Bruthas by J.L. Whitehead

Synopsis:

What would you do if you were indirectly responsible for the deaths of several women in your neighborhood? What is a psychopath used your neighborhood as his stalking ground? This is the story of three brothers: Jair, the successful attorney in one of Philadelphia's top law firms, Ryan, the IT professional that is struggling with his sexual identity, and Nate, the dealer that has risen to one of the highest ranks in drug distribution ring based in a North Philadelphia neighborhood known as The Block. A series of murders takes place in The Block, and nothing is being done about it because the women that are being killed are addicted to the product that Nate sells. 

Review:

This is a book that really revolves around family and the choices that people make. This review was requested by the author, and to be completely honest this is not a book that I would normally read. It's not that book isn't interesting or doesn't have decent plot lines, because it does, it just wasn't my cup of tea. 

One of the biggest problems I had with this book was the amount of people in the book to keep track of. While I appreciate a wide variety of characters, let's face it every book needs a variety of characters, this one just had to many to not only keep track of but to bond with. I felt like i didn't have enough time or in-depth insight into the characters in order for me to really have a strong investment in them. 

One thing that was pretty good about this book though was the pacing. One of my biggest problems with books is when they feel like they are dragging on and and I just can't get into the storyline. Thankfully this book did not suffer from that affliction. The pacing was pretty fast paced, even from the beginning, and it's possible that it felt fast pace because there were so many characters and things going on with those characters, but I think it works for the reader in that it keeps them interested in the book. 

I wanted to mention that the author did a pretty good job with keeping the book as close to reality as possible. There is no sensationalized drug culture or making it out to be this amazing experience, it is shown for what it really is, a dog eat dog world. There were a couple of issue with some formatting things, but they aren't big or annoying, and I don't think it detracts from the story at all. 

Like I said earlier this book is not really my cup of tea, so I am going to give it a good rating because all the right components are there and I think the book can easily find an audience that will enjoy the book. The one thing that did bother me is that the book really didn't have an ending. It is a two part book, but even with books in a series or a trilogy or what have you, they need a good ending point where the reader can be satisfied until the next book comes out. I felt like this book just kind of ended. If you are looking for a book about family and all the elements that go along with that, in an urban setting, I think this would be a book you would enjoy. 

   

Michele Drier Guest Post

I Owe it all to My Daughter

Although I tell people I don’t read much in the paranormal genre, years ago I read a series about the vampire colony living underground in L.A.

I buried the author’s name and the titles but remembered the basic plot, so the vamps made an impression that came back when my daughter said “Write a vampire book!”

I’d just contracted for my first book, a traditional mystery, and was planning the second when my daughter and her husband started hammering on me about the undead. They both read, voraciously. Between them, they have three Nooks and four Kindles, plus iPhones, iPads and computers. They’re so wired in they just bought their two-year-old a Kindle for games and kids’ show and she calls it her book. A little scary!

With all these reading devices (plus books) scattered around, I figured they were au courant on the hot literary trends so I listened when my son-in-law said, “Go into any bookstore and see the size of the mystery section. Then look at the paranormal section. Then decide.”

I started reading. Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Karen Moning. And then I picked up Kelly Armstrong and was hooked. These guys were writing involved, intricate books full of imagination and other worlds.

But I was a mystery writer. How could I find a hook? I batted around a few ideas (lame) with my daughter until she said, “You’re over-thinking this. Look at celebrities. They all wear oversized dark glasses, don’t come out much during the day, ride around in limos with tinted windows...they could all be vampires.”

And SNAP, the world’s biggest and best international conglomerate of celebrity gossip was born

I also dredged the underground colony from my mind and discovered that my protagonist, a regular named Maxie Gwenoch, had heard all the vampire rumors while at UCLA.  They continue to this day.

The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency lists the Sunset strip area of L.A. and Hollywood as one of the five mostly likely places in the United States to find vampires, due to the crush of nightlife activity.

Google some combination of vampires, L.A., night, underground and up come more than 10,000,000 hits, including a Meetup listing of groups in the L.A. area having to do with vampires in some way.

There are vampire nightclubs, vampire bands, vampire games and a listing for “real vampires in L.A.” Clearly, my daughter was on to something.

I did some research, then imagined my vampires, the Kandesky and Huszar families, in different ways.

Over their 500-year history, the Kandeskys have given up killing and found ways to feed themselves non-violently. They also found a love of wealth, and amassed a fortune from their businesses, which only grew once they went into celebrity journalism. And when Maxie goes to work for SNAP she finds the truth about all those L.A. vampire rumors!

Now I listen with a little tinge of fear when my daughter suggests something. All I am now is due to her!

Michele Drier was born in Santa Cruz and is a fifth generation Californian. She’s lived and worked all over the state, calling both Southern and Northern California home.  During her career in journalism — as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers – she won awards for producing investigative series.

Her mystery Edited for Death, called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review is available at Amazon. She’s working on the second book in the Amy Hobbes Newspaper mysteries, Labeled for Death, out in spring 2013.

Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, is available in ebook, paperback and audible at Amazon.  The first two books, SNAP: The World Unfolds, andSNAP: New Talent, received 4 stars from PRG.  The third, fourth and fifth books, Plague: A Love Story, Danube: A Tale of Murder  and SNAP: Love for Blood rated 5 stars. The first four books are available in a boxed set at Amazon, B&N and Kobo. She’s writing SNAP: Happily Ever After? for release in summer 2013 and a seventh book in late fall 2013.

Visit her website: http://www.micheledrier.comor facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleDrieror her Amazon author page, http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G/

One lucky commenter will receive a copy of her set of books seen above! Good luck to everyone! 

Cover Reveal Stained by Cheryl Rainfield

From the author:

Like I did with SCARS and HUNTED, I drew on some of my own experiences of bullying, abuse, and trauma to write STAINED and to give it greater emotional depth. Like Sarah in STAINED, I experienced abduction, imprisonment, periods of forced starvation, mind control, and having my life threatened. And like Sarah, I tried hard to fight against my abuser, keep my own sense of self, and escape. I hope readers will see Sarah's strength and courage, and appreciate her emotional growth as she reclaims herself.

Book Description:

Sometimes you have to be your own hero.

In this heart-wrenching and suspenseful teen thriller, sixteen-year-old Sarah Meadows longs for "normal." Born with a port-wine stain covering half her face, all her life she’s been plagued by stares, giggles, bullying, and disgust. But when she’s abducted on the way home from school, Sarah is forced to uncover the courage she never knew she had, become a hero rather than a victim, and learn to look beyond her face to find the beauty and strength she has inside. It’s that—or succumb to a killer.

Available Nov 19, 2013

The Book Depository

Books a Million

Seven Point Eight: The Second Chronicle by Marie Harbon

Synopsis:
In the second installment of the five part Seven Point Eight series, the legacy of the OOBE project weighs heavily on the conscience of Dr. Paul Eldridge. Tahra Mamoun needs to muster all her courage and venture back into the alternative dimensions of reality. Through a series of challenging, surreal, and frightening experiences, she comes to comprehend the destructive power she can yield and must face her own demons in the process.

Paul continues his quest to understand the ancient knowledge of the cosmos, while dark forces seek to hijack his research to further a secret agenda. With their lives in jeopardy, Paul and Tahra confront their enemies against an international backdrop featuring the pyramids of Giza and the peaks of Switzerland.

Meanwhile, Sam and Ava endeavor to uncover their past, even though it make irrevocably change their lives.

In a tale of courage and tragedy, love and betrayal, their lives are interwoven around the demons of one man, Max Richardson, who'll stop at nothing to achieve his objectives.

Review:
I'm going to start by saying that while I am a huge fan of sci-fi television shows, I am not a huge fan of sci-fi books. I often times feel like sci-fi books writing does not translate into transporting the reader into another world like tv shows transport the viewer, and oftentimes the books are a little to dry for my taste. I have to say that Marie Harbon's writing style is great for sci-fi books. If more sci-fi writers wrote like she does, I think I would like the genre a lot more.

Harbon does a fantastic job with her cast of characters. There is a huge cast in this book, and she has a remarkable ability to bring them all to life. She weaves each person's story into a great ensemble tale that is both easy to follow, and even easier to find yourself enthralled by. I could probably go on and on about each one of the characters in the book, because they all elicit very strong emotional responses. I had a very strong emotional attachment to both Paul and Tahra, and when Tahra goes through some seriously hard things later in the book, my heart broke for her. Max, is so very much the "bad guy" in the book, he so clearly has an agenda, and you oftentimes find yourself wondering is he even human, he seems to have no feelings or is so narcissistic that he can't see the truth right in front of his face. Even with all his bad deeds, there were a few moments here and there where I came close to feeling bad for him, Harbon managed to make me feel for the guy who I hated through much of the novel. And Sam and Ava, let's just say that if you don't feel for them at the end of the novel then you are missing your emotion chip.

In addition to bringing the characters to life, Harbon is great at bringing the dimensions to life as well. She writes settings so well, which is even more of an accomplishment in this book because the settings vary so much from one to another. Not only does she take us around the world, but she takes us out of this world. And no matter what setting she is describing I was able to paint a picture in my head of what exactly it looked like. There is one dimension I wish she hadn't been so good at painting, because it was so terrible a place, but it really does make the difference in bringing the book to life.

This book is anything but dry and boring, in fact it's a roller coaster you which you could ride over and over and over again, by the end of the book, when you get to the last page, you will be wishing the next chronicle would hurry up and be published. Anyone who likes sci-fi is going to love this book, but I think Harbon's writing brings sci-fi to a fantastic new level, where any reader could pick up this book and find something in it for them, the characters and their relationships are so vivid that they would draw anyone in. And if you are looking for something with a love story in it, then you will find that in this book as well. If you haven't read Harbon's books yet, I recommend that you do, they are great reads!

Amy Joy Lutchen Guest Post

What it means to me to be an author (besides the obvious parenthood of a block of written words):

For me, it started with one meaning: control. You see, my story, Renhala, started as a single piece of paper littered with a hodgepodge of written fears and tragic events from my life, with one very tragic event taking me the longest to write down, the very one I wrote the smallest: the assault. These very small words, which I thought had the biggest impact on who I was at that time, were sitting there on the page, laughing at me, despite their puny size. I stared, and stared at those words, often fighting with myself to roll the paper up and toss it away, but I knew it really wouldn’t be gone. Those words were going to haunt me forever, as well as the humiliation associated with them—the humiliation inflicted by the hands of a total stranger on a very dark day of my life.

But one day, out of the blue and in a moment of surprising triumph, I gathered my strength and flipped that stupid piece of paper over and began writing more words, different words. These words began as a small story about a young woman who was assaulted who loses her mother—her only support— to disease, which then morphed into another story of a young woman who suffered the same fate, but befriended some new, supportive friends. As the magic began flowing freely from my fingertips, this same young woman then mastered a new weapon and her destiny was changed forever. I finally felt better about myself—felt better about life—for I was shaping future events. I wrangled those ugly words and fought them down hard, wrestling and dodging blows, until I took CONTROL. I took control, and took those words and kneaded them, molding them into exactly what what I needed, into something inspiring and uplifting: the mystical land known as Renhala.

*********

I know, that no matter who you are and where you’ve come from, you’ve had some kind of tragic event, or maybe multiple moments of tragedy, muddy your life. Perhaps it was the death of a loved one, or sickness, or bullying, or an assault. Whatever it was, or even is, just know that you can gain the advantage. You can wash yourself of the bad. Write the words down. Write those words down as a poem, short story, epic novel, rap song, whatever, but just write them down. This is how you’ll take the first step in control. This will be your literary therapeutic jam session. This is how you’ll change the future.

Change your life by changing the words…

If you’d like to take a journey into Renhala, you can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Renhala-ebook/dp/B009I3SO9E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356750829&sr=8-1&keywords=renhala 

or here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/240460a

nd fun stuff here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16050736-renhala

Links to me: www.renhala.com

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/AmyJoyLutchen

https://twitter.com/karmiccandy

Sealed with a Curse by Cecy Robson

Synopsis: 

Celia Wird and her three sisters are just like other 20-something girls-with one tiny exception: they're products of a backfired curse that has given each of them unique powers that make them, well, weird… 

The Wird sisters are content to avoid the local vampires, were beasts, and witches of the Lake Tahoe region-until one of them blows up a vampire in self-defense. Everyone knows vampires aren't aggressive, and killing one is punishable by death. But soon more bloodlust-fueled attacks occur, and the community wonders: are the vampires of Tahoe cursed with a plague?

Celia reluctantly agrees to help Misha, the handsome leader of an infected vampire family. But Aric, the head of the werewolf pack determined to destroy Misha's family to keep the region safe, warns Celia to stay out of the fight. Caught between two hot alphas, Celia must find a way to please everyone, save everyone, and oh yeah, not lose her heart to the wrong guy-or die a miserable death. Because now that the evil behind the plague knows who Celia is, it's coming for her and her sisters. This Wird girl has never had it so rough. 

Review: 

I really enjoyed the novella that introduced these sisters and the world they live in, I liked it so much I gave it five stars. So I was pretty excited to read the full length novel, because while I do like novellas, novels have always been my favorite. Another thing that made me look forward to this book is how all encompassing this world is. What I mean by that is there are so many books out there that focus on one set of supernaturals, like vampire books, shifter books, etc. I love when I get to read a book that has all kind of supernaturals in it, they all have to learn to coexist, which almost never happens, and it creates some great situations and cultural clashes. So now that you know why I was looking forward to the book, let me tell you what I actually thought of it. 

First off I have to say that the pacing on this book was an improvement from the novella. The novella was a great read, although it started off a little slow on the pacing, and I think that's because it had to convey a lot of information to the reader in a short amount of time. The book though is right on point for pacing. It starts off strong, and continues all the way through. I am always impressed when a book can maintain good pacing throughout, what it means for you as the reader is be prepared, you aren't going to want to put the book down, it's too much fun! 

Another one of the cool factors of this book is how much diversity exists not just in the world building, but also in the core group of characters themselves. Each sister has such different personalities, and such different abilities. It makes each one interesting in their own respect. I think the only way to refer to the sisters is as an ensemble cast. Books that tackle having so many "main" characters can be difficult, they risk becoming overwhelming to the reader, and having too many main characters can mean that it takes longer for the reader to develop an emotional connection with all the characters. I really didn't feel like I had that problem with this book. I really enjoyed all the characters, it was actually pretty easy to keep them all straight because they are all so much their own individuals. I have to say that Robson handled it like a pro. 

I really enjoyed the secondary characters too, I felt like they each brought something different to the table, and helped to keep the book exciting. There is definitely some romance in the book, so I think the PNR fans will enjoy the book, although I think as the series evolves the steam factor will probably increase in a very enjoyable manner. 

Overall, I have to say I really did enjoy the book. It was just a fun ride. I felt like from beginning to end everything was just so much fun to read and I loved the characters, all of them. I'm sure you could draw a lot of parallels from this series to others, which is the case for all books, but Robson did a great job carving out a place just for her characters and stood on her own two feet. It's a great start to a series that I can't wait to read for years to come. 

Georgia L. Jones Guest Post!

I would like to start by saying “Thank You” to Urban Fantasy Reviews for having me as a guest on their blog.  I appreciate the opportunity.

I am coming up on the launch of my second novel in the Remnants of Life series, Witches.  It actually launches on Saturday, December 1.  I’m very excited about it and just did an interview with our local newspaper today.  The reporter asked me a lot of questions about the process, so I thought I would address that in this guest post. It seems to be something that many people are interested in and I believe like my books, that I have an unusual story…so here goes.

My basic story is not that of rags to riches, that would just be too easy.  I have written my entire life.  I have always enjoyed jotting things down and I recall spending an entire day, at a family gathering many years ago, using a paper plate as my easel to paint a picture with words. I created a story where everyone present had a part, some good and some bad.  I have just always written things down, usually in some form of fantasy. 

When I first began to think of Legends of Darkness, the first book in the series, I didn’t see it as a series.  I saw it as a single book with an unusual story. I wanted to create something different from everything else I was reading.  I wanted to incorporate different things into the storyline.  I remember thinking how awesome it would be to have a book that incorporated a little history, legend, and myth all wrapped up in a storyline that would be unique and unusual.  That was my goal, to create something different. I had the book brewing in my mind for a year or so before I ever wrote the first word.  I couldn’t find my beginning.  Finally, the beginning of the book presented itself to me and I began to write.  I’m one of those weird old fashioned people that have a computer, but actually enjoy the act of writing on paper with an actual pencil.  (Yes, I really said pencil.  That’s what I use for my original manuscripts.)  I was about halfway through the storyline when I pulled out another notebook and started keeping notes in it also.  There was just so much more to the story that wouldn’t fit in the story of one book.  My characters began to take shape along with other creatures that I knew I could use later.  So, at that point I had two notebooks with scribbles that nobody, and I do mean nobody, could ever understand.  In my mind it was taking shape as a series though.  I would wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and pull out my notebook to jot a reminder.  By the time I was done with Legends of Darkness, I had the whole series drafted to be a five book series. 

I have been asked if the series stays on course with my outline, as I write each book…the answer to that is “Not completely.”  As I write, things change.  Sometimes they are small details, and sometimes entire characters die, for one reason or another, but the actual plots of the other books have remained the same.  So far the biggest changes have been in the worlds that I’m creating.  As they grow and my world building talents evolve so does the future of the books in those particular locations.  By the way, I love the world building aspect. 

I write my first draft on paper then for the second draft I transfer it to the computer.  On my first novel I did so many drafts that I lost count, probably somewhere around ten.  On the second book, I did six rewrites.  I have heard authors say that they don’t like doing the edits and rewrites, but I really don’t mind it.  I like adding and taking away from the story where it is necessary. 

I was one of the lucky people that found a publisher in a fairly timely manner.  I finished Legends of Darkness in July of 2010 and I was officially picked up by Blackwyrm Publishing out of Louisville KY on September 5, 2011.  I looked for a little over a year.  I had sent out many query letters and got just as many polite rejections in the way of form letters.  I got a little discouraged and then I would revamp my query and send it again.  It was a rough process, but I still consider myself lucky.  I actually pitched to Blackwyrm at Fandomfest in Louisville KY in July of 2011, which was a year after Legends was done. I attended Fandomfest in Louisville and was able to get a spot in the “Pitch Your Project” session that they held at the convention. I got the chance to talk with them over the course of the weekend and felt really comfortable with the company and their selection of very talented authors.  I was thrilled to be accepted by them. I am very pleased with how Blackwyrm is growing and the quality of the books that they put out.  I feel like they take great pride in everything that they put their name on and as an author that is very important to me.

If you would like to know more about me, my writing, or my publisher, here is the links to the sites:

WWW.GEORGIALJONES.COM

WWW.BLACKWYRM.COM

Look for me on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Georgia-L-Jones/153669898006729

Legends of Darkness, Witches, and The Official 2012 Survivalist Handbook are available on Amazon or at any bookstore…