An alien civilization, observing our planet for thousands of years, has chosen one individual to make its initial contact with the human race. Maybe they chose the wrong human. Th FI is a written narrative backed up with links to video to take you further into the drama and interaction of its unforgettable characters. As a favor to her aunt, Alice drives into Arizona's stark and bleak Sonoran Desert to check up on her cousin who has mysteriously left his job as a chemical engineer in Houston and has moved onto the family's abandoned jojoba farm. No one has hear from in in six months. Alice hasn't seen her cousin in years. She recalls the egotistical socially dysfunctional boy that tormented her throughout her childhood. When she meets him again she finds that not much has changed about his unpleasant personality, but when he begs her to return to videotape a message he desperately needs to share with the world, Alice must make a fateful choice that will affect the rest of her life. First, I will start by noting that I did not receive any compensation for this honest review. As the description above states, this book was unlike any other that I have read before in that it had QR codes that linked to videos. Reading this book reminds me why I loved doing book reviews in the first place. Sci-Fi is not my usual first pick for when I buy a book, so getting it to review was a gift. I truly enjoyed this book. The story explores the main character's interaction with an alien species. It uses the dynamics of family relationships and friendship to tell a tale. The story flows nicely and is quick to pull you in. I was a little worried at one point that there would not be enough pages left to wrap it up. Thankfully I was wrong and Paul pulled it all together smoothly and effortlessly. Paul did a great job with his debut novel and I sincerely hope to see more from him. Buy your copy on Amazon here and click to follow this author for more. You can also read my GoodReads review here. You can have a look at my profile for other reviews I have done. Please leave a comment below or on my Twitter or my FaceBook. If you would like me to review your book, please send me a message. As always, thank you for your support. "It put them into an absolute frenzy. Actually did a little damage."
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My Thoughts:
Rachel and Tate do a wonderful job with character development and setting the scene. Although paranormal, it is believable. A new world has been created here in “Song of Secrets”, the first book in “The School of Wayward Demons” series. “Song of Secrets” is definitely a page turner for readers of any age. You are quickly pulled into the lives of these four teenage demons and you just want to know more. You want to know what obstacles will be thrown at them and how they will come out victorious. You start to emphasize with them. You are drawn into this new world. On one hand, it is a good thing that this is a part of a series because there is so much more story to be told. On the other hand, we all have to sit and wait patiently for book #2!
About the Book - About the Author - Prizes!!!Welcome to another exciting publishing house spotlight tour from Novel Publicity. Join us as two new titles from Rachel Calish--we're calling them the Calish Couple—tour the blogosphere in a way that just can't be ignored. And, hey, we've got prizes! About the prizes: Who doesn't love prizes? You could win either a $50 Amazon gift card, an autographed copy of Song of Secrets by Tate Hallaway and Rachel Calish, or an autographed copy of its tour mate, The Demon Gabriella by Rachel Calish. Here's what you need to do...
Learn more about Song of Secrets's tour mate HERE. a Rafflecopter giveaway
About the Book - About the Author - Prizes!!!Welcome to another exciting publishing house spotlight tour from Novel Publicity. Join us as three new titles from Luminis Books--we're calling them the Luminis Triplex Tour—tour the blogosphere in a way that just can't be ignored. And, hey, we've got prizes! About the prizes: Who doesn't love prizes? You could win either of two $25 Amazon gift cards, an autographed copy of Entrevoir by Chris Katsaropoulos, or an autographed copy of its tour mates, Along the Wayby Jacqueline Kolosov or The Possibility of Snow by Al Riske. Here's what you need to do...
Learn more about Entrevoir's tour mates HERE. http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share- code/YzE3YzI0YTkzYTJkODQ0ODQxZDUwNTUwMTQ3OTkxOj E1Ng==/?
About the Book - About the Author - Prizes!!!Welcome to another exciting publishing house spotlight tour from Novel Publicity. Join us as three new titles from Luminis Books--we're calling them the Luminis Triplex Tour—tour the blogosphere in a way that just can't be ignored. And, hey, we've got prizes! About the prizes: Who doesn't love prizes? You could win either of two $25 Amazon gift cards, an autographed copy of The Possiblity of Snow by Al Riske, or an autographed copy of its tour mates, Entrevoir by Chris Katsaropoulos or Along the Wayby Jacqueline Kolosov. Here's what you need to do...
Learn more about The Possibility of Snow's tour mates HERE. http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share- code/YzE3YzI0YTkzYTJkODQ0ODQxZDUwNTUwMTQ3OTkxOj E1Ng==/?
About the Book - About the Author - Prizes!!!Welcome to another exciting publishing house spotlight tour from Novel Publicity. Join us as three new titles from Luminis Books--we're calling them the Luminis Triplex Tour—tour the blogosphere in a way that just can't be ignored. And, hey, we've got prizes! About the prizes: Who doesn't love prizes? You could win either of two $25 Amazon gift cards, an autographed copy of Along the Wayby Vallie Lynn Watson, or an autographed copy of its tour mates, The Possibility of Snowby Al Riske, or Entrevoir by Chris Katsaropoulos. Here's what you need to do...
Learn more about Along the Way's tour mates HERE. http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share- code/YzE3YzI0YTkzYTJkODQ0ODQxZDUwNTUwMTQ3OTkxOj E1Ng==/?Staying Safe or Surrendering: A Dilemma of Creativity and Spirituality by Rahima Warren Many years ago, I had an awe-inspiring glimpse of the Flow of Divine Creativity. It appeared to me as a cosmic Fountain of Creativity, endlessly flowing upward with an outrageous infinitude of vivid, colorful images: trees, cartoons, volcanoes, tulips, cars, babies, tigers, paintings, skyscrapers, movies, soldiers, roses, stars, drums—everything tumbling upward forever! I saw that what we human creators do is tap into this infinite Fountain, and channel one little stream into manifestation, whether we are a musician or a parent, an architect or a writer, an artist or an engineer. Certainly this is my experience of writing my visionary trilogy, The Star-Seer’s Prophecy. A certain dream character had been haunting me for years. One day, I wrote a short story in my journal about this character, hoping the little story would make him stop bothering me. Ha! I’d tapped into that Fountain and now the Flow was sweeping me away! I could have fought it and tried to get back to my life and my career as a psychotherapist. However, my spiritual path is a path of surrender. Our ego-minds are all about keeping control and staying safe, so any ego-effort to understand or get close to the Divine is doomed to failure. Only by surrendering that ego-control can we open ourselves to the Divine, and to our creativity (which are aspects of the same Flow.) The Divine (however you name it) is not concerned with our staying safe and small, but with our blooming into our full, beautiful, creative selves. If I had ignored this flood of creative inspiration that I had tapped into, I would have stayed in my safe rut, and never discovered the wonders of allowing my creativity full rein (or in my case, reign!), or faced the “growth opportunity” of offering my book to the world. Instead, I surrendered to the passionate outpouring of this character’s story, whose name turned out to be Kyr. With no idea where his story was going, no outline, no plan, I just wrote whatever came through, no matter how dark or brilliant. Kyr’s path is also one of surrender. At first, he has no choice but submit, since he has been born and raised as a slave of the Soul-Drinker, an evil sorcerer-king with vast powers that no one can combat. Then he is rescued and faces a choice: cling to his deathly loyalty to his master, or to take the unknown hard path toward life, love and the Light. Kyr’s journey toward the Light is a journey of surrender. At each step of the way, he has to surrender his old view of who he is and what he deserves, and open more and more to his true nature. I suspect that may be true for all of us, but it is rarely easy. The ego-mind wants to stay with what it knows, no matter how awful, and to stay small, with the illusion that this makes us safe. In Dark Innocence: Book One of my trilogy, there is a scene where Kyr surrenders his pain and remorse to the Goddess. After all these years of rewriting, editing, publishing and now doing my best to let the world know about Kyr’s dark, intense, yet healing and inspiring story, that scene still touches my heart. Contemplation Questions Have you experienced that dilemma between safety and surrender? Does surrender play a role in your spirituality and/or creativity? Have you been “haunted” by an inner character in your dreams or imagination? How have you dealt with him/her? Have you tried letting them tell you their story? I’d love to hear your answers! Please leave a comment, if you are so inspired. About Dark Innocence: In an ancient world of blood sorcery and healing magic, the Soul-Drinker, a vicious necromancer-king, is draining the life from the souls of the people and of the earth itself. Worse yet, he has banished the land's rightful Goddess, and disrupted the Sacred Balance, sending the mortal and divine realms whirling toward destruction. Interview with Rahima Warren, Author of The Star-Seer’s Prophecy, a fantasy trilogy How did this story come to you? I am still puzzled by where this story and its hero came from. It certainly did not come from my life experience. All I know is that I had a character similar to the protagonist of The Star-Seer’s Prophecy in my dreams and fantasies since I was a child. I have no idea where he came from, but he wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept showing up, over and over. Partly inspired by my curiosity about him, I studied dreamwork, and became a psychotherapist. I found that Carl Jung’s work with dreams and archetypes most helpful. I did dreamwork and wrote dialogs with this inner character, and tried to analyze what part of my psyche he is, or what archetype he represents. No matter what I did, he kept on lurking around. Finally, one day, I wrote a short story in my journal, hoping that he would be satisfied and go away. Big mistake! That little story opened the floodgates. This character, whose name turned out to be Kyr, had quite a journey to go on. The only way he could do it was to take over my life and turn me into a writer. When those floodgates opened, a rush of intense, exciting creative energy poured forth. I surrendered to the current and it swept me along. I had no plan. I just went with the flow and wrote what Kyr showed me. His story started out so dark that I was sure I would never show it to anyone, ever! But writing his story was my secret passion— and it was the only way I could find out what happened next. After decades of personal growth work; after becoming a transpersonal counselor and working with clients for twenty years; and becoming an Expressive Arts therapist, I’d learned to trust the creative process and my soul’s hidden wisdom, and so I was able to allow Kyr’s story to pour forth without censoring or editing. After the first draft of the entire trilogy was on paper, I realized it is a powerful story worth sharing. So I studied how to write fiction, hired an editor, and revised, revised, revised. Did you always want to be an author? I began reading fantasy and Sci-Fi as soon as I could read, thanks to my parents. (They left F&SF magazines with fascinating cover art lying around the house.) I always wondered how the authors could create alternate worlds and write such fascinating stories, but I never imagined becoming one of them. I thought authors were these odd creatures who lived in flats in New York City. At one point in the late 1980s, I felt I needed to observe a ‘fast’ from unnecessary words for a month as a spiritual practice. I stopped reading, watching TV, etc. And I got my first laptop. One night, when I couldn’t sleep, I turned on my laptop and started writing whatever imagery showed up in my mind. I found myself writing stories. Still, it was just for fun. I didn’t think about becoming an author until after I had written the first draft of The Star-Seer’s Prophecy. They say life imitates art, but were there any events or people in your life that became inspiration for your work? My psychotherapy clients revealed to me the amazing ability we humans have to overcome terrible trauma and abuse, to move toward healing our wounds and recovering our innate beauty, integrity and wholeness. To do this, we need to face what harm was done to us, and eventually, to begin to see beyond our pain to the brokenness of our abusers. Many people were able to move past their anger and vengefulness, and to forgive the person who harmed them, without forgiving their harmful actions. This is a major theme of The Star-Seer’s Prophecy, but it is not based on any particular person’s story. What were some of your inspirations when you were creating your world? I’m sure I have been subliminally influenced by reading fairy tales, and many of my favorite authors, such as Ursula LeGuin, Carol Berg, Charles De Lint, Patricia McKillip, and Sherri S. Tepper, to name a few. However, I did not consciously copy anyone. My process was to sort of “listen-see” and write whatever I “heard-saw.” Kyr’s world turned out to be semi-medieval, with black sorcery, healing magic, and magical rituals, but no dragons, unicorns, or goblins. Magic is always an integral part of fantasy novels, how did you create your magic? Again, I followed the flow of the story. Ideas for the magic just seemed to arise as needed. In hindsight, I can see that for the healing magic, I drew upon my experience with energy work such as Reiki. For the rituals, I was influenced by my experience of the sacred rituals of Celtic and Native American traditions, but only in a general way. I did not copy any particular culture’s rituals. What's the one thing you want people to take away from reading the Star Seer's Prophecy? That the real magic is forgiveness – forgiving those who have harmed you, instead of obsessing endlessly about your wounds, and/or seeking revenge. This only perpetuates the pain. Equally important is forgiving yourself for making mistakes, for not being perfect, for being human. Often, one of the hardest things is to forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know at the time. For example, in the story, Kyr begins as an obedient slave to the evil sorcerer-king called the Soul-Drinker. Later, Kyr learns what atrocities he committed as a slave, and feels deep remorse. He painfully learns to forgive himself for not knowing at the time that what he had done was wrong. Without giving away too much, what's next for Kyr? In the first book, Dark Innocence, Kyr chose the hard path of healing, forgiveness and love. With the help of friends and healers, he overcame his terrible upbringing as a Slave of the Soul-Drinker, and became a man capable of kindness, courage and integrity at the Sanctuary of the Goddess Zhovanya. In Book Two, Fierce Blessings, Kyr faces the familiar nightmare of cruelty and evil that he knew as a boy, in the second hell foretold by the Prophecy. As hostage for the safety of the Sanctuary, his friends, and his beloved Jolanya, he struggles to protect his soul from succumbing to the depravity he has known for most of his life, and fights to keep hold of the blessings he received from Zhovanya. In the final volume of the trilogy, Perilous Bliss (forthcoming), Kyr is plunged into the third hell of the Star-Seer’s Prophecy. A most intimate and harrowing betrayal throws him into a storm of rage and despair. Alienated from his friends, himself, and, worst of all, the Goddess, he flees to a mysterious tower, where he finds the solitude that is all he can bear. But the time has come, at last: the stars are moving into the pattern foreseen long ago by the Star-Seer. Will Kyr be able to keep faith with the Goddess Who saved his soul in time to renew the Sacred Balance and restore Her sovereignty? Or will he return to the foul slavery he has known most of his life? The fate of the land and the Goddess Herself depends on his choice. About Dark Innocence: In an ancient world of blood sorcery and healing magic, the Soul-Drinker, a vicious necromancer-king, is draining the life from the souls of the people and of the earth itself. Worse yet, he has banished the land's rightful Goddess, and disrupted the Sacred Balance, sending the mortal and divine realms whirling toward destruction. The only hope for salvation is a youth named Kyr, born and raised as one of the Soul-Drinker's blindly obedient slaves. Kyr knows only the pain, evil and cruelty of the Soul-Drinker's hell--and nothing of the Star-Seer's Prophecy that declares him to be the long-sought Liberator. Rescued by strangers, Kyr embarks on a bewildering journey into a bizarre new life, where kindness and love are real. If he is to fulfill his destiny, he must battle his inner demons and fight to find his buried capacities for compassion and courage. Will he be able to surrender the inner ice that has been his soul's only protection in time to save the world from disaster? Again, you can grab your copy for just 99 cents at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iBooks as part of this special event! Maia watched for more than a millennia, waiting for a second chance at life on Earth. A hot, unforgiving desert greets her upon arrival, but her surroundings aren't her only problem. In human form, fleeting memories of a past life haunt her. Will she be whole when she rediscovers who she is, or will the reality of her existence require she make yet another sacrifice? This short story, "Heaven's Vault" by Pavarti K. Tyler was a sweet little read. Pavarti wastes no time in drawing you into the story. Her descriptions from the main character's perspective make you feel every moment. Get your copy on Amazon. Award winning author of multi-cultural and transgressive literature, Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway. Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry at several international law firms. She now lives with her husband, two daughters and one very large, very terrible dog. She keeps busy working with fabulous authors as the Director of Marketing at Novel Publicity and penning her next genre bending novel. Connect with Pavarti at www.PavartiKTyler.com Destiny Sojourns is a senior in high school who has lived her life on the run. The Number on her side marks her difference and gives her good fortune. The Necromores want to take away the Numbers abilities and claim them as their own by drinking their blood. I was invited to read "Numbers" by the talented Elizabeth Cooper. "Numbers" was a great Young Adult/Teen book full of self discovery and action. Elizabeth does a wonderful job of covering the perspectives from both of her main characters. This story is a page turner sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. My daughter also read the book and loved it. Buy your copy on Amazon. I’m Elizabeth Cooper, I am a writer, nurse and mother. I live in NH with my husband, son and boxer mix. I love learning about writing and being a mom. I want to help you learn as well and succeed in your dreams. I also love sharing about my experiences of being a mom, what tricks I’ve learned and some mistakes so you can laugh along with me. - For more check out my blog at Intentional Family Life
HOT NEW RELEASE Maia watched for more than a millennia, waiting for a second chance at life on Earth. A hot, unforgiving desert greets her upon arrival, but her surroundings aren't her only problem. In human form, fleeting memories of a past life haunt her. Will she be whole when she rediscovers who she is, or will the reality of her existence require she make yet another sacrifice? This short story by Pavarti K Tyler is a literary twist on a classic Greek Myth. Get Your Copy Now - FREE on Kindle Unlimited http://smarturl.it/HeavensVault Join the celebration on Facebook on 4/28 from 6-9 to win ebooks from other fabulous YA authors and other fun surprises! About the Author Award-winning author of multi-cultural and transgressive literature, Pavarti K Tyler is usually found with Doc Martens strapped on over fishnets, and a girlish giggle as easy and likely as a throaty guffaw. She is an artist, wife, mother, and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director, and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway. Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry at several international law firms. She now lives with her husband, two daughters, and two terribly behaved dogs. She keeps busy working with fabulous authors as the Director of Marketing at Novel Publicity, and penning her next genre-bending novel. The best way to stay up to date with Pavarti is to join her mailing list. If you do, she’ll even send you a free short story! Sign up at http://eepurl.com/f1iL5 Follow her at www.PavartiKTyler.com | FaceBook | Twitter | Google+ | Pinterest
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