#SpecFic Bookworm News: A Review of Rachel Morgan's Scarlett #ya #fantasy

BOOKS READ

Scarlett by Rachel Morgan

BOOK REVIEWS

Scarlett by Rachel Morgan

Beth must embrace her powers or be controlled by them in Rachel Morgan's Scarlett. This story is a companion tale for Morgan's Creepy Hollow series and tells how the character Scarlett came into her magical powers. What I loved most about this book is Beth's transformation into Scarlett. In the beginning, she's terrified of what her awakening powers can do and ostracized for it, even from her own kind, but she finds a way to embrace herself. The repetition of "I am independent. I am strong. I am powerful." speaks to Scarlett, and those three simple sentences hold power we can believe in. If you are a fan of the Creepy Hollow series or young adult paranormal books, then you won't want to miss out on reading Scarlett by Rachel Morgan.

#SPECFIC BOOKS RELEASING IN JUNE

Never Ever by Sara Saedi

SuperNova by Liz Long

The King Slayer by Virginia Boecker

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Titanborn by Rhett C. Bruno

Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan

The Book of Esther by Emily Barton

The Reaper's Sacrifice by Abigail Baker

Blue Moon by Lisa Kessler

Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan

A Faerie's Curse by Rachel Morgan
End of Watch by Stephen King
And I Darken by Kiersten White
The Fireman by Joe Hill
Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet by Charlie N. Holmberg
Legacies by Greg Cox

On Monday, June 13, I was over at Christine Rains' blog sharing some of my favorite parallel universes/alternate history books, TV shows, and movies.

Don't forget People of Foxwick and Their Neighbors is 99c for the month of June!

Amazon.com | Other Amazon Sites | Google Play | iTunes | Kobo | Nook | OmniLit | Smashwords

A reminder: #SpecFic Bookworm News is moving to the first Wednesday of the month in July. See this post for an explanation why.

I'd also like to say that my heart has been heavy since hearing about the mass shooting in Orlando at Pulse. As someone who did a little bit of clubbing back in the day, the gay clubs were always the best and most welcoming. My heart breaks for their friends and family. The brilliant Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame) wrote a beautiful, emotional sonnet for his acceptance speech that mentioned the tragedy. If you haven't seen it, you should.

(And a big shout out to Hamilton for their eleven Tony Awards! Even though I can't afford spending over two weeks' salary on a ticket to the show right now, just you wait, just you wait.)

Bookworm News: Christine Rains' Ghost Dancer and More | Fall 99c Sale | Awesome Giveaway

BOOKS READ

Mayhem in the Air by Untethered Realms authors (including me!)

Ghost Dancer by Christine Rains

A Faerie's Revenge by Rachel Morgan

Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

BOOK REVIEWS

Ghost Dancer by Christine Rains

Nina Azure helps spirits move on, but when she comes across Ben Moore's ghost, she's all too eager to keep him earthbound in Christine Rains' Ghost Dancer. Nina is part of a three-person team called the Paramours, who use sexual energy to help ghosts carry on to the afterlife. This novelette focuses on Nina and Ben. Nina is a beautiful character who knows she must do the right thing, even though her heart says otherwise. I loved the imagery of the drums and heartbeats. Ben is definitely a match for Nina, and his story tugged on my heart. Their chemistry was smoking and tinged with sadness. Rains balances the erotic with sweet romance. The first book of the Paramours series, Ghost Dancer by Christine Rains adds a unique twist on ghost hunting and is a perfect adult bedtime read.

A Faerie's Revenge by Rachel Morgan

Discovering Chase's secret was only the beginning for Calla Larkenwood in Rachel Morgan's A Faerie's Revenge. Calla shows a lot of growth through all she faces in this book. The dialogue between Calla and her Guardian friends often had me laughing. Certain instances in this book brought me to tears, and there is this really swoonworthy scene, but you'll have to read it for yourself. A Faerie's Revenge keeps the action high, the pace moving swiftly, and feels like a solid bridge between not only A Faerie's Secret and the next book in Calla's trilogy but also between Violet's story in Creepy Hollow 1-3 and whatever the last trilogy will be about. Rachel Morgan knows how to keep the twists coming. This novel gave me a book hangover. I didn't want it to end, and I am so looking forward to the next book. If you're a fan of the Creepy Hollow series, then you'll love A Faerie's Revenge by Rachel Morgan. And if you haven't read the books yet, then I highly recommend you to start at The Faerie Guardian and catch up.

Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

Vanessa Castro's first day as Seaside's deputy chief starts off less than wonderful in Jennifer Hillier's Wonderland when a dead body turns up at a local amusement park called Wonderland. Told from various view points, this novel amps up the tension as each person adds to the mystery and intrigue of the story. I didn't know quite who to suspect as the persons of interest list expanded. Seaside seems like one of those quaint little towns on the surface, but the crimes let the reader know no town--big or small--is safe. I rather enjoyed the creepy atmosphere of the park Wonderland, particularly on its Elm Street with the Clown Museum. The park itself became a character and a wonderful one at that. I was excited to see an old character from Hillier's other books appear in this one too. The tension increases to a killer ending. Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier kept me turning the pages and is a suspenseful read.

PROMO

The Paramours - ghost hunting with a kiss.

When Nina Azure’s talent as a ghost dancer doesn’t persuade a handsome phantom to talk, she entices him with sizzling sexual energy. Ben Moore’s spirit is tied to this world with guilt, but he breaks his self-imposed silence for the beautiful Nina. Lust makes him fully physical and she loses herself to desire. She must help him carry on to the afterlife, but her attraction to him is immensely powerful. She must push aside her own feelings and let him go—and perhaps find romance among the living.

Add on Goodreads

Purchase at Ellora's Cave | Kobo | Amazon

Christine Rains is a writer, blogger, and geek mom. For more information, visit her website or blog.

BOOKS RELEASED IN OCTOBER

Mayhem in the Air by Untethered Realms Authors

Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

The Clasp by Sloane Crosley

Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen

A Blossom of Bright Light by Suzanne Chazin

Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin

We’ll Never Be Apart by Emiko Jean

An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet

Pop Goes the Weasel by M.J. Arlidge

Illuminate by Tracy Clark

The Kill Box by Nichole Christoff

Mrs. John Doe by Tom Savage

Fanatics by Richard Hilary Weber

Dark Screams: Volume Five by J. Kenner, Bentley Little, and Mick Garris

Ignited by Liz Long

Ward Against Destruction by Melanie Card

Cinderella’s Shoes by Shonna Slayton

Touching Fate by Brenda Drake

Jane Unwrapped by Leah Rooper and Kate Rooper

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone

Snow on Cinders by Cathrina Constantine

The Engagement Game by Jenny Holiday

Gambling on the Bodyguard by Sarah Balance

Kissing Her Crazy by Kira Archer

Wild Ride by Cathryn Fox

The Prettiest One by James Hankins

The Girl and the Bomb by Jari Järvelä

Hot Sur by Laura Restrepo

Still Waters by Viveca Sten

A Land Divided by K.M. Ashman

A Cold War by Alan Russell

Guaranteed Heroes by William Lashner

Return to Christmas by Kathi Macias

Say You’ll Love Me by Ally Broadfield

Prisoner of Love by Cathy Skendrovich

Lost in Tennessee by Anita DeVito

The Moonshadow’s Daughter by Kaylie Newell

Sidekick by Natalie Whipple

Her Accidental Husband by Ashlee Mallory

Seducing Seven by MK Meredith

A Moment of Weakness by Brooklyn Skye

His Fantasy Girl by Nina Croft

Playing with Fire by Alison Bliss

Slade House by David Mitchell

Children of the Comet by Donald Moffitt

Hell Bound by Andrew P. Weston

The World of Evendaar Book Two: The Queen Revealed by A.R. Winterstaar

Played by Clare James

Tempting the New Boss by Angela Claire

Double Down by Victoria Pratt

Friendly Arrangement by Christine Warner

His Temporary Fix by Sofia Grey

Damage Control by Jess Anastasi

Shifter Planet by D.B. Reynolds

The Kill Box by Nichole Christoff

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson

The Iron Warrior by Julie Kagawa

Born to Endless Night by Cassandra Clare

A Faerie's Revenge by Rachel Morgan

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 by Joe Hill and others

A Pet for Christmas by Rachelle Ayala

Christmas at Cranberry Cottage by Talli Roland

Forever Lucky by RaShelle Workman

Poltergeist's Pleasure by Christine Rains

The Wishing Steps by Karen Helene Walker

From now to 11/16, you can purchase Once upon a Nightmare: A Collection (paranormal horror), Reborn (YA epic fantasy), and People of Foxwick and Their Neighbors (epic fantasy short stories) for 99 cents a piece.

Click here for purchase links.

Here's the deal, all you need to do is visit the Rafflecopter page and enter. It's as simple as that. At the end of the month one winner will be randomly selected to win an e-book copy of all five books.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

#IWSG: ARCs / Aubrie Dionne's Alliance Review

 

It's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group meeting. IWSG was created by the awesome ninja captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, and you can find out the other members of the group here.

March already? The year is going by way too fast.

My insecurity this month is Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs). Soon, I'll be sending out e-ARCs of Reborn to reviewers. Besides my critique partners, beta readers, and proofreader, they'll be the first people to read my debut novel. I hope they all love the story, but I know it won't be the case. Some will love it. Others will think it is okay, and a few--hopefully just a few--will hate it. It's the way with all books. It all makes me very nervous, though, and I can't seem to stop myself from glancing at reviews, even though I know I shouldn't.

Do you read your reviews?

By the way, my surgery last Wednesday went well. Recovery has been a bit slower than I expected, though, since I keep getting winded easily as well as tired. But even that is improving. It's amazing how healing takes up so much energy. Because of the surgery, I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but I'll catch up one of these days on my goals.

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Aubrie Dionne is a talented writer whether she's writing contemporary, fantasy, or science fiction. Her books reveal fascinating worlds with her lyrical prose and have sweet romance. One of my favorite series of hers has been the Paradise Reclaimed series, and her newest book in that series, Alliance, is available!

Here's my review:

Lyra Bryan must step out of her strawberry perfume life and save her colony and a hot alien at all costs in Aubrie Dionne's Alliance. The third book in the Paradise Reclaimed series, this novel picks up where Reconnaissance left off, but with Lyra telling the story. Lyra is a sweet girl, although she seems a little bit of a space head at the start. I love how she grows as a character. Asteran, the handsome alien from Priavenus, has such a sad story, and his plight tugged on my heartstrings. This fast-paced read sent me to the planet Paradise 21 and across the universe with Dionne's lyrical prose. And the alien arachnids still give me nightmares. Although I would've liked to know more of what happened to the characters at the end, Alliance by Aubrie Dionne is a wonderful addition to the Paradise Reclaimed series, and I recommend it to anyone who loves sweet sci-fi romance.

 

“Saving him meant saving her colony…”

Lyra Bryan has been saving people her whole life from a chick in the ventilation pipes to her mentally ill brother when his mind drifts back to Old Earth. She meets her match when she finds a gorgeous alien man aboard the arachnid ship. Captured after a failed attempt to save his people, his spirit is broken, craving only vengeance. To save her colony, Lyra must save his body and soul.

Lyra’s lifemate, Tauren, is jealous of her obsession with the alien man and will do anything in his power to break them apart. While they travel to the arachnid’s home world to defeat the mother brain once and for all, they must set aside their differences and work as a team. But, can Tauren be trusted?

To Purchase: Amazon / Nook

Click here to read my review of Colonization (Paradise Reclaimed #1) and here to read my review of Reconnaissance (Paradise Reclaimed #2).

Aubrie Dionne is an author and flutist in New England. Her books have received the highest ratings from Romance Times Magazine, as well as Night Owl Reviews and Two Lips Reviews. She has guest blogged on the USA Today Happily Ever After Blog and the Dear Teen Me blog and signed books at the Boston Book Festival, Barnes and Noble, and the Romance Writers of America conference. Her books are published by Entangled Publishing, Harper Impulse, Astraea Press, Spencer Hill Press, Inkspell Publishing, and Lyrical Press. When she's not writing, Aubrie teaches flute and plays in orchestras.

Author Links: Website / Blog / Twitter

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Be sure to stop by tomorrow. I'll have a review of Kitsy Clare's Model Position as a part of her reviews tour.

Wednesday's Writing Update: New Review of Once Upon a December Nightmare and more!

 

Happy Wednesday!

I received a new review of Once Upon a December Nightmare. You can read the review here. As a reminder, Once Upon a December Nightmare is still free on Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Sony, and iTunes.

Writing and editing this month has been pretty sparse. *sighs* Between the writers' conference earlier this month, having more work at the day job, and a family problem during the first full week of February (it's now okay), it's been difficult to find the energy to write and edit. Thus, I'm behind on this month's goals.

As for Starred, between critique partners' comments and time, I've decided not to edit this novel right now. I hope to work on it again in August.

I still hope to finish editing Part II of The Phoenix Prophetess this month. I also should finish my notes for Part III, which I still need to write. If all goes well, I should be able to complete this goal this weekend. *crosses fingers*

I have started writing "Dragon Spy," story two in Men of Foxwick. I have five more scenes, or around 3,000 more words, to write. I should be able to finish this story before the end of February. I also need to do my third edit of "Blind Scribe," so I can send it to CP #3.

Then, there is The Loveless Princess. Last week, I managed to write through Chapter 9, or one-third of the novella. I still have another 20,000+ words to go before the novella is finished, so it's looking very doubtful that I'll finish it by the end of February, since I still have so many other things I need to do. That's okay. I'm loving the story and what's happening with it, so if it needs more time, then so be it. I would like to reach the midway point with this novella, though, by the end of February.

As for the next couple days, I'm working on friends' critiques and blog posts.

How's your writing going? What do you have going on this week?

Wednesday's Writing Update: Cover Reveal, NaNoWriMo, Goals, Stats, a Review, and a Break

 

Happy Wednesday! And I would like to wish a very happy birthday to my good friend and critique partner Aubrie Dionne!

As you may have seen on several blogs, I have the cover art for The Nightmare Collection.

Cover art by Nicemonkey at Dreamstime.com. Cover design by Aubrie Dionne. Bookworm logo for Surrounded by Books Publishing created by Cherie Reich.

A legend is hungry tonight.

A child monster will get its first taste of blood in Nightmare at the Freak Show. Four friend will enter the forest on December night, but only one can survive in Once Upon a December Nightmare. Almost ten years after Cassie's December nightmare, the monster awakens to hunt again in Nightmare Ever After.

Forthcoming late November 2012

Add to Goodreads!

It looks really cool in person too!

I also have my October stats.

Words Written: 7,771

Pages Edited: 271

I published Nightmare Ever After on October 29th and finished plotting my YA Fantasy The Loveless Princess (a Foxwick Chronicles novella). Although I had a major breakthrough with Starred, I only managed to edit two scenes in October due to lack of time.

My November goals are:

1. Re-write The Phoenix Prophetess for my NaNoWriMo 2012 novel. I'm at 35,153 words so far with twenty chapters left to write.

2. Proofread The Nightmare Collection and finish formatting for print/ebook formats. Then, publish the collection. My goal is to have this done by November 19th.

3. Complete guest posts/excerpts/interviews for The Nightmare Collection blog tour December 3-7. I plan to send my blog tour hosts everything they'll need on November 26th.

Earlier this month, I also received a fantastic 5/5 starred review for Once Upon a December Nightmare. It made me smile. You can read the review here.

Also, I will be taking a small blogging break through Thanksgiving. The break will be from November 20-25, but I'll try to still visit blogs when I can.

So what are you up to? If you are participating in NaNo, how are you doing?

Wednesday's Writing Update: An Interview, a Review, an Update, and More!

 

Happy Wednesday!

Now, I have quite a bit of news, so let's see if I remember it all.

First, I'm over at M. Pax's today for a Spacedock 19 interview. We're talking about science fiction and fantasy and a little about marketing. You can read the interview here.

Author and fellow Valley Writer Wayne White wrote up a wonderful review of my A to Z Flashes of Foxwick on his blog. He's fairly new to blogging, so please stop by and say hi. You can read the review here. By the way, A to Z Flashes of Foxwick is free at: iTunes, Kobo, Amazon, and Smashwords. 

Pull of Gravity is now available on the iTunes bookstore here and now Kobo here.

Last Thursday, I found out that a short story of mine won first place in a writing competition and is going to the next level. I'll have more details later, but it's my first first place win ever, so I'm pretty excited.

Also, I've been looking over my August goals, and I've decided to put off writing Nightmare Ever After for a week or so. I want to write it right, so I've decided it would be best to keep my focus on Gravity: The Complete Trilogy, writing the epilogues for it, and getting feedback, so I can format the print and ebooks of it. Then, in September, my focus can shift to writing Nightmare Ever After with a mid-to-late October release in mind for it.

Also, I'm sorry I have been a bit slow to comment back on blogs this week. We're short-staffed at work and I have a big manuscript to edit for a client, so that unfortunately has to come first.

So what have you been up to?

Women of Foxwick - A New Review and a Sale!

 

First off, Michael Offutt has given Women of Foxwick and excellent review. You can read it here. Plus, until the end of July Women of Foxwick is on sale at Smashwords. You can purchase my fantasy short story collection for half-off using the coupon code SSW50.

The First Review of Defying Gravity

My wonderful critique partner, Christine Rains, had posted a review of Defying Gravity. She's read it in all its forms as it went from an 8500-word short story to a 15,000-word novelette.

You can check out the awesome review here.

Wednesday's Writing Update: Yeah, More Edits

Happy Wednesday!

I reviewed A to Z Stories of Life and Death by D. Biswas today on Surrounded by Books Reviews. There will be an interview on that blog with her on Friday.

As for writing news, it's more editing news instead of writing. I'm plodding along in the second edit of The Phoenix Prophetess. I love that novel, but sometimes it's slow going. I never realized trying to take writing two years old and make it up to my standards today takes a LONG time. I'll get it done, though.

The bad thing about getting edits done is that I have little time to write. I miss writing. I love creating new worlds, new stories. I miss that. At least I have NaNoWriMo coming up in November. I can't wait to write my first YA Contemporary novel, Starred.

Besides editing, I'm reading books to review and working on a few other things here and there. I sometimes really wish I had a time turner. I'd get so much more done then.

So what's new with you?

Do you like the creative end of writing or editing more?