Spotlight on The Black Song Inside by Carlyle Clark

13 January 2014 by Melissa

About the book, The Black Song Inside

Atticus Wynn and Rosemary Sanchez, newly engaged private investigators, have seen the dark and violent side of life. Nothing, though, has prepared them for an explosive murder investigation that threatens to tear their relationship apart as they struggle to solve a case that could leave them in prison or dead.

Atticus’s manipulative ex-girlfriend bursts back into their lives wielding a secret about Rosemary’s family that she exploits to force the couple into investigating the execution-style slaying of her lover. The case thrusts Atticus and Rosemary headlong into the world of human trafficking and drug smuggling, while rendering them pawns in Tijuana Cartel captain Armando Villanueva’s bloody bid to take over the cartel.

The Black Song Inside is a vivid crime thriller rife with murder and madness, melded with gallows humor and the heroism of two flawed and compelling protagonists who, if they can save themselves, may learn the nature of redemption and the ability to forgive.

Buy a copy!

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Join the conversation!

Goodreads

About the author, Carlyle Clark

Carlyle Clark

Carlyle Clark was raised in Poway, a city just north of San Diego, but is now a proud Chicagolander working in the field of Corporate Security and writing crime and fantasy fiction. He has flailed ineffectually at performing the writer’s requisite myriad of random jobs: pizza deliverer, curb address painter, sweatshop laborer, day laborer, night laborer, security guard, campus police, Gallup pollster, medical courier, vehicle procurer, and signature-for-petitions-getter.

He is a married man with two cats and a dog. He is also a martial arts enthusiast and a CrossFit endurer who enjoys fishing, sports, movies, TV series with continuing storylines, and of course, reading. Most inconsequentially, he holds the unrecognized distinction of being one of the few people in the world who have been paid to watch concrete dry in the dark. Tragically, that is a true statement.

His latest book is the mystery thriller, The Black Song Inside.

Connect with Carlyle

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter

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This giveaway begins December 2 and ends February 28.
Winner will be contacted via email on Monday, March 3, 2013.
Winner has 48 hours to reply.

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Spotlight on Family Interrupted, by Linda Barrett – Read the First Chapter

15 November 2013 by Melissa

I’m really excited to be presenting the first chapter of Linda Barrett’s new novel Family Interruped, and to tell you my thoughts about it. But first…

About the book, Family Interrupted:

Two years after their 12 year old daughter’s accidental death by a motorist, Claire and Jack Barnes go through the motions of celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. When artist Claire produces her gift–a full-scale oil painting of their daughter–Jack has had enough. With his daughter gone, his wife focused on the past and his 20 year old son living on his own, Jack feels like a stranger in his own home and moves out the day after the party.

Claire understands they’re heading for divorce. Two days later, when she’s alone in the house, a young woman comes to the door and hands over her infant. This is their son’s baby. The girl says, “I told Ian she’d be too much work, and I’ve got other plans.” She disappears. Ian is ready to put the baby up for adoption because his daughter deserves a good, solid family, better than what the Barneses have become. Jack and Claire must figure out what to do next.

Intersecting the main stories of the Barnes family is the subplot involving the driver of the car. No alcohol, no speeding involved. But guilt seeps into the driver’s soul and changes her life. Who will forgive this woman?

Buy your copy from Amazon

About the author, Linda Barrett:

Linda Barrett is the author of 13 novels of contemporary romance. She’s earned many industry awards through Romance Writers of America, including the Holt Medallion, The Award of Excellence and the Write Touch Reader’s award. Family Interrupted is her first women’s fiction story. A graduate of Hunter College, Linda now lives in the Tampa area with her husband. They have three grown sons and the most adorable, intelligent, super-duper grandchildren ever!

Connect with Linda Barrett

Website: Linda-Barrett
Facebook: Linda.Barrett.353

My Thoughts on the First Chapter of Family Interrupted

You can’t really judge a whole novel from one chapter, but if the first chapter of Family Interrupted really is representational of the rest of the book, I can’t imagine not liking it. Sure, on the surface the subject is grim: a couple recovering from the death of their twelve-year-old daughter and trying not to let their marriage go down the tubes, but really, that’s just the background. The rest of the story is one of finding yourself when the thing that used to define you suddenly…doesn’t.

I like the way Barrett writes – her language is vivid, but still accessible. I also like that she’s not afraid to use touches of humor. One of the gritty realities of life is that grief and laughter are often inextricably intertwined (to borrow a Douglas Adams phrase I’ve loved since I was thirteen). Laughter through tears is a core part of that, just as grinning through a fight, or weeping after sex are both normal reactions for some of us.

Ultimately, I can’t know from one chapter what will happen with Claire, but I do know that in Barrett’s deft hands the story will be interesting, compelling, and really real.

Read the First Chapter of Family Interrupted

CHAPTER ONE

CLAIRE BARNES

Houston, Texas

September

“Bellisima! Brava! Your best work yet, Signora Barnes. Maybe you give Leonardo some competition?”

I rolled my eyes and grinned at my instructor. “Leonardo can rest easy.”

Dr. Colombo teased, exhorted, or flirted with his students on a regular basis, especially the talented ones, but comparing my work to the Mona Lisa was going far, even for this powerhouse.

I stepped away from my easel and focused on a portrait of a young girl peeking sideways under half-closed lids. I’d called it, GIRL WITH SECRETS. The child held secrets I wanted to know.

“Your daughter, yes?” Colombo asked, his voice a deep rumble.

DNA didn’t lie. I nodded and said, “On the outside, Kayla’s mine, brown eyes and blonde hair, but inside, she’s her dad, an unquenchable extrovert. Sometimes, my daughter’s surrounded by more friends than my house can hold.” My pride in Kayla overrode the mock complaint. “She’s twelve-and-a-half, almost a teenager—almost grown up—as she likes to remind me.”

“Ah-h.” He sighed as if he understood. “I have two daughters, Signora, and I know how they too much wanted to be women, but were not ready, never ready in the eyes of their mama.”

Click here to read more of the first chapter of FAMILY INTERRUPTED !

Spotlight On & First Chapter Of: What Remains by Bart Baker

6 November 2013 by Melissa

About the Book, What Remains:

What Remains

When Conner Carter is banished from New York for cheating on his socialite wife, he flies across country to Sonoma, California to stay with his brother Cody, Cody’s ridiculously wealthy husband, Rhett, and their two adopted Cambodian children. Since childhood, Conner has been jealous of the gilded life Cody has led, but Conner learns that what glitters often tarnishes and shatters in shocking and dangerous ways. Having always taken life’s easiest route, Conner now finds that path closed when he is forced to step up for his brother when Cody’s personal life crumbles after Rhett goes missing in Colombia on a documentary film shoot. Conner’s world unravels when the woman he’s fallen in love with, their black Puerto Rican nanny, Zinzi, finds her violent past catching up with her. From the tattered and surprising pieces of these characters’ intense and complicated lives, these people will discover the strength in What Remains.

Buy a copy from Amazon

About the Author, Bart Baker:

Bart Baker

With two feature films, eleven movies for television, four television series credits, as well as eight theatrical plays produced around the world, What Remains is Bart’s second novel. Bart’s first novel, Honeymoon with HarryHONEYMOON WITH HARRY, was a critical and commercial success and the movie rights were bought by Warner Bros./New Line Cinema for a feature film. He’s recently sold a film project in conjunction with the hit song by Miranda Lambert, OVER YOU, to the Lifetime Network. Bart lives in Ellisville, Missouri with his family.

Connect with Bart:

Website: BartBaker.com
Goodreads: What Remains

Read the first chapter of What Remains, by Bart Baker:

CONNER

“Do I know you?” I asked, casually flirting as I shook the hand of the outstanding brunette in the Versace cocktail dress. It’s a skill I’ve perfected for these opaque charity fundraisers I get bullied into attending.
“We slept together two years ago,” she stated with a razor’s edge etched into her voice. “You never called.”
Not the best statement to make when I’m standing with my wife of three years.
Now before you cast stones, it’s not like I was the only one cheating throughout our marriage. She had her dalliances with men far more successful than I, men she gravitated towards once we were married as if to show me what she hoped I’d become while simultaneously reminding me that I never would. I possessed no natural status of my own.
Any cachet I owned, I married into.

Continue reading the first chapter of What Remains!

Spotlight on Upir and the Monster Gang by Sharron & Raymond Thornton

22 October 2013 by Melissa

As a child of the 1970s I grew up on reruns of The Munsters and The Addams Family, as well as those classic horror movies – Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and Bela Lugosi in Dracula. As I got older my love of cinematic horror only grew, and my geek-girl tendencies meant that even though I’m older than the target demographic I embraced everything from The Monster Squad (1987) to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and fell in love with Being Human.

What could be better, then, than to help introduce a new series aimed at tweens that is from the monsters’ point of view?

About the Series, Upir and the Monster Gang, by Sharron & Raymond Thornton:

Upir and the Monster Gang Cover

Coming from a long line of highly respected vampires, Upir knew that going to Neewollah, the Monster Mausoleum, would help him live up to his family’s reputation, but he never anticipated the terrifying turn his stay there would take. Upon entering, Upir befriends several strange creatures and their nights soon become treacherous when they have to dodge flying skulls whose hollow eye sockets shimmer with bright blue lights, avoid huge plants with tongue-like tentacles that devour young monsters, and run from a mad scientist who loves to use the monster students in his experiments. Most of all, they try to stay away from Muriel, an ill-tempered, nasty gorgon girl with slithering snakes for hair. She is the leader of three cantankerous monsters that follow her every command. Her group is bent on destroying Upir and his gang.

Without warning the young monsters find themselves entangled in a plot to destroy the Monster race. Will they escape the clutches of this horrifying villain and alert the Monster world, or will they become his loyal soldiers?

Watch the book trailer:

If you liked that, here are some other short clips:

Upir and the Monster Gang – The Sea Serpent

Upir and the Monster Gang – Monster Lives

Upir and the Monster Gang – Screaming Skulls

Upir and the Monster Gang – The Monster Garden

About the Authors, Sharron & Raymond Thornton:

Sharron Thornton taught elementary school for 35 ½ years. She felt it was important that her students developed a love for reading. One of the special times of each school day was right after lunch recess when she read a novel to her children. It didn’t take the kids long to get quiet and settle down for they were anxious to hear where the next chapter would take them. Sharron soon realized that books were doors to imagination for all children at all levels of learning.

When she retired, Sharron missed all of those young faces. She missed their emotional involvement with the characters and story lines from the books she read to them. So, she decided to work on an illustrated novel with her son Raymond who is an artist. Thus, Upir and the Monster Gang was born, a world of monsters, mad scientists, zombies, ghosts, vampires and all things that live in the night. Sharron has been writing for almost a decade. Besides the Upir series, she is working on several other children’s novels.

Thorntons At Graveyard

Raymond Thornton is an artist from Northwest Indiana. At the age of fifteen he started his fine art training at the Drisi Studio Academy of Fine Art. For five years he studied the finer points of painting and drawing. He then continued his studies at Columbia College and the American Academy of Art in Chicago where he received a degree in fine art.

Raymond’s oil paintings have been exhibited across the country. He has received many awards including the gold medal at the 96th annual Allied Artists of America Exhibition and an award of excellence at the 2012 Oil Painters of America Eastern Exhibition. He has illustrated many national ad campaigns. Most recently he illustrated and co-created with author Sharron Thornton, his mother, Upir and the Monster Gang. It is an illustrated novel about a young vampire and his monster friends which features over 60 full colored illustrations.

Connect with Sharron and/or Raymond:

Web: UpirAndTheMonsterGang.com
Facebook: Upir and the Monster Gang
Twitter (Sharron): @SharronThornton
Twitter (Raymond): @RaymondThornton

Spotlight on: Phoenix: The Beauty in Between by Lilliana Anderson

21 October 2013 by Melissa

I’m always happy to help support women authors, so I’m happy to be part of the group of bloggers introducing you to Lilliana Anderson’s latest work.

About the Book, Phoenix: The Beauty in Between:

nix The Beauty in Between

After being unceremoniously kicked out of home at a young age, Paige was forced to fend for herself.

In a bid to survive, she did things that most people would never dream of, and stopped caring about herself as a result.

When the fastest way to get food and shelter was to sell her body, and the fastest way to forget was to take drugs, Paige embarked and a steady downward spiral. Until, finally she hit rock bottom…

In A Beautiful Forever we got to know Paige as she battled the demons of her past to move forward with her future and find her happy ever after. Now, in Phoenix, we get to see the moments those demons were created and how she managed to get her life back on track.

Buy a copy at AMAZON

About the Author, Lilliana Anderson:

Lilliana Anderson

Bestselling Author of the A Beautiful Series, Alter and the Confidante Trilogy, Lilliana has always loved to read and write, considering it the best form of escapism that the world has to offer.

Australian born and bred, she writes New Adult Romance revolving around her authentically Aussie characters as well as a biographical trilogy based on an ex-Sydney sex worker, named Angelien.

Lilliana feels that the world should see Australia for more than just its outback and tries to show characters in more of a city setting.

When she isn’t writing, she wears the hat of ‘wife and mother’ to her husband and four children.

Before Lilliana turned to writing, she worked in a variety of industries and studied humanities and communications before transferring to commerce/law at university.

Originally from Sydney’s Western suburbs, she currently lives a fairly quiet life in suburban Melbourne.

Her latest book is the new adult contemporary romance, Phoenix: The Beauty in Between.

Connect with Lilliana:

Web: LillianaAnderson.com
Twitter: @Confidante_Lili
Facebook: Lilliana Anderson – Author

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The Diabolist by Layton Green – Spotlight and Giveaway Raffle

16 October 2013 by Melissa

I’m always on the lookout for supernatural-themed thrillers, especially in October, so I’m happy to introduce you to Layton Green’s The Diabolist. Look for my review of it later this month!

About the Book, The Diabolist:

The Diabolist by Layton Green

In this gripping thriller, the bizarre murder of a Satanic priest in San Francisco draws Dominic Grey and Viktor Radek, private investigators of cults, to the scene. Witnesses claim a robed figure, seemingly able to appear and disappear at will, set fire to the priest. When the leader of another Satanic cult in Paris dies under similar circumstances, the case only grows stranger… and more dangerous.

Convinced that a charismatic New Age prophet is behind the murders, the investigators undergo a perilous journey into the world of the occult as they try to penetrate the prophet’s inner circle. From the catacombs of Paris to London’s nefarious East End, from the haunted walls of York to a monastic fortress in the Sicilian wilderness, the case plunges Viktor and Grey into a vortex of black magic, ancient heresies, and the dark corners of their own pasts.

The Diabolist is a chilling novel that not only pulsates with action and suspense, but also mines a trove of fascinating historical, philosophical, and paranormal research to probe some of our closest held beliefs. From the opening pages to the astonishing conclusion, this latest installment in one of today’s most original new thriller series is not to be missed.

Buy your copy from AMAZON.