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Orangeberry Book of the Day - Crosswalk - Cara St. Louis

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"I grew up a girl, and I thought an unwanted one, at that, in the 40s and 50s in a forgotten farming and ranching town right at the Four Corners. We were surrounded by reservations, more of the unwanted, just like me. My ticket out was music and so on the old Baldwin my Mom bought me, I practiced until my fingers bled and I got a college scholarship and I was out. That was part one. The part with the family, which I didn’t even think was so great. My Dad took off and my mom had to work as a nurse forty-five minutes’ drive east. In 1945, that might as well have been the moon. So my grandmother kept me like an extra broom, kind of useless and in the way. Or so I thought. Part two was working for the government. That really took me places. All over the world, working for scientists, seeing their secrets, even when I didn’t understand what they were on about. When I did, the whole thing scared the hell out of me. Then , it all came true. Suddenly. Then, I died. I’ve left my daughter behind to tell the story. Maybe it’ll help."
It would be a tragedy, in anyone’s book, if on a beautiful summer Sunday morning a little old lady set out on foot for church and just as she had almost reached the other side of Main Street in a little seaside village, she was brutally run down and killed. What if this seemingly random and incoherent event …the slightest blip on anyone’s radar…had, in fact, happened to a woman who had been granted so long ago a very high military security clearance; a woman who is never named in the novel nor is the town in which she died?
Crosswalk is a thriller, a story whose dramatic arc runs razor-close to current events. The woman’s daughter, Christina, falls down a truly black and greasy rabbit hole in the wake of her mother’s death that leads through bio-engineering, weather manipulation, Naval Research, Naval Weapons, Atmospheric research connected to DARPA and through London, Virginia and Hawaii. The birthplace of her mother’s murder, when she finds it, lies within the circle of Operation Paperclip scientists still working in London in the 80s and 90s. Christina and those she joins with along the way struggle on to find answers despite being chased by Blackhawks, run off roads, betrayed by allies...her comrades include a Canadian civil rights activist who styles himself ‘Amistad,’ an old Brazilian psychic emigrated to Australia, and a chemist-turned-activist also on the trail of these psychotics; half a dozen ancient men who form a sinister cabal. The Gatekeepers are scientists, liaisons with the Joint Chiefs, a global industrialist of unmatched power and wealth, a US Secretary of Agriculture.
While Christina is on her own mission to flush out those who murdered her mother, Tim Verzet, firebomber and ex-military pilot infiltrates the very nerve-center of the global poisoning operation trying to make it implode from the inside. One very well-placed traitor just about brings the whole effort down but in the end, the Achilles heel of the entire campaign, a campaign which has actually been in place for decades, is a very small group, led by one pilot on the inside.

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG

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Orangeberry Book of the Day - After The Ending - Lindsey Fairleigh & Lindsey Pogue

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The Virus spread. Billions died. The Ending began. We may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed us.
When people started getting sick, “they” thought it was just the flu. My roommate, my boyfriend, my family…they’re all gone now. I got sick too. I should have died with them—with the rest of the world—but I didn’t. I thought witnessing the human population almost disappear off the face of the earth was the craziest thing I’d ever experience. I was so wrong. My name is Dani O’Connor, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.
The Virus changed everything. The world I knew is gone, and life is backwards. We’ve all had to start over. I’ve been stripped of my home, my dreams…all that is me. I’m someone else now—broken and changed. Other survivors’ memories and emotions haunt me. They invade my mind until I can no longer separate them from my own. I won’t let them consume me. I can’t. My name is Zoe Cartwright, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.
We’ve been inseparable for most of our lives, and now our friendship is all we have left. The aftermath of the Virus has stranded us on opposite sides of the United States. Trusting strangers, making sacrifices, killing—we’ll do anything to reach one another. Fear and pain may be unavoidable, but we’re strong…we’re survivors. But to continue surviving in this unfamiliar world plagued by Crazies and strange new abilities, we have to adapt. We have to evolve.
And more than anything, we have to find each other.

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Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – R

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Orangeberry Book of the Day – The Key to Love by Meg Mims

Artist Jennette Jacobson clashes with a handsome visitor at a gallery show. He claims that artwork is just “more junk to dust.” Ouch. When she finds a small metal object on the floor, she uses it later in a new collage.

Her world soon crumbles with family problems and a friend’s betrayal. And wouldn’t you know that the same hunky guy claims he lost an important key the night of the show! When Steve Harmon offers to buy Jenn’s work, she refuses to sell. He’ll just trash it to free his precious key.

Or is it possible that key will unlock her future happiness?

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Contemporary Romance

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.megmims.com/

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Book Blast - Starseed - Liz Gruder

 
Starseed
Author: Liz Gruder
ISBN: 978-1937178291
Publisher: WiDo Publishing
Published: February 2013

SUMMARY

Kaila Guidry has always known she is different. When she meets Jordyn Stryker at school, she finds out just how different.

Jordyn was born and raised far from Earth, a starseed, one of six new students sent to Louisiana's Bush High to learn human ways. But Jordyn didn't count on meeting someone like Kaila.

When Kaila is pushed to her limit by high school bullying and cruelty, Jordyn awakens her to a new reality—and to love. But to prove herself, Kaila must look the other way as the real purposes of the starseeds unfold.

As the horrific plan behind the starseed visit to Earth moves inexorably forward, Kaila and Jordan, caught in an impossible love, must determine where their true loyalties lie.


Praise

"You know from the opening paragraph that something very strange is going on… We see Kaila try to live the life of a normal teen, and we see her "otherness" pull her back into an increasingly tangled web of questions, deceit, and hidden intentions. Liz really shines as a writer, lining the closets and drawers of everyday life with spine-chilling suspense that springs out at you when you least expect it. Starseed is an entertaining read. I highly recommend."
--Patricia B. Smith. Author “What the Animals Tell Me” and “Fifty Shades of Santa” (clean romance fiction)

"Liz Gruder’s characters come alive through youthful, spunky narrative, and her headstrong heroine, Kaila Guidry, elicits a reader’s encouragement from the first page. Fans of Amanda Hocking will find themselves similarly transported into Gruder’s exploration of the dark sides of faith, love, higher dimensions, and, of course, high school." --Jadie Jones, young-adult fantasy author


Purchase



Author Liz Gruder

As a youth, Liz Gruder saw a series of UFOs with her best friend while riding bikes. Ever since, she’s held a fascination for the stars. An avid reader, she used to hide under her covers and read with a flashlight. She has degrees in English and Psychology from Tulane University, a nursing license and a yoga certification. After going through Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Liz realized how short life is and is now slowly fulfilling her bucket list: she’s been to the Egyptian pyramids (totally awesome and thought provoking) and is now teaching yoga and writing speculative fiction. Starseed is her debut novel.









Tour Schedule
 



Book Blast Giveaway
$50 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash
Ends 4/7/13

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer http://iamareader.com and sponsored by the authors. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Best Selling Reads - Kindle Fire Giveaway

The best authors in New Fiction at BestSellingReads.com/ are celebrating the arrival of Spring with a March promotion:

 

 

BestSelling Reads Kindle Fire Giveaway Prize for winning reader entry:
Kindle Fire 7”, LCD Display, Wi-Fi, 8GB
2nd & 3rd place winners: $25 Amazon gift card
Enter at http://www.bestsellingreads.com/march-giveaway
Winners will be chosen March 26th by Rafflecopter.
No purchase necessary but always welcome.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Author Interview – Karin Cox

Have you started another book yet? Yes, I have started Creche. A lot of my early readers and reviewers have said they cannot wait to read the sequel, so I better get to it. It reveals a lot more about Amedeo’s past and also some surprising information that even Amedeo was unaware of.

Where do you see yourself in five years? Making enough to write fulltime in a beautiful little cabin in the mountains, or in my Greek Island holiday home, or my villa in Tuscany, or my house on Sunshine Coast acreage while my partner quits his job to play daddy daycare to our brood of happy little kids. J

What are your current writing projects now? Right now, I’m working on several different things, but Creche is my priority. My other works in progress include:

Float, a YA Dystopian novel set in Australia.

Day of the Danae Shee, a YA fantasy trilogy.

From Memory, a half-finished romance novel.

The Phoenix Feather, another YA fantasy.

A book about self-editing (as yet untitled).

A free ebook about using indiereviewtracker.com and getting reviews or free or paid marketing (also not yet titled).

Are you reading any interesting books at the moment? Much as I have busy days, I always set aside half an hour before bed to read. That usually means sometime between 12 and 1 am, I am reading. At present, I am really enjoying Tony Slater’s new comedy Don’t Need the Whole Dog; Heather Adkin’s spooky The House; and GR Yeates soon-to-be-released young adult fantasy The Sword of Sighs. All are great examples of just how much indie talent is out there in different genres.

Are there any new authors that have sparked your interest and why? I’m a sucker for a success story, especially an indie one. I’ve grabbed a copy of Colleen Hoover’s latest book, Hopeless, and I was also really impressed with Carol Davis Luce’s latest Awakening: Story of a Brown-eyed Girl, and Charles Sheehan-Miles’s Just Remember to Breathe. And Wool, of course. There are loads of excellent authors out there.

What are some of the best tools available today for writers, especially those just starting out? It really depends on how you like to write. For some authors, it might be a pencil and a notebook. I personally love my Macbook and I use Scrivener to help me get organised, plot, and develope my characters. I write in Scrivener, too, but I then import it to word for the second and subsequent drafts and use Calibre to create my files once the book is formatted.

I’ve recently found an excellent program called Write or Die, which has forced me to just let go and write, rather than be constantly in “edit mode.” I set it to a function called Kamikaze, which means it starts eating my words if I pause for too long. Yes, eating them! Making them vanish. It’s kind of crazy, and I know this would tip some writers over the edge, but for me, it stops me over-thinking things. I then tidy scenes up afterwards when I edit, and I enjoy that part of the process a lot more.

Anti-social is a brilliant program for procrastinators like me too, and enables you to switch off social media but still use the internet for research if you need to.

What contributes to making a writer successful? Determination, a thick skin, a willingness to be flexible about how you write and to take feedback well, the ability to turn a phrase and to “hear” the rhythm of sentences, a love of words, and a curiosity about life and about how people react to events or how individuals reveal or conceal themselves in society.

Do you have any advice for writers? Just put your bum in the chair and tap it out. You can “plan to” and “mean to” all you like, but until you have the word count, it amounts to naught. Make it happen. It sucks that you might have to sacrifice some things in order to write your novel (think sleep, gym, or other hobbies) but if you really want to write you have to sit down and write it out, and then sit down again and revise and edit, and revise and edit, and revise and edit ad nauseam. And understand that the editing doesn’t stop as soon as you upload to Amazon. It is all part of the process. Big publishers make changes to their authors’ work at reprint to remove errors or update information all the time; you should too.

Do you have any specific last thoughts that you want to say to your readers? Thank you for reading. It thrills me you’re willing to spend some of your precious hours lost in a world I created. I can’t thank readers enough for taking the time to do that. Oh, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Email me on cruxim@hotmail.com or leave me a review on Amazon or Goodreads, or on my blog www.karincox.wordpress.com

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Paranormal Romance

Rating – PG15+ (some violence & swearing. No sex)

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Connect with Karin Cox on Facebook & Twitter

Blog http://karincox.wordpress.com/

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Susan Russo Anderson – Plotting & a Large Load of Laundry

Plotting and a Large Load of Laundry

by Susan Russo Anderson

For me, plotting is like hanging up a large load of laundry.

Picture it, a beautiful Monday in June. The air is fresh, the breeze is flappy, and you’re doing three loads of wash. Don’t you dare use that drier. Get a rope and two poles.

  • Tie one end of the rope to the house.
  • Tie the other end to that big old maple at the end of the yard.
  • Prop up the rope—the storyline—with two poles. Best to prop it at about the two-thirds point on the rope—roughly, the golden mean.
  • Place the second pole somewhere after the three-quarter mark, Part Three of the story, the beginning of the climax leading to the end.
  • That way you can hang all the light laundry on the long length of rope, scenes which develop core conflict and character and move the story. Clamp the heavier stuff to the smaller lengths toward the end of the rope.

When I start to plot, I know the beginning and the end and the two plot pivots, all subject to change of course. I jot in the bones of these five scenes intermingled with some character sketches, perhaps the arcs of the most important players, and pretty soon, the story is writing itself.

When I read fiction, whether it’s a short story or novella or novel, I look for those two pivotal plot points. Name them, re-read them, because it’s around these two points that meaning clings to the story like barnacles to a ship.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Historical Mystery

Rating – PG13

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Connect with Susan Russo Anderson on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://susanrussoanderson.com/

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