I’m going to put this into three categories:

Adult

1. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
2. Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
3. Graveminder by Melissa Marr

Young Adult

1. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
2. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
3. Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala
4. Tithe by Holly Black

Middle Grade

1. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
2. Magyk by Angie Sage
3. The Chronicles of Narnia

I know its been a while since I have participated. Mainly because I have been filing my books as soon as they come in instead of procrastinating :) This week I had the flu so I didn’t file them, ergo an IMM was born.

From MTV Books (they rock)

Fashion Cats
Starting Over
Bittersweet Blessing: 16 and Pregnant
True Norwegian Black Metal (which is numbered to 666 I have 546)

From Bailey at IBBookBlogging

Starters
A Want so Wicked

From Algonquin who gave me the thing I squeed out loud over this week

Heading Out to Wonderful (A FREAKING NEW BOOK FROM ROBERT GOOLRICK *FANGIRLS*)
All Woman and Springtime
Until the Next Time
West of Here (paperback release- great book)

San Francisco Book Review

Storybound
Dearly, Departed
The Invisible Tower

Holly Cupala

Don’t Breathe a Word (+ swag for you guys!)

Mac Audio

Tempest

Simon Pulse

Where it Began (which is possibly a double- if so contest)

Harper Teen

Finished copies of:
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Bewitching
Cloaked
Two Truths and a Lie
Arc of:
Dreamless

For a species that was once very niche in fandom, it’s left some folks scratching their heads.
My own husband asks me more than anyone. “Honey, I’ve seen that Tom Cruise movie. He’s all dressed up and stuff, but he’s still a monster. How can you make a vampire romantic?” And yet, Anne Rice seemed to open a gateway, there. Vampires in romance have become practically a dietary staple. I started to write my own series because I was one of those readers who needed their daily paranormal fix almost as desperately as they needed their morning cup of coffee (in either case, if I missed out I started biting hands)—and I started running out of things to read. I also started running out of money to buy e-books with.

So how have we evolved, as a culture, from humans who liked their vampires undead in horror movies to one who likes them hard-bodied, hot-blooded and naked? Is it the fangs? The Alpha male-ness? The immortality? The muscles? Okay, I think it’s safe to say we all like the muscles But really, the reasons are probably as many and varied as the people who read paranormal romance these days.

Remember Beauty and the Beast? Classic example of a monster who’s really a good guy. Who wants to be more. Who’s romantic! It isn’t a far stretch to apply that to vampires and other things that go bump in the night. Except when we’re all grown up, it’s nice to add some fangs, right? Those things are hot. And the blood drinking makes it a little forbidden and forbidden is smexy.

The great thing about vampires, is there’s something for everyone these days. Whether you like them big or small, dead or undead, Alpha or omega. Do you like your vampires to be good? Evil? A little of both? Do they drink blood? Eat food? Live in the past, present, or future (or all of the above)? Have superpowers? Pass as human? Do they drink blood from humans, or each other? Whatever your poison, we’ve got you covered.

Me, I dig the idea of vampires being a separate species that lives alongside humans. Right under everyone else’s noses. Partly because when my characters have sex I like for it to be lively. Mostly, because I enjoy the urban fantasy element that it adds. The idea that supernatural species are running around the suburbs outside of Washington DC, interacting with folks at the gas station and blending in undetected, gives me a thrill. I like giving them the ability to mate and reproduce, and have little fanged babies (aww!). And yes, I like the fangs and the muscles.

So. Your turn: What is it that you love about vampires? If not vampires, what’s your favorite paranormal species, and why?
–
About King of Darkness:
ETERNAL COMMITMENT IS NOT ON HER AGENDA…
Scorned by the vampire community for her lack of power, Isabel Anthony lives a carefree existence masquerading as human–although, drifting among the debauched human nightlife, she prefers the patrons’ blood to other indulgences. But when she meets the king of vampires this party girl’s life turns dark and dangerous.

BUT TIME’S RUNNING OUT FOR THE KING OF VAMPIRES…
Dead-set on finding the prophesied mate who will unlock his fiery powers, Thad Morgan must find his queen before their race is destroyed. Their enemies are gaining ground, and Thad needs his powers to unite his subjects. But when his search leads him to the defiant Isabel, he wonders if fate has gotten it seriously wrong…
King of Darkness is available NOW in ebook and in paperback on 2/7 : Amazon : Barnes and Noble : IndieBound
–
Elisabeth Staab lives in Northern Virginia with her hero and soul mate. She has been a telemarketer, a web page editor, a software developer, a reader for the blind, a technical trainer, a coffee shop barista, a tutor, a homemaker, a government project manager, a graphic designer, and a professional ebayer. Finally, she’s landed on being a writer – which is what her high school guidance counselor originally suggested anyway.

Elisabeth believes that all kinds of safe, sane, and consensual love should be celebrated–but she loves the fantasy-filled realm of paranormal romance the best. Find out more at ElisabethStaab.com.

Marianne Daventry will do anything to escape the boredom of Bath and the amorous attentions of an unwanted suitor. So when an invitation arrives from her twin sister, Cecily, to join her at a sprawling country estate, she jumps at the chance. Thinking she’ll be able to relax and enjoy her beloved English countryside while her sister snags the handsome heir of Edenbrooke, Marianne finds that even the best laid plans can go awry.

From a terrifying run-in with a highwayman to a seemingly harmless flirtation, Marianne finds herself embroiled in an unexpected adventure filled with enough romance and intrigue to keep her mind racing. Will she be able to rein in her traitorous heart, or will a mysterious stranger sweep her off her feet? Fate had something other than a relaxing summer in mind when it sent Marianne to Edenbrooke.

Disclaimers and my thoughts

Julianne’s agent gave me this to read a while back. Julianne’s agent is also my agent and it is also the agency I work for now. That out of the way let me squee like a giant fangirl because I am a huge fangirl of this book. It was like Downton Abbey, Georgette Heyer, and Jane Austen all had a baby and that baby is a literary gift to the romance world. As a mostly YA reader I think that Edenbrooke is a great genre crosser, and in a haze of paranormal and science fiction reading that I love it was a welcome edition to break off for a bit and have an interlude with the handsome Phillip who has all the great qualities of Darcy and none of the bad ones.

Join the Tour

I have 10 YA spots open on the tour and 10 romance blog spots open, I also have five spots for those who don’t want to be nailed down for a date but I hope not to use those as scheduling this will be chaotic as its my first tour. Fill out the form below and I will get the info to Shadow Mountain and contact you when your book is shipping.

Ze tour is full! Thanks guys

According to the Mayan calendar one of two things are going to happen this year. Either the world will end fiery, or a new brave age will begin. As I have always been one that leans towards the dramatics, I am putting my money on a fiery death. I think we should have fun until we all burn like the fires of Pompeii. Intro Apocalypse Imminent: A 12 month celebration with today’s hottest dystopia/post apocalyptic authors. These transmedia interviews/stories will appear here on the website the first day of every month. I hope you enjoy them.

February – Jodi Meadows

Jodi Meadows lives and writes in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, with her husband, a Kippy*, and an alarming number of ferrets. She is a confessed book addict, and has wanted to be a writer ever since she decided against becoming an astronaut.

Purchase at Hicklebee’s and find Jodi online on her website or Twitter

Apocalyptic Fun

Pam:What is unique about your world?

Jodi:In Rage, everyone is reincarnated.

Pam:Who are your main characters and their traits?

Jodi:Ana is the newsoul — or nosoul, depending on who you ask. She’s brave, impulsive, and defensive.
Sam is an oldsoul. He’s patient, wise, and a little cagey with information sometimes.

Pam:How does your character fit in or stick out in their environment?

Jodi:Ana is new in a world where no one is new, so everyone watches what she does. No one trusts her. While they know one another well enough, they can’t predict anything about Ana. This makes her a little scary to them!

Pam:Are there special resources that are rare?

Jodi:Coffee is rare, but they’ve made changes to ensure there is always enough coffee around. It’s a world of caffeine addicts.

Sadly, chocolate is super rare in Range.

Pam:What is the most unique thing about your world?

Jodi:Probably the reincarnation.

Pam:Are there others left in the world or just who are known in Heart?

Jodi:Won’t that be interesting to find out? :)

Pam:If you lived in your world what things would you use your lifetimes accomplishing?

Jodi:I’d probably have to get better at music so I could hang out with Sam. Because they don’t really think about the idea of other people, they don’t have much of a concept of fiction. Thus rendering my job useless.

Or super important!

Pam:Is there anything else we need to know about the citizens of Heart or any info you can give us that isn’t in the book?

Jodi:Oh there’s lots of information that isn’t in the book . . . but you’ll have to wait until book 2 to get it! ;)

I would die without chocolate, what about you guys? One comment chosen at random wins Incarnate!

Instead I want to tell you about how my life long love affair with books began. I was six, and my teacher was forcing me to learn to read. I gave zero fucks about reading and my teacher had an annoying nasally voice, also she spit food when she ate. It was all very gross. Then my grandma died and I gave zero fucks about anything, it was my first brush with death and I was more than overwhelmed with my little feelings. Later that same week we had our first ever class trip to the library. The Librarian (R.I.P. Miss White) noticed me- a little pale child sitting in the bean bag by the bug books crying and came to talk to me. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her she was just so nice. She read me The Wild Swans and that was the first moment I ever connected with a story. That girl’s pain reflected my own. At the end of the hour, she told me she would be my pretend grandma and for many more years she was.

From first through sixth grade she fed me knowledge, she gave me a love for books that has lasted my entire lifetime. Without her I am certain that I would have never cared for reading at all.

So basically hats off to my Librarians of the world for dealing with pale snot-faced little brats like myself and showing them that reading can be awesome. Let us all try to remember how hard and long and for little pay their jobs are the next time we go to one of their conferences.

As if the devil’s food cake at her wake and the white fat pants she’s stuck wearing for eternity weren’t bad enough, fourteen year-old Gabby is quick to discover that Cirrus, the main rung of Heaven, is a far cry from the Pearly Gates. Here, Skyphones and InnerNets are all the rage. Until Gabby finds out she has to protect Angela, her school nemesis, in order to move up through the training levels of heaven. Problem is, Angela is now hitting on Gabby’s should-have-been boyfriend. (awkward!)

Instead of protecting Angela, Gabby pranks her (like tripping is a sin?) at the hopes of cooling off the new couple. At first, they seem harmless until the school dance sabotage gets completely out of control. Then, her Celestial Sky Agent, who happens to have anger management issues of his own, puts Gabby on probation, threatening her eternal future.

Determined to right her wrongs, Gabby steals an ancient artifact that allows her to return to Earth for just one day. Without knowing, she kicks off a series of events and learns what can happen when you hate someone to death.

Buy it now at AMZ for your Kindle at 99 cents You can watch the book trailer here.

S.R. Johannes is the author of Untraceable (a teen wilderness thriller) and On The Bright Side ( a tween paranormal). She lives in Atlanta Georgia with her dog, British-accented husband, and the huge imaginations of their little prince and princess, which she hopes- someday- will change the world. After earning an MBA and working in corporate america, S.R. Johannes traded in her expensive suits, high heels, and corporate lingo for a family, flip-flops, and her love of writing.

Contact information:

Email

Social Media

Blog:
Twitter
Author Facebook
Author Goodreads
Untracable Goodreads
On The Bright Side Goodreads
In His Eyes Anthology Goodreads

The fact that we have nearly a 50% illiteracy rate in this country might be partly to blame.

We do have a literacy problem. However, every reader of the romance genre is not illiterate and you can’t make a blanket statement without following up with a fact. Where is the data that says romance readers are functionally illiterate?

I’ve noticed more and more articles about, and interviews with, romance writers where they are as often as not put on a pedestal—as though they somehow belong in the same class as authors of much higher standing.

Hey, you! Yeah, you! Romance writer. Get down from that pedestal, I’m saving that for a real author! You know, one with five blog followers who writes sci-fi (I do love me some scifi for realz) and says your books are trashy and appeal to illiterate people.

What the modern reader needs to understand is that romance novels by their very nature are meant to be inferior.

Say that to a romance writer’s face and see if you walk away in one piece. I don’t believe anyone sets out to write an inferior novel. Also, inferior to what? You can’t even bring your point across. Inferior to literary fiction? Because I do read lit fic and some of that stuff is crap too. Or are we really talking about you Cale? Are all romance writers (and women) inferior to you and your big bad ass way with words?

I find it difficult to respect something that is purposely meant to be a lessor work. One should always strive to do great work. If an author classifies their own story as romance, that tells me that even they don’t think much of it. That being the case, neither should we.

Thank you, Cale. Without you telling me how to feel about romance novels I would have never been able to form my own opinion.

Everneath

From Hicklebee’s (buy now) Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.
Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

Everneath is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton.

It is hard to put my love for Everneath into words. I am a lover of Greek Mythology and while I always thought I was a purist, Ashton has found a way to shake up the myth and keep me reading page after page with bated breath. The story of Persephone and Hades has long been one of my favorites, Ashton took that myth and gave it a 21st century feel without losing the tang of bittersweet attached to the orignal story.

The characters are beautiful and flawed and dangerous. The MC is strong and vulnerable and in love. I do hope there is a second novel.

Blurb: Persephone and Hades with a chic 21st century vibe. Everneath will delight any lover of myth. Strong debut from Brodie Ashton.

Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story

From Hicklebee’s (buy now) What do guys and girls really think? Twelve of the most dynamic and engaging YA authors writing today team up for this one-of-a-kind collection of he said/she said stories he tells it from the guy s point of view, she tells it from the girl s. These are stories of love and heartbreak. There s the good-looking jock who falls for a dangerous girl, and the flipside, the toxic girl who never learned to be loved; the basketball star and the artistic (and shorter) boy she never knew she wanted; the gay boy looking for love online and the girl who could help make it happen. Each story in this unforgettable collection teaches us that relationships are complicated because there are two sides to every story.

I generally love a collection of stories and this one was absolutely stellar. Male and female authors are pitted against one another to tell one story in two parts, one from the feminine side of things and the other from the male. I think James Howe and Ellen Wittlinger should write their story together in a full length novel *hint hint nudge nudge*.

The stories hint at how misconceptions are formed in relationships especially in the teen years. How one can say one thing and mean something completely different and the other can take it a completely different way than how it was intended. The stories are full of love, arguments and the torture that only first love can be.

Blurb: Fabulous collection from Chronicle Books. The stories while not always perfectly melding together gave an added bonus of miscommunication and misconception. A definite for any short story collector.

When the Sea is Rising Red

From Hicklebee’s (pre-order now) After seventeen-year-old Felicita’s dearest friend Ilven kills herself to escape an arranged marriage, Felicita chooses freedom over privilege. She fakes her own death and leaves her sheltered life as one of Pelimburg’s magical elite behind. Living in the slums, scrubbing dishes for a living, she falls for charismatic Dash while also becoming fascinated with vampire Jannik. Then something shocking washes up on the beach: Ilven’s death has called out of the sea a dangerous wild magic. Felicita must decide whether her loyalties lie with the family she abandoned . . . or with those who would twist this dark power to destroy Pelimburg’s caste system, and the whole city along with it.

I read this book on a five hour flight. I raced through it, there was no way that I was going to land and not have finished it. This is the absolute best story I have read about magic in many years. Not only was the story perfectly plotted, the language and phrases used were so beautiful I could feel my teeth getting cavities. The author’s words had me feeling things along with the characters and desperately wanting their stories to have a happily ever after. I have never felt such despair, or hope.

Weeks later I am still thinking about the characters and their plights. I am still thinking about the writing and the use of language and I am hoping and waiting for something else from this author. I am in instant fan.

Blurb: Set in a magical world on the brink of a new age Cat Hellisen guides the reader through the turmoil with expert hands. You do not want to miss this tantalizing debut.

Arcania: Trial by Fire

From Amazon (buy now on your Kindle eink device) Arcania Trial By Fire is an “Active Fiction” title, a new type of e-book from Coliloquy. In this Active Fiction series, your input influences future books from this author. Specifically, in Arcania Trial By Fire, your input influences what happens to Adia, a young sorceress. Born without arcania in her blood, Adia has lived in the shadow of her magical twin, until the day she inherits her sister’s spellcasting talents. As she leaves for the training academy, there are plenty of people to show her the ropes: Grey, the darkly passionate top shield, Seger, a swashbuckling rogue with a talent for daggers, and Finola, a clever and empathic healer. With a battle heating up, Adia must learn to master her magic and earn a spot on a fighting team before the ancient war between the forces of magic destroys her loved ones on Earth. The author sees the aggregate statistics on what option gets picked the most, so the more you read, the more you influence what she writes!

I really liked Arcania. I don’t have sisters but I can imagine what it is like being a twin and always living in the shadow of the ‘good’ twin. The parents are absent in this book but that seems to be the norm for the magical children in this universe. Arcania deals with magic, and alternate realities and the choose your own path style that Coliloquy provides makes the reading more enjoyable. It feels more high stakes, like what I choose effects the storyline and my reading experience.

There is a love story, a familial drama and a delightful catty relationship with another warrior. Our MC must find new friends, learn to control a power that doesn’t belong to her and solve the mystery of her sister’s death all at once. If you have a Kindle e-ink device you should read it.

Blurb: Arcania: Trial by Fire is a rapid story line with high stakes that will leave the reader breathless with their choices.