Book Blitz & Excerpt: Synthetica (Synthetica #1) by Rachel Pattinson!

Synthetica
(Synthetica #1)

by Rachel
Pattinson 

Release Date: 04/01/15

Summary from Goodreads:

This city is falling.



Seventeen-year-old Anais Finch lives in a world where everyone is born
beautiful, where every dream is a possibility - and where their every move and
every piece of personal information is recorded by an ID picochip inserted
behind their right ear. When technology giant, Civitas, finally announces the
launch of their highly anticipated Scholarly Learning Programs, which allow people
to download and learn any subject instantly, Anais can hardly wait.

But not everyone is pleased with society's progress, and not everyone wants to
fit in. When Anais witnesses a brutal murder on an innocent citizen and is
implicated in the crime, she becomes determined to uncover the truth,
especially when others like it begin to occur all over the city. But it may
already be too late for Anais to stop the man who calls himself 'the Hacker'
before he commits his most appalling crime yet... 

Excerpt:

Anais finished her juice in a couple of swallows. She stood up to put her empty cup in the recycle bin a few paces away. She was concentrating so hard on getting out the last few drops from the bottom of her cup, that she didn't notice the man until it was too late.

They bumped into each other with some force; there was a small crash as the box he'd been carrying flew to the floor. The lid popped open and a cascade of tiny silver objects burst out and scattered all over the pavement. Anais staggered backwards, her cup dropping to the ground.

“I'm so sorry,” she apologised, immediately bending down to pick up the glinting objects. She picked a few up, recognising them as picochips. Puzzled, she stood back up straight.

“Here you go, I'm really sorry, I just wasn't -” she stopped abruptly as she held out her hand containing the tiny chips, and she looked up into his face. The man had picked up his box, but he hadn't said a word to her in apology or acknowledgement. Instead, he was staring at her with something remarkably like fury.

The lower half of his face was covered with what looked like an old pollen mask, designed to make it easier to breathe during the summer months when the air was hazy with dust. His dull black hair hung down to his shoulders, and his silver eyes were so pale, they were almost transparent. He was wearing a battered black jacket, upon which some kind of tatty logo was sewn on in red. There was a black glove on his right hand, which Anais couldn't help thinking was odd in this kind of heat.

But it was his expression that had made her stop talking. There wasn't an ounce of friendliness or apology in that face. Instead, he was looking at her as though he absolutely despised her. A cold chill ran down Anais' spine. She swallowed nervously.

“Um, I'm really sorry,” she managed to whisper. He snatched the picochips she was holding out to him, and with one last contemptuous look, he strode off without a word.

Buy
Links:

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About the Author

So what qualifies me to be a writer? Well, ever since an early age I've been more
interested in the worlds in my head, than the real one - so I thought it was
finally time to do something about it. I went to uni, got a degree in
publishing, worked in an office for a while, decided I hated it, went to China,
came back...and now I'm a teaching assistant by day and a YA writer by night.
Phew! It's been quite a journey, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Author Links:

  

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Blog Tour- Teaser Spotlight & Giveaway: I Heart Robot by Suzanne van Rooyen!

Title: I Heart Robot

Author: Suzanne van Rooyen

Publication date: March 31, 2015

Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.

About the Book:

Sixteen-year-old Tyri wants to be a musician and wants to be with someone who won’t belittle her musical aspirations.

Q-I-99 aka ‘Quinn’ lives in a scrap metal sanctuary with other rogue droids. While some use violence to make their voices heard, demanding equal rights for AI enhanced robots, Quinn just wants a moment on stage with his violin to show the humans that androids like him have more to offer than their processing power.

Tyri and Quinn’s worlds collide when they’re accepted by the Baldur Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. As the rift between robots and humans deepens, Tyri and Quinn’s love of music brings them closer together, making Tyri question where her loyalties lie and Quinn question his place in the world. With the city on the brink of civil war, Tyri and Quinn make a shocking discovery that turns their world inside out. Will their passion for music be enough to hold them together while everything else crumbles down around them, or will the truth of who they are tear them apart?

Teaser:

“...there's a girl in the crowd too clean and pretty to be one of the skag addicts or runaways. Her hair forms dark ripples around her face, obscuring her eyes, as she dances like seaweed tossed by waves. I play for her like a puppet master pulling her strings, watching her sway to the melody I wring from the ether. Beneath her hair, her eyes are closed. Her arms stretch toward the sky as if she might snatch down the stars. She smiles, lost in bliss, and I smile too as joy ribbons through my system.” –- Quinn

Trailer:

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About the Author:

Suzanne is a tattooed storyteller from South Africa. She currently lives in Sweden and is busy making friends with the ghosts of her Viking ancestors. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. When she grows up, she wants to be an elf – until then, she spends her time (when not writing) wall climbing, buying far too many books, and entertaining her shiba inu, Lego.

Goodreads | Website | Twitter | Facebook

Giveaway:

Five (5) winners will receive a digital copy of I Heart Robot by Suzanne van Rooyen (INT)

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Mini Review: Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show by Steve Bryant!

Title: Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show
Author: Steve Bryant
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: February 24th
Source: Month9Books, LLC


Book Description via Goodreads:

“Lucas Mackenzie has got the best job of any ten-year-old boy. He travels from city-to-city as part of the London Midnight Ghost Show, scaring unsuspecting show-goers year round. Performing comes naturally to Lucas and the rest of the troupe, who’ve been doing it for as long as Lucas can remember. But there’s something Lucas doesn’t know. Like the rest of Lucas's friends, he’s dead. And for some reason, Lucas can’t remember his former life, his parents or friends. Did he go to school? Have a dog? Brothers and sisters? If only he could recall his former life, maybe even reach out to his parents, haunt them. When a ghost hunter determines to shut the show down, Lucas realizes the life he has might soon be over. And without a connection to his family, he will have nothing. There’s little time, and Lucas has much to do. Keep the lights on! Lucas Mackenzie’s coming to town.

Review:

★★

Ultimately, I don't have too much to say on this book. I was really excited when I got the chance to read it, because I love books that are given a circus-y setting. I don't know why I'm fascinated by it, but I'm the first to admit that I am. I was hoping that it would be something like the Cirque du Freak books, which is one of my favorite young adult series. Plus, I love the cover. And I should know by now that that is not the best way to judge.

Anyway, that's not what I got.

I don't have a lot to say about it, because I found to this book to be really, really boring. That's a very weird and rare thing for me to say. Normally if I don't like the book I can pick a reason, like bad writing or bad character development. This book wasn't badly written per se, though it did use outdated language that made it a bit irksome at times.

I just felt like nothing was happening. I expected action or excitement or even to be creeped out at a book that has "London Midnight Ghost Show" in the title, but at the end of the day I was left just glad that the book was over so that I could go and read something else.

By all means, give this book a try. I think this is just one of those times where a book and me aren't meant to be friends. Maybe this will be right up your alley. But for me, it was a swing and a miss.

I was provided a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Spotlight Tour- Excerpt & Massive Giveaway:Feeding the Fire by Andrea Laurence!

Title: Feeding the Fire

Series: Rosewood #2

Author: Andrea Laurence

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Pub. Date: March 16, 2015

About the Book:

Pepper has no interest in Grant Chamberlain…until she accidentally wins him at a school auction and finds the mega-hot firefighter impossible to ignore. Find out what happens next in the second playful and sexy ebook romance in the Rosewood series!

Living in the small town of Rosewood, Alabama, hairdresser Pepper Anthony has one rule—never date a Chamberlain. She’s always said, “the only thing worse than being ignored by a Chamberlain is being dumped by one.” But Grant Chamberlain, town fireman, isn’t used to rejection, and Pepper has consistently turned him down since high school. She isn’t intimidated by his family; she’s one of the few who refuses to take their crap.

When Grant volunteers at the charity bachelor auction, to his surprise, Pepper buys him. She hadn’t meant to, but Adelia Chamberlain dropped a cold drink in her lap, sending her leaping into the air at precisely the wrong moment. Suddenly she had a massive bill to the town and Grant at her disposal. Since the money has to come from her “restore the house” fund, she decides to use Grant for manual labor instead of romantic dinners. Grant is happy to help, sweaty and shirtless, because one way or another, he’s going to get Pepper to admit she’s attracted to him. All it takes is a small spark, and soon they’ll be fanning the flames.

Excerpt:

Grant stepped out from behind the curtain to a roar of applause. The minute the lights hit him, Pepper felt her heart skip a beat in her chest like she’d been hit with paddles of a defibrillator. He was wearing a black, slim-fit suit with a black shirt and tie. Even though he was indoors and it was nighttime, he was wearing his trademark Ray-Ban sunglasses. The glasses always seemed to accent the square line of his jaw and the sharp angle of his nose.

His full lips curled into his charming smile, with the slightest hint of a dimple visible on his cheek. It reminded her of him looking at her, just like that, from between her trembling thighs.

Damn him for being so sexy. His confidence made him that much more attractive. And frustrating. And irritating. Her fingers itched to reach for her paddle, but she resisted. She wasn’t going to pay for his time, even when he smiled at her that way.

“The lucky lady with the winning bid will go with Grant to a romantic dinner at Brio’s in Birmingham and if she likes, he’ll take her on an exhilarating ride down a windy country road on the back of his motorcycle.”

Pepper could almost see all the wild fantasies rushing through the heads of every woman in the room. It was a nice thought—hair blowing in the wind, thighs clamped around Grant’s narrow hips, arms wrapped around his waist. Even she could imagine the hard feel of his abs beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt and the vibration of the engine against her most sensitive parts. There was a rumble of approval as they readied their paddles and sized up their competition.

Good luck to them, Pepper thought.

Like a beach ball bouncing around the room, the bids flew fast and furious. Before long, they’d topped three thousand.

Suddenly Pepper felt awkward. Even though she and Grant weren’t dating, she didn’t exactly want to sit around and watch other women battle for him. Looking around the room, she spied Adelia Chamberlain coming back to her table with a glass of ice water. Maybe another drink would help. Or perhaps it was the right time for a restroom break. She could beat all the other women that would rush the ladies’ room when the auction ended.

Pepper slipped her purse onto her shoulder and picked up her paddle so she could dump it in the bathroom trash can. “I’m going to get some air,” she whispered to Ivy, then started to get up.

The ambush was sudden and unexpected. When they first came in Pepper had noticed the cable that the A/V people had taped to the floor, but the room was much darker now. Adelia didn’t see it and caught the toe of her shoe on it. She didn’t fall, thank goodness, but she did stumble, slinging her full glass of ice water into Pepper’s lap.

With a cry of surprise and alarm, Pepper leapt out of her chair, holding her arms high to avoid the water that practically covered her from neck to knees.

“Four thousand!” Allison Price announced from the stage.

The MC’s words were an even larger shock to Pepper than the water. She turned her head toward Grant and the action onstage. He was looking straight at her with a wide smile of confidence across his face. He winked at her, and Pepper felt her stomach sink into her boot. Allison was pointing in Pepper’s direction, trying to coax a higher bid out of the audience.

Yes, please, she screamed in her head. Make it forty-five hundred. Hell, make it four thousand and one penny. Just outbid her. She was answered with deafening silence. The only one in the room making a sound was Allison up on stage. It seemed that suddenly, all the battling women seemed to give up. Even Grant wasn’t worth that much, it seemed, and she agreed.

“No!” Pepper shouted, but there was no stopping it.

“Going once . . . going twice . . .”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Sold! To the lady in the blue sweaterdress, paddle twenty-two!”

Pepper looked down at her dark blue sweater, suddenly made even darker by the spreading water mark. Her damned paddle, the one she never wanted to begin with, was still in her hand. She watched as it slipped from her fingers, clattering to the ground in slow motion as the gravity of the situation caught up with her. Four thousand dollars. She’d just bid four thousand dollars. Because of well-aimed ice water.

“Oh, Pepper,” Miss Adelia fussed, dabbing her with an inadequate cocktail napkin and shaking off the well-meaning hands of the folks that were more concerned about the older woman nearly falling. “I am so sorry. I didn’t even see that silly cord,” she said. “Is your dress okay?”

She couldn’t respond. All Pepper could do was close her eyes and try to keep the tears of frustration and aggravation from rushing down her cheeks.

She had just paid four thousand dollars for a date with Grant Chamberlain.

Buy It Here:

Amazon | BN | iTunes

About the Author:

Andrea Laurence has been a lover of reading and writing stories since she learned to read at a young age. She always dreamed of seeing her work in print and is thrilled to finally be able to share her special blend of sensuality and dry, sarcastic humor with the world. A dedicated West Coast girl transplanted into the Deep South, she's working on her own "happily ever after" with her boyfriend and their collection of animals including a Siberian Husky that sheds like nobody's business.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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Blog Tour - Excerpt and Giveaway: Hidden Deep by Amy Patrick!

Title: Hidden Deep

Series: Hidden Trilogy #1

Author: Amy Patrick

Release date: 03/23/15

Publisher: Oxford South Press

Length: 319 pages

Summary from Goodreads:

Give in to the Glamour…

Sixteen-year-old Ryann Carroll has just run into the guy who saved her life ten years ago. You might think she'd be happy to see him again. Not exactly. She's a bit underdressed (as in skinny-dipping) and he's not supposed to exist.

After her father's affair, all Ryann wants is to escape the family implosion fallout and find a little peace. She also wouldn't mind a first date that didn't suck, but she's determined not to end up like her mom: vulnerable, betrayed, destroyed. Ryann's recently moved back to her childhood home in rural Mississippi, the same place where ten years earlier she became lost in the woods overnight and nearly died.

She's still irresistibly drawn to those woods. There she encounters the boy who kept her from freezing to death that long ago winter night and was nowhere to be seen when rescuers arrived. He's still mysterious, but now all grown-up and gorgeous, too. And the more she's with him, the greater the threat he poses to Ryann's strict policy-- never want someone more than he wants you.

Seventeen-year-old Lad knows the law of his people all too well: Don't get careless and Don't get caught. It's allowed his race to live undetected in this world for thousands of years, mentioned only in flawed and fading folklore…

Lad's never been able to forget about Ryann since that night ten years ago. When he sees her again, his fascination re-ignites and becomes a growing desire that tempts him to break all the rules. He's not even supposed to talk to a human, much less fall in love with one.

And the timing is atrocious. The Assemblage is coming, the rift between the Light and Dark is widening, and mysterious celebrity fan pods are becoming more and more widespread and influential. Lad may have to trade his own chance at happiness to keep the humans, especially Ryann, blissfully unaware and safe.

Excerpt:

Lad crawled slowly toward me. My breath caught in my throat as he stopped inches
away. He reached out, but he didn’t actually touch me. His palm ran lightly over the side of my
head, barely skimming the outer layer of my hair, the heat from his hand radiating to my scalp.
He took the end of one straight damp lock and softly rubbed it between his thumb and fingers as
if he were fabric shopping and had found a swath of fine silk to be touched and tested.
Lad wrapped my hair once around his finger and then again, reeling me in. Heart
pounding, I studied his face, trying to understand the fascination I saw there and trying to decide
if he was about to do what I thought he was about to do.
Somewhere in my brain an alarm went off. It sounded a lot like my mother’s voice.
Never want anyone more than he wants you. You can have a man in your life, Ryann, but never
need someone. Just let him be icing on the cake.
I was at that moment in serious danger of violating every word of the manifesto I’d had
drilled into me for the past year, since my parents had separated. I’d never felt so much wanting
of anything in my whole life. I teetered on the edge. I could sense how good it would feel to
close that last inch between us and give myself over to the pull I’d felt toward these woods and
my shaky memory of Lad these past ten years. Instead, I popped the pretty bubble.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I blurted out.
“What?” he asked softly, drawing back a few inches.
“If your mom and dad don’t want you to read, how do you do home schooling?”
Lad’s face contracted in a grimace. He jumped up, stalked to the edge of the nest, and
stopped, facing away from me. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”
Well then. Not only had I ruined a very interesting moment, my question had struck some
kind of nerve.

Buy it here: Amazon

About the Author:

Amy is a two-time Golden Heart finalist (2013 and 2014). She lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two sons and actually craves the heat and humidity of Mississippi, where she grew up. She's been a professional singer and news anchor and currently narrates audio books as well as working as a station host for a Boston TV station.

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Review: Serbian Cooking by Danijela Kracun & Charles McFadden!

Title: Serbian Cooking: Popular Recipes from the Balkan Region
Author: Danijela Kracun & Charles McFadden
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: March 28th 2015
Source: Schiffer Publishing


Book Description via Goodreads:

Fifty-three recipes make up this Eastern European cookbook. Inside, find all types of traditional Serbian fare, including potato salad, lentil soup, and an assortment of pita dishes, as well as sauces and a multitude of delectable desserts, such as cr me puffs, baklava, and crepes. Most Serbian cooking traditions are intertwined with the cultures of its neighboring countries. So, don't be surprised if some of these dishes seem similar to some of your own family's traditional recipes. Also, be prepared for some differences. In Serbia, lunch is the biggest meal of the day, while dinner happens to be the lightest, typically focusing on merely cold cuts and bread. Throw in an afternoon snack of a baked pastry and coffee and consider yourself a convert!

★★★

Review:

I'm quite disappointed in this cookbook. I got it because I'm always looking for new recipes to try, plus I have a few Serbian relatives who always bring over really delicious dishes over the Christmas holidays. I was hoping to find some of those recipes in here, but unfortunately that was not the case.

A lot of the recipes are really simple, and I don't mean that in a good way. There are recipes in here for french toast (which gives no instructions as to what kind of bread), coffee (with no special steps), and a cold cut tray that actually says as the instructions just to add meats and the like, without offering any tips or recommendations as for what meats could be found in a traditional Serbian home. Some of the recipes that I was more interested in, such as peach pie and creme puffs, use pre-made brands/ingredients like pre-prepared pie crust. I was expecting more from-scratch recipes for things that I hadn't tried.

I didn't care for the way that the steps were presented. They somehow managed to be both simple and complicated. They were simple in that they were very blunt, like add all these things, serve. But that's not always a good thing. There's no step by step break down, it's written in paragraph form, with little advice on what the textures or techniques should be for each step of the process. This complication was added in the fact that the recipe titles that weren't in English, such as tulumbe had no explanation. I can tell you how to make it and what's in it, but just by looking at the title I have no idea what it is.

The pictures in this book weren't the best of quality (they didn't look professional), but they did give the book a family, home-cooking kind of vibe to the book that I can appreciate. What helps to round this book up (star wise) is the fact that there was a picture accompaniment for each and every recipe. Pictures are hugely important to me while picking a cookbook, and I really did appreciate having a reference for each recipe.

Another plus to this cookbook is that it appeals to both vegetarians and meat eaters. There are recipes that instruct on how to omit or add meat, depending on your personal preference. I'm a meat-eater myself, but I can appreciate the vegetarian options that were provided.

There are a few recipes from this collection that I would like to try, including Plum Dumplings, Chicken Paprikash, and Chestnut Cake.

All in all this is a very, very basic cookbook. The recipes are lacking a bit, but it makes up for it with its abundance of color pictures that pair with each and every recipe in this collection.

Thanks to Schiffer Publishing who provided me with a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Swoon Romance YA Wednesdays: Kissing Frogs by Alisha Sevigny Book Blitz with Giveaway #ReadSwoonRepeat

Welcome to this week’s

Swoon Romance YA Wednesdays!

This week features

Kissing Frogs by Alisha Sevigny

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Popular party girl and high school senior Jessica Scott has a secret: she used to be a nerd — a big one; a goody two-shoes, grade-skipping, all-state spelling bee champ. But she lost the braces, put on some contacts, and applied all her academic genius to studying and imitating the social elite. Now she rules the school from the upper echelon of the high school realm. With her cool new friends and hottest-guy-in-school boyfriend, life’s a beach — and that’s where she’s headed for Spring Break. That is, until her teacher breaks the bad news that she’s failing Biology — and her only chance to make up the grade is to throw away the culminating trip of her hard-earned popularity and join the Conservation Club in Panama to save the Golden Frog.

Unable to let go of her faded college dreams, Jess finds herself in a foreign country with a new social crew, and one handsome face that stands out as a blast from the past, threatening to ruin her queen bee reputation. Travis Henley may have grown up, but he still likes to play childish games and as payment for retrieving Jess’ lost ring from the bottom of a jungle pool, he wants three dates. While Jess does battle with spiders, snakes, wildfires and smart mean girls, she desperately tries to hang on to the last vestiges of her popular existence like the Golden Frog from its webbed toe. But as she starts to care about something more than tanning and texting – a species on the verge of disappearing forever – she may realize the worth of her inner nerd, and the one frog in particular that could be her prince in disguise.

Set in the lush and tropical El Valle de Anton, this modern fairytale re-imagining of “The Frog Prince” is toe-curling contemporary romance with an environmentalist heartbeat, in the tradition of Stephanie Perkins.

Kissing Frogs by Alisha Sevigny
Publication Date: November 18, 2014
Publisher: Swoon Romance

Available for Purchase:

Alisha Sevigny holds a degree in Sociology and Professional Writing from the University of Victoria, is a film school graduate, former literary agent and current Social Media and Communications Director for an award-winning English school. A shameless romantic, Alisha and her husband have travelled the world together. On a recent trip to Panama with their new daughter, Alisha fell in love with the country, culture, and their national emblem, the Golden Frog. She was inspired to write her first Young Adult novel, Kissing Frogs. Born and raised in Kitimat, British Columbia, Alisha has always had a strong connection to the environment and conservationist spirit. She now lives in Toronto with her family.

Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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