Wooded Discovery by B.B. Swan blitz with giveaway
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Wooded Discovery
B.B. Swan
(Spellbound Chronicles, #1)
Publication date: April 29th 2022
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Previously published as Out of the Woods by B.B. Swann.
His senior year just turned magical. Now if only he can win his crush’s affections without getting killed.
Seventeen-year-old Zaidyn Mitchell would rather not be weird. But nothing can be stranger than when the self-proclaimed bookworm wakes up one night, floating several feet above his bed. Still desperate to fit in after his parents unceremoniously unlocked his abilities, all Zaidyn wants is to date the girl of his dreams.
With his magic a little uncontrolled, the budding wizard finally makes a move and promises his beautiful classmate to help stop a construction project from destroying the nearby woods. But when an unknown force attacks and tries to separate them, Zaidyn fears this supernatural world is about to send them to their doom.
Can the teen would-be hero find a way to save them both?
Wooded Discovery is the delightful first book in the Spellbound Chronicles YA urban fantasy series. If you like humor and drama, fun twists and turns, and a dash of danger and romance, then you’ll love B.B. Swann’s coming-of-age adventure.
Buy Wooded Discovery to awaken hidden enchantment today!
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EXCERPT:
The towel I’m wrapped in smells like Mom’s favorite mountain-scented fabric softener. A clean air smell drifts from the wet terry cloth, mixing with the biting scent of chlorine from the pool water in my hair. Both normal smells. Both familiar. Neither helps me relax after hearing their detailed description of what I am.
Mom sits across from me at our kitchen table, sipping from her favorite purple coffee cup. Dad sits in the chair next to Mom. Take out the trash. Pick up your dirty underwear. Oh, by the way, you’re a wizard.
“Congratulations.” Dad toasts me with his cup. “You’ve transmogrified.”
He slurps his coffee. The clock ticks on the wall over the counter. The refrigerator hums as the ice maker kicks on.
And I’m a wizard.
(Note to self: J.K. Rowling was full of crap. Finding out you’re a wizard sucks.)
“What does that mean?” More Latin?
“Changed, honey, into a wizard.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Mom crosses her legs and kicks her foot back and forth, wiggling the table with her. Dad shakes, too, bouncing his knees. Vibrations from their movements travel through the wooden tabletop. Like they’re five and Christmas has come early.
All I want is to wake up from this weird dream, finish high school, and go away to college.
But as much as I want to argue with them, I can’t. Mom froze my body with her mind. I jumped out a window and flew. Dad flew after me. On a scale of one-to-ten, that’s enough weirdness to score a one hundred on the weird-shit-o-meter. Finding out I’m a wizard sounds less insane by comparison.
Author Bio:
BB Swann writes books for the young and the young at heart. She is devoted to giving her readers characters they can relate to who overcome their struggles with hope, love, and sometimes a touch (or two) of magic. After twenty-seven years of teaching, she now represents authors as a literary agent with The Purcell Agency and helps others achieve their dreams—no magic required, but she does feel like a fairy godmother at times. She loves to hear from readers. Visit her website at http://www.bbswann.com or find her on social media from her Linktree here.
GIVEAWAY!
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We Love to Entertain by Sarah Strohmeyer #bookreview #mystery #suspense
**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**
Title: We Love to Entertain
Author: Sarah Strohmeyer
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Publication Date: April 25, 2023
Page Count: 338
My rating: 2 1/2 stars
About the book:
From the bestselling author of Do I Know You? comesa fast-paced, riveting psychological thriller that skewers our modern obsession with home renovation and fixer-uppers.
Holly and Robert Barron are attractive young real-estate investors and contestants in a competition run by To the Manor Build, the nation’s most popular home renovation app. With millions in product endorsements and online followers at stake, they’re rehabbing a Vermont home they scored at a bargain price into a chic hilltop estate ideal for entertaining.
It’s all camera-ready laughs and debates over herringbone tile until Holly and Robert go missing hours after their picture-perfect wedding—leaving behind a bloody trail.
Suspicion falls quickly on Erika Turnbull, the Barrons’ twenty-something assistant—eager, efficient, and secretly in love with Robert. Did Erika let her misguided passion turn her into a murderer? So claim the townsfolk of Snowden, Vermont, who still haven’t forgiven her for a tragic accident back in high school.
But Erika’s mother, Kim, is not about to let small-town gossip and a cop with an axe to grind destroy her daughter—again. With time running out and their own lives at risk, the mother-daughter duo set out to find what really happened to the Barrons. First, though, they’ll have to confront the vengeful former owner of Holly and Robert’s estate, ruthless reality-show producers, and a secret that might bring their own house down.
Fast-paced, full of humor, and undeniably twisty, We Love to Entertain is another winner from Sarah Strohmeyer.
We Love to Entertain by Sarah Strohmeyer is marketed as a psychological thriller but I found this one fell more into suspense category. The story in We Love to Entertain is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters as the story goes along.
Holly and Robert Barron are reality TV real-estate investors who have entered a competition with their current rehab project. The pair are also getting married in front of the cameras but after the wedding Holly and Robert Barron disappear leaving their assistant, Erika Turnbull, who has had a crush on her boss the only suspect in the disappearance.
We Love to Entertain by Sarah Strohmeyer is one of those books that I went into it expecting something different than what I found. Sometimes that’s not so bad sometimes it’s disappointing which is where this one leaned towards. The story was also slower than what I expected and I never really connected with the characters the way I expected too leaving this one in the average area at two and a half stars for me.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Find this book online:
About the author:
Sarah Strohmeyer is the award-winning, nationally bestselling author of eighteen novels for adults and young adults, including the Bubbles Yablonsky mystery series and The Cinderella Pact which was made into the Lifetime movie, Lying To Be Perfect. A former newspaper reporter, she is currently the elected Town Clerk of Middlesex, Vermont where she lives with her husband and cat. Two adult children occasionally drop by. For more info or to contact, please go to sarahstrohmeyer.com.
The Last Dragonfly by E.G. Moore blitz with giveaway
**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**
The Last Dragonfly
E.G. Moore
Publication date: April 25th 2023
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
A magical dragonfly. A science-focused society. Only one can bring the land and her people from the brink of death.
Sixteen-year-old Governor’s daughter Etoiny longs to throw off her upper-class responsibilities and become the first female scientist of Taachat. When she accidentally wounds a thought-extinct dragonfly, she must race to find a bygone cure in order to present it to the Science Society for admission.
While she researches remedies for the dragonfly, she and the creature form a bond that can’t be explained by science. The dragonfly also revives dying blooms all Taachat’s citizens need to stay alive for the next three-year cycle. Her dead mother’s missing journal could offer insight if only Etoiny could find it.
She soon realizes two powerful people are on the hunt for the dragonfly and its healing ability. Just as Etoiny finds a way to save her dragonfly, she discovers horrors her father has allowed in the underbelly of Taachat and it makes her question who she wants to be.
Etoiny must decide whether to claim her place as a renowned scientist by offering the creature for experimentation or sacrifice her dream, team up with her animal friend, and fulfill their magical destiny.
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EXCERPT:
She strode around the fence and out onto the orchard’s ground. The creature in her pocket shifted around and around and a growly squeak sounded. Etoiny lifted a pocket flap and peeked inside. The creature had curled up and growled again at the streak of light shining in. Streaks of weak steam puffed out.
“Please give me some space to think,” she told Morem without looking up. “Half a dozen steps, if you please.”
“No.”
Etoiny snapped her head up at Morem’s response.
“I need to know what’s going on with that thing.” He peered at her pocket. “You’ve not been yourself. Sure, you’ve always spent large amounts of time in your room, and this must be difficult for you.” He gestured to the figures walking away from them. “But you’ve brushed off those that care about you, hardly seen the sun, and it’s been two days since you’ve asked me
for our daily riddle.” Hurt leached into the last part of his sentence. He bumped her elbow with his fingertips and directed her to a far blossom tree. “I discovered it with you. Don’t you trust me?” He’d not said so many words in one speech in a long time.
“Of course, I trust you. I just wanted to figure some things out before I told anyone about it. Before the Science Society’s admittance presentations.”
Morem stood straighter. “And have you?”
Etoiny glanced at her shuddering pocket. “Not a lot.”
“Don’t you think that if the two of us looked, we’d cover more ground? Gather more information?”
“Perhaps.” Etoiny drew out the word, thinking hard about Jaya’s actions. “Although, I have cause to believe someone knows and is trying to steal it.”
“Well, we won’t let them.”
Morem’s rich brown eyes and stoic expression swelled guilt in her chest.
Author Bio:
E.G. Moore is an award-winning poet and children book author, as well as a freelance writer and editor. Her essay Wearing Teresa’s Russet Boots was featured in Hope Paige’s Anthology on loss Breaking Sad in 2017, and she had several pieces published in an anthology honoring a local historic building in 2018. When she’s not telling “Mommy Made stories” to her three children or awaiting feedback for her latest manuscript, she can be found off-roading in North Idaho, baking something scrumptious, or on a plot-and-soul refreshing hike.
Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / TikTok
GIVEAWAY!
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We Are All Villains Here by Quinn Blackbird blitz with giveaway
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We Are All Villains Here
Quinn Blackbird
Publication date: July 1st 2023
Genres: Adult, Dark Romance, Romance, Thriller
From the author of the DARK FAE comes this *dark slasher romance* in vein of our beloved 90s Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Sailors Bay has a bit of a problem… a serial killer problem.
What should be a sleepy old fishing town—a place so silent and forgotten that it slips off the map—has murder in the air and secrets poisoning the heart of the town.
Here… no one is safe when a masked killer starts terrorising the town.
Blood Hood is coming after them: Billie—from the wrong side of the tracks—and her friends… The ones who have a deadly secret of their own, one they kept for seven years… a dark secret that Blood Hood seems to know all about.
One by one, Blood Hood hunts them down to avenge the murder that started it all.
And Billie finds herself running from Blood Hood as well as the love of her life and ex, Dalton.
With slashed-up bodies piling up all over, Billie flees more than a masked killer… Dalton hunts her to every corner of Sailors Bay, intent on stealing her back… whether she wants him to or not.
Love is meant to flourish. Poison corrupts.
Poison is all I know.
We are all villains here….
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EXCERPT:
Preston’s lashes lower over coal-black eyes. His pink upper lip curls as he rounds on her.
Billie just watches him.
Her eyes are dead… or they should be, because that’s how she feels inside… but then she feels the warmth of a tear run down her cheek.
She doesn’t so much as swat at the tear.
It’s too late to try and hide it. He’s seen it—his gaze shifts to her cheek for a mere millisecond before he comes to a stop in front of her.
Her back presses a tad harder against the refrigerator as his hand presses against it, right next to her head. “So,” he repeats, towering over her, “why don’t you start telling me the truth, Billie? You owe me that.”
Billie’s lips twitch with a smirk.
Liquid courage? Pushing him away? She doesn’t know anymore.
And yet—
She smirks. “I don’t owe you shit, you rich entitled—”
It happens too fast for her to see it coming. But in a blink, his hand pulls back from the fridge, clenches into a fist, then smashes right into that same spot, right next her head.
Billie flinches. “What the fu—”
“You owe me everything!” he shouts down at her.
In this moment, his want to break her, it was more than a passing craving, a fleeting urge. Rather it was surging up inside of him, blood boiling and crashing like furious waves, an all-consuming need.
She could read it in his blazing eyes.
He adds darkly, “And I owe you everything I fucking have, you selfish bitch, you good-for-nothing alky.”
Her eyes widen, turn wild with the same rage that snarls her lips. If he braces himself for rotten, rancid words aimed his way, then he braces himself wrong.
Billie jerks her head forward—not with a headbutt, with a spit.
She spits right at him, and the gloss of it catches his cheek.
Preston’s lashes lower, his eyes shut.
He’s still for a beat, a statue with a fist pushing into the refrigerator door, his other hand fisted at his side, and a wad of spit on his cheek.
He lifts his hand.
Slowly, he opens his eyes—and looks right into her fucking soul with the kinda promises, the kinda threats that only the devil can make.
This time, she can’t fight her tremble. It runs up her spine, but she lifts her chin and meets his stare dead-on.
Bring it.
Instead, he touches his fingers to the spit… He wipes it away in one swift move, then brings it to his mouth.
Their eyes stay locked.
Her jaw tenses—
And he licks his fingertips.
Billie and Preston have had fights before. Some real nasty shit. Wouldn’t be a lie to say she’s hit him with a vase or two before. Or tried to clip him with her truck.
Some real nasty shit, she’s never denied that.
But never… never before… has she been afraid of him.
Not like this.
She swallows, hard. A lump in her throat, swelling. Tears in her defiant eyes, flowing.
Billie flinches with a yelp—
Preston snatches her by the neck.
With one hand, he pins her against the refrigerator. His body shoves against hers, his other hand grabbing the meat of her thigh, hard. Her skin screams in protest, but before she can utter a word, he’s hiking her leg over his hip and crashing his mouth down on hers.
Her shout is muffled, almost silenced, by his mouth. A kiss that tastes of her tears and his rage—of their poison.
A poison she’s so fucking addicted to.
Teeth aching, and the back of her head pulsating against the hard, dented refrigerator, Billie hits out at him. One hard fist to the side of his head.
It doesn’t stop him. He only shoves her up the cold door, off the floor, and his mouth twists against hers.
“I fucking hate you,” he growls and—hand abandoning her thigh—reaches down for her pajama shorts. With a single tug, he rips them apart, between her legs, right at her core.
And jolts of electricity fire through her.
Billie gasps something breathy into his mouth.
Tell me again.
Tell me how much you hate me.
Tell me anything but love.
Author Bio:
Quinn Blackbird is a dog-mum, full-time cog in the machine and full-time book lover.
When not writing and daydreaming, Quinn is snuggling on the couch with her three doggos.
If her love of literature could be matched, it would be by film.
Ask her about her list of underrated films… you’ll be there all night.
She has always been fascinated by the anti-hero, and often found herself rooting for the villains (their speeches are making a lot of sense, don’t lie).
Creepy dreams (nightmares at times) are the cause of a lot of Blackbird’s books – thanks to overactive imaginations!
GIVEAWAY!
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The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst #bookreview #YA #horror #thriller #survival
**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**
Title: The Lake House
Author: Sarah Beth Durst
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: April 25, 2023
Page Count: 368
My rating: 4 stars
About the book:
Yellowjackets meets One of Us Is Lying in this masterful survival thriller from award-winningauthor Sarah Beth Durst.
Claire’s grown up triple-checking locks. Counting her steps. Second-guessing every decision. It’s just how she’s wired—her worst-case scenarios never actually come true.
Until she arrives at an off-the-grid summer camp to find a blackened, burned husk instead of a lodge—and no survivors, except her and two other late arrivals: Reyva and Mariana.
When the three girls find a dead body in the woods, they realize none of this is an accident. Someone, something, is hunting them. Something that hides in the shadows.
Something that refuses to let them leave.
The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst is a creepy and thrilling young adult horror novel. The story in The Lake House is one that was told by changing the point of view between the characters in the novel.
Teenagers Claire, Reyva and Mariana all thought they were heading to a remote summer camp in the wilderness. After being dropped off by the boat however they find things are not the happy camp they expected, a fire has occurred and they stumble upon a dead body. The girls will have to ban together to survive what else is waiting for them.
The Lake House by Sarah Beth Durst was a quick and creepy read, definitely more on the horror side than thriller, or more chills than thrills for the most part. The girls in the book all had their own personalities and quirks to get to know which made them stand out while reading. The story quickly takes a dark turn and the pages kept turning waiting to see how it would all resolved. Not the first book I’ve read from this author and will certainly not be the last either.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
Find this book online:
About the author:
Sarah Beth Durst is the award-winning author of over twenty books for adults, teens, and kids, including THE BONE MAKER, DRINK SLAY LOVE, and SPARK. She won an American Library Association Alex Award and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and has been a finalist for SFWA’s Andre Norton Nebula Award three times. She is a graduate of Princeton University and lives in Stony Brook, New York, with her husband, her children, and her ill-mannered cat. For more information, visit her at sarahbethdurst.com.
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