A String of Stories

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Ann Chiappetta will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

A demon deer and a ghost cat. Sibling rivalry and sexual awakening. Self-image and self-confidence. The chance for an offworlder to breathe free at last on a new planet. Those are just some of the diverse themes of these remarkable stories. Some endings are happy, some are sad, and some are intriguingly open-ended. But once you step inside the author’s world, you cannot emerge unmoved.

Read an Excerpt from "A Temporary Perspective"

Sloane had ordered Chinese take–out, a treat on their fixed income. Josh loved eggrolls, and his smile upon seeing the containers made her day.

After clearing the dishes and stowing the leftovers in the fridge, Sloane noticed Josh watching her.

“Josh, what is it?”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Sure, honey.” She put her hands in her lap to hide her nervous fidgeting.

“Mom, now that I’m in 8th grade, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do after high school.”

“You mean, like college?”

“Kind of. But not really. Mom, I want to join the military.”

Sloane stopped fidgeting, shocked. This wasn’t how the conversation should go, she thought. He was supposed to say something different. “Mom, I want to learn all about computers.” Or “Mom, I want to run my own business.” But the military? She must have looked confused, because she saw the barest flick of an eye roll from her usually respectful and stoic son.

“The military?” she asked.

“Yes, the Army—the Reserve Officer Training Corps, actually. It starts in 9th grade.”

Sloane didn’t know how to respond. Part of her was relieved, and the other part wasn’t happy at all. “That means you’ll be going away a lot.”

“Not until after high school,” he said. “Besides, Juan and Mark are joining ROTC, too.”

“Sounds like you’ve done your homework on this one,” she said. “I’ve tried my best to raise you to make good decisions and be practical.”

They sat in silence at the dining table. Sloane couldn’t help finding the irony in what was clearly her own inaccurate thinking. Josh wasn’t even thinking of her as an embarrassment or of himself as the only son of an abandoned single mother who was going blind.

“It could be dangerous,” she said. “I’ll worry.”

“Mom, it’s what I want. There are kids who get all messed up just crossing the street.”

Sloane shook her head in defeat. There was no arguing with the invincibility of youth.

About the Author:

Making meaningful connections with others through writing.

Ann’s nonfiction essays have been printed in Dialogue magazine, among others. Her poems are often featured in Poesis, The Pangolin Review, the Avocet, and Magnets and Ladders. Her poetry is also included in Breath and Shadow’s 2016 debut anthology, Dozen: The Best of Breath and Shadow.

Her first two books, a poetry collection, UPWELLING: POEMS C 2016 and memoir, FOLLOW YOUR DOG A STORY OF LOVE AND TRUST C 2017, are available from all eBook sellers in electronic and print softcover, and as audio books from Audible.

Ann’s third book WORDS OF LIFE: POEMS AND ESSAYS C 2019 can also be purchased in all eBook formats and in softcover. The Audible audio book will be released in Fall 2020. Ann’s newest title, A String of Stories: From the Heart to the Future C 2020, is also available as an eBook and softcover.

Ann’s blog: http://www.thought-wheel.com
Ann’s personal website: http://www.annchiappetta.com
Ann’s author page: http://www.dldbooks.com/annchiappetta/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annie.chiappetta
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thought-Wheel-from-the-mind-of-Ann-Chiappetta-1635335713146080/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnieDungarees

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/String-Stories-Heart-Future-ebook/dp/B085BZJ1MK/ref=sr_1_1

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House of Ash and Brimstone

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Megan Starks will be awarding a prize pack of best-selling urban fantasy romance + a copy of House of Ash and Brimstone to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Hell has come to collect…

…but Gisele Walker has no plans to pay the debt.

As a half-demon paranormal bounty hunter, Gisele is used to flirting with death, but stealing a curio and opening a portal to Hell’s demon court is more than your average day job.

Now, she’s partnered with an infuriatingly handsome demon, Shade, who has more levels of grey than she can count.

Who can she trust to help save the city as Baltimore burns to the ground and ghouls roam the streets?

With a white-hot attraction burning between them and secrets blocking their path, Gisele must face her past and venture into the twisted heart of the demon royal court.

But with no memory of her past…

…will she be able to save their future?

Read an Excerpt

Wings burst from the doppelgänger-Shade’s back, massive and talon-tipped and tensile. They billowed, leathery and black as the forelimbs of a giant bat. Shadows shifted behind them as they spanned, making them appear to fill the width of the room. Patches of skin darkened and pebbled before ripping into tiny, hardened scales that gleamed in the soft glow of the containment tanks lining the walls, and bones elongated, protruding at knuckles, elbows, and clavicle, hulking the creature in both muscles and height until it towered over her. Two thickly ridged, ebony horns cut from its temples, banked in loose ash-brown locks that roiled about its shoulders. A long tail whipped against a tank, shattering glass.

She wanted to scream but couldn’t, numb, frozen like prey before a monster.

Shade’s demonic form speared her with eyes blacker than the depths of Hell, glistening with pure evil. They were the eyes of a creature that would suck out her soul and sanity and laugh at the corpse it left behind. This was what she’d always known in the back of her mind, that Shade was dangerous. That he was a born killer, a full-blooded Devil from the deepest regions of Hell.

No, wait. That wasn’t right. Sure, she was scared of Shade’s true form—he was a powerful and nightmarish-looking beast. But she also had flashes of him smiling and protecting her, worried and protecting her, laughing and crying and screaming her name, all while baring those same obsidian wings.

A gun was in her good hand, but she didn’t remember having drawn it. It wavered, trembling where it was outstretched.

Shoot, shoot to kill, a whispered voice not her own pounded in the back of her head, incessant. Shoot him before he turns on you, then shoot yourself.

With a start, she realized she’d aimed her sight at the real Shade’s back. She was a breath away from firing.

About the Author:

Megan Starks is the award-winning author of the Gatewalkers urban fantasy series and a game writer at Obsidian Entertainment. A Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® finalist, Writers Guild of America award nominee, and Pitch Wars alumna with an MFA in fiction, Megan enjoys reading and writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and fantasy novels. Whether it's dark demons, brooding vampires, howling werewolves, or feisty witches, Megan loves it all.

When she's not penning novels about magic and strong, kick-butt heroines, she enjoys playing video games and spending time with her husband and their cat, Sushi, in California.

Look for Night of Sunder & Sorrow, the sequel to House of Ash & Brimstone, coming in Spring 2020.

Get a free prequel to House of Ash & Brimstone by joining Megan’s mailing list at: http://www.fictivate.com/books

Crave more #Gatewalkers? For updates and to chat about writing, video games, coffee, and cute kitty-cats, come hang out on any of the author's social media sites.

Social media links: Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fictivate
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fictivate
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/fictivate
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16069896.Megan_Starks
Bookbub: http://www.bookbub.com/profile/2811299533
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Megan-Starks/e/B07YBKHQBV/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dwlkwf

Buy links: The book is $0.99 during the tour.

Amazon: https://smarturl.it/Gate1Amz
Amazon Print (won't be live until released day): https://smarturl.it/Gate1AmzPrt
BN: https://smarturl.it/Gate1BN
Kobo: https://smarturl.it/Gate1Kobo
iBooks: https://smarturl.it/Gate1iBooks
GoodReads: https://smarturl.it/Gate1GR
Publisher (City Owl Press): https://smarturl.it/Gate1CO

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I'll Be Seeing You

Title: I'll Be Seeing You

Author: Beth Rinyu

Genre: Romance Suspense/Paranormal

Release Date: March 29, 2019 Cover Design: Amy Queau - Q Design

My mother once said that angels come in many forms: people, animals, insects, flowers or even objects. Some stay with us for just a short time, helping us through difficult times, others stay forever, deep inside our soul, carrying us from one moment to the next. I always wanted to believe it was true, that maybe in a world where there was so much bad, there was still hope for some good. As I grew older and the innocence of childhood waned and tainted my views on life, I was finding that perhaps it was just my mother’s way of feeding my young imagination. That all changed the day I met him.

You know that feeling you get deep inside your gut? The one that tells you something is dangerous, or something is meant to be. The one that sees the bad or good in a person before they even utter a single syllable to you. The one that rattles your very soul, making you question your own sanity because you know you must be completely mad for having such an intense connection to someone you’ve just met. That’s the feeling I had when I first saw him. It was so much more than his good looks, his charming personality and his caring ways. It was something unexplainable and unimaginable.

The first time we met, I felt it, and I was pretty certain he did to. Familiar strangers searching for someone, or something deep inside the other. Maybe I was losing my mind or maybe I was just caught up in a daydream of how I wished my life could be. But from the first moment, I had gotten caught up in his gaze, I knew I had stared into those deep-blue eyes once before…maybe not in this lifetime, but perhaps a lifetime before.

Ever since I can remember, I have always enjoyed Creative Writing. There was always something about being able to travel to a different place or become a different person with just the stroke of a pen - or in today's world a touch of the keyboard. I love creating deep characters who you will love or love to hate. 

My life is not as interesting as my books or the characters in them, but then again whose life is? My happy place is a seat by the ocean with my feet in the sand or on the busy streets of New York City. You will more than likely find one of these places as the setting for most of my books.

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Moonlight City Drive

Moonlight City Drive

by Brian Paone

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GENRE: Crime/Thriller Romantic Paranormal

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BLURB:

11:18 p.m. Subject is checking into the Desert Palms Motel, accompanied by an unknown female.

Snapshot in the parking lot. Man and woman embrace. Betrayal, I see it every day, like my own reflection in the mirror staring back at me. Another case, another bottle of booze, life is no longer a mystery to me …

… Because I’m the private eye, hot on your trail; the top gun for hire. You’ll find me lurking in the shadows, always searching for a clue. I’m the bulletproof detective. I got my eye on you …

What’s a little sin under the covers, what’s a little blood between lovers? What’s a little death to be discovered, cold stiff body under the covers?

I’m digging you a desert grave, underneath the burning sun. You won’t be found by anyone. Vultures circle in the sky, and you, my dear, are the reason why.

… I was always easily influenced.

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EXCERPT:

Smith twisted the key as hard as he could and heard a popping noise as the locking mechanism finally gave way. He pushed open his office door and entered the dark room. He tossed his keys onto his desk; they slid a short distance before a stack of time-faded papers and case-file folders abruptly stopped them.

Flicking the light switch, the room illuminated with an anemic-brown glow from the single dusty bulb. He took a step toward the coffee percolator on the windowsill, and his toe caught the corner of a tied-up pile of newspapers dating back at least ten years.

Smith exhaled loudly with a frustrated grunt and kneeled beside the newspaper bundle; the air escaping from his lungs carried the stench of day-old consumed alcohol, topped off with more last night that led to closing time this morning. He really hadn’t slept. He napped for a couple hours, then came here. He removed the Swiss Army knife from his pants and cut the twine, freeing the newspapers, watching as they avalanched to the floor.

He used his palm to shuffle and smear the newspapers around his office floor. His gaze quickly scanned his name plastered on all the headlines, praising the ex-deputy-now-turned-private-eye for all the scum he had gotten off the street, as well as locating abducted kids, reuniting long-lost biological parents of orphans, and exposing spouses who may have forgotten their vows. Smith had seen more than he cared to remember while he had been a sheriff’s deputy and could now safely check the box marked Seen It All since becoming a private eye.


A Word With the Author

What is the sweetest thing someone has done for you?

-        My beautiful wife has given me four amazing children. And fellow author Justin Ames have me a $25 gift certificate to Taco Bell. I feel those are in line with each other.

How would you spend ten thousand bucks?

-        I’d be 1/3 the way to buying my 1983 DeLorean!

Where do you get your best ideas?

Song lyrics. As a rock-fiction author, which means I adapt albums or songs into novels or short stories, my best ideas come from either listening to an album while driving around or while wearing headphones and blasting my favorite bands. It’s the same approach as a film being adapted from a novel; I just take albums and adapt them into novels. (Think if Pink Floyd’s The Wall or The Who’s Tommy were turned into novels instead of films and plays.) Two of my four novels (and all 4 of my published short stories) are rock-fiction adaptations.

What comes first, the plot or characters?

-        A hybrid of the two. I think the way the characters are going to react to the plot is what I tackle first. Then I build their character development around how they are going to act, and I build the plot around what would make them act that way.

What does your main character do that makes him/her special.

-        My antagonist can summon a cult of ghouls to help him with his Jack-the-Ripper-style killings. The catch is, whoever he kills, is reborn into his cult. My protagonist can separate the difference between moral and evil, even if it’s “illegal.” Together, they are a perfect storm and a dangerous combination. And then there’s the leader of the cult. She’s just a bitch.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Brian Paone was born and raised in the Salem, Massachusetts area. Brian has, thus far, published four novels: a memoir about being friends with a drug-addicted rock star, Dreams are Unfinished Thoughts; a macabre cerebral-horror novel, Welcome to Parkview; a time-travel romance novel, Yours Truly, 2095, (which was nominated for a Hugo Award, though it did not make the finalists); and a supernatural, crime-noir detective novel, Moonlight City Drive. Along with his four novels, Brian has published three short stories: “Outside of Heaven,” which is featured in the anthology, A Matter of Words; “The Whaler’s Dues,” which is featured in the anthology, A Journey of Words; and “Anesthetize (or A Dream Played in Reverse on Piano Keys),” which is featured in the anthology, A Haunting of Words. Brian is also a vocalist and has released seven albums with his four bands: Yellow #1, Drop Kick Jesus, The Grave Machine, and Transpose. He is married to a US Naval Officer, and they have four children. Brian is also a police officer and has been working in law enforcement since 2002. He is a self-proclaimed roller coaster junkie, a New England Patriots fanatic, and his favorite color is burnt orange. For more information on all his books and music, visit www.BrianPaone.com

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Moonlight-City-Drive-Brian-Paone-ebook/dp/B076B7X9RQ

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/moonlight-city-drive-brian-paone/1127206870

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.

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The Last Resort Motel: Room Ten

Title: The Last Resort Motel: Room Ten

Author: Crystal Perkins

Genre: Romantic Comedy w/ PNR Elements

Release Date: February 8, 2018 

Devin and Devon are looking for adventure and yeah, some ghosts. Why else would they head out to the middle of nowhere and The Last Resort Motel? Those ghost hunters on TV make it look wicked cool and if they don’t see a ghost, well at least they can keep busy in other ways.

When the ghosts turn out to be more than they bargained for and the motel owner and her boyfriend don’t believe them, they’ll have to get rid of the spirits on their own. If they can make it out of this without being violated or consumed, maybe it’s time to grow up and realize what they have together is stronger than they could have ever imagined. 

I grab the soda, water, and beer and walk to the door. When I open it, it slams right back shut. I try to pull on it but it’s sealed tight. Shit.

“Dev?”

I force my voice to sound calm as I answer her. Inside, I’m feeling like a small tree shaking in the wind, afraid it’s going to fall over. “I don’t think we’re leaving right now.”

12 rooms. 12 authors. 12 unique stories.

January - Gwyn McNamee - Room 1 - Available NOW

February - Crystal Perkins - Room 10 - Available NOW

March - S Van Horne - Room 519​​

April - Dee Kelly - Room 13

May - B.T. Clearwater - Room 58 

June - M.C. Webb - Room 212

July - Megan Matthews - Room 29

August - Elizabeth Otto - Room 100 

September - Ann Mayburn - Room 419 

October - Geri Glenn - Room 666

November - Winter Travers - Room 19

December - Betty Shreffler - Room 15

Crystal Perkins has always been a big reader, but she never thought she would write her own book, until she sat down and did it one day. She lives in Las Vegas, where you can find her running author events when she isn’t reading, buying too many Sherlock t-shirts and anything Wonder Woman, or finding a place to put all of her Pop! figurines. In 2016, she won the Creative Initiatives Award from Romantic Times for encouraging literacy, and also the Community Advocate Award from the Clark County School Librarians Association. A mac and cheese connoisseur, she travels the country looking for the perfect version, while attending book conventions and signings as a cover for her research. The Griffin Brothers, Corrigan & Co., and the Society Girls series are all international best sellers, and she’s thankful to the readers who made that happen.

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