Guest Post: Heather Long

Please welcome Author Heather Long as she tells us about her experience writing her latest book, Retreat Hell! She Just Got Here

Retreat Hell! She Just Got Here (Always a Marine, Book 2)

Author: Heather Long

Publisher: Decadent Publishing (1NS)

Blurb:

She's one of the few…

They're two of the proud…

They're all Marines…

They’ll share each other, but will one night be enough? 

My Take:


Retreat Hell! She Just Got Here is the second in the "Always a Marine" 1NS series.  The nice thing about this series is that you don't have to read them in order to know what is going on.  I enjoyed this novella.  All three characters were searching for something and were able to find it in each other.  I loved the chemistry between Jazz, Logan and Zach.  The love scenes were well written and very steamy.  The ending left a lot or room for more adventures with the trio.  I hope Ms. Long visits with them again!

Heather writes:

Writing Retreat Hell! She Just Got Here was a different experience for me. First, it was a planned ménage by two of the three involved.  Second, all three participants are Marines. Third, they are all looking for this one night to make a difference in their lives.

Jasmine Winters, known affectionately as Jazz, is a Gunnery Sergeant. She’s a woman’s Marine. She knows how to command men and get the job done. But she’s been a Marine so long that some days she also forgets she’s a woman.  When she expresses a hidden desire to have a ménage in a conversation with her mother--her mom suggests the exclusive online dating site to her: Madame Eve could help her daughter achieve this dream.

Zach and Logan approach the night from different directions.  Best friends since childhood, the guys have shared women before.  After being seriously wounded and burned, discharged due to medical disability and dumped by his fiancé, Logan’s not in the best head space.  Zach is trying to get his friend back, so he arranges a ménage to get him back on the horse, so to speak.

I never expected to grow as attached to these three Marines as I did. But one by one, their honor, their pride, their strength, and their commitment not only to their country but also to each other really pulled me in.  Have you ever wondered whether one night could really make a difference in your life?

About the author: 

Heather Long lives in North Texas with her family and their menagerie of animals. As a child, Heather skipped picture books and enjoyed the Harlequin romance novels by Penny Jordan and Nora Roberts that her grandmother read to her. Heather believes that laughter is as important to life as breathing and that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are very real. In the meanwhile, she is hard at work on her next novel.

Available at:

Decadent Publishing | ARe | Amazon | BookStrand

Reviews on Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13615384-retreat-hell-she-just-got-here

Don't Breathe A Word by Jennifer McMahon

by:  Jennifer McMahon
published by:  HarperCollins
publish date:  May 17, 2011

On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.

This was one of those books that kind of surprised me.  I expected it to be one of those books where the door to the magical place was really a door to a pervert's house and Lisa had been kidnapped.  I wasn't expecting Don't Breathe a Word to actually be about fairies and how evil they can be in the human world.

Lisa, Sam and Evie spend the summers of their childhood exploring the nearby forest where town of Reliance disappeared 100 years before.  It's rumored that the entire town was taken to the land of the fairies.  The children spend their time in the forest leaving gifts for the fairies hoping to coax them out.  One night Lisa makes deal with the King of the Fairies, in exchange for each of their first born children they'll get one wish and Lisa wishes to cross over in to Fairy World.

After that night she's never seen again, until Sam and Evie start getting strange letters supposedly from Lisa.  Is it her?  Where has she been all these years?  Are the fairies real?  This book will keep you guessing beyond the last page.  It was great. Better than I was expecting really!

Blog Tour: Spectral by Shannon Duffy

Author: Shannon Duffy
Publisher: Tribute Books
Date of Publication: April 2012


Convinced she’s a part of the witness protection program, sixteen-year-old Jewel Rose is shuffled around the globe with her family like a pack of traveling gypsies. After arriving at lucky home twenty-seven, she stumbles upon a mysterious boy with magical powers claiming to be her guardian . . . and warning of imminent danger.



Spectral is one of the better witch stories I have read this year.  It's a fresh take on the genre.  Jewel has moved constantly her entire life.  She thinks it is because her dad witnessed a crime.  But she soon find out that she is different and they have been moving because of her.  There are a few twists in this one as Jewel tries to navigate just who to trust.  I liked Jewel's character.  She definitely becomes a stronger person in the end.  There is a sweet romance in this one and thankfully, there was really no dreaded YA love triangle that causes teen angst.  Thank you for that Ms. Duffy!  I think YA readers will find this book very entertaining.  I hope she revisits Jewel again in a future book.  I would love to see how she handles the power she has been given as the Spectral.

About the author:

Shannon Duffy writes young adult and middle grade fiction. She grew up on the beautiful east coast of Canada and now lives in Ontario, Canada. She is the mom of one boy, Gabriel, her angel. She loves writing, reading, working out, soccer, and the sport of champions-shopping. She is the author of the young adult paranormal romance, SPECTRAL. Her upcoming middle grade fantasy novel, GABRIEL STONE AND THE DIVINITY OF VALTA is scheduled for a January 2013 release.


Kindle buy link - $2.99
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007RMZYL4?tag=tributebooks-20

Nook buy link - $4.95
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Google buy link - $3.79
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Smashwords buy link - $4.99
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PDF buy link - $4.95
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Throwback Thursday: The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Author: Michael Connelly
First Published in 2005 by Little Brown
Audiobook by Hachette Audio (2007)

Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller's father was a legendary lawyer whose clients included gangster Mickey Cohen. But Dad also passed on an important piece of advice that's especially relevant when Mickey takes the case of a wealthy Los Angeles realtor accused of attempted murder: "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [screw] up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life." 

I have been putting of reading this book for a long time.  I have yet to see the movie.  I had heard great things about the book and the series, but I was wary.  I often feel let done after reading a book that is built up with rave reviews.  I'm sorry that I waited so long to read it.  I really enjoyed, The Lincoln Lawyer.  I loved Mickey's character.  I was expecting a slimy lawyer type, but I got so much more.  Mickey Haller is actually an honorable guy.  Even though he defends low-life scum, he does so with the best of intentions.  He believes everyone deserves a fair trial.  He is smart and a really likable guy.  Even both of his ex-wives still love him.  

I liked the mystery and how Mickey was able to use the system to get the bad guy.  Now that I have read the book, I'll rent the movie.  As my husband told me, I will probably hate it.  I rarely like movie versions of books. Let us know if you liked both or neither. I'll be seeking out the rest of the series. I look forward to more of Mickey's adventures.  The audio book was very well done.  If you have been putting this one off, go get it now!

Interview with C. W. Gortner

Please welcome Author C. W. Goner who sat down with us for a Q& A.  Make sure to come back on June 20th to read my review of his book, The Queen's Vow.

Welcome C. W.!

K&A: What inspired you to become a writer?

C. W.: I think I was born with the urge to write. I’ve always loved books, ever since I was a child. My mom tells me that when I was little, she’d take me into a book store, and I’d turn quiet and spend hours browsing, even before I actually knew how to read. Once I learned to read, I was unstoppable. I devoured every book I found, so that my parents had to hide the racy stuff, like the Jacqueline Susann novels. I also started making up my own stories while quite young; I’d write them down in spiral-bound notebooks and illustrate the covers. Throughout high school and college, I continued to write, though I never considered that I could actually choose to be a writer. I never saw “author” as a career choice. Then in my mid-twenties, my father asked to read a manuscript I was working on: it was my first historical fiction novel and after he read it, he suggested that I find an agent. He actually encouraged me to seek publication— and set me on the path to becoming a full-time writer. It took 13 years and much trial and error, but once I realized that I might actually be able to write for a living, I would not accept defeat.

K&A: Where do you come up with the idea for your books?

C. W.: Odd ways, actually: it can be a portrait at a museum that sparks an idea, or a place, or sometimes even a line in a book. I often come up with ideas while researching a project I’m already working on. For example, I started conceiving THE QUEEN’S VOW while writing my first novel, The Last Queen. In that book, Isabella is older, already established; the sober queen of legend. In order to depict her accurately, however, I read everything I could about her life and I remember thinking, Wow. She had such a dramatic youth, as tumultuous and dangerous as Elizabeth I’s. What a great story this would make.
K&A: What exciting projects are waiting in the wings?

C. W.: I recently completed the second book in my Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles. It starts a few months after the end of The Tudor Secret and is titled THE TUDOR CONSPIRACY. US and UK publication will be in 2013; Brendan’s next adventure is a dark quest set in the winter of Bloody Mary’s reign, shortly before the Wyatt Revolt.

Currently, I’m writing my next historical novel for Random House, about Lucrezia Borgia and her so-called Vatican years, when she’s thrust into notoriety as the pope’s daughter and embarks on a savage struggle to define herself as a woman even as she battles her family’s ambitions and her own heart. Lucrezia is my first ‘non-queen’, so to speak; though once again, I’ve found myself drawn to a woman who’s been vilified by history. I am enthralled by Lucrezia and her world, as I hope readers will be.

K&A: Who is your favorite literary character and why?

C. W.: My favorite is always the character I’m currently writing; I tend to fall in love in with my characters. As far as characters by other authors go, I’m always drawn to Philip Ashley, the narrator of Daphne Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel. He’s conflicted and impulsive, driven by suspicion and doubt; his heart is not cruel, yet he unleashes tragedy. I think he’s a magnificent creation by a master writer. Philip is not a hero— indeed, he’s an anti-hero—yet once he starts telling you his tale you cannot stop listening.
K&A:  Just for fun, if you could be any animal, what would it be and why?

C. W.: I used to say, I’d love to be a wolf. But these days, I think I’d like to be a well-loved, companion dog. I think that it must be marvelous to live so completely in the moment; to experience the world through your senses, and to love with such nobility of heart.

Thank you so much for having me. I sincerely hope readers enjoy THE QUEEN’S VOW. I’m always available to chat with book groups via Skype or speaker phone; to learn more about me and my work, please visit me at: www.cwgortner.com

Blog Tour: Dark Room by Joshua Graham

Author: Joshua Graham

Publisher: Howard Books (a division of Simon and Schuster)
Date of publication: May 2012


When Xandra Carrick experiences supernatural visions that reveal atrocities perpetrated by American soldiers during the Vietnam War, she finds herself entangled in a forty-year-old conspiracy that could bring the nation into political turmoil. Launching headlong into a quest to learn the truth from her father, Peter Carrick, a Pulitzer Prize Laureate who served as an embedded photographer during the war, Xandra confronts him about a dark secret he has kept--one that has devastated their family.

Darkroom is an intriguing and fast paced book.  It was pretty straight forward but had a couple of twists in the end.  After finishing the book I walked away with mixed feelings.  The thing I liked about  this book was the way it was written.  The story is told through the points of view of several characters in the book.  This was a nice way to get a well rounded view of what was happening.  The reader gets to look into the minds of each character.  They tell us their own thoughts instead of the writer telling us what they are feeling.  I also liked the idea for the story.  Government cover-ups and conspiracies always make for a great book. The parts of Grace's journal concerning the Vietnam war and the fall of Saigon give the reader an real insight into the time period. I wouldn't really classify  this as a Christian book.  There are some religious themes running through it and they fit the story nicely.

There were a few things that I didn't like in the book.  I felt like for the most part, the book was well written.  But, there were a few times when I thought the book could have used some better editing.  Some of the conversations and reactions of the characters felt forced and blown out of proportion.  I also thought the "romance" between Xandra and Kyle was an unneeded element in the book. It just felt like an afterthought.  

For the most part I did enjoy Darkroom.  I think lovers of conspiracy novels will enjoy it. Try it out and let us know what you think!

About the Author:

Joshua Graham grew up in Brooklyn, NY where he lived for the better part of 30 years. He holds a Bachelor and Master’s Degree and went on to earn his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. During his time in Maryland, he taught as a professor at Shepherd College (WV), Western Maryland College, and Columbia Union College (MD).

Today he lives with his beautiful wife and children in Southern California. Several of Graham’s short fiction works have been published by Pocket Books and Dawn Treader Press.

Visit him at www.joshua-graham.com.

Secrets of the Lost Summer by Carla Neggers

Author: Carla Neggers

Publisher: Mira

Date of Publication: January 2012

Audiobook: AudioGo 

Narrator:Susan Boyce

Beneath the surface lie the greatest treasures.

Against this breathtaking landscape, Dylan and Olivia pursue long-buried secrets and discover a mystery wrapped in a love story…past and present.

Carla Neggers goes back to her roots with Secrets of the Lost Summer.  I have always been a fan of her earlier romance novels, so I was excited to read this new one when I first heard about it.  I wasn't disappointed.  I loved this book.  Dylan and Olivia are the main characters and their love story is very sweet. I liked that it was a slow fall into love and they took time to get to know and trust each other. Olivia has come home to regroup and figure out her future.  Dylan is looking for his next step in life and hopes to resolve issues with his father. 

There is a mystery in this one, but it is more a treasure hunt and the search for deep dark secrets. I thought that the mystery of why Dylan's father bought the house in Olivia's home town was well done.  The answers in the end are both heart-wrenching and bittersweet at the same time. But it was the peripheral characters that really gave the book depth. Olivia's sister Jess and her boyfriend Mark as well as her parents were wonderful additions. Like Olivia and Dylan, they all seem to be at a crossroads in their lives. I also loved Noah and hope he gets his own story!


I listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed Susan Boyce's reading.  I have heard her on other books and she is always entertaining.    Definitely pick this one up!

Blog Tour: Once Her Man, Always Her Man by Heather Long

Please welcome author, Heather Long who is promoting the first in her "Always a Marine" series: Once Her Man, Always Her Man.

Make sure to come back on June 17, when we have Heather back with us again.  I will also be posting reviews of the next 2 books in the series!

Author: Heather Long

Publisher: Decadent Publishing (1NS)

Date of Publication: April 2012

Can Luke and Rebecca bridge the pain of a decade long abandonment in one cold Texas night?

My take:


I have come to like the one night stand series put out by Decadent publishing.  I read up on it and each author who submits a story for it must follow certain criteria in order to get it published.  I think this make for a much better quality story.  So far most of them that I have read have been pretty good.


This first in the "Always a Marine" series by Heather Long is no expectation.  Ms. Long has the start of a great series of 1 Night Stand novellas. I devoured this novella!  Once Her Man, Always  Her Man was a very sweet story.  I am always a sucker for lost loves reuniting.  I loved that Luke and Rebecca have a history together.  It made their HEA more believable.  I look forward to more from from Ms. Long!

About the author:

Heather Long lives in North Texas with her family and their menagerie of animals. As a child, Heather skipped picture books and enjoyed the Harlequin romance novels by Penny Jordan and Nora Roberts that her grandmother read to her. Heather believes that laughter is as important to life as breathing and that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are very real. In the meanwhile, she is hard at work on her next novel.

Available at:

Decadent Publishing | ARe | Amazon | BookStrand

Reviews on Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13596947-once-her-man-always-her-man

Bad Taste in Boys by Carrie Harris

by:  Carrie Harris
published by:  Delacourte Press
publish date:  July 11, 2011

Kate Grable is horrified to find out that the football coach has given the team steroids. Worse yet, the steriods are having an unexpected effect, turning hot gridiron hunks into mindless flesh-eating zombies.

This was one of those books that has been on my TBR list FOREVER!!  Well, for over a year anyway.  I finally found it at the library.  Woo!!  I read it in like a day.  Then I was sad, after all of that waiting for a book and it was over in a day.  Bummer.

It wasn't the serious zombie book that I was expecting.  Look at that cover, that awesome cover, it doesn't look comedic to me.  That was how the book kinda turned out though.  But that was ok, it was still good.  Kate was the bumbling nerd genius that figures out that all the jocks are being turned into mindless flesh eating zombies. 

I'm always hearing about all these books that would make great movies.  They're always big serious movies, but I think this would make a fun movie.  Who doesn't love a high school zombie movie??

Bad Taste in Boys is one of those great summer reads.  It's quick, easy, and a lot of fun...perfect book to read by the pool.  I also noticed that book number 2 in this series comes out soon.  Bad Hair Day comes out in November.

Far North by Marcel Theroux

by:  Marcel Theroux
published by:  Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
publish date:  June 9, 2009

Out on the frontier of a failed state, Makepeace—sheriff and perhaps last citizen—patrols a city’s ruins, salvaging books but keeping the guns in good repair.

This has to be the most surprising book I've read this year.  I was kind of expecting something like Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.  This was nothing like that.  This was more like a dystopian book, that happens to take place in the Arctic.  It's no wonder though, that Far North was a finalist for the National Book Award. 

Makepeace is a woman living alone in an abandoned town in the Far North, existing on her own.  When a prisoner escapes and seeks refuge in Makepeace's town, she realizes there might be more to the world than she realizes.  A plane crash gives her the sign she's been waiting for and she finally sets out on a journey to see what's left of the world.

The world out there is unbelievable.  Like many dystopian books, there isn't really a defined event explaining what happened to create this world.  There are vague references to climate change and biological warfare, but not a specific occurrence.  Considering our narrator and who we eventually learn she is writing to, it makes sense.

The audiobook is narrated by Yelena Schmulenson.  She had a beautiful voice and did a wonderful job with this book.  I definitely recommend the audiobook, the mood and the atmosphere were conveyed beautifully.

Even though this book is a little older, it's for sure one of the best books I've read this year. 

Lexapros and Cons by Aaron Karo

by:  Aaron Karo
published by:  Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
publish date:  April 10, 2012

Chuck Taylor’s OCD has rendered him a high school outcast. His endless routines and habitual hand washing threaten to scare away both his closest friend and the amazing new girl in town. Sure he happens to share the name of the icon behind the coolest sneakers in the world, but even Chuck knows his bizarre system of wearing different color “Cons” depending on his mood is completely crazy.

This book is Hilarious!  Seriously, I was laughing out loud reading this book.  I'd never heard of Aaron Karo before reading Lexapros and Cons, but I was really impressed with his sense of humor and writing style. 

Chuck is a great character.  I'm always happy to find YA books written from a male viewpoint.  I don't think there are enough of them out there.  If we want this generation of boys to become readers we need to have books that they'll want to read, right?  Chuck struggled with what I'm sure every teenage boy struggles with throughout high school, plus a few unique quirks. 

The thing I liked about this book in comparison to some other male dominated contemporary YA that I've read recently is that the pop culture references were kept to a minimum.  I think that's a really smart tactic, because it keeps the book from getting dated too quickly.  Things that were mentioned aren't things that will go away anytime soon like the mom messing up the name of Wikipedia, calling it Flickipedia.  That was pretty funny too.

This book contains some "mature themes".  Because of that and some language, I would recommend this one to older YA readers only.  That said, I think this book would appeal to a lot of high school kids.