Excerpt & Giveaway: Elevated by Daniel Solomon Kaplan

Title: Elevated
Series: Elevated Saga #1

Author: Daniel Solomon Kaplan

Publication: September 23rd 2014 

Genre: Science Fiction, Young Adult

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Synopsis: 
Most kids can’t wait until Elevated Day, when they can finally unlock their hidden superpower. Rose remains a skeptic. While the treatment reveals a power, the outcome is irreversible and abilities can range from amazing to a nuisance. On top of that, she holds a deep rooted grudge against the treatment that turned her father into an Unsound, one with abilities so dangerous as to force them to a life of exile.

Her choice sends her down a path of discovery, as she seeks to learn more of the truth around the treatment and what really happened to her father. Fed up with lies, Rose wants nothing more than to learn the whole truth–even if it means accepting her fate as an Elevated.

Excerpt: 

A tap on my shoulder causes me to lurch.

“You’re next,” Elliott says.

What did I do to deserve waiting with this guy? “Yeah.”

“Can you really do it?” Elliott asks.

“Do what?”

“Live not knowing, not seeing what could be.”

“I could ask you the same question.”

He’s puzzled.

“Let’s say you go through those doors and become an Unsound. And you get locked away from your family and friends for your entire life. Tell me you won't wonder what a normal life could be.”

Elliott leans in. “You know an Unsound, don’t you?”

I nod. “My dad.”

He turns his head away from me. “I’m sorry.”

I’ve always faced the same reaction. They think it’s sympathy, but it’s fear. As much as everyone talks about genetics not factoring in and your parents not determining your powers, having an Unsound in the family is mark of shame. Most don’t discuss it. The only person in my high school that knows is Aaron. After the torture thrown at me in middle school, the last thing I want to do is let anyone know.

The exit door stands to my left. I want to bolt. Want to get out of this place. Something keeps me glued to my chair.

“Rose. I know you’re scared. But if you leave now, you won’t get another chance.”

He’s right. With millions of kids involved, getting another appointment is near impossible. I would end up with the other Basics. I stare at the screen, willing the phoenix not to fly by again.

“Rose. Think about this.”

“You think I haven’t? It’s all I’ve thought for years. I’m not like you, or the other kids here. You sit there, blindly waiting for your number to be called, trusting everything will be—“

“You don't know me at all.” For the first time, there’s terror in Elliott’s face. He turns back to watch the screen.

“So you’re scared too, then.”

Did he feel as helpless as I did?

Elliott takes a deep breath. “I can't control which system I was born in. I can only control how I cope with it.”

“That's the only power you think you have?” I ask.

“It’s the only power any of us have. Anything else is an illusion.”

My heart jolts as the phoenix flies by and displays my number. The mechanical voice cuts through me. “Now serving A535. That's A535. Thank you.”

I’m still. Trapped between two worlds. Somehow, none of the thinking, the planning or the debating have prepared me for this moment. Elliott stands and tries to nudge me out of my chair. I won’t move. I’ll wait here. If they want me so bad, they can drag me through those doors. A part of me wishes they would. The exit is a few steps away.

“Rose, please!” His blue eyes plead with me.

Author Bio:

Daniel Solomon Kaplan is a playwright turned author after much arm twisting from his wife. He currently has several novels in the works, including CATALYST, the next book of the Elevated Series, scheduled to debut before the end of the year.

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Excerpt: The Token 9: Chet Sinclair by Marata Eros

Title: The Token 9: Chet Sinclair

Author: Marata Eros

Publication: February 27th 2015

Genre: New Adult, Romance

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Synopsis: 
An Addiction.
Kiki is desperate to stop the twisted relationship she shares with Chet Sinclair, but finds that she can’t. He is too vital, too potent… like a magnet, she cleaves to him. Desperate to break the pattern, she goes into hiding to escape her feelings and a ghost from her past comes back to haunt her.
The Consumption.
Needy and unnerved, Kiki turns to the one person that offered her solace from the past. Can Damon Axton erase what’s begun? Will he be the one to break the cycle of sexual intensity and obsession that Chet uses to imprison her, body and soul?
A Recompense of Love.
When Sinclair discovers where Kiki is hiding, their passion explodes once again. Can either admit their true feelings for each other? Or will sensual enslavement destroy their dark love before it has begun?

Excerpt:

“No.” I stare down at Ax from where's he perched on the beat-up futon—my bed. “We're not a team until we get some shit straight.”

Ax's jet black eyebrow hops to his hairline. “Baby—”

“No,” I say, waving a palm in his face like a railroad arm coming down over a track. “Don't you baby me.” My eyes shoot sparks, and he leans back with a grunt.

“You clobbered Chet.” I cross my arms.

“Yeah-huh.” He gives his short hair a rough scrub. “And Chump was deserving, Kik.”

I stomp my high heel. “Maybe!” I stab the air with my finger. “But you nailed him from behind, and now he's, I don't know, dead or broken somewhere.”

Ax shakes his head. “I've looked into Chet-buddy, and his rich ass can take care of its own self.” He wags a finger and leans back again.

I pace as if the energy is pouring off me. I whirl and point at him.

His eyes narrow on my hot pink nail tip.

“You have a closet full of chick’s clothing,” I say.

Ax shrugs, giving my once-pristine outfit an eye rake. “I see you made use of it.”

“Why, Ax?”

His expression is unreadable, not the open face I remember so well. “The Crawl isn't my only business, Kik. I have some others.”

“What do you mean?” I search his face, and a flicker skates across his dark gaze. “Don't bullshit me, Ax. It won't work. I'm a fucking hard-charging broad. You know this.”

He grins, white teeth slashing across his face. “Oh, I know. Damn, girl, do I know.” He chuckles. “This isn't where I normally hang. In fact, this is just a little lily pad I hop on to sleep over once in a while. Sometimes employees from my other businesses need somewhere to crash, and I give them a boost.”

“How much of a boost?” I'm aware my voice has just dipped into suspicion.

“Kik…” His eyes meet mine, and they're not remotely soft, but hard as flint. “Why do I feel you're coming down hard on me when I've been doing nothing but helping you? Let me count the ways of my awesome.” He winks, ticking off his great points on his fingers. “I took you in when Chump was admiring his own dick.” I roll my eyes, and he continues. “I haven't put the moves on your hotness.”

Oh.

Author Bio: 

Marata Eros (a pen name for Tamara Rose Blodgett), is the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author of A Terrible Love. Marata has more than thirty-five titles in multiple genres including Dark Fantasy, Dark Romance as well as her highly successful Dark Erotica series.

Marata lives in South Dakota with her husband, children and fur kids. She is an ardent reader of many genres. Tamara enjoys interacting with her readers via Twitter, blog and newsletter as often as possible. Please stop by and say hi :)

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Excerpt:Sword by Amy Bai

Title: Sword

Author: Amy Bai

Publication: February 10th 2015

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

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Synopsis: Sword shall guide the hands of men . . .

For over a thousand years the kingdom of Lardan has been at peace: isolated from the world, safe from the wars of its neighbors, slowly forgetting the wild and deadly magic of its origins. Now the deepest truths of the past and the darkest predictions for the future survive only in the verses of nursery rhymes.

For over a thousand years, some of Lardan’s fractious provinces have been biding their time.

Kyali Corwynall is the daughter of the Lord General, a child of one of the royal Houses, and the court’s only sword-wielding girl. She has known for all of her sixteen years what the future holds for her–politics and duty, the management of a House, and protecting her best friend, the princess and presumed heir to the throne. But one day an old nursery rhyme begins to come true, an ancient magic wakes, and the future changes for everyone. In the space of a single night her entire life unravels into violence and chaos. Now Kyali must find a way to master the magic her people have left behind, or watch her world–and her closest friends–fall to a war older than the kingdom itself.

Excerpt:

An arm reached out of the dark and wrapped around her neck.

She saw it coming from the corner of her eye, but only had time to twitch uselessly sideways. Another arm immediately followed the first one, muffling her startled cry and stealing her breath.

Too shocked to be afraid, she bit down. The hand over her face jerked away. Her elbow drove backwards and her heel went up into a knee. The awful crack of bone that followed drew a pained groan from behind her, and brought her panic in a thundering flood. Her attacker staggered, pulling her with him. The dropped candle sputtered on the floor beside them, throwing huge shadows everywhere. Spurred on by the thought that she might have to finish this struggle in the dark, she shouted. It was a much softer sound than she'd intended, but the floorboards above them creaked ominously, the arms around her fell away, and he screamed, as though she had burned him.

Leaving this mystery for later consideration, Kyali flung herself at the steps and scrambled up, leaving the back panel of her skirts in his fist. Her sword clattered on the floor as she snatched at it. He came hard on her heels and, as she turned, drove himself obligingly onto it for her. Stunned, she froze again.

Her blood sang in her ears. By the look on his face—a fair face, some much colder part of her noted, with the Western short-beard—he was at least as surprised as she was. He drew a bubbling breath. A dagger dropped from his hand and hit the floor between them.

They stared at one another.

He made an odd face then, and coughed a gout of blood all over her. She blinked through the drops. She knew she had to move—not dead till they stop bleeding, Father would say—but she couldn't. For all her years of study, all the secrecy and swordplay, she had never killed a man. She supposed, watching his face in a perversely distant way, that she still hadn't quite managed it. But he fell forward onto her then, going limp, and after the instinctive terror of having him land on her subsided the sight of his glassy gaze, of her old practice sword sticking out of his ribs, made it clear that she had done it now.

She watched his face closely while his blood dripped down her cheek. He didn't move. He seemed not to be bleeding anymore, though with all the blood on him already how could one tell? She didn’t intend to get closer to check. She couldn't hear anyone else in the house. Through the haze of shock, she was grateful the soldiers weren't here to witness this bizarrely personal moment.

"Well," Kyali said, beginning to be pleased at how well she was taking this—and then threw up on him.

Damn.

Author Bio: 

Amy Bai has been, by order of neither chronology nor preference, a barista, a numbers-cruncher, a paper-pusher, and a farmhand. She likes thunderstorms, the enthusiasm of dogs, tall boots and long jackets, cinnamon basil, margaritas, and being surprised by the weirdness of her fellow humans. She lives in New England with her guitar-playing Russian husband and two very goofy sheepdogs.

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Giveaway & Excerpt: Obsession by Bonnie Vanak

Title: Obsession

Author: Bonnie Vanak

Publication: February 16th 2015

Genre: Erotica, Paranormal Romance

Audience: 18+

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Synopsis:

 He comes to her in a dark dream promising sensual pleasure – sexy, tempting and dangerous. Raphael is an obsessed wolf with one thing on his mind. He wants Jessica naked beneath him, and nothing will stop him until he has her in his bed.

Jessica Tyrell is a Lupine with a mission – find her missing brother, her only living blood relative. Now, with the help of magick crystals, her dream can come true. All she needs is to hack into restricted records at her friend Alexa’s ranch. The only thing standing in her way is Raphael Amador, head of pack security. The wolf wants her with the same ruthless intent he displays in protecting the pack. Jessica knows if she surrenders to his sensual allure, she could lose her soul to Raphael.

Haunted by his tortured past and determined to never love again, Raphael finds his passion awakened by the lovely redhead, who threatens his control. He has vowed to seek revenge against the man who killed his intended mate and scattered his pack. Can he experience a night of pleasure with the lovely redhead and pursue his goal of revenge, or will Jessica capture his broken heart?

Excerpt & Giveaway: Track Presius Series by E.E. Giorgi

Track Presius Series, Books 1 & 2

by E.E. Giorgi

Book Blast on September 8, 2014

Chimeras

by E.E. Giorgi

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Published by: Quemazon Publishing
Publication Date: April 5 2014
Number of Pages: 406
ISBN: 978-0996045100
Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

Haunted by the girl he couldn't save in his youth, and the murder he committed to avenge her, Detective Track Presius has a unique gift: the vision and sense of smell of a predator. When a series of apparently unrelated murders reel him into the depths of genetic research, Track feels more than a call to duty. Children are dying -- children who, like himself, could have been healthy, and yet something, at some point, went terribly wrong. For Track, saving the innocent becomes a quest for redemption. The only way he can come to terms with his dark past is to understand his true nature.

Kudos:

Chimeras is now a Reader's Favorite 2014 Book Award Finalist!! Check it out here: Reader's Favorite.

Read an excerpt:

PROLOGUE
It was one of those hot summer afternoons, with air made of cobwebs and a glare as sharp as pencils.
“Something’s wrong today,” I said.
“It’s L.A.,” my partner replied. “Something’s always wrong in L.A.”
A few hours later Johnny Carmelo was dead, his brains skewered by the whistling path of one of my bullets. He collapsed on the pavement, a red trickle of blood weeping down his face. They told me they weren’t going to clear me back to duty until the investigation was over. I left the next day. I drove up to the Sierras, camped in my truck, and hunted at night.
There are days I long to disappear in the wild, go back to the predator life I was meant to have. Kill the prey or be killed: it’s in my genes.
A chimera, that's what I am. And this is my story.

Mosaics

by E.E. Giorgi

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Published by: Quemazon Publishing
Publication Date: 9/2014
Number of Pages: ~410
ISBN: 978-0-9960451-1-7
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Synopsis:

Dubbed the Byzantine Strangler because of the mysterious mosaic tiles he leaves at the crime scene, a new serial killer is stalking the streets of Los Angeles. Racing to decipher the code encrypted in the tiles before the killer strikes again, Detective Track Presius faces a new challenge: the "awakened" genes that make his vision and olfactory sense so sharp are now taking a toll on his life. When a new set of tiles appears in his own backyard, Track makes a chilling realization: those very same genes that are threatening his life are drawing the Byzantine Strangler closer and closer. The line between hunter and hunted has suddenly blurred. Will Track be the next piece of the mosaic puzzle?

Read an excerpt:

MOSAICS – excerpt

A dark hallway with no windows opened to the right of the foyer. The smells changed—the staleness of a vacant place and the victim’s scent—feminine, ambitious, seductive. The wall displayed wrought iron sconces and a collection of photos of Amy—Amy in her graduation gown, Amy with friends, Amy with her cat. A pretty face, I noticed, whose beauty didn’t distract from an underlining drive for determination.

Her bedroom was orderly. There was a half-empty birth control kit in her nightstand drawer, but no boyfriend in her life, according to the friends and relatives interviewed, only an ex-husband who now lived in Oregon. Toiletries on her vanity table, regular clothes in her closet, a few garments in her drawers that told me she was no nun, but no distinctive masculine scent anywhere. If she shared her bed with somebody, she’d done a good job at hiding it. The sheets smelled clean and freshly washed.

The next door let to her home office, a small carpeted room with a couple of white bookcases, a table with a desktop and printer, a metal chair, and, on the opposite side, a futon, a laundry basket, and an ironing table folded against the wall. Through the window, the hills of Montecito glowed against the evening sky, a wavy fabric of glimmering lights.

I inhaled. The bookshelves were crammed with medical books, the desk buried under stacks of papers.

The sweet, foul smell of the tiles…

I sat at the desk, opened the drawers, sniffed the keyboard, then the computer screen.

Not here. Close, though.

The papers. He went through the pile of papers.

I rummaged through the folders not knowing what to look for, just tailgating a smell. Gloved fingers had brushed through printouts and graphs, tables, essays, research proposals…

Did he find what he was looking for? And if so, what?

Article after article of scientific jargon, each title some random permutation of the words immunodeficiency, vaccine, study design, therapy, antiretroviral.

“What are you gonna see in the dark?” By the office door, Satish flipped the light switch.

“Smells.”

“On paper?”

“Yeah. And patterns, too,” I said. I sniffed the top right corner. I could follow the gloved fingers searching through the pile of papers, most likely a left thumb holding up the top ones so he could read the titles, and a right index flipping through. Until the trace stopped.

He found what he was looking for. Probably took it with him.

I inhaled and gave one last look around. Everything else seemed untouched.

“What did Gomez have to say?”

Satish shook his head sideways. “Autopsy’s scheduled for Thursday morning. Just got an invitation. Wanna join the party?” He smiled. Waited.

Amy Liu smiled too, from a silver frame on her desk, a man’s hand draping her shoulder, and a strand of black hair blowing over her face.

“Fine,” I said, walking past him out of the room. “I’ll keep you company on Thursday, but—” He switched the lights off and followed me back to the foyer. “Uh-uh, Track. First things first. Tomorrow you pee in a cup and get your LAPD badge back.”

“I pee in a what?”

We locked the house, replaced the yellow crime scene tape. The air was tainted with a hint of humidity and the scent of jacaranda blooms. A handful of pale stars dotted the sky, the glow of downtown beneath them like a disoriented dawn. A broken streetlight strobed from farther down the street. The Latino music persisted. Yo sufrí mucho por ti, mi corazon… Satish unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel. “Union mandated drug test. Your leave of absence from the department was longer than ninety days. Welcome back to regulations, Detective Presius.”

I made a face.

“Look at it this way. Whoever handles those cups has it way worse than you.” He started the engine and backed out of the driveway. “Shit happens, Track. Never forget that.”

“Hard to forget on days like this.”

I rolled down the window and let cool air blow in my face. The freeway droned in the distance, as another night descended upon L.A. Another murder, another killer on the loose.

It was June 2009, the beginning of summer.

Killing season had just started.

What Readers Think:

Author Bio:

E.E. Giorgi is a scientist, a writer, and a photographer. She spends her days analyzing genetic data, her evenings chasing sunsets, and her nights pretending she's somebody else. On her blog, E.E. discusses science for the inquiring mind, especially the kind that sparks fantastic premises and engaging stories. Her detective thriller CHIMERAS, a hard-boiled police procedural with a genetic twist, is now available on Amazon.

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