Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway -- The Galahad Legacy

I'm extremely excited to be part of the blog tour for the release of The Galahad Legacy, the sixth and final installment in Dom Testa's Galahad series. My stop is #25 on the tour. If you've missed any other stops or would like to catch up, click here.

As an added bonus, be sure to check out the bottom of this post for the chance to win all SIX books in the Galahad series - brought to you by Tor.

Excerpt:

“Did you feel any kind of presence in the darkness?” Lita said. Triana noticed that both Lita and Bon seemed to lean forward with this question.

“No, almost the exact opposite. It felt like I was leaving behind all conscious thought, and plunging into a vacuum of total nothingness. It was terrifying. But the moment I crossed that barrier, the very moment I saw the last image of the stars in my peripheral vision and was about to be swallowed by the blackness, it was as if everything turned inside out. Where it should have been an infinite darkness, suddenly there was an explosion of light.”

“Colors?” Gap asked. “Like a kaleidoscope?”

Please visit Bookworm Lisa for the next excerpt from the second chapter of The Galahad Legacy.


About Dom Testa

DOM TESTA has been a radio show host since 1977. He is currently a co-host of the popular "Dom and Jane Show" on Mix 100 in Denver. A strong advocate of literacy programs for children, Dom began The Big Brain Club to help young people recognize that Smart Is Cool. More information on Dom Testa, his books and educational work can be found here at www.DomTesta.com.

Public Appearances:

• Saturday, April 14th: Murder by the Book, Houston, TX; 11:00 am
• Wednesday, April 18th and Thursday, April 19th: Texas Library Association Annual Conference, Houston, TX; various times
• Friday, April 20th: Barnes & Noble, 1000 Research Drive, Austin, TX; 7:00 pm
• Saturday, April 21st: Barnes & Noble, 15900 La Cantera Parkway, San Antonio, TX; 2:00 pm

Follow Dom:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

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Enter To Win The Entire Galahad Series

One lucky reader of Missy's Reads & Reviews will win the entire Galahad series to add to their library:

• The Comet's Curse
• The Web of Titan
• The Cassini Code
• The Dark Zone
• Cosmic Storm
• The Galahad Legacy

To Enter:

Follow the directions on the Rafflecopter below. There are no strict rules except that the winner must have a US or Canadian address.

The giveaway will stay open until the end of the tour, which is April 11th. Good luck!

Blog Tour Review: Fractured Light, by Rachel McClellan

Llona Reese is used to living on the run. After the Vykens killed her parents, she knew they would eventually come for her too. But she never felt ready to face them---until now. Defying the Auran Council and everything she's been taught, Llona must learn to use her power over light as a weapon if she wants to survive.

For this review, I thought I would switch things up and start with the bad so I can end with the good. The bad: this story works with some cliches that we've seen from several stories in the past like the fact that the main character has a power but spends most of her time trying to hide it. Then of course, there's the boy who falls in love with the girl that's seemingly perfect for the girl.. yet they cannot be together for one reason or another. Really, that's about it for the bad though... and, to be honest, those things aren't such bad things. Especially since McClellan did such an amazing job putting her own spin on these things.

Aside from this, the story was amazing. I started reading it late one afternoon with the intention of only reading the hour before it was time to go to bed. Instead, I stayed up an extra two hours past my bedtime to finish the book because I could not make myself stop reading it. Nothing worked, of course... I was hooked from the very beginning.

If there was one particular reason I had to give someone to read this book, I would not hesitate in saying Llona herself. Here is a character who, in the true sense of the world, is a real heroine. She's not without her faults, but her strengths far exceed any of those. She's brave, strong and doesn't give up. If there's something she doesn't excel at, she works and works on it until she gets it. And she's a fighter. I'm not just talking about she starts out strong but turns all D-i-D (damsel-in-distress) once a boy enters the picture. She fights beginning, middle and end, even with a hunky Guardian in the picture.

And yes, there's the swoon-worthy male lead who is indeed everything a girl wants in a guy and then some. Unfortunately, there are things keeping the two apart. However, it does lead to some very crazy tension in the book that I definitely thought added another layer to the story.

You can't have a good story without a "bad guy," and Fractured Light definitely included one. I have to admit, I thought I knew but ended up second-guessing myself throughout the entire story. I changed my mind entirely too many times, but it led up to a surprise at the end - which is a nice change from knowing from the very beginning who the obvious villain is.

Fractured Light is definitely a story that keeps you turning pages until the very end. There was some events that unfolded at the very end that makes me probably a little too anxious for the next book, which I look forward to reading as soon as it comes out. If you like paranormal books with some great characters and a nice new mythology spun in, I definitely recommend you pick this one up.

Rating: ★★★★✩
Source: Teen Book Scene

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Title: Fractured Light
Author: Rachel McClellan
Series: Fractured Light, Book One
Publisher: Sweetwater Books
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Release Date: February 8, 2012

Purchase Book
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | IndieBound

Clockwise Blog Tour Details

From now until April 6th, we will be touring for Elle Strauss' novel, Clockwise. Below, you'll find more information on the book, along with the tour dates and stops. Not only is this a wonderful book, but this tour has a unique spin that I think everyone will love. Every person that follows three easy steps (explained below) will receive a FREE copy of the sequel to Clockwise, which is called Clockwiser.

First, here is a look at how the tour is set up.

Monday, March 26 - Tour Details @ Missy's Reads & Reviews
Tuesday, March 27 - Review @ May-Day's Daze
Wednesday, March 28 - Review @ Crazed Bookie
Thursday, March 29 -Review @ Dead Trees and Silver Screens
Friday, March 30 - Review @ Book Briefs
Saturday, March 31 - Review @ To Read or Not To Read
Sunday, April 1 - Review @ Chocolate Coffee BooksMonday, April 2 - Review @ Bookworm1858 & A Word's Worth
Tuesday, April 3 - Review @ Rondo of a Possible World
Wednesday, April 4 - Review @ Missy's Reads & Reviews
Thursday, April 5 -Review @ 21st Century Once Upon A Time
Friday, April 6 - Review @ Curse of the Bibliophile

This tour focuses mostly on Clockwise itself, so there will be a lot of reviews during the tour.

Now, would you like to know how to get a FREE copy of Clockwiser during the tour? There are three very simple steps to follow:

1. "Like" Elle Strauss on Facebook. You can find her Facebook page here.
2. Once you do that, leave a comment on one of the blog tour stops above.
3. Be sure to leave your e-mail address so we can send a copy right to you after the tour!

Easy, right?

Now, a little information on the books!

Casey Donovan has issues: hair, height and uncontrollable trips to the 19th century! And now this --she’s accidentally taken Nate Mackenzie, the cutest boy in the school, back in time. Awkward.

Protocol pressures her to tell their 1860 hosts that he is her brother and when Casey finds she has a handsome, wealthy (and unwanted) suitor, something changes in Nate. Are those romantic sparks or is it just “brotherly” protectiveness?

When they return to the present, things go back to the way they were before: Casey parked on the bottom of the rung of the social ladder and Nate perched high on the very the top. Except this time her heart is broken. Plus, her best friend is mad, her parents are split up, and her younger brother gets escorted home by the police. The only thing that could make life worse is if, by some strange twist of fate, she took Nate back to the past again.

Which of course, she does.

The last year has been smooth sailing for Casey Donovan. She and her boyfriend Nate are doing better than ever, and things at home are good, too. Everything’s been so calm, she hasn’t even “tripped” back to the nineteenth century.

Then the unthinkable happens and she accidentally takes her rebellious brother Tim back in time. It’s 1862 with the Civil War brewing, and for Tim this spells adventure and excitement. Finding himself stuck in the past, he enlists in the Union army, but it doesn’t take long before he discovers real life war is no fun and games.

Casey and Nate race against the clock to find Tim, but the strain wears on their relationship. It doesn’t help that the intriguing new boy next door has his sights on Casey, and isn’t shy to let her know it.

Can Nate and Casey find Tim in time to save him? And is it too late to save their love?

Blog Tour: Q&A with authors Carlyle Clark & Suki Michelle

Today I have authors Carlyle Clark and Suki Michelle on the blog answering some questions about themselves and their book, The Apocalypse Gene.

What are some of your favorite books?

We both love The Poisonwood Bible. A few other favorites Carlyle’s favorites are The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, and Burning Angel by James Lee Burke and Suki loves everything by Stephen King, except for The Long Walk because it was too heart-breaking for her to bear.

How is writing with another author different from writing a story on your own?
It really helped us create an unpredictable story. So far no has said that they were able to guess what was going to happen next. And we also had complementary skill sets so it was relaxing to know that the other person was there to keep us from making mistakes outside of our comfort zone and that freed up both of our creativity.

What attracts you to the Dystopian genre?
Weirdly, we didn’t even know there was such a thing as the Dystopian genre. We were halfway through our book before we even heard of The Hunger Games. In fact, ours is only a sideways Dystopian, in that most take place post-apocalyptic while ours takes place mid-apocalyptic. Anyway, as I said we didn’t know there was such a thing, Suki just got a startling original take on a Pandemic, and we determined the story needed to be told after the disease had done some serious ravaging, but before a total Apocalypse.

If you weren't writing, what would you be doing?
I would be doing stand-up comedy and Suki would be painting, knitting, and riding horses.

If one day you woke up to discover everything in your book was coming true and only you had the power to change it by rewriting the story, would you? How would it be different?
Absolutely, we vastly prefer our world Pandemic-free. That’s a really tough question with a mid-apocalytic book. Guess we would have to try to write a pre-apocalypse story and a race to stop it.