01/16/13

Suggestions for Feb. Author of the Month

Wow, I cannot believe that January is half over already! I have finished reading You Only Die Twice by the wonderful Christopher Smith, this month’s author of the month. I will have a review for that shortly and will also be starting on Fifth Avenue, which I have heard such amazing things about!

What I would love some help with is a pick for Feb’s author of the month. Remember I will be picking an author that I have not yet read. I am open to all genres, so please leave your ideas in the comment section. If we have several, I will put up a poll where everyone can vote and the winning author will be chosen by you awesome readers! Please feel free to pass this along!

Thanks!

Also, as an added bonus, I will be giving away a copy of one of Christopher Smith’s book – so be on the lookout for that post soon!

01/11/13

Friday Freebies for Kindle (and a few Nook)!

It’s Friday! Who is ready for some freebies?! Remember, these are free for a limited time and I cannot guarantee that they will still be free at the time that you click to check them out. If you know of any freebies that I missed, please share with us in the comments section – we all love freebies! To check out the books listed, please just click on the book cover.

Identity by Ted Dekker

Identity is Book 1 of a four episode thrill ride from New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker.

Who am I?

My name is Christy Snow. I’m seventeen and I’m about to die.

I’m buried in a coffin under tons of concrete. No one knows where I am. My heart sounds like a monster with clobber feet, running straight toward me. I’m lying on my back, soaked with sweat from the hair on my head to the soles of my feet. My hands and feet won’t stop shaking.

Some will say that I m not really here. Some will say I’m delusional. Some will say that I don t even exist. But who are they? I’m the one buried in a grave.

My name is Christy Snow. I’m seventeen. I’m about to die.

So who are you?

In a return to the kind of storytelling that made Black, Showdown and Three unforgettable, New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker drags that question into the light with this modern day parable about how we see ourselves.

Humming with intensity and blindsided twists, Eyes Wide Open is raw adrenaline from the first page to the last pure escapism packed with inescapable truth. Not all is as it seems. Or is it? Strap yourself in for the ride of your life. Literally. (Young Adult)

Betrayed by Jeanette Windle

This action-packed international thriller brings readers to Guatemala, where anthropologist Vicki Andrews discovers that her sister has been murdered. Guatemalan authorities dismiss her death as another of the country’s frequent muggings or a kidnap-for-ransom, but Vicki refuses to accept their verdict. Vicki launches her own investigation and uncovers corruption buried so deep that crossing international lines may cost Vicki her life.

Land of my Heart by Traci Peterson

Book 1 of Heirs of Montana from bestselling author Tracie Peterson. Adventurers, families, outlaws…all driven west in the 1860s by a longing for endless blue sky along with wild and wide-open spaces. Tracie Peterson, from her own Montana home, paints an unforgettable portrait of this rich, rugged landscape, populated by strong and spirited characters. When Dianne Chadwick urges her family to move west to her uncle’s ranch in the Montana Territory, she has no idea that her new life in the rugged frontier–and even within her uncle’s home–will not be the idyllic adventure she expects. But first she has to survive the arduous wagon journey with the help of guide Cole Selby, whose heart seems to be as hard as the mountains he loves. (also free on Nook - click here)

The Call of Emily Evans by Janette Oke

She feels God nudging her toward ministry, but what options are there for a young single woman? Emily Evans has a hard time getting herself to class on time, much less figuring out God’s will for her life. Then, to her surprise, she feels that God is calling her into full-time Christian service. She expects the Lord will also provide her with a companion to share her life and ministry, but Emily does not want to marry any of the available young men. She squares her shoulders and decides she will accept the task of opening a new church in a pioneer community–alone. When Emily arrives at her new assignment, she is disappointed to find the church building in disrepair. After many days of hard work fixing it up, she announces her first service and is once again disappointed, this time in the size of her congregation. Is her faith strong enough to stand against the local doubters and myriad challenges that will test her calling? (also free on Nook – click here)

Stiletto Safari by Kate Metz

Zara Hamilton has it all – a glamorous New York lifestyle, a gorgeous (and seriously rich) boyfriend and a job as a lawyer in a prestigious city law firm. But when Zara’s boyfriend is accused of insider trading her perfect world implodes. Thrown out of work by security and stalked by the press, Zara’s life can’t get any worse. Or can it? A snap decision (and a few wines too many) sees Zara fleeing to Africa to work as a temporary wildlife volunteer. But just when things start to cool down at home Zara realizes her troubles have only just begun. Will Zara’s designer wardrobe survive? Will a supermodel ruin her only chance at happiness? Can a Birkin bag really solve her problems? And will Zara want her old life back at the end of it all….

She Belongs to Me by Carmen DeSousa

After secrets and a mysterious background leave a wife’s life hanging by a thread, a husband must look for answers in the only place he knows–the past.

When wealthy construction company owner and Charlotte detective, Jordan Monroe, meets Jaynee for the first time he is awestruck and determines to make her his wife. Jaynee, however, has a history she cannot easily overcome and is fearful to submit to love. Jordan succeeds in making her his wife, but five years into their marriage, he realizes she is keeping secrets. Before he can decipher her duplicity, he discovers her unconscious in their home from a gunshot wound only hours after giving her an ultimatum concerning their relationship.

With Jaynee’s life hanging in the balance, the mystery of her past drives Jordan to investigate. But what appears to be an attempted suicide turns out to be something far darker. Is someone from her past stalking her? Or worse, is someone close to Jordan trying to kill them both? As Jordan edges closer to the truth, it may be deadlier than he could ever have imagined.

Cafenova by S. Jane Scheyder

Leaving her broken heart behind in Seattle, Maddy Jacobs starts a new life on the coast of Maine. Although running a Bed and Breakfast has always been her dream, restoring the sprawling Victorian inn is a massive undertaking. Her contractor, competent, handsome, and built like a Greek god, could be the answer to her prayers. If she can keep her wits about her, she might just survive the summer.

John Fordham has his plate full, raising two young sons and running his renovation business. Restoring the waterfront property for its intriguing new owner will take all of his energy, and, if he’s not careful, it might just take his heart.

The Face of God by Bill Myers

When senior pastor Daniel Lawson steps down from his mega-church in an attempt to rediscover the fervent love of God he once had, he stumbles upon one of the mysterious stones used by the High Priest in the Old Testament and soon finds himself rushing to different parts of the Arab world in a race with a terrorist to find the other stones.

THE PASTOR His wife of twenty-three years has been murdered. His faith in God is crumbling before his very eyes. Now, with his estranged son, he sets out to find the supernatural stones spoken of in the Bible. Stones that will enable the two of them to hear the audible voice of God. Stones that may rekindle their dying faith and love.

THE TERRORIST He has also learned of the stones. He too must find them—but for much darker reasons. As the mastermind of a deadly plot that will soon kill millions, he has had a series of dreams that instruct him to first find the stones. Everything else is in place. The wrath of Allah is poised and ready to be unleashed. All that remains is for him to obtain the stones.

With the lives of millions hanging in the balance, the opposing faiths of these two men collide in an unforgettable showdown. The Face of God is another thrilling and thought-provoking novel by a master of the heart and suspense, Bill Myers.

Rise of the Fallen by Donya Lynne

In the streets of Chicago exists an uneasy, centuries-old truce between vampires and their distant cousins, a race of shifters called drecks. Vampire enforcement agency, All the King’s Men (AKM), is charged with maintaining the truce, but when volatile enforcer Micah Black loses his mate and falls into the biological agony that results from the broken bond, he tests the boundaries of the truce by seeking out Apostle, a leader in the dreck community. Micah wants Apostle to kill him, a request Apostle is more than happy to fulfill.

When ex-Army medic Samantha Garrett inadvertently disrupts the plot and saves Micah’s life, a chain reaction sets Micah’s heart on a collision course with Sam’s, but he will have to protect her from Apostle and her obsessive ex-husband, Steve, if they will have a chance at forever. Can Micah hold his emotions together to keep Sam alive? (also free on Nook – click here)

Impact by Tiffinie Helmer

In order to survive a plane crash, the elements, and predators, they’ll have to survive each other first.

Alaska State Trooper Skip Ozhuwan has waited five years to reunite with Wren Terni, the woman he’s always loved. Flying back home for his sister’s wedding with only him and Wren in a chartered bush plane guarantees he’ll have her undivided attention.

Ever since Skip arrested her five years earlier, Wren vowed never to lay eyes on him again. She’s gotten sober and made a life for herself that she’s proud of. Seeing Skip now throws her into a tailspin.

When the plane crashes, they are forced to battle a violent arctic storm, outwit predators, and dispose of a dead body. They must find a way to get past their differences if they are to survive to have a future together.

That is, if they don’t kill each other first.

Leopard Moon by Jeanette Battista

“The Moon series is filled with action and romance, shape shifters and strong heroines.”–Melissa Marr, NYT bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series

How do you disappear when you come from a family of predators?

A wereleopard, Kess is forced to flee her home and family in Miami once her brother’s obsession with her turns violent. She runs from city to city, trying to stay one step ahead of the investigators her family has dispatched to bring her home. Kess ends up in the mountains of North Carolina and attracts the attention of Cormac, a young man with a secret of his own. As she attempts to live as normal a life as her were-nature allows, her brother Sek continues to hunt for her. He believes she is the key to revitalizing their weakened clan and is driven to extreme measures to ensure their continued existence. As Kess’ relationship with Cormac deepens, Sek closes in, threatening Cormac’s life and Kess’ freedom.

When the moon rises, the hunt is on….

Hardball by V.K. Sykes

After years of hard work and keeping her nose firmly to the grindstone, Dr. Holly Bell has finally achieved her dream: a position as a pediatric surgeon at a prestigious teaching hospital. Children’s lives rest in her skilled hands. That means total dedication to her work and her patients without letting anything or anyone get in the way. And a hot affair with a superstar athlete is most definitely getting in Holly’s way.

Nate Carter, star pitcher for the Philadelphia Patriots, has the world in the palm of his baseball glove. He’s at the height of his game, a west coast team is about to lure him with even greater riches, and the most gorgeous women in town are in full pursuit. Nate has everything he wants, or at least he thinks he does, until he meets the beautiful and brainy Dr. Holly Bell. He’s totally up for a hot affair, and Holly turns out to be the hottest.

But will Holly be willing to play his game? When the lovely doctor starts changing the rules, Nate realizes he just might be playing for keeps.

Book Two in the Philadelphia Patriots Series

(Also free on Nook – click here)

Bullied by Christopher Smith

The relentlessly bullied 18-year-old Seth Moore is gifted an amulet that ignites within him a wealth of supernatural powers.

If Seth uses the amulet properly, it will protect him from those determined to crush him. But after so many years of being beaten down and humiliated, the question is whether Seth can resist creating a firestorm of horror when the bullies around him create one fatal, awful act that begs for revenge.

Soon, all hell breaks loose. And when it does, a war builds against Seth as others vie to take control of the amulet and use its powers for themselves.

BULLIED is an intense thriller that moves at a break-neck pace. It is the first book in the BULLIED series.

01/8/13

What I Am Reading… It’s not for the faint of heart!

I decided to grab a copy of You Only Die Twice by Christopher Smith to introduce myself to this month’s Author of the Month. The reason I chose this one? The synopsis sounded incredibly addictive and intriguing:

In her past, Cheryl Dunning died once. A violent act killed her, but heroics brought her back. Now, if she can’t save herself from two serial killers hunting her in the Maine woods, she’s about to die again, this time from two men armed with a Bible, guns, a deep belief in God, and their twisted interpretation of his word.

Fueled by their righteous fury, they are determined to find Cheryl and murder her for what they perceive as her “life’s worth of sins.” What they don’t know is what Cheryl knows. She’s a Maine girl, born and raised–and she knows how to use these woods in ways that might, if she’s lucky, turn them against each man.

From the #1 international best-selling author of many thrillers, including “Fifth Avenue,” “You Only Die Twice” is a blistering page-turner first, and a comment on Biblical interpretation second. It’s Christopher Smith’s most controversial and gripping novel to date.

*Warning: “You Only Die Twice” is not for the faint of heart. This is a story of madness and the fight for survival, and it depicts realistic adult situations without hesitation.

Honestly, there is not one sentence in that description that does not beg me to read the book. Needless to say, I did not hesitate in grabbing a copy for my Kindle and I am about 16% into the story. It has grabbed me from the beginning and is very difficult to put down. Here is a taste of the first couple of sentences of the story:

At first, all she was aware of was a cold wetness against her cheek and explosions of light along the periphery of her vision. She could hear someone talking to her – a man – but she couldn’t understand what he was saying.

She felt her body being jolted. Kicked. Punched.

Her head hurt.

There was blood in her mouth. And something else.

What are you reading now?

You Only Die Twice

01/4/13

Interview: Christopher Smith

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Today I am thrilled to share with readers an interview with Christopher Smith! I have to say that this is an author who truly puts himself out there for his readers and fans, allowing them to connect with him on a more personal level that truly bodes well for a long lasting fan base/friendship. I want to thank Christopher for taking the time to answer my questions and for doing so with enthusiasm and quickness! I hope you enjoy our little chat and please feel free to ask any questions that you may have yourself!

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Christopher, would you please tell readers a bit about yourself? What you like to do for fun, types of things you like to read, your favorite “hide outs”, etc.

Mostly, I work, because there can be no success without it. But when it comes to fun, it all comes down to travel. I’ll be visiting London for 10 days in March with a side trip to Paris, and I frequently go to New York City for research since most of my books take place there. One trip involved watching an autopsy. It was unsettling and humbling, but you can’t fake a scene like that in a book (in this case, “Running of the Bulls”), so I needed to witness it–from how it happens to what a Stryker saw sounds like when it bites down into bone to how the room–and thus the body–smells. In this case, for instance, when the person’s lungs were removed, the room suddenly stank of nicotine. So, I’m glad that’s behind me.

What is your biggest pet peeve?

Finding typos after I’ve paid Kirkus Editorial a significant sum of money for a “clean” copy edit….

Do you have any “have to haves” while writing? A “good luck charm”, a certain place to write, certain drink, music, etc?

I’m fortunate to have a really great office space in which to work. It’s a very large, bright room, one corner of which is devoted to writing on an iMac (the new model, just out, is fantastic), and the other side of which has a seating area for reading and for watching movies, from which I draw inspiration. I was a movie critic for print and television for 14 years before turning to writing thrillers, and movies especially help to inform my writing style, which is cinematic. When I write, it’s literally like watching a movie play out in my head, which I hope translates to the page. I watch the action unfold, and my fingers fly across the keyboard in an effort to catch up with the pace of that action. I write in silence. For me, music is a distraction. After all, it competes with the “movie.”

What is the title of your latest book? If you had to sell readers on a reason to read your book in 5 words, what would they be?

My latest book is not part of my “Fifth Avenue series,” which comprises “Fifth Avenue,” “Running of the Bulls,” “From Manhattan with Love,” “A Rush to Violence,” “From Manhattan with Revenge” and soon, “Park Avenue.” It’s called “You Only Die Twice,” a book that’s both about a woman’s attempt to survive two serial killers, and also about Biblical interpretation. Or Biblical misinterpretation, in this case, since the serial killers use psalms and verses from the Bible to justify their killings.

Five words? “Sit, hold on, blast off.”

Would you please tell us a bit about your road to writing and getting published?

I’ve been writing for 28 years. I started when I was 18. “Fifth Avenue” was finished when I was 24, I was signed by a major literary agency in New York after many, many rejections, and the book nearly sold to Bantam. They wanted a significant change I wouldn’t agree to give them, so the deal fell through. I was fine with that because they wanted a cliched happy ending, which my books tend to eschew. You never know who is going to die in my novels–including the main characters. I like that kind of unpredictability as I feel that it gives the novel real tension and weight when the villains succeed–only to be challenged by other characters. After that novel and with my MA in English behind me, I began writing movie reviews for print and television. Writing to a limited word count was invaluable to my education as a writer–it forced me to be lean in my writing. Word choice, I learned, is everything. There is no room for fluff when writing for a newspaper and especially for TV. As such, there is zero fluff or padding in my books, which generally start with a bang and don’t stop until the bloody end. Finally, after moving to a new house in 2010, I came upon the manuscript for “Fifth Avenue” in one of the many boxes I was unpacking. I sat down to read it, and decided that with a rewrite, I should try this new service offered to writers by Amazon. Within eight days of publication on Kindle, the book shot to #4 on best-seller lists in the States, and then it quickly hit lists in the UK. It remained an Amazon overall Top 100 best-selling novel both here and in the UK for seven consecutive months, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Each book I’ve written since also has hit Amazon’s overall Top 100 list. It’s been a crazy, surprising and very rewarding two years.

What is a book that you have read and loved so much that you wish everyone would take the time to read it?

Anything by Dominick Dunne. If I had to choose just one, it would have to be “An Inconvenient Woman.” But all of his novels I’d encourage people to read. I read them all again this past summer. What a treat that was. His wit and his observations are something to savor.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?

The ability to morph into Jeff Bezos. I think all of us deserve a billion or two in pocket money at some point in our lives.

What does the future hold for Christopher Smith?

Three novels in 2013: “Park Avenue,” “A Rush to Murder” and “A Rush to Vengeance.” The “Fifth Avenue” series has been very popular and it will go on and on, as will other books that aren’t part of the series. Audio books and foreign rights are selling strongly, and a production company in L.A. now has “Fifth Avenue” and is considering it for a television series. It’s a long shot–it always is with Hollywood–but they did approach me and my agent first, so it’s fun to think about the possibilities, regardless of how remote they are.

01/3/13

January’s Author of the Month: Christopher Smith!

Each month during 2013, I am going to highlight a new author. The reason? There are so many awesome authors out there that I have been dying to read and for whatever reason, never get to. So I figured what a better way to fix this problem than spotlight those new-to-me authors, learn more about their work and read at least one of their works. The authors that I choose will be ones that I have not yet read, but have been intrigued by the synopsis of their books, been exposed to on Facebook, Twitter or via word of mouth from friends. My goal is to share spotlights of these author’s books, perhaps an interview with them, and review at least one of their works. I would LOVE for anyone who would like to participate to jump on board. Please feel free to share your thoughts on each month’s author and if you read and review one of that author’s books, please share a link. Even if the author of the month is not new to you, please share your thoughts and feelings on their work.

Who is the lucky author for January? It is someone that I have been following on Facebook for quite some time. His books sound excellent and very intriguing. I even have a few on my Kindle that I have been itching to read, but have yet to get to. Who is that person? Christopher Smith! In the coming days I will be sharing spotlights of his fabulous sounding books, excerpts, etc. I may also hold a poll for you to help me decide which of his books to indulge in, lol. If you have read any of Mr. Smith’s work, please share what you have read and your thoughts on those works.

For now, here is a quickie bio and a few links that you can visit to begin getting to know Christopher Smith!

Image of Christopher Smith Christopher Smith is the #1 international best-selling author of “Fifth Avenue,” its sequels “Running of the Bulls” and “From Manhattan with Love,” as well as “Bullied,” “Revenge,” “Witch” and “War,” all four of which deal with the subject of bullying. His newest thriller is “A Rush to Violence,” which will be a three-book series. “Park Avenue” hits at the end of 2012. For fourteen years, Smith was the film critic for a major newspaper in the Northeast. For eight years, he appeared weekly on NBC affiliates, and two years nationally on the E! network. He has written over 4,000 reviews and he has been named Best Critic for 2010 by the MPA. He has published two previous books in his Netflix “Queued” series, which are compilations of hundreds of his film reviews. He lives in Maine.