10:00 CST for a live blogtalk radio interview with Other Worlds of Romance.

Today is the first day for three separate (concurrent) book tours going on for the next 2-3 months. Check them out and be sure to sign up for some terrific prizes:

Pump Up Your Book

(with Kindle Fire Giveaway)

Goddess Fish

(with $50 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway)

My Reading Addiction

(with $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway)

Cassie Scot: Swimming in Reviews!

 

Wow, I’m overwhelmed! I just finished up a review tour for my Cassie Scot AUDIOBOOK and the responses have been amazing.

 

Lissette E. Manning — “I must say that this book is a must-read.”

Sapphyna’s Book Reviews — “Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective is straight up one of the absolute best mystery books I’ve read. ”

Love, Laughter, and Friendship — “Ooooo, Pink loved this book….I can’t wait to read more of Cassie and Evan.  Just wondering how long I have to wait.  *pout*”

Little Miss Drama Queen — “The story was so great, it’s an adventure very much worth getting swept up in. It’s so fun and a great addition to the paranormal genre.”

Books R Us — “ I have always enjoy Audiobooks and the narrator Melissa did a fantastic job. she was able to change her voice to fit the different characters in the book. I was immediately sucked into the storyline and I stayed up way past my bedtime to listen to the story….The book was well written, entertaining and I cannot wait to read (or listen to) the Next book in the series.”

Brroke Blog — “Cassie Scot: Paranormal Detective by Christine Amsden is a book that I’ve read and enjoyed before. I was quite excited to have the chance to review the audio version of the book. I felt like the narrator did a really nice job with the story. It seemed to fit the way that I had felt it would sound. This is a fun story to listen to!”

Pink Fluffy Hearts — “When I was first sent “Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective” by Christine Amsden to review, I was excited. I’ve read detective series in the past that focused on the world of the supernatural, and I was eager for more. Thankfully, I can say that Amsden did not disappoint, and I enjoyed the first book in her detective series.”

Wall to Wall Books — “This is the first book I have read by Christine and I do think I would read another.”

Literal Hottie Naughty Book Reviews — “This is a really fantastic story, think cozy mystery meets urban fantasy. Really awesome from beginning to end!!!”

TBR — “The story is very well written and the narrator does a wonderful job with pace and inflection. I really felt like Cassie was telling me her story and not like I was being read to.I have completely fallen in love with Cassie and Evan, sorry Braden.”

 

I want to thank all these reviewers once again for their wonderful, thoughtful, and insightful reviews!

The Coal Elf: There’s No Place Like Home

What’s the old saying? “Home is where the heart is.” It must be true because one of the prevalent themes in story-telling is the concept of Home – Having one, being a part of one, rejecting one, leaving one, desperately trying to find your way back to one. Humans have an innate honing device that draws us to a nostalgic place of comfort and love. Some of the most influential stories of our time use HOME as a central theme. After having experienced the wonder and glory of Oz, Dorothy said there was no place like it. Her journey brought her to the realization that her black and white world of farm animals and twisters was really where she belonged. Thrust onto an island while the war-torn world around them has no idea of their whereabouts, the children in The Lord of the Flies are in constant pursuit of returning home while in the process, create a home. And more recently, Katniss Everdeen initially strives to win The Hunger Games to go where? Back Home.

In The Coal Elf, Ember Skye deals with this notion of Home from the moment she is called to her Life Job. When she is sent to the Mines, her memories of her life Aboveground grip her so tightly that she is almost blinded by nostalgia. The entire novel follows her path of dealing with those memories, confronting certain realities, and altering her own perceptions as to where she belongs, where she fits in, where she’s meant to be.

So what is HOME? What defines it? For me, it’s an unseen structure made up of memories. Spring birds singing in the morning as I waited for the school bus. Running outside on a cool summer night to flag down the ice cream truck. Standing on tree stumps in my backyard as dead leaves fell from the autumn trees. The smell of my father’s work boots in the hallway. Cuddling with my sister on Christmas Eve. Coming home from school and being so angry with my mother for cleaning up my room. My uncle’s voice booming as he and my mother sang Kenny Rogers’s songs. My concept of Home expands far beyond the actual dwelling itself, and now I’m making a Home for my daughter, hopefully helping to build those memories of love and comfort she will seek refuge in her future.

The Coal Elf

 

Ember Skye is a fed up teenage Coal Elf with a big ashy chip on her shoulder. Having been torn away from a carefree life and forced into a world of dirt and darkness has started to get the best of her. And being the only girl-elf working as a coal miner at the North Pole doesn’t help much either!

Then there’s Sturd: a power-hungry, twisted elf with a checkered past and a serious grudge against Ember. Slowly but surely, his maniacal tendencies are revealed, leaving Ember with the sacred “Naughty List” literally in her lap.

When a mysterious illness threatens to decimate elves both Above and Underground, Ember is thrust into a journey that will see her confront the literal and figurative demons of her past and lead her to the head of the North Pole himself.

Yes! Santa is real. But this isn’t your childhood Christmas tale!

Reviews

“…A story with plenty of twists and turns, the reader is drawn into a world of dust and darkness with tension so strong it can be felt throughout. You will hold your breath at the challenges Ember must face and be pulled along as the plot thickens.” ~ Anne K. Edwards, author of The Last to Fall

“The teenage protagonist of Maria DeVivo’s debut novel, The Coal Elf, published by Twilight Times Books, November 2012, got screwed by “the Boss” of the North Pole. Imagine having your wonderful life and future destroyed when, instead of receiving the job assignment to make toys or bake cookies for a living, you were thrust into a gloomy, underground life of mining coal for the children on the naughty list. Ember Skye stole my heart from the first page as DeVivo describes her life as a Coal Elf and sets up the conflict and her epic battle with the antagonist, Sturd, a despicable, nasty elf who embodies evil.

Throw this conflict, these and a handful of other memorable characters into an incredibly creative North Pole setting, and you have a story that I could not put down. What I particularly enjoyed was DeVivo’s portrayal and extension of Christmas with her creation of a detailed fantasy world where we learn how the North Pole might actually work. This awesome setting is expertly woven into the story so that I was transported into this amazing world as I read.

Do yourself a favor and read The Coal Elf–I highly recommend it. This is one of those books that should be made into a movie (Tim Burton are you listening?). Great characters, engaging plot, believable dialog, wonderful setting and, above all, writing that compelled me to keep turning the pages (that’s what we all really want as readers, right?).” ~Daniel Springer, author of the award-winning The Wilco Project

Amazon Buylink: “The Coal Elf is currently at a special holiday price of $2.99”

AMAZON

 

Connect with DeVivo:

www.mariadevivo.com

www.facebook.com/mariadevivoauthor

@Maria_DeVivo

 

 

Author Bio

Maria DeVivo is a New York native who has had a lifelong love affair with “the pen.” A graduate of St. John’s University, she has a passion for all things mystical and mythological. She has taught 7th grade Language Arts since 2000, and in 2010, designed the curriculum for an academic elective course entitled Folklore, where she was able to share her passion and knowledge on concentrated topics such as folktales and mythology with her students.

Having grown up in a large Irish/Italian family (where Maria is the oldest child, and of course, the wisest) the mystery and wonder surrounding the holidays were a main staple of her upbringing. At the age of seven, when her mother finally admitted “the truth” to her, she has become somewhat of a “Santa-phile”, an obsession that has rooted its way into every fiber of her being. Maria is one of those people who cries when Santa makes His grand appearance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Coupled with an obsession for all things dark and demented, her debut novel, The Coal Elf, was born.

Maria now lives in Florida with her husband, Joe, and daughter, Morgan. When not teaching or writing or running around after her daughter, she enjoys drinking iced coffee, watching horror movies, and playing video games.

 

What is Young Adult Fiction? (And Why Cassie Scot Isn’t)

For someone who doesn’t consider herself to be a young adult fiction writer, I have spent a lot of time in recent months thinking about what young adult means and how to define it as a genre. The reason is simple: Quite a few of my readers are calling Cassie Scot YA. Even my publisher has been classifying the series that way, making me wonder if I should just give in to the pressure and go with the label. I might have done so, except not everyone agrees, and in fact at least one reviewer knocked a star off of her rating because she felt the book was being misclassified as young adult. I couldn’t agree with her more. And she’s not alone, either. Whether people are saying it’s just plain misclassified, or has broad adult appeal, or is really new adult, the one thing I’m sure about is that there’s no consensus.

I don’t want to disagree with anyone, most especially my loyal fans. Every reader is entitled to his or her opinion and of course, I hope a lot of people love this series. I even see where they’re coming from.

But as the author of this series, I think my opinion should count too, and here it is: Cassie Scot is an ADULT fantasy series. Oh sure, I could call it new adult because it is. I’ll discuss the relatively recent “new adult” label in a bit, but the most important thing is that it is NOT a young adult series.

Does this mean that teens shouldn’t read it? Of course not! Teenagers can read books written for adults. (I did!) One of the mistakes I made in my early thinking of the classification issue was in trying to decide whether or not this book is appropriate for teenagers. Well, one, that’s not my call and two, who cares? Adult doesn’t mean NC-17 any more than young adult means PG. The YA label isn’t about standards of morality or appropriateness. I’ve read adult books without so much as a hint of violence, language or sex, and YA books with all three!

I suppose you could say that I’ve spent a lot of time determining what YA isn’t – it isn’t about the age of the main character (although this can be a factor), it isn’t about the age of the intended audience (although aga, it can be a factor), it isn’t about a simple, accessible writing style (which is common in both YA and adult genre fiction), and it isn’t about a light-hearted tone. (Anyone read The Hunger Games?)

Young adult is innocence, and sometimes the loss thereof. It’s about self-discovery in its most basic form. Who am I? What am I? What do I want? What is the meaning of life? These questions follow us well past the teenage years, but there is a qualitative difference in the way they plague us during the awakening years, that time between childhood and adulthood when we truly first start to ask them.

When I read YA (it’s not my go-to genre but I do), I look for a quality I like to call “genuine teen sensibility.” Genuine teen sensibility captures what it’s like to be a teenager, making the story feel particularly relevant to teenagers. But at the same time, this element sparks a memory in us adults, reminding us of what it was like, and therein making the story accessible to a wider spectrum of readers. The fact that more YA fiction has this quality nowadays is probably a big part of why the genre is becoming more accessible to adults.

Twenty-one-year-old Cassie doesn’t feel like she fits into a world of magic because she has none of her own. She’s uncertain about who she is and what she should be, a lot like a character in a YA story. But this isn’t a new dynamic for her. She making forays, taking chances, and has already tried and failed a few times. By chapter one of the first book she’s already tried working for the sheriff’s department, decided that wasn’t going to work, then opened a private investigator business (another lousy idea that’s not going to work out for her, but she doesn’t know it yet). She’s had a boyfriend for three years, and is trying to decide if she’s in love with him. She’s not discovering love for the first time, she’s trying to refine the definition (and in fact, this is a theme that continues throughout the series).

In short, Cassie is an adult – a new one, but an adult. She’s not dealing with first crushes or what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s trying to be what she wants to be when she grows up. Those of us who have been through our twenties have figured out that the process isn’t as smooth as we thought it would be in our teens!

I chose Cassie’s age very carefully and based on a number of factors. On a superficial level, her being 21 should automatically keep her out of the YA group, where it is far more advisable to go with a hero/heroine a year or two older than your target age group. But I didn’t make her 21 to keep this from being YA, I did that because when I thought about how old I was when I started to really figure out who I was, it wasn’t the teens. It was the 20s. I started asking the questions in the teens, but I didn’t even know how to go about finding the answers back then.

Young adult fiction should take us back to the days when we were first asking the hard questions in life, and our first fumbled attempts to answer them.

New adult is a relatively recent genre that acts as sort of a bridge between YA and adult, but the more I learn about this genre the more I think that like YA, it has distinct themes and purposes of its own. And like YA, if it captures the heart of what it’s like to be a new adult, then it can have far broader appeal than the 18-23 age range. I shudder to think that those are the only people who might read this! Especially since I wrote it, at first largely for myself, in my early 30s.

If I didn’t convince you then that’s okay. I hope you still enjoy the books, whoever you are and however old you are. But know that I am writing these books about an adult character learning to become an adult, rather than about a young adult learning not to be a child.

Top Ten Things I’m Sick of Reading About

Last week I compiled a list of things I’m stick of reading about. I asked around for inspiration, but I did not take a poll. These are my personal conclusions. Feel free to reply with some of your own!

1. Rich people. It often seems to me that 99% of the stories are about the top 1% of the population. I get that money makes a lot of other things easier, but it has become a crutch. And, I realized recently, I am particularly sick of feeling like I (representative of comfortably middle class America) am supposed to personally sympathize with the “hardships” that comes with wealth, which brings me to…

2. Poor little rich people who can’t find love because of their money. But if us middle class readers are supposed to love all those heroes for themselves as opposed to their money, why aren’t more of them middle class? (See #1 )

3. Modern-day values in historical settings. When I asked for help coming up with items for this list, modern day feminists who came up in historical settings came up, and I agreed, but I thought there was more to the issue. In a way, it’s understandable. It’s hard for people (and I’m not just picking on writers here, they are writing to an audience after all) to accept that our present-day value system isn’t somehow universal. But it’s not. For me, this issue is a reason that I usually avoid any romance set much before the 1800s, when love became a realistic basis for marriage. But it also rears its ugly head in stories set during Civil War America (especially the ones abut rich Southerners who do not own slaves), and yes, in those long-ago feminists behaving pretty much as us modern feminists do.

4. Protagonists who don’t get pregnant despite having sex five times a day for months on end without any form of contraception. (Could also be… authors who don’t seem to understand the link between sex and pregnancy.) I’ve almost written an entire article about this point alone on several occasions, but it always gets away from me and ends up being too long. So, for the sake of brevity, I’ll leave this here.

5. Related: Infertile protagonists who miraculously become fertile by the end of the story, or who find out they were never infertile to begin with. It is to the point where I very simply DO NOT BELIEVE you when you try to tell me your character is infertile. I have read dozens of stories like this, and in only one (1) very recent instance to the heroine turn out to be infertile. I gave the book a higher rating for pure nerve. Authors: If you want to deal seriously with infertility and the challenge this may pose to a romantic relationship then great, but somehow you’re going to have to convince me early on that you’re not going to work a miracle at the end, because at this point I’m likely to toss the book before I ever find out you meant it.

6. Vampires. Especially the romantic ones.

7. True love/soulmates. I do believe in love, but come on… give me something real. It’s honestly more compelling if you do.

8. The chosen one. Fantasy has really done this one to death. Prophecies in general are a bit overdone, too, and can break the plot far too easily.

9. Serial killers. This was one I’m echoing after at least half a dozen other voices shared it. I’m not sure I’m as sick of them as others, but then, I haven’t sought out this type of book so I haven’t read about them as much. It doesn’t take much to see that they’re everywhere, and probably overdone.

10. Kick-ass female protag. I want to be careful not to confuse this with STRONG female protags. But ever since Buffy, women have gone from being strong in a sane and reasonable way to being Rambo in high heels. And yeah, it’s a bit much.

Guest Blogger Aaron Paul Lazar – “I Do Believe in Spooks!”

I Do Believe in Spooks!

by Aaron Paul Lazar

Living in an antique home has its problems, especially when you’re not a handyman. My father taught me all sorts of wonderful things when he was alive, including passion for the arts, gardening, nature, gourmet cooking, and a good mystery. But he didn’t know much about mechanical, plumbing, electrical, or woodworking skills. Though I’ve tried to learn over the years with self-help books and advice from friends, I remain singularly unhandy, perpetually bowing with an unholy need to the whims of the local plumber and electrician.

Take, for example, the twenty-six windows that are crumbling as we speak. The six by nine inch panes are coming loose from their wooden mullions with alarming frequency. Or the floorboards in our bedroom, a lovely old yellow pine, that poke up like teepees when it’s hot and muggy. Yeah, they need to be treated with poly something-or-other, but for now, the moisture makes them swell. Consider the two wells that sometimes work in concert, except for the hundred times a year I have to run down to the cobwebbed cellar and reset the breakers or tap on the pump to make it work.

The disadvantages are many.

But, there are also benefits, such as the three working fireplaces. Or the soil that surrounds the property, rich and black, untouched by bulldozers. It’s not like the hard packed fill they put in new housing tracts. I don’t need amend this soil. I just need to keep up with the produce and flowers.

Most intriguing of all, however, is the rich history.

Our house was built in 1811 by Dr. John Hunt. I admit, compared to many homes in Europe it’s just an infant. But in terms of our country and its young age, 1811 isn’t exactly contemporary. Think about it. This house was built and lived in over fifty years before the civil war!

Imagine the births, deaths, dramas, romances, and heartaches that occurred within these rooms. Did the inhabitants suffer from small pox? Starvation? Were they affluent? How many horses or cows did they own? And how many ghosts linger in these plaster and lathe walls?

Let’s examine the past 100 years. We live on Hunts Corners, named for the original owner of our home. My daughter Allison and I have found his grave and that of his descendants in an ancient cemetery on a nearby hill.

According to an elderly neighbor, over seven people have died on Hunts Corners. Traffic accidents. Drivers not stopping for the all-way stop signs, or sliding on ice, or drunk drivers plowing right into the telephone pole. Sad to think about. Makes you wonder about their spirits. Did they ascend to Heaven? Or do a few guilty souls remain in the area, confused and wandering, seeking the path to redemption?

Recently, I began to ponder another death disclosed to me by a neighbor. We began to correspond after he read a few of my books. He’s a bright and entertaining young fellow who happens to be a voracious reader. We clicked. And we chat back and forth about books and life and sometimes about the history of our area.

It seems Hunts Corners has a mystery all its own, stemming from the early 1900s. As the story goes, my young neighbor’s great grandmother noticed something odd one day. (I’ll invent names to protect the innocent or guilty as the case may be.) While going about her daily chores, Mabel McAvey realized she hadn’t seen the young girl who lived next door in a long time. Anna no longer attended school, and rarely made an appearance outside the home. When she finally caught a glimpse of the girl, Mabel noticed a thickening in her middle, well-wrapped by heavy garments. She suspected the girl was with child. In that era, a pregnancy out of wedlock was unthinkable. Shameful. A sin. The family would endure public humiliation if news got out. So Anna was sequestered for nine long months as Mabel spied on her and watched the child grow in her belly.

When the time came for the baby to be born, there was no activity in the house. No child was seen. No doctor arrived. All was quiet.

Speculation grew. Was the child stillborn? Or worse, was she murdered by a family cloaked in shame? Rumors were that the little baby was buried behind Anna’s house.

Since then, there have been reports of children pointing behind the house, exclaiming about the “little girl in the weeds.” My neighbor’s six-year-old daughter “saw” her, with no prompting.

“Daddy? Who’s that little girl in the weeds? Can I play with her?”

My friend saw no one, and this happened many times. His daughter clearly saw someone out there.

So, although no adults have seen her, I think I might have, last winter.

I rose early to photograph our Christmas lights. They were unusually festive last year, better than all past years. We’d added a few light-up deer to graze in splendor on the snowy lawn, and I was bound and determined to capture the scene during the blackest of night.

It was a clear, chill morning. Five A.M. Not a breeze stirred. Most households were fast asleep. Few cars passed by.

I brought my trusty Canon Powershot outdoors and took dozens of photos. Later, when I viewed them on my PC, I saw the ghost. There she was, looking straight at me with wide open eyes. Filmy, transparent, but with a clear face and body. Only two shots revealed her, although I took dozens that morning.

These photos are untouched, straight from the camera card. And yes, I know there’s probably a scientific explanation. Maybe the light from the flash illuminated ice crystals in the air, causing a momentary illusion. Maybe it reflected off my frozen breath that puffed into the night. Maybe – who knows? She sure looked real. Can you see her? In the first photo, she has a long neck like ET and looks rather surprised. In the second, her Casper-like face is hovering over the car. See it?

Last night I woke to a tapping sound. Usually it’s Balto in his bed, scratching an itch and thumping up against the wall. I rose to check, but he lay still, mouth open, breathing evenly.

Could it be my grandson knocking on the door? I looked. No little boy stood silhouetted in the dark. All was quiet.

I tumbled back to bed, ready to snuggle in and resume the great dream I’d been having that took me away to exotic colorful locales and luscious meals.

The tapping resumed.

I rose up and stared outside. Headlights flashed by, briefly pouring cones of light into the darkness. Was that a flash of white? A face? Or simply a reflection on the rain-soaked street?

The tapping returned. Rhythmic. Evenly spaced. Over and over again.

Something was outside my window. On the second floor. Twenty feet above the ground.

Could it be the little girl, needing to connect with me and spill her story?

Icy fingers tap-danced down my spine. I burrowed beneath the covers and closed my eyes tight.

I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do believe in spooks. 

 

And now the latest from Aaron Paul Lazar…

 

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Finn McGraw disagrees.

He was just seventeen when he had a torrid summer affair with the girl who stole his heart—and then inexplicably turned on him, just before being sent to boarding school. Finn may have moved on with his life, but he’s never forgotten her.

Now, ten years later, he’s got more than his lost love to worry about. A horrific accident turns his life upside down, resurrecting the ghosts of his long-dead family at the same time it takes the lives of the few people he has left.

Finn always believed his estranged brother was responsible for the fire that killed their family—but an unexpected inheritance with a mystery attached throws everything he knows into doubt.

And on top of that, the beguiling daughter of his wealthy employer has secrets of her own. But the closer he gets, the harder she pushes him away.

The Seacrest is a story of intrigue and betrayal, of secrets and second chances—and above all, of a love that never dies.

 

Buy The Seacrest at Amazon

Book Review: The Midnight Bride

In the final volume of the St. Leger series, Kate is in love with Val. But Val has been told by the bride finder in no uncertain terms that there is no one for him. That he will always be alone. And St. Legers have to marry whoever the bride finder chooses for them — or no one at all. To do otherwise is to bring a curse down upon themselves and their spouse.

But Kate loves Val, and has done so all her life. So she casts a love spell on him.

Meanwhile, an old family enemy, Rafe, has returned to exact vengeance on Val. Only something goes wrong. Part of his soul goes inside Val, and part of Val’s soul goes inside him.

I almost went three stars on this one because there is a glaring plausibility issue. I can’t tell you exactly what it is without turning spoilers on, but I will say this: I saw it coming from a mile away but when I got there, the one thing I wanted to know was, “Why?” And I never got an answer.

There were parallel stories going on here — Val with Kate and Rafe with a widow and her son. I found Rafe’s story to be the more compelling of the two, even though it was meant to be secondary. The villain in search of redemption angle was well done, and I totally bought it here.

Overall, and if I could get that silly plausibility problem out of my head, this is the best book in the series. I recommend.

 

Rating: 3.5/5

Title: Midnight Bride (St. Ledger #3)

Author: Susan Carroll

ISBN: 0345436369

Published December 2006

…And Love Conquers All

The idea that love magically conquers all is quickly becoming my second least favorite ending. Deus ex machina does, of course, take the prize, but despite the fact that there is a genre expectation in romance that love can conquer all, I wonder if it is not a little “god machine” itself.

It’s magic. Whether love conquers all in a literal fantasy or in a book shelved under contemporary romance, it’s a wave of the hand followed by, “and they lived happily ever after.”

You could argue that this is exactly the sort of magic that romance readers expect, and that they willingly suspend disbelief for the cherished fairy tale. And you’d probably be right. Maybe I should just turn off my brain and go with it…

But I’ve realized recently that I’m a pragmatic romantic. I just made that term up. It’s not a thing, as far as I know. Maybe it should be.

I love a solid love story. I love feeling like two people have fallen in love. And I love to feel like that love is based in some real, measurable truth.

That’s why I think love is a verb. It’s something you have to work for… work at… and by that I mean forever, not just until happily ever after.

That’s the pragmatist in me.

The romantic in me says love doesn’t have to do the conquering. People… two people working together towards a common goal… can conquer a great deal. So don’t just toss aside problems like they don’t matter if you have love. They do matter. And love doesn’t conquer all, love is what happens as a result of the conquering.