Virtual Book Tour Giveaway: "Immortalis Carpe Noctem" by Katie Salidas

I am very excited to be able to introduce you to Katie Salidas and host her tour. She is the amazing author of "Immortalis Carpe Noctem". Today, Katie is giving away a copy of her book to one lucky reader of this blog. Tomorrow, I will be posting my review of "Immortalis Carpe Noctem", so make sure to stop by and read my thoughts.

Book Summary (from Pump Up Your Book):

"Bleeding to death after brutal mugging on the campus of UNLV, Twenty-five year old Alyssa, is rescued by the cold and aloof, vampire, Lysander. Taking pity on her, he shares the gift-and curse-of immortality. She awakens as a vampire and is soon devastated by harsh realities of her new way of life: the loss of her friends, her independence, and her humanity.

As if having her humanity stripped away was not enough to make life interesting, Alyssa finds out her “turning”, did not go unnoticed by the rest of undead society. Old enemies; an ancient sect of vampire hunters, known as the Acta Sanctorum, as well as a powerful Vampire mistress, each set plans in motion to destroy both Alyssa and Lysander.

Only by accepting her newfound immortality, seizing the night, will Alyssa hope to survive. She and Lysander must fight together against two sets of enemies bent on destroying them both."

About the Author:

      The youngest of four children, Katie has always had a desire to entertain. Since, early childhood, she's dreamed up fantastical characters and scribbled them into pages of various journals and notebooks. Taking an interest in vampires at an early age, she devoured every book, featuring those blood sucking creatures, in any genre she could find. She claims that, of all the monsters out there, vampires had always been the most interesting. 

      It was only natural that a love of reading about vampires, and a love of writing, turned into a desire to write her own stories. Thus, Immortalis Carpe Noctem was born.

      A Las Vegas native, having grown up in the famed City of Sin, Katie loves to feature it as a recurring setting for many of her stories.

If you would like to learn more about Katie, you can visit her blog at: http://myimmortalstories.blogspot.com/. You can also find and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

GIVEAWAY:

Katie is offering one lucky reader a copy of her book "Immortalis Carpe Noctem". Now's your chance to add this exciting book to your library. See below how to enter. Contest ends May 31st at 11:59pm EST.

To enter:

1. You must be a follower of this blog.
2. You must leave a comment WITH your email address.
3. US and Canada only.

BONUS Entries !! (get up to 3 bonus)

* Stop by tomorrow and leave a comment on my review of "Immortalis Carpe Noctem" for a bonus entry.

* Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter - see sidebar for buttons. (one each)


Please note: Winners will be contacted by email have 48 hours to respond with full name and address. Book will be sent directly to winner from the author.

Blog Tour - Author Spotlight: Robin Wells "Still the One" + Giveaway

I am pleased to be able to be part of Robin Wells Blog Tour. Today, I am pleased to be bringing you a wonderful guest post by Robin. If  you'd like your own copy of "Still the One", make sure to enter our drawing. I am pleased to be able to offer 5 copies of Robin's book. Make sure to read my review and giveaway post and enter today!!

I crunched the numbers on my new book, Still the One, and here’s what it took to write it: 
                Nine months
                2,000 sheets of paper (5 drafts)
                1080 cups of coffee  ( four cups of half-caff a day)
                270 ounces of chocolate (one ounce per day)
                540 miles of walking and 2160 minutes of weight training to counteract the chocolate 
               

      The idea for Still the One came to me as I was writing the book Between the Sheets.   Katie was the best friend of the character in that book, and she just grew on me.  She owned the hair salon in Chartreuse, Louisiana, and her husband is a Marine in Iraq.

      Still the One opens two years later.  Katie’s husband was killed in Iraq, and Katie tried to move on with her life, but she’s certain she’ll never find anyone she loves the way she loved her husband. And then, to her shock, her teenage love, Zack Ferguson, moves to town-- accompanied by Gracie, the daughter Katie gave up for adoption seventeen years ago.  Gracie’s adopting parents died in a car crash a year ago, and she’s still grieving them. She’s got a bad attitude, a smart mouth-- and a baby on the way. 
               

      The novel deals with some tough issues--the primary romance between Zack and Katie deals with grief, teen pregnancy, loneliness and loss, and the secondary romance between Katie’s mother-in-law and father-in-law deals with divorce, infidelity, alcoholism and aging-- but it’s not a dark book.   There’s a lot of humor in the story, and I hope readers will like the way the characters support each other, find inner strengths they didn’t know they had and find ways to laugh in the face of adversity.  

                To read an excerpt or download a list of discussion topics, visit my website at robinwells.com.

About the Author:

Before becoming a full-time writer, Robin Wells was an advertising and public-relations executive. Robin has won the RWA Golden Heart Award, two National Readers' Choice Awards, the Holt Medallion, and CRW's Award of Excellence.

Robin currently lives just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana with her husband and two daughters.

For more information please visit http://www.robinwells.com/ You can also find Robin on Facebook and Twitter.

Guest post was posted with permission.

"A History of Christianity" DVD - Episode 1 Review

      Considering the word “monster,” one may generally tend to imagine some sort of savage or brute beast that inflicts harm upon the innocent. However, it seems unlikely that this is what Professor Maculloch had in mind when he describes himself and his love for church history—no thanks to his parents exposing him to various, unusual churches during his childhood. Diarmaid MacCulloch is a professor of history at Oxford, and he combines his skills with his passion in a quest to seek out how Christianity was born and how it impacted both the ancient and modern worlds. He does this in his series, “A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.”

      In his first part of his six-part series, “The First Christianity,” Professor MacCulloch describes how Christianity spread throughout the ancient world, and explores some of the modern and ancient evidence that points to its existence across not only the Western World and part of the Middle-East, but throughout the Eastern World as well. He erases the presumption that Christianity was a religion that only flourished in the Roman world. He also gives a inside look of how certain churches practice their worship ceremonies, while presenting several theories and church beliefs since that time. Professor MacCulloch manages to present this in a historical aspect while refraining from preaching Christian theology to his viewers.

      He presents his work more in the form of an investigative, yet informative, style. He begins at the birthplace of Christianity, Jerusalem—much like a detective begins at a crime scene—and sprawls outward, going wherever the evidence leads him. It seems like this enriches the entertainment factor within his documentary as well.

      It is also rather interesting to note how Professor MacCulloch uses his video from his adventure rather than substituting clips of art, or shots of artifacts here or there, as seen in other documentaries with third-person narrators. This documentary adheres strictly to using the shots the professor and his crew acquire from their investigation. This not only exposes the viewers to the current culture and sites, but may give them somewhat of a feel as though they were actually venturing with Professor MacCulloch himself—in essence, letting them see what he sees.

      Overall, the documentary described the emergence of Christianity, its history and where it spread, traditional beliefs and practices, and also managed to be entertaining as well.

      Personally, I would enjoy watching the next five parts of his series. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the the history of Christianity, history in general or to anyone just interested in learning.

Discover the Surprising History of the First Christians

New DVD series examines Christianity’s global roots.

There are two billion Christians in the world today, a third of humanity—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal, and many more. Though Christians, by definition, are well-versed in the story of Christ and the apostles, many have given little thought to the details of their Christian heritage—the miraculous transferring of their faith from the first Christians huddled at Golgotha, across two centuries worth of cultures and languages, wars, and the rising and falling of empires. How did this small, obscure Jewish sect that preached humility and personal sacrifice become the biggest religion in the world? The answer will surprise you.

A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years is a six-part series co-produced by the BBC, the Open University, and Jerusalem Productions and presented by Diarmaid MacCulloch, one of the world’s leading historians and Professor of History of the Church and Fellow at St. Cross College, Oxford. As MacCulloch reveals the true history of Christianity, he explores the question, “What does it really mean to be a Christian?”

MacCulloch is one of the most widely traveled Christian historians, and A History of Christianity is the first retelling of the Christian story that is truly global in scope. Filmed in high definition, A History of Christianity takes viewers on a 2,000-year odyssey that reaches the farthest corners of the world, from Palestine in the first century to India in the third, from Damascus to China in the seventh century, and from San Francisco to Korea in the twentieth.

The DVD set is available at retailers, including Sam’s Club. The series is also available on Amazon.com and www.ambrosevideo.com. 

Episode 1 of "A History of Christianity" was provided by B&B Media Group to be honestly reviewed.

Virtual Book Tour and Review: "More than Conquerors" Kathi Macias

I am pleased once again, to be part of a blog tour for Kathi Macias. Kathi has published her second book in the Extreme Devotion Series called More than Conquerors. It is a definite must read for any Christian or anyone wanting to read more about the Christian movement in Mexico.

More than Conquerors
Author: Kathi Macias
Publisher: New Hope Publishers
ISBN: 9781596692831
Genre: Christian, fiction

Synopsis (taken from Pump Up Your Book):

"With violent crime on the rise and the political climate changing throughout Mexico, the opportunity for open Christian witness is rapidly decreasing in many areas. Hector Rodriguez pastors a church on the outskirts of the once-peaceful and tourist-popular border town of Tijuana. He has also visited other small churches in the remote and not-so-Christian-friendly towns of Chiapas state, delivering Bibles and ministering to those in the most persecuted areas.


Hector’s mother accompanied him on one of those trips and stayed behind to teach reading—using the Bible as her primer—to a handful of Christian converts living among the Mayan population in San Juan Chamula, where superstition and paganism run rampant, and resentment of outsiders runs deep. In a reaction to that superstition and resentment, Hector’s mother pays a serious price for her unwanted presence—and Hector must then choose whether or not to continue his work in some of the most dangerous areas of Mexico."

My Thoughts:

The second book in the Extreme Devotion Series, "More than Conquerors" is an amazing book. It will transport you to Tijuana and San Juan Chamula, and make you realize how blessed you are to have freedom to worship in the manner you choose. This story is very realistic, heart warming, and at times heart-wrenching.

In this book, Kathi deals with the growing hostility of Mayans and others in Mexico. She is not shy with putting a realism. She includes not only the problem of Christians going into Mayan country, but she also deals with the trouble of the gangs and drugs in places like Tijuana.

Again, Kathi, has brought a beautiful story of faith, hope, love, forgiveness, and commitment to life. I love her writing style and her way with making these stories seem so real. Kathi has captured my attention, and I'm looking forward to "Red Ink" the next book in the series. I cannot praise this series enough!!

If you missed my review of Kathi's first book in this series, please see "No Greater Love" posted on April 28th, 2010

About the Author:

Kathi Macias is a multi-award winning writer and radio show host who has authored 30 books and ghostwritten several others. A former newspaper columnist and string reporter, Kathi has taught creative and business writing in various venues and has been a guest on many radio and television programs. Kathi is a popular speaker at churches, women’s clubs and retreats, and writers’ conferences, and recently won the prestigious 2008 member of the year award from AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association) at the annual Golden Scrolls award banquet. Kathi “Easy Writer” Macias lives in Homeland, CA, with her husband, Al, where the two of them spend their free time riding their Harley.

To learn more about Kathi you can visit her official website, read her blog and you can find her on Facebook.

This book was provided by Pump Up Your Book for my honest review.

Blog Tour: "Indivisible" by Kristen Heitzmann

Indivisible
Author: Kristen Heitzmann
Publisher: WaterBrook Press
ISBN: 9781400073092
Genre: fiction, mystery, thriller

Synopsis (taken from the back of the book):

An inseparable bond.
An insatiable force.

Battling his own personal demons, Police Chief Jonah Westfall knows the dark side of life and has committed himself to eradicating it. When a pair of raccoons are found mutilated in Redford, Colorado, Jonah investigates the gruesome act, knowing the strange event could escalate and destroy the tranquility of his small mountain town. With a rising drug threat and never-ending conflict with Tia Manning, a formidable childhood friend with whom he has more than a passing history, Jonah fights for answers—and his fragile sobriety.

But he can’t penetrate every wound or secret—especially one fueled by a love and guilt teetering on madness.

From best-selling author Kristen Heitzmann comes a spellbinding tale of severed connections and the consequences of life lived alone.

How about a little sneak peek? Read Chapter 1 here.

If you'd like to listen to an audio interview with Kristen, Click Here.



My Thoughts:

There's nothing like a good mystery, but sometimes I think I've read way too many in my lifetime. It seems most mysteries just don't carry the surprise and suspense that I expect. I get disgruntled when I've figured out who did what and why early on in the book. I desire twist and turns and the need to be confused and challenged.

"Indivisible" was an interesting read. It had enough creepiness with the animal mutilation to hold my interest, and a bit of romance thrown in. I was disappointed when I figured out early on in the book, who did the mutilations and why, but with the side romance going on, it continued to keep me interested.

The characters were interesting, but I had a hard time with some of the relationships and why they developed the way they did. It led more to the creepy side more than the believable, but that's what made the book a bit more interesting.

In conclusion, I would say this was an enjoyable and entertaining read. I enjoy cozy mysteries, and this, to me, would fall into that category. It's a nice clean read that would I think would please most.

About the Author (bio from Amazon.com)

Kristen Heitzmann is the bestselling author of seventeen novels, including The Edge of Recall and the Christy Award winner Secrets. An artist and music minister, Kristen lives in Colorado Springs with her husband, Jim, and their family.

You can learn more about Kristen Heitzmann by visiting her online at http://www.kristenheitzmann.net/

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group .

Virtual Book Tour - Author Spotlight: James Boyle "Ni’il: The Awakening"

Today's Author Spotlight is by an exciting new-to-me author, James Boyle. His book, "Ni’il: The Awakening" will be discussed on Friday, June 21, so please make sure to stop back to learn more about it. If you can't wait that long, you can find a link to Mr. Boyle's web page below, and purchase an autographed copy of his book directly from him.

Please welcome, Mr. James Boyle....

Notes to a Newbie

For those just beginning their writing career, or contemplating embarking on one, please accept a few humble words of advice.

First, if you want to be a writer, write. Hemingway said it best when someone asked him how they could be a writer: “Go somewhere and write.” So, go somewhere and write. Write every day. Set yourself a goal, say 1000 words, and write those 1000 words. Every day. The object is to write enough, often enough, that the mechanics of building sentences and paragraphs become second nature. You write your 1000 words a day for the same reason a musician plays scales, or an artist sketches. Practice.

Second, write what you know. This has almost become cliché, but it is often misinterpreted. This does not mean that if you're a high school student in Peoria, you can't write about commercial fishermen in Denmark, though that might be difficult. What it means is if you're a big fan of western fiction and have read every Louis Lamour and Zane Grey novel ever written, don't try to write an Agatha Christie style cozy mystery. You know the conventions, the rules, of western fiction. You know what works and what doesn't. Write a western. Write what you know.

Third, read. Read, read, read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read fiction in your genre and out; read poetry; read history and philosophy; read the back of cereal boxes. Read like a writer. Watch how other writers put their sentences and paragraphs together. See how they handle dialogue and description. Notice what works well and why. Notice what doesn't and why. Every published writer is a teacher. Learn from them.

But mostly write and don't let anybody tell you you're wasting your time. You aren't.


About James Boyle

Like all of us, James is a product of his environment.

He was raised in a religious/spiritual family and that spirituality pervades most of his work. He even attended a Catholic Seminary for a year before deciding the priesthood was not for him.

James’ father worked for the phone company as he was growing up, which was much like growing up in a military family. The company transferred his family from town to town every couple of years. By the time he’d graduated high school, they’d moved twenty times. He attended nine different schools in five cities and three states.

He lived mainly in North Dakota until he was eight, since then he lived in Washington and Oregon, moving to Gold Beach when he was sixteen. He finds that the landscape of the Pacific Northwest has done more to influence him than nearly everything else. Its vast forests, rugged mountains, seascapes and sparse population inspire recollections of what the pioneers first fell in love with a century and a half ago. From his house, he can still hike fifteen minutes and spend the entire day without seeing another human being. And the possibility exists that he could see sasquatch.

One of his goals is to build a dark fiction landscape of the Pacific Northwest, much like Stephen King has done with Maine. A landscape of dark possibilities.

When he was a child living in Bismark, North Dakota, his parents took James to Fort Abraham Lincoln, the fort Gen. Custer left on his last, fateful campaign and the Knife River Village, the restored ruins of a Mandan village. Now forty years later, the memories have faded, but not the memory of the impression the visits made on a small boy. Years later, he read Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. After that he devoured everything he could find about Native American history and culture. He came to have a deep sympathy for the Native peoples’ doomed resistance to the white culture and admiration for their cultural connection to the natural world around them. The dominant culture seeks to change and subjugate a nature it sees as an enemy; the Natives sought to live within the natural world as one part of a dynamic whole.

When he was eighteen, James was diagnosed with a severe case of scoliosis. After graduating early from Gold Beach High Schoolin 1978, he underwent surgery that fused most of his lumber spine. Six months in a body cast later, he continued on to college at the University of Oregon, where he earned a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. Now, forty years after the surgery, his body is beginning to break down a bit. So if you see him and notice he seems to be bent and twisted, you know why.

When he’s not writing, James has worked in the restaurant industry as a cook and as a manager, mostly in the Eugene/Springfield area, but most lately at Gold Beach’s Port Hole Cafe. Looking back, he seems to have a lot of scenes set in restaurants. He enjoy reading, playing an occasional video game, taking his dog for exploratory hikes along the beach or river. He is happily single. (it’s so much less complicated.)

You can visit James’ website at www.jamesboylewrites.com.

Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: Vincent Zandri "Moonlight Falls"

Moonlight Falls
Author: Vincent Zandri
Publisher: R.J. Buckley Publishing
ISBN: 9780981965406
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Synopsis: (from back of the book)

"In MOONLIGHT FALLS, novelist and photo journalist Vincent Zandri asks the question "If you knew your life could end at any moment, how far would you go to prove you murdered your lover? " 

Albany, New York, is the setting of Zandri's paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard "Dick" Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana - his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The dilemma ... Moonlight doesn't remember what happened!"

My Thoughts:

When any book boasts that it is written in the Hitchcock tradition, it automatically causes me to put some large demands on the story, even before I open the book. "Moonlight Falls" met those expectations and then some! What a brilliant and masterfully written novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed Detective Moonlight's quirkiness. With a bullet lodged in the brain, I was never really sure if he had a total grasp of things. He was not perfect, and that made him a character I could really like, but could also made me second guess myself in my conclusions about him.

The storyline was fantastic and had me guessing all the way through. Yes, I did figure some of it out, but not all. The twists and turns were exciting, and then ending - well I never saw it coming!

Bravo to Mr. Zandri! His novel kept me on the edge of my seat and made it almost impossible to put down. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of Detective Moonlight and hope that a series will be be on the horizon for this character. Mr. Zandri is definitely an author that I will be keeping on my watch list. He's fresh, exciting, and downright captivating!

Parental note:  Some offensive language, sexual content, violence

AUTHOR BIO:

Moonlight Falls author, Vincent Zandri, is an award-winning novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called "Brilliant" upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Other novels include Godchild (Bantam/Dell) and Permanence (NPI). Translated into several languages including Japanese and the Dutch, Zandri’s novels have also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Presently he is the author of the blogs, Dangerous Dispatches and Embedded in Africa for Russia Today TV (RT). He also writes for other global publications, including Culture 11, Globalia and Globalspec. Zandri’s nonfiction has appeared in New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, Game and Fish Magazine and others, while his essays and short fiction have been featured in many journals including Fugue, Maryland Review and Orange Coast Magazine. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2010 International Thriller Writer’s Awards panel judge. Zandri currently divides his time between New York and Europe. He is the drummer for the Albany-based punk band to Blisterz.
www.vincentzandri.com

http://vincentzandri.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/VincentZandri

http://www.facebook.com/vincent.zandri?ref=profile

http://www.myspace.com/vincentzandri

GIVEAWAY:

Vincent is offering one lucky reader a copy of his book "Moonlight Falls". Now's your chance to add this exciting book to your library. See below how to enter. Contest ends May 25th at 11:59pm EST.

To enter:

1. You must be a follower of this blog.
2. You must leave a comment WITH your email address.
3. US and Canada only.

BONUS Entries !! (get up to 2 bonus)

Follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter - see sidebar for buttons.

Please note: Winners will be contacted by email have 48 hours to respond with full name and address. Book will be sent directly to winner from the author.

This book was provided by Pump Up Your Blog for me to honestly review.