A Note From LD

Hi Everyone!

As many of you have probably (possibly, hopefully) noticed my posting schedule over the last couple weeks has slowed down quite a lot. This is a temporary thing, a measure taken to devote more time to my three young children who are off school and home full-time for the remainder of the summer. It's already nearly the end of July which means that the kids summer holidays are almost 1/2 over. I do have a number of posts that I'm committed to already, as well as there being a number of new releases that I'm excited about reading and posting about, so I will have a couple post here-and-there over the next several weeks but I will be back with frequent (even daily) posts at the beginning of September!

I hope you have a wonderful summer and I will keep you in the loop as much as I can. It's time for some real-life adventures for me and my crew - you can follow our adventures, if you like, on my family-life blog "A Corner Table in My World" here > http://cornertable-myworld.blogspot.ca/ 

Sincerely,

Your Book-Luvin Blogger

RELEASE BLITZ for Karma Inc.

Book: Karma Inc

Author: Melanie James

Release Date: 7/14/2015

Genre:Paranormal 

Amazon US -- http://amzn.to/1Cysvva

Amazon UK - http://amzn.to/1RrnjQA

Amazon CA - http://amzn.to/1HxnFu0

Amazon AU -- http://bit.ly/1dU2smd

B&N -- http://bit.ly/1M47ZFM

Itunes – http://apple.co/1HonoN0

Kobo -- http://bit.ly/1gvi2Xp

http://bit.ly/1gvhKQy

Blurb:

Waiting for Karma is fine—for the patient. But for the rest of us, it sure would be nice to give Karma a little nudge every once in a while.

Too many dates that turned out to be losers or liars? Have a problem with two faced backstabbers? And don’t even start with the so-called customer service centers. There comes a day when enough is really, truthfully, enough already. For Kelly and Esmeralda, two snarky single witches, that day was yesterday. After applying their witchcraft to dish out a little magical payback, they realize they have a penchant for the dark art of revenge. And who’s to say a witch can’t make a few bucks with a talent like that? 

Doing the odd job was fun and gratifying. Then along came an unusual client with a pitch for an idea, “Karma Inc.-Reality TV.” The witches set up shop in the sleepy little town of Caldron Falls, Wisconsin. By enabling the good citizens to settle old scores, they hoped to transform the town into a virtual coliseum of televised revenge. It didn’t take long before a few inconvenient and unexpected dead bodies began to pile up. To complicate matters, Caldron Falls just happens to have more than its fair share of paranormal creatures, not to mention a Chicago mobster seemingly bent on taking over the town. 

Can Esmeralda and Kelly solve the rash of unexplained deaths before they get the blame and end up behind bars? What will Marie Laveau and the Witches Union have to say about this? And as any fool knows, Karma carries a roundtrip ticket.

Author Bio

USA Today Bestselling author, Melanie James spent 14 years as an IT systems administrator before tiring of the hustle and bustle of the technology world. She's doing what she loves, by writing paranormal comedy, steamy paranormal, and contemporary romance books. Melanie has a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in Leadership and Development, with a minor in Women's Studies. She is working on her Master's Degree in Adult Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

Melanie is married to a wonderful man who supports her dreams and goals. She has two children, three step-children, a beautiful daughter-in-law, and an adorable grand-baby.

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How Do You Know? EXCERPT - Making It

Making It

By Amanda Gibbs

Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult Romance, Poetry

Brief Description: 

Making It, Amanda Gibbs' debut short story, invites readers into the most intimate and personal moments of a couple's life spanning throughout decades. The story is told through prose, poetry, dialogue, lists, and focused vignettes, all with Amanda's signature concrete voice.  Each entry of Making It represents a day in a year of the couple's relationship, spanning from first meeting to 30th anniversary.

Author Bio: 

Amanda Gibbs is an eighteen-year-old student, photographer and actress from Toronto, Canada.  Writing since preschool with Crayola crayons, Amanda’s passion is writing stories that make the mundane beautiful, and the little moments in life profound.  Inspired by writers like Michael Faudet, Jamie McGuire, and Walt Whitman, Amanda loves experimenting with form, dialogue, and combining poetry and prose.  In her spare time, Amanda trains in mixed martial arts and takes care of her six dogs, as well as procrastinating schoolwork to write her next book.

Author website:  www.amandagibbs.com

Author Facebook: www.facebook.com/authoramandagibbs
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13798681.Amanda_Gibbs
Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/mandaellengibbs

Author Amazon: http://amzn.to/1BpHth6

 

Enjoy this excerpt from Amanda Gibbs' Making It...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How am I supposed to know when to say I love you?”

She passed him the tomato plant to put on the apartment balcony.  It was the first thing they had ever owned together.

“When to say I love you, or when you know you love someone?”

He reached over to rub the dirt smear off her cheek.  He licked his finger first to make sure he got it all.  She didn’t think twice of it.

“Both.”

She stopped planting for a moment to look out at the industrial view facing her.  Hotels, factories, more apartments.  A couple was having sex against the window across the street.  She didn’t look away as she said it.

“I think you know you love someone when you do things for them when it’s inconvenient for you.  I think you say I love you when they do too.”

-A week before the tomato plant died

The first time he said it, they were assembling an ikea baby crib for his sister’s newborn.  He was kneeling on the ground reading her instructions while she lay partway under the crib, screwdriver in hand to do the hard bits.  She didn’t even hear him the first time. She wore his old painting t-shirt and a pair of Roots sweatpants, and he had just yelled at her a half hour before for spending too much money on Wendy’s.

“I love you.”

She reached her hand out to pat his knee affectionately.  “No, babe, it’s fine, you didn’t shove me at all.”  

She had the screwdriver in her mouth so she could use both hands to piece the thing together, making it difficult for him to understand much of what she said either.  He did one of those nervous laughs reserved for 10th graders about to give a presentation on the reproductive organs, but, to his credit, he said it again quite factually and even toned, especially for a man who had only ever previously said “I love you” to his mother and goldfish.

“I love you.”

She dropped the screwdriver.  On her face.

“What did you just say?”  It barely came out as a whisper.

“I love you.”

The first time she said “I love you” was 13 weeks after he did.  He was sleeping, she was propped up on her elbow staring at him, as she had been for the past three hours trying to garner the confidence to spit out the three words.  It was his snore that did it.  He did this thing where he simultaneously exhaled and inhaled, while making a spitting noise which included an elephantine snore.  She started giggling uncontrollably, and didn’t even realize at first when the words popped out.  

“I love you.”

It didn’t matter that it would be six more months before she said it to his face, because she said it.  It was out there in the universe.  And she meant it.

- How she chipped her front tooth from a screwdriver

 

A Life in Moments - Making It REVIEW

Making It

By Amanda Gibbs

 

Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult Romance, Poetry

Brief Description: 

Making It, Amanda Gibbs' debut short story, invites readers into the most intimate and personal moments of a couple's life spanning throughout decades. The story is told through prose, poetry, dialogue, lists, and focused vignettes, all with Amanda's signature concrete voice.  Each entry of Making It represents a day in a year of the couple's relationship, spanning from first meeting to 30th anniversary.

Auhor Bio: 

Amanda Gibbs is an eighteen-year-old student, photographer and actress from Toronto, Canada.  Writing since preschool with Crayola crayons, Amanda’s passion is writing stories that make the mundane beautiful, and the little moments in life profound.  Inspired by writers like Michael Faudet, Jamie McGuire, and Walt Whitman, Amanda loves experimenting with form, dialogue, and combining poetry and prose.  In her spare time, Amanda trains in mixed martial arts and takes care of her six dogs, as well as procrastinating schoolwork to write her next book.

 

 

Author website:  www.amandagibbs.com

Author Facebook: www.facebook.com/authoramandagibbs

Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13798681.Amanda_Gibbs

Author Twitter: https://twitter.com/mandaellengibbs 

Author Amazon: http://amzn.to/1BpHth6

THE REVIEW

At one point in our lives every woman, and many men, journal.  Sometimes it’s a day-to-day reporting of what we’ve been doing, thinking about, or feeling.  Sometimes it’s merely a note to remind ourselves of something that we don’t want to forget.  Sometimes it’s a secret place to jot down all the most important things to us, a place we hold dear to our heart and never contemplate sharing with anyone, let alone the world.

I have a journal.  In fact I have several.  I write one that I will eventually have copied and given to each of my children – it holds my memories of my life with their father and with them.  I write another that contains my inner most dreams, desires, and secrets.  And I write a third journal, of sorts, in the form of a blog where I talk about my family and the things we do, places we go and experiences that I have with them.  (That blog is separate to this one, where I write about books and other entertainment.)  At some times the entries in these journals are frequent and other times, months may pass between writings. 

Because that’s life: a series of events, memories, or moments that mean something to you, they shape you and can come to define the shape your life may take.

Making It by Amanda Gibbs may be just a short compilation of jotted down moments in time but put together as they are, it shows you a life.  The good moments and the bad, the confusing, the ridiculous and the scary; life is filled with all of these and Gibbs shows this beautifully in this work. This is no deep commentary on life; Making It simply shows us that life isn’t always easy and straightforward. It doesn’t always follow a plan. Life just is and all we mere mortals can do is live it. And remember.

Making It is just a short read, but it’s one that I truly believe you’ll love. If only so you can compare your own moments to the one in the book.

Find Yourself Again in DISCOVERING APRIL

Discovering April by Sheena Hutchinson 

Publication date: April 27th 2015
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

April Landau thinks she has everything she’s ever wanted. Her high school sweetheart, a house she can’t afford, her bipolar tabby cat, and she’s all set to begin her Junior year of college. Just when she least expects it, her life gets thrown for a loop. When things between her and her long time boyfriend unravel, she becomes stuck in a downward spiral of emotion. Finally, opening her eyes to the fact that she may have given up more than she ever could have imagined in this relationship. She finds herself struggling to keep her head above water.
Enter April’s next door neighbor— Jared Hoffman. He’s her complete opposite. A high school drop out who was forced to take over his parent’s business after their untimely death. It’s no surprise this tragedy affected him greatly, causing him to recede almost completely from society.
But he has one secret. A secret he’s been carrying around for years.
What happens when their worlds collide? Can an old friendship be the one thing that brings these two back to life?

A new adult love story filled with drama, sex, death, and the complications of all of the above. 

THE REVIEW 

April and Jared have lived next door to one another since they were just kids. As children they were the best of friends. In high school they started to drift apart and then Jared's parents were killed in a car accident and he withdrew from everyone around him.  Years later they are still neighbours, though they haven't truly been friends since the accident. 

When April's boyfriend breaks up with her she struggles to find her footing and remember who she really is, when she's not just his girlfriend. She surprised, shocked and dismayed to realize that she hasn't recently considered who she was or what she wanted to do with her life. 

Jared sees her struggling to move past her lost relationship and decides to help her remember the way she used to be, so that she could remember the girl she was, once upon a time. 

I really did enjoy watching the way that April and Jared both evolved through the story. I liked seeing the way they grew up, while also remembering to embrace their inner child and have fun once in a while. And I really loved to watch them fall in love with each other too. 

I have to admit that I struggled with reading this book through the first quarter of it. At times it was if the writing was done by a child - the wording, syntax and even the watery plot seemed immature. Then it changed. Almost in time with the evolution of the characters the writing improved. Or it seemed to me it did anyways. There were a couple moments here and there where I'd get that immature feeling again but then I'd turn a page and it was good again. Maybe it was just me, maybe it's a failing of the editing. 

Either way, in the end DISCOVERING APRIL by Sheena Hutchinson is a very sweet story that I enjoyed reading and am happy to recommend to others. 

Take 'The Challenge' and Unveil the Cover - COVER REVEAL

 

What Will You Find 'In Denver' - RELEASE BLITZ

What's Cooking for Your Favorite Authors - RELEASE PROMO

It Gets Hot in BODY LOCK - RELEASE TOUR

 

Just Like in the Movies - RELEASE BLITZ

Are You FEARLESS? - EXCERPT & GIVEAWAY

Fearless by Annie Jocoby

(Fearless #1)

 

Publication date: July 15th 2014

Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

BOOK ONE OF A PLANNED TRILOGY

BOOK TWO, SECRETS AND LIES, IS AVAILABLE NOW!

*Warning* Strong language and sexual situations. Ends in MAJOR cliffhanger. Not for the faint of heart.

Beautiful heiress Dalilah Gallagher, a former child art prodigy, has lost her way. Harsh criticism in her formative years has left her floundering and without the artistic voice that once centered her life.  Now, at the age of 20, she has spent the last nine years trying to reclaim what she lost.

Her struggles lead her to the nude-modeling world in New York City, where she hopes she will find her passion for art again. What she finds is surprising: Her artistic voice isn’t gone, merely misplaced.

Luke Roberts has a different problem. Raised by a solid, working-class fisherman in Maine, Luke is a gifted artist struggling to get a foothold in the busy New York City art scene. His gifts attract the attention of a wealthy benefactor, Blake Nottingham, who finds himself fascinated with Dalilah. Nottingham commissions Luke to provide him with a piece of art: A painting of Dalilah.

As the two young artists fall in love, Dalilah finds her artistic voice once more, so she’ll do anything to help Luke find the prominence he deserves. This leads to a dangerous game of deceit that puts Dalilah in Nottingham’s clutches when she tries to manipulate him into helping Luke.

Nottingham isn’t easily manipulated, though, and things go seriously awry for Dalilah. What happens when the manipulated becomes the manipulator?

This is a New Adult Contemporary Romance. Age groups are 18+. It has some sexually explicit scenes.

Goodreads

 

Purchase @ Amazon

 

Purchase @ B&N

THE EXCERPT

I felt excited as I realized that Dalilah was definitely feeling something for me. It was
in her words and in her body language. She wanted me as much as I wanted her. That
much was perfectly clear.

But it just wasn’t as simple as all of that. I wished that it would be. But it wasn’t. I
couldn’t give her what she needed. At that moment, I just wasn’t able to give any woman
what she would need. I wasn’t established. Dalilah deserved somebody who could
monetarily afford to treat her like the platinum that she was. Yeah, Nottingham was
allegedly going to be giving me $5000, but the contract stipulated that it was to be paid
after the project was over. I had just noticed that the other day when I was reading the
fine print. So, in the meantime, I was broke.

And Dalilah was like a bottle of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Grand Cru, Cote de
Nuits, which was recognized as the finest wine in the world. She was unique, rare and
well out of my league. That I was increasingly feeling that I was falling for her, and I was
feeling that more and more, every time I saw her, was a non-factor. I simply couldn’t
have someone like her, and that was that. As frustrating as that was.

I doodled on the napkin in front of me, and then, just like that, song lyrics started
pouring out of my head. That wasn’t something that usually happened for me, because
inspiration for my lyrics constantly eluded me. But being up there with Dalilah - feeling
her warmth, seeing her extraordinary beauty, and sensing her even-more-extraordinary
intelligence – somehow did inspire me as nothing else ever had.

So, for the next hour, the lyrics poured out of me. What came out was a sappy love
song like the kind that I used to make fun of when I heard it on the radio. With the
exception of The Beatles Something of course – there was no arguing with that classic.

But, usually, when I heard a love song, I rolled my eyes. Because there wasn’t such a
thing as the kind of pure love that these songs conveyed.

Or so I thought. But I was increasingly seeing a glimpse, but just a glimpse, of what
these songs were talking about when I looked into Dalilah’s eyes.

I finally decided to walk to the subway station, which was a few blocks away from
her apartment, around 3 AM. I did have a double-shift at the bar the next day, which was
going to kill me, I knew. I was going to be dead-tired. And Dalilah would be coming to
my studio at 8 AM, too. For that, I knew that I would be wide awake.

I tried very hard to tamp down the feeling of absolute excitement that was bubbling
up as I anticipated seeing her again in just a few more hours. For she was still
untouchable to me in so many ways. I was amazed that I had the nerve to kiss her, but,
then again, that was how I was feeling about her. I couldn’t not kiss her. I couldn’t not
fantasize about making love to her. I had such an absolute passion for her that touching
her and kissing her almost seemed like it was second nature to me.

But my brain said that what had happened up there with her – the kisses – was going
to be as far as it ever could go. She was my muse, of that I was sure. She inspired me to
write a rather kick-ass love song, if I do say so myself, and she also inspired my art. I was
finding myself increasingly incorporating her, in some way, in everything that I was
composing, even if it was as an abstraction of some sort. Like I would be painting a
picture of people in a café, and there she was, popping up at one of the tables. Or I was
doodling a sketch of a busy city street, and Dalilah was there in the crowd.

And, of course, there was the portrait of Dalilah that I was creating for that wealthy
bastard, a portrait that I was suddenly feeling proprietary over. Which was a dangerous
way for me to feel, because I didn’t own this portrait. Nottingham did. I was just the
instrumentality for getting the portrait done. Just the same, the entire project was turning
into one that was a passion project for me, moreso than anything else had ever been. How
I wished that I could keep it for myself after it was finished!

Yes, she was my muse. And she might always be, even in the near future when I
would inevitably be forced to jettison my art and make it just a hobby, while I found a
“real” job that would pay the bills. She was my muse, but she could never be my lover. I
hated to think that I just wasn’t worthy of her, but that was what went through my head.

I might have been falling in love with her, but I still couldn’t imagine being with her.

Nonetheless, I looked forward to seeing her again with breathless anticipation.

AUTHOR BIO:

Annie Jocoby is the author of 8 contemporary romance novels and 3 New Adult contemporary romance novels. Her motivation to begin writing these novels is that she was interested in writing about rich men who actually love and respect their women. Her heroes are alpha and damaged, yet also genuinely good guys.

Ryan, Nick, Luke and Asher are all complicated characters who have experienced plenty of darkness, yet always seek the light. They would all go to the ends of the earth to protect the women they love. And they’re all sexy, enigmatic, magnetic and great in bed.

All of Annie’s books have things in common: they all combine a touch of mystery and intrigue with drama, love, and lots of hot sex. Some of the books have action and even some criminal elements in them. Her current book, in fact, is her first book that would be classified as straight romantic suspense, although it also combines definite elements of the thriller genre! If you’re in the market for a book that is fast-paced, where the heroes are beautiful and wealthy, and the heroines are strong, vulnerable and flawed, then try these books out!

Author links:

http://www.anniejocoby.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7151437.Annie_Jocoby

https://www.facebook.com/AnnieJocoby

 

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