Cover Reveal - The Ghost Files Two - By Apryl Baker

Coming January 2014...

 

SYNOPSIS

* Book #2 in The Ghost Files Series *

At seventeen years old, Mattie Hathaway has survived her mother attempting to kill her, multiple foster homes, and a serial killer. Oh, and she sees ghosts on a regular basis too. You’d think Fate would give her a break right? Umm…nope, not Mattie. 

Dan Richards is the only person in the entire world Mattie trusts, but then the boy goes and breaks her heart. Mattie does what she does best, she runs and lands herself slap in the middle of a haunted house full of ghosts turned vengeful that want Mattie to join their ranks. 
 
Only bright spot in all this?  Eli Malone – the gorgeous boy with the beautiful aqua eyes that makes her feel things she’s never even imagined before.  She’s not sure what to do with him, especially when Dan shows up glowering at him. 
 
She’ll figure Eli out if she can survive the house. The ghosts are bound and determined to kill her so she’ll be one of them. Now if she can just figure out how to survive them and the demon stalking her, she might be able to decide what to do about her feelings for Dan and Eli. 

That is if she can survive the night in the house.

Get Book #1 in The Ghost Files Series Here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

So who am I? Well, I'm the crazy girl with an imagination that never shuts up. I LOVE scary movies. My friends laugh at me when I scare myself watching them and tell me to stop watching them, but who doesn't love to get scared? I grew up in a small town nestled in the southern mountains of West Virginia where I spent days roaming around in the woods, climbing trees, and causing general mayhem. Nights I would stay up reading Nancy Drew by flashlight under the covers until my parents yelled at me to go to sleep.

Growing up in a small town, I learned a lot of values and morals, I also learned parents have spies everywhere and there's always someone to tell your mama you were seen kissing a particular boy on a particular day just a little too long. So when you get grounded, what is there left to do? Read! My Aunt Jo gave me my first real romance novel. It was a romance titled "Lord Margrave's Deception." I remember it fondly. But I also learned I had a deep and abiding love of mysteries and anything paranormal. As I grew up, I started to write just that and would entertain my friends with stories featuring them as main characters.

Now, I live Huntersville, NC where I entertain my niece and nephew and watch the cats get teased by the birds and laugh myself silly when they swoop down and then dive back up just out of reach. The cats start yelling something fierce...lol.

I love books, I love writing books, and I love entertaining people with my silly stories. 

CONNECT WITH APRYL

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GIVEAWAY

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Jo Piazza's Debut Novel - Love Rehab

For anyone who has ever overdosed on love—or planned the wedding before the second date—Jo Piazza’s dazzling debut novel is a must-read

Cyber-stalking, drive-bys, drunken text messaging, creating fake email accounts—you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love.

Sophie isn’t dealing with her breakup well. Dumped by her boyfriend, Eric, for his sexting, D-cupped, young Floozy McSecretary, Sophie leaves Manhattan and lands back in her hometown, crushed and pajama-clad, blaming herself and begging her ex for a second chance.

But when her best friend, Annie, gets in trouble for driving drunk and is forced to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, something clicks in Sophie’s strung-out mind. Women need love rehab, she realizes, to help fix the craziness that comes along with falling for someone.

If you start it, they will come. When she opens up her home to the obsessed and lovelorn, Sophie finds a way to help women out there who have overdosed on the wrong men—and she saves herself in the process.

Love is a drug and the only things that can save us are the steps, rules, and one another. Step one: Admit you have a problem, and keep the hell away from Facebook.

About the Author

Jo Piazza is the executive news director of In Touch Weekly and Life & Style Weekly. Her journalism has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Glamour, New York magazine, and the Huffington Post. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Columbia School of Journalism, Piazza is also the author of Celebrity, Inc.: How Famous People Make Money. Love Rehab is her first novel. She lives in Manhattan with her giant dog.

Stop by Amazon or Barnes and Nobel and pick up your copy of Love Rehab today!

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

The Necoh Saga Movies!

The Necoh Saga Movies

Time to share some exciting news! Recently, I’ve spoken to some amazing film producers that have expressed interest in The Necoh Saga. With the help of Matthew Jacobs, my amazing entertainment lawyer, we are working toward getting the series optioned for film!

I’ll definitely keep you all updated on here as everything progresses. In the meantime, I wanted to thank each and everyone one of you! Because of you, this is possible! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Write Smart For Kids

Adam Sear is a full-time primary school teacher and part-time writer. He is currently working on a sci-fi series for 8-11 year-olds. He lives in Northamptonshire, England with his wife, two kids and a cat called Monty.

Write Smart For Kids

We have all done it: walked around the local book shop or library perusing the children’s fiction, wondering how in blazes some of this stuff made it to publication.

Or maybe it’s just me.

I write for kids, I have two children of my own and I teach 9 and 10 year-olds, so I care about what youngsters read. Sometimes I glance across the tables at reading time in my classroom, and try to work out what made a child choose a particular book. Humour, excitement, escapism, information – we all read for different reasons at different times, and - of course -there is nothing wrong with that. There are some absolutely cracking books for children out there, and kids have a bigger and better choice of reading matter than ever before.

However, there are two kinds of book that make me roll my eyes – maybe even despair a little bit. The first are those that seem determined to talk down to kids, to reinforce the idea that the pinnacle of literary ambition should be jokes about farting and other toilet-related matters. The second are those that seem to have been dreamt-up in a marketing meeting, you know the ones, they have titles like Mutant Vampire Meerkat School, or Zombie Pirate Ninja Babysitters of Doom. As a teacher I know that children write in response to what they read. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the kids who read beyond the lavatorial and the crushingly formulaic tend to be better writers. They seem to care about what they are committing to paper, and expresses themselves more clearly.

Children are smart, too. Much smarter than some of these titles seem to suggest. It’s weird isn’t it? I’m sure that your average publisher knows this full-well. We are talking down to you, thanks for your money. Well, it’s a business isn’t it? Why should children be immune from being patronized? We are all treated like dummies on a daily basis – take a look the newspapers and TV, listen to a pop-music station for half an hour – it’s amazing anything gets done at all since we are – apparently - so collectively dim-witted. But, you know what? Children should be immune from being patronized.

Children should be challenged, inspired and perhaps even a little perplexed by what they read. Yes, of course, we all like an easy read from time to time, and reluctant readers (including children with special educational needs) need to have access to books which will open the door to reading for them. As a teacher I actively approve of this, and know that there are many different kinds of readers with differing levels of skill. Opening the door to reading is crucial and this can be done through comics, picture books, and chapter books with a small amount of text per page (for example Andy Stanton’s excellently surreal Mr. Gum series).

But… think of all those times you have reached for a dictionary whilst reading and learned a new word, or encountered a new idea that led you to an encyclopedia or a web search – children need to develop those skills too. I recently read Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom to my class, and almost every page features a word that many of them did not know the meaning of. We build word-power through reading.

I was once taken to task by a literary agent over the use of the word granola in a book I wrote for 7 year-olds. I was told that they wouldn’t know what it was… but how are you ever going to know what something is without reading about it for the first time? (I admit that knowing the word granola is maybe not that useful… but the point still stands.)

The same agent – an expert in children’s literature - advised me to include more fart gags in my manuscript. This worries me, the tendency towards low humour. Don’t misunderstand me, I love a good bodily-function joke as much as the next 43 year-old man, but they are seemingly everywhere. Farts, poos, stinky nappies, underpants, missing underpants… In an infinitely large and expanding cosmos, can’t we come up with something else? To aspiring writers I say this: if your story does not demand more farts, then hold them in. Give your reader some credit: she is a smart kid with a dictionary and access to Wikipedia. She can look stuff up.

There is a danger here that I might appear to be a po-faced killjoy, and if you think I am then I can live with that. However, the greater and more urgent danger is that what I am saying might be construed as a recipe for dull-but-worthy fiction for children. I am not in any way advocating this. Writing for children should be worthy – sure – why not?; a little bit educational; engaging; fun; but most of all thrilling.

Resist the farts and the formulas; instead take note of the successes of Michael Morpurgo, Phillip Pullman, Eoin Colfer, and good old J K Rowling. Remember that today’s children still tackle Tolkein, and C S Lewis quite happily. Find high quality models of literature to inspire you as a writer, and challenge yourself to take your reader on a voyage of discovery. Books should open windows on the world, not show the reader what they already know. Farts are funny. OK. Time to move on.

Amanda Lance - Conviction Blog Tour

Conviction

Wanted (Book 2)

By: Amanda Lance

Publication Date: October 4, 2013

Publisher: Limitless Publishing, LLC

Synopsis

Falling in love with each other was unlikely.

Surviving their adventure was doubtful.

Living without each other: impossible.

For Addie Battes and Charlie Hays, a couple who defied all odds, life on land should be a breeze—except, for the fact that their newest challenge may include life, without each other…

To everyone else it looks like she’s leaving for college, but for Addie Battes, it’s much more. She and her kidnapper Charlie Hays have found a way to be together and elude authorities. Yet fairytale romances aside; life isn’t easy with schoolwork, roommates, and meddling FBI agents. And balancing acts threaten to fall when violent competitors rise up to put Charlie and the guys out of business.

Addie soon realizes that keeping her relationship with Charlie a secret is the least of her problems, especially with Charlie’s unfounded suspicions and jealousies. When misunderstandings surface, Addie’s worst fears come to fruition.

Desperate and alone, she is faced with a choice: try to find her own happy ending, or fight to make Charlie a part of hers.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Conviction-Wanted-Book-Amanda-Lance-ebook/dp/B00FNC3KL6/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18584119-conviction

About the Author

 

A native of New Jersey and lifelong nerd, Amanda Lance recently completed her Master in Liberal Arts at Thomas Edison State College after her BA in English Literature and AFA in creative writing. As an avid reader of all genres, some of her favorite authors include Hemingway, Marquis de Sade, Stevenson, Bukowski and Radcliffe.

When she isn’t writing or reading, Amanda can found indulging in film noir or hiking with her other half and their extremely spoiled dog. She is obsessively working on her next book and trying to tame her caffeine addiction."

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Amanda-Lance/e/B00CJ40L2C

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6966605.Amanda_Lance

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Amanda-Lance/324124717715784

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alance07

Website:  http://amandalance.com

Blog Tour Questionnaire

1.     Do you see writing as a career?

Definitely!

2.     Who or what is your inspiration?

Mostly music and whatever I happen to be reading at the time.

3.     Do you have any pets?

A bluetick coonhound named Chance (he is a BIG, spoiled baby)

4.     Early bird or night owl?

A little bit of both depending on the time of year.

5.     Any tips for new writers?

Obsession is the only way to get anything done.

6.     If you were a shoe, what kind would you be and why?

A pink fuzzy slipper.

7.     If you could live in any movie, which would it be?

Reservoir Dogs I love the soundtrack and anything Tarantino!

8.     Guilty Pleasure?

Mac n’ Cheese…yummy

9.     Are there scenes or people in your book that you took from your real life?

Conviction is inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, but there is nothing in there that is non-fiction.

10.  Which character in your book would you most like to hang out with?

Probably Reid. I think he’s wonderfully interesting. (I’d love to hand out with Charlie…but then nothing would get done.) hehe

11.  Are you working on anything new? How is it going?

       I’m in the middle of another new adult romance series. *swoon*

Bad Land - By Jonathan Yanez - Blog Tour Stop!

Synopsis:

At only twenty-three Marshall Montgomery is the youngest reporter to have ever worked at his newspaper in Los Angeles County...

His life has been his job. But something is about to happen that will force him to confront the painful memory of his sister's death and open him to a world very much apart from his own.

A young girl has been found dead on Wakan Canyon. A place Marshall will find that has a past filled with violence and bloodshed. Hundreds of years ago Native American's fought over the land and even today lives are being taken to protect a secret.

Deep within the canyon there is a secret that has been hidden by generations of the area's inhabitants. There is a secret power that has corrupted every single one of its owners since the beginning of time.

Now, trying to find the truth, Marshall finds himself caught in a web of lies, manipulation, secrecy and even death.

Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18515556-bad-land

Amazon Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Land-Jonathan-Yanez-ebook/dp/B00FKHGZ8Y

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jonathan Yanez was born and raised in a Christian household in Oxnard, CA. He was involved in everything from piano and saxophone lessons to swimming and track.

Growing up his parents encouraged him to read, and he did - anything he could get his hands on. Soon he developed a fascination with storytelling and characters that would follow him the rest of his life.

Graduating from BIOLA University with his BA in English Literature he never lost his love for writing and creating. He now works part-time as a personal trainer and hopes to one day make the move to writing full-time.

Other than reading and writing, his passion is living life to the fullest. He loves; spending time with his wife and pets, watching movies, participating in mud runs, traveling, going to the gym and pushing his limits in everything. This desire takes him anywhere from skydiving and motorcycle riding, to surfing in Hawaii and various types of martial arts. He has his eyes set next on archery and running with the bulls in Spain.

He is married to the love of his life and resides in Southern California with his husky, Daphne and cat, Helen.

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/JonathanYanezAuthor

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JonathanAYanez

Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6928878.Jonathan_Yanez

Website:

http://jonathanyanez.blogspot.com

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