Liz Crowe's Blog, page 4

Maybe No More Books?

*************WHAT FOLLOWS IS A HIGHLY OPINIONATED OPINION-TYPE OPINION PIECE. WHICH IS TO SAY, THIS IS MY BLOG AND I HAVE HAD AN EPIPHANY ABOUT HOW I WILL FIT INTO THE BOOK-O-SPHERE GOING FORWARD AND IT INVOLVES....MY OPINION ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE NOW. I will not tolerate any nonsense or negativity as this is NOT a negative post. It is a factual one. But I welcome your insights and experiences all the same.**********************OH and this is in no way meant to denigrate you, what you read, what

Into the Flames: A Liz Landia First!

Welcome to pre-order and cover reval day for INTO THE FLAMES, (yet another) anthology but this one....THIS one....for this one I wrote something new and not only that I wrote it in the 1st person point of view.   Wow, you say. Whoopedie Doo, Liz. Every other dang book out there is written in 1st person.    But yeah, I say, Dear and Loyal Reader/Fan, I have never written one that way. So there!   When I was approached about inclusion in this group of talented authors I was asked: "Fireman story,

It's All About the Love

The Love family that is....   Who are these people, you ask? Well, it's a large, boisterous, drama-filled, tight-knit family living near Lexington, Kentucky. The patriarch started a successful craft brewery way before that become super-hip. The matriarch comes from horse-farm money but made a choice about her life and who she wanted to share it with that sometimes, she regretted, but not always.   Each of the existing books: Love Garage Coach Love Safe Love Love Brewing     focuses on one of the

It's All About the Love

The Love family that is....   Who are these people, you ask? Well, it's a large, boisterous, drama-filled, tight-knit family living near Lexington, Kentucky. The patriarch started a successful craft brewery way before that become super-hip. The matriarch comes from horse-farm money but made a choice about her life and who she wanted to share it with that sometimes, she regretted, but not always.   Each of the existing books: Love Garage Coach Love Safe Love Love Brewing     focuses on one of the

Ode to My Middle

You were everything the others were not, starting with "Planned."   You were small-ish, quiet, and suffered my return to the hospital AFTER we came home with the sort of calmness I can't attribute to your older sibling.   As you grew into your personality, it became clear, you were, kinda, "me."   You know they say "may you be blessed with a child just like you..." And I was.   You are pretty, independent--- pretty damn indepedent -- in a way that I recall I was, once freed from high school.   

Welcome to Liz Landia: Chris Ledbetter

As part of the New Liz World Order I am going to be featuring authors who have some connection to me--->either I know them personally, I have read and enjoyed their books, we live or lived in the same state or country, or I am stalking them and just want them on here....   I'm thrilled to welcome the first guest to Liz Land: YA author and friend/basketball rival Christopher Ledbetter! Chris has had a run of amazing success lately, landing a real publishing contract for his first novel, Drawn.

LizLandia 2015--The Inaugural Post

    Greetings and welcome to the New Liz World Order!   Ok, well, maybe it's just a website and blog facelift but it feels very new. It even smells like that first day of school. You know--freshly sharpened pencils, polished floors, new books. Never mind by the second day or so it starts to reek like that stuff the custodian has to throw on the spot some kid made when he drank the lunchroom milk. But I digress...   Whether you are a new follower or a loyal fan (or even a hater/stalker--I see you[image error]

AWAKE. A Liz Review

Awakeby Melanie Surani
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
In author Melanie Surani’s edgy thriller novel, opera singer Joshua Gray wakes in an eerie art museum exhibit. He comes to believe he’s been kidnapped and abandoned. And he isn’t the only one…

As Josh and four others struggle to piece together their new reality, they discover the museum’s main building has been razed and the place is boarded with no obvious exit. Who left them in the museum and why? How can they escape? The only link that binds them together is a mysterious woman named Blair, who they each encountered before blacking out. Josh unexpectedly finds himself drawn to one of the other captives, a long-time fan named Sophia. Their attraction plunges the group into a dark pool of suspicion. When allegiances shift and pieces connect, the strangers are forced to reassess their situation. Is the real danger inside or outside of the museum?

Suspenseful, romantic and filled with drama, Awake will keep you up all night.





Excerpt:
When he'd been through the exhibit the first time, he'd realized quickly she wasn't following him. The last thing she might have heard was "I can destroy what you love too."
"Shit," Josh whispered, keeping his eye on the door she went through. "Bang bang. She shot me down," he sang under his breath. As usual, music was the first thing to come to mind. When he couldn't play, he still had his voice. Of course, his broken instrument and their current location wasn't her fault. If he hadn't been an asshole, she wouldn't have needed to get away. Since he could talk himself into a hole like no one else, the best thing to do was find his way outside, call a cab, then come back and get her.
A few steps took him to an area where the music wasn't distorted. Tribal drumbeats accompanied shelves of fashion pieces, too impractical and disturbing to wear. A tiara made of straight pins. Corsets pulled so tight the fabric met at the waist. Hats constructed of cages and thorns. Scarves of razor blades.
Drums swelled, stopped. Somewhere in the distance, someone panted.
Josh stopped and crept backward, keeping his eyes on a corseted mannequin's face. Paint had dried in a torrent, as though someone poured a bucket over the head and flash-frozen it. Its facial features looked alive, despite the covering's suffocating quality.
The wheezing breath continued.
From the mannequin?
It wasn't from the recording.


AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Melanie Surani is a blogger, hair stylist, and author with a heart for international travel. When she isn't cutting hair, Melanie is thinking about ways to kill people (for mystery novels). She lives with her husband and cat in New York City, where she is hard at work on her next book with Booktrope Publishing. Melanie is a member of the International Thriller Writers society. Follow her adventures at: http://melsurani.tumblr.com/
Connect With MelanieBlog: http://melsurani.tumblr.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelSuraniTwitter: https://twitter.com/melsuraniPinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/melsurani/Instagram: https://instagram.com/melsurani/Google+: https://plus.google.com/115191699057372867697Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5404505.Melanie_Surani Amazon: www.amazon.com/Melanie-Surani/e/B0077442QK
Melanie Surani will be awarding a $30 Starbuck Gift Certificate to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click here to go to the rafflecopter page and enter!
  Liz's thoughts:
a 4-brew review!

A super imaginative and unique concept this novel will keep you guessing all the way to the end.
It only gets a little confusing when some of the characters that "wake up" in their unknown-to-them prison reveal their personalities, making it tough to know who's the victim and who's the bad guy.

Otherwise, a very enjoyable read and one I recommend to anyone who loves their thrillers with a bit of the supernatural mixed in.

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<!--data-blogger-escaped-comment-EndFragment</script> <br /> </div><div 0in="" 5.0pt="" class=""MsoNormal"" ideograph-numeric="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" margin-top:="" quot="" text-autospace:="">  <br /> </div><div 0in="" 5.0pt="" class=""MsoNormal"" ideograph-numeric="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" margin-top:="" quot="" text-autospace:=""> <br /> </div><div 0in="" 5.0pt="" class=""MsoNormal"" ideograph-numeric="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" margin-top:="" quot="" text-autospace:=""> <br /> </div><div 0in="" 5.0pt="" class=""MsoNormal"" ideograph-numeric="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" margin-top:="" quot="" text-autospace:=""> Liz's Thoughts:<br /> <div both="" center="" class=""separator"" quot="" text-align:=""><a 1em="" href="https://www.blogger.com/%22http://2.b..." imageanchor=""1"" margin-right:="" quot=""><img border=""0"" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M2Udjo4X2dY..." /></a></div><br /> <br /> </div><div 0in="" 5.0pt="" class=""MsoNormal"" ideograph-numeric="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" margin-top:="" quot="" text-autospace:=""> Awake has an extraordinarily original set up, and one that is not one hundred percent clear until about 2/3 into the novel, which is good at least to me as a reader because I like to try and puzzle some things out myself. As a sort of blend of horror/supernatural/thriller the concept works on a lot of levels. I really enjoyed jumping right in with the villain, when you think you're getting the thoughts of someone else, like maybe one of the victims, and then leaping over into the world of the actual victims.<br /> <br /> There was some bit of disconnect for me when the random people are revealed to be sealed up in a sort of cave and some of their personalities turn out to be not that much better than the villain. I don't expect to love or even like everyone in a novel but sometimes it was difficult to discern who, exactly, was doing what to whom, given that it's a bit character-laden. Not that this is bad, just at times, confusing.<br /> <br /> All in all, a well-structured and executed and very original novel I recommend with a 4 Brew Rating!<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> </div><div 0in="" 5.0pt="" class=""MsoNormal"" ideograph-numeric="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" margin-top:="" quot="" text-autospace:=""> <br /> </div>-->

Magic Bus!---OR Oh The EarWorms + Brad Shirtless(!)

Hey kids, just a quickie today to point out that the Michigan football program has caused more ear worms for yours truly than I ever thought possible!

First we are all "in the submarine" (dare you not to add "yellow" and sing that sucker)...

NOW we have ourselves a--you guessed it--Magic Bus! Yep, the marketing geniuses at Fox Sports have tarted up their bus and are taking it on the road by way of having something to do, one supposes, for the next 13 days. I mean, it's not enough that Michigan is opening its season on (cough) a THURSDAY and AT UTAH....right? Dang. I am gonna be singing that song all day now...thanks Fox!

One wonders what could be next?

Allow me to volunteer a concept in keeping with my role as the MGoBlog's Official Shirtless Harbaugh Expert and Random Some Claim Non-Sports Instigator (1-2-3-4)






Dude! Seriously! Oh and BTW....unless and until you have actually birthed a child, like, you know, physically speaking, I'd watch those metaphors...but it's all right, Liz still loves ya! 
SBNation

So get your bad selves over to the MDen at 10:30 this Saturday and get your pic snapped in front of Jim Harbaugh's....erm.....pants 
(I want it...I want it...I want it....you caaaaan't have it! 


SEE what they have DONE to me?). OR catch it at Comerica Park for the Tiger's game 




(still pulling for the hot manager guy, but you know where MY priorities lie. Oh, I feel a Hot MLB Dudes list coming over me....).

Tick. Tock.....the REAL rubber hits the road in 13 short days!



Go Blue!

Go Cards!
sorry.....priceless....
Love ya,
Liz

Make Way for Quarterbacks--OR Bet It Smells in that Submarine Right About Now

Welcome to the Official 21 Days to Go Post from yours truly, the Official Shirtless Harbaugh and Randomness Instigator Expert (not-so-special to mgoblog)!



Whew, well, I don't know about you kids but the concept of "the submarine" keeps, um surfacing in my well-established vivid imagination. 






I mean, seriously, James, that was sort of an odd metaphor for your media-less, open-practice-verboten style of "back-to-school season." I get it though. You're kind of like that guy on the phone with the professional hostage negotiator who says "bring me 5 million dollars (a year), Nike uniforms, helmets with stickers, a juice box from juice box guy 



.....AND a submarine painted maize and blue or the short kid gets a noogie." It's cool. We bow to your (potential) genius.

But you know me, Jim. My imagination is running rampant right now picturing super-close quarters, low oxygen levels and sweaty socks dudes.

I guess I should let it go, of course. I know you're not REALLY in a submarine or anything. And I definitely think getting your bad awesome self out of the limelight so as to focus on the real goal here is crucial, given the 21-days-to-go thing aforementioned.

While I shall leave the deep dive roster evaluation and breakdowns to the real experts, I will say I am terribly intrigued by the quarterback drama no doubt playing itself out as we speak, we with our frosty glasses of iced tea and views of a lovely Michigan summer day. I hear both Shane Morris and that Iowa kid are gunning for the crucial spot--the only spot that really matters in this, the rebuilding millennium for the Block iMage in the eyes of football fans and deep-pocketed alums everywhere. 

I also hear there is no shortage of cockiness on the part of either young man--something we all value in a guy who will hoist the team on his Addidas-clad shoulders in a few short days. And I can just imagine the efforts undertaken to impress the seemingly unimpress-able (and one assumes shirt-clad) Superstar On The Sidelines. My plot bunnies are hopping around like mad, I'll tell you.

On the one hand, the known known: Shane Ow My Head Hurts Coach Morris. He gets the boy-next-door vote to be sure, for a lot of reasons. And I'm that kids mama and I'm all "WTF?" last year.





And of course, Jake Hawkie Ruddock. The kid who makes me wish I had an excuse to need a pediatrician in a few years.


What I really wanna know? Which one of you jokers did THIS to the U of M Athletics Facebook site! Funny stuff boys. And I know funny stuff when I see it. 
Big booty splits INDEED! Are those like "big boy pants?"



But I digress....and don't say you didn't enjoy it.

There are others more or less in the running to be the coach on the field for our man Jimmy. Including a real scary Tom Brady doppelgänger. But we know, at this moment, if they're not out flexing for Liz's imagination, the real battle is occurring between Shane and Jake. And frankly, it's gonna make for one exciting season!

Let the countdown clocks continue...and Liz's overactive imagination continue to conjure what it will...as we prepare for the 2nd Coming...a craft beer firmly in hand! 


Go Blue!
Go Cards (Bonnafon v Gardner et al)

Liz
(NOTE: on 8/25 I'm launching the new Liz Land website and blog. There Will Be Redirection.)
Yo! follow:
@CoachJim4UM
@ShaneMorris_7
@Regsospiffy1
@Willgardner_11
@UofLfootball
@mgoblog
@maizenbrew