Friday, August 28, 2015

Reaper's Kiss

The Reaper’s Kiss
A Deathmark Novel
Abigail Baker

Release Date: August 24, 2015

Genre: Paranormal

Publisher: Entangled

Book Description:

Ollie Dormier's tattoos are deadly. She is a Scrivener—an employee for Death—and her skull tattoos mark her clients for their demise. She does her job, and she stays out of trouble. But when her hands start to burn hot and fierce, and her control goes leaping out the window, all hell breaks loose. Ollie is showing the early signs of being a Master...demonstrating power that is forbidden.

That power is exactly what Reaper Brent Hume is counting on. A hot, scruffy rebel, who does marvelous and terrifying things to Ollie's insides. Now he needs Ollie's help—and her skills—to overthrow the evil and corrupt Head Reaper. That is, if he can figure out a way to keep this hot-handed girl cool...and keep his hands off.

Add it to Your Goodreads Shelf

Purchase it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,



Bonjour! This is Ollie, the protagonist in Abigail’s debut paranormal romance, The Reaper’s Kiss. Abigail—or Abby as I prefer to call her—was asked to write a post on her writing process. Seeing as her writing process is dictated by Yours Truly, I thought it would be more interesting to tell you how I get her motivated to put her fingers to the keyboard. Abby doesn’t mind, of course. Or if she does, she didn’t put up a protest.  She knows better.
First of all, I chose Abby to write my story because she was the first to pick up on my super-sonic brainwaves. Poor thing.

Once I got her attention, I screamed in her ear every second of every day. Easy-peasy, right?

Well, it wasn’t. According to her boyfriend, Abby is stubborn and known to dawdle. So, I went for a more aggressive approach like dancing the running man dance on her bed in the middle of the night.
I’m paranormal. I can dance running man for days. Non-stop.

The good news is that Abby came around and agreed to write my story. Our professional relationship was bliss from here on out. Well, maybe not for her. But for me, I had accomplished a major feat, so I made sure to celebrate with cool flair.

But once Abby started writing my story, it didn’t flow in one week of manic typing. She went through several rewrites after she got notes from her beta readers, her agent, and her editor. I was worried that some of the best parts of my story would get cut. I made sure to tell her this concern at every possible moment. When that didn’t work, I used force.

Ultimately, The Reaper’s Kiss tells my story precisely as I told it to her, with a few minor embellishments. I mean, I do have striking green eyes and a fearless nature, but I am really not that bad at the game of Checkers and I don’t cheat at board games.
So that’s how I got Abigail Baker to tell my story for the world to read. It was a campaign of relentless willpower. And I won. I always win.

Thank you to Dana for this guest post today. It is an honor and pleasure!
Au Revoir,
xOllie Dormier 






About the Author:

Abigail Baker shares her home with a Siamese cat endearingly named “The Other Cat” and two rescued mutts with mundane human names that people think are cute. In addition to writing about rebellious heroines, she enjoys hiking, discovering craft beers, baking the perfect vanilla bean cupcake, and rock climbing (going as far as scaling 800 vertical feet to the summit of Devil’s Tower National Monument in 2013).

Abigail won first place in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer’s 2010 Colorado Gold Writing Contest for Romance for THE BLOODSUCKER and first place in RWA’s Golden Network’s 2011 Golden Pen in Paranormal Romance for TATTOO OF YOUR NAME ACROSS MY SOUL (now THE REAPER’S KISS, Deathmark Book One). She regularly blogs about life observances, lives at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and can be easily found hiking any of Colorado’s best trails.




Twitter: @abigailbaker79         
         










Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Suffering by Rin Chupeco



The Suffering
By Rin Chupeco
September 1, 2015; Hardcover ISBN 9781492629832; Trade Paper ISBN 9781492629849
Book Info:
Title: The Suffering
Author: Rin Chupeco
Release Date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Praise for the Suffering:

"Rin Chupeco's The Suffering is a horror lover's dream: murders, possessed dolls, and desiccated corpses. I cringed. I grimaced. You won't soon forget this exorcist and his vengeful water ghost."
--Kendare Blake, author of Anna Dressed in Blood

“Chupeco deftly combines ancient mysticism with contemporary dilemmas that teens face, immersing readers in horrors both supernatural and manmade. The Suffering is a chilling swim through the murky waters of morality.” 
--Carly Anne West, author of The Bargaining and The Murmuring
Summary:

Breathtaking and haunting, Rin Chupeco’s second novel is a chilling companion to her debut, The Girl from the Well.
The darkness will find you.
Seventeen-year-old Tark knows what it is to be powerless. But Okiku changed that. A restless spirit who ended life as a victim and started death as an avenger, she’s groomed Tark to destroy the wicked. But when darkness pulls them deep into Aokigahara, known as Japan’s suicide forest, Okiku’s justice becomes blurred, and Tark is the one who will pay the price…
Buy Links:
Barnes&Noble- http://ow.ly/PrKLh
Books A Million- http://ow.ly/PrL7j
Indiebound- http://ow.ly/PrLXu

About the Author:
Despite uncanny resemblances to Japanese revenants, Rin Chupeco has always maintained her sense of humor. Raised in Manila, Philippines, she keeps four pets: a dog, two birds, and a husband. She's been a technical writer and travel blogger, but now makes things up for a living. Connect with Rin at www.rinchupeco.com.
Social Networking Links:

Excerpt from The Suffering:
It’s still early morning when our group is given clearance to enter. Aokigahara is a deceptive forest. It has all the hallmarks of a popular tourist destination: narrow but well-­maintained hiking trails with a surprising amount of litter, not to mention strips of tape and ribbon wrapped around tree trunks. The leader explains that hikers use them as markers to maintain their bearings. Later on, one of the other volunteers whispers to us that some of the tapes were left by those who came here to kill themselves, in case they decided to change their minds. The revelation horrifies Callie.
A few miles into our hike, anything resembling civilization disappears. Roots crawl across the hard forest floor, and it’s easy to trip if you’re not constantly looking down. We’re outside, but the trees make it feel claustrophobic. They reach hungrily toward the sun, fighting each other for drops of light, and this selfishness grows with the darkness as we move deeper into the woods.
It’s quiet. The silence is broken by the scuffling of feet or snapping of dry twigs as we walk. Every so often, volunteers call back and forth to each other, and rescue dogs exploring the same vicinity that we are will bark. But there are no bird calls, no sounds of scampering squirrels. We’re told that there is very little wildlife in Jukai. Nothing seems to flourish here but trees.
This deep into the woods, any roads and cleared paths are gone. At times, we’re forced to climb to a higher ledge or slide down steep slopes to proceed, and there’s always some root or rock hiding to twist an ankle.
And yet—­the forest is beautiful. I like myself too much to seriously think about suicide, even during my old bouts of depression, but I can understand why people would choose to die here. There is something noble and enduring and magnificent about the forest.
That sense of wonder disappears though, the instant I see them. There are spirits here. And the ghosts mar the peacefulness for me. They hang from branches and loiter at the base of tree trunks. Their eyes are open and their skin is gray, and they watch me as I pass. I don’t know what kind of people they were in life, but they seem faded and insignificant in death.
Okiku watches them but takes no action. These are not the people she hunts. They don’t attack us because they’re not that kind of ghosts. Most of them, I intuit, aren’t violent. The only lives they had ever been capable of taking were their own.
I’m not afraid, despite their bloated faces, contorted from the ropes they use to hang themselves or the overdose of sleeping pills they’ve taken. If anything, I feel lingering sadness. I can sympathize with their helpless anguish. These people took their own lives, hoping to find some meaning in death when they couldn’t find it in life. But there’s nothing here but regret and longing.
And there’s that tickle again, so light it is nearly imperceptible. Something in this forest attracts these deaths. It lures its unhappy victims with its strange siren’s call and then, having taken what it needs, leaves their spirits to rot. A Venus flytrap for human souls.
Something is wrong here, and suddenly, the forest no longer looks as enticing or majestic as when we arrived.

New in Paperback from this Author: The Girl From The Well
Praise for The Girl From The Well:
“[A] Stephen King-like horror story.” -Kirkus Reviews           

“Told in a marvelously disjointed fashion.”  -Publishers Weekly STARRED Review                              

This gorgeously written story reads like poetry.” -Brazos Bookstore                                                                     

Darkly mesmerizing.” -The Boston Globe

“A superior creep factor that is pervasive in every lyrical word.” -Booklist


Summary:
 The Ring  meets The Exorcist in this haunting and lyrical reimagining of the Japanese fable.
Okiku has wandered the world for hundreds of years, setting free the spirits of murdered children. Wherever there’s a monster hurting a child, her spirit is there to deliver punishment. Such is her existence, until the day she discovers a troubled American teenager named Tark and the dangerous demon that writhes beneath his skin, trapped by a series of intricate tattoos. Tark needs to be freed, but there is one problem—if the demon dies, so does its host.
With the vigilante spirit Okiku as his guide, Tark is drawn deep into a dark world of sinister doll rituals and Shinto exorcisms that will take him far from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Japan. Can Okiku protect him from the demon within or will her presence bring more harm? The answer lies in the depths of a long-forgotten well
Buy Links:
Barnes&Noble- http://ow.ly/PrQFa
Books A Million- http://ow.ly/PrQQU
Indiebound- http://ow.ly/PrQp2

Rafflecopter Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway