Book Review: Cold Burn of Magic (Black Blade Book 1) by Jennifer Estep

Cold Burn of Magic (Black Blade Book 1)
by Jennifer Estep
Paperback, 368 pages
Published April 28th 2015
by Kensington

There Be Monsters Here. . .

It's not as great as you'd think, living in a tourist town that's known as "the most magical place in America." Same boring high school, just twice as many monsters under the bridges and rival Families killing each other for power.

I try to keep out of it. I've got my mom's bloodiron sword and my slightly illegal home in the basement of the municipal library. And a couple of Talents I try to keep quiet, including very light fingers and a way with a lock pick.

But then some nasty characters bring their Family feud into my friend's pawn shop, and I have to make a call--get involved, or watch a cute guy die because I didn't. I guess I made the wrong choice, because now I'm stuck putting everything on the line for Devon Sinclair. My mom was murdered because of the Families, and it looks like I'm going to end up just like her. . .

I’ve been on my own for four years ever since my mom was brutally murdered by one of the families! I am the best thief you’ve ever seen rube or magick. No one can touch me. Then it happened. I was just minding my own business waiting for Mo to pay me when they walked into the store and my life was changed forever.

Estep has created a unique story line with a twist of medieval in it and relatable characters. Good read from start to finish and a promise of more to come. A new author for me that I will add to my must read list. A little love, a lot of mystery and fun encompasses this story.

Getting 4 sheep

Denise B

About the Author:

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Jennifer Estep is a New York Times bestselling author, prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea.

The Elemental Assassin series (for adults)

The Mythos Academy series (for young adults)The Bigtime series (for adults)

Jennifer has worked as a features writer and page designer for a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper and has more than 10 years of journalism experience. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and other writing groups.

Sunday Swag: Chloe Neill

Sunday Swag Team!
Riverina Romantics 
 I Smell Sheep 

Featured Author: Chloe Neill

About the Author:

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Chloe Neill is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Devil’s Isle, Chicagoland Vampires, and Dark Elite series. She was born and raised in the South, but now makes her home in the Midwest. When not writing, she bakes, works, and scours the Internet for good recipes and great graphic design. Chloe also maintains her sanity by spending time with her boys–her favorite landscape photographer/husband and their dogs, Baxter and Scout. (Both she and the photographer understand the dogs are in charge.)

Head over to Riverina Romantics and win more Swag!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Review: Eighth Grave After Dark (Charley Davidson Book 8) by Darynda Jones

Eighth Grave After Dark (Charley Davidson Book 8)
by Darynda Jones
Pages: 304
Sometimes I wonder if the purpose of my life is to serve as a cautionary tale to others.
-T-shirt

Charley Davidson has enough going on without having to worry about twelve hellhounds hot on her trail. She is, after all, incredibly pregnant and feeling like she could pop at any moment. But, just her luck, twelve deadly beasts from hell have chosen this time to escape onto our plane, and they've made Charley their target. And so she takes refuge at the only place she thinks they can't get to her: the grounds of an abandoned convent. Of course, if hellhounds aren't enough, Charley also has a new case to hold her attention: the decades-old murder of a newly-vowed nun she keeps seeing in the shadows of the convent.

Add to that the still unsolved murder of her father, the strange behavior of her husband, and Charley's tendency to attract the, shall we say, undead, and she has her hands full...but also tied.

Charley tends to get herself into trouble even when she has the best of intentions. Act first, think later should be her motto according to those around her! She just wants to help those that need it whether it’s a client or a ghost. Who would have thought that helping people would get her in so much trouble?

Hilarious as always, Darynda once again brought her A game to this book. When I first started to read her books it was on a recommendation from another author that I loved and wasn’t sure if I wanted to invest my time in a new author but thought what the heck! So glad I did because this is one of my favorite series and I always hate when the book ends and the wait begins for the next one. Quirky and funny are only two of the words used to describe Charley Davidson the lead character in this book. My favorite parts of each of Darynda’s books are the slogans at the beginning of each chapter. She really should make t-shirt and bumper stickers out of them.

Getting 5 sheep

Denise B

About the Author:
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NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal. As a born storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys.

Ink Well with Amanda Clemmer: All About Story-Crafting

All About Story-Crafting 

“According to the pacing chart, there should be a slight drop near the end of chapter 2, allowing for the future buildup…”

It’s a question I’ve been asked before, and it’s a question people are certainly going to ask in the future: how do you plan your stories? Some authors love intricate planning stages with outlines and possibly years of research before getting to the actual writing, and some like to make it up as they go. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

Results? Guaranteed.
Good results? Debatable.

Me? I’m a mad scientist when it comes to writing and planning my novels. I love learning and applying new methods, but I just can’t seem to get caught up in a single routine! I wrote a vampire novella about ten years ago that involved planning down to the paragraphs before I wrote. It gave me a lot of confidence in my sense of direction and kept the story from falling flat… but it took out a lot of the excitement on my end of the spectrum. Later I wrote a fantasy novel that I drafted by hand, with the specific condition that I could not plan anything beyond the current handwritten page. The story was cliché in many areas, but the writing itself was lovely and expressive as anything.

These days I’m a little more practical. I think about my books before I write them and decide how much planning I want to do. I usually want a sense of direction but plenty of wiggle room to let the novel build on itself. My recent release, Automaton, hinged on the single idea of a person being replaced by a machine who believed itself to be that person. The original idea was very different than the result. It was going to be sci-fi. A vital crew member on a starship would fall ill and leave the ship’s doctor with no choice but to rebuild him.

Then the questions came. Would it be better if the main character were a male or female? What species or race would he be? Was he going to be entirely robotic or just have some central organs replaced? And—most jarring of all—what if I switched genres? That’s something I’ve been doing a lot lately. Switching genres when planning a story to see what it would look like. Sometimes the results are weird and laughable, and sometimes they’re brilliant.

Or maybe they should all be sheep. 

Steampunk was the first genre to come to mind. I’d never written anything Steampunk before, but my love for science fiction and historical fiction could make it work. Instead of a robot, I would have an automaton. The ray gun adopted as the main character embarks on her quest would be a clockwork and steam powered pistol, complete with gears. The setting would have Victorian elegance—with all the action of a space opera. My novel was turning into something different, something beautiful and unique—and I liked it. 

My tips for story crafting are simple. Experiment. Don’t let yourself settle for good enough. And don’t be afraid to challenge what you’ve assumed this whole time—ewe never know when you’ll discover a goldmine!

Automaton
by Amanda Clemmere
book, 107 pages
May 22nd 2015
Last Thursday I awoke to learn that I died almost a month ago. I was rebuilt from a highly experimental process of clockwork and cloning, and I don’t know why. One man knows my secret—my creator, the lead of the Leona Scientific Laboratory. He says knowledge isn’t free. I say that unless I know why I’m here, he’s the one who’s going to pay.

My friend Jack Beasley has offered his help. He has inside knowledge about the laboratory and the man who runs it. I think he also knows something about me that he isn’t sharing. There’s no one I can trust now. Not even myself.

About the Author:
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Hello! I’m Amanda Clemmer, and writing lengthier fiction has been a passion of mine for most of my life. I graduated with a degree in English Literature and Writing from the University of Northwestern in St. Paul in 2012, and immediately afterward became a writer/contributor (and later managing editor) of Comicbooked.com.

After getting engaged in 2013 and moving halfway across the country, I decided to take my fiction writing more seriously. I left my position at Comic Booked to focus on my more immediate projects and wedding planning. In that time I realized that I had several different fiction projects that I was working on, but I needed to find ways to motivate myself to finish them, edit them, and make them shine!

Book Review: College Arcane (A Novel from the Demon Accords #8) by John Conroe

College Arcane (A Novel from the Demon Accords #8)
by John Conroe
Pages: 479
April 8, 2015
Book 8 of the Demon Accords. College. A time of transition from youth to young adulthood. New lessons, new responsibilities, new distractions. A period of life treasured by most. Unless you happen to attend an institute of higher learning where the bullies are werewolves, the teachers are sadists, and the pretty girls are all deadly. A school like that demands a special kind of student, someone with the skills and power to survive. Someone like Declan O'Carroll.

Declan has been hiding who he is a very long time. Now that he is at College Arcane that may be a little hard to do especially since the staff and his other class mates continually keep underestimating him. He has power and he sure isn’t going to let some bully prove otherwise.

This is one of my favorite series and Conroe did not disappoint me. College Arcane introduces some new characters and lets us learn more about a few from previous books. I love when an author can keep a story going and expand it and that is just what Conroe was able to do with College Arcane. Very imaginative and fun with a little love thrown in for us romantics. Can’t wait for his next book. If you haven't read this series than I highly recommend you invent the time because it is so worth it!

Getting 5 sheep

Denise B

About the Author:
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Conroe wrote his first readable novel, God Touched, right after finishing his daughter's copy of Twilight and muttering: "Vampires don't farging sparkle!"

With seven more books in the series and a stand alone novel (Black Frost), he doesn't seem to be slowing down. He cut his reading teeth on the likes of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, JRR Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, and H. Beam Piper.

Financial professional by day and author by night (actually by morning), he bangs out his stories with fingers that are usually sore from forge burns or getting beat up at the dojo.