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May 19, 2014

Empower: Fight Like A Girl


Hi! May is Lupus Awareness Month and I wanted to share a little about 'Empower: Fight Like A Girl'. All profits will be donated to the Lupus Foundation of America to help solve the cruel mystery of lupus, so if you can help, please do!

Empower: Fight Like A GirlWomen of TV have united against lupus! Presenting Empower: Fight Like A Girl, a special collection of short stories by top women writers from some of your favorite shows, including: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Family Guy, Person of Interest, Grimm, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Law & Order: SVU, Star Trek: Voyager, Eureka, Twisted, The 100, Malcolm in the Middle, Millennium, Being Human, The Shield, Castle, Chuck, Gilmore Girls, and Game of Thrones. In this anthology, you'll discover supernatural thrillers, crime mysteries, horror, comedies, and more.


Praise for Empower: Fight Like A Girl

"Even non-girls will feel empowered by these stories about ordinary, flawed characters finding their own strengths. Highly entertaining and original."
Lee Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Chase and King City, whose mother lost her hearing to lupus.

May 14, 2014

About some changes....

As you can see, I changed the layout! I loved my previous purple layout but I wanted a change. Of course I'm not a blog designer so the new layout is going to be pretty simple. Simple works for me, I like simple!

It's still a work in progress until I'm happy.... I'm experimenting a little bit and playing with creativity so maybe it will change more. :)

Recommendations are welcome!

May 12, 2014

Book Review: Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz

Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz
Published November 1st 2012 by Razorbill
Age: Young Adult
SOLVING CRIME, ONE FACIAL EXPRESSION AT A TIME

Colin Fischer cannot stand to be touched. He does not like the color blue. He needs index cards to recognize facial expressions.

But when a gun is found in the school cafeteria, interrupting a female classmate's birthday celebration, Colin is the only for the investigation. It's up to him to prove that Wayne Connelly, the school bully and Colin's frequent tormenter, didn't bring the gun to school. After all, Wayne didn't have frosting on his hands, and there was white chocolate frosting found on the grip of the smoking gun...

Colin Fischer is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, and his story--as told by the screenwriters of X-Men: First Class and Thor--is perfect for readers who have graduated from Encyclopedia Brown and who are ready to consider the greatest mystery of all: what other people are thinking and feeling.
I discovered this book by luck, and the spanish title made me curious. It sounded a little bit like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but I loved that book so....

I liked the writing very much. Colin gives us little details for us to understand how is his world. Colin has Asperger and is just starting a new year at school. It's going to be difficult being alone at school while most of his classmates reject him or are cruel to him.

Trying to understand his classmates, there is gunfire at the cafeteria and he, as a Sherlock Holmes' fan, can't stop himself from investigating who is the real responsible.

I liked Colin's evolution. It was sometimes worrying and stressing to read Colin getting in trouble, but I thought it was realistic how he made new friends (and enemies) along the way, and his releationship with his family: parents who don't really know what to do with him, and a sometimes cruel and jealous brother.

I'd recommend Colin Fischer to everyone who wants to read young adult mystery with a peculiar protagonists. Easy to read, only took me a couple of hours, the mystery is not super complicated but has some twists and leaves more for a next book.


More about this book at Goodreads, Amazon.

May 10, 2014

Spotlight & Giveaway: Prejudice Meets Pride by Rachael Anderson

Prejudice Meets Pride by Rachael Anderson Book Cover
After years of pinching pennies and struggling to get through art school, Emma Makie’s hard work finally pays off with the offer of a dream job. But when tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to make a cross-country move to Colorado Springs to take temporary custody of her two nieces. She has no money, no job prospects, and no idea how to be a mother to two little girls, but she isn’t about to let that stop her. Nor is she about to accept the help of Kevin Grantham, her handsome new neighbor, who seems to think she’s incapable of doing anything on her own.
Fun, compelling, and romantic, Prejudice Meets Pride is the story of a guy who thinks he has it all figured out and a girl who isn't afraid to show him that he doesn't. It’s about learning what it means to trust, figuring out how to give and to take, and realizing that not everyone gets to pick the person they fall in love with. Sometimes, love picks them.
Coming Soon...

Coming Next in the Meet Your Match Series

Prejudice Meets Pride Tour Banner

Author Rachael Anderson


Rachael AndersonA USA Today bestselling author, Rachael Anderson is the mother of four and is pretty good at breaking up fights, or at least sending guilty parties to their rooms. She can't sing, doesn't dance, and despises tragedies. But she recently figured out how yeast works and can now make homemade bread, which she is really good at eating.


book blast button

Blast Giveaway

$50 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash. Ends 5/25/14
Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

May 1, 2014

The Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour: The Bay of Angels (Guest Post & Giveaway)

Please welcome Hannah Fielding, author of The Echoes of Love, a romance novel set in Italy. I'd love to visit Italy someday, and that is why I was so excited about her guest post (and the first post of The Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour!). Hannah is going to talk a little bit about a legend of angels and demons in this beautiful country, so keep reading and don't forget to enter the giveaway....thank you Hannah!

The Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour

For the love of legends

For me, researching a book is just as enjoyable as writing it. I set each of my novels in a passionate, romantic country, and so that I can really transport my readers there, I immerse myself in the setting: its history, its scenery, its cuisine, its culture. Top of my research list are local legends – I love colourful, age-old stories; the more fantastical, the better!

Since I was a young girl, tucked up in bed and listening avidly to my governess weaving bedtime tales, I have loved legends. Fairytales too, of course – they sowed the seeds for my romantic nature – but legends fascinated me most: those that have stood the test of time, that offer intriguing explanations for the modern world, that are at once fantastical and yet, somehow, believable.

My novel The Echoes of Love, set in Venice, Tuscany and Sardinia, incorporates various Italian legends – told by the hero, Paolo, who is a raconteur extraordinaire, to my heroine, Venetia – and in my research files I collected many more. What better way to share some of these most romantic, magical and atmospheric tales but in this Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour!

Today, I’m taking you to the beautiful island of Sardinia, where the flames of attraction in Venetia and Paolo are kindled…

The Bay of Angels

Have you ever visited the port of Cagliari? There, as you enter the port, you can’t miss a large promontory framed against the Tyrrhenian Sea. A fluke of nature? Perhaps. Or perhaps, as Paolo suggests in The Echoes of Love, it is a long-standing symbol of the eternal battle between heaven and hell:

‘There’s a very famous legend about the Gulf of Cagliari, which is called “Bay of Angels”. As the visitor comes into the Port of Cagliari from the sea, the first image that appears is the promontory of St Elias. Its most distinctive aspect is a limestone ridge at the top of the hill. It’s called “Sella del Diavolo”. Legend has it that after the seven days of Creation, God decided to give the angels a land where they could live in peace, with the condition that it had to be a place where there were no wars or evil. The angels searched long, until they came down on our earth and discovered the Gulf of Cagliari with its emerald sea, its green vegetation, and the pure white of its cliffs.

“Here is our uncontaminated place,” the Archangel Gabriel said, “we will make it our city of love and peace.”

‘The angels settled in what is known today as the Bay of Angels. But this prompted the envy and anger of Lucifer who, before he was cast out of Heaven, rode his horse and, with his army of demons, declared war on the angels. The angels then brought about a storm, creating big waves in the Gulf and they made Lucifer fall off his horse. Archangel Gabriel rose into the air with his shining sword and the defeated Lucifer in fury threw off the saddle of his black steed. The saddle immediately petrified, forming the promontory known today as “The Devil’s Saddle”. ’

I love the idea of this picturesque idyll that holds evil at bay, a true haven for those seeking peace. The perfect backdrop for a romantic retreat!

Hannah Fielding
Hannah Fielding is a novelist, a dreamer, a traveller, a mother, a wife and an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: she writes full time, splitting her time between her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breathtaking views of the Mediterranean.

Her first novel, Burning Embers, is a vivid, evocative love story set against the backdrop of tempestuous and wild Kenya of the 1970s, reviewed by one newspaper as ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’. Her new novel, The Echoes of Love, is a story of passion, betrayal and intrigue set in the romantic and mysterious city of Venice and the beautiful landscape of Tuscany. It was picked by The Sun newspaper as one of the most romantic books ever written.
www.hannahfielding.net | @fieldinghannah | Facebook | Goodreads

Keep reading to enter the giveaway!

The Book: The Echoes of Love

The Echoes of Love by Hannah Fielding
Seduction, passion and the chance for new love.
 A terrible truth that will change two lives forever.
Venetia Aston-Montagu has escaped to Italy’s most captivating city to work in her godmother’s architectural practice, putting a lost love behind her. For the past ten years she has built a fortress around her heart, only to find the walls tumbling down one night of the carnival when she is rescued from masked assailants by an enigmatic stranger, Paolo Barone.
Drawn to the powerfully seductive Paolo, despite warnings of his Don Juan reputation and rumours that he keeps a mistress, Venetia can’t help being caught up in the smouldering passion that ignites between them.
When she finds herself assigned to a project at his magnificent home deep in the Tuscan countryside, Venetia must not only contend with a beautiful young rival, but also come face to face with the dark shadows of Paolo’s past that threaten to come between them.
Can Venetia trust that love will triumph, even over her own demons? Or will Paolo’s carefully guarded, devastating secret tear them apart forever?
Book Trailer | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Follow the tour

If you’d like to read more Italian legends like this, and keep up with the accompanying Very Venetian giveaway in which lots of romantic goodies are up for grabs, follow the Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour this month:

1 May: Oh My Books!
7 May: Book Briefs
21 May: Simply Ali

WIN in the Very Venetian giveaway

At least one reader commenting on this post will WIN in the Very Venetian giveaway, with prizes totalling more than $600:


Prizes
5 signed hardback copies of The Echoes of Love + 10 signed paperback copies of The Echoes of Love + 3 romantic Venetian masks + Lots of fabulously colourful Murano glass goodies: 16 pendants, 2 bracelets, 2 paperweights and a vase

Anyone who comments on a blog tour stop post will be entered in the giveaway. Simply comment below, including your email address so that Hannah can contact the winners. Good luck! Ende June, 1.