Suzanne Schultz Pick's Blog: bookblogarama, page 19

Book Blitz for At First Blush by Beth Ellyn Summer from Bloomsbury Spark

At First Blush

by Beth Ellyn Summer

Genre: YA Contemporary

Release Date: April 4th 2017

Bloomsbury Spark

Summary:

Who would have thought that a teenager could have a successful career creating makeup tutorial videos on YouTube? For Lacey Robbins, this dream has been her reality. An up-and-coming YouTuber, she has thousands of fans and can’t wait for the day when her subscriber count reaches the one million mark. And when she is offered a high school internship at On Trend Magazine, she figures that this could be the make it or break it moment.

But sometimes your dream job isn’t all that it seems. Her editor is only interested in promoting junk products, and her boss in the Hair and Makeup department introduces her to the larger world of makeup artistry, making her wonder if making tutorials online is all she is meant to do. To top it all off, when the magazine’s feature subject, musician Tyler Lance, turns his broodingly handsome smile her way, falling for him could mean losing her fans, forcing her to make a decision: her YouTube life or her real life?

Fans of Zoella’s GIRL ONLINE will fall right into the world of this YA DEVIL WEARS PRADA and stay hooked from the first blush to the last glossy kiss.

 

Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Apple | Kobo | Google Play | Bloomsbury  

 

 
 


About the Author
Beth Ellyn Summer writes contemporary young adult fiction that somehow always includes the following elements: fame, makeup, and television. She graduated from Long Island University with a degree in Print and Electronic Journalism. Interning for Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon was the highlight of her college years. When she’s not writing, Beth can be found swatching eyeshadows, solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles, and playing with her adorable cat, Penny Belle. Beth lives on Long Island in a cookie cutter town that, in an ironic twist of fate, doesn’t have a single decent bakery.
Author Links:
         

 

Book Blitz for Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of) by F.J.R. Titchenell

Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of)
by F.J.R. Titchenell
Genre: YA Horror-Comedy
Release Date: April 4th 2017

Summary:

The world is Cassie Fremont’s playground. Her face is on the cover of every newspaper. She has no homework, no curfew, and no credit limit, and she spends her days traveling the country with her friends, including a boy who would do the chicken dance with death to make her smile. Life is just about perfect—except that those newspaper headlines are about her bludgeoning her crush to death with a paintball gun, she has to fight ravenous walking corpses every time she steps outside, and one of her friends is still missing, trapped somewhere in the distant, practically impassable wreckage of Manhattan. Still, Cassie’s an optimist, more prone to hysterical laughter than hysterical tears, and she’d rather fight a corpse than be one. She’ll never leave a friend stranded when she can simply take her road trip to impossible new places, even if getting there means admitting to that boy that she might love him as more than her personal jester. Skillfully blending effective horror with unexpected humor, this diary-style novel is a fast-paced and heartwarming read.

 


Advance Praise:


 


“Heartbreak, humor, a very large number of crushed skulls and even romance ensue . . . . Readers who don’t mind a little brain spatter on the windshield will be happy they took this particular trip.” —Kirkus Reviews.


 


“You know when you read a book about teens and you think the author just didn’t get it? Well, F.J.R. Titchenell gets video gaming, paintballing, Vespa riding, teenage tomboy angst, true love, the uses of theater paint—oh, and killing zombies.” —Lehua Parker, author of the Nene Award-nominated Niuhi Shark Saga.


 



“The story is fast, filled with dark humor, and lots of blood and guts.” —All Things Urban Fantasy.

 

 

Buy Links:
Amazon (Paperback)
Amazon (Kindle)
Barnes & Noble (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble (Nook)
iBooks
Kobo
Smashwords
Indigo
Books-a-Million
Indiebound



 

Excerpt 

The day’s first light made it possible to see the few small columns of smoke rising from the houses that were burning unchecked, without interfering with the starkly perfect outlines of the patchwork power outages.
It reminded me a little of the mornings after bad earthquakes or storms, with one important difference. All of those mornings had been the calm after, when the damage is assessed and rebuilding begins.
This was what you would get if you took one of those mornings, shrank it down, and sprinkled it with monster insect larvae. The whole valley still wriggled, not with normal, productive human activity, but with continuing disaster.
From the mountain police station’s height, I couldn’t see every detail of the walls and windows and gardens that had been torn apart in the single-minded attempts to reach the live people barricaded beyond. I could see the movement of the bodies that were doing the tearing. It was that same determined, methodical destruction from the broadcasts, heedless of the rule that said bad things were supposed to be gone when the sun came out.
The police presence was still visible too, but it was sort of like a spiderweb in the path of a garden spigot, impressive only in its optimistic persistence. The little clusters of blue lights stood out against the sea of red because, oh yeah, here’s the important part: The streets were completely, bumper-to-bumper, Super Bowl stacked parking lot packed.
I’ve been late for school more than once because just one traffic light was out, or one road was blocked with accident debris, or someone was getting busted on too public a sidewalk, begging everyone to slow down to stare.
All of those things were happening fifty times over at once in the valley that morning, and that’s why, even though the car’s aging GPS might theoretically have been able to lead me home, I turned back onto the road leading back up the mountain, back in the direction of the campgrounds and resort.
Well, “turn” is actually an excessively graceful word for what I did. It doesn’t quite conjure up the grinding sound of the few seconds between finding the reverse and noticing the parking break, or the screeching flash of sparks when the bumper clipped a metal gate on the way out, but the end result was mostly the same.
My chosen route wasn’t completely abandoned, but most of the other cars I passed were headed down instead of up, or pulled over to the sides, either with their hoods open or with their occupants simply staring at the bleak scene below. I passed them with the siren on, trying to look taller, wishing I’d taken a uniform shirt to cover my stained, grey tank top, but no one looked at me closely enough for it to matter. A sight that might have raised eyebrows on any other day was just part of the chaotic background noise now, a minute scrap of help already claimed by someone else.
Really, considering the fact that this was
1: My first time driving alone
2: My first time driving practically at night
3: My first time driving mountain roads
4: My first time driving during a state of emergency
5: My first time driving on roads full of human-sized walking obstacles that don’t try to stay out of your way, and
6: My first time driving, ever,
I think I did a pretty good job.
In a way, my lack of conditioning actually seemed to be an advantage. I’m pretty sure most of the other people out driving had figured out what the zombies were, but some old, irrevocably instilled instinct made it really hard to run them down. One guy coming down the other lane in front of me swerved so hard to avoid one that he drove headlong into the face of the mountain. I didn’t mind accelerating when it ran out in front of me and ripped off one of my windshield wipers, but I couldn’t help muttering under my breath as I did so, “seventeen.”
Seventeen murders, if people wouldn’t admit that these things weren’t alive in the first place, or just one instance of manslaughter if they would, I counted off in my head, plus escaping police custody, grand theft auto, driving without a license, oh, and plain old grand theft if you counted Suprbat and the rest of the stuff on the passenger seat. And I was pretty sure that precisely not a single one of those things would end up mattering.
One way or another, life was definitely never going to be the same.

 

But like I always do when annoyingly big, smothering thoughts like that one start creeping into my head, I looked extra hard at the moment right in front of me, and I was getting all ready to pat myself on the back for finding the resort safely, with all four tires intact and two hubcaps still in place, angled neatly between the white lines and everything, when I gave the brake an extra tap, only it turned out not to be the brake, and the world disappeared into darkness and stars as the airbag claimed the space I’d been sitting in.
 

 

About the Author

F.J.R. Titchenell is an author of young adult, sci-fi, and horror fiction. She graduated with a B.A in English from California State University, Los Angeles, in 2009 at the age of twenty, is represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel, and currently lives in San Gabriel, California with her husband and fellow author, Matt Carter, and their pet king snake, Mica.

The “F” is for Fiona, and on the rare occasions when she can be pried away from her keyboard, her kindle, and the pages of her latest favorite book, Fi can usually be found over-analyzing the inner workings of various TV Sci-Fi universes or testing out some intriguing new recipe, usually chocolate-related.

 

Author Links:


       

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Release Blitz for To Dance with Angels by KC Cullen

 

KC Cullen has released her debut novel, To Dance With Angels. Continue for a sexy excerpt and enter the international giveaway.

 

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release date: February 28th 2017
Purchase: Amazon
 

Synopsis:

Since she was a little girl, Kyra Byrne sacrificed everything for her dream to be a prima ballerina, braving broken toes and scheming rivals. Now the dream is finally within reach: she’s a soloist at a prestigious Boston company, her tumultuous past safely behind her.

But all that is put at risk when the company brings in a new choreographer, the smoldering Damien Delacroix with the sexy accent, rebellious tattoos, rippling abs, and scandalous reputation, a man who’s ruined as many careers as he’s built up. And the moment he walks into the studio, Damien only has eyes for Kyra.

 
Against the wishes of everyone from Kyra’s boss to the drama-queen prima, he casts Kyra as the lead in his new ballet. This could be the break she needed so badly—or it could be her ruin when her past begins to resurface in unpredictable ways. As Damien and Kyra’s chemistry sizzles on and off the stage, she realizes she’s in too deep. Kyra never dreamed of risking everything she worked so hard for, everything she painstakingly built—all for a man. But with the premiere looming and with the other dancers gunning for her downfall, she could lose more than her heart. 

About the Author
YA author by day, KC Cullen writes romance and romantic suspense by night. Her debut, TO DANCE WITH ANGELS, will be released on February 28, 2017. She lives in northern Ontario with her husband, two teenagers, and hyperactive Dalmatian.


WEBSITE | TWITTER


 











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Cover Reveal for Myths of Mish (Fairytale Galaxy Chronicles #2) by Katie Hamstead

Myths of Mish (Fairytale Galaxy Chronicles #2)
by Katie Hamstead
Genre: YA Space Opera/Scifi/Fantasy
Release Date: March 14th 2017
Curiosity Quills Press

Summary from Goodreads:

Hansel and Gretel Herrscher survived the witch in the woods, but the experience has made Hansel paranoid for the past ten years. He sees dark magic at every turn. When Gretel has a marriage arranged to a much older man, and Hansel discovers he’s about to be sent halfway across the galaxy, he knows something sinister is afoot.

Wilhelmine Nordon has plenty of experience with Hansel’s quirkier side. So when she catches him and Gretel running away in the middle of the night, she follows to keep them from getting killed. The siblings have never left the capital of Mish on their own, so they need a babysitter. Except when she’s discovered, Hansel gives her his usual cold shoulder, and Gretel secretly begs her to take them back.

The problem is, Hansel’s paranoia turns out to be well founded, and they’re all being hunted.






















 
Book One (click on the image for Goodreads link):

About the Author

Born and raised in Australia, Katie’s early years of day dreaming in the “bush”, and having her father tell her wild bedtime stories, inspired her passion for writing.

After graduating High School, she became a foreign exchange student where she met a young man who several years later she married. Now she lives in Arizona with her husband, daughter and their dog.

She has a diploma in travel and tourism which helps inspire her writing.

When her debut novel, Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh, climbed into bestselling status, she believed she was onto something, and now has a slew of novels now available, and is published through Curiosity Quills Press, Soul Mate Publishing, and REUTS Publishing.

Katie loves to out sing her friends and family, play sports, and be a good wife and mother. She now works as an Acquisitions Editor to help support her family. She loves to write, and takes the few spare moments in her day to work on her novels.

 
Author Links:

   

Cover Reveal Organized by:

Cover Reveal and Giveaway for To Dance With Angles by KC Cullen

 

 
 
Release date: February 28th 2017
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis via Goodreads:
Since she was a little girl, Kyra Byrne sacrificed everything for her dream to be a prima ballerina, braving broken toes and scheming rivals. Now the dream is finally within reach: she’s a soloist at a prestigious Boston company, her tumultuous past safely behind her.
 
But all that is put at risk when the company brings in a new choreographer, the smoldering Damien Delacroix with the sexy accent, rebellious tattoos, rippling abs, and scandalous reputation, a man who’s ruined as many careers as he’s built up. And the moment he walks into the studio, Damien only has eyes for Kyra.
 
Against the wishes of everyone from Kyra’s boss to the drama-queen prima, he casts Kyra as the lead in his new ballet. This could be the break she needed so badly—or it could be her ruin when her past begins to resurface in unpredictable ways. As Damien and Kyra’s chemistry sizzles on and off the stage, she realizes she’s in too deep. Kyra never dreamed of risking everything she worked so hard for, everything she painstakingly built—all for a man. But with the premiere looming and with the other dancers gunning for her downfall, she could lose more than her heart. 
 


 

About the Author
YA author by day, KC Cullen writes romance and romantic suspense by night. Her debut, TO DANCE WITH ANGELS, will be released on February 28, 2017. She lives in northern Ontario with her husband, two teenagers, and hyperactive Dalmatian.

WEBSITE | TWITTER


 
 








 
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Cover Reveal for To Dance with Angels by KC Cullen

Genre: Contemporary Romance
 
Since she was a little girl, Kyra Byrne sacrificed everything for her dream to be a prima ballerina, braving broken toes and scheming rivals. Now the dream is finally within reach: she’s a soloist at a prestigious Boston company, her tumultuous past safely behind her.
But all that is put at risk when the company brings in a new choreographer, the smoldering Damien Delacroix with the sexy accent, rebellious tattoos, rippling abs, and scandalous reputation, a man who’s ruined as many careers as he’s built up. And the moment he walks into the studio, Damien only has eyes for Kyra.
Against the wishes of everyone from Kyra’s boss to the drama-queen prima, he casts Kyra as the lead in his new ballet. This could be the break she needed so badly—or it could be her ruin when her past begins to resurface in unpredictable ways. As Damien and Kyra’s chemistry sizzles on and off the stage, she realizes she’s in too deep. Kyra never dreamed of risking everything she worked so hard for, everything she painstakingly built—all for a man. But with the premiere looming and with the other dancers gunning for her downfall, she could lose more than her heart.



YA author by day, KC Cullen writes romance and romantic suspense by night. Her debut, TO DANCE WITH ANGELS, will be released on February 28, 2017. She lives in northern Ontario with her husband, two teenagers, and hyperactive Dalmatian.

TWITTER

Trailer Reveal for As You Lay Sleeping by Katlyn Duncan

 

Book Blitz for Chameleon by Zoe Kalo

Chameleon
by Zoe Kalo
Genre: YA Gothic/Multicultural
Release date: February 15th 2017

Summary:

An isolated convent, a supernatural presence, a dark secret…

17-year-old Paloma only wanted to hold a séance to contact her dead father. She never thought she would be kicked out of school and end up in an isolated convent. Now, all she wants is to be left alone. But slowly, she develops a bond with a group of girls: kind-hearted Maria, insolent Silvy, pathological liar Adelita, and their charismatic leader Rubia.

When, yet again, Paloma holds a séance in the hope of contacting her father, she awakens an entity that has been dormant for years. And then, the body count begins. Someone doesn’t want the secret out…

Are the ghost and Paloma’s suspicions real—or only part of her growing paranoia and delusions?

Author Links:
   

GIVEAWAY:
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Short Q&A with Zoe Kalo:

What was your inspiration for Chameleon?

Like Paloma, I was partly educated in a convent school run by Catholic nuns. The convent was also an orphanage for girls, and actually some of the girls—Ramona and Sylvy—were based on real people. Adelita and Rubia were pure creations of my imagination. I did attempt to do a séance in one of the classrooms once, an act that made me end up in Madre Superiora’s office…but I didn’t get kicked out…nor experience a ghost. J

Some of the scenes in the book depict the nuns in a very negative way. Can you comment on that?

Some of the nuns are nice, others…not so nice. That’s just the way it was. Except for Madre Superiora, all of the nuns in my book are based on real nuns. Madre Estela, Madre Julia, Madre Margarita were all real. Yes, Madre Julia with her giant wooden spoon, real. It may seem hard to believe, and certainly it would be tough to believe nuns can behave like that nowadays. But remember the story takes place in 1970s Puerto Rico. Catholic nuns were very strict back then, their disciplining methods cruel, but this was considered normal.

How long did it take you to complete the book?

On and off, about two years. But the story and characters simmered in my mind for years before then.

Did you have to do a lot of research?

I did a tremendous amount of research on psychopaths and psychopathy, and a fair amount on natural drugs found in tropical forests, though I ended up using only a tiny fraction of the material. I also consulted a police officer for the parts about police procedural and interrogation.

You like to use mimic writing, don’t you?

Yes, I do! I used it in Daughter of the Sun when the protagonist was drugged, and also in this book in the climax with Paloma. The writing becomes erratic and stream of consciousness because it reflects and mimics the altered mind of the character. No commas, no punctuation, one run-on sentence after another. I love using this literary technique but sometimes it can be confusing for the reader, so trying to find a balance can be very challenging.

Did you listen to any particular kind of music while working on the book?

I sure did! I can get quite obsessed about that, listening to the same compositions again and again. This was my music list for Chameleon… all of them haunting, mysterious and dark!

Beethoven’s Figlio Perduto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuo6PUeyHmA (Performed by Sarah Brightman)

Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiMcXzfm9Mg

Agnes Obel’s Riverside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjncyiuwwXQ

Revenge Series soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOgHd_iM5ok

Interview with the Vampire soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6aPxaCpP78

Book Blitz for SeQuence Aligned (The Heart of the Ocean #2) by Lorraine M.L.M.

SeQuence Aligned (The Heart of the Ocean #2)

by Lorraine M.L.M.

Genre: YA Fantasy/Romance

Release Date: February 1st 2017

Summary from Goodreads:

Alessia and Dante’s love has blossomed. Their Sequence of Hearts is sturdier than ever, but the shield that protects Tuscania is weakening and an invasion is imminent. Everyone knows Alessia’s new-found power is the key–especially Alessia. Unfortunately, the energy inside her is unstable and expediting her training could have devastating consequences. But that’s exactly what must be done.

Whisked away to a secluded training facility, Alessia is forced to put aside all distractions, including Dante, to fully focus on the Sequence of Peace.

But power always comes at a price. When Dante falls deathly ill, Alessia abandons her training to go to him, but she never makes it. Instead, she’s kidnapped and dragged outside the shield where she’s more helpless than she was back on Earth. As the captive of a vengeful madman, Alessia has only her wits and her will to save herself and the world she’s come to cherish.

  
 
Book One:

SeQuence (The Heart of the Ocean #1)
by Lorraine M.L.M.
Release Date: November 2nd 2016
 
Summary from Goodreads:
 
Alessia Appleton is desperate. She’s desperate to silence the voices inside her head, but being committed to an island asylum has only made them worse. Still, at least there’s the ocean. Water is the one thing that blocks Alessia from hearing the thoughts of those around her. Complete submersion is her only relief. So, when she gets the chance to escape her wardens and the voices, Alessia takes it. She dives into the sea and a giant wave drags her under.

When she comes to, one thing is clear–either Alessia’s completely lost her mind, or she’s not on Earth anymore. 

Instead, she finds herself in a world with two moons, a complex undersea society, a long-lost grandmother, and a drool-worthy young man named Dante Erajion. However, it doesn’t take long for Alessia to realise that a new world comes with all kinds of new rules and new problems. In Zeneshia sequence takes precedence over chance, and Alessia’s arrival has set off the Foretold Sequence of Hearts, shifting the future to a dire series of choices between Life, Love, and Death.

Shortlisted for the 2015 Love Stories New Talent Award

  


BOOK TRAILER:

 

About the Author

Lorraine M.L.M writes young adult romantic fiction. Her love for reading prompted her passion for writing. She loves all genres of romance but has a special and inherent interest in Fantasy/Romance in particular uplifting and thought provoking fiction. Her YA Fantasy/Romance debut novel, SeQuence was shortlisted for the 2015 Love Stories New Talent Award.

When she’s not writing, she can be found gazing into the distance thinking about writing.

If you would like to keep up-to-date with news of her forthcoming releases, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/b-3fXn

Author Links:
 

GIVEAWAY:

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Cover Real for Project Pandora (The Olympus Experiment, #1) by Aden Polydoros

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Title: Project Pandora (The Olympus Experiment, #1)
Author: Aden Polydoros
Release Date: August 1, 2017

Description: 

Olympus is rising…

Tyler hasn’t been feeling like himself lately, his dreams are full of violence and death, and there are days where he can’t remember where he’s been.

Miles away, Shannon finds herself haunted by similar nightmares. She is afraid that she has done something terrible.

As the daughter of a state senator, Elizabeth has everything she could ever hope for. But when an uninvited guest interrupts a fundraising gala and stirs up painful memories, everything goes downhill fast.

Murder is what Hades is good at. So when two of his comrades go AWOL, he is rewarded with the most exhilarating hunt of his lifetime. For him, the game has just begun.


Author Bio: 
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Aden Polydoros grew up in Long Grove, Illinois, the youngest of three children. Aden’s family moved to Arizona when he was in second grade. As a kid, he spent much of his time exploring the desert near his home. When he wasn’t searching for snakes and lizards, he was raiding the bookshelves of the local library.

As a teenager, Aden decided that he wanted to be a writer. He spent his free time writing short stories. He was encourage by his English teacher to try his hand at writing a novel, which inspired him to begin Project Pandora. The YA thriller is set for publication with Entangled Publishing in Summer of 2017. He is represented by Mallory Brown of Triada US.
 
Link to Exclusive Cover Reveal on YA Books Central: http://www.yabookscentral.com/blog/it-s-live-cover-reveal-1-31

Website: http://www.adenpolydoros.com/home.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdenPolydoros

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aden.polydoros

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450642-project-pandora

Preorder link: https://entangledpublishing.com/index.php/project-pandora.html