Blitz Before I Break by Alec John Belle

Title: Before I Break
Author: Alec John Belle
Genre: Coming of Age/Fiction
Publisher: Self - Published
Release Date: July 30 2015
Blurb/Synopsis:

"When religiously raised Cyril Hayes begins his junior year at East Hill High School, every choice he makes suffers a greater consequence.  While facing challenges of friends, family, and love, he learns that hate and intolerance are also a very large part of our world today.

Cyril Hayes is seemingly just like any other male his age. He has the perfect girlfriend, Melissa Summers, his best friend, Jake Rivers, and a lawyer father who brings home enough money to support his family and then some. When Cyril begins his junior year, he doesn't expect his life to spiral out of control when he meets Avery Branson, the new kid in school who has a big secret: he's gay. At first, Cyril doesn't handle this truth well, due to the way he was raised, but as the story progresses, he ventures deep into the reality of homosexuality and begins to accept Avery for who he is.

Not everyone is happy with Cyril's new friend, including Jake, who believes that homosexuality is a sin and is refusing to budge his beliefs. But Avery isn't the only one at East Hill with secrets. Soon a tragedy will strike, knocking Cyril's world completely off balance and leaving a scar on his heart that will change his view of humanity all together."

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Alec John Belle is an online high school student that resides in the state of Massachusetts. At the age of 16 he wrote his first novel, Before I Break. His hobbies include reading, writing, and obsessing over Pretty Little Liars. He writes about tough topics that many are too afraid to talk about like suicide, homosexuality, self harm, cyberbullying, anxiety disorders, addiction, among other teenage issues, and he often blends these ideas with the paranormal

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"Alec John Belle’s bold debut novel, Before I Break, introduces a courageous new author with a voice unafraid to tackle tough social issues."

— Alex Sanchez, author of Rainbow Boys and The God Box

Guest Post & Excerpt Hot Nights with the Fireman by Lynne Silver

Title: Hot Nights with the Fireman
Author: Lynne Silver
Series: The Alpha Heroes Series
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Grand Central Forever Yours
Release Date: July 14 2015
Edition/Formats: eBook & Print
Blurb/Synopsis:

ONE SPARK IS ALL IT TAKES

Everyone in Washington, DC, knows that when the heat is on, you call Valerie Wainwright. This brilliant, brassy PR maven can spin any hot scandal, and she's never let a client ruffle her feathers. Yet when she agrees to teach DC's bravest how to handle a media frenzy, she faces an entirely different kind of fire. Keeping things all business and no pleasure is far harder than she expected.

After steamy photos ignite the Internet, firefighter Jason Moore instantly goes from hero to bad boy. While he couldn't care less about an online rep, he cares a lot about his job and saving lives. If Valerie can help clear his name, he'll do what she says-even if it means forcing himself to keep his hands off her. But beneath Valerie's cool cover, Jason feels a smoldering desire that lights his own. And this is one inferno he'll definitely want to stoke . . .

Wikipedia Page Mock Up From the Mountain by L.L. Crane

Title: From the Mountain
Author: L.L. Crane
Series: Mark of Powers (Book 1)
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: February 14 2015
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Blurb/Synopsis:
What would you do if you were one of the last of your kind on earth? Sixteen year old Teak’s Mark of Power has kept her alive, but will it last?  Although she is a trained killing machine, it isn’t by choice. Slated to be one of Siv Gareth's elite soldiers, her life seems to be on course, but she has a decision to make.  Does she follow her father’s wishes and become a soldier, or chase after her own dreams of training dragons?  Persecuted, shunned, and tortured because of her skin color, Teak is mad, and somebody is going to pay for it.  Siv Gareth’s race war has just begun, and now that the Purity Law has passed, the Destroyers are out in hordes to kill her and any others with light skin.  When she shoots an arrow at Siv Gareth, a chain of events unwinds that ultimately threatens her very existence.  Accustomed to going it alone, Teak finds herself on a long journey with a group of inept teens, and she must learn to depend on them…or die.  When two boys enter the scene, one irritating and the other mesmerizing, Teak wonders if she has a shot at a normal life. But will her lack of Power and skin color ruin it? This dystopian society novel, Book 1 in the Mark of Power Series, is riveting with suspense, action, betrayal, and the brimming hope of romance.

Giveaway & Review Her by Felicia Johnson

Title: Her

Author: Felicia Johnson

Series: Standalone

Genre: YA/Fiction

Publisher: 8th Street Publishing

Release Date: June 2013

Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print (Soon to be a Movie)

Trigger Warnings: Borderline Personality Disorder, Eating Disorders, Depression, Child Abuse, Self-Harm

Blurb/Synopsis: 

In many ways, Kristen Elliott is a normal, seventeen-year-old girl. Kristen loves her family. She works hard academically, and tries to please her mother. She takes on the additional responsibility of caring for her twin siblings, Nick and Alison. She idealizes her best friend, Lexus, who not only seems to lead the perfect life, but also catches the attention of John, the boy Kristen secretly loves. However, as is the case with many teenagers, Kristen feels frustrated, isolated, and confused.
In other ways, Kristen is not like other kids her age. She knows something is wrong with her. Kristen feels like an utter failure. She is unable to please her abrasive mother, and scared to confront Jack, her abusive stepfather. She is also unable to protect Nick from Jack, making her fell all the more helpless. Adding to her problems, she knows she will never be as beautiful as her best friend Lexus. Kristen finds solace in self-injury, and the company of Mr. Sharp, her imaginary friend who encourages her feelings of self-loathing.
After a failed suicide attempt, Kristen is placed in the Bent Creek mental hospital, where she is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. While in the hospital, she meets a group of peers suffering with their own mental illnesses, and a compassionate staff of doctors and counselors. From there, Kristen begins her journey to survival. She discovers the circumstances that brought her to this breaking point, struggles to understand her mental illness, and fights to be a survivor against her own worst enemy: her self-blame.
Kristen’s tale of endurance illustrates the complex illness of Borderline Personality Disorder. Readers – including those suffering from BPD and their friends and family – can glean insight into the illness from Kristen’s humanity. Her story is an example of how, if we try to push the past away, we are either doomed to repeat it or let it haunt us to our graves.

Giveaway & Review Her by Felicia Johnson

Title: Her

Author: Felicia Johnson

Series: Standalone

Genre: YA/Fiction

Publisher: 8th Street Publishing

Release Date: June 2013

Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print (Soon to be a Movie)

Trigger Warnings: Borderline Personality Disorder, Eating Disorders, Depression, Child Abuse, Self-Harm

Blurb/Synopsis: 

In many ways, Kristen Elliott is a normal, seventeen-year-old girl. Kristen loves her family. She works hard academically, and tries to please her mother. She takes on the additional responsibility of caring for her twin siblings, Nick and Alison. She idealizes her best friend, Lexus, who not only seems to lead the perfect life, but also catches the attention of John, the boy Kristen secretly loves. However, as is the case with many teenagers, Kristen feels frustrated, isolated, and confused.
In other ways, Kristen is not like other kids her age. She knows something is wrong with her. Kristen feels like an utter failure. She is unable to please her abrasive mother, and scared to confront Jack, her abusive stepfather. She is also unable to protect Nick from Jack, making her fell all the more helpless. Adding to her problems, she knows she will never be as beautiful as her best friend Lexus. Kristen finds solace in self-injury, and the company of Mr. Sharp, her imaginary friend who encourages her feelings of self-loathing.
After a failed suicide attempt, Kristen is placed in the Bent Creek mental hospital, where she is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. While in the hospital, she meets a group of peers suffering with their own mental illnesses, and a compassionate staff of doctors and counselors. From there, Kristen begins her journey to survival. She discovers the circumstances that brought her to this breaking point, struggles to understand her mental illness, and fights to be a survivor against her own worst enemy: her self-blame.
Kristen’s tale of endurance illustrates the complex illness of Borderline Personality Disorder. Readers – including those suffering from BPD and their friends and family – can glean insight into the illness from Kristen’s humanity. Her story is an example of how, if we try to push the past away, we are either doomed to repeat it or let it haunt us to our graves.

Descent of the Gods by Mark G. Cosman

Title: Descent of the Gods
Author: Mark G. Cosman
Series: Stand Alone
Genre: Fiction/Adventure
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Release Date: Oct 2 2014
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Blurb/Synopsis:
In their self-indulgent realm, the gods know no suffering until the end of their days. Compassion is the only portal through which they can escape the self and its eventual demise, but without suffering, compassion cannot be recognized. So, they go in search of compassion in the human domain where happiness and sorrow abound. There, they genetically engineer a superior humanoid race and are soon distracted by the delight they find in the daughters of men. The gods are the extraterrestrial visitors of our collective memory.
Tormented by envy, the Asuras are warlike demigods that follow the gods into the human domain. They become the demons who initiate our concept of evil.
Quay is the son of Om, the father of the gods. Quay’s childhood adventures with Daya, his female humanoid companion, take place on the Isle of the Gods, which closely parallels the legendary Atlantis. On coming of age, Quay and Daya become inseparable lovers. Quay is challenged to separate passion from compassion.
In the human domain, the gods were simply gardeners. When the god Talmund left his garden across the Salt Sea and returned to the Island of the Gods, he left his humanoid workers behind. Eventually, two civilizations evolved from his workers, the sedentary Taltecs in the south and the nomadic Tulacans in the north. The civilizations resemble the pre-Columbian cultures described in the Book of Mormon.
Fearful that these autonomous humanoids were exceeding limits the gods set for them, Om sends Quay across the Salt Sea to observe. Before undertaking his mission, Quay interviews the first humanoid, Ahn, and the god, Elo, to whom Ahn was given. The meeting occurs in Eden where Elo kept an expansive garden. The interview is essentially a discussion with the Biblical Adam, which sets the tone for the human condition and their relationship with the gods.
Quay’s mission abruptly separates him from Daya. Ri, an Asura driven by hatred of the gods and an erotic desire for Daya, pursues Quay. Quay’s adventures among the Taltecs and Tulacans are interrupted when the two civilizations collide in an epic conflict that spans a continent.
Meanwhile, a geologic cataclysm destroys the island of the gods. Daya is rescued by an Asura ship, is assaulted and subsequently escapes into the forests of the Eastern Isle that survived the deluge. There, she becomes the legendary huntress of the forest, similar to Artemis, twin sister of Apollo.
In the Land North, on a field of flowers, during the final battle of the great war between the Taltecs and Tulacans, Ri finally comes upon Quay and attacks, but he is shot through by an arrow from the bow of a nomad who had befriended Quay. Quay assists Ri through his dying experience. By his outreach to his mortal enemy, Quay discovers the compassion for which the gods had entered the human domain.
Quay ventures back across the Salt Sea to find the Isle of the Gods has vanished. He sails on to the Eastern Isle where he is reunited with his kind. Scarred and embittered, Daya courageously defies the authority of the gods. It is the darkest of nights when Quay watches from a distance as Daya releases a virus from an urn that the gods had prepared in secret to cull the humans. Her act is reminiscent of the legendary Pandora. The freeing of the virus results in Daya’s death and that of all humanoids on the Eastern Isle. In effect, she impedes the grand experiment of the gods and alters human evolution forever.
In his 977th year, Quay began to die. His dying experience is detailed using the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a guide. Quay was the last of the gods that walked among us.

His Ph.D. is in Hypocrisy by Tayo Oredein

Title: His Ph.D. is in Hypocrisy … and other Poems about my Crappy Ex-Boyfriend
Author: Tayo Oredein
Series: Stand Alone (Collection of Poems)
Genre: Poetry, Memoir, Romance, Humor
Publisher: Gynarchy
Release Date: Mar 2014
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Blurb/Synopsis:
Blurb
Everyone comes into your life for a reason. And even though they may stay just long enough to break your heart, their ultimate purpose can last a lifetime.
Synopsis
They say everything happens for a reason, but try telling that to a young woman with a newly broken heart.
His PhD is in Hypocrisy…And Other Poems about My Crappy Ex-Boyfriend is a memoir of sorts; a collection of poems chronicling the ups and downs, differences and the dissolution of one of my key relationships. Despite our interracial backgrounds (I'm black, he's white & Palestinian) and inter-religious upbringings (he is Muslim to my Christian), I thought we could and would end up together. But that didn't happen. The assorted poems (some short, some funny, some angry) talk about the love, frustration, and heartbreak, and the whole reflection culminated in an unexpected life lesson that surfaced on 9/11.

Spotlight Mobsters MOnsters and Nazis by Dan O'Brien

Dan O'Brien and Steve Ferchaud have done it again! Mobsters, Monsters & Nazis will be a six-story illustrated series that will launch on Halloween and conclude right around Christmas. It is equal parts noir, pulp, Lovecraft, and detective fiction with enough intrigue and mystery to keep you hanging on. 

It is available for pre-order starting today, so be sure to grab and let everyone know about it!

You can pre-order it for only $2.99 by clicking on the cover above or by following this link:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OE781J2

Review Paper Souls by Allie Burke

Title: Paper Souls
Author: Allie Burke
Series: Stand Alone
Genre: Dark Literary Fiction
Publisher: Booktrope
Release Date: Sept 9 2014
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Source: Publisher for Honest Thoughts and Blog Tour
Rating:
Blurb/Synopsis:
From the author of the bestselling genre-defining Enchanters series, comes a new literary tour de force about Emily, a young woman balancing two worlds between her fingertips: the one that is real to her and the one that is real to everyone else…
The question is: which one will she choose?
Never romanticizing what it means to be a twenty-something schizophrenic in a world broken by normalcy and half-baked fairytales, Allie Burke’s latest novel unites Emily and her world at large spanning from the streets of Russia, to the sheets of her bed, to the idiosyncratic comfort she gets from worlds that don’t exist at all.
Woven with angst and darkness, bursting with heartache, Paper Souls tells of the irreparably damaged and broken, and how they survive.

Review Paper Souls by Allie Burke

Title: Paper Souls
Author: Allie Burke
Series: Stand Alone
Genre: Dark Literary Fiction
Publisher: Booktrope
Release Date: Sept 9 2014
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Source: Publisher for Honest Thoughts and Blog Tour
Rating:
Blurb/Synopsis:
From the author of the bestselling genre-defining Enchanters series, comes a new literary tour de force about Emily, a young woman balancing two worlds between her fingertips: the one that is real to her and the one that is real to everyone else…
The question is: which one will she choose?
Never romanticizing what it means to be a twenty-something schizophrenic in a world broken by normalcy and half-baked fairytales, Allie Burke’s latest novel unites Emily and her world at large spanning from the streets of Russia, to the sheets of her bed, to the idiosyncratic comfort she gets from worlds that don’t exist at all.
Woven with angst and darkness, bursting with heartache, Paper Souls tells of the irreparably damaged and broken, and how they survive.

Book Blitz 2 Day Sale The Duel for Consuelo by Claudia H Long

Title: The Duel for Consuelo
Author: Claudia H Long
Series: Josefina's Sin, The Next Generation
Genre: Historical Fiction/Historical Romance
Publisher: Booktrope
Release Date: June 15 2014
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Blurb/Synopsis:
Travel back in time to 1711 in colonial Mexico, where the terrors of the Inquisition are slowly receding before the tide of the Enlightenment. Not receding fast enough, though, for Consuelo. She's caught between two men, two religions, and two ruthless inquisitors who are hanging on to their lasts shreds of power.
THE DUEL FOR CONSUELO brings us to 1711 in colonial Mexico. Consuelo, an accomplished herbalist and daughter of a mayor, is privy to the darkest family secret possible while the Inquisition still holds fast to its waning dominance. Her ailing mother is a practicing "Secret Jew", descendent of Conversos, or Jews who converted in Spain at the point of a sword. Her father is desperate to prevent the discovery of this secret as it will mean certain torture and possible death of his family.
Juan Carlos Castillo, the white-blond son of wealthy landowners, has a few secrets of his own. His love for Consuelo has moved into forbidden territory, and he watches as his friend and rival, Leandro Almidon of Spain, woos Consuelo with his sharp wit and promises of social and financial security.
The times are turbulent. The Enlightenment is slowly penetrating the darkness of Spain and its colony, and new thinkers are questioning everything, from religion to science, to the mingling of the castes and races. With new thinking secrets are bared and the Inquisition makes a final grasp at power.  Consuelo finds herself fighting for her mother's life, her own future, and her right to love.

Claudia H. Long grew up in Mexico City and moved to the United States when she was eleven. She wrote her senior thesis at Harvard University on the feminism of Sor Juana INS De La Cruz, and revived her passion for her when she wrote Josefina's Sin. She lives and practices law in Northern California with her husband. They have two grown children. She is currently at work on her next novel, set in eighteenth century Mexico.

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The Duel for Consuelo by Claudia H Long

Title: The Duel for Consuelo
Author: Claudia H Long
Series: Josefina's Sin, The Next Generation
Genre: Historical Fiction/Historical Romance
Publisher: Booktrope
Release Date: June 15 2014
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook & Print
Blurb/Synopsis:
Travel back in time to 1711 in colonial Mexico, where the terrors of the Inquisition are slowly receding before the tide of the Enlightenment. Not receding fast enough, though, for Consuelo. She's caught between two men, two religions, and two ruthless inquisitors who are hanging on to their lasts shreds of power.
THE DUEL FOR CONSUELO brings us to 1711 in colonial Mexico. Consuelo, an accomplished herbalist and daughter of a mayor, is privy to the darkest family secret possible while the Inquisition still holds fast to its waning dominance. Her ailing mother is a practicing "Secret Jew", descendent of Conversos, or Jews who converted in Spain at the point of a sword. Her father is desperate to prevent the discovery of this secret as it will mean certain torture and possible death of his family.
Juan Carlos Castillo, the white-blond son of wealthy landowners, has a few secrets of his own. His love for Consuelo has moved into forbidden territory, and he watches as his friend and rival, Leandro Almidon of Spain, woos Consuelo with his sharp wit and promises of social and financial security.
The times are turbulent. The Enlightenment is slowly penetrating the darkness of Spain and its colony, and new thinkers are questioning everything, from religion to science, to the mingling of the castes and races. With new thinking secrets are bared and the Inquisition makes a final grasp at power.  Consuelo finds herself fighting for her mother's life, her own future, and her right to love.