The Room Beyond by Stephanie Elmas

My Rating: 3 for Writing, 4 for Creep Factor

This is a hard book to review. I was compelled to read the entire book, and really wanted to find out the explanation for the disturbing things going on, but at the same time, I felt the writing was often a bit heavy-handed. The dialog was not what I would have preferred, though I think some of the cheesy lines might have been intentional,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing all of you a happy Thanksgiving, filled with special blessings and surrounded by those you love. And for those of you in other countries around the world, just have a wonderful, special day, full of gratitude for all of your blessings, as well!

 

Free Kindle Version of Phoenix by Philippa Mayall through Sun., 12/1/13

Don’t miss out on these free biographies! Lots of good stuff here, including Phoenix by Philippa Mayall.

Silver Birch Press

The Silver Birch Press release Phoenix: A Memoirby Philippa Mayall is #2 on the Amazon Kindle list for free biographies and memoirs of women.  Download your free copy through Sunday, 12/1/13 at at this link.

NOTE: If you don’t own a Kindle, you can download Kindle read apps — for free — at Amazon.com

For her outstanding writing, Silver Birch Press is nominating Philippa Mayall for a 2013 Pushcart Prize.

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What Are You Reading?

It’s Friday, once again, after a month of Fridays that got lost in the shuffle around here. So, let’s get back with the program. Time for a What Are You Reading post. I’m about two-thirds of the way through a very creepy book called The Room Beyond, by Stephanie Elmas. I thought I was choosing something fairly ordinary in the way of “regular” fiction, but oh, no. Even when I don’t intend to, I find myself reading weird and creepy stuff. I’m enjoying it, so far, and can’t wait to find out the rest of the mystery, though some of it is relentlessly dark. I’ll do a review as soon as I finish.

Your turn. What are you reading this week? And what’s next in your To Be Read pile? As always, inquiring minds wanna know.

Monday Lunchtime Giveaway!

Many of you know I’ve been spending most of my days lately at the hospital with my mother, who took a bad fall over three weeks ago. I’m happy to say she has returned to her own room at the nursing home where she lives and has so many friends. She is stable, and I am able to start catching up with my blogs once again, though it might take a while. I’m way, way behind. But I wanted to get back on track with my Monday Lunchtime Giveaways, so here is today’s offer:

2 Free Downloads of Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells. This is one of my favorite books. The writing is lyrical and the story line, pure magic. If you’d like to have a free download, just email me via the Contact Me button at the top of the page. The first two responders will be gifted a copy of the book.

5 Free Downloads of my novel, Wake-Robin Ridge. If  romantic suspense with a spooky twist, set in the Blue Ridge mountains sounds interesting to you, you might want to give this a try. Email me, and I’ll gift you a copy.

5 Free Downloads of Summer Magic, my chapbook of poems about Life and Love, and featuring several poems about MacKenzie Cole (the main male character in Wake-Robin Ridge) as a ten-year old boy. 

I will let this offer run an extra day because I’m getting it posted late, but if you want to try any of these books, let me know quickly, to be sure you don’t miss out.

Hope you are all having a wonderful Moon’s Day! It feels great to be back!!

Daylighters by Rachel Caine

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way right up front. Yes, this is a Young Adult series. Yes, it is about vampires. And yes, there are some teenagers involved. But that’s where the similarities to other teen vampire books ends. First of all,

Free Kindle version of Debt, a novel by Rachel Carey from 11/14-11/18/13.

Check this out! FREE until 11/18/13. You can’t beat FREE.

Silver Birch Press

A FREE Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press release DEBT, a novel by Rachel Carey is available from Thursday, Nov. 14, through Monday, Nov. 18, 2013. You can download the Kindle version— which retails for $6.99 – for free at Amazon.com.

BOOK DESCRIPTION: Set in New York City, Debt – a satirical look at the 2008 financial meltdown — follows a range of characters who owe something to someone in a variety of ways. From main character Lillian Fitzgerald — a recent grad with an Master’s in Creative Writing in one hand and $100,000 bill for her student loans in the other — to Henry Bolt, the mysterious force who owns the bank that financed Lillian’s student loans, and an assortment of other people up and down the debt chain (bill collectors, stock market mavens, the wealthy, the foreclosed, the bankrupt, the desperate, the spoiled…

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Re-read of the Month: Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

Do you have books that just call you back for another visit, long after you read them the first time? I do. Classics going back to Jane Eyre & Wuthering Heights, up through Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, and into many newer books, including a lot of recent Urban Fantasy. While looking for something to read at the hospital, as I waited long hours in my mother’s room, I decided

Free Kindle Version of Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology

This is a lovely book, folks. Check it out! It’s free! What could be better?

Silver Birch Press

We’re celebrating the first anniversary of the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology (Silver Birch Press, November 2012) with a free gift — and feel free to spread the word by reblogging this post or emailing your friends.

From Thursday, 11/7 through Monday, 11/11/13,  get a FREE Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology –  a 240-page collection of poetry, short stories, essays, novel excerpts, and stage play scenes from over 60 established and up-and-coming writers in the United States and United Kingdom. The writing ranges in style and subject matter — but all the work touches on “silver” in a variety of creative, original, and compelling ways.

From 11/7-11/11/13, get your free Kindle version of the Silver Birch Press Silver Anthology at Amazon.com.

If you don’t have a Kindle, download free reading apps at this link.

If you are in the UK, find  at

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Ritual Magic by Eileen Wilks

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

Due to serious time constraints in my life right now, I don’t have time to wax eloquently about how much I loved this book. I will have to keep it short and sweet, so let me just say that Ritual Magic: World of the Lupi #10 is the best book of the series, so far! Hands down! If you have been following Lily Yu and Rule Turner, you will want to get this book immediately and find out where the story has gone. 

Eileen Wilks has built one of the most interesting, complex, and yet easily understood, magical Urban Fantasy worlds out there. I absolutely love her beautifully structured Lupi politics, the careful layering of history and mythology, the use of other forces the Lupi must deal with, and so much more. Especially the dragons. I have mentioned there are dragons in past reviews, but it bears repeating. Dragons. Of great beauty and power and wisdom. Oh, how I love their relationship with the Lupi and the world at large.

If you haven’t read any of this series, pick up the first book, Tempting Danger, and get started. Each book is better than the one before. And don’t be alarmed at all the romance books Wilks has written, if that is not your cup of tea. She is a very successful writer in that genre, but the Lupi books are pure Urban Fantasy, through and through. And terrific Urban Fantasy, at that.

Ritual Magic: World of the Lupi #10

If you decide to place an order with amazon, clicking through from my links will give me credit.  If you are enjoying  my reviews on Bookin’ It, it’s a great way to let me know!  Thanks!

Still Here!!

The Naiad
St. Johns River Eco Tours
Moored at Highbanks Marina, DeBary Florida

So sorry I’ve been MIA for the last two weeks, but I have been spending most of my days at the hospital with my 89-year-old mother, who fell and broke her hip and her wrist. This has been a very exhausting time for all of us, her in particular, and she has had some ups and downs, requiring more than one procedure to help her get back on track. Today was a better day than yesterday, so I’m hoping she will soon be able to continue with her physical therapy and get back to her room and her friends at the nursing home where she lives. She misses her room & her things, and her friends there. And they miss her.

I’m hoping to have some time to get a few reviews up in the next day or two, if all goes well. In the meantime, I have a wonderful link I want to share with you. Some of you know I’m writing my 2nd book now, set in Florida, amidst our beautiful rivers and wildlife. My heroine runs an Eco-Tour boat on the St. Johns River, which is interesting in itself, being one of very few rivers in the country that flows north. The St. Johns is incredibly beautiful and teeming with all manner of wildlife and birds. There is a wonderful lady who has her own eco-tour boat, based at Highbanks Marina in DeBary, Florida. I’ve been on her tour, and she was my inspiration for my new heroine, Maggie Devlin. Monday I took a break from everything for a short time & drove to the marina to interview her about her life on the river. I had a list of questions for her, and she very graciously took me out for an hour’s ride in her smaller pontoon boat, while answering my questions and sharing some interesting stories about her tours.

If any of you are in this area, you really should do yourself a favor and go for a ride with Captain Jeanne Bell, on her lovely boat, The Naiad. You’ll enjoy every minute of the roughly 2-hour cruise, and you’ll see all sorts of fun stuff like alligators, wading birds, eagles, deer, and maybe even manatees or a bobcat. You never know what you might come across. Please check out her website to see some great photos. And on the main page is a terrific video showing you what the cruise is like. (Be sure to click the icon in the lower right corner to see it full sized.) And just think…that’s where I went to relax Monday, when the pressure of the last two weeks got to be too much. It was so beautiful! (We even saw purple gallinules, one of my favorite water birds. This is not my photo, but really shows what a gorgeous bird this is.)

Here’s the link for you. Check it out! And go see Captain Jeanne when you are in DeBary!   St.  Johns River Eco-Tours

Enjoy!

Summer Magic FREE Today!

Got up a bit late this morning, sorry! But for those who may have missed the earlier post, my book of poetry, Summer Magic, is free today, tomorrow and Monday. Hope some of you will take this opportunity to download it. Nothing to lose, right? And you may discover it is something you enjoy. If so, hope you’ll consider leaving a positive review on amazon. Thanks!

Summer Magic: Poems of Life and Love

Long Days of Reading…It Could Be Worse!

Having spent the last eight days alone in a hospital room, listening to the steady beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor, while waiting for my mother to have her surgery, then wake up again (which she didn’t do for four pretty scary days afterward!), I have found a lot of time to read, as you might imagine. I finished the latest World of the Lupi book, Ritual Magic, which was fantastic, and which I will be reviewing as soon as I catch my breath. And I’m re-reading one of my favorite Urban Fantasy books, Bayou Moon, by Ilona Andrews. It is Book 2 of their On The Edge series, and it is just as good this time around as it was the first. I’m remembering with every page why I fell in love with William Wolf and why he will always be one of my favorite characters in the genre. Maybe in any genre. He’s brilliantly done.

I will post a reminder tomorrow about my free promo for my own book, Summer Magic, and will get back in the swing of things here soon, I hope. My mother has taiken a turn for the better in the last two days, and we are all very encouraged about her progress from this point forward. Thanks to everyone who has written or posted, sending well-wishes to her, and to me, with my vision problem. (I’m coping. It’s not changing very much, but I’m learning how to deal with it better.)

Can’t wait for life to be back to something akin to normal again. I’ve missed you guys!!