Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 93

Review: BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Issue 29 by Jeremy Lambert

 

Slaying those purple dog skeletonswas pretty cool. Still don’t get the storyline though.

 

Rating:2 stars

Review: BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Issue 30 by Jeremy Lambert

 

Another battle with the purple dogskeletons, which was awesome. This one was a little easier to understand.

 

Rating:3 stars

Review: BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Issue 27 by Jeremy Lambert

 

Cool colors, but I have no ideawhat’s going on since there’s too much text and the text is too small.

 

Rating:2 stars

Review: BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER Issue 28 by Jeremy Lambert

 

Dinosaur bones? Something withEthan Rayne? Cool magical effects, but a lame read.

 

Rating:2 stars

Blog Tour: MAYA'S TINY WARRIORS by Manasi Vegesna

 

Book Details:

Book Title:  Maya's Tiny Warriors by Manasi Vegesna
Category:  Children's Fiction (ages 4 to 8), 32 pages
Genre:  Children's Picture Book
Publisher:  Manasi Vegesna
Release date:   Oct 2023
Content Rating:  G.  Suitable for everyone.

Book Description:

On the first day of school, Maya wakes up with a terrible flu. As she sneezes, coughs, and burns up with a fever, she can’t quite understand why she is sick. And why isn’t she getting better?

Thankfully for her, there are tiny warriors in her body that are battling for her well-being. Follow these warriors as they fight to keep Maya safe in this epic showdown between the immune system and the flu.

For ages 4-8, this book is perfect for young kids learning how their body works. By accompanying Maya’s warriors on their journey, readers will better understand their immune systems and illnesses.

Buy the Book:
Amazon ~ B&N
add to Goodreads

 

 

Review: It’s the first day of school andMaya woke up not feeling well. For days, Maya stayed in bed and continued to besick. Would she ever get better? But what she didn’t know was that insider herbody, there were tiny warriors working to do just that. These warriors werecalled immune cells and they fight off diseases in the body.

 

With illustrations that were socute and colorful, this was very insightful and educational. It’s a great wayto learn about the human body and how immunity works. It’s a little bit ofscience in a book. The book was full of fun, learning, and action.

 

It’s a good read! Great for anyreading to a sick child.

 

 

Rating:4 stars

 

 

Meet the Author:

Manasi Vegesna is a passionate author from Arizona who is interested in biology and medicine. She has utilized her love for immunology in order to help future young generations face their sickness with courage. In the future, she hopes to further dive into the wonders of science through more imaginative stories. Currently a high school senior, she continues to remain curious. When she’s not doing her homework, you can catch her playing the violin or reading a book. Or, she’s probably binging Disney movies.

connect with author: website ~ X/twitter ~ instagram ~ goodreadsEnter the Giveaway:MAYAS TINY WARRIORS by Manasi Vegasna Book Tour Giveaway

Blog Tour: DEATH TANGO by Lachi

 

Death Tango

by Lachi

 

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GENRE: Science Fiction/Horror

 

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BLURB:

 

In a Utopian twenty-third-century New York City, wherecorporations have replaced governments, AI dictates culture, and citizens arefree to people-watch any other citizen they choose through an app, thishorror-laden Sci-Fi Thriller follows four mis-matched coeds as they attempt tosolve the murder of an eccentric parascientist. Only someone or something ableto navigate outside the highest levels of croud-sourced surveillance could getaway with murder in this town. If the team can't work quickly to solve thecase, New York City will be devoured by a dark plague the eccentric had beenworking on prior to his death, a plague which, overtime, appears to bedeveloping sentience.

 

 

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Excerpt One:

 

It is nine years ago. I stand alone on an unstable rock.Beneath that rock are a few precarious slabs of granite. Beneath the granitelies a hundred feet of air, of silence, of potential bone-shattering death.Surrounded by a dusk sky, Mount Venom—the cliff aptly named for the lives ithas claimed—stretches endlessly beneath my quivering legs and far beyond myblurring vision.

 

Through the blaring wind, I hear several SOIs—School ofIntelligence kids—hurl down demoralizing insults from the cliff’s edge. “She’llnever make it!” “Fall and die, swine!” Each year the SOIs goad us TFs—TestingFacility subjects—into scaling the cliff. If successful, the TF is accepted asan equal, putting an end to constant ridicule and torment. There is littlesympathy for those who accept the challenge and fail. I tell myself to reachfor the next stone along the slope, to keep my hands steady, to breathe.

 

I near the finish line.

 

Every inch of my body tastes it as much as my mouth tastesit. Get there; say nothing; feel no pride. My face wet with tears and mucus, myfingers slippery with blood, I feel around for my next grip and pull on myburning calves. I have only two heaves left. Two heaves, and no more beingtreated like trash.

 

I notice a small gap between two large stones above me. As Iplace my dampened hands into the hole for leverage, the rubble on which I standgives out. My legs dangle freely. I have the willpower to lift my body onward,but my concentration is broken by a pair of black-gloved hands that pop out ofthe fissure above me.

 

Someone is hiding behind the rocks.

 

Tech Sports knitted in thin red stitching on each gloveslides into view. My body ignores the anxiety presented by this newpredicament, and I continue to lift. The gloves grab both my forearms and yank.I am now dangling by the grip of those hands; I am now at their complete mercy.

 

“Friend or foe?” I manage to growl between pained gasps, thewind forcing hair into my mouth.

 

“You’re so close,” replies a male voice I can hardlydistinguish.

 

“I know! I know! Help me up!” I yell. My legs work uselesslyto find hold. Receiving no verbal or physical response, I wriggle my shoulders.“Hey! Help me up!”

 

“Beg me!” the voice demands, barely audible over the bloodrushing in my ears. I fend off a rapidly growing well of despair. Despair is achoice, a manifestation of surrender.

 

“Please!” I bark, the word taking with it all of my remainingwillpower. I look up wide-eyed at the gloved hands, ignoring the falling stonesas I await my fate.

 

“This is for putting in the application!” he yells, and witha quick jolt he lets go of my arms.

 

I fall.

 

I keep my eyes open, desperately hoping for something tograb, but all I see are a mix of gray sky, red rock face and my flailing arms.I hear my bones smash against the jagged teeth of Mount Venom and scream onelong uninterrupted exhale, silenced only by the jarring collision of the backof my skull against the cold, hard pavement.

 

I don’t feel the fracture. I only hear it between my ears.Pop.

 

I lie at the foot of Mount Venom, looking up at dark clouds,a metallic taste oozing over my tongue, a harsh pain working its way down myneck. A thick puddle coalesces under my head as onlookers gather.

 

My vision snaps away instantly with a blink. Surroundingechoes fade slowly as the internal sound of my curtailed heartbeats takes over.Suddenly I feel cold and heavy. I am motionless, no longer taking in oxygen.

 

After an onslaught of euphoria, I feel my brain flatten. Ihear its slight gummy movements of deflation against my last few heartbeats.And somewhere between no longer feeling the ground beneath me and no longerfeeling the air around me, I realize I am dead.

 

I perceive only a black vastness about me. Like an autumnleaf I float in the Cartesian circle that is the keen awareness of mynonexistence. A mix of bliss and terror. I try to hold on to somethingphysical, something I can understand. “You are safe. You are safe,” I repeat,exercising the remnants of my inner monologue.

 

Then I begin to see things.

 

A single bright blue diamond, about the size of a fist,appears five feet before me. It is soon joined by two more on either side,followed by two more still, until a string of blue diamonds surrounds me. Irealize I can see my entire periphery, no longer limited by physical eyes. Alight source switches on behind me, revealing that I am floating at the centerof a rotating diamond-rimmed disco ball.

 

Trying to locate the light source, I push my perceptionupward, downward, left, right, only to find that I, myself, am the source ofthat light. The speed with which the disco ball spins steadily increases,faster and faster, until all is a blur of spinning frenzy. Suddenly thousandsof quick snapshots of familiar faces speed toward me: my friends, my bullies,the dark skin of my estranged father, the Spanglish ravings of my drunkenmother, their parents, their parents’ parents. Images of a cottage in France, avillage in Africa, past wars, ancient discoveries, tree scavenging, gaspingair, breathing ocean, swimming in gas, feelings of remorse, loss, shame,excitement, immense love, bitter anguish, and a desperate need for acceptance.Every imaginable emotion ravages me whole.

 

I experience my consummate past. A massive rewind that stopsat a sweeping explosion. A sphere of white fire so bright, it could hardly bedescribed as fire. I am an endless wave of raw emotion drowning in theunyielding flames. And in that eternal instant I understand everything.

 

Again, all fades to black, the warmth, the understanding.And though the blackness around me is infinite, I sense a presence. I am notalone.

 

“Look around you,” the presence communicates to me, notthrough sound, sight or touch, but through direct understanding. I am certainit is—at least in part—a being other than myself. I hold fast to my mantra. “Donot fear,” the presence continues. I allow the mantra to fade. “Do you see howfar the blackness reaches, stretching beyond infinite horizons? That is howmuch you do not know, how much you’ve yet to learn.” A brief silence. “Fear isthe great enemy of knowledge, and you, Rosa, are the switch between them.”

 

“Me?” I manage to convey through the slivers of myconsciousness.

 

“Us.”

 

“Us? How? Why? What do you mean?” My figurative words comechildlike and excited.

 

“You already know how,” the presence responds as it fades.“You already know why.” I feel a growing bitter loneliness as the presencedrifts away.

 

“Wait!” I yell. The blackness around me congeals to a bumpydark brown. “Come back!” The glistening euphoria gradually declines as myflattened brain begins to restructure. A physical atmosphere swiftly surroundsme, and a palpitating sensation starts beneath me, causing me to rise and fall.The pulsing sensation reveals itself to be my heart grappling for a pulse.

 

A crashing ocean of white noise fills my head. I feel that Ihave a head. A body. Arms. A face. My face.

 

I open my eyes as the rush of noise fades to the sound of anopen room. I am lying on a bed in the infirmary, surrounded by the school nurseand Dr. Ferguson himself, their blurry faces examining my head wound.

 

Dr. Ferguson bends forward. “You had a very nasty fall, Ms.Lejeune. Do you remember that?” He watches a nurse as she dabs a cloth at myface. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Lachi is aninternationally-touring creative artist, writer and award-winning culturalactivist living in New York City. A legally blind daughter of Africanimmigrants, Lachi uses her platform to amplify narratives on identity pride andDisability Culture. In her public life, Lachi has helped increase accessibilityto the GRAMMY Awards ceremonies as well as create numerous opportunities formusic professionals with disabilities, through her organization RAMPD. Lachialso creates high-quality content amplifying disability. She has hosted a PBSAmerican Masters segment highlighting disabled rebels and releases songs suchas "Lift Me Up" and “Black Girl Cornrows” that elevate disability anddifference to the pop culture market. Named a “new champion in advocacy” byBillboard, she’s held talks with the White House, the UN, Fortune 100 firms,and has been featured in Forbes, Hollywood Reporter, Good Morning America, andthe New York Times for her unapologetic celebration of intersectionalitythrough her music, storytelling and fashion.

 

In herfree-time Lachi writes sci-fi and fantasy novels with diverse, headstrongcharacters, focusing heavily on atonal world-building, quip-ridden characterdevelopment, likable villains and psycho-spiritual discourse.

 

Website: www.lachimusic.com  

Twitter: www.twitter.com/lachimusic  

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lachimusic  

Instagram: www.instagram.com/lachimusic  

 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Tango-M-Lachi-ebook/dp/B0BLGYMCQ7/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

 

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GIVEAWAY

Lachi will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BNGC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Tour: THE KING WHO LOST HIS COLORS by Glen Liset

The King Who Lost His Colors

by Glen Liset

 

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GENRE: Children's

 

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BLURB: Cana friendly traveler from the Far East restore a brilliant forest in one week?King Daniel lives in one of the most beautiful areas in all of Northern Europe,but tragedy has struck and no one in the kingdom of Colorwood knows how tocheer up the saddened king. The King Who Lost His Colors will take you on atrip back in time to a place where the simplicity of nature's beauty is able toentertain a kingdom.

 

 

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EXCERPT

 

 

 

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 Review: 

The illustrations were so brightand colorful. Well, I’d guess they’d have to be in a place called Color Wood.In this land, there lived a king, who was as happy as could be in Color Wood.When the king was happy, everyone was happy. How fun to be able to live in aplace with blue trees and pink birds. Just a splash of color everywhere.

One day, a storm came by and bleweverything away. No more colors, which made the king sad. Will the colors everreturn? Perhaps the answer lied in the form of a friendly traveler from the fareast.

A lovely story of colors!

Rating:4 stars

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Glen Liset is a former advertising executive with 35years of experience in direct-mail, newspaper and email marketing. He was oneof the owners of Super Coups, a cooperative direct-mail advertising franchisethat Success Magazine rated as one of the top 100 franchises in North Americain 1994. He was the founder and owner of Coastal Coupons, the vice president ofGriffin Connect email marketing and a portfolio account manager for The CapeCod Times. He is the father of four children and has told many bedtime stories.

 

CONNECT WITH GLEN LISET:

 

www.glenlisetbooks.com   

 

PURCHASE LINKS FOR THE KING WHO LOST HIS COLORS                

 

AMAZON.COM https://amazon.com/dp/0228869862 

 

AMAZON.CA https://amazon.ca/dp/0228869862 

 

ABEBOOKS https://www.abebooks.com/9780228869863/King-Who-Lost-Colors-Liset-0228869862/plp 

 

DYMOCKS https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/the-king-who-lost-his-colors-by-glen-liset-9780228869870 

 

BARNES & NOBLE https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-king-who-lost-his-colors-glen-liset/1141304756

 

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GIVEAWAY 

Glen Liset will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winnervia rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review Tour: THE LOST CHILD by Thomas Grant Bruso

The Lost Child

by Thomas Grant Bruso

 

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GENRE: ContemporaryCrime/Thriller

 

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BLURB:

 

Newspaper reporter Luke Sorenson has recently moved to a new townin upstate New York. Despite the change in scenery, Luke cannot run away from abrutal, harrowing past driven by the death of his only child, Emily.

 

Soon,Luke is propelled into a dangerous case of child abduction, an eerie reminderof losing his daughter. An eight-year-old boy named Daniel Hadley is kidnappedfrom his own bedroom and it is Luke, battling his own demons, who is assignedthe story of the year.

 

Aspieces of Luke’s mysterious, violent past are revealed, so are the sinistersecrets to his daughter’s demise, sending Luke into a tailspin of heavydrinking and self-torment.

 

Thesearch for Daniel is on, but it may be too late for everyone involved.

 

 

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Excerpt One:

 

 

Prologue

 

He watches her. She is alone.

 

She is six, maybe seven years old. She is having a picnic inthe front yard with her dolls.

 

The girl’s hair is the color of spun honey. Her eyes, darkbrown, innocent, come alive when he hears her talking to one of her plasticdolls.

 

Her voice is lively, soft, and gentle.

 

She laughs as the man shifts his footing in the shadowywoods across from her house. A small branch snaps underfoot, the sound of hisweight on the thick twig imploding like fireworks.

 

She looks up from grooming her doll’s hair and stares in hisdirection. The man creeps behind a leafy spruce tree to hide.

 

Two vehicles pass along the quiet suburban street. The manstares around the massive tree, watching the young girl.

 

The sound of her humming to her dolls makes him smile. Asplinter of electricity vibrates through his rangy limbs. Something mechanicalsurges through his veins and up and down his body to his scraggly face.

 

Trembling, he reaches a gnarled hand out against the thickbark of the tree to balance himself. His head is dizzy. His legs are unsteady.

 

He knows this feeling. It is familiar, like the blade of aknife skimming the surface of young flesh. Then he hears the sound of scaredchildren panting and crying in the back of his head. He sees their frightenedeyes, pleading for their parents, and he smiles.

 

He slips back into the brush behind the birch tree.

 

Watching. Waiting.

 

A dog walker passes two feet away. He skulks back into thecoiling shadows so they won’t see him.

 

He wipes sweat from his neck with the back of his hand.

 

The man’s identity is almost discovered when the sizeableblack lab points its nose toward the dense foliage. The owner tugs on the dog’sleash lightly and starts down the street, around the corner; now, they are outof sight.

 

The man waits for a second or two until he’s sure they’regone. He hugs the tree limb and cocks an ear to the sound of the young girl’smother yelling at her from the brightly lit porch.

 

“It’s getting dark, Susie. Come inside.”

 

Susie.

 

Sweet little Susie, the cigar-smoking man muses.

 

Curly-haired Susie. Doll-grooming Susie.

 

When the time is right, he will be back.

 

 

 

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Review: Story kicks off to a slow start as8-year-old Danny gets told by his parents not to run off again. Meanwhile, anewspaper reporter is still haunted by the murder of his daughter. Luke’s POVis told in a diary prose in dark and dreary tones, especially when confrontedwith the phantom images of his dead daughter everywhere. I did like that thenarrative had a poetic lilt to it.

It’s mostly psychological and Lukedefinitely goes into some weird psychedelic breakdown. The progression is veryslow. We don’t get to the lost child until about halfway into a 50-chapterbook. At first, it didn’t even seem like anybody even noticed he was gone. Imust say that I anticipated the child to be lost way sooner than this. Storypicks up slightly in the second half with the boy being taken. Although it’snot really a race to find him, you are still kind of curious how this will allturn out.

I would’ve liked this better hadit been shorter and quicker, but this was still a fairly nice read.

 

Rating:3 stars

 

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Thomas GrantBruso knew he wanted to be a writer at an early age. He has been a voraciousreader of genre fiction since childhood.

 

His literaryinspirations are Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Jim Grimsley, KarinFossum, and Joyce Carol Oates.

 

Bruso lovesanimals, reading books, and writing fiction, and prefers Sudoku to crosswordpuzzles.

 

In anotherlife, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers. Incollege, he won the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes andpublishes fiction and reviews books for his hometown newspaper, ThePress-Republican.

 

He lives inupstate New York.

 

 

Links:

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thomgrantbruso?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

 

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thomasgrantbrusoauthor/?hl=en

 

 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8591689.Thomas_Grant_Bruso

 

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomasgrantbruso/

 

Buy link on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Child-Thomas-Grant-Bruso-ebook/dp/B0CJ6FRM5H/

 

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GIVEAWAY 

Thomas Grant Bruso will be awarding a$10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during thetour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: POISONED IN LITTLE LEAF CREEK by Cindy Bell

 

It wasn’t hard to know who wasgoing to get whacked with townsfolk and family complaining about this Stella,who got a free pumpkin pie from Tessa. Soon, the old lady gets poisoned. Was itthe pie?

The first suspects we look at werethe family members since they were being cut out of the will. The next would bethe neighbor that wanted to add a 2nd story to his house and mayhave poisoned the muffin that Tessa’s goat ate.

Can Tessa and Cassie find out whopoisoned Stella and how before their Thanksgiving dinner at the diner?

An interesting holiday read from afavorite author.

 

Rating:4 stars

Review: NO PLACE LIKE HOME by Mary Higgins Clark

“I cannot believe I am standing inthe exact spot where I killed my mother.” Words of Liza 24 years later. Dubbed“Little Lizzie Borden,” Liza wanted to forget the past, prompting her to changeher name, marry, and have a son. But now she was back in that house. Well,there’s no place like home. How soon will it be before someone from that oldtown recognizes her? Her own husband didn’t even know. Everyone just remembereda little monster. Liza (now Celia) aimed to find the truth of what reallyhappened that night.

Meanwhile, someone was leavinghorrible reminders of her dark past. Then the sudden murder of the real estateagent sends the whole town in an uproar. Someone may know who Celia really isand she might be suspected of the murder.

An interesting mystery!

 

Rating:4 stars