Thursday, May 14, 2015

Out of Control

Today's special guest is Sarah Alderson.Sarah is the author of Hunting Lila (winner of the Kingston Book Award), Losing Lila, Fated, The Sound, Out of Control and Conspiracy Girl (all Simon & Schuster).


Having spent most of her life in London, Sarah quit her job in the nonprofit sector in 2009 and took off on a round the world trip with her husband and daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home (a journey that was documented on her blog and which is shortly to be published as a book).

 After almost a year spent traveling the world, they settled in Bali where they lived for five beautiful years before the vagabonding urge became too great and they decided to embark on Can We Live Here part two. They are currently located somewhere between India, London, Canada and the US.

As well as writing young adult novels and screenplays, Sarah also writes adult fiction for Pan Macmillan (Simon & Schuster in the US) under the name Mila Gray.

Her first adult novel, Come Back To Me, was published in June 2014. The second, This One Moment, will be out in August 2015.


ABOUT THE BOOK


When 17-year old Liva witnesses a brutal murder she's taken into police custody for her own protection. But when bullets start flying, it becomes clear that Liva is not just a witness, she's a target.

Together with a car thief called Jay, Liva manages to escape the massacre - but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun two killers who will stop at nothing to find them.

When you live on the edge, there's a long way to fall.




AN EXCERPT


The three cops in the room go running past me in a blur, all heading for the door. The first two pile out into the corridor, guns already in their hands, shouting commands to each other. The third – the one who just cuffed the boy to the desk hovers in the doorway. He looks over his shoulder. ‘Stay here. Don’t move,’ he shouts at us, clearly forgetting that he just cuffed one of us to a desk, and then he takes an uncertain step out into the corridor, following his colleagues.

He is blown instantly backwards, the force of the bullet throwing him several feet across the room. Gunfire detonates all around. But I don’t notice. I’m just staring at the body of the cop, lying on the floor not fifteen feet from me, his face no longer recognisable as a face, just a crater foaming with red, with shards of white poking out of it.

Everything funnels in that moment; the world reducing to a shattering hum and the completely unreal image of this cop dead at my feet. And then, as if I’m the epicentre of a bomb, reality explodes around me, everything sharpening, noise and heat rushing back in as though filling a vacuum. I become aware of someone yelling at me.

‘Get these off!’

I turn slowly. The air feels suddenly dense as tar, as though I’m wading through it. The boy is shouting at me. He’s standing up, straining against the cuff that holds him to the desk, the muscles in his neck are so taut they look like they’re about to burst through his skin, and for a moment that’s all I can focus on.

 ‘Keys! Grab the keys!’ he yells. He’s pointing with his free hand in the direction of the dead cop.




SPECIAL LINKS




Sarah will be awarding $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn commenter and a signed copy of her new book, Conspiracy Girl, to a second randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour (US/Canada only on books).


 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The Soul Retrieval

Today's special guest is Ann W. Jarvie. Ann has a B.A. in journalism and more than twenty-five years’ experience as an award-winning writer in advertising and public relations agencies, both in South Carolina and Chicago. She now lives near Phoenix, Arizona, where she spends part of her time as a freelance copywriter and the rest writing fiction.


The Soul Retrieval was inspired by Jarvie’s maternal grandmother’s fascinating life on Indian reservations, where she lived with her physician husband until his mysterious and untimely death.

Book is free from Amazon TODAY ONLY!

ABOUT THE BOOK


Inspired by a true story, The Soul Retrieval is a suspenseful tale of love, loss and healing which follows traumatized southern beauty Henrietta Clayborn as she moves between her home in a small South Carolina town and the New Mexico Native American reservation whose spontaneous healings keep drawing her physician husband back. Tortured by her awful secrets, Henrietta struggles to thrive in either locale, but it is her unlikely friendship with Joe Loco––an eccentric Native American mystic with an Elvis fetish and a gift for healing––that shows her the way to be whole again.

Set in the late 1950s, The Soul Retrieval is richly woven with spiritual insights but also deadly secrets, forbidden healings, a murder mystery, stunning scenery and an unforgettable cast of characters.

A story of transcendent and inspiring power that is both entertaining and enlightening, readers will be cheering for the uptight woman from South Carolina to push through her fears of the forbidden as she searches for truth and healing, faces great obstacles on the frontier of self and ultimately becomes more than she ever thought possible.


AN EXCERPT


After finishing the second nocturne, he looked up at her. “You know that I’ve been researching the high incidence of spontaneous healings here, right?” Jeff was both a lead physician and medical researcher at the Medichero Indian Hospital. He reached for a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his short-sleeved white shirt.

“Uh-huh,” Henrietta said. She barely heard what he said. How am I going to get into it? How am I going to tell him? She had asked herself these questions at least a million times. She picked up a pen and notebook from the coffee table, trying to keep her hands busy.

Jeff smoked in silence a moment before continuing. “There’s more to it than even I imagined.”

“More to what?” she asked. She absently doodled on the page without looking up. How am I going to tell him?

Jeff blew smoke. “The spontaneous healings that I’m so interested in ... the medicine men here seem to be doing something real to affect the recoveries.”

Now he had her attention. “They are?” She looked at him. “Like what?”

Instead of answering, Jeff got up and turned toward the bay windows that cradled the piano in a small alcove off the living room of the doctor’s cottage. His silhouette against the bright morning light was a man-shaped eclipse, his muscled edges luminous and blurred by the smoldering tobacco. It gave him an unworldly appearance, and Henrietta was reminded about how often she felt like an outsider here, and even back home.


SPECIAL LINKS



Buy link: Book is free from Amazon on the date of the tour.


The author will award a $75 Amazon/BN gift certificate to a randomly drawn commenter via Rafflecopter.


  a Rafflecopter giveaway