Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 61
October 9, 2024
Blog Tour: BUBBA AND SQUIRT'S THE LEGEND OF THE LOST PEARL'S by Sherry Ellis
Journey to the past!
Bubba & Squirt’s The Legend of the Lost Pearls
Bubba and Squirt Book 5
by Sherry Ellis
Genre: Middle Grade Adventure
Journey to the past!
Bubba and Squirt embark on their most dangerous quest yet.Whisked away through the vortex to Japan, they must find two fabled pearls thathold the key to saving their father.
To top it off, they must go back and change the events of thepast. As they race against time, the fate of their father, and their own lives,hang in the balance.
Will they outwit the cunning creatures that stand in theirway or face their own demise trying to save their father?
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**Don’t miss the rest of the adventures of Bubba andSquirt!**
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Bubba and Squirt were still on amission to save their dad. The two land in Japan to find the lost pearls of thesea. With winking frogs, sand serpents, and a tsunami, story is a wild andmagical adventure! What fun! A quick and easy read!
Rating:4 stars
Sherry Ellis is an award-winning author and professionalmusician who plays and teaches the violin, viola, and piano. When she is notwriting or engaged in musical activities, she can be found doing householdchores, hiking, or exploring the world. Ellis haspreviously published Bubba and Squirt's Big Dig toChina; Bubba and Squirt's Mayan Adventure; Don't Feed theElephant; Ten Zany Birds; That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN; and ThatMama is a Grouch. Ellis lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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$20 Amazon
October 8, 2024
Book Blast: SPIRAL by Randy Dean Noble
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
They’re in the number one watched game in the world… or so they were told. But they have no memory of who or where they are. Something beyond their wildest imaginations awaits to mercilessly strike them down. And looming in the darkness is something worse... much worse.
Green—named after the color of car he's driving—awakens on the side of a dark highway surrounded by dense forest. And he's in an old muscle car with no way to tell time, no cell phone, and the radio doesn’t work. When he encounters others like himself, they have to join forces to unravel the mystery surrounding them. Yet, trust doesn't come easily—someone amongst them is a saboteur.
With their lives at stake, they are compelled to engage in a race where being last means certain death. They must disentangle the truth that threatens to consume them, before they spiral out of control.
Spiral is a gripping tale of survival, coalition, and the terrifying secrets that lie hidden in the shadows.
Prepare for a rip-roaring, adrenaline-fueled ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.
If you enjoy books by authors like Dean Koontz and Blake Crouch that involve supernatural thrills laced with fast-paced action, then check out Randy Dean Noble's exciting horror thriller, Spiral, today.
Read an Excerpt
A high-pitched scream pierced the air. And it wasn’t the creature. It was a human scream. A woman’s scream.
I ran. It was very close.
“Justin,” Blue said. “WAIT!”
I ran full tilt, Blue’s words not an option. Without a thought about the creature, I dashed out onto the highway, outside the protective barrier. The scream had come from the left.
It was pitch black, but I still had the flashlight from the bunker. I turned the light on, pointed it up the highway, and bolted forward.
I heard a car start up. Probably Blue.
I didn’t know I could run so fast, and I wasn’t panting too heavily yet. The checkpoint was a white glow above the tree line when I turned my head and glanced back while continuing to run forward.
And then there it was, Black’s car. She had stopped right in the lane, and all I could think of was someone or something had blocked her path. Otherwise, why didn’t she pull over to the shoulder? As I came up to her car, I panned the flashlight. There were no skid marks—she didn’t slam on the brakes.
The driver’s side door was wide open.
Darkness encompassed the area like a shroud, like a living thing closing in. Without my light, I’d be tripping over myself.
A car rumbled nearby, getting louder. Headlights soon blazed around me, which was a relief, the darkness no longer pushing at my back. I didn’t wait, flashing my light inside Black’s vehicle. Nothing seemed out of place, no sign of a struggle, no blood.
About the Author:
Randy Dean Noble is a supernatural thriller kind of guy. He grew up in Canada on a slew of movies and books (action/adventure, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy), all of which have inspired his writing interests. Working a plethora of minimum wage jobs took Randy into computer science and a career in I.T. (because he didn't want to eat PB&J for the rest of his life). But his passion has always been writing, and his dream is to be a full-time fiction author. He writes stories he wants to read, which end up as fast-paced thrilling escape stories meant for one thing: to entertain the reader from beginning to end. His most recent work, Spiral, is a horror thriller wild ride you won't soon forget.
Website: http://www.randydeannoble.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RandyDeanNoble
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@randydeannoble
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/randydeannoble/
Buy Link: https://mybook.to/BMTJgXQ
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Blog Tour: DYING FOR MONET by Claudia Riess
DYING FOR MONET
Claudia Riess
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GENRE: Mystery
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BLURB:
Dyingfor Monet, book 5 of Riess’s art history mystery series, opens on a galaevening auction at Laszlo’s, an upstart auction house in New York City. After amuch sought-after Impressionist still life painting is without notice withdrawnfrom the auction block, its broker is found dead at the foot of an imposingstatue in Laszlo’s courtyard. Amateur sleuths Erika Shawn and Harrison Wheatleyare once again drawn into an investigation involving an art-related homicide,this time with one sharing an unnerving coincidence with violent crimesoccurring abroad.
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ExcerptThree:
For a short while they ate in a silence broken only by thesoft clatter of utensils and restrained exclamations of praise, the meal morethan living up to its aromatic overture. Yet, beneath the silence there was aninsensate hum of anticipation, like an underlying spice that defines a dish,but can’t quite be identified.
Erika was slicing into a tender fragment of chicken;Harrison, scooping up a forkful of buttered noodles; Greg, wiping his lips withhis napkin—when Robin, staring down at her plate, suddenly blurted, “Ivan andI—we were having a squabble.” She looked up. “It wasn’t much of anything at thestart, but it escalated. We were having dinner. Right where we are now, at thistable.” She seemed to marvel at the coincidence. “I complained, not veryadamantly, that he was spending a lot of time in Manhattan—too much time. Hesaid he was ‘learning the ropes.’ I remember thinking, how odd, I’ve neverheard him use that phrase.” She studied her plate again. “I told him he didn’tshare things with me. What was he doing at Laszlo’s? Who were his colleagues? Ibecame agitated. I asked him if he was having an affair.” She sucked in herbreath, as if someone other than herself had surprised her with that statement.
“He was stunned by my accusation. At a loss. For a minute hewas silent, and then he said, ‘An affair? You want to know what I haven’tshared with you? Something personal? All right, I’ll let you in on my secret,my only secret, but you have to swear you’ll keep it to yourself. It concernsthe contract between me and one of my clients. I’m going against my word, here,you understand. I gave Mr. Keller my word I’d keep it between us.’ It wasessential, Ivan said. Essential.”
Robin picked up her fork and began pushing a morsel ofchicken around on her plate, poking at it, as if to get a response out of it.“What was I thinking?” She let the fork drop onto the plate and looked up. “Ican’t talk about this. I swore not to. There was a reason not to tell. A dangerin telling.” She shook her head. “Greg, Greg, I was drunk with grief when Ishared this with you. I know you’ll keep your word. Erika, Harrison, I’m sorry.I’ll give you anything else but this. Not this.”
Erika was sitting next to Robin. She laid her hand on hers.Robin placed her free hand on Erika’s and kept it there. Erika nodded herunderstanding, inwardly begging Robin to recant. The plea went unanswered.
A short time later, after acceding to Robin’s remorsefulinsistence they partake of her apple pie à la mode and coffee, the satedvisitors were back on the road, heading toward Manhattan.
All three were seated in the back of the car, Erika betweenthe men. Bill had taken it upon himself to shut the partition separating himand his passengers so that they could converse in private.
For a while silence ruled. Then, not quite breaking it,Erika turned to Greg, on her left, and, cocking her head ever-so-slightly,fixed him with an imploring look.
“No,” Greg said.
“Just thought I’d ask,” she answered. “I understand.” Sherested her head on Harrison’s shoulder and tried to distance herself from thedouble-edged guilt for having pressed Greg to break his oath and disappointmentfor not having succeeded at it.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Claudia Riess has worked in the editorial departments of The NewYorker and Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and has edited several art historymonographs. Stolen Light, the first book in her art history mystery series, waschosen by Vassar’s Latin American history professor for distribution to thecollege’s people-to-people trips to Cuba. To Kingdom Come, the fourth, will be added to the syllabus of a surveycourse on West and Central African Art at a prominent Midwesternuniversity. Claudia has written a numberof articles for Mystery Readers Journal, Women’s National Book Association, theSisters in Crime Bloodletter, and Mystery Scene magazine. To read more about Claudia and her work,visit the author's website.
Website: http://www.claudiariessbooks.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ClaudiaRiess
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaRiessBooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claudiariessbooks/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/claudiariessbooks/
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GIVEAWAY
Theauthor will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 7, 2024
Blog Tour: THE ROOTS RUN DEEP by C.M. Forest
THE ROOTS RUN DEEP
C.M. Forest
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GENRE: Horror Short Story Collection
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BLURB:
Dugfrom the twisted mind of C.M. Forest, the acclaimed author of Infested, comes acollection of 15 horror stories that will drag you into the abyss of fear anddespair.
Afast-food playland with a nightmarish secret, a greenhouse with a bug problem,a busload of kids lost in the woods, a trip through the solar system toinvestigate a strange comet, and many more.
Braceyourself for an unrelenting journey through a world where evil knows no bounds,and darkness consumes all.
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ExcerptThree:
“Lily!Your mom is not going to be happy with Daddy if I don’t get you home, honey.”
Robertdrummed his fingers on the lip of the plastic rim entrance to the playland. Heleaned into the opening and listened for any sound at all.
“Lily?”
Aterrible thought came to him. What if someone’s taken her?
Heshook his head to dislodge the idea from his brain. But a growing level ofunease, like some dank fungus flourishing in the darkest of places, kept thehorrible possibility present in his mind.
“Lily,this isn’t funny, baby.” Robert stuck his head farther into the hole, and hisvoice immediately echoed back at him, a dozen clones parroting his words.
Panic,the likes of which Robert wouldn’t have thought possible—certainly not soquickly anyway—arced through his body. He yelled again into the structure.
Nothing.
Noteven the smallest knock or scratch to indicate there was anything alive in theplayland at all.
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Question: Please describe one of yourfavorite scenes in your book and why you like it.
Answer: The first one that comes to mind isthe reveal of the people buried on the beach in What the Storm Brought In. Ican very much recall the moment that scene came into my head. I was foldinglaundry when, as clear as day, I had this image of a person walking on a beachand finding people buried in the sand. Not dead people, mind you, but livingpeople that very much wanted to remain buried. Why? I didn’t know at the time.But I thought such a discovery would be so bizarre, so off-putting, that I hadto see where it led. Now, with the story long finished, I still enjoy thatscene so much because it captured the quiet horror I was going for.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
C.M. Forest, also known as Christian Laforet, is the author of thenovel Infested, the novella We All Fall Before the Harvest, the short storycollection The Space Between Houses, as well as the co-author of theshort-story collection No Light Tomorrow. His short fiction has been featuredin several anthologies across multiple genres. A self-proclaimed horror movieexpert, he spent an embarrassing amount of his youth watching scary movies.When not writing, he lives in Ontario, Canada with his wife, kids, three catsand a pandemic dog named Sully who has an ongoing love affair with a blanket.
Website: http://www.ChristianLaforet.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorchristianlaforet
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianlaforet/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/c_laforet
TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@christian_writes_horror
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GIVEAWAY
Theauthor will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
October 5, 2024
Review: MONEY CAN BE DEADLY by Cindy Bell
A missing backpack leads to a deadbody. The two things were certainly enough to raise the antennae of the retiredjournalist and detective of Sage Gardens. When the wrong man gets accused ofthe murder, Samantha has no choice but to go to bat for the poor guy. Onceagain, you happily trot along with these senior detectives as they look intothe mystery. A good read!
Rating:4 stars
Review: STINETINGLERS 3 by R.L. Stine
A wooden statue that brings badluck. A tale of growing fish. The dog alien story was a little weird. Quick,little tales of horrors! Overall, I liked these stories.
Rating:4 stars
Review: DEEP TROUBLE by R.L. Stine
Watch out for sharks! For someonethat wanted a sea adventure, that’s all Billy could think of: sharks. Then hegets wind of a possible mermaid sighting. Well, that’s even better than sharks.This turns into one wild mermaid adventure! A fun read!
Rating:4 stars
Review: RECIPES AND REVENGE by Cindy Bell
Someone has killed a popular TVchef at a cooking school. It takes a while for Lucy, the baker, to get into thecase as she was first distracted by the lost kitten she found and took in. Itseems there were quite a few suspects to consider. Once again, Cindy Bell cancertainly lure you into a juicy mystery. It was kind of funny how Lucyembarrassed herself in front of hot-guy Jack. I also found Lucy’s “intuition”to be rather interesting, too.
It's all about recipes andrevenge. A delicious mystery you want to devour!
Rating:4 stars
October 4, 2024
Reader and Author Blog Party
What started off as a simple bookblog that posted the personal reviews of the site owner has grown into a sitewhere authors and readers can connect. Since then we’ve given away books, giftcards, reviews, tours, and free promotion to authors.
Check out Sandra’s Book Blog to find outmore!
To celebrate all the readers andauthors that have been a part of our blog, we’re throwing everyone a Reader andAuthor Blog Party! We’re also including one prize for readers and one prize forauthors.
Follow theparty HERE
Reader Giveaway:
Author Giveaway
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October 3, 2024
Blog Tour: STILETTOS AND GUNPOWDER by Gail Koger
STILETTOS & GUNPOWDER
Gail Koger
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GENRE: Action/adventure Romantic Comedy
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BLURB:
Myname is Gemma Stone. I’m a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputy and not only must Ideal with the sweat-soaked misery of the Arizona desert, I get to respond to abunch of crazy 9-1-1 calls all day long. Like a parakeet up a tree, or a caraccident where a tractor trailer full of fireworks is hit and the 4th of Julycomes a bit early.
Butsome days crime takes a deadly turn. Police cars are suddenly blowing up.Detective Sergeant Dante Delgado, the love of my life, was assigned to trackdown and stop the bomber. Am I worried? You betcha. There’s a madman on theloose and he is very, very good at making bombs.
Justwhen I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the Feds think I’m in cahootswith an Iraqi warlord who deals in stolen antiquities, Ichabod, my murderousex-dance partner, escapes from prison and I’m suddenly in everyone’scrosshairs.
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ExcerptThree:
“Damn!” Frank spat and slammed on the brakes.
The seatbelt abruptly clamped around my chest. “Holy crap!”The skinny, white male with the feathered headdress and loincloth was doing hiswar dance in the middle of the road. I keyed my mic, “Charlie-23 show us out at85th Avenue and Bell Road with a male dancing in the middle of the street.”
“Copy, Charlie-23,” the dispatcher responded.
A truck narrowly missed the demented dancer. Did he notice?Nope. With his loin cloth flapping in the wind, he shook his hips in whatlooked like a weird belly-dance. Then he switched to the Texas two-step.
“Ugh. I really don’t want to make another arrest today,” Igrumbled.
Frank nodded. “Me, either.”
“Stay with our prisoner. I’ll handle the boogie man.” I gotout of the car before Frank could protest and approached the moron. “Sir, ifyou feel the need to dance, could you do it on the sidewalk?”
He took one look at me, shrieked and bolted down theroadway, yelling, “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.” Horns honking, cars swervedaround him.
“Aw, c’mon! It’s too dang hot to be running.” Did he listen?Hell, no. I trotted after him. It wasn’t like he could run very fast inflip-flops. “Stop! Now! You’re gonna get hit!”
The overhead lights flashing on the patrol car, Frankfollowed behind us.
The fool lost his flip-flops and did a crazy hippity-hoppitydance over to a circle of grass on the highway median.
I picked up his flip-flops. The pavement was about 180degrees, and he wasn’t going anywhere without his shoes. “Why are you running?”
“I don’t want to go to jail,” he wheezed.
“And I don’t want to arrest you.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. What’s your name?”
“Tim White.”
“Okay, Tim, what’s up with the dancing?”
He shrugged. “I’m just trying to spread a little joy.”
“Un-huh. Does it look like it’s working?”
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Iwas a 9-1-1 dispatcher for the Glendale Police Department and to keep fromgoing totally bonkers – I mean people have no idea what a real emergency is.Take this for example: I answered, “9-1-1 emergency, what’s your emergency?”And this hysterical woman yelled, “My bird is in a tree.” Sometimes I reallycouldn’t help myself, so I said, “Birds have a tendency to do that, ma’am.” Thewoman screeched, “No! You don’t understand. My pet parakeet is in the tree.I’ve just got to get him down.” Like I said, not a clue. “I’m sorry ma’am butwe don’t get birds out of trees.” The woman then cried, “But… What about myhusband? He’s up there, too.” See what I had to deal with? To keep from hittingmyself repeatedly in the head with my phone I took up writing.
https://www.facebook.com/Colettiwarlordbooks/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1598719.Gail_Koger
https://www.instagram.com/gkoger58/
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/gail-koger
http://www.amazon.com/Gail-Koger/e/B001K838BY
BuyLink: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DCMT64QW
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GIVEAWAY
Theauthor will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner viarafflecopter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
