Spotlight: Sleep Savannah Sleep

About the Book:
The Dead Don't Always Rest in Peace

Jason Crandall, recently widowed, is left to raise his young daughter and rebellious teenage son on his own - and the old Victorian in Shadow Springs seems like the perfect place for them to start over. But the cracks in Jason’s new world begin to show when he meets Savannah Sturgess, a beautiful socialite who has half the men in town dancing on tangled strings.

When she goes missing, secrets begin to surface, and Jason becomes ensnared in a dangerous web that leads to murder - and he becomes a likely suspect. But who has the answers that will prove his innocence? The jealous husband who’s hell-bent on destroying him? The local sheriff with an incriminating secret? The blind old woman in the house next door who seems to watch him from the windows? Or perhaps the answers lie in the haunting visions and dreams that have recently begun to consume him. 

Or maybe, Savannah herself is trying to tell him that things aren’t always as they seem - and that sometimes, the dead don’t rest in peace. 

Check it out on Amazon

About the Author:

Alistair Cross was born in the western United States and began penning his own stories by the age of eight. First published by Damnation Books in 2012, Alistair has since published several more novels. In 2012, he joined forces with international bestselling author, Tamara Thorne, and as Thorne & Cross, they write the successful Gothic series, The Ravencrest Saga. Their novel, The Cliffhouse Haunting, is an Amazon Best Seller, as is Alistair's solo novel, The Crimson Corset.

In 2014, Alistair and Tamara began the internet radio show, Thorne & Cross: Haunted Nights LIVE! Haunted Nights LIVE! premiered to great acclaim and has featured such guests as Chelsea Quinn Yarbro of the Saint-Germain vampire series, Charlaine Harris of the Southern Vampire Mysteries and basis of the HBO series True Blood, Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter novels that inspired the hit television series, Jay Bonansinga of the Walking Dead series, Laurell K. Hamilton of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels, and New York Times best sellers Christopher Rice, Jonathan Maberry, and Christopher Moore.

Alistair is currently at work on several projects including a solo novel and a new Thorne & Cross collaboration. His influences include the works of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul, Ira Levin, and William Peter Blatty.

Author’s contact info: contact@bamliterature.com

 Author’s website: http://www.alistaircross.com/ :

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Alistair-Cross/e/B00N446AZS/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6517308.Alistair_Cross

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crossalistair

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrossAlistair

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/alistaircross/

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases. 

Blog Tour: Black and White

Hi Larissa! Thanks for hosting a post for me during my blog tour. The Howling Turtle is a great blog name. I’d like to share with your readers a few things I learnt during the writing of my series.

Tips on Writing a Dystopian Trilogy

I’d better preface this post by saying that I didn’t sit down to write the Black & White trilogy with the word “dystopian” uppermost in my mind. It was the label that seemed to fit after I’d finished a couple of books, but I’ve since learned more about it and I’m excited to read more in this genre. For that matter, I didn’t sit down to write a trilogy either, but when I got to the end of the first book there was clearly a lot more to tell. Having said that, here are some tips that hopefully will be useful if you’ve got some ideas that could turn into such a trilogy (also applies on a more general sci-fi level), or even in the midst of edits on one.

• Define the event that created this world. Was it natural or man-made? A meteorite crashing into Earth and obliterating large sections of society? An uprising that overthrew the government? Do the changes affect the entire planet or just one or two countries? It could even take place on another planet. Like with any other type of information, don’t drop all this at once, but it will form the backbone of your series and must be well defined in your own head. Even better, keep written records. Inevitably, it will have a bearing on the action happening in the present. You can also explore the monumental event that created your world in a prequel. This is what I did with my series.

• What are the rules that govern this world? So you’ve gone into detail on the background, now it’s time to look at how this peculiar world shapes events in the here and now. More pertinently, the story your characters are telling. Of course, the action could come from what happens when they kick against those rules. What if children in your world were homeschooled by robots and one of them broke their programming, revealing things about the government that aren’t meant to be disclosed? (Ideally this would be a result of tinkering by the student – if it’s a YA or MG story, a key rule is that your young protagonists should be the drivers of the action.) How would the breaking of one rule have a ripple effect on others? 

• Who is in charge? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dystopia is “an imaginary place or society in which everything is bad”. That leaves us a lot of scope for interpretation, which is good, but it’s likely that any ruling government isn’t going to be democratically elected. If there is a voting system, is it rigged or restricted only to certain groups? If no central body is in charge, how are things organised? My book features a hyper-organised world in which fabricated food is available constantly, but a dystopia could just as easily be a primitive society in which food and other resources are at a premium. How would this impact on your plot?

In all, I don’t think dystopia is a restrictive genre at all. You can create any world you want (as long as it is, in some way, bad). Do you find these tips useful? Do you enjoy reading dystopian novels? Have you written a book or series in this genre, or would you do so in the future?

Title: Black & White

Author: Nick Wilford

Genre: YA dystopian Series #: 1 of 3

Release date: 18th September 2017

Publisher: Superstar Peanut Publishing

Blurb:

What is the price paid for the creation of a perfect society?

In Whitopolis, a gleamingly white city of the future where illness has been eradicated, shock waves run through the populace when a bedraggled, dirt-stricken boy materialises in the main street. Led by government propaganda, most citizens shun him as a demon, except for Wellesbury Noon – a high school student the same age as the boy.

Upon befriending the boy, Wellesbury feels a connection that he can’t explain – as well as discovering that his new friend comes from a land that is stricken by disease and only has two weeks to live. Why do he and a girl named Ezmerelda Dontible appear to be the only ones who want to help?

As they dig deeper, everything they know is turned on its head – and a race to save one boy becomes a struggle to redeem humanity.

Purchase Links:

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Smashwords / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / iBooks

Add it on Goodreads

Meet the author:

Nick Wilford is a writer and stay-at-home dad. Once a journalist, he now makes use of those early morning times when the house is quiet to explore the realms of fiction, with a little freelance editing and formatting thrown in. When not working he can usually be found spending time with his family or cleaning something. He has four short stories published in Writer’s Muse magazine. Nick is also the editor of Overcoming Adversity: An Anthology for Andrew. Visit him at his blog or connect with him on Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, or Amazon.

Enter the giveaway for a chance to win a copy of my collection A Change of Mind and Other Stories or a $10 giftcard! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spotlight: Our Young Guardians: Seven and Two

About the Book:
The life he knew the day before was long gone...Who will protect his mother now?

The future of our civilization has always been in the hands of our children. What you may not know is that many years ago, a few of our young ones fought a quest against evil—an evil unlike anything anyone has ever seen under this sun. They didn’t know it, but their sacrifices allowed our forefathers—and us—to maintain our fragile ownership of this world.

In Seven & Two, the first book of the Our Young Guardians series, we begin the chronicle of one who was brave enough to leave behind what he knew. His faded handwriting not only captures how they struggled through that war, but how they learned to find themselves as they grew up away from their families.

You and I owe them more than we could ever give. And even though there is no word of them ever asking for anything, my heart tells me they would only ask for one thing—to keep them where their friends are.

The least we can do for them is honor their story.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

iTunes

Kobo

About the Book:
Rodolfo “Rodi” Szoke was born in Mexico City in 1967. His ancestry blends Hungarian and Mexican heritages across generations. He earned his bachelor’s degree in information technology in 1991 and has worked in that field ever since. Early in his life, Rodi developed a keen interest in fantasy and sci-fi adventures, making him grow into an avid moviegoer and casual gamer. In 2004, he conceived the idea for the Our Young Guardians series as one avenue to teach some key “life lessons” to his daughter once she reached middle school. Rodi currently lives in Texas with his family.





Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases. 

Spotlight: Akairya: First Half of the Fractured Soul

About the Book:
The country of Alkairyn has been stained by the growing touch of a blight. Named the Shadow because of its darkness, its strength is only possible because the soul of the earth has fractured. Unaware of the power she carries, half elf Akairya is forced to flee her home city as it is destroyed by the Shadow's children, Roraks, and dragons who have embraced the poison. Through the push of fate, Akairya comes across a dragonling, and together they stumble on a journey that will shatter their perception of spiritual identity and morality, and eventually prepare them for the battle against the highest power of the Shadow; the Shadow Lord. Though they have many questions, one burns the harshest. Will they succeed?
Amazon





About the Author:
When Abrianna Leaming was only eight years old, she 'wrote' her first book and created imaginary worlds and scenarios that actually quite worried her family. "Will she ever be able to tell what is fantasy and not fantasy?" They asked themselves. Luckily, she simply grew up into what we call a writer.

Now 24 years old, Akairya is her first novel. She lives in Chilliwack, British Columbia, where she rides horses and plays too many video games. She graduated from the University of the Fraser Valley in 2017 with a BA in English with a Creative Writing Concentration.
​
Abrianna decided to self publish her book after finding it incredibly hard to gain footing in the massive world of agents and publishers. Writing a compelling query letter was a thousand times harder than writing her book...so she took the plunge and released her book herself.

The Fractured Soul is a two-part story, the first being Akairya. Available on Amazon and Abrianna's personal eStore, Akairya is a fast paced introduction to the world of Alkairyn and the sickness that plagues it.

Go to www.abriannaleaming.com or Amazon to order your copy today!

Insta: @abriiannaa

twitter: @abriannaleaming

Blog: akairya.wordpress.com

Website: www.abriannaleaming.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akairyaauthor

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16737730.Abrianna_Leaming 

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.