Are you an Author – 10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours

I host for Pump Up Your Books and when Dorothy Thompson gave me the opportunity to share 10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours, I thought this would be a great opportunity to give a little back.

I got my start with Virtual Tours as a great way to find new books and new authors I am unfamiliar with and Pump Up Your Books is fabulous.

I hope you enjoy this and find something that will help you increase your reviews and sales.

 

 

 

10 Things You Need to Know About Virtual Book Tours

By Dorothy Thompson, CEO & Founder of Pump Up Your Book

By now, most authors know what virtual book tours are or at least have heard of them.  They’re that wonderful marketing tool that should be a must have in every new book’s campaign.  With each new book I write, I’m making a game plan before the book is even published and a virtual book tour is the first promotional venue on that list.

While most of us know what they are, there are still a few new authors who might have heard of them but have no idea what they involve.  I give you my top 10 things you need to know about virtual book tours so that you will know what to expect.

  1. Virtual book tours are the BEST way to get the MOST online exposure for your book.
    Not only are you presenting your book and yourself to thousands of people, all of your interviews, guest posts and reviews are archived which means months down the road, you’re still selling your book because of that one tour.
  2. Virtual book tours ARE a lot of work. Not only are you searching for the perfect blogs to host you, you are acting as the middle man between you and the blogger unless you are using a paid service such as Pump Up Your Book who will do all the work for
    you.  Even if you do sign up with Pump Up Your Book, there is still lots of work to do completing assignments – filling out interviews and writing guest posts unless you choose an all review tour.  Even though it requires a little bit of your time to fill out interviews and write guest posts, it’s well worth it.
  3. You will learn more about your book than you ever did. I had an author tell me that through the interviews and guest posts she had to complete, she never learned so much about her book which caught her off guard.  Now when she is interviewed on
    radio shows and makes television appearances, she is better prepared.
  4. Virtual book tours will build up your author platform. No matter if you’re a fiction author or a nonfiction author, virtual book tours will build up your author platform using your key search words.
  5. Your reviews are guaranteed. Offline publicists while they mean well do it all wrong.  They query a book blogger, make arrangements to send the book, then that’s where it stops.  The review is not a guaranteed thing.  The reviewer can post the review anytime they see fit.  With virtual book tours, your review is guaranteed on a certain date unless the reviewer jumps ship which rarely happens.  I had an author tell me
    she signed up with an offline publicist who sent out many books and only one or two reviewers actually came through for them.  That was money loss for the author.  Books don’t come cheap these days so coming up with a date you and the reviewer can agree upon guarantees that review will be a given thing.
  6. Many reviewers now take ebooks which save you money. Thank goodness someone was smart enough to invent a device that automatically loads a book in a few seconds (no waiting to go to the book store anymore my friend) and makes it fun to read.  When Amazon lowered their price of the Kindle, sales soared and book lovers started talking about getting one.  What that means is that it opened up a wonderful way to get these books to the book reviewers quickly and less expensively.  Have you noticed how much books are and how much it takes to ship them?  Not saying all reviewers will take ebooks, but as time goes on, most will have an e-reader and, as a matter of fact, will prefer an ebook.
  7. More website hits, more blog hits, more Twitter hits and more Facebook Fan Page hits. All authors should have a website or blog and accounts at Twitter and Facebook.  No matter if you think they’re all a waste of time.  A virtual book tour will definitely give you more hits at all places as long as your links are in your bio.
  8. Going on a virtual book tour raises your Alexa rankings. What is Alexa?  Alexa measures how well you are doing in the search engines.  By going on a virtual book tour, and including interviews and guest posts during that tour, your website and blog
    links are included in every bio (or should be!).  Those are incoming links which Alexa uses to measure your ranking.  The more your website or blog link shows up on other sites, the more valuable your site is to them and thus, your rankings soar.
  9. You will learn how to sell your book through media exposure. Not all authors take advantage of their interviews and guest posts by gearing them toward their audience, thus luring them to their book and/or website/blog.  I’ve had many authors on tour and the ones who really take the time to make their interviews and guest posts effective selling tools are the ones who profit the most.  The key thing here is to make your audience curious.  One liners in the case of interviews may not cut it.  Of course there are only so many ways you can answer “What’s your book about?” but take your time and get your audience’s curiosity peaked so that they do make your way over to your website or your book’s buying link.
  10. Virtual book tours teach you how to connect well with others. There is no better way to learn how to network.  All these wonderful book bloggers who agree to host you are your new friends in your extended network and they will be there for you the next
    time you have a book to promote (unless they completely hated it of course).  You’ll also learn how to use the social networks effectively as you study how to get people over to your stops by persuasive wording.  Remember to talk to your audience, not at them.

There you have it.  10 reasons I feel you need to know about virtual
book tours in a nutshell.  If you have a tour coordinator as opposed to
setting one up yourself, she will walk you through it so that it will be
a fun experience for all.  Your book will thank you for it.

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book, an award-winning public relations company specializing in online book
publicity.  You can visit her website at www.PumpUpYourBook.com or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pumpupyourbook and Facebook at www.facebook.com/pumpupyourbook.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

To see all my Reviews, go HERE.
To see all my Giveaways, go HERE.

If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?

animated smilies photo: animated animated.gifLook on the right sidebar and let’s talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.

If you have a problem commenting, look for the twitter, facebook…buttons.

Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

Review – The Tree of Life by Dawn Davis

The Tree of Life banner

The Tree of Life

About the Book

Title: The Tree of Life
Author: Dawn Davis
Publisher: Friesen Press
Pages: 304
Genre: Historical Fiction

MY REVIEW

The Tree of Life by Dawn Davis is her debut novel. It is part of a series, but does stand alone. Each book will represent new characters and a different time period in Canda’s history.

The Tree of Life starts in 1999 but spends most of its time in 1939. It is a fun and lively adventure through time with Charlotte as she strives to solve the mystery of the missing brooch, The Tree of Life.  She lives the history she has been taught.

Charlotte is a precocious 11 year old girl. She is headstrong and some think she acts like a know it all. She is always getting Henry, her best friend, in trouble, bossing him around.

She will learn first hand about the wealthy, discrimination, and hard work.

Gwendolyn is prim and proper, a perfect example of the snobbish and haughty air of the privileged.

I feel this is a very creative way to write a coming of age story. A heartwarming story of life – its rights and wrongs, its hopes and dreams, its wants and desires, its loves and loss…

There are no bells and whistles, no blood and guts of the thriller and horror novels I love, but a wonderful story just the same.

I received a copy of The Tree of Life by Dawn Davis in return for an honest review.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos  3 Stars

SYNOPSIS

Two accidental time travelers explore Canada in 1939 in THE TREE OF LIFE, the first installment in the Tower Room series by Dawn Davis.

As THE TREE OF LIFE opens, Charlotte Hansen and her friend, Henry Jacobs, are hanging out in the old mansion where Charlotte and Leo, her grandfather, live. Henry is there to practice the piano, and Charlotte is waiting for him to finish so that she can supervise his work on a massive school project researching the 1930s. When Leo leaves the house to pick up his friend Gwendolyn Fenton—whom Charlotte does not like—the two eleven-year-olds prepare tea and cookies for the grown-ups’ visit and then rush to the Tower Room. The room is located on the top floor of the mansion. Charlotte is not allowed in the room without permission; but she is headstrong and ignores the directive. After leaving the tray of tea and sweets on the tabletop, Charlotte pulls Henry underneath the table with her.

The children soon hear Gwendolyn telling Leo about a magical brooch from her childhood. Suddenly, a large hand grabs Charlotte, who clutches Henry tightly before the hand thrusts the pair into nothingness. After Charlotte regains consciousness, she and Henry meet the younger version of Gwendolyn, a spoiled force of nature determined to appropriate the brooch her late mother left her brother. The friends learn that they are still in Rose Park, the neighborhood they both call home, but the year is 1939.

As Charlotte and Henry realize that they have traveled backward to move forward, the purpose of their time travel is revealed: Charlotte is there to help Gwendolyn resolve the pain of her past. During the adventure, Henry advocates against the anti-Semitism and racism of that time, and Charlotte learns to look beyond her own desires to help a person in need.

The idea for THE TREE OF LIFE and the Tower Room series came to the author after she attended a centennial celebration at her daughters’ school. “What might happen,” Davis thought, “if two children lived their research instead of simply reading about it? This one step outside the restrictions of time became the foundation for the series.”

As in THE TREE OF LIFE, the next three books will highlight different time periods in Canadian history, with the one constant being the appearance of Charlotte and Henry. Although the children will appear in each book with different names and bodies, they will be easily recognizable as eternal soul mates, and the harbingers of love and connection for those who have stumbled and lost their way.

For More Information

EXCERPT

They needed to work on our outfits for school on Monday.

There was to be a parade in the playground, a decade fashion show parade. Since most of the parents refused to scour the bins at Good Will for appropriate clothing, Henry and Charlotte were the only ones so far who had volunteered. Technically Henry did not volunteer. Charlotte signed his name in invisible ink and was planning on informing him later this afternoon. She would tell Henry that he would get special marks for being in the parade (a lie) because Henry was motivated only by marks. Their grades were already as high as they could go, mostly for bringing in a lot of old junk from Charlotte’s great aunt Dilys’s decaying trunks; printed spun rayon dresses, white nubuck open-toed Cuban-heeled shoes, step-by-step instructions on how to pluck out all your eyebrow hair and draw on fake eyebrows that had a larger arch, one of the first ballpoint pens ever made (1938), a picture of a chesterfield suite in mohair that cost $1.95 at the Adams Trade-in Store Special, and a spring hat with a lilac ribbon purchased at Fairweathers for $2.00 and still in the bag. In reviewing her list, Charlotte found one item to be extremely interesting. In the 1930s, a hat cost more than a chesterfield.

It irked Charlotte that she needed to refer to her lists to remember how many items she had collected because Henry never needed this crutch. He could recite any list, any page of a book, any tiny print on a newspaper, even if he had only seen it once and for less than a second.

That’s because Henry had a condition called eidetic memory bog.

A bog is a swamp, a very damp place where unpleasant things grow and multiply. This was Charlotte’s way of describing the interior of Henry’s skull.

Eidetic memory: an article in a newspaper, a children’s story, musical notes from dingy old manuscripts, the script on a Chinese menu, junk mail forced through the mail slot, recipes, etc. etc. misc., all absorbed, imprinted, collated and filed away for future reference, word perfect. Although Henry denied it, Charlotte believed he had this disease because of his permanently crossed eyes. Therefore his brain was unable to process information the way the brain of a normal person (like Charlotte’s) did by sucking up facts through perfectly aligned eyeballs and expelling it all through the very same portals. Henry’s out-take portals were plugged by all the surgeries he had when he was a toddler, and Charlotte feared that someday Henry’s brain might explode from all the useless information he could not eliminate.

A handful of people knew he had this illness, and Henry utilized it sparingly.

“Because I appear to be blind, I overcompensate by having an unusual ability to retain data that may or may not be useful in the world at large,” Henry once told Charlotte. “Is that so unusual?”

Of course she immediately had to set him a test.

Henry was lounging around on Charlotte’s bed, breathing her air and staring at her ceiling and moving his lips in a really annoying way so she said: “Let me show you something.”

He ignored her for a while but finally cranked his head over to where Charlotte was stitching together a hole in the leg of one of her stuffed animals.

“What?”

She dropped the dog and held the World Book up to his face.

“Look at this.” She pointed to the section on German wirehaired pointers. She let Henry look at the article for three seconds and then she whisked the book away and sat cross-legged on the end of her bed because Henry was taking up all the middle space.

“What about it?” he asked.

“What kind of dog is a German wirehaired pointer?” Charlotte asked.

“A hunting dog,” he replied immediately.

“How did it come to be?”

“It’s a cross-breed which means the dog was developed by breeding a German short haired pointer with a poodle pointer.”

“And how much does it weigh?”

“About twenty-five kilos.”

“Does it like having its ears scratched?”

Silence.

“How many times a day do you have to take it out for a walk?”

Silence.

“What do you do if the dog howls in the middle of the night?”

Angry silence.

“How long does it take the average German short haired pointer to devour a bowl of food, and what happens if one freshly cooked pea is buried in the midst of its food?”

Confused silence.

“What good does it do you to be able to memorize this anyway?”

Superior silence.

“Facts are meaningless,” she said. “Experience is everything.”

“Shut up,” Henry said. “There is only one fact that is significant. I blend in. I get along just fine.”

In fact, Henry did not get along just fine, and if it weren’t for Charlotte, he never would have survived at Rose Park Public School.

For some reason the mere presence of Henry on the playground at school annoyed a few of the boys in the grade five class, the ones who weren’t very bright—Tyler MacKenzie in particular. Tyler invented a few colourful names which he felt best described Henry’s exterior; cross-eyed creep, frogman, slimebucket, and monster boy were a few of the favourites. These insults usually bounced off Henry, drifting into the air like soap bubbles, which then quietly burst, leaving Henry unharmed. He didn’t seem to hear the words directed at him. But once Henry made the mistake of getting in Tyler’s way. He was standing at the southern end of the playground reading a book he had projected onto the wall of the school, the same brick wall Tyler and his friends were using to see who could slam a baseball the hardest.

Henry didn’t know he was in the way because he was not present to the reality of the moment.

He returned abruptly when Tyler stood before him, blocking his view of the wall.

“Hey, slimebucket, we’re playing a game here. Move.”

Henry didn’t.

“Or maybe we could use you as a target and just aim for your nose.” Tyler touched Henry’s nose lightly with his fingertips. “That would be easier to hit than the wall.”

Henry brushed aside the grubby fingertips and stared straight at Tyler.

“Smell,” he said, “is stored in the limbic area of the brain.” His voice was measured and precise. “That’s why whenever I smell dog shit, I think of you…”

“In fact, all our memories and emotions are stored in the limbic area,” Henry told Charlotte five minutes later as they were both hurried off to the nurse’s office. Charlotte got an elbow in her eye trying to defend Henry whose upper lip had been cut right open.

He continued to talk as blood pooled in his mouth.

“The emotional content we all have stockpiled is extremely personal,” he said matter-of-factly, shifting the ice pack from the staffroom freezer to spit in the yogurt jar from the daycare centre. “And everything we possess inside here,” he said, tapping his forehead with three fingers, “is warehoused instantly with no conscious intervention on our part at all.”

So much for blending in.

ABOUT DAWN DAVIS

Dawn DavisDawn Davis is a writer living and working in Toronto, Canada. Before becoming a writer, Davis worked as a teacher after completing her education at York University and the University of Toronto.

The Tree of Life is Davis’s debut novel, and the first book in her Tower Room series.

For More Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~

To see all my Reviews, go HERE.
To see all my Giveaways, go HERE.

If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?

animated smilies photo: animated animated.gifLook on the right sidebar and let’s talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.

If you have a problem commenting, look for the twitter, facebook…buttons.

Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

 

Fact or Fiction ~ Terror Never Sleeps by Richard Blomberg

Terror_Never_Sleeps_-_Updated
I love books about political intrigue and conspiracy. With the amount of terrorist activity in the real world, Terror Never Sleeps by Richard Blomberg reads as if it is non fiction. From the United States to Timbuktu, America’s elite Navy Seals fight to save the world from nuclear holocaust.
 Terro_Never_Sleeps_(updated)

Add me to Goodreads now. 🙂

TitleTerror Never Sleeps
Book 2: Jack Gunn Thriller Series
Author: Richard Blomberg
Publisher: Beaver’s Pond Press
Publication Date: February 15, 2015
Pages: 337
ISBN: 978-1592988952
Genre: Military Thriller / Suspense
Format: Paperback, eBook (.mobi / Kindle), PDF
Cover: Laura Drew
.
MY REVIEW
.
I love the simple, yet descriptive cover.
.
This military thriller is so realistic it pissed me off, had me screaming at the characters and made we wish I could crawl through the pages and kick some terrorist butt too.
Characters: Jack, Nina, his wife, Dewey, Jack’s right hand, Travis, his brother and many others who act out their supporting roles. Who will be the final judge, jury and executioner? Who doesn’t make it back?
.
Jack Gunn returned home from his mission, only to find his wife and son missing and the house covered with blood and bullet holes. He’d been in Palestine, negotiating a deal requiring the release of his biggest enemy, the last in the line of the El-Hashem family. A BIG mistake! A badal had been declared and one of them would die.
.
Jack and Travis are orphaned brothers raised by Sioux elders. One is a Navy Seal, the other a doctor.
Jack’s wife, Nina, was also raised believing in the Sioux way. I love the mystical connection. The characters have an ability to see, connect and talk in the spirit world. It adds that something extra that takes writing to another level.  Jack is the head of the CTF, Counterterroism Task Force, whose motto is: Terror Never Sleeps.
 .
Nina suffers tremendous physical and mental torture – fear for her child, being beaten, possibly raped, kicked, drugged. They beat her down mentally and she fought the urge to give up. Could it get worse? Oh yes, much worse.
 .
I am appalled at Richards description of the abuse some of the characters would inflict on each other, just because they could. It all seems so real. When you read this, its almost like hearing of the horrible killings on the news. Who would use a man’s family, his wife and child, to get revenge? Don’t the bad guys have rules too? Not when it comes to these guys. They are pure evil. They rejoice in the torture they inflict on others. How they are able to do that, I cannot figure out.
..
Nina is no wimp. I love her. She is an unlikely hero and I only hope I could do as well as her in a similar situation. She has a shotgun in hand and uses it! She has survived breast cancer, so she can survive whatever this animal will throw at her too. At her lowest, she would think of her son and that would give her that something extra she needed to go on.
 .
Seals – the elite of the elite. They have an amazing sense of right and sacrifice. They have some fantastic weapons at their disposal, too. I loved reading about the mini plane with grenades. Good job.
Read a book like this and you, too, may believe in torture for info, and the premise, shoot first and take no prisoners. This novel will tell you why there must be secret teams and missions, so our enemies don’t know what we are doing.
 .
There is tons of action and the pacing kept me reading from beginning to end. Terrorists, dirty bombs, kidnapping, child abduction, badal, nuclear bombs and Native American mysticism. A rich combination of genres that blended so well I could almost believe it was real.
 .
From the shores of the United States to Timbuktu the characters each struggle to survive and I was happy to travel with them.
Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos 5 Stars
 .
SYNOPSIS
 .
Navy SEAL Jack Gunn’s life is turned upside down when terrorists kidnap his family and disappear without a trace. While Jack and his team search frantically for clues in Virginia, half-way around the world, his wife, Nina struggles to survive the terrorist’s daily persecutions as his hostage.
.
Terror Never Sleeps is an action-packed tale of Nina’s transformation into a warrior who is fighting for her life, and Jack’s relentless pursuit of the terrorists from Mali to Diego Garcia to Pakistan. A military coup, propaganda, dirty bombs, and the launch of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal with one target—Israel—is all part of the terrorist’s master plan, who are hellbent on blowing the world back to the eighth century. The non-stop action keeps the reader constantly off balance with the bizarre and unexpected.
 .
EXCERPT
 
Chapter 1
Dawley Corners, VA
“I’m scared, Mommy.” Barett sat back up in bed, clutching his dinosaur pillow under one arm and his frayed security blanket under the other..
“Don’t cry, honey. Daddy will be home tomorrow.” Nina brushed her
son’s tears aside with her fingers, cupped his tender face in her hands, and
gave him a kiss on the forehead. She inhaled the scent of baby shampoo from his
tangled wet hair and snuggled him to her chest. Barett’s Mickey Mouse
night-light cast a buttery glow across the carpet. A constellation of
fluorescent stars and planets were already glued to the ceiling of
his brand-new bedroom and floating like luminous jellyfish in the dark above.
“But what if the bad guys kill Daddy?” Barett chewed on the fringe
of his blanket.
“Nobody’s going to kill Daddy,” Nina quickly answered for the
umpteenth time as she stroked his black hair. Barett nodded, locked on Nina’s
eyes. She closed the bedtime storybook and put it back on the nightstand.
Barett’s lower lip quivered. “What if you die, Mommy? I heard you
and Daddy talking.” He started crying again.
Nina gasped. “You don’t need to worry anymore, sweetie. Mommy’s
cancer is all gone.” She crossed her hands across her chest and threw them up
into the air. “Poof! And Daddy is a brave Sioux, just like you.” She poked
Barett in the chest. “If the president of the United States trusts Daddy to
protect his country, I don’t think we need to worry.”
Sorrow instantly overwhelmed Nina, sad that Barett’s last thoughts
before falling asleep were to fear for his mommy’s and daddy’s lives—even though
Nina frequently cried herself to sleep with those same fears. Barett, Nina’s
angel throughout her chemotherapy, reached up and brushed her tears away with
his baby-soft fingers as he had done so many times before.
If Jack was Nina’s soul mate, Barett was her heart mate. Nina’s
first pregnancy ended horribly with a devastating and unexpected miscarrage.
Her second ended the same way. So after nine months of living on the jittery
edge of sanity, wondering what would go wrong the third time around, Barett was
her gift from God who miraculously joined the world on Nina’s twentysixth
birthday. She loved her little bear more than anything. She
loved Barett more than Jack.
Trying to stay strong and keep up a good front for Barett while
Jack was away, Nina snatched the dreamcatcher hanging from a tack in the wall
above Barett’s pillow and fanned his face with its eagle feathers as if she
were trying to start a fire.
“Remember, Uncle Travis had a very special medicine man make this
to protect you from bad dreams.” She tickled his chest until he giggled.
“He’s funny.”
“Now go to sleep, honey. Daddy will be home tomorrow.” She leaned
over and gave him one last kiss.
Nina left his door half open, just how Barett liked, and went
downstairs to lock up for the night. Everything in their condominium smelled
fresh and new. The paint on the walls, the polish on the floors, and the carpet
on the stairs. It was their first home and their first mortgage. Nina smiled,
thinking of her husband, Jack, and how he had gone over the top to buy the most
expensive door and window locks.
Being a Navy SEAL and the head of the Counterterrorism Task Force
(CTF) made it nearly impossible for Jack Gunn to trust anyone. The only people
he trusted were the other SEALs on his Ghost Team and Native Americans, like
Nina and him.
“I’m not going to be a prisoner in my own home, Jack. Spend all
the money on locks and guns and whatever else you think we need, but take a
look around. We’re not living in Afghanistan.” Nina had opened the blind so
Jack could look out and see their front yard of new sod, their one-inch elm
sapling held vertical by three posts and gardening wire, and the empty lots
across the street staked out for new construction. No one else had even moved
into their
building yet. They had first pick in the new ocean-view community
in Dawley Corners, south of Virginia Beach.
“This is what I’ve always wanted, Jack,” Nina had told him. “I
know it’s not Montana, but there’s no place I’d rather be.”
“The perimeter is secure,” she could almost hear Jack saying.
Her smile vanished as she pulled back a corner of the curtain and
watched a windowless panel van slowly cruise past their condo. It was the type
of hammer-and-nail-laden van construction crews drove through their
neighborhood on a daily basis, but not after dark at nine thirty on a Saturday
night.
There was something about the van that sent a shiver up her spine
as it crawled around the cul-de-sac and came back. She let the sheer curtain
fall back into place and watched the headlights. They stopped at the end of
Nina’s driveway. With a growl of the engine, smoke puffed from the tail pipe
into the chilled air. Now hiding behind the front door, she began to
hyperventilate as she fought off the suffocating feeling of panic.
Nina felt guilty for cowering like a scared little girl. She knew
if Jack were home, he would have put one of his patented kill looks on
his face, stomped out the front door, and challenged the guys in the truck. He
did stuff like that all the time. Most of the time, the other guys took off
before he got close enough to do any harm; he looked that intimidating. Far
from being politically correct, Jack was the man who backed down to nobody. Who
feared nobody. Who suspected everybody.
Nina swallowed hard, checked the lock, and glanced up the stairs
to make sure Barett was still in bed. Fingers trembling, she fumbled to get her
cell phone out of her pocket to call Jack, but dropped it. Pieces of plastic
and glass blasted in every direction, like a grenade exploding in the dark, when
it hit the porcelain tile.
“Oh my God!” she gasped. That was her only phone. The van still
rumbled in the street, not moving. She made out the silhouette of a
stocking-capped, bearded man in the passenger seat. Her brain swelled like an
expanding water balloon between her ears.
“Think, dammit. Think.” She heard Jack’s words reverberating in
her head. It was late Saturday night, her phone was trashed, their home
Internet was not scheduled to be activated until Monday, which had not been a
big deal because her smartphone functioned as a mobile hot spot for her laptop.
All that had changed the instant her phone crashed.
Her feet felt as if they were stuck in cement, nailing her to the
floor behind the door.
“The gun. I’ve got to get the gun.”
She looked through the curtain at the van one last time, then
stumbled up the stairs, went into their bedroom closet, and turned on the
light. The gun safe still had the manufacturer’s stickers on the anodized steel
door.
She dialed three numbers stuck in her head. Nothing. She tried
again. Nothing. The combination to the safe lay splayed across the entryway
floor downstairs in a worthless cell phone microchip.
A noise outside spooked her. Her fingers trembled on the dial.
She tried the lock one last time and prayed. “Hallelujah!” The
door opened. She grabbed the loaded shotgun. Jack always said it was the best
gun for home protection. Point the scattergun in the general direction of your
target and pull the trigger. It would blow a hole in the door the size of a basketball.
Nina had pulled the trigger on a shotgun once before. She blasted
tin cans and beer bottles with her brothers back at the reservation garbage
dump in Montana when she was a kid. The gun kicked like a mule and knocked her
on her butt. It seemed funny at the time.
She flipped the safety off, racked a shell into the chamber,
turned off the light, and tiptoed back out of the closet. The gun went first,
with Nina’s slippery finger on the trigger. Her eyes dilated to adjust back to
the dark.
The condo was too new. Nothing looked familiar. Every shadow,
every noise made her jump. The furnace kicked in. The bedroom curtain fluttered
over the heat duct. She heard a noise in the hallway. Nina opened the door with
the gun barrel.
“Mommy.”
“Barett. Oh my God. I almost . . .” She covered her mouth,
overcome by a sudden wave of nausea. Nina swallowed hard to push the bile back
down as she propped the gun up against the wall behind the door, out of
Barett’s sight. She grabbed Barett, hugged him hard, and carried him back to
his room. “Stay in bed, honey. Mommy will be right back.”
Nina snatched the gun with her shaking, sweaty hands and quickly
crept back down the carpeted stairs, trying her best to keep quiet.
The front door was still locked. The van was gone. She held the
shotgun against her chest and fixed her eyes on the doorknob, dreading movement
of any kind. Her heart raced as she waited in the dark.
The wind blew. The furnace kicked off. The doorknob did nothing.
She turned on the entryway light and scraped together all the
pieces of her phone.
I can’t call the police. The phone lines are down till Monday. I
can’t call or text Jack. He’ll be pissed. It was probably nothing. No need to
get all worked up. Just go to bed. Get a new cell phone in the morning before
Jack gets home. And put that stupid gun away before you shoot someone.
  ***
BUY THE BOOK
  Book Publication Date: February 15, 2015
 .

Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE.

***
About The Author
 SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERADr. Richard Blomberg has practiced anesthesia in the land of 10,000 lakes for twenty years. He grew up in an Iowa farm town, the oldest of ten, before serving as a Navy hospital corpsman during the Vietnam War. For generations, Richard’s family has proudly served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa and currently lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and family, where he is working on his next Jack Gunn thriller.
.
To learn more about the author, sign up for his newsletter, read his blog, or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
 .
Connect with Richard:  Website  /  Facebook  /  Twitter  /  Goodreads
.
 ***
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

To see all my Reviews, go HERE.
To see all my Giveaways, go HERE.

If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?

animated smilies photo: animated animated.gifLook on the right sidebar and let’s talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for visiting fundinmental!

 

Growl by Ashley Fontainne ~ Review & Excerpt

Growl_banner

OOOO, such a beautiful and eerie cover.

I have a special affinity to trees and I would love to wander through the swamp.

I can hardly wait to get to the story inside.

Me thinks, that is not so beautiful. LOL

 photo goodreads-badge-add-38px11_zps1ae6e47f.jpg

Title: Growl
Author: Ashley Fontainne
Publisher: RMSW Press
Pages: 315
Genre: Gothic Horror/Suspense
Format: Paperback/Kindle

Purchase at AMAZON

MY REVIEW

I saw the cover and knew this was a book I would have to get my hands on. I mean, those eyes, they ‘speak’ to me. The font drips and oozes badness into the murky water of the swamp. 😈 I have an idea of what lies between the pages and I am very eager to begin reading. I can hardly wait to get all the gory details. The story got my attention from the beginning and held me captive until the end.

S.I.N was an appropriate name for her. Sheryl Ilena Newcomb had been a cheerleader and flaunted her sexuality. It was an era of love and she and her peers gave and received it freely.  She did the normal things teenage girls do, worked, studied, played and fell in love. She’d had only one boyfriend and their dream was to escape the small town they grew up in.

But that was not to be.

It had begun when she was nine years old and she never could have imagined what the future held for her.

Three months later  and the memories were fading. They are taken their toll, both mentally and psychically. She was learning to live with her inner monster. The ordeal had left her physically damaged, she had lost an eye and the physical scars would never disappear. She learned to compensate for its loss. The family had hid all evidence of the event at Caney Creek in a small town called Junction City,Mississippi.

Now, she is the guardian, the protector. It is her job to pass on the knowledge to the next one. She writes it all down, hoping it will be a panacea, so she can rebuild her life, her life in Junction City, Mississippi.

Ashley’s writing is outstanding. I was able to feel the little girls terror as she lay in bed, alone, the monster determined to take her, and only her cat, Tinker, to save her. I can smell the competing smells at the wake. It reminds me of fairs and carnivals, where there are so many overwhelming smells, even when I am starving, I find it hard to eat anything. I hear the generations of Kovlin women, all talking at the same time, competing against each other to be heard.

I love the story and the twists Ashley puts in. I did not see the biggest surprise of all coming and Ashley gave me a good one near the end. I had my thoughts, but I didn’t take them as far as Ashley did.

I love the Native American reference to their belief in tokens, animal guardians. The mixture of mysticism, religion and the paranormal are just the right blend to make this a novel a huge success. I would highly recommend Growl by Ashley Fontainne.

This is not just S.I.N.’s story, but mankind’s.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos4 Stars – Would Highly Recommend To Others

SYNOPSIS

My name is Sheryl Ilene Newcomb. And yes, my initials are S.I.N. A funny little piece of whimsical humor my parents found amusing when I arrived.

Then, it turned out to be true. Looking back with wiser eyes now, my family and I concluded that the events leading up to my transformation started the summer I turned nine. But the day we realized there was a problem, and no turning back, was a week before I started my senior year at Junction City High. The day the fangs and claws appeared and the monster inside of me emerged.

When mutilated corpses appeared near a pile of brush down by Caney Creek, everything changed. Because evil woke up and growled, its ominous rumblings heard by every living thing in Locasia County, Mississippi.

EXCERPT

It was all over—for now. The ending completed, and the living nightmare of what happened in our sleepy little town nothing more than a permanent stain embedded in my mind and body. I stared at the words on the page, the white paper covered in bright blue ink. The empty pages behind it waited, impatient for me to add more. They sat in mocking silence on the desk in front of me. A twinge of apprehension slithered up my back.

What am I doing?

During the last three months, I thought I’d done a decent job of stopping the memories. None of what happened was something anyone could be prepared to endure. No longer did the vile sounds and unbelievable images pop up during the middle of the day. I felt a sense of pride I stopped them without the use of medication. With the support of my mom and dad and the Lord above, I worked daily to bury the horrific events.

I shivered at the disturbing recollections. When the crystal clear images of the final battle exploded inside my head, they turned my slender torso into a shivering pile of goose bumps. I was unable to stop the screams of agony and anger when my mind replayed the events at night. Physical and mental anguish would slam into my body and soul as I fought not only the animal inside of me, but the one that stared at me from inside my mind.

The eerie visions of the final confrontation were as terrifying in my mind’s eye as the actual day they occurred. Dark, jade-green eyes lit from within bored through my own with their anticipatory killing stare. The growl from its furry throat would seem as loud in my memories as it did when it happened. The flexed muscles of the creature jerked in its readiness to shred me down to a bloody pile of mush. The bright moon’s rays shimmered off of its stark white fangs. One swipe of the enormous paw or bite from the strong jaws would end it all. My cries of sorrow erupted at night when the images of the dismembered corpses appeared inside my mind. They were seared into my memory banks. I hadn’t experienced a moment of heart-stopping, frozen-to-one-spot freakouts in two months during the daytime. I whittled them down to only haunting my dreams at night.

Progress, plain and simple.

A sound caught my attention, so I lifted my stare from the ruled, white paper on the desk and looked out my bedroom window. My sharp, one-eyed gaze glanced over to the pool and settled on the old, rusty swing at the edge of our backyard. I recalled with a slight smile the day last week when I took my first step out of the house and sat outside for almost an hour. The warmth of the sun and the gentle urges of my mother’s voice lured me into the water—at least the shallow end. I considered it a big leap in my recovery progress since I had developed a strong distaste for water. I had sat on the bottom step, the cool water barely up to my shins, and fought the urge to run back inside and lock myself inside my bedroom. The task of quelling my paralyzing fears had taken every ounce of mental strength to overcome. It was beyond weird at my age, but I felt safe in my adolescent bedroom. It was my territory. But I also knew it would become my prison if I didn’t learn to live outside its four walls again. Like a normal, sane person lives.

A quiet snicker from my lips bounced off the walls of my room. Sanity. Normalcy. Those ships sailed away eons ago, pulled under the dark waters of the mighty Mississippi River, never to be seen again.

.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning and International bestselling author Ashley Fontainne is an avid reader of mostly the classics. Ashley became a fan of the written word in her youth, starting with the Nancy Drew mystery series. Stories that immerse the reader deep into the human psyche and the monsters that lurk within us are her favorite reads.

Her muse for penning the Eviscerating the Snake series was The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Ashley’s love for this book is what sparked her desire to write her debut novel, Accountable to None, the first book in the trilogy. With a modern setting to the tale, Ashley delves into just what lengths a person is willing to go when they seek personal justice for heinous acts perpetrated upon them. The second novel in the series, Zero Balance focuses on the cost and reciprocal cycle that obtaining revenge has on the seeker. For once the cycle starts, where does it end? How far will the tendrils of revenge expand? Adjusting Journal Entries answered that question: far and wide.

Her short thriller entitled Number Seventy-Five, touches upon the sometimes dangerous world of online dating. Number Seventy-Five took home the BRONZE medal in fiction/suspense at the 2013 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards contest and is currently in production for a feature film.

Her paranormal thriller entitled The Lie, won the GOLD medal in the 2013 Illumination Book Awards for fiction/suspense and is also in production for a feature film.

The suspenseful mystery Empty Shell, released September 29, 2014. Ashley then delves into the paranormal with a Southern Gothic horror/suspense novel, Growl, scheduled for release in the Spring of 2015. Plus, she will be teaming up with Lillian Hansen (Ashley calls her Mom!) to pen a three-part murder mystery/suspense series entitled The Magnolia Series. The first book, Blood Ties, is due out the Summer of 2015.

Ashley also hosts The WriteStuff, a popular BlogTalk Radio show, each Friday night at 10 p.m. CST.

For More Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~

To see all my Reviews, go HERE.

To see all my Giveaways, go HERE.

If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?

animated smilies photo: animated animated.gifLook on the right sidebar and let’s talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for stopping by fundinmental!