Dream Girl

DREAM GIRL

by S.J. Lomas

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

BLURB:

For Christine, dreams have never meant much. Until she meets Gabriel. Everyone thinks Christine should stay away from her new coworker at the library-thanks to his bad reputation-but when her dreams grow more vivid and she becomes entangled in a dangerous dream world with Gabriel every night, she can't stay away. Soon it's clear there is far more to dreams than Christine ever imagined, and now she's on the path to making the biggest, and strangest, decision of her life.

EXCERPT:

I should have tossed out a welcoming smile and a “Nice to meet you. Gotta run,” but the strong outline of his back did nothing to prepare me for the siren song of his front. Melancholy practically poured off him, nearly visible, yet transient as smoke. His tousled brown hair, square-ish face, Johnny Depp lips and intense brown eyes nearly knocked me backwards. In that brief instant of eye contact, I felt the disorienting fuzziness that comes between sleep and wakefulness. Tiny flecks of autumn amber sparkled in his eyes, beckoning me deeper. My lips parted, as if not under my control, and prepared to utter some sort of greeting but stopped. I noticed the slightest twinge in my brain.

Strange but not unpleasant, it felt like a warm breeze had just blown away a cobweb from my mind. Jarred by all these things happening in an instant, I turned away. Even so, I could feel his eyes on me as I fled. It made the entire length of my spine tingle.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

S.J. Lomas is a cheerful Michigan native who writes strange and somewhat dark stories. She is a wife, mother, librarian, and definitely a dreamer.

Readers can visit S.J. at her website: www.sjlomas.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SJLomas

Twitter: @SJLomasAuthor

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18133040-dream-girl

Personalized copies available from Blue Frogs Books : http://www.bluefrogbooksandmore.com/book/9780985956295

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Girl-S-J-Lomas/dp/0985956291/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425602607&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=dream+girl+s.j.+lomas

Barnes and Noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dream-girl-sj-lomas/1117170120?ean=9780985956295

Buy direct from the publisher:

http://scribe-publishing-company.myshopify.com/products/dream-girl

REVIEW QUOTES:

“Told in very short chapters with alternating points-of-view, Dream Girl tells an enticing story of friendship, adventure, and determining one’s path in life.”

- Randy-Lynne Wach

Review for San Francisco Book Review

“This part-adventure/part-romance will keep readers on the edge of their seats while trying to figure out where it all will end. This will appeal to fans of the Abandon series by Meg Cabot.”

-Deborah L. Dubois

Voice of Youth Advocates, (VOYA)

The author is giving away a $10 Amazon/B&N gift certificate to one lucky winner. Use the rafflecopter link below to enter. You can find the tour schedule at http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2015/04/book-blast-dream-girl-by-sj-lomas.html

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Beyond the Book: Women of the Old West

You may not have realized this, but Laura Ingalls Wilder was a woman of the old west too. Her father had itchy feet and wandered from one place to another and finally settled in DeSmet, South Dakota. It was there that Laura met and married her husband Almanzo Wilder.

Life wasn't easy for them. They coped with hail storms, illness, fire, and the death of a child before moving to Mansfield, Missouri where they raised their only child a daughter called Rose. It was in Mansfield that Laura wrote the Little House books that have so captivated people of all ages. If you've never read the Little House books, I urge you to try one. You'll like it.

The picture is of Laura and Almanzo at the time they were married.

This series on cowgirls and women of the west is in honor of Peyton O'Malley my heroine in Rest Thy Head. Peyton moved to Wyoming where she learned to ride a horse, went camping, explored caves, observed wild horses, and fell in love. 

Picture of Laura and Almanzo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Laura_and_Almanzo.jpg

Mocassin Trace

BLURB:

… it was about the land…a tale of love and loss and hope…

“The most engaging and brilliantly crafted historical work since Margaret Mitchell’s great classic.”

Barbara Casey

Author, The Gospel According to Prissy

Hamilton Ingram looked out across the fertile Georgia bottomlands that were Moccasin Hollows, seeing holdings it had taken generations of Ingrams to build.  No drop of slave sweat ever shed in its creation.  It was about the land…his trust, his duty to preserve it for the generation of Ingrams to come…

It is July of 1859, a month of sweltering dog days and feverish emotional bombast.  Life is good for widower Rundell Ingram and his Hazel-eyed, roan-haired son, Hamilton.  Between the two of them, they take care of Moccasin Hollows, their rustic dogtrot ancestral home, a sprawling non-slave plantation in the rolling farming country outside Queensborough Towne in east Georgia.  Adjoining Ingram lands is Wisteria Bend, the vast slave-holding plantation of Andrew and Corinthia Greer, their daughter Sarah, and son Benjamin.

Both families share generations of long-accepted traditions, and childhood playmates are no longer children.  The rangy, even-tempered Norman-Scottish young Hamilton is smitten with Sarah, who has become an enticing capricious beauty—the young lovers more in love with each passing day, and only pleasant times ahead of them.

But a blood tide of war is sweeping across the South, a tide that might be impossible to stand before.

EXCERPT:

Bessie's head jerked around, "...them gun shots."

           

A stooped-over Sarah looked up, "What?"

           

"Gun shots..."  Bessie put down the box of jars and headed toward the cellar door.  "From the direction where the men be.  We gittin' upstairs, an' gittin' now."

           

Sarah's heart pounded as they came up out of the cellar and looked in the direction of more shots.

           

"Come on..."  Bessie hurried into the pantry where she reached down the powder horn from the top shelf, then the rifle and pistols. "Git 'em ready with all that shootin'.  Till we know different, we make sure two-legged low-downs don't sneak to the house."

           

Sarah rushed to the window and murmured, "Hamilton..."  She feared  for him, for their child, for all of them.  "Surely you don't suppose it's Federals?"

           

"Might be better if'n it is 'stead of what else be skulkin' in them woods.  Stay away from the winder, an' finish rammin' this powder."

           

Sarah poured the ball and powder firm, rammed it, pulled the rammer out, and whispered, "Bessie listen...birds stopped singing."

           

"Except that cawin' crow seein' somethin' what don't belong."

           

Sarah took another quick peek, "There's several horses, but I don't see any riders.  Mules are still hitched.  I don't see anyone at the plow, but there's men on among the trees."

           

"You watch the front door."  Bessie snugged the pistol in her apron pocket.  "I cover the back.  Anybody tries comin' through the dogtrot door or through the parlor, we back into here, keep 'em from circlin' us."

           

"What about Papa Rundell?"  Sarah's stomach was queasy.

           

"He keep his rifle ready.  Anyone bust in his room be dead 'fore they twitch a hair."

           

With a crash the kitchen door flew open.  Sarah brought her rifle up and fired, the shot splintering door and jamb.  The sound thundered through the house.  Bessie's rifle steadied dead-on.

           

The silhouetted head and shoulders ducked into a hunch and Hamilton yelled, "Sarah!"  His hand smeared at stinging blood-speckled splinters of wood along his cheek.

AUTHOR INFO: 

With postgraduate degrees and faculty appointments in several medical universities, Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem. In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate neuroembryology, Hawk has authored several works of fiction.

Hawk began writing mysteries for his school newspaper. His works of fiction, historical love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers are not genre-centered, but plot-character driven, and reflect his southwest upbringing in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his serial protagonist in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series… murder and mayhem with a touch of romance. Vault of Secrets, the first book in the Ingram series, was followed by Nymrod Resurrection, Blood and Gold, and The Lady of Corpsewood Manor. All have received national attention.  Hawk’s latest release in the Ingram series is due out this fall with another mystery-thriller work out in 2014. The Bleikovat Event, the first volume in The Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series, was released in 2012.

"Without question, Hawk is one of the most gifted and imaginative writers I have had the pleasure to represent. His reading fans have something special to look forward to in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. Intrigue, murder, deception and conspiracy--these are the things that take Hawk's main character, Navy ex-SEAL/part-time private investigator Craige Ingram, from his South Carolina ancestral home of Moccasin Hollow to the dirty backrooms of the nation's capital and across Europe and the Middle East."

Barbara Casey, President

Barbara Casey Literary Agency

www.hawkmackinney.net

http://www.amazon.com/Moccasin-Trace-Hawk-MacKinney/dp/1595072608/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400172529&sr=8-1&keywords=moccasin+trace

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/moccasin-trace-hawk-mackinney/1008084042?ean=9781595072603

The author is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner. To enter use the rafflecopter link below. You can find his schedule at http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2015/04/book-blastmoccasin-trace-by-hawk.html

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Inhuman Interest

INHUMAN INTEREST

by Eric Turowski

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

BLURB:

INHUMAN INTEREST

Story By Tess Cooper

Thirteen words in a want-ad turn Tess Cooper’s world upside down after she signs on as a paranormal research assistant to the mysterious Davin Egypt. He reveals a world of grave robbing, clockworks artifacts in blue amber, antique revolvers that fire strange ammo, and powerful forces beyond human comprehension.

As ancient occult energies threaten to destroy her city, Tess must use her journalistic instincts to stay one step ahead of the public works director, Drew Dawson, whose agenda seems bent on destruction rather than maintenance. And possibly murder, but will anyone believe her?

Yeah, right. When garbage trucks fly.

If Tess teams up with the hunky police lieutenant, Kirk Gunther, and the pale, oddball Mr. Egypt, they might be able to save the city in time. That is, if Egypt even wants to. And if Tess overcomes her phobias long enough to do battle in Granddad’s 1983 Subaru Brat.

Things are about to get icky.

EXCERPT:

I watched Angie wobble away and marched myself toward the stonewalling the cops would give me when I felt the soles of my flats slide. Pinwheeling arms didn’t help me get my footing, and with a tiny cry, I went down.

And down, and down, and down.

Snow slid up my shirt, up my pants, and something less cold but more wet. I thrashed around, succeeding only in getting more snow inside my clothes. Not falling, but sinking. I sank into a deep hole. And then I realized it wasn’t a hole but a grave.

Angie came rushing back, as much as she could rush on her stumpy, little legs. “Tess, what the hell happened? I heard you screaming and—oh, my God.”

I expected her to kneel down and help me out of the loose soil and slush, but instead, she whipped out her camera. The little motor whined as she took about six hundred shots. “I think I got the image for my Christmas cards this year.”

“Ange, help me out of here!” I pushed against the soil with one foot, and felt it sink deeper. I tried with the other one. Then I plunged in up to my neck. My arms found no grip, either. It was like quicksand, even though quicksand doesn’t really exist. I knew that. Worse, a horrible, horrible smell drifted up from below. Decomp, rot, death.

Ick.

AUTHOR INFO AND LINKS:

Newspaper founder, bookstore owner, artist, musician, and man-about-town Eric Turowski writes lots of mixed-genre books when he’s not too busy playing laser tag with Tiger the Cat and his fiancée Mimi deep in the Central Valley of California.

You can learn more about Eric at www.ericturowski.com.

Connect with Eric online

Twitter: https://twitter.com/eric_turowski

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Turowski.Books

Eric will award one randomly drawn commenter a signed copy of the book, plus a $25 Amazon gift card (US/Canada only) and a second randomly drawn commenter a signed copy of the book (US/Canada only). Use the rafflecopter link below to enter. You can find his tour schedule at :  http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2015/04/book-blast-inhuman-interest-by-eric.html

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Snippet Sunday and Weekend Writing Warriors: Return Engagement

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, your chance to sample the work of a talented group of authors. I've been sharing excerpts from Return Engagement. To recap, my hero and heroine have met on a beach ten years after his father broke them up. They've found that many of the old feelings are still there. He asked her to walk down the beach with him and eat a hot dog. The talk turned to her fiance Alex Crawford. I've skipped some lines. I'm not saying why she wasn't wearing her engagement ring. I've done a little creative punctuation to get the lines I wanted. Richard speaks first.

“What will old Alex say about you going out with another man; did you call him from the dressing room to tell him where you were going? Doesn’t he care where you are tonight?”

Elizabeth’s heart plummeted. “Actually, I...I made tentative plans to have dinner with Mother and Alex; it wasn’t a firm date, but I really should go back to my car and get home. ”

Richard polished off the last of his hot dog. “If you didn’t call me I’d be worried; won’t Alex come looking for you when he doesn’t hear from you?”

Elizabeth frowned. “We don’t check in with each other every minute of the day, Richard. I don’t like a man who’s too jealous and possessive.”

Buy link: http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=819