22 October 2018

Monster Mash Countdown Blitz! Day 7 and Giveaway!




Catina worked her way through college as a TV reporter and a dating game show host. She's a sucker for Young Adult romance stories (both real and make-believe). She has a panache for match-making and loves that many of her "set-ups" have resulted in marriages. 

After spending most of her adult life in Las Vegas, Catina traded in tumbleweeds for earthquakes and now lives with her husband and four children near San Diego, California. If she's not home, chances are you can find her at the beach, Disneyland or In-N-Out Burger.
Angela Larkin writes clean teen romance and is a big fan of kissing (in life and in books). She's been a gold miner, a pool cleaner, a mannequin dresser, and a teacher. She's lived a true romance: meeting her husband in a case of mistaken identity. They recently moved with their four children from the sparkling city of Las Vegas to the shade of the North Carolina Pines. Chances are, she's reading past bedtime.





True love doesn't always mean a happy ending. Presley and Landon finally have a chance at a real relationship when they travel back in time, but their leap backward to two months before his accident has altered reality: Landon has no memory of Presley. 

Hurt and lonely, Presley is still determined to save his life, even as Landon's death-date looms. He's alive for now, but nothing is like it was . . . Before.







Snippet:

My mom reaches across and gives my knee a squeeze. “Okay, then. But either way, we have to get to the bottom of this. Tell us everything you know about this girl.”
          I’ve been avoiding this moment—the time I would have to come up with something they’d believe about Presley. I’ve considered accusing her of being a crazy stalker. Violet would probably approve of that story. I could tell them she’s just some girl I met at a party. But it didn’t really matter what I made up, because if she said something different, no one, including the media, would know whom to believe. “Has anyone heard how she’s doing?”
          My parents look at each other and then back at me. “Not too hot, I’m afraid,” Dad says. “She’s been put into one of those medically induced comas. I guess she had a pretty bad head injury.”
          The news turns my stomach. I had no idea it was that serious. “I felt sorry for her,” I say.
          “We all did,” my mom says.

          “I felt sorry for her and it was just weird how she grabbed onto me like that. I felt bad just walking away.” I planned on coming up with a better story, but this was at least partly the truth. “I mean, how would that have looked? You guys are all upset about how it went down, and I get it, but think about how it would have looked if I shook off some bleeding girl so I could go smile for the cameras?”





To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 





20 October 2018

Monster Mash Countdown Blitz and Giveaway! Day 6!





I grew up in Salinas, California, the same hometown of John Steinbeck, one of America’s greatest writers. I loved to read (and still do) and frequented the John Steinbeck Library as a child. I discovered at an early age that I also enjoyed writing. In sixth grade, my teacher, Mr. Graham gave the class an assignment to write a story for a contest. The contest required that we create our book binding as well, which we did with cardboard, glue, and wallpaper. My book was called “Mully Mully” about a creature who lived in an underwater lake city. I was sad when I didn’t win, but I cherished my book so I kept it all these years. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I decided to put other stories, roaming around in my mind, down on paper again, or actually, in my case, into a computer.
I took a non-traditional route to writing, considering I have a doctorate in Educational Leadership. Aside from writing, I work full-time as a Training & Development Coordinator at Kaweah Delta, a  teaching hospital, and some semesters I also teach at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California, where I currently live. When I’m not at my full-time and part-time job, I enjoy writing, reading, watching TV, and spending time with my husband and pets (cat-Smokey, dog-Princess).
The Immundus is my debut novel.


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Would you sacrifice your humanity to save mankind?

IT’S THE YEAR 2828, and Domus is the last remaining country. Divided into twelve walled cities known as genuses, Domus spans what’s known as the purist lands—lands unaffected by the genetic modifications that killed all other species of mammals. But outside the walls of each genus the Immundus threaten the welfare of those within. From a young age, all citizens of Domus are trained for combat against these intruders.


At sixteen, Nia Luna knows little of the Immundus, except for the citywide alarms that ring any time an Immundus nears the genus walls. What she does know is that her own species is dying—their numbers dwindling as a mysterious disease called allagine kills many before their eleventh birthday. The same disease that ravaged her family when it took her sister.

When Nia is recruited into Genesis, a research company pioneering the path to a cure, she knows that her dream to find a cure for allagine is finally within her grasp. But within weeks of starting at Genesis, Nia witnesses something she shouldn’t have—something that changes everything. As she sets down a dangerous path that uncovers national secrets, Nia will have to decide not only what kind of person she wants to be but also how far she’s willing to go to save humanity.



Snippet:

Just outside the door, a gray-haired but young-looking man, is speaking with Dr. Matus. Derek is by her side.
“Nia.” She puts her hand out to stop me from passing her. “This is Mr. Dyer. He would like to speak to you and Derek for a moment.”
“About?”
“A problem you may have experienced with an elevator this morning.”
“No problem,” Derek responds. “We made it to the lab on time. Didn’t we, Dr. Matus?”
“Yes, they did.” She shoots a concerned look at Mr. Dyer.
“I understand you went to the ostrich floor.”
“No. A man who was in the elevator went there. We were headed here,” I say.
“Nevertheless, I must take you to administration for further questioning.”
“Why can’t you ask them here?” Dr. Matus asks, her tone thick with confusion.
“That is beyond your level.”
She stabs him with a look of disdain. He walks us through the lab to the elevator. All eyes are on us.
On the administration floor, we’re directed to a room at the end of the hall, where the light appears dimmer than the light on the other end. The room is bare, with white walls and a table with chairs in the center.
“What did you hear and see on the ostrich floor?”
“Nothing.” The word bursts from Derek’s and my mouth simultaneously.
“Don’t lie to me.” His words were razor sharp, cutting into my conscience. “I have video.” The room begins to feel more like a cell.
“Then why are you even asking us?” Derek says. “You saw whatever we saw. Why are you questioning us like this?”
“I want to hear from you what you think you saw and heard.”
“I told you. Nothing. I don’t know what I saw or heard,” I say.
His eyes are deep and dark, shaped like pumpkin seeds, but with a
narrow lid.
“Tell me what you saw now!”
“We saw the man. He pressed the ostrich button and scanned his hand and arm. He got out on the floor. We heard a scream. There was a flash of color. That’s it. You know what we saw, and it was nothing, and we did nothing. Why are we here?! Tell us!” Derek explodes before snapping his mouth shut, breathing heavily through his nose.
Sweat forms in a single thin layer on my hands. “Are we in trouble?”
“Depends.”
“On what?” Derek asks.
“On whether you’re both true—” The media light on Mr. Dyer’s
temple flashes. “I need to take this call.” He steps outside and shuts the glass door. My father’s hologram appears. Derek and I watch the interaction. I’m unable to hear the conversation, but I catch one word—Immundus. Mr. Dyer notices we can see him and touches the door, changing it from see-through to white.
“He’s getting chewed out. I wonder who that is.”
“My father,” I admit.
“What floor does he work on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
“Well, he looks like he has more authority than Mr. Dyer. Maybe he’ll get us out of here.” Derek and I wait impatiently for Mr. Dyer to return.

He walks in, chagrinned, holding the door open. “You’re free to go.” He sends Derek a devious smirk. “For now.”





To view our blog schedule and follow along with this tour visit our Official Event page 





Claiming My Place: Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Holocaust by Planaria Price with Helen Reichmann West Book Tour and Giveaway! @hfvbt @Planaria.Price



Claiming My Place: Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Holocaust
by Planaria Price with Helen Reichmann West

Publication Date: March 13, 2018
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hardcover, eBook, AudioBook
Genre: YA/NF/History/Holocaust/WWII


A Junior Library Guild selection Claiming My Place is the true story of a young Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust by escaping to Nazi Germany and hiding in plain sight. 

Meet Gucia Gomolinska: smart, determined, independent, and steadfast in the face of injustice. A Jew growing up in predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and ’30s, Gucia studies hard, makes friends, falls in love, and dreams of a bright future. Her world is turned upside down when Nazis invade Poland and establish the first Jewish ghetto of World War II in her town of Piotrkow Trybunalski. 

As the war escalates, Gucia and her family, friends, and neighbors suffer starvation, disease, and worse. She knows her blond hair and fair skin give her an advantage, and eventually she faces a harrowing choice: risk either the uncertain horrors of deportation to a concentration camp, or certain death if she is caught resisting. She decides to hide her identity as a Jew and adopts the gentile name Danuta Barbara Tanska. 

Barbara, nicknamed Basia, leaves behind everything and everyone she has ever known in order to claim a new life for herself. Writing in the first person, author Planaria Price brings the immediacy of Barbara’s voice to this true account of a young woman whose unlikely survival hinges upon the same determination and defiant spirit already evident in the six-year-old girl we meet as this story begins. 
The final portion of this narrative, written by Barbara’s daughter, Helen Reichmann West, completes Barbara’s journey from her immigration to America until her natural, timely death. Includes maps and photographs.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Praise

“Price has boldly elected to tell the story in Basia’s own first-person, present-tense voice. The result is a dramatic, suspenseful account of survival in extremis, told in collaboration with Basia’s American daughter.” ―Booklist

 “Price's rendering of West’s mother’s early life reads like suspenseful historical fiction, telling a rarely heard side of the Jewish experience during WWII . . . Family, friendships, and romance give poignancy to this unique coming-of-age story, which is further enhanced by maps, a glossary, and an afterword.” 
―Publishers Weekly

 “A rich exploration of a Holocaust survivor’s sheltered childhood, the atrocity that failed to destroy her, and her later life as an immigrant.” ―Kirkus Reviews

 “I was completely engrossed by this drama of survival. Barbara Reichmann's story is quite extraordinary. It is sad, and terrible, and yet somehow captivating. The whole story of those who survived the Shoah by passing as Christians and working in Nazi Germany is an often forgotten part of the historical record.” ―Kai Bird, Executive Director, Leon Levy Center for Biography at CUNY Graduate Center, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

 “As occurs with The Diary of Anne Frank, this book merges the dire circumstances of the Holocaust with the tenuousness of being a teenager. But Claiming My Place expands the view provided in the diary for one critical reason. Anne Frank’s story is told within an isolated cocoon. In Barbara’s story, however, the Holocaust is in full view as her experiences unfold.” ―David H. Lindquist, Ph.D., IPFW College of Education and Public Policy / Regional Museum Educator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

 “This frightening true story of a young Jewish girl's flight from the deadly grip of the Nazis celebrates the surprising ingenuity and raw courage found only in the depths of the human spirit. Risking what few others dared, Barbara Reichmann, née Gucia Gomolinska, speaks with wisdom and uncommon self-awareness through her detailed, colorful, and evocative recollections from earliest childhood. In the final portion of this book, her daughter, Helen West, continues Barbara’s journey in an insightful and loving overview of Barbara’s life from the family’s arrival in New Orleans in 1951 until her death in 2007. This is a great read with the suspenseful, inspiring and uplifting appeal of a novel, about a character who will capture the reader’s heart.” ―Allan Holzman, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning director and editor (Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Holocaust, Old Man River, The Native Americans)

 "Thanks to the detailed memories and the conversational tone, this book provides an engaging and informative reading experience with as much appeal as a fiction title. Recommended for most YA nonfiction collections." ―Magdalena Teske, West Chicago Public Library District School Library Journal

 "This book was truly a celebration of the human spirit. What a gift she has for putting you in the story. Her way with words, plus her weaving of the actual events recounted to her by the unbelievably courageous Basia and her daughter Helen, was nothing short of magical. The included photographs and epilogue served to fully round out this amazing tale. I never wanted this book to end!" ―Rabbi Lynn Brody Slome

About the Author

After graduating from Berkeley and earning a Master's Degree in English Literature from UCLA, Planaria Price began her career teaching English to adult immigrants in Los Angeles. She has written several textbooks for University of Michigan Press and has lectured at over 75 conferences. In addition to her passion for teaching and writing, Planaria has worked with her husband to save and restore over 30 Victorian and Craftsman homes in her historic Los Angeles neighborhood. Claiming My Place is her first book for young adults. For more information, please visit Planaria's website at www.planariaprice.com.

Book Blast Schedule

Monday, October 15
Spellbound By History
Wednesday, October 17
Bibliophile Reviews
Friday, October 19
Locks, Hooks and Books
Saturday, October 20
CelticLady’s Reviews
Monday, October 22
The Book Mind
Wednesday, October 24
Maiden of the Pages
Thursday, October 25
Book Nerd
Bri’s Book Nook
Friday, October 26
Puddletown Reviews
Saturday, October 27
Donna’s Book Blog
Tuesday, October 30
The Book Junkie Reads
Wednesday, October 31
Just One More Chapter
Thursday, November 1
So Many Books, So Little Time
Friday, November 2
Passages to the Past

Giveaway

During the Blog Tour we will be giving away a signed hardcover copy of Claiming My Place by Planaria Price! To enter, please enter via the Gleam form below.

  Giveaway Rules – Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on November 2nd. You must be 18 or older to enter. – Giveaway is open to US residents only. – Only one entry per household. – All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion. – 
Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

  Claiming My Place 

19 October 2018

They Can Never Know by Sheri Meshal Book Tour and Giveaway!



NEW RELEASE….
For over fifty years, Cleota Ferguson has kept her head down and done as she was told. She managed to outlive her abusive husband, but that’s about it and not by much. Time is running out and the money already has, when she accidentally discovers the means to live a completely different life. Her meth-making stepsons are the last people who can ever discover what she’s found. Forget putting her in a home. They’ll put her in the ground right behind the barn. Sometimes you have to disappear to truly find yourself.




What would you do if your last chance at happiness required you do everything you’re afraid of?

"Hugely enchanting…reading Sheri Meshal is like listening to a favorite aunt who just happens to be a phenomenal storyteller." ~ Anton Lee Richards, author Blueberry Pancakes 

 "Sheri Meshal has a gift for creating characters you're going to want to spend time with. Cleota is a touching and provocative story. Go for the ride." ~ Jim Wormington, author Under Different Suns 

"A heartwarming story of a journey of self-discovery and renewal. In They Can Never Know, Sheri Meshal paints a portrait of a character you won't soon forget." ~ Ed Pionke, screenwriter, director, producer, Mother's Milk

Available to buy from...... 


More books from the author
Swallowtail
Chicago wife, mother and finance executive Claire Cummings, arrives at work one morning to discover her friend Julia has embezzled millions and vanished. Blindsided and devastated by the betrayal, she’s sent home pending further investigation. Claire’s bizarre death the following day sends everyone reeling, guessing and looking for her in all the wrong places. In no time she's addicted to an enchanting menagerie of tricks and techniques for getting the living's attention, but most people are harder to reach than she'd ever dreamed and even harder to set free. 

She was still a mother, a wife, a daughter and a friend... she'd move heaven and earth to keep it that way. 

Sheri Meshal’s Swallowtail is a haunting story about life, love, loss and just how far we’ll go to control it all. 

This debut from a thought-provoking new voice in fiction begs the question… what would you do if all the rules changed, and you were suddenly bestowed powers beyond your greatest imagination?

"This book comforts me. It is like being wrapped up in a blanket of love. I strongly urge you to read this book. While the story is a book of fiction, it will make you examine your life. It will move some of you to tears like me. Ultimately, it will leave you with a sense of love." ~ Kelli R. Guilbeau

"This is quite a special book. The soft, delicate and imaginative way the author describes things in the book is truly beautiful. Swallowtail is now firmly in the top three of my all time favourite books that I will always treasure and I highly recommend this deeply moving and joyous book to you all."  ~ Beck Valley Books

"I am rarely so blown away by a book like I was with this one. SO many emotions and feelings are brought out by this story. Loss, coping, recovering and some real happiness."  ~ Jenn's Review Blog

Available to buy from...... 



Chokecherry

Forty-one year old Dana Quinn, a closet writer, career waitress and three-time psych ward patient has just lost her last family member. For Dana to go on, she must create a life meaningful enough to answer her eternal question: why did she alone survive the tour bus crash that killed her family? That’s a tall order for someone who’s barely managed to exist. Never married, in and out of an institution where only her writing saved her, Dana works a dismal job with a few friends she’s managed to keep at a safe distance.

Feeling lost and hopeless in the weeks following Aunt Irma’s unexpected death, Dana discovers a letter and takes her aunt’s advice to simply walk away from her life in Queens and return to her family farm to write herself well one more time. For over thirty years Dana’s believed the farm was sold and did her best to forget it. But what if everything in the house is frozen in time exactly the way they left it? Nothing can stop her from walking through that door.

On the road she adopts a one-eared dog and finds a new best friend in Iowan-turned-New Yorker, Stu, who’s given up designing off-Broadway sets to care for his ailing mother back in his tiny hometown. Chokecherry, her father’s beloved farm, is not at all what Dana expects and far more than she bargains for. By firelight, Malcolm reveals the cryptic history buried in the tunnel, and why the big barn strikes fear in the hearts of those who enter it. Despite its tragic past, the farm also possesses an undeniable capacity to heal the broken heart of anyone who embraces it. In fact, it seems to be a magnet for broken hearts. Just as Dana and her friends form a tight bond and rise to the challenge of helping Chokecherry realize its true potential, a supernatural ability she’s failed to repress for years, nearly kills her. Dana’s forced to fight for a life she wants—a life that finally answers her eternal question in ways she never could’ve imagined.

"Chokecherry is now up there with Swallowtail in my favorite book category!" ~ Life as Leels 

"This was different from anything I have read before and it kept me captured. It must have been my fastest reading ever as I didn’t want to miss anything." ~ R Simmons

"There is love, loss, and even a touch of the supernatural. Seriously this books has it all." ~ Ashley's Pretty Little Life

Available to buy from...... 



About the author
Sheri Meshal spent most of her childhood on an old farm in Iowa. She loves dogs, neuroscience, reading and mini-triathlons. When she isn’t writing, she’s hanging out with her nieces and nephews every chance she gets.

She currently lives in Chicago with her boyfriend, Gabe and her dog, Jessica.

Find the author on the following sites....



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