Cover Reveal:Hex Factor (The Paranormals Book One) by Andie M. Long + giveaway

Hex Factor (The Paranormals Book One)

by Andie M. Long
3 August 2020
Genre: Paranormal Romantic Comedy
ASIN: B089T6LWZQ
Number of pages: approx. 200
Word Count: 40,000
Cover Artist: Tammy Clarke at The Graphics Shed
Hex, Blood, Rock and Roll.

Vampire guitarist Noah is about to face the music…

At auditions for Britain's Best New Band things get awkward when Noah bumps into his old high school sweetheart and sassy ex. The one he dumped to form his band, The Paranormals.

Witch Stacey has never forgotten Noah’s betrayal. Determined to charm the judges with her own band and win the recording contract, it will be the perfect revenge on her ex.

But as the competition heats up, so does the chemistry between them, until one of the show's presenters going missing threatens everything.

With ghosts on the loose and bands who will stop at nothing to win, can Noah and Stacey survive the competition and claim each other's hearts? Or are they doomed to be just another cliché of Hex, blood, rock and roll?

Amazon

About the Author:
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Andie M. Long is author of the popular Supernatural Dating Agency series amongst many others.

She lives in Sheffield with her long-suffering partner and son.

When not being partner, mother, writer, or chocoholic, she can usually be found on Facebook or walking her whippet, Bella.

Tour Giveaway 

$10 Amazon gift card and a signed paperback copy. 

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Book Review: We Sold Our Souls: A Novel by Grady Hendrix

We Sold Our Souls: A Novel

by Grady Hendrix

September 18, 2018

336 pages

Publisher: Quirk Books

In this hard-rocking, spine-tingling supernatural thriller, the washed-up guitarist of a ’90s heavy metal band embarks on an epic road-trip across America and deep into the web of a sinister conspiracy.

  

Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity.

Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. One day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A furious power ballad about never giving up, We Sold Our Souls is one woman’s epic journey to reclaim her life—and save her soul.

Some themes are universal. Good vs evil. Love conquering all. People selling their souls to form a band then regretting it. The important thing isn't the theme itself, but what one does with it. Such is the case with We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix.

A former metal guitarist, Kris now works in a Best Western and her life is falling apart. Not only that, but former bandmate Terry is super successful fronting the band Koffin and is geared up for his ‘final’ tour.

What follows is her reuniting with her old band (or what's left of it), and working her way across the country to confront Terry...and before it’s too late. Because something happened to them long ago, something that involves the lost concept album Kris wrote and the memories of contract night that she just can't seem to recall.

This is absolutely not a typical devil music book. I love Grady Hendrix’s work, but I wasn't prepared for all the twists and turns. I also wasn't prepared for just how insightful a story this is.

Kris goes through a personal journey along with her road tripping. She has a lot of emotions about how Terry screwed her over, her place in the world now, and her music that need to be worked through. I also love that we also see the feeling of stuckness through Melanie, a Koffin fan determined to make her life better. It also goes a long way that the story equates the hellish figures less with traditional Robert Johnson and Satan imagery and leans into its own mythology highlighted by the mysterious lost album Trogladyte.

It makes for an intriguing mystery and a fantastic mythos. I love that the soulless factor is incorporated into day to day living and losing one's self.

That’s not to say that there aren't some creepy, unsettling, downright unnerving scenes. Hendrix is fantastic at balancing horror with the overall feel of a story. While this book has a different vibe than, say, Horrorstor, I definitely was gripping the book hard and felt my stomach drop during parts of the festival at the end.

And I will never look at UPS the same ever again.

You can tell there's a love and respect for the music, too. It’s not just a device, but something that permeates every aspect of the book. This is one of those titles that gripped me hard (I read it in a day), and left me a little jealous. I love the choice of a female lead, I love that things get dicey but not outright gratuitous, because it would have been easy to go that route. I love that this book feels real and gives no easy answer to regaining personal fulfillment.

Plus, the whole concert sequence and when you find out who had their souls sold to what is just bitchin.

A wild ride that makes you think and want to dig out your old record collection? I am totally down.

5 sheep

About the Author:

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Award-winning author Grady Hendrix has written about the Confederate flag for Playboy magazine, covered machine gun collector conventions, and scripted award shows for Chinese television. His novels include HORRORSTÖR about a haunted IKEA, MY BEST FRIEND'S EXORCISM, which is basically "Beaches" meets "The Exorcist", and WE SOLD OUR SOULS, a heavy metal horror epic out now from Quirk Books. He's also the author of PAPERBACKS FROM HELL, a history of the horror paperback boom of the Seventies and Eighties, and the movie MOHAWK, a horror flick about the War of 1812, and the upcoming film, SATANIC PANIC. You can discover more ridiculous facts about him at www.gradyhendrix.com.

***Reviewer***

About Selah Janel:

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Selah Janel is a writer who is trying to start doing that again instead of reading manga all the time.

When Authors Start Believing Everything They Write (Demimonde Series by Ash Krafton book tour) + giveaway

When Authors Start Believing Everything They Write

Fiction writers spend most of their time making things up and hoping they can make you believe it. In short, we tell lies for a living.

We create new worlds and populate them with all manners of man and beast. We devise belief systems, governments, social traditions, and every antagonist we can come up for them.

When we do our job right, we can fool readers into believing these people and places are real. Diehard readers lead to fandoms and all the beautiful trappings of mania…memes and 'ships and Funco Pop and Instagram posts galore…

I love to see readers go crazy for their favorite books. I love to see the ways they pay homage to the characters they've come to love. I love to read the thoughtful, ranting, obsessed articles and status updates they use to express the feels those books give them.

I love readers who love books.

But did you know that these forms of devotion aren't limited to raving fans? A lot of authors get caught up in it, too, because after years of writing their books, they start to think they're real, too.

I once read an article about an author who admitted to shopping for gifts for her characters. I thought it was so sweet…but I never thought I'd do anything like it.

Until I met my werewolf rock star, Dierk Adeluf.

Turn of the Wheel is an all-Were heavy metal band from Germany. We meet them in one of The Books of the Demimonde, WOLF'S BANE. When I wrote the story, I had to get the band together.

But I didn't just name the characters and decide what instrument they played.

I gave them history. I wrote their songs. And, in true homage to every one of my favorite rock bands, I made concert shirts.

Any self-respecting teen of the 80s had a wardrobe full of band shirts. My husband and I have saved a shirt from every show we've ever seen…and that's a closet full of concert memories. This is my favorite one, though…from a band that doesn't exist.

Or…does it? I swear they do, somewhere. This concert shirt is all the proof I need!

Bleeding Hearts (Demimonde Book One)
by Ash Krafton
Genre: urban fantasy
Publisher: Ash Krafton
October 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-946120-00-7
ASIN: B01M7PCLWJ
Number of pages: 380
Word Count: 94k
Cover Artist: Red Fist Fiction
Sophie Galen is an advice columnist whose work leaves her neck-deep in other people's problems. Thanks to her compassion, her gut instinct, and her magnetic charm, Sophie really knows how to attract little black clouds.

Marek Thurzo is no little black cloud; he's a maelstrom. Marek is Demivampire, a race with the potential to evolve into vampire. A warrior who's taken his share of spiritual damage, he hovers dangerously close to destruction.

He seeks salvation. She's driven to save him. But what if he can't be saved?

Sympathy for his plight becomes true empathy as Sophie's hidden nature is revealed. Marek suspects she may be one of the Sophia, oracle and redemption of the damned Demivampire. She alone can turn back the evolutionary clock.

All she needs is the courage to face her fears. Can she save him from Falling?

Amazon

Blood Rush (Demimonde Book Two)
by Ash Krafton
Genre: urban fantasy
Publisher: Ash Krafton
October 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-946120-01-4
ASIN: B01M7PCWFD
Number of pages: 376
Word Count: 94k
Cover Artist: Red Fist Fiction
Sophie doesn't believe in happily ever after. These days, she'd settle for alive after sunrise.

Advice columnist and newly-appointed oracle to the demivampire, Sophie Galen has more issues than a Cosmo collection: a new mentor with a mean streak, a werewolf stalker she can't shake, and a relationship with her ex's family that redefines the term complicated. And then there's her ex himself, who is more interested in playing leader of the vampire pack than in his own salvation.

Becoming a better oracle is tough enough, but when Sophie encounters a deadly enemy - one she never dreamed of facing - it will take everything she's ever learned in order to survive.

Amazon

Wolf's Bane (Demimonde Book Three)
by Ash Krafton
Genre: urban fantasy
Publisher: Ash Krafton
October 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-946120-02-1
ASIN: B01MA3JHUV
Number of pages: 388
Word Count: 104k
Cover Artist: Red Fist Fiction
Since becoming oracle to the demivampire two years ago, advice columnist Sophie has battled werewolves and survived a vampire attack (or two). However, not only was she powerless to save her lover Marek when he slipped to the brink of evolution, she also witnessed his transformation into a falcon, the symbol of Horus United.

Sophie’s quest to save Marek is further complicated when rock star Dierk Adeluf – who also happens to be the king of the Werekind – invites her backstage after a concert. Just when it seems she will find respite from heartache, Sophie is bitten by a werewolf and Dierk decides she is destined to be his queen.

Sophie is caught between the demivamps she loves and the Were who commands her to love him. Throw in his jealous wanna-be girlfriend—a true bitch if ever there was one—and an ambush by witches, and there you have the big mess that Sophie calls her life. And, hello? Her soul mate is still a bird.

Amazon

About the Author:

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Ash Krafton writes because if she doesn't, her kids will…and NOBODY wants that. A speculative fiction girl through and through, Ash writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy novels as well as poetry and short fiction. Her work has won a bunch of awards and was even nominated for a Pushcart Prize. When she's not writing, she's practicing Tai Chi, listening to loud rock and metal, or crushing on supervillains.

Most recently, she's re-released her urban fantasy trilogy THE BOOKS OF THE DEMIMONDE because she never really left the world of Sophie and her Demivamps.

Tour giveaway 

$25 Amazon gift card and eCopy of Bleeding Hearts (Demimonde #1) in winner's choice of format (Kindle, Paperback, or Audiobook)

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