Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Juniper Smoke by Sadia Ashraf



My name is Juniper Mills.
My life is Work. Home. Repeat.
I work at the Ann Arbor History Museum.
My life has been one big sacrifice.
All my life I’ve taken care of my autistic twin.
I don’t believe in fairy tales. Only unfairy tales.
Momma raised me to hate men.
I did. Until I met Kyle Paxton
My first love. My first fall.
Kyle is Robotic. Intimidating.
A clockwork man. A tech god.
He likes rules and I like to smash them.
Read what happens when our worlds collide.
That is when the story begins…


Buy Links:

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2d52nkF
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2e6rDnI
Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/2dSCAK7
Amazon AU: http://amzn.to/2e33keu

Author Bio:

I've had an odd and beautiful life. I was born in one continent, raised in another one…and moved to a third one to settle down. From the thousands of people I met and befriended, there was always a common theme: Everyone had a story to tell.

Since I was three years old, I have wanted to tell the stories of the fictional people trapped in my head. I love dissecting characters and exploring what lies beneath the razor-thin surface of human behavior. I am humbled when anyone—a stranger, friend or loved one—reads what I wrote. So, thank you!"
Sadia Ash has held jobs in different fields that involved writing (and never math) in some way. She has worked for film and TV publicity with the Prenner Group, did news and TV placement for Aeros (a NASA project), edited scripts for indie films, and fundraised. A lot. A serial volunteer, she has raised funds for many charities that educate and help girls.

Currently working on two other novels and a film script, Ash hopes to see the sunlight outside her window one day. She holds an MA English degree from Loyola University in Chicago, a Screenwriting Certificate from UCLA and one more impractical MA in English Literature from NUML. Originally from Chicago, she lives in sun-drenched Cali with her husband—who is her best friend—and two bright kids.

Author Links:



Excerpt:
“You invited your screen crush to the event?” He leaned closer to me. “Hmm. Whatta girl. Clumsy, smart and kinky. Letting your freak flag fly.”

I stiffened and the words came out before I could stop them. “What’s your problem? You’re probably a failed actor, just jealous of Clive.”

Kyle took off his glasses and put them in his pocket. Jet black brows knotted over a steely gaze fixed on me. It was so intense, my belly clenched with longing. My heartbeat was as loud as marbles falling down a metal staircase. Did every girl he meet get the same level of scrutiny? He looked more disappointed than injured—as if I had fallen lower in his estimation.

Who cares what he thinks?

I was sure Kyle was as arrogant as he was handsome. In my limited experience, men this good-looking were natural-born devious jerks. He was probably married with a girlfriend and a side chick. And women doubtless made a single file to him, happy to be spiced, tossed and ground up in the meat factory that is today’s dating scene. I was usually not so pejorative, but Kyle pushed all my cheesed-off buttons, without saying a word. He didn’t have to. It was not him, it was me.

See, I was raised to hate men.

My mother didn't raise me to believe in fairytales. Only unfairy tales.
Juniper Smoke

an Exerpt from Juniper Smoke
The dark Grimm kind, where princesses’ hands could be chopped off and mermaids danced till they bled. Stories where stepmothers planned infanticide and little boys were buried in gardens and their blood and flesh turned into roots and sprouted juniper trees. My bedtime stories were never about Prince Charming, but about Norman Bates and serial killers who crushed little girls by tormenting them and locking them in basements. I was a terrified little girl. Safe—yes. Normal—nope.

When I grew older, I realized my terrors and insecurities were far from normal. They were the upshot of the bunch of lies my mom told me. But by now it was too late. The damage was permanent. At the advanced age of twenty-six, I had never been in a relationship with a man. I don't know who had fried my mom's brains, but if I ever met that bastard, I’d sucker punch him.



Official Blurb:
In an age of casual hook-ups, can love survive the test of time?

Juniper Mills is a straitlaced but sassy Iron Age curator at the History Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She puts her dreams of doing Celtic research in Ireland on hold as she is the sole provider for her special needs twin and comatose mother. Raised by her mother to hate men, she worries she’ll die a frigid scholar in a musty house with an army of cats and a lake of books.

A chance brush with death leads Kyle Paxton to invent a micro camera and he becomes the CEO of a successful San Francisco company. Kyle schedules dating like his work—with robotic precision. The scheduling helps him keep the dark memories of his ex-girlfriend, who still haunts him, at bay. Not looking for love, he only hooks up with Amazonian models.

Juniper and Kyle meet when she is dangling forty feet from a museum scaffolding. When he joins the museum board, Juniper falls for him—figuratively this time. She wants him, but knows it's going to be as hard as catching the ocean in a teacup. Juniper becomes Kyle’s obsession, but the tragic secrets of his past cloud his feelings and his rigid rules drive her insane.

Juniper manages to knock Kyle’s world off its axis and their galaxies collide in this very unfairy tale. But can they overcome their differences and stop a cruel and hateful person from tearing them apart?

Circle of Time and Giveaway by Debra Shively Welch




Circle of Time 
By Debra Shively Welch
Genre: Time Travel, Historical


When 21-year-old Bridget Littleton decides to borrow her father's yacht and sail off of the tip of Florida toward Bermuda, she discovers that the legends about the Bermuda Triangle are very true.
After seeing a face in the ocean waves, her next memory is of spinning water and blackness. She awakens in the town of Bristol England in the year 1532.
Rumors of her beauty reach the court, and soon Bridget, known as Bridge, finds herself in the court of Henry VIII and Lady in Waiting to none other than Anne Boleyn.

Will she get out alive? Will she accidentally change the course of history, or is she indeed a part of the history she has studied since she was a little girl?


Born in Columbus, Ohio, Commissioned Kentucky Colonel, Honorable Debra Shiveley Welch, resides in Central Ohio with her husband Mark and son Christopher, an author and photographer. 
Author of seven books and a bevy of short stories and poems, Debra is the winner of Books and Authors best Native American Fiction, AllBooks Review Editor's Choice, Faithwriters Gold Seal of Approval - Outstanding Read, Books and Authors Best Non-Fiction Book and Excellence in Literature awards and is a medalist in the New Apple Award for Excellence.
Debra is now working on "Brave Heart Woman," third in the "Cedar Woman" series, "Memories of an Old Farm House," a micro memoir about her memories of her family's ancestral farmhouse situated on a hill across from Serpent Mound in Southern, Ohio and "Christopher's Family Table," a cookbook featuring recipes from Chopped Champion Christopher Thames and Chopped Champion Junior, Daniel Kligmann.

Connect with Debra- she loves hearing from her readers!
Amazon * Facebook * Twitter * Website
LinkedIn * Google+ * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE!!




Purchase the book and be entered into an exclusive giveaway with TWO winners!
One winner will get $25 Amazon,
the other winner gets a renaissance style Kindle cover! ($40 value)
Email your proof of purchase to silver_dagger_scriptorium@outlook.com
Be sure to write "Circle of Time" in the subject line so it won't get overlooked!
The first 10 people to submit proof of purchases will get a free ebook of their choice from the author, Debra!!
Winners for the gift card and kindle cover will be randomly chosen during the month on an unannounced surprise day!
Don't miss out and submit your proof early!
You can get the book HERE.












Text and Giveaway by Bryan Alaspa


TEXT
by Bryan W. Alaspa
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

**A TERRIFYING NOVEL OF UNRELENTING SUSPENSE FROM AUTHOR BRYAN ALASPA**

Abe Yates is a successful true crime author. He makes a living writing about the crimes and deaths of others, but that living has allowed him to provide a great house and life for his wife and two kids. His latest novel is about a vicious hit-man and serial killer known as The Saint. It is already destined to become a runaway bestseller with a movie option at the ready. Life is good.


Until the morning he reaches for his cell phone and finds a mysterious video text. A text that shows something horrific. A video that appears to show something that hasn't happened yet.



Now Abe and his family may only have days to figure out who created this video and who wants to do them harm. How far would you go to protect your family? For Abe, he may find that his own desire to protect his life and his home may take him to darker areas in his own heart than he ever thought possible.



A tight-knit supernatural thriller from the author of RIG, Gone, The Man From Taured, Sapphire and the Deklan Falls detective series comes an edge-of-your-seat look into terror and suspense - TEXT.


Sure enough, there were some texts from friends and people who knew Spencer and whom Spencer had probably called about the party last night. Most of them Abe knew only tangentially and he could not recall most of their faces and most of them expressed regret at not being able to attend. He mused that they could have shown up or just not shown up and he would never have known the difference. That was the thing that happened when you were a reliable bestseller at the agency and publisher. People felt they had to bow down to you even if you had no idea who they were.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
He came to a final message, near the bottom of the list, from a number that he did not recognize. In fact, it was an impossible number to start with.
0000000000
Abe remembered getting weird phone calls from a number like that years ago when he had first gotten a cell phone. They had finally come down in price and the phone companies were finally offering decent deals on them and he had bought one of those obsolete flip phones.
He would find that he had a voicemail from a number that was all zeroes and when he listened to it, it was just a bunch of weird noises. He hadn't gotten a call like that in ages.
Abe opened up the message and saw that there was a black box in the middle of a white field. There was a white arrow, pointing to the right, in the middle of the black box.
He frowned.
Who the hell would send him a video text? No one he knew was the type to do that.
Abe was not a video taker himself and he rarely even texted over photos. If he had a good photo, he was told that social media was the best place to put that.
It was probably just someone who was at the party last night. Perhaps someone who stayed later and maybe things got crazier after he and Shari had left. Hell, it was probably a video from Sam or Spence trying to show him the fun he missed out on. 
Abe hit play.
At first he was not sure at all what he was a looking at.
It was a weird video, shot poorly, that kept pixelating. It was dark and it was shot with some nightvision
setting on the camera or cell phone, so everything had a weird greenish/white glow. The colors were all inverted, too, so the black pants looked white. He saw legs and arms and torsos, but the camera was mostly pointed at the ground.
There was sound, too. Men's voices, from the sound of it, but the sound was tinny and Abe couldn't make out any words. Someone was yelling.
Then there was screaming.
The camera swung up and suddenly Abe was looking into a face that he knew all too well. Whoever was holding the camera was wearing a Henry the CrossEyed Lion mask. One of the cheap plastic ones that came out every year and sold at the large discount store around the corner. The eyes, hidden behind that mask, looked empty and dark. There was just the smiling lion and the areas around the eye holes had been painted to look comically crosseyed.
It was surreal.
Abe sat up straighter on his chair, absently licking his lips. He was distantly aware of the fact that his throat was dry.
The camera swung around and now he could see that they were in someone's house.
He could make out a large staircase and a hardwood floor. It was familiar. He could see at least five other men. They were wearing suits, but all of them were wearing animal masks. Plastic animal masks based on the characters in Shari's books.

Bryan W. Alaspa is a Chicago born and bred author of both fiction and non-fiction works. He has been writing since he sat down at his mother's electric typewriter back in the third grade and pounded out his first three-page short story. He spent time studying journalism and other forms of writing. He turned to writing as his full-time career in 2006 when he began writing freelance, online and began writing novels and books.
He is the author of over 30 books of both fiction and non-fiction and numerous short stories and articles.

Mr. Alaspa writes true crime, history, horror, thrillers, mysteries, detective stories and tales about the supernatural.




a Rafflecopter giveaway







West of the Deadline and Giveaway by Phil Truman

*****
Phil Truman - Both books


West of the Dead Line:
The Complete Series - Episode 1 – 8
By Phil Truman
Genre: Western, Historical


About the Books
This collection contains EIGHT episodes of the West of the Dead Line series.

1 – Bringing in Pike Cudgo
2 – Freed Men
3 – Runaway
4 – Redemption along the Red
5 – The Getaway of Cross-eyed Jack Dugan
6 – The Reluctant Posseman
7 – Dupery at Corncob Forks
8 – Last Will for an Outlaw

West of the Dead Line

The Dead Line, as it came to be called, was a railroad, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, cutting across the middle of Indian Territory. It ran straight south from Caldwell, Kansas to Fort Reno, I.T., then on down through the Cheyenne and Comanche and Kiowa lands, crossing the Red River into Bowie, Texas. It was a line on the map, a demarcation. West of it there was no law, only outlaws. On trails out there, notes would be put up on trees and posts, sort of reverse wanted posters, letting lawmen know they’d be killed if they continued their pursuits west of the Dead Line.
Throughout the 225 years of the U.S. Marshals Service, over 200 deputies have been killed in the line of duty. Of those, more than 120 lost their lives in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories between 1850 and Oklahoma statehood in 1907.
In the storied history of the American West, no place comes close to matching the dangers and mortality these federal officers faced doing their jobs. Their courage, resolve, and dedication to duty were beyond reproach... for the most part. Those who survived became titans in the legends of the West, particularly one man called Bass Reeves. These stories are fiction, but the encounters this lawman faced, and The Dead Line, were not.

Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr
By Phil Truman
Genre: Western, Historical

"Truman’s storytelling shines throughout..." -- Kathleen Rice Adams, Western Fictioneers

“Red Lands Outlaw: The Ballad of Henry Starr is a well-conceived yarn about one of the last of Oklahoma’s horseback-riding outlaws. A good read.” -- Dusty Richards, a Spur and Wrangler Award winning author

“Author Phil Truman captured a slice of Indian Territory history and has woven it into an interesting period novel. Anyone who loves the history of the West will enjoy Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr.” -- Tammy Hinton, author and winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Unbridled

In the last years of the tough and woolly land called Indian Territory, and the first of the new state of Oklahoma, the outlaw Henry Starr rides roughshod through the midst of it. A native son of “The Nations” he’s more Scotch-Irish than Cherokee, but is scorned by both. He never really wanted to journey west of the law, yet fate seems to insist. He’s falsely accused and arrested for horse-thieving at age sixteen, then sentenced to hang at nineteen by Judge Isaac Parker for the dubious killing of a deputy U.S. marshal, but he escapes the gallows on a technicality. Given that opportunity, the charming, handsome, mild-mannered Henry Starr spends the rest of his life becoming the most prolific bank robber the West has ever known.

About the Author:

I'm a native Oklahoman, born in the small town of Miami in 1945. I earned my bachelor's degree in English from the University of Tulsa in 1970. As a Vietnam Era veteran, I served with the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Division near the Korean DMZ from 1967 to 1968. Fresh out of college I worked as a teacher and coach, but transitioned into the business world after a few years where I morphed into an IT geek. My wife and I live in the Tulsa suburban city of Broken Arrow where we've spent the past 30 years raising our family. Now a full-time writer, my books include GAME, a '70's era sports inspiration novel; Legends of Tsalagee, a novel of mystery, romance, and adventure in a small town; and Red Lands Outlaw, the Ballad of Henry Starr, a historical novel set in the turn of the 20th Century Indian Territory.

https://www.amazon.com/Phil-Truman/e/B008WAPXZC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Giveaway:
5 e-books of West of the Dead Line
Direct Link
<a class="rcptr" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/23d974a936/" rel="nofollow" data-raflid="23d974a936" data-theme="classic" data-template="" id="rcwidget_fg131wne">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a>



Because I Can by Elaine Marie





Jenna is a victim of an attack on her college campus. After barely escaping, she manages to make her way to campus security. With the help of the security guard, the local police are called, but she soon learns no one will help her case, and the police and the college administration dismiss her accusation, leaving her feeling empty.

Tired of the whispers and looks from her classmates and professors, she decides to take charge of the situation. Tired of being a victim, she’s determined to take her life back.
Jenna soon undergoes a dramatic makeover…one that leaves even her best friend unable to recognize her. With her new look and the help of some online self-help videos, she begins her search for her attacker.

In her search, the one thing Jenna didn’t expect to find was the handsome, new student, Nic. As she gets to know him, she learns he isn’t who he claims to be. It’s then Jenna begins to suspect the guy she’s fallen for.

As she closes in on her attacker, she makes a few new discoveries, and she can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. As she races against time, will she be able to uncover the identity of her attacker before he strikes again?



https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01LYI56O2/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_b01lyi56o2
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1537641034/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_1537641034



Author Bio:

A Jersey girl at heart! I love to write, read and spend time with my husband and children. I love to watch Football & Hockey-who wouldn't~ those uniforms!

Stalker Links:
Twitter : @EMarieBooks
E-mail: ElaineMarieAuthor@gmail.com