Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Great Book, Great Giveaway!: Reluctantly Undead by Rayne Rachels

http://fireandicebooktours.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/paranormal-romance-book-tour-giveaway-reluctantly-undead-by-rayne-rachels-71614-81314/


Virtual Book Tour Dates: 7/16/14 – 8/13/14
Genres: Paranormal Romance








Blurb:
Ember Winterstone is not having a good night. She wakes up in a dumpster. Her neck hurts where her date used her as a meal. Vampire hunters chase her, and the other vampires think she is the real queen, especially since she is a day walker, eats food, drinks almost no blood, and stands up to Zophia, the psycho vampire queen.
Ember’s problems have just begun.
Her mother has kept a couple of major secrets from her, the two men who make Ember drool refuse to claim her, and the psycho vampire queen decides Ember must die.


Excerpt:


The night I died, I woke up into a world I thought only existed in the warped minds of screenwriters in Hollywood and romance authors who wrote about the dark, tortured soul looking for his or her soul mate. I mean, get real. Vampires and werewolves are stuff of myth and legends.  Right?
Wrong. Wrong!
        WRONG!!
Vampires are REAL.
How do I know this?
The night I died, I woke up as a vampire. But of course, leave it to me to screw up the whole process.
Okay, I am rambling.
Sorry about that, and I am sorry for apologizing, and I—you get the
idea.
By the way, I’m Ember. Ember Winterstone.
I know what you’re thinking. Ember the Vampire. I guess you are waiting for me to burst into flames. Ha. Ha.  The jokes are not funny. I did not pick my name. That honor is my parents’ fault; or rather, it was my mom’s fault. I do not know much about dear old dad. Mom doesn’t have any pictures and she never said much about him other than he was special and he had duties that came before their love, but he loved us very much and wanted us to be happy.
I guess it was her way of making excuses for a deadbeat dad.
Then, my mom married Henry Taylor when I was ten.
She said I wasn’t happy because I didn’t have a father and it was her job to make sure I had one.  I think mom was lonely. Memories don’t keep you warm at night. Anyway, I ended up with a weird stepfather and an even weirder, older stepbrother.
I don’t have a lot of time this afternoon, lots of things to do to prepare for the Halloween Ball, but I need to get my story down on paper.
First, I am a reporter. My job is to tell stories, to get the facts into print so people can read it. Second, I want to be the one telling my story so it is accurate. So many biographies have errors or they make the person sound more heroic than the person really was. Third, it gives me a way to sort out the details and make some sort of meaning from everything that has happened to me. Call it a therapeutic activity, if you want.
Where does my journey begin?
That’s easy.
It began on the day I died and woke up.




Buy Links:


About the Author:
Rayne Rachels lives in Texas with her husband and two very demanding cats. When she isn’t creating stories, she can be found reading and honing her photography skills. Rayne enjoys taking road trips, especially to the coast where she fishes every chance she gets. She also enjoys visiting flea markets and playing poker.


Author Links:
Blog

Twitter

Pinterest

Goodreads



Giveaway:
Enter to win one of two $10 Amazon gift cards! Open internationally. The giveaway will run the length of the tour. Enter through Rafflecopter.



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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Book to Love: A Portal in Time by Claire Fullerton

A Portal in Time
Claire Fullerton

Genre: Paranormal/Historical Romance

Publisher: Vinspire Publishing

Date of Publication: November 30, 2013

ISBN:0989063224
ASIN:

Number of pages: 192
Word Count: 50,000

Cover Artist: Elaina Lee/For the Muse Designs

Book Description:

When we are inexplicably drawn to love and a particular place, is it coincidence, or have we loved before?  
Enigmatic and spirited Anna Lucera is gifted with an uncanny sixth-sense and is intrigued by all things mystical. When her green, cat-eyes and long, black hair capture the attention of a young lawyer named Kevin Townsend, a romance ensues which leads them to the hauntingly beautiful region of California's Carmel-By-The-Sea where Anna is intuitively drawn to the Madiera Hotel. Everything about the hotel and Carmel-By-The-Sea heightens her senses and speaks to Anna as if she had been there before.
As Anna's memory unravels the puzzle, she is drawn into a past that's eerily familiar and a life she just may have lived before.

Amazon      BN     Kobo   Overdrive


Excerpt:

Chapter Ten
March 18, 1999, West Hollywood, California

“What’s this all about?” Lucia pulled out a chair across from her sister. They sat outside on the sidewalk in front of The King’s Head CafĂ© in West Hollywood amidst the hum of traffic and the flow of patrons looking for available seating on Beverly Boulevard. “You sounded funny on the phone.”
“I sounded funny?”
“You sounded mysterious,” Lucia clarified.
“I didn’t want to get into it on the phone. I thought I’d wait to talk to you in person.”
“All right, I’m listening,” Lucia settled back into her chair and looked at Anna expectantly.
“You’re not going to believe this, but Kevin brought up the subject of marriage the other day.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe that? It’s perfectly understandable to me, isn’t it to you?” Lucia laughed. “What did you say when he brought up the subject?”
“I skirted the issue, of course,” Anna’s tone suggested Lucia should know that.
“Wait a minute, did he just bring up the subject or did he ask you to marry him?”
“Well, it seemed to me he was testing the waters, but what he said was, ‘God help me, I’m married to a witch.’ I’m not sure I was supposed to hear it, but that’s exactly what he said,” Anna told her.
“Wait a minute, back up, I’m getting lost. Were you doing something that made him call you a witch or was he just making a general observation because he’s had enough time to realize that you are a little touched in that way?”
“In what way?” Anna sounded defensive.
“Come on, Anna, anyone who knows you knows you’re bent towards the uncanny, and I mean that with nothing but love,” Lucia tried to suppress a smile. “You’re the same way that Mom was—obviously these things run in families.”
Anna felt the immediate tug of her heartstrings at the mention of their mother, who had died of Leukemia two and a half years earlier. Her illness had been a harrowing experience to both her and Lucia, absolutely draining them emotionally for the two years prior to her death. Her slow decline compounded the loss of their father when they were only teenagers and now that both parents were gone, Anna and Lucia only had each other. Anna conjured the memory of their mother’s face, her tall elegance and demure ways and recalled that she, too, had an intuitive ability that everyone who knew her remarked upon.
“I don’t know that I’m anywhere near the way Mom was,” Anna leaned back. “Do you remember how she always knew what we were up to when we were little? There was no point in ever trying to fool her about anything because she always knew the truth.”
“Of course, you’ve always been a terrible liar. Everything you’re thinking is always written on your face. You were the one who always gave us away to Mom, not me,” Lucia reminded.
“That’s not entirely true,” Anna volleyed, “I remember the time you tried to sneak out the upstairs window at night and found Mom sitting on the garden bench under the tree you used because she’d picked up on what you were thinking practically before you even decided to do it. She could just tell by looking at you!”
“You’re right about that,” Lucia nodded. “Mom was something else altogether, wasn’t she? I’m convinced she was clairvoyant. I think she knew how to read us both. I really do miss her every day. I think of her every time I see a sunset, every time I feel the change of seasons in the air, every time I see the full moon. She made such an event out of the little things in life, didn’t she?”
“She definitely did. She placed great importance on ceremonies and symbolism and things like that,” Anna said. “I see so many things the same way she did because she taught us how.”
“I do, too. What she did to the exact spot where Dad got in his car wreck is a perfect example.”
“Well, a lot of people do a similar thing. I see markers on the side of the road all the time. Standing crosses with bouquets of flowers under them at the scene of a fatal accident. It’s a commemoration of a particular place where something significant happened.”
“Yes, but it was so much more to Mom than that,” Lucia reminded Anna. “That’s why she buried the key where Dad got in the accident. Do you recall that night? It was only two days after Dad died, but somehow Mom managed to set aside her grief in order to take care of business. She woke us up after midnight and told us to get in the car because we were going to conduct a ceremony. “





About the Author:

Claire Fullerton is the author of Paranormal/Historical Romance, “A Portal in Time.”  Her second novel, “Dancing to an Irish Reel,” set in Connemara, Ireland, will be published in March, 2015.  Claire is a contributor to numerous magazines as well as a multiple contributor to the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book series. She is a multiple award winning essayist, a former major-market radio disc jockey, and an avid ballet dancer.  Claire hails from Memphis, Tennessee, and currently divides her time between Malibu and Carmel, California with her husband and two German shepherds!




@cfullerton3













Tour giveaway

2 print copies of A Portal in Time open to US Shipping

2 e-book copies of A Portal in Time open internationally