EXCERPT + Giveaway: All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare for Everyone Else #3) by C.E. Wilson

All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare for Everyone Else #3)

by C.E. Wilson

Release Date: 07/15/14

Summary from Goodreads:

When Hannah’s world falls apart after graduation, she finds that there are only two things from her old life that she can trust: her best friend Constance, and her fascination with Constance’s cousin Benjamin. But when Benjamin snubs her advances for superficial reasons, Hannah decides that she will have him no matter what the cost. Hannah gathers a diverse group of allies to help her finally get what she’s always wanted.

In this YA retelling of William Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well, follow Hannah as she goes to the ends of the earth in her pursuit of the ungrateful Benjamin. Are there limits to love and devotion, and is all truly well that ends well?

EXCERPT

“Do you know about her reputation?” Benjamin hissed, humiliation written all over his face.  “Do you know about her father?  Everyone would see me with her! Please don’t make me do this!”

“Her father committed the crimes, not her,” Matthew said, growing angry now.  “You will not punish this girl for something that was not in her control.  She’s a fine young woman and you’re lucky to have the chance to go out with her.  In the short time I’ve spoken with her, I’ve found that she is young, intelligent, attractive, and kind, and more than willing to help me despite not knowing the first thing about me.”  He lowered his voice again.  “If you treat her well and show her a good time, then you won’t ever have to worry about finding a spot on the team next year, no matter how small.  It will be yours.”

“I don’t care!” Benjamin hissed back.  “I won’t take her anywhere.”

Matthew’s eyes narrowed.  “Boy, if you don’t do as I say, then I’m afraid her father’s reputation will not be the only one that’s tarnished.”

“Are you threatening me, Coach?”

“I don’t make threats, Benjamin.  I make promises.”

About the Author

C.E. Wilson is currently living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband and her two dogs and two cats. They are all the loves of her life. When she’s not writing young adult fantasy novels, she enjoys writing short stories on her Deviant Art page. She loves to write stories involving giants and little people (also known as GT) and nothing helps her to write more than Coca-Cola and glazed doughnut holes.
Author Links:
   

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VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR [Excerpt & Interview] Don't Touch (Null City Book 2) by Barb Taub

Don't Touch
(Null City Book 2)
by Barb Taub
Genre: Urban Fantasy/ Steam Punk
Publisher: Taliesin Publishing
Date of Publication: December 5, 2013
Cover Artist: James Caldwell

Book Description:

Hope flares each morning in the tiny flash of a second before Lette touches that first thing. And destroys it.

Her online journal spans a decade, beginning with the day a thirteen-year-old inherits an extreme form of the family ‘gift’. Every day whatever she touches converts into something new:  bunnies, bubbles, bombs, and everything in between.

Lette’s search for a cure leads her to Stefan, whose fairy-tale looks hide a monstrous legacy, and to Rag, an arrogant, crabby ex-angel with boundary issues. The three face an army led by a monster who feeds on children’s fear. But it’s their own inner demons they must defeat first.

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Purchase Links:  

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• Amazon, all worldwide sites

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• CoffeeTime

If you could have any superpower what would you choose?

Laundry Woman. ZAP! POW! Holy clean undies, Batman!

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

Both of my parents passed away recently, within two months of each other. I'll always be grateful that I was able to share my first book with them. 

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

As a digital book, Don't Touch is guaranteed to be 100% calorie and cholesterol free, but still leave you satisfied (although in fifteen minutes, you may crave the sequel...).

Favorite food?

Since chocolate = oxygen, I think we can subtract that from the food groups. That leaves the green stuff I had in the south of France. You have to understand that I come from the US Midwest, where haute cuisine involves jello or mayo. (Or, with alarming frequency, both.) France was a religious experience for my tastebuds. One day we stopped at a little restaurant and I pointed to the set menu. The first thing they brought was a glass sphere clouded with steam. When it was opened, I realized that somehow they had used dry ice to ‘smoke’ the green stuff inside. I took a tiny bite. Can you imagine tasting something that’s a combination of the best chocolate and wine and sex you’ve ever had? You can? Well, I’m sorry but that’s just weird and I’m not going to be coming to dinner at your house. But this stuff was an absolute mouth orgasm. The only thing preventing me from licking the insides of the globe was the presence of the other diners, and even that wouldn’t have stopped me if they hadn’t taken away the globe (despite my begging). I tried to ask the waiter what I’d eaten. He turned over the menu and I thought he pointed to a small paragraph on the back. Since I don’t speak French, I took a picture with my phone. When I got back to our hotel, I looked it up in Google Translate. Apparently, my mouth nirvana was “The Ladies Bathroom is the third door on the left and down the stairs.”

What book are reading now?

This is a different genre for me, but my sister raved about The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, so I've just started it. 

What’s your favorite season/weather?

Living in the north of England where winter means short cold days and long nights, I'm a sucker for spring, and I search for each little hint that the days are getting longer, spring bulbs blooming, and maybe... just maybe... I can take off at least one of my sweaters.

What was your favorite children's book?

I loved books that came in long series – Mary Poppins, All of a Kind Family, the Shoe books. But the one book I loved most of all was a huge volume my mother brought back from a trip to some exotic place (Minneapolis? Milwaukee?). A collection of fairy tales from around the world, it had the most gorgeously fantastic illustrations, and probably inspired my writing today. 

Beach or Pool?

I grew up in California. Pools are a given. Beaches must be earned. So beach, of course.

What is one book everyone should read?

Pride and Prejudice.

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects?

Book 3 of the NullCity series, of course. The series will take a much darker turn, and I'll put some favorite characters through hell. Because I can. (Mwa-hah-ha!)

From Lette Simoneau’s LiveJournal Blog

WORST. Day-After-Birthday. EVER.

LiveJournal, January 20, 2003 by LetteS

Yesterday was my birthday (13!) so Mom said I could start this LiveJournal blog if I keep it private. But I never thought I would start my first post by saying that this morning at 6:15AM I found out I am a freak.

After all the birthday presents and cake, last night when I got into my (brand new!) loft bed I was a normal, neurotic (isn’t that a great word?) angst-filled (I had to look that one up too) new teenager. Then my alarm went off this morning. I woke up, and I could feel colors. Through my fingertips.

Yeah, I know: so freak. My fingers were touching my new quilt, and even though my eyes were still closed, I could feel vermillion, titian, and bittersweet. Who knew those were even words, let alone colors? I walked around my room with my eyes closed and fingers out. Dresser? Sienna brown. Mom’s evil cat George? Atrous black and niveous white. Walls? Glaucus blue (which sounded a lot better as “tropical lagoon” on the paint chip card).

Lamest. Superpower. Ever.

****

Firsts!!!

LiveJournal, October 28, 2012 by LetteS

—Lette’s Birth Date Calculator: 22 years, 9.2 months

Stefan came back to the little table covered with the remains of our feast. “Lette.” He picked up my gloved hand and wrapped his own around it. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He. Held. My. Hand. “You and I know what it’s like to try to live with what you’ve inherited from your family. If I do what they want, my life will be spent literally eating the energy from frightening and punishing children. Their fear and their pain will keep me alive.”

He reached for my other hand. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can go to Null City, together. We can turn our backs on what our families have made us, and we can have a good life. A human life.”

No longer twinkling, his blue eyes pleaded with me. “Come with me, Lette. We can rescue each other.”

I shook my head. “My parents…”

“Lette.” His whisper was warm, dark, full of sin and promise. “You’re young. Beautiful. You have to have wondered…imagined someone kissing you. Touching your bare skin. Making love to you. Giving you babies. That someone could be me.” He leaned in, and his lips touched mine so softly I could barely feel them. Then I did feel—little kisses on my forehead, nose, in lines down my cheeks, tasting my lips. My hands couldn’t feel his skin, but his warmth came through my gloves. His tongue brushed the seam of my lips and, when I opened my mouth, curled around mine for a moment while his lips pressed harder. Then he pulled back and laughed a bit. “You’re allowed to kiss back, you know.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Lette, you deserve love. Come with me to Null City. I know we’ve just met, but we have something in common. There has to be a reason we were brought together. Maybe we’re meant for each other. Lette—please. Please rescue me.”

He leaned in again, and this time I leaned forward too. Now that I was barefoot, we were almost the same height. My hands came up to his shoulders, and then I ran one gloved finger along his lips. My own lips were touching what my fingers could never know—bristles from his day-old beard, soft eyelids and spiky lashes flat against his cheeks, the surprise of his earlobe, the swirl of his dimple, back to lips that opened for me. I opened my own mouth, and he tasted like turkey, and apple cider, and something I couldn’t name. My hands went to his hair to pull his head closer. Stefan yelled and pulled back. When I opened my eyes, he was cradling the place on his head where I’d hit him with the cat food cans.

In a former life, Barb Taub wrote a humor column for several Midwest newspapers. Now living in an English castle with her prince-of-a-guy and the world's most spoiled AussieDog, she enjoys translating from British to American, travel, and collaborating with daughter Hannah on the main volumes of the Null City series.

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR [Interview & Excerpt + Giveaway!!] Atlas (The Atlas Series Book 1) by Becca C. Smith

Atlas
(The Atlas Series Book 1)
by Becca C. Smith
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Red Frog Publishing
Date of Publication: 11/14/13
Cover Artist: Stephan Fleet

Book Description:

Kala Hicks is part of a covert elite military team that answers directly to the President of the United States. But during an emergency mission aboard Air Force One, Kala is shocked to discover that the real threat is none other than the President himself. Defying her commanding officer, Jack Norbin, Kala takes the shot, and her life changes forever.

The moment the President is killed, a supernatural force speaks to Kala, telling her that she has to commit one act of atrocity every four days… or the world will end. Thrown into a reality she never could have imagined, Kala faces off with creatures of legend; from demons determined to make her fail and plunge the Earth into chaos, to angels who don’t trust her to do the job and are willing to kill her to claim it for themselves.

Pitted against the forces of good and evil, Kala must choose whether to save the world by doing the unthinkable, or sit back and let it burn. And four days later, she’ll have to do it again.

End of Chapter 3

Very carefully, Jack opened the door that led to the President’s office.

What awaited them was terrifying.

President Jareth Wilton stood behind his desk. He was wearing a vest that held five grey bars of C-4 wired into a bomb. Wilton was a tall man, well over six feet with stark black hair and a long face. He was a young President, only fifty years old, but he looked like he’d aged twenty years since the last time Kala had seen him at a press conference, with dark rings under his eyes and worry lines on his forehead. 

But his smile was what made the scene surreal and horrific. His thin lips were grinning as if he’d just climbed Mt. Everest. 

President Wilton stared directly at Jack as the door swung open the rest of the way. “I figured it out! I figured out how to break it! No one will ever have to do what I’ve had to do again! Do you realize what this means?”

Kala knew then and there that the man was cracked. Figured what out? Break what? He was rambling like a mad man.

But the more frightening moment came when Jack responded back to Wilton. “Killing yourself is impossible. People have tried that in the past.”

Not only was President Wilton talking crazy, but apparently Jack knew his language and was responding accordingly.

Kala noticed that Wilton’s eyes lit up when Jack spoke. “You’re the one they sent to replace me.”

Jack nodded.

What? Kala was seriously confused.

Kala spoke up, “What’s going on Jack?”

Replace him for what? 

Jack didn’t acknowledge Kala or the rest of the team, which was shifting uncomfortably behind him.

Wilton shook his head, serious. “You can’t do it. You have to let me detonate this bomb. We have to crash the plane! It’s the only way to stop it!”

“You can’t stop it!” Jack yelled back.

“I can and I will!” Wilton talked into an earpiece. “NOW!”

The plane nose-dived.

Everyone jolted forward and stumbled from the force of it.

Jack barked orders, “Lali get up to the Flight Deck and by any means necessary take over this plane!”

Lali paused for a second, she looked more confused than Kala felt, but after a moment to gain her bearings as the plane was falling fast, she managed to high-tail it out of the room and up to the Flight Deck. 

Kala was sure they’d hit ground at any moment.

Jack aimed his gun at the President’s head.

Wilton was frantic. He ducked behind his large oak desk that was bolted to the ground.

“You can’t kill me! You’ll ruin everything!” Wilton yelled.

Jack turned to Kala and Derek. “No one shoots him but me!”

Kala kind of nodded, but she was in shock at the fact that they were about to flatten a part of the capital with Air Force One. She really didn’t care what Jack was saying. She couldn’t let President Wilton set off that bomb and kill thousands. 

Jack shot at the desk, trying to hit the president, but he didn’t come close.

Only Kala could make a shot like that and not get them all killed from shooting a hole through the plane.

Kala and Derek made eye contact. Kala could tell Derek was thinking the same thing. He whispered so only Kala could hear, “Do it.”

Kala’s nod was barely perceptible.

Jack saw her and his eyes went wide. “Kala STOP!”

Kala shrugged. “I can’t let him do this, Jack. I’m sorry.” 

Only the top of Wilton’s head was showing. 

It was enough.

      Kala took her shot.

If you could have any superpower what would you choose?

Immortality. It worked for Captain Jack Harkness! Of course I’d want all my friends and family to have this same superpower too. It wouldn’t be any fun without loved ones!

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

Fan mail. It still blows my mind that people would not only read my books, but like them enough to write me a personal message. It makes all the blood, sweat and tears worth it!

Please tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.

If you love a good action/urban fantasy with a mixture of gods, demons and angels all set in present day, you’ll love Atlas.

Favorite food?

Chocolate, chocolate and chocolate. Oh, did I mention I love chocolate!

What book are reading now?

Beautiful Darkness, the second book in the Caster Chronicles, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

What’s your favorite season/weather?

I live in LA where there are no seasons so that should tell you something! I love a perfectly sunny 75 degree day. But when I’m about to snuggle up with a good book and a cup of tea, I’d prefer torrents of rain. I was born and raised in Seattle after all!

What was your favorite children's book?

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I was pretty obsessed with finding my own door to Narnia! Someday!

Beach or Pool?

If I’m actually sitting and relaxing definitely a pool. (I hate sand.) But if it’s from a luxurious hotel balcony with fancy drinks, beach all the way.

What is one book everyone should read?

I’m going to go with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Pure magic. And everyone needs a little magic in their lives.

Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects?

I’m actually really excited about the project I’m currently working on. It’s a joint novel with a fellow writer friend of mine F. M. Sherrill. It’ll be more geared towards teens and vampire fans and I’m having a blast writing it with her. Hopefully, it’ll be released by spring!

Becca C. Smith received her Film degree from Full Sail University and has worked in the Film and Television industry for most of her adult life. In 2010 Becca published her first novel, Riser followed by the sequel, Reaper, in 2011, and the finale, Ripper in 2013. In 2012 Becca wrote the children’s novel Alexis Tappendorf and the Search for Beale’s Treasure. She is also the co-author of the teen graphic novel Ghost Whisperer: The Haunted.

Becca currently lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband, Stephan and their two cats Jack and Duke.

5 print copies Atlas by Becca C. Smith

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EXCERPT TOUR + Giveaway! ~ Last Keeper’s Daughter by Rebecca Trogner

Last Keeper’s Daughter
by Rebecca Trogner


BLURB:

Born into old money, Lily Ayres lives at Waverly, her family’s estate situated at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Paris, Virginia.  She is a strange, small, almost mute, young woman who has no idea that her father has given her to the Vampire King Krieger.  Walter Ayres is the King’s Keeper and part of a secret society of historians who unearth, preserve, and attempt to understand relics of long forgotten civilizations.

Lily has never felt comfortable in the human world, but after she suspiciously falls down a flight of stone steps, and is healed and claimed by Krieger, she realizes there is another world.  In this Other Realm she feels a sense of belonging, and begins to untwine the mysterious event which left her mentally and psychologically damaged.  When Walter disappears in England, Lily works with human and supernatural beings to uncover his whereabouts.  With each new discovery, she is pulled deeper into the vortex of magic, intrigue, and dark desires that permeates the supernatural world.  The revelations revealed unfold a story of deception and betrayal that threaten to tear the thin veil between the supernatural and human world asunder.

Last Keeper’s Daughter

She remembered telling him that she could take care of herself. That she wasn’t an orphan to be passed off to a relative. She hadn’t meant the words. She wanted to see him again, but she was afraid he wouldn’t come. Too many hopes and dreams had been crushed in her short lifespan for her to be optimistic.

He had laughed. The sound of it was deep and rich and filled the room.

“Look me in the eyes when speaking to me,” his mesmerizing voice commanded.

Minutes passed, and she defiantly continued to stare at his shirt pocket. And then, in an instant, he was directly in front of her. His quick movement caused a breeze to rustle through her thick hair. How could anything move so fast?

“Lily,” he said, “that was an order.”

The way he said her name caused her to shiver. Slowly, she let her gaze flow up his neck, taking in the line of his jaw, and settling on his blue-gray eyes.

He inhaled again as he looked down at her. “How very extraordinary you are,” he said.

Lily could not have agreed more. There were no erratic movements with him, no sudden shifts of mood, or conflicting body language. He was in total control of himself in a way she’d never experienced in another person. She felt almost languid as he turned and went back to stand by the fireplace. He continued to weave the intricate tale of his world, and her place within it. Never once did she doubt the validity of what he said.

Rebecca Trogner lives in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia, and frequently crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains that were the inspiration for Krieger’s home. She always dreamed of being a writer, but got sidetracked by the day-to-day adventures of life. With the encouragement of her family, she has finished her first novel and is currently writing the next book in The Last Keeper’s Daughter series. Rebecca lives with her husband and stepson, and a rescue dog named Giblet. To find out more about the author visit www.rebeccatrogner.com.

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