Saturday, March 23, 2013

Orangeberry Book Of The Day – Wildflowers by Schledia Benefield

Have you ever feared what may be hiding deep within you?

Darkness often skulks in the blood of unsuspecting victims, but Aster McGrath is acutely aware of the violence coursing through his veins. After all, he is the son of a murderer, and everyone in the town of Bayville, Mississippi says he will end up just like his father.

When Susan Blackman moves into town, Aster has already embraced his brutal nature, but her gentle spirit draws him in and slowly melts the icy exterior of his heart. Taming his savagery, she professes her love, but will the good within him be able to overcome the evil lurking deep inside? Or will the fiend break free of its fetters and seek blood?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – YA Contemporary Romance

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Connect with Schledia Benefield on Facebook & Twitter

Blog http://schlediabenefield.blogspot.com/

Friday, March 22, 2013

Orangeberry Book Of The Day – Books by Eleanor T Beaty

On the Caribbean island of Maurray, spoiled-rotten, fifteen-year-old Hanna wakes up to a nightmare. She is not the daughter of an aristocrat but the orphan of a Gypsy. She is the descendant to a mystical Gypsy tribe. Their magic is strong and has lasted six hundred years. Ornella, the tribe’s guardian, arrives at the island with her mutt, Count Dracula, to guide Hanna. Hanna is told she must embrace her heritage or die at the ripe age of seventeen. But Hanna does the unthinkable, she chooses death. She hates Gypsies and would rather die. What she doesn’t know is that her death will destroy the entire tribe. What she also doesn’t know is how persuasive Ornella can be. The nightmare begins.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – YA / Paranormal

Rating – PG13

For sixteen years, Lya, has lived as a normal human, until her father, Walter, gets involved with the wrong people and puts Lya’s life at risk. During a visit to Miami, Lya’s older sister is kidnapped, and Lya and her father are subsequently taken hostage by Walter’s associates and forced to board a plane to India. When the plane lands in Delhi, Lya is rescued by three monks and taken to a Monastery. There her reality is shattered, when she learns the true identity of her rescuers and, even more surprisingly, herself. Lya is now faced with the toughest decision of her life. Can she live up to her ethereal destiny and save her family?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – YA / Paranormal

Rating – PG13

Alex’s life is turned upside down after his father’s sudden death. An old pamphlet found in his father’s belongings leads Alex and his mother, Charlotte, to a remote Polynesian island. His mother longs for a place untouched by past memories, and Alex hopes the trip will help her to heal.

Their arrival on the island elicits an eerie episode of déjà vu for Alex, and he begins to wonder about the pamphlet and his father’s past. Why did he have it? Had he been there before?

Alex senses something is off with the island. Progress is unwelcome by the inhabitants. A local girl reveals the history of the island and its dark spirits. She warns him to never be caught outside after dark, but Alex finds it all hard to believe… Until inexplicable and terrifying events begin to unfold. While digging for information, Alex finds his presence on the haunted island is not by chance. Rangur, the most evil of souls, aims to use him to acquire great power. There’s only one way Alex can stop him and for that he must uncover his father’s past connection to the island.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – YA / Paranormal

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Orangeberry Book Tours – Widow Woman by Julia Tagliere

 

It is 1962, the starting pistol for a decade of tremendous change. President Kennedy bans all trade with Cuba. Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Beatles record their first song together, and Illinois becomes the first U.S. state to decriminalize homosexual acts between consenting adults. For Audrey Randolph, a young Midwestern wife, 1962 also brings a personal tragedy: her mother dies suddenly, leaving behind a lifetime of letters, photos and unimaginable secrets.

Audrey, stunned by her mother’s death and the subsequent revelations of past loves and lovers, can no longer trust the reality she has always known. She must come to terms with dual losses, both her mother’s death, as well as the unanswered, nagging question: Was anything she knew real? Audrey turns to her estranged father, her family’s pastor, even her mother’s best friend, to uncover the truth. Through her desperate search to learn which lies, and which people, are forgivable, Audrey will discover a greater truth: that sometimes, forgiving yourself is the first step to letting go.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG13

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Julia Tagliere on Facebook & Twitter & GoodReads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Orangeberry Book Of The Day – The Book by Jessica Bell

This book is not The Book. The Book is in this book. And The Book in this book is both the goodie and the baddie.

Bonnie is five. She wants to bury The Book because it is a demon that should go to hell. Penny, Bonnie’s mother, does bury The Book, but every day she digs it up and writes in it. John, Bonnie’s father, doesn’t live with them anymore. But he still likes to write in it from time to time. Ted, Bonnie’s stepfather, would like to write in The Book, but Penny won’t allow it.

To Bonnie, The Book is sadness.
To Penny, The Book is liberation.
To John, The Book is forgiveness.
To Ted, The Book is envy.
But The Book in this book isn’t what it seems at all.

If there was one thing in this world you wished you could hold in your hand, what would it be? The world bets it would be The Book.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Contemporary Fiction

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Connect with Jessica Bell on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.jessicabellauthor.com/

Author Interview – Julia Tagliere

Tell us a bit about your family. My husband and I have been blessed with three clever, wonderful children who never fail to challenge, entertain, and humble us. We also have a four-year-old Weimaraner who, though not particularly clever, is especially entertaining.

What is your favorite quality about yourself? Kindness.

What’s your favorite place in the entire world? I love the beach: any beach, anywhere—must have something to do with being a landlocked Midwesterner most of my life.

How has your upbringing influenced your writing? My mother was an English teacher and my brother is also a writer; I was surrounded by books growing up.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in writing, so it’s hard to fix a point of origin—maybe in the womb?

When and why did you begin writing? I started writing when I was very young, awful poems and song lyrics, mostly to try to work through some difficult experiences happening in my childhood: my parents divorcing, multiple moves, and my grandfather’s death. The more I wrote, however, the less focused on reality my writing became; I eventually settled into fiction, imagining different worlds for myself. I guess at its heart, it began as escapism.

How long have you been writing? It makes me feel old to say this, but it’s been about thirty years.

When did you first know you could be a writer? That’s been a process of stages, but there are some moments that stand out in my mind: being accepted into the M.F.A. in creative writing program at DePaul University; having my first article published in The Writer magazine—those were psychological game-changers.

What inspires you to write and why? Virtually everything I write, at least my fiction, stems from my asking the same question: What if? I think the only fiction piece I’ve ever written that didn’t originate from that question was a recounting of an actual nightmare I had (“There Is Only Room Here for Myself”).

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG13

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Julia Tagliere on Facebook & Twitter & GoodReads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Orangeberry Book Of The Day – Dark Mountain by Robert Michael

While hiking on a lonely mountain in Arkansas, Jacob Barclay finds a cabin with a terrible secret.

Sheriff Billy Joe Shoemaker discovers that his small, backwoods town may hold more danger than he ever imagined.

Molly Carothers, lost in a sea of woods, starving and scared, believes she has found a guardian angel to free her.

Brian Carothers, haunted by his family’s heritage, struggles with his sanity.

Victor Carothers influences his family through fear and blood. Along with his wife, Patsy, they find victims among transients and strangers as they seek to sate their appetite for the occult.

The lives of the town of Bexton, Arkansas depend upon Jacob, the strange Yankee seeking adventure and solace. Jacob finds he is faced with a struggling faith, and the realization that sometimes evil runs in the family.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Horror / Suspense

Rating – PG

More details about the author

Connect with Robert Michael on Twitter

Blog http://www.robertamichael.blogspot.com/

Blog http://www.infinitewordpress.com/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Orangeberry Book Tours – Forged in Grace by Jordan Rosenfeld

 

Forged in Grace by Jordan Rosenfeld

At age 15, a horrific fire left Grace Jensen scarred and highly sensitive to the pain of anyone she touches. Thirteen years later, living with her hoarder mother and half-in-love with her former doctor, her long-absent best friend, Marly Kennet, returns to town and convinces Grace to make a leap-of-faith trip to Las Vegas. There, Grace discovers she doesn’t only feel others’ pain, she can heal it. This healing gift soon turns darker when the truth of Marly’s past and the fire that scarred Grace is revealed, pushing the boundaries of loyalty and exposing both women to danger.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Psychological Suspense

Rating – R

Connect with Jordan Rosenfeld on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://indie-visible.com/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Orangeberry Book Of The Day - Beyond Escape - Deborah Jensen

 

After separating from her husband of twenty years, Kim is in desperate need of an escape. Retreating to her parents’ home in Texas for a month, Kim encounters ample distractions, the best being Camilo, an alluring Latino man seventeen years her junior. However, when returning to Texas unearths memories of a long-ago lover, Kim discovers her unintentional involvement in a series of dangerous escapades, bringing her deeper into her past than she ever cared to venture. Beyond Escape follows Kim as she pursues a trail of drugs, murder, and secret love affairs that were meant to stay buried.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Women’s Contemporary Fiction / Romance

Rating – PG13

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Deborah Jensen on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.deborahkjensen.com/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Orangeberry Book Of The Day - Sex and Death in the America Novel - Sarah Martinez

clip_image002

Free March 19th - 21st.

Vivianna Post is the family anomaly. Daughter of a Pulitzer Prize winner and an academic, she has never quite fit her parents’ expectations as a free-spirited erotica writer. When Vivianna encounters the award-winning author Jasper Caldwell at a nightclub, all she wants is to blame him for blowing off her brother at a writers’ conference the year before and possibly causing his suicide. But as the night—and then the weeks—wear on, Vivianna finds herself drawn to Jasper in ways she cannot understand. When their differences—literary and sexual—threaten to pull Vivianna and Jasper apart, Jasper rediscovers Alejandro, an old friend who just might have the power to complete them both in every way. Using quotes and references to classic erotic and literary icons, Sex and Death in the American Novel is on one level an unconventional romance and on another a discussion of the merits of erotic literature.

Using quotes and references to classic erotic and literary icons, Sex and Death in the American Novel is on one level an unconventional romance and on another a discussion of the merits of erotic literature.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Literary Erotica

Rating – X

More details about the author

Connect with Sarah Martinez on Facebook and Twitter

Website http://www.mywildskies.com/

Author Interviews http://site.mywildskies.com/Appearances.html

 

Excerpt (First pages):

We all know the first line is the most important: it sets the tone, tells you what this story will be about. Call me Vivianna. Would Melville approve? How about copying straight from Heller: It was love at first sight. We all remember Lolita; how would Nabokov do it?

What if I just come out and say it. This book is the answer to the notion that women ought to fear asking for what they want the most. Whether it’s time alone to write, demanding for and getting respect, or a patient hand under which to soften up and eventually get off. You know what’s even worse: we know we won’t get it anyway. Fuck Virtue. This document serves as my rejection of the notion that I am doomed—by virtue of my gender—to a life of boredom, inanity, and servitude.

An old man in Arizona has over seventy wives. If a woman ever said that one man wasn’t enough for her, you know what they would say about her? I could spend at least ten minutes on the list. Making up lists is a great writing exercise by the way. I learned that from my father. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for his novel Taking Ivy Down. Dear old Dad.

Let’s start with two men—just for argument’s sake. What would that look like? Feel like? Smell like? Taste like?

            Two men…two sets of lips, two pairs of eyes moving over my face, my breasts, my hips, resting further down. Two sets of hands, warm and strong, only me, naked and trembling with anticipation between them. Two rustling, soft heads of hair, two minds, two hearts...spirits, two of everything. The energy between them flows through me. Associations come freely when I am in this state; rain, dark swirling skies, and rich red blood flowing from both their hammered faces, they fought…for me. Now we are all together, and they’ve forgiven each other, their bruised lips crush against mine, against my face, against every part of me until finally they come together. As I tip my head back, taking in the scents of their bodies, metallic and musky, sweaty and raw, they reach for each other. The one who lost the battle—the blonde with red rimmed blue eyes—faces me, his arms around mine, his hands reaching further to the one behind me who, underneath the scents of exertion, smells like leather and tangy soap. Their faces come together over my shoulder, first testing, pulling back, then together again. They kiss, more roughly than they would kiss me, with hands moving up to run through each other’s hair, pulling on it, and both pairs of hands move over my arms and shoulders. Sounds of stubble across skin, scraping, hands over tingling flesh, mine, a wince, low voices, soft wispy sounds echo in the silence of this old warehouse...no wait, make that a boxing ring, we’re on the dirty white mat in the center of the ring.

The one behind me—the winner—leans forward, grazing the skin behind my ear with his teeth, the sticky wet skin of his torso connecting all the way along my back. He pushes me down, working himself deeper in me, opening me wide, his hands wrap around both sides of my hips. He groans and the sound sends a thrill though me. The one in front works his way in from below. I am sandwiched between the two of them, and take the loser’s face in my hands, stroking the area near his swollen eye, running the tip of my nose over his lips, his cheek; I gently kiss his forehead, pulling back and tasting coppery blood.

My mother’s words intruded, “Vivianna, are you paying attention?”

 

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Orangeberry Book Of The Day - Alice in Deadland Trilogy - Mainak Dhar

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Horror / SciFi

Rating – PG

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Mainak Dhar on Facebook & Twitter

Alice in Deadland
Civilization as we know it ended more than fifteen years ago, leaving as it's legacy barren wastelands called the Deadland and a new terror for the humans who survived- hordes of undead Biters.
Fifteen year-old Alice has spent her entire life in the Deadland, her education consisting of how best to use guns and knives in the ongoing war for survival against the Biters. One day, Alice spots a Biter disappearing into a hole in the ground and follows it, in search of fabled underground Biter bases.
What Alice discovers there propels her into an action-packed adventure that changes her life and that of all humans in the Deadland forever. An adventure where she learns the terrible conspiracy behind the ruin of humanity, the truth behind the origin of the Biters, and the prophecy the mysterious Biter Queen believes Alice is destined to fulfill.
A prophecy based on the charred remains of the last book in the Deadland- a book called Alice in Wonderland.
Through The Looking Glass: Alice in Deadland Book II
More than two years have passed since Alice followed a Biter with bunny ears down a hole, triggering events that forever changed her life and that of everyone in the Deadland. The Red Guards have been fought to a standstill; Alice has restored some measure of peace between humans and Biters; and under Alice, humans have laid the foundations of the first large, organized community since The Rising- a city called Wonderland.
That peace is shattered in a series of vicious Biter attacks and Alice finds herself shunned by the very people she helped liberate. Now she must re-enter the Deadland to unravel this new conspiracy that threatens Wonderland. Doing so will mean coming face to face with her most deadly adversary ever- the Red Queen.
Off With Their Heads: The Prequel to Alice in Deadland
A few months before Alice was born and fifteen years before the dramatic events depicted in Alice in Deadland, there was The Rising. A few days that destroyed human civilization as we know it, reducing much of the world to a radioactive wasteland teeming with hordes of undead Biters and controlled by a shadowy Central Committee.
Off With Their Heads brings to life the final harrowing days of The Rising through four shorts, each depicting events through the eyes of one pivotal character in the Alice in Deadland series. See how Dr. Protima became the Queen of the Biters; feel the pain of a young man's sacrifice as he becomes the bunny-eared Biter whom Alice later follows down a hole; follow the rise of Chen from a conflicted young Chinese Army officer to a General in the Red Guards; and finally share in the dramatic escape of Alice's parents from a city overrun by Biters.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Orangeberry Book of the Day - Crosswalk - Cara St. Louis

orangeberrycover-199x300

"I grew up a girl, and I thought an unwanted one, at that, in the 40s and 50s in a forgotten farming and ranching town right at the Four Corners. We were surrounded by reservations, more of the unwanted, just like me. My ticket out was music and so on the old Baldwin my Mom bought me, I practiced until my fingers bled and I got a college scholarship and I was out. That was part one. The part with the family, which I didn’t even think was so great. My Dad took off and my mom had to work as a nurse forty-five minutes’ drive east. In 1945, that might as well have been the moon. So my grandmother kept me like an extra broom, kind of useless and in the way. Or so I thought. Part two was working for the government. That really took me places. All over the world, working for scientists, seeing their secrets, even when I didn’t understand what they were on about. When I did, the whole thing scared the hell out of me. Then , it all came true. Suddenly. Then, I died. I’ve left my daughter behind to tell the story. Maybe it’ll help."
It would be a tragedy, in anyone’s book, if on a beautiful summer Sunday morning a little old lady set out on foot for church and just as she had almost reached the other side of Main Street in a little seaside village, she was brutally run down and killed. What if this seemingly random and incoherent event …the slightest blip on anyone’s radar…had, in fact, happened to a woman who had been granted so long ago a very high military security clearance; a woman who is never named in the novel nor is the town in which she died?
Crosswalk is a thriller, a story whose dramatic arc runs razor-close to current events. The woman’s daughter, Christina, falls down a truly black and greasy rabbit hole in the wake of her mother’s death that leads through bio-engineering, weather manipulation, Naval Research, Naval Weapons, Atmospheric research connected to DARPA and through London, Virginia and Hawaii. The birthplace of her mother’s murder, when she finds it, lies within the circle of Operation Paperclip scientists still working in London in the 80s and 90s. Christina and those she joins with along the way struggle on to find answers despite being chased by Blackhawks, run off roads, betrayed by allies...her comrades include a Canadian civil rights activist who styles himself ‘Amistad,’ an old Brazilian psychic emigrated to Australia, and a chemist-turned-activist also on the trail of these psychotics; half a dozen ancient men who form a sinister cabal. The Gatekeepers are scientists, liaisons with the Joint Chiefs, a global industrialist of unmatched power and wealth, a US Secretary of Agriculture.
While Christina is on her own mission to flush out those who murdered her mother, Tim Verzet, firebomber and ex-military pilot infiltrates the very nerve-center of the global poisoning operation trying to make it implode from the inside. One very well-placed traitor just about brings the whole effort down but in the end, the Achilles heel of the entire campaign, a campaign which has actually been in place for decades, is a very small group, led by one pilot on the inside.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Cara St.Louis on Facebook

Orangeberry Book of the Day - After The Ending - Lindsey Fairleigh & Lindsey Pogue

after-the-ending-book-one-cover1

 

The Virus spread. Billions died. The Ending began. We may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed us.
When people started getting sick, “they” thought it was just the flu. My roommate, my boyfriend, my family…they’re all gone now. I got sick too. I should have died with them—with the rest of the world—but I didn’t. I thought witnessing the human population almost disappear off the face of the earth was the craziest thing I’d ever experience. I was so wrong. My name is Dani O’Connor, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.
The Virus changed everything. The world I knew is gone, and life is backwards. We’ve all had to start over. I’ve been stripped of my home, my dreams…all that is me. I’m someone else now—broken and changed. Other survivors’ memories and emotions haunt me. They invade my mind until I can no longer separate them from my own. I won’t let them consume me. I can’t. My name is Zoe Cartwright, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.
We’ve been inseparable for most of our lives, and now our friendship is all we have left. The aftermath of the Virus has stranded us on opposite sides of the United States. Trusting strangers, making sacrifices, killing—we’ll do anything to reach one another. Fear and pain may be unavoidable, but we’re strong…we’re survivors. But to continue surviving in this unfamiliar world plagued by Crazies and strange new abilities, we have to adapt. We have to evolve.
And more than anything, we have to find each other.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Science Fiction

Rating – R

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Lindsey Pogue on Facebook & Twitter