Friday, January 30, 2015

1/30 Cover Reveal Adamant by Emma L. Adams

Today is the cover reveal for Adamant (The Alliance series #1) by Emma L. Adams. This cover reveal is organized by Lola's Blog Tours.

ADAMANT final front coverAdamant (The Alliance Series #1)
By Emma L. Adams
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
Age category: Adult
Release Date: 11 March 2015

Blurb:
On an alternative 21st-century Earth in which our world is one of many in the Multiverse, the Inter-World Alliance exists to keep the peace between the worlds, and keep the monsters out.

Ada Fletcher is twenty-one, keeps a collection of knives in her room, and is more interested in fighting than her day job as a cashier. She also risks her life on a daily basis, helping refugees from a devastating magical war on her homeworld hide on the low-magic Earth. But when she’s taken into custody by the Alliance, her unusual magic makes her a prime suspect for a supervisor’s suspicious death.

For Kay Walker, whose family founded the organization, there has never been any doubt that his future is with the Alliance – even if it means dealing with sarcastic centaurs and dangerous monsters in the dark Passages between worlds. But when his supervisor is murdered, Kay discovers that a research project might have been the reason, and faces the choice of whether to ignore his instincts or risk becoming the next target, not to mention digging into the Alliance’s history and memories he’d rather keep buried. And there’s something not quite right about the strange, fierce girl he arrested as a suspect.

The last thing Ada wants is to help the infuriating Alliance guard who arrested her, but it soon becomes clear that the Alliance knows too much about Ada’s offworld origins. More, in fact, than she knows herself. Now she has to choose between loyalty to her family, and helping the Alliance save the Earth – and the Multiverse – from a deadly enemy.


You can find Adamant on Goodreads

You can pre-order Adamant here:
- Amazon
- Kobo
- B&N
- iBooks


Adamant Teaser


Adamant promo


Emma AdamsAbout the Author:
Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing speculative fiction. She was born in Birmingham, UK, which she fled at the first opportunity to study English Literature at Lancaster University. In her three years at Lancaster, she hiked up mountains, skydived in Australia, and endured a traumatic episode involving a swarm of bees in the Costa Rican jungle. She also entertained her creative writing group and baffled her tutors by submitting strange fantasy tales featuring dragons and supernatural monsters to workshops. These included her first publication, a rather bleak dystopian piece, and a disturbing story about a homicidal duck (which she hopes will never see the light of day).

Now a reluctant graduate, Emma refuses to settle down and be normal. When not embarking on wild excursions and writing fantasy novels, she edits and proofreads novels for various publishing houses and reads an improbable number of books. Emma is currently working on the Alliance series, a multiple-universe adult fantasy featuring magic, monsters, cool gadgets and sarcasm. Her upper-YA urban fantasy Darkworld series is published by Curiosity Quills Press.

You can find and contact Emma here:
- Website
- Blog
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google+
- Goodreads
- Newsletter


There is a cover reveal wide giveaway for the cover reveal of Adamant. These are the prizes you can win:
- a 10$ Amazon gift card

Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

1/28 Author Spotlight, Karen Rose Smith


Karen Rose Smith


Karen Rose Smith was born in the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania. Although she was an only child, she remembers the bonds of an extended family. Since her father came from a family of ten and her mother, a family of seven, there were always aunts, uncles and cousins visiting on weekends. Family is a strong theme in her books and she suspects her childhood memories are the reason.

In college, Karen began writing poetry and also met her husband to be. They both began married life as teachers, but when their son was born, Karen decided to try her hand at a home-decorating business. She returned to teaching for a while but changes in her life led her to writing romance fiction. Now she writes mysteries and romances full time. She is a USA Today best-selling and award-winning author. Her 86th novel, GILT BY ASSOCIATION, will be released in 2015 by Kensington Books.

When she isn't writing, she cares for four rescue cats and a couple of strays, gardens, and cooks. Married to her college sweetheart since 1971, believing in the power of love and commitment, she envisions herself writing relationship novels, both mystery and romance, for a long time to come!


Ten Things About Me
  1. I was an only child who always longed for a sister.
     
  2. During my childhood I always had access to a relative's farm.
     
  3. This summer my husband and I took in a stray pregnant cat and helped deliver her kittens.
     
  4. When I was in my late twenties, I learned to swim and ride horses!
     
  5. I attended the Beatles concert at Dodger Stadium.
     
  6. With my cousin I wrote a script for The Monkees tv show.
     
  7. I wrote for six years and finished 13 manuscripts before I sold two books in one week to two different publishers.
     
  8. I use a tape recorder to write and like to tape on the patio on summer nights under the moon.
     
  9. I love 60's fashion.
     
  10. I'm a crazy cat lady!


Join Karen Rose Smith's Street Team, Team Caprice



Staged to Death (Book 1) - on sale for only $2.99
Deadly Decor (Book 2) - on sale for only $1.99

Gilt By Association (Book 3)
Drape Expectations (Book 4)
Coming August 2015



Nathan’s Vow (Book 1)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes

Jakes’s Bride (Book 2)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes

Always Devoted (Book 3)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes

Always Her Cowboy (Book 4)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes

Heartfire (Book 5)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes

Cassidy’s Cowboy (Book 6)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes

Her Sister (Book 7)
Audio Book: Amazon ~ Audible ~ iTunes





1/28 Cover Reveal, Rise by Karina Bliss

 
NEW RELEASE



Adult Contemporary Rockstar Romance
Release: January 28, 2015

“You have the ability to make controversial characters sympathetic. Maybe I just want to be understood.”

 Acclaimed literary biographer Elizabeth Winston writes about long-dead heroes. So bad boy rock icon Zander Freedman couldn’t possibly tempt her to write his memoir. Except the man is a mass of fascinating contradictions - manipulative, honest, gifted, charismatic, morally ambiguous. In short, everything she sought in a biography subject.

When in her life will she get another chance to work with a living legend? But saying yes to one temptation soon leads to another. Suddenly she’s having heated fantasies about her subject, fantasies this blue-eyed-devil is only too willing to stoke. She’d thought self-control was in her DNA, after all she grew up a minister’s daughter. She thought wrong. Outside your comfort zone is the only place worth living... Zander Freedman has been an outlier - many would say an outcast – for most of his life.

But there’s no disaster he can’t overcome, from the break-up of his band to the fall-out on his reputation. His Resurrection Tour is shaping up to be his greatest triumph - if his golden voice holds out.

Contracting a respected biographer is simply about creating more buzz; Elizabeth's integrity the key to consolidating his legacy as one of rock’s greats. All the damn woman has to do is write down what he tells her. Not make him think. Or encourage the good guy struggling to get out.

And certainly not to fall in love for the first time in his life. Turns out he is scared of something - being known.


Rise - a redemption story of a rock star going straight(er) through the love of a good(ish) woman.
Add to your Goodreads list!  



Why are rock stars so popular with readers?
By Karina Bliss

Oh sure, they’re sexy, rich and famous but so are a lot of other fictional romance heroes. Here are four traits that distinguish rock stars from other bad-boy heroes:

1. They’re musically gifted, which means they’re creative, playful, pre-disposed to sensitivity and have a sense of rhythm. Useful to our heroine in all sorts of ways...

2. They don’t have to be alphas. The band dynamics throw up opportunities to write the artistically-sensitive beta. Not every hero has to be a showman, (though the hero of Rise, Zander Freedman, definitely is!). But because of their musical temperament, even the alpha rockers are more emotionally expressive than other hero types like your warrior or chief.

3. They’re unobtainable. Every woman wants them but only one – the heroine – can win their heart.

4. They’re born rebels. Musicians are genetically pre-disposed to being self-determining, stubborn and interesting individuals because they choose the road less traveled.

Do you agree or do you believe rock stars are the self-indulgent, depraved egotists my heroine expects Zander to be? Enter the Release Giveaway and go into the draw for an e-book of Rise.


Turning a bad boy into a romance hero
By Karina Bliss

Zander Freedman, the rock star hero of Rise, has been a minor character in three previous books. I wrote him as vain, selfish and egotistical, a neglectful son, bad brother and lousy boyfriend. And yet readers loved this guy and wanted his story, possibly because of his few attractive qualities - unflinching honesty, intelligence and a keen sense of irony.

One of my biggest challenges in finding ‘the hero-within’ was Zander’s reputation for vanity. How is a reader going to fall in love with a guy rumoured to have had everything from Botox and tattooed eyeliner to hair implants?

In one scene, I had the heroine’s family voice every Yuck the reader would have around a guy with a ‘beauty’ regime. And then fall over themselves when they thought Zander was visiting. Because the guy’s still a rock god, still extraordinary. And it’s too easy to criticize a stranger. In effect, I'm asking the reader to keep an open mind.

Given that Zander is smart and ambitious it also made sense that he would deliberately exaggerate his vanity for the press. Any publicity is good publicity when this showman is promoting the band’s tour. He also takes a pragmatist’s view of maintaining his looks; keeping in shape is simply a part of his job as Rage’s frontman. And finally, I made him supremely confident in his masculinity. At one point he even says, “A real man should be able to seduce a woman in a tutu and a tiara…Actually that would be fun.”

Most importantly, I gave Zander the vulnerability attached to being a beautiful person. Women date me because of the way I look. What will happen if I stop these treatments? Who will love me as I age? The Beauty, as well as the Beast, is judged on appearances.

Of course that’s just one aspect of the reinvention of Zander Freedman. Hopefully, I’ve intrigued you enough to read about his moral make-over.

Do you have a favorite bad-boy hero? Enter the Release Giveaway and go into the draw for an e-book of Rise.


The rock star & the academic: Making opposites attract
By Karina Bliss

I love the opposites-attract trope, ‘You say toe-ma-toe, I say toe-mate-o’. (FYI, as a Kiwi, I say it the first way). I couldn’t have written two people more different than my egotistical, rock-star bad boy Zander Freedman and my warm-hearted, church-brat academic Elizabeth Winston.

With opposites, it’s easy to see what’s keeping your characters apart. But when you’re writing romance, what’s more important is what brings and binds these two together. What do they have in common? Both Zander and Elizabeth are smart, independent, take-charge people who share a similar sense of the ridiculous, and I made sure my plot gave them opportunities to join forces.

I found this wonderful Oscar Wilde quote, which I adopted as my theme for Rise. “Every saint has a past, and every sinner a future.” As I wrote the book, it reminded me to add dimensions to my story characters. Just because my heroine is a good person doesn’t mean she lacks a wild side, and vice versa for the hero.

Opposites or not, the hero and heroine need to appreciate each other in a way no one else does. In Zander, Elizabeth sees a caretaker hero, capable of kindness and vulnerability. In Elizabeth, Zander sees a wolf in sheep’s clothing, someone as adventurous as he is.

In a romance, the challenge for opposites is to incorporate the qualities of the other - the qualities they lack - so two halves become a perfect whole.
Can you recommend favorite romances that use this dynamic? Enter the Release Giveaway and go into the draw for an e-book of Rise.












  About the Author

New Zealander Karina Bliss’s debut, Mr Imperfect, won a Romantic Book of the Year award in Australia, the first of eleven books published through Harlequin SuperRomance. Her most recent release, A Prior Engagement, was a Desert Island Keeper at likesbooks.com. Her next release, Rise, is a single title, self-published contemporary which continues the story of Zander Freedman, who first appeared as a villain inKarina’s bestselling title, What the Librarian Did – a book that made DearAuthor’s Best of the Year list in 2010.Two of Karina’s books have also featured in Sizzling Book Chats at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks. Find out more at www.karinabliss.com   a Rafflecopter giveaway      photo AToMRPRomotionslogo_zps7a14e565.png

Monday, January 26, 2015

1/26 Cover Reveal, Secrets Of Whitestone Manor, by Brittany Jo James

COVER REVEAL

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SECRETS OF WHITESTONE MANOR
Author: Brittany Jo James
Series: The Winters Family Series, Book #1
Genre: Young Adult Romance | Paranormal Romance
~ SYNOPSIS ~
Some secrets are too dark to ever be brought into the light. 

At least mine are.

My name is Orson Winters, and you already know too much for me to let you walk away.

A decade has passed since my parents were killed, forcing my younger siblings and me to move in with our estranged uncle. Whitestone Manor in all its grandeur was overwhelming enough. Then, we learned the family secret. 

There’s darkness in the world no one, besides a handful of fighting families, even knows exists. The Winters family is the most acclaimed of them all. However, power isn’t always pleasurable, especially considering that it’s my responsibility to keep my reckless brothers and sister from jeopardizing us all.

When an old enemy emerges from the shadows, Uncle Sebastian calls in another fighting family to assist. I didn’t need their help. I could independently protect my siblings and the rest of the world from danger. That was, until I met Lilith Shaw. Now I’m not even sure that I can protect myself.

I can’t focus on that, though. 

I’m the last one standing between you and those who wait in the darkness.

If you can keep a secret, I’ll tell you my story.



~ COVER DESIGNER ~
Kari Ayasha of Cover to Cover Designs

~ RELEASE DATE ~
February 3rd! 


~ TEASERS ~








~ ABOUT THE AUTHOR ~
Brittany Jo James

Brittany Jo James was born and raised in the small town of Idabel, Oklahoma. She is happily married to her high school sweetheart, Conlee, who is currently serving as an airman in the United States Air Force. They share two rowdy sons, Jagger and Jett. Her life revolves around living for God, caring for her family and writing, writing, writing. The James family is currently residing near Anchorage, Alaska until the USAF decides otherwise.

Social media links:




Release Day Blitz 1/26 by Rebecca York


Assignment Danger
by Rebecca York
Series: Off-World, #4
Genre: Paranormal Science Fiction
Release Date: January 26, 2015



Jack Younger agrees to risk his life when he takes on a dangerous undercover assignment. He doesn’t count on his old love, Sophia DeAngelo ending up in the middle of the action. What if he has to choose between fulfilling his mission and saving her life?



Jack flew across the floor, grabbing Sophia and dragging her back into the room. But she didn't go quietly.

As soon as she landed on the rough boards, her leg shot out, and her foot connected with his kneecap.

He struggled not to cry out in pain and clue in the men downstairs that something unplanned was going on up here. He pulled Sophia to the floor, where she wrenched herself away and pressed her back against the wall, her legs pulled up, ready to kick him again if he came near her. He feigned toward her, then leaped back, catching her with her legs straight out and throwing himself on top of her.

She scratched at his face and arms, and if he hadn't cared what happened to her, he could have beaten the tar out of her. But he was trying his damnedest to keep from hurting her while keeping her from doing him serious damage.

Even when he pressed her to the floor, she kept fighting, trying to kick and scratch him again.

“For Fate’s sake, stop it, Sophia.”

But it seemed that desperation kept her from listening.

Panting, he clamped his arms around her torso. His fingers twined around her wrists; his legs pressed hers inward.

Still she tried to heave him off as he lay on top of her, breathing hard, his arms and face bleeding and his knee throbbing.

“Stop,” he ordered, all too aware of her body under his. He’d left the room to put some distance between them. Now he felt her breasts pressing against his chest, the womanly curve of her hips. His cock nestled in the valley between her thighs. He’d vowed not to touch her up here. Too bad her gyrations sent fire burning through him.


“If you keep fighting me, I’ll have to knock you out,” he growled.

She shot him a poisonous look, but at least she stopped her efforts to disable him.

“Sophia, for Fates’ sake, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You could have let me go when we were still in Port City.”

“You know that was impossible. They weren't going to leave a witness alive.”
“They still can’t, can they?”

“No.”

“Then what are you planning?”

“You’re not making it easy to plan anything. I need your cooperation.”

“I’d give my cooperation to Jake Bolton. How can I trust Jack Younger?”

He dragged in a breath and let it out, still trying not to jeopardize his assignment. In frustration, he bit out, “Sophia, what in Hades do you want me to do?”

Her voice was hard and her words direct. “You could stop lying to me.”

He closed his eyes, caught in a trap of his own making. He had tried to play this by the rules as he knew them, but it wasn't working. Not with Sophia.

“All right, I’m a Federation agent. On an undercover assignment.”

She laughed. “Nice try.”

“You asked for the truth. That is the truth. The men downstairs are terrorists trying to overthrow the government. And if they find out I’m a lawman, we’re both going into a sucking sandpit in the swamp. That’s why I couldn't say anything to you. You had to stay scared of me.”

He raised his head again, his eyes locking with hers.

“They said you were on Ameti,” she whispered.

“Yeah. To get a confession from another inmate. I thought I was done with playing criminal, but my boss thought my cover was too good to drop.” His harsh laugh pressed his body more painfully to hers.

“That’s quite a story.”

“It’s the truth. I hope you believe it, because I've had all I can take of holding you down.”

Making a decision that he prayed wasn't fatal, he let go of her hands and rolled to his back where he lay on the floor, staring up at the water-stained ceiling as he waited to find out what she would do now.

Long seconds ticked by before she sat up, staring down at him as though she still couldn't decide what to believe.

He lay where he was, his breath frozen in his lungs hoping she could shift a hundred and eighty degrees in her thinking—from Jack Younger scumbag to Jack Younger Federation agent.

When she sat up and lifted her hand toward his face, his body prepared for fight or flight.



The Off-World Series

Hero's Welcome - Book #1
Nightfall - Book #2
Conquest - Book #3
Christmas Home - Christmas Short Story
Off World Collection - Books #1 - #3


A New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly best-selling and award-winning author, Rebecca has written over 145 books and novellas. In 2011 she became the dozenth author to receive the Romance Writers of America Centennial Award for having written 100 romantic novels. Her Killing Moon was a launch title for Berkley’s Sensation imprint in June 2003. Five more books in the series have followed.

Rebecca has authored or co-authored over 65 romantic thrillers, many for Harlequin Intrigue’s very popular 43 Light Street series, set in Baltimore, and many with paranormal elements.

Her many awards include two Rita finalist books. She has two Career Achievement awards from Romantic Times: for Series Romantic Suspense and for Series Romantic Mystery. And her Peregrine Connection series won a Lifetime Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense Series.