Monday, April 22, 2013

The Space Between

 3 of 5 stars false
When Drake started the night at his father’s campaign fundraiser, he never imagined he’d end it being conned into buying drugs on the West Side. Losing high-stakes poker has its consequences, but he’d repeatedly face them just to hear Lacey Douglas sing. Drake sees Lacey light up the stage, and he has to have her. But his intentions for being on her side of town turn out to be the reason he can’t. Chicago native Lacey has dreams of the opera, but life has its obstacles. Lacey has come to know her hardships as part of living in the real world and accepts them fully. When Lacey meets the intense and invigorating Drake, a fire is lit inside her, unleashing those dreams again. Two paths that should have never crossed prove to create the exact pairing the other needs. But when their worlds take time to catch up, everything they have is tested. Finding the space between the two sides that challenge them will be hard, but it’s the only place that will keep them together. The Space Between is a new adult contemporary romance.  

Review

****This book was part of a blog tour I received a copy for my honest review****
Drake is the adopted rich son of a father in politics, he is bored with the constant superficial parties and seizes any chance he can to escape. When he slips out of a party and joins a poker game he doesn't realize that losing the game will change his life. Lacey has a had a hard life, she takes care of her sick mother, she gives up her own dreams to make sure her mother is taken care of. I liked this book, Drakes changes throughout the book had me going from not liking him to finding him endearing. Lacey had her moments when she seemed like a shrew but overall she was a pretty levelheaded main female character. While the whole rich boy meets poor girl story has been done many times before, the author makes it her own. The problems that the couple had because of people prejudice seemed realistic. There were some inconsistency problems when it came to the characters, just little things that seemed odd. It could use a little bit more editing and some of the words were a little overused. The Space Between is a good read and this author is definitely talented, if you are looking for a book that deals with real issues and has a good ending then I would read this one.


  

Post by:  work_at_home_moms_zpsdf8e4cf4-1_zpsc183cc39

Games Of Fate 18+

I.O. Book Tours 
Links: Goodreads Amazon Barnes & Noble


Games of Fate: A New Adult Urban Fantasy with Strong Romantic Elements  (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1)
 3 of 5 stars false
Rysa Torres misses information. Loses concentration. Her attention problems randomize her life but she pushes forward anyway, doing the best she can—until monsters activate a part of her she didn’t know she had.
As visions of the future whip inside her head, Rysa realizes the truth: She’s a Fate.
And she will set fire to the world.
All her options explode. Her family ripped away, what little control she had destroyed, Rysa is left with one choice: Will she die to stop the coming flames, or will she allow the man and the dragon she loves to die in her place?

Games of Fate begins Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon, a New Adult Urban Fantasy series with Strong Romantic Elements
by Kris Austen Radcliffe. Set in the open spaces of America, the series takes Rysa and Ladon—and Ladon’s companion beast, Dragon—through a landscape punctuated by unfamiliar creatures: Fates with the ability to see past, present, and future. Ghouls called Burners who devour with fire and acid. Shifters who shape much more than their bodies. And two dragons who speak with color and pattern.
It starts here, now, with one young woman’s fight against a burning future—and against the death of the man she loves
. Contains Adult Sexual Content and some violent imagery

Review


****This book was part of a blog tour I received a copy for my honest review****
This book starts of with a bang and just doesn't stopped.
Rysa Torres things she is just an ordinary student, well as ordinary as she can be with ADHD. She struggles through life unable to remain focused without her medication. All of a sudden she is attacked and she finds out she is a Fate. She is flung into an insane world of shifters, burners and fates. She realises that she has been lied too and kept in the dark and that she is a pawn that could mean the end of the world. Landon and Dragon are the only ones who seem to be able to help her, but Rysa struggles with her feelings for this pair, especially when she realises she may be the end of them.
This is the first book in a new urban fantasy series and the underlying story is truly original and fascinating. Normally there is a lot of world building in the first of a series and that is no different in Games of Fate. There is a lot of information given to you in this book, so much that at times I struggled to formulate what the book was telling me in my mind. Rysa is a fate, but she is a singular, which means she can see the past, present and future. The scenes with Rysa were what I mostly found difficult to distinguish between, as most times I was unsure if it was present day or a vision. Sometimes in books these things are outlined with italics, but not in this book.
In saying this I did really enjoy the story and was eager to find out exactly what was going on. It is a fast paced book, which made the book fly by. I enjoyed the different characters and the relationship between Rysa, Landon and Dragon was interesting. There could have been a bit more romance between the couple for me, as I did like it when it focused on them and their growing relationship.
This is a solid start to what could be a really great series, I will be checking out the next book. 
Photobucket  
 
Post by:  

Going Under




Brooke Wright has only two goals her senior year at Charity Run High School: stay out of trouble and learn to forgive herself for the past. Forgiveness proves elusive, and trouble finds her anyway when she discovers a secret club at school connected to the death of her best friend. She learns that swim team members participate in a “Fantasy Slut League,” scoring points for their sexual acts with unsuspecting girls. Brooke, wracked with guilt over her friend’s death, decides to infiltrate the league by becoming one of the “unsuspecting girls,” and exact revenge on the boys who stole away her best friend. An unexpected romance complicates her plans, and her dogged pursuit of justice turns her reckless as she underestimates just how far the boys will go to keep their sex club a secret. (This is a New Adult fiction book with mature themes. It contains graphic sex and language and a description of sexual violence.)












Sponge

People like to ask me where I get my ideas for stories.
“From you,” I reply, and they look confused. And then the confusion turns to suspicion.
“Oh really?” they ask tentatively.
“Mmhmm,” I reply. I drum my fingers on my writer’s notebook. (Well, okay. I don’t have a writer’s notebook. I store everything in my head. So I drum my fingers on my head.)
“Sooo . . . what do you have in there?” they ask.
“You’ll find out in my next book.” I smile and wink.
They’re getting scared. “Were you at Kroger last week? Did you see me in the bakery? I swear to God I didn’t do what you think you saw! It was somebody else! Please don’t put that in your book!!”
“Oh, I saw you all right. And it’s sooo going in my book,” I reply.
“You writers!” they scream. “You think you can slap a disclaimer on your books and write whatever you want!”
“Can’t we?”
The truth may shock you. It may scare you. It may piss you off. But your favorite writer? Well, she most likely got some ideas in that favorite book of yours from spying on people. Maybe even you. That’s right. Flat-out, creepy-but-trying-to-look-nonchalant-about-it spying. And it happens every second of the day. You’re just not aware of it.
We’re sponges, see? We soak up everything we come into contact with. Smells, sounds, tastes, conversations. We store these tidbits away (either in our heads or in notebooks) to later develop into characters or plot ideas. Because the bottom line is this: we can only infuse so much of ourselves and our experiences into our characters and stories before they turn utterly tedious or narcissistic. One of my favorite things about Brooke in Going Under is that (aside from her foul mouth) that girl is nothing like me. (And for the record, I like her a whole lot better!)
So who do I spy on? Where do my ideas come from? Well, all over. I’m acquiring ideas all the time (and I should really start writing them down instead of relying so heavily on my memory). One I’ve been trying to work into a story for a long time comes from an acquaintance who described a church for me she used to attend. One located in the deep South. One with a preacher who liked to stand up at the pulpit and call people out for their transgressions during the service:
“Pete! Jimmy saw you down at Pumpkin’s Bar last Friday! Now we all of us in this congregation know that you have an alcohol problem, son! So what were you doin’ at Pumpkin’s?”
All eyes on Pete. Poor, poor Pete.
“Darlene! I done told you to stop gossipin’ about Jimmy’s wife behind her back!”
Jimmy’s wife looks outraged.
“If you’ve got somethin’ to say to her, say it to her face! But make sure you say it in a loving, Christ-like way, of course.”
Yeah, so I’m trying to work that in because it’s too hilarious to be true, but it’s so freaking true. And stories like these are precisely why writers spy. We soak up these events, these real-life people/caricatures, these conversations because they make delicious stories. They add what our imaginations can’t. And when you write realistic fiction, you need that. The world around you becomes your candy store of ideas, and you begin to discover that reality is pretty crazy.
I love reading reviews of realistic fiction that state, “Oh, that isn’t very realistic,” or “That could never happen.” Wanna make a bet? That story you just read is a collection of soaked up people and events sprinkled with the ideas of the author. It may not be one hundred percent true, but it’s pretty darn close.
So the next time you’re out and about, you might want to look over your shoulder. Go ahead and let your eyes dart around. Think twice before you do what you’re just about to do. Because we’re watching. The notebooks are open, people. We’re watching and we’re jotting.
Totally. Creepy. 




S. Walden used to teach English before making the best decision of her life by becoming a full-time writer. She lives in Georgia with her very supportive husband who prefers physics textbooks over fiction and has a difficult time understanding why her characters must have personality flaws. She is wary of small children, so she has a Westie instead. Her dreams include raising chickens and owning and operating a beachside inn on the Gulf Coast (chickens included). When she's not writing, she's thinking about it. She loves her fans and loves to hear from them. Email her at swaldenauthor@hotmail.com and follow her blog at http://swaldenauthor.blogspot.com where you can get up-to-date information on her current projects.
Links: Website Goodreads Facebook Twitter 










Post by:  work_at_home_moms_zpsdf8e4cf4-1_zpsc183cc39