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Monday, December 20, 2021

Book Review: Moon Scorned (Raven Moon Wolves #1) by Marty Mayberry

Moon Scorned (Raven Moon Wolves #1)
by Marty Mayberry
January 5th, 2022
Genre: Upper YA/ Shifter/ Paranormal Romance
I fell hard and fast for the alpha of an elite pack.

Then he rejected me.

Everly

Asher took off when I needed him most, rejecting me and my inner wolf. Then my half-sister is murdered at an exclusive college that’s enshrouded in magic and secrets. When the school offers me a scholarship, I accept and move onto campus. I’m going to find out who killed her, then rip them apart. And if I run into Asher while I’m there? He’ll learn I’m no longer his sweet little thing. He’s about to taste the fury of a wolf shifter scorned.

Asher

Everly’s everything to me, but to protect her, I had to shove her away. If I go near her, the Drudge Pack will discover who she truly is. My father—their enforcer—will kill her. But when she shows up at Ravenmire College, my inner wolf hungers. I’ll do anything to keep her safe—even if that means sacrificing myself and betraying my dangerous family.

Great start of a new series for the YA (high school+). The author wasted no time getting to the purpose and meat of the story and drawing you into the lives of Asher and Everly.

This story mixes angst, mystery, and “attempted” chivalry with the paranormal romance of the shifters. Well, there is a little twist to the full shifter side of Everly which makes it a lot more interesting.

How strong is the pull of “fated” mates? Would you give them up to save one?

There are witches, shifters, mafia “wolf” clans, and fae. This recipe makes for all kinds of interesting interactions and options for star-crossed lovers. As in a lot of romances, jealousy rears its head early with a few opportunistic characters ready to increase the divide between Asher and Everly. Although this seems to be a love story, when Everly’s sister dies at college, She takes it upon herself to discover what happened and accepts the invitation to attend the same dangerous institution.

This is an easy, no-drag read and should be checked out even if you are not a YA reader. It has all the goods!

Getting 4 sheep from me.





JeanieG
Marty lives in New England, where you’ll find her plotting and writing while walking in the park–yes, at the same time! Otherwise, you might find her sitting in the shade with her feet up, reading everything she can get her hands on.
Posted by Sharon Stogner at 11:02 AM 1 comments
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Deck the Halls with Books Holiday Extravaganza! As Above, So Below Box Set by Loren Rhoads + giveaway

How to Blend Teas for the Holidays

I drink a lot of tea. I learned the habit from my mom. Recently, one of the things I discovered that I love to do is to blend teas to represent the characters in my books and stories. I've given those tea blends away as holiday presents, so I'll walk you through the process so you can create your own gift teas.

The main character in my As Above, So Below books is Lorelei. She’s a young succubus, who is only several hundred years old when she falls in love with the angel Azaziel. In order to make a tea to represent her, I thought about what teas I like that I could adapt. You could start with the person for whom you're making a present: think about their personality in flavors.

If Lorelei drank tea, it would bea spicy chai. I started my blend with a hearty Masala Chai as a base. In my novels, Lorelei’s signature cocktail is vodka and cranberry juice, so I added dried cranberries to the tea, along with dried apple pieces to symbolize temptation. Then I boosted the ginger in the chai to make it hotter on the tongue. Lorelei’s tea has a wonderful spicy aroma, full of cinnamon and clove. It tastes slightly fruity, with a buzz of ginger at the finish.

Adagio Teas (adagio.com) makes it really easy to blend your own teas. First off, you'll need to make an account, which is free.

Once that's done, click on Blends in the menu bar. One of your options is Create a Blend.

Click on that and it opens a page headed Create Your Own Blend. This allows you to name the tea, then pick up to three of Adagio's flavored teas from drop-down menus. You can adjust how much or how little of each flavor you'd like to include using the slider bar. Adagio has a lot of teas to mix and match.

You're also allowed to choose up to three "Accents." These range from dried fruit to flower petals to sprinkles or candy pieces. Just remember that the more Accents you mix in, the less tea you'll get in each cup.

I use the website Canva.com to create labels for each of my blends. Adagio requests that the label images be 700 x 437-pixel jpegs. They want you to own the copyright for the images you upload, but Canva has a lot of copyright-free templates that you can choose from. I find Canva easier (and cheaper!) to use than Photoshop.

Once you've uploaded your label artwork,you are allowed to make your teas private or available for sale. If you sell them, Adagio gives you points that you can spend on tea samples or free shipping or small gifts in a future order.

You can make a whole series of related blends, say, one for every member of your family? If you put two blends into a "ship," then anyone who orders both teas will get a discount.

I put Lorelei's tea into a 'ship with Azaziel's tea, which is flecked with petals of pink peony, blue lavender, yellow marigold, and red rose, to symbolize the Fields of Heaven. All those flower petals make a really pretty tea. It has a base of Adagio’s Assam Melody tea, to which I added Adagio’s vanilla-flavored Cream Tea to indicate Heaven and purity. Azaziel's tea has a wonderful flavor, friendly and welcoming, and makes a nice contrast to Lorelei’s spicy, fruity tea.

Adagio allows you to order a sample tin of each tea or to buy them in 3-ounce pouches or 5-ounce tins. My preference is the handsome reusable 5-ounce tin, the perfect size for holiday presents.

If you're curious to see what I've done with my teas, here are the links:




As Above, So Below Box Set
by Loren Rhoads
November 30, 2021
Genre: paranormal romance
Publisher: Automatism Press
ASIN: B09KW5HWCC
Number of pages: 477
Word Count: 190646
Cover Artist: Carmen Masloski
If Romeo had wings and Juliet a barbed tail, could they find happiness together in the City of Angels?

Combining the books Lost Angels and its sequel Angelus Rose, As Above, So Below tells the whole story, from the moment Lorelei met Azaziel in her master's dance club to the conflagration in the cemetery following the discovery of Azaziel's hoard of unsaved souls.

"Any angel can be tempted, any devil as well." -- Succubus.net

Excerpt
Lorelei licked the last traces of soul from her lips, then smoothed the knee-length hobble dress over her thighs. The black Lycra snuggled around her like a living creature. The barbed tip of her tail twitched as she scanned the dance club, seeking more prey.

Her violet eyes locked on the creature seated at the end of the zinc bar, dressed in a rumpled khaki trench coat. Through the smoke and flashing lights of the dance club, she saw him for what he was: an angel of melancholy. Hers. His wings weren’t manifest, but the unmistakable glow of his halo enforced a margin of emptiness around him. Shoulders hunched over his glass, he was doing his best to ignore what was going on around the club. Clearly not having fun, which was a damned shame, considering that fun was what Lost Angels was all about. Lorelei wondered what it would take to put a smile on his face.

She patted hair over the nubs of her horns and adjusted the dress’s zipper to be demure as could be, only the pale white column of her throat revealed. Once she’d made certain that the seams on her stockings were straight and her mortal glamour was flawless, she stepped out of the shadows. Let’s see if this one could be won without a fight.

The angel ignored her when she leaned across the bar at his elbow, straining the lycra dress just so. Lorelei waved the bartender over. “My usual,” she shouted above the music, “and whatever he’s drinking. On my tab.”

When another Crown Royal appeared in front of him, the angel made no move toward it. Lorelei breathed into his ear, “Say thank you.”

Vaguely in the bartender’s direction, the angel repeated, “Thank you.”

Lorelei touched her glass against the angel’s, then downed a good mouthful of her drink. More Absolut than cranberry, just the way she liked it. However, the angel continued to ignore her, tense and miserable, wanting his whiskey but apparently afraid to touch it.

“Thank you, Lorelei,” she prompted. She leaned against the angel, nestling his shoulder between her breasts. She reached around his waist to hold him close. He could escape her, certainly, if he wanted to cause a scene. She licked her lips, so close to his ear that he quivered at the sound. “What’s your name, Angel?”

He sipped his drink before answering, “Aza.”

There should be an ‘el’ on there somewhere. Amused by the dropped honorific, she echoed, “Just Aza?”

“Aza will do.”

The nickname made him sound accessible. Not fallen yet, but unimaginably lonely. Lorelei asked, “Looking for company, Aza?”

The angel put his glass down very precisely on the bar. She was unprepared when his stormy green eyes turned to her. “Maybe I came looking for you, Lorelei.”

The timbre of his voice shivered through her like lightning.

When she was sure of her composure, she purred, “Here I am, Angel.”

About the Author:
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Loren Rhoads is the co-author of Lost Angels and Angelus Rose -- the As Above, So Below duology -- with Brian Thomas. Loren's stories about the succubus Lorelei have appeared in the books Sins of the Sirens, Demon Lovers, and Unsafe Words, and most recently online at The Fabulist.

Tour Giveaway
3 paperback copies of Lost Angels (the first book in the series).
Posted by Sharon Stogner at 7:04 AM 2 comments
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Saturday, December 18, 2021

A Cry in the Moon's Light (A Cry in the Moon's Light Book 1) by Alan McGill + giveaway

A Cry in the Moon's Light (A Cry in the Moon's Light Book 1)
by Alan McGill
October 30, 2021
Genre: Historical Horror Fantasy
In a time of castles, muskets, and hideous creatures of the night, a beautiful woman travels across the treacherous Dark Forest to be by the side of her dying grandmother. With only a young carriage driver to protect her, she must use her wits and all of her courage to cross the wild country—and to evade the mysterious beast who stalks her.

What follows is a tale full of horror, mystery, and romance: gruesome murders at a village hidden deep in the forest, a castle that holds dark secrets, and a black wolf leading a deadly pack. Nothing is as it seems, and this journey has only just begun. The beautiful lady in the carriage will learn that only love can defeat evil, but is it love or danger that cries out to her in the deceitful light of the moon?


Father Daniel's Compendium of the Undead (A Companion Novella to A Cry in the Moon's Light)
Father Daniel and his Right Hand of God Order are a secret society fighting hideous creatures of the night. Gathering relics and creating weapons for decades at a place called The Forge. The Forge was built at the face of a silver mine below the Abbey on Feldberg mountain. The monks there compiled this Compendium at the Abbey in hopes it may help you understand the story that is A Cry in the Moon’s Light. Dispelling myths, retelling legends and digging deeper into the characters and places you love from the story. There are over 75 illustrations from various artists along with detailed descriptions and some spoilers where the past and future collide! Everything you need to fight evil.

About the Author
Website-Twitter-InstagramAlan McGill is an American author who lives in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a clowder of cats. Alan was close to his grandparents who grew up in the Great Depression. They were married young and remained together until his grandmother’s passing. His grandfather served in the Navy during WWII and was a gifted storyteller who weaved humorous tales about tough events. Alan grew up with these stories of right and wrong along with watching fictional heroes such as The Lone Ranger, Adam West’s Batman and Captain America. Heroes who stood up to bullies and protected those who could not protect themselves. This made an impression on the author to always do what was right in his own life and shaped his love for storytelling. He is a multi-genre author with his debut novel being A Cry in the Moon’s Light which is a horror romance and mystery series. As with all his books, one of the primary themes involves characters who strive to do the right thing regardless of the adversity they face. The second theme present in all his books is love. A pure and deep love that defeats all evil.

Giveaway
$20 Amazon
Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

Posted by Sharon Stogner at 9:30 PM 1 comments
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Book Review: The Bone Scroll: (Elemental Legacy Book 5) by Elizabeth Hunter

The Bone Scroll: (Elemental Legacy Book 5)
by Elizabeth Hunter
August 24, 2021
Pages: 260
Finding it could cost them everything. Wielding it could mean their end.

It’s a secret lost in time, a myth among immortals, a relic of such power that vampires around the world have quietly harbored the hope that it doesn’t really exist.

It’s a mystery that Tenzin and Ben cannot resist.

But to obtain the Bone Scroll, they’ll need leverage over the most powerful and mercurial vampire in the known world. Saba, oldest of immortals and mother of the vampire race, has returned to her homeland in the highlands of Ethiopia, searching for the scroll with a cadre of elders. In order to outsmart them, Ben and Tenzin will need to walk a literal and figurative edge through a maze of vampire loyalties, shadowy motivations, and ancient secrets.

If Saba wanted them gone, she could command the earth to swallow them whole. But the mother of vampires is playing her own game, and both Ben and Tenzin are no more than pawns.

Can they outsmart and outmaneuver the most primeval beings in their race to find the Bone Scroll before it lands in the possession of those who care only for their own selfish gain?

The Bone Scroll is the next supernatural mystery in the Elemental Legacy series by Elizabeth Hunter, USA Today bestselling author of the Elemental Mysteries, the Irin Chronicles, and the Glimmer Lake series.

Ben and Tenzin enjoy a good treasure hunt, and the bone scroll may be the ultimate treasure hunt. Some immortals believe it is a myth, while others who hunger for power are in a race with them to find the bone scroll and the ability to control all four elements.

Tenzin is an old and ancient vampire who can play politics if she chooses, so they decide they need to collect leverage to trade when the time comes. Saba, the oldest immortal and the mother of the vampire race, appears to be playing her own game, one that Ben and Tenzin need to figure out in order to outsmart those searching for the bone scroll.

Hunter has a fantastic imagination that has kept her series and spin-off series fresh and a delight to read. The writing flows easily, making the read quick and interesting.





Denise B


About the Author:
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Elizabeth Hunter is a contemporary fantasy, paranormal romance, and contemporary romance writer. She is a graduate of the University of Houston Honors College and a former English teacher. She once substitute taught a kindergarten class, but decided that middle school was far less frightening. Thankfully, people now pay her to write books and eighth-graders everywhere rejoice.

She currently lives in Central California with her son, two dogs, many plants, and a sadly dwindling fish tank. She is the author of the Elemental Mysteries and Elemental World series, the Cambio Springs series, the Irin Chronicles, and other works of fiction.



Posted by Sharon Stogner at 9:00 AM 0 comments
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Friday, December 17, 2021

Courting Mayhem (Coletti Warlords Book 13) by Gail Koger + giveaway

Courting Mayhem (Coletti Warlords Book 13)
by Gail Koger
November 25, 2021
Genre: SciFi Romance, Adventure, Comedy
When she was barely eight, Mayhem’s berserker powers surfaced and wherever she went, pandemonium soon followed. To teach her control, and keep her from destroying the known universe, her fathers started a training program tailored to Mayhem’s unique talents. Now she is a formidable bounty hunter.

On her twenty-first birthday, her fathers gift her with her dream vacation, which quickly turns into an unmitigated nightmare. First, she butts heads with a cranky Coletti War Commander. To complete the fiasco, the Shebu, a stone of unfathomable power, is stolen. Now Zarek, the Coletti Overlord, demands she work with the cranky Coletti to retrieve it, or her fathers will be imprisoned on a penal colony. Can her Berserker skills save the galaxy? Can she avoid falling in love with the smokin’ hot War Commander?



About the Author
Website-FB-TwitterHowdy. My name is Gail Koger and once upon a time, I was a 9-1-1 dispatcher. Too many years of wild requests, screwy questions, bizarre behavior, and outrageous demands have left me with a permanent twitch and an uncontrollable craving for chocolate. I took up writing science fiction romance to keep from killing people. So far, it has worked.

Giveaway
$25 Amazon gift card,
a Coletti dagger (nailfile),
ebook copy of Blackheart’s Treasure by Gail Koger
-1 winner each!

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Posted by Sharon Stogner at 9:30 PM 7 comments
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