Spotlight: Pendulum Heroes

About the Book:
Melvin Morrow has become a barbarian warrior maiden. Will he be able to escape this new, dangerous world and the chainmail bikini he foolishly chose as his armor or will he and his friends be stuck living their lives as their game avatars?

Melvin's a teenage boy not used to being ogled or the real world consequences of wearing a steel bikini. But the real world has shifted... him, his friends Jason and Rich, and his big brother Mike are stuck in character, in a place where danger doesn't lurk because it prefers to boldly stride out in the open.

Mages import game players like Melvin via the Rift Pendulum. The reason: the work's suicidal and pendulum heroes are insanely powerful. Usually. Melvin and his friends can be, too, if they're in the right emotional state to trigger into character. Melvin's a one-man, uh, one warrior maiden army when he's angry but anger's hard to find with all that mortal danger striding around everywhere.

The road back home's at the end of a suicidal quest. Melvin better find something to rage about... because being genre-savvy only gets you so far.

Pendulum Heroes, James Beamon's debut novel, is an adrenaline fueled adventure for anyone who's spent a little too much time on the character creation screen instead of playing the game, those of us who have thought just how godmode we'd be with mage power, but mostly it's for all of us who have wondered who the heck installs a portal to another world in a craptastic wardrobe. Fans of Ernest Cline and Scott Meyer will find a lot to love in this new series.

Author Bio:

James Beamon is a science fiction and fantasy author whose short stories have appeared in places such as Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, Apex, Lightspeed and Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. He spent twelve years in the Air Force, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and is in possession of the perfect buffalo wings recipe that he learned from carnies. He lives in Virginia with his wife, son and attack cat. Currently he's cutting back on the addictive habit of penning short stories to focus on writing books. Pendulum Heroes is his debut novel. James is serious about the attack cat... do not point at it. He invites you to check out what he's up to at http://fictigristle.wordpress.com

Available now at your favorite digital store!

Check out out on Amazon



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

Book Gifts for Dad!

Still looking for a gift for Dad?
Here are a few book and book-related ideas that he might like!

Lincoln in the Bardo
This was one of my favorite books that I read last year, so I find myself recommending it to people a lot.

If your dad is at all a history buff like mine is, this might be a different but interesting alternative to the historical biographies that are likely your go-to for book related gifts. This Man Booker Prize winner blends historical fiction with Buddhist mythology, creating one of the most unique and breathtaking books I've read in a long time.

If Dad likes audiobooks, this is my top pick! The star-studded cast has a world record for largest number of narrators. The audiobook also won Audiobook of the Year at the last Audie Awards!

To read the full description or purchase the book, click the banner below.


Artemis
If your dad likes science fiction and/or the book The Martian (or the movie with Matt Damon) Artemis is a good bet! It is written by the same author, but get this: instead of potatoes on Mars, this book has a heist on the moon!

Artemis has an incredibly clever plot, well thought-out and explained logistics for how a lunar colony would work, and a wisecracking, sarcastic narrator - it's impossible to put down!

And although not award winning, the audiobook for Artemis is also very well done and is narrated by Rosario Dawson of the Netflix Marvel TV show franchise (Claire Temple) and Rent (Mimi Marquez).




The President is Missing
This recent release is selling like hotcakes right now -  it is currently #3 on Amazon's charts!

A co-endeavor between Bill Clinton and James Patterson, this book fills the specific, double-whammy niche in dad-approved reading selections of being both about a president and being written by a president, what could go wrong with that combination?

It may have only been out for a little over a week, but the reviews so far have been overwhelmingly positive. This political thriller could be the perfect vacation read for Dad this summer!


Kindle
Until June 15, Amazon is taking $20 off select Kindles. This is the perfect gift for a dad who loves to read, but who might be very particular in his reading selections. Or for a dad who is such a voracious reader that gifting a single book would only give him one evening's worth of reading material!


This deal is going on for Kindle PaperWhite too!

Kindle Travel Gear
Does the dad who already has all the books and e-readers in the world also have a way to carry all that reading material around?

Amazon has an all-new line of Kindle travel gear accessories ranging from sturdy totes to carry all dad's books to backpacks (to carry even more books) and travel tags to mugs and water bottles!

You can browse the full collection by clicking the banner below!



Finished shopping already? What did you get your dad for Father's Day?


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

Spotlight: The Unicorn Tree

About the Book
A teenage girl whose brother is lost at sea…the diary of a nineteenth-century woman…and the special place that binds them.

Lisa Duncan, a seventeen-year-old high school senior, has an assignment to tour historic Mirabelle Manor, a large estate built in 1850 by a sea captain for his wife. During the tour, she begins to suspect that Mirabelle’s ghost is watching her. One of the items on display is a diary, open to a passage about going to a place called the unicorn tree to watch for ships. This appeals to Lisa whose brother is currently sailing across the Atlantic on a commemorative voyage. When news arrives that his ship is lost at sea, her interest in the diary deepens as the past and present lead her to discover what happened.

About the Author

Cynthia Collins writes stories that combine the past and present through historical settings with the aid of ghosts and family. She is a two-time award winner of The Storyteller magazine's People's Choice Award - 1st Place Fiction. She had every intention of pursuing a classical music career but, after moving to New York City, spent her spare time watching the ships in New York Harbor. This led to volunteering, sail training, and employment at various maritime historic sites. As a result, she has written both fiction and numerous non-fiction articles about historic house museums and tall ships. 

She is from Jefferson City, Missouri, graduated from Drury University in Springfield, Missouri with a Bachelor of Music, received a certificate from the Salzburg Universitat Summer School in Salzburg, Austria, and studied music composition at Mannes School of Music in New York. 

Visit her website

Follow her on Twitter
Follow her on Facebook

Buy the book on Amazon

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

Free Book News

I love free books, who doesn't? I'm toying with the idea of starting an occasional feature on the blog where I post several books currently available for free. Here are a few that I've found.



A dark, epic fantasy adventure. A story of good versus evil. Love versus hate. And vengeance versus forgiveness.

The Seer- Elian is the seer of his generation. He has seen what is coming but some things cannot be seen before they happen. 

The Puppeteer- Enya is the fire wielder of her generation. She is the daughter of the King of Cinereal. The King does not allow anyone with a power to rival his own, to survive. He has plans to take over the nine lands beyond the Gate.

The Gatekeeper- Grief. Loneliness. So much death. Enya knows she has to find a way to stop the Puppeteer and keep him from hurting anyone else she loves. But the Puppeteer has plans and her survival is not part of that plan.

The Fire Wielder- If the magic of the Fire Wielder is tainted, she will turn into something much worse than her father. Grief, pain, and a broken heart have changed Enya. Can she hold onto her goodness and finally defeat the Puppeteer once and for all?

Check it out on Amazon

Lose yourself in a paranormal series that’s binge worthy!  As a half shapeshifter and half fairy, Jade's quest to find answers and defeat evil leads her down a dangerous path full of magic and enemies that can ultimately destroy her and those she loves. 

An evil force is kidnapping supernatural teens in NYC. Jade and other shapeshifters unite to defeat this new threat. Time is running out. 

Jade must travel to learn about her past and to find answers she is searching for. Jade’s family grows as she discovers she has more than her adoptive family to love and protect.

Bex, an evil fairy queen, is back and she’s more evil than ever with a new member of her team…someone who was once thought to be dead.

Seven, Jade’s sexy shapeshifter boyfriend who is also an actor, works together with Jade as they confront danger and evil that may unite them... or tear them apart.

Come along on this exciting YA paranormal romance journey that will keep you hooked, page after page.

Check it out on Amazon

(Authors, if you're book is ever about to go free for a promotion or what have you, feel free to drop me a line).





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

Wildcard ARC Giveaway! (US only)

At Book Expo and Book Con I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Marie Lu's upcoming, highly anticipated release, Wildcard to give away!

If you loved Warcross (or have been meaning to get to it) you can enter for a chance to read the sequel several months before its release!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
(You can also preorder the published version here)

About the Book:
Return to the immersive, action-packed world of Warcross in this thrilling sequel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu

Emika Chen barely made it out of the Warcross Championships alive. Now that she knows the truth behind Hideo's new NeuroLink algorithm, she can no longer trust the one person she's always looked up to, who she once thought was on her side.

Determined to put a stop to Hideo's grim plans, Emika and the Phoenix Riders band together, only to find a new threat lurking on the neon-lit streets of Tokyo. Someone's put a bounty on Emika's head, and her sole chance for survival lies with Zero and the Blackcoats, his ruthless crew. But Emika soon learns that Zero isn't all that he seems--and his protection comes at a price.

Caught in a web of betrayal, with the future of free will at risk, just how far will Emika go to take down the man she loves?

In this explosive sequel to the New York Times bestselling Warcross, Marie Lu delivers an addictive finale that will hold you captive till the very last page.




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

Spotlight: Sorcerous Rivalry

Book Blurb: 

" In the peace following the Great Mage Hunt, the king's long-time mistress is revealed as a sorceress. Locked away for the safety of the kingdom, bounties are placed upon the heads of the seven children she birthed. Mage hunters have scoured the kingdom for four years, searching for the seven scattered mage-born bastards.

After growing up in an orphanage, Reshi discovers his parentage and learns to hide his magic, living peacefully in a remote village with an unusual friend. But when an alluring mage hunter comes to town, his secret is revealed, forcing Reshi to reach out to his brothers and sisters for help. A family reunion might be Reshi's only hope for survival--or it might become a spell-slinging battle royale.

Who can Reshi rely on when his own family turns against him?"

Author Bio:

"Lifelong nerd and fangirl Kayleigh Nicol earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Animal Science at Cal Poly Pomona, California. After years of volunteering at zoos and aquariums in California, Kayleigh now works at a therapeutic horseback riding center in Long Island, NY. When not taking care of her own menagerie of rescued animals, she enjoys watching anime, playing video games and reading as many fantasy books as she can get her hands on."

Social Media: 

You can follow Kayleigh Nicol on Twitter:

Or on Facebook:

Book Links: 

Amazon: (Available for free on Kindle Unlimited)

Goodreads

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

Guest Post: Tess Keeler

Today I'd like to welcome Tess Keeler to the blog! She was kind enough to shed some light on her process of co-writing a novel with her wife. You can find Everything Comes Back to You on Amazon here.

Hey, everyone!

I’m Tess Keeler, co-author of Everything Comes Back to You, a YA/NA novel centered around two male childhood best friends who, you guessed it, fall in love. My wife, Saundra Keeler, and I wrote our debut novel with alternating point of views of River Saxton and Aiden Jacobs, the two main characters. Each of us had created our character from the heart and built their world around it. We took turns writing chapters from our personal character’s point of view. It was a fun and interesting process, but we enjoyed it, and we are currently writing our second novel in the same format.

That leads me to our subject of the day: I want to talk to you all about the process of writing a book with two authors.

We have always written in a back and forth process since becoming writing partners in 2012, but when we decided to start writing Everything Comes Back to You, we had never written the amount we were committing to. We started off with a 50,000 word goal, and by the end of the novel, we had over 80,000 words. 

We find outlining to be more structured, so we did that before anything else. Our novel is a little different than most, because it has a time jump of five years in the middle (hence the YA and NA genre title). Because of our time jump, we wanted to make sure that it was a mostly equal combination of both timeframes. We took our goal and divided it in half. That was where we would most likely make our shift. We took those amounts (25,000), and divided them by 2,500 (our chapter goals) to give us the amount of chapters needed to meet our goals.

Getting the number of chapters needed to fill our book was the easy part. We would write them down in list form with dashes beside them, and we would begin filling in our major events (while deciding if it was an event both of us needed to write a chapter about), spacing them far enough apart to create growth between events. We really aimed for creating an emotional bond between the readers and the characters. Then we chose who would start the novel, and the opposite person ends would the novel.

Once the major events were penciled in, we filled in any other scene ideas and where they would fall on our outline. We don’t always have a lot to start, but we usually have a good idea. The ones that are blank, we write “filler”. These are usually filled in later if we think of something, or the person writing that chapter with come up with something on the spot that is productive for the novel.

Working as a team can sometimes be difficult. Agreeing on supporting characters and how they behave can be a challenge, all while both learning to control them the same way. Before we can ever start writing, we have to have a face, name, and personality to every character we plan to introduce, so that we are both comfortable writing them in any situation.

The main characters can be tough as well, but we enjoy asking the other author what their character would say or how they would react instead, making it true and genuine to the character as the creator sees it in their heart, but written in the point of view character’s charm. River and Aiden are our babies. Each of us favor our own to the point of feeling betrayed when our friends assume I write hers and she writes mine. It’s silly really.

Our chapters are mapped and our characters created, so then we choose the setting, the overall ambiance of their environments, and all the other details that go into setting the tone of the novel. I find the location fun, because we spend time researching the places we choose. Portraying everything well is important to us. 

After writing everything down, the first person begins the first chapter, and then it’s in the moment decision making and brainstorming until we feel like the story has been tied up. 

One great thing about co-authoring is two sets of eyes proofreading and editing the work. We each read it wholly once, and then we decide if anything needs to be added. Is there anything missing from the story?

Since creating this process, we have been successful in keeping our momentum. I can write my chapter better knowing that Saundra is covering a certain event. I can lead up to it in a way that is beneficial to the character development and all over quality of the novel. 

And that’s it! 

I hope you enjoyed learning about our process. As most authors do, we hope our effort shines through our work. If you have any questions on the writing process of co-authors, you can find me on instagram: @tesshybe

About Everything Comes Back to You:
River and Aiden had been inseparable since Aiden’s family moved in next door to their West Seattle home, nearly seven years prior to their senior year of high school. River Saxton was a seventeen-year-old who loved music and comics. Aiden Jacobs was a sixteen-year-old who loved painting and girls. They both bonded over their dysfunctional families and the love they shared for their small group of friends.

After another uneasy breakup and a moment of vulnerability, Aiden was in River’s room, and suddenly they were kissing.
With River’s innocence and Aiden’s identity on the line, two best friends struggle to define the line between friends and lovers. 

When River leaves for an incredible opportunity in Florida, Aiden is left wondering what more he could have done to keep his best friend from moving on.

Five years of experience, growth, and suffering passes before they see or speak to each other again. River moves back home, but he’s brought someone with him. Aiden wedges himself in the middle of everything. Are they getting a second chance at friendship, love, or both?




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