Starving For Love

Please help me welcome my guest Nicole Zoltack. Nicole and I are both authors at Astraea Press. If you haven't checked AP out, I can highly recommend them. Nicole, what are your ten favorite books of all time?

1. Les Miserables. I know, I know. It's a massive book. I'll admit to skimming part. Good ole Victor Hugo needed a better or stricter editor. But the story is incredible, the characters so complex. After reading it for high school, I bought the soundtrack and memorized the songs long before I ever saw the show live. And now that it's coming back, I'm hoping to see it again!

2. Anne of Green Gables. I loved Anne. I used to want to be her. We would have been bosom friends, no doubt about that!

3. Harry Potter - Love the series. And the movies. JK Rowling can write!

4. The Hobbit and LOTR - JRR Tolkien got me started on my love of fantasy. Him and...

5. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis. For the longest time, I only read and reread The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I just couldn't get into the other books. It wasn't until I was older that I read the entire series. So good. I didn't know what I was missing.

6. Tiffany the Walking Disaster - You probably haven't heard of this one. It's a chapter book and the first book that I read over and over and over and over. My first favorite book of all time. For a long while, every story I wrote had a Tiffany in it.

7. Landry Park - A mixture of high class society in a dystopia. My kind of story!

8. Outlander - I haven't read all of the books in the series but these books are so good. They have a mixture of everything - time travel, history, action, adventure, romance... Jamie. Need I say more?

9. The Princess Bride - Excellent movie. Equally excellent book. Different in their own ways but both perfect.

10. Don't Die, My Love - Lurlene Mcdaniel slays me with her moving stories about kids fighting illnesses and cancer. This one in particular stood out to me. I cry each time I read it.

There you go. My top ten books! Did any of my top ten make it into yours? Let me know and you'll be entered to win some signed swag!

Blurb: 
 Sirena never thought a trip to the surface would change her life forever until she meets Kristian. The sea might hold her body, but Kristian now holds her heart. Their love can never be, however, for she is a mermaid and he a human.

Rushing to steal some time with him, Sirena swims as if sharks are after her only to find Kristian's lifeless body in the sea. Heartbroken, she turns to a sea dragon witch. With the promise to bring Kristian back to life at the mere cost of Sirena's memories of him, the sea witch works her magic. Only, Sirena isn't specific enough with her request, and her love returns as a zombie who threatens the mortal world.

Longing to fill the emptiness inside, Sirena swims to the surface and discovers a distraught child crying about a monster eating his family. Appalled at the notion, she promises to slay the monster, not knowing she is seeking to destroy the man she loves.  

Bio: 
Nicole Zoltack loves to write in many genres, especially romance, whether fantasy, paranormal, or regency. When she’s not writing about knights, superheroes, or zombies, she loves to spend time with her loving husband and three energetic young boys. She enjoys riding horses (pretending they’re unicorns, of course!) and going to the PA Renaissance Faire, dressed in garb. She’ll also read anything she can get her hands on. Her current favorite TV show is The Walking Dead. To learn more about Nicole and her writing, visit http://NicoleZoltack.blogspot.com.


Nicole, we have Anne of Green Gables in common. I think every girl wanted to be Anne's bosom friend.

Apocalypticon

Apocalypticon

by Clayton Smith

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BLURB:

Three years have passed since the Jamaicans caused the apocalypse, and things in post-Armageddon Chicago have settled into a new kind of normal. Unfortunately, that "normal" includes collapsing skyscrapers, bands of bloodthirsty maniacs, and a dwindling cache of survival supplies. After watching his family, friends, and most of the non-sadistic elements of society crumble around him, Patrick decides it's time to cross one last item off his bucket list.

He’s going to Disney World.

This hilarious, heartfelt, gut-wrenching odyssey through post-apocalyptic America is a pilgrimage peppered with peril, as fellow survivors Patrick and Ben encounter a slew of odd characters, from zombie politicians and deranged survivalists to a milky-eyed oracle who doesn't have a lot of good news. Plus, it looks like Patrick may be hiding the real reason for their mission to the Magic Kingdom...

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Excerpt One:

Ben ripped off a fresh, cleanish strip of blanket and wrapped it around the hand. Patrick whimpered as he pulled it tight and tied it off. “Next time the world ends, let’s make sure we’re stocked up on peroxide and bandages,” Ben said.

Patrick glowered at the first aid kit, which lay open on the hood. Its contents included, and were extremely limited to, six Band-Aids, four cotton swabs, a bottle of Tylenol, some nail polish remover, a packet of Midol, a travel box of Clorox Handi Wipes, and a roll of Tums. “Who packed that thing?” Ben asked. “Pee Wee Herman?”

“The really scary part is, that’s the kit we had in a house with a five-year-old. Criminy. We’re lucky 20 fold-up accordion snakes didn’t pop out when we opened the lid.” He picked up the Tylenol with his good hand and struggled with the lid for a while before turning it over to Ben. “Help. It’s childproof.”

He couldn’t tell if he really had a fever, or it if was a phantom sickness, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The most benign injury could turn fatal without basic medical supplies. And a half-inch hole through the hand was not a benign injury. If the alcohol didn’t kill the infection, he’d lose his hand. That’s a surgery he didn’t want to think about undergoing with full sedation, much less in the backwoods of Mississippi while buzzed on a bottle of Canadian Mist with Ben as his surgeon. He checked the bandage and made sure it was tight. The wound seemed to have stopped bleeding, at least, though he seemed to have lost feeling in his three middle fingers. He didn't take that for a good sign. “We need real medical supplies,” he said. “Because I am not letting you cut off my hand.”

“What’s the point of even having a machete if we’re not gonna use it?” Ben complained.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Clayton Smith is a sometimes-writer, sometimes-napper based in Chicago, where he uses neither his bachelor’s in journalism nor his master’s in arts management. He is often calamitous, and good at bacon. He lives with his impressively tolerant wife.

Clayton’s previous works include Pants on Fire: A Collection of Lies and the comedic play Death and McCootie, which debuted at the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival.

Links:

www.StateOfClayton.com

www.twitter.com/Claytonsaurus

www.facebook.com/Claytonsaurus

www.amazon.com/author/claytonsmith

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Apocalypticon-Clayton-Smith-ebook/dp/B00IRPTRHW/ 

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Apocalypticon-Clayton-Smith/dp/0989806839/ 

 Clayton will be awarding a $25 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour so follow his tour and comment often. You can find his schedule at

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2014/02/virtual-super-book-blast-tour.html