Dead and Missing Blog Tour: Excerpt & Giveaway!

Thank You to AToMR Tours for being an awesome host, as always! I was supposed to review theses books for the tour but, as I have stated before, I have some medical issues that hinder that - but my doctors will tell you I am always reading, lol! So, my review of both books in the series will come soon. As a teaser, I will leave you with a tiny excerpt to get your minds tingling:) As a reminder, I am starting with the second book in the series so don't read the stats yet and scroll down to book one, Date with the Dead! And don't forget the Giveaway!!

Dead and Missing
(Ripsters, #2)
by Chris Myers
Released: July 13, 2013
Genre: Paranormal Mystery/Romance
Age Group: Young Adult
Tour organized by: AToMR Tours

Book Blurb:
Sixteen-year-old Brittany Howland only knows one other girl, Jolie Livingston, who can communicate with the dead like herself. When Brittany takes Jolie’s haunt fishing to get him out of Jolie’s hair, he mysteriously disappears. Brittany isn’t sure how she’ll tell Jolie she lost her stupid ghost. Jolie thinks her dead best friend Drew has finally crossed over, but Brittany knows better. Just before Drew went missing, he revealed why he hasn’t hitchhiked to the afterlife, a secret Brittany swore she’d take to the grave.

Amazon   -   Barnes & Noble

JOLIE
As I inch along the cave tunnel, cold chills wrack my body. Panic sets in as the water rises and tumbles over my mouth and into my nose. I cough out the water and turn my head to the side to catch my breath.If it gets any deeper, the water will cover my entire face. Using my hands, I feel a hole that veers off to my right and is big enough to crawl into. I scuttle out of the water to sit and rest. The hole goes back farther, but I just want to get out of the stream for a minute to warm up and calm myself before going any further. The thought of drowning, gasping for breath scares the bejesus out of me.I scoot backward until I bump into something that’s icy cold but soft and squishy—like ectoplasm. My body freezes deathly still.A whisper floats on an unnatural breeze that drifts over my shoulders, icing them. “Jolie. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

Date with the Dead
(Ripsters, #1)
by Chris Myers

Book Blurb:
Sixteen-year-old Jolie Livingston’s closest and only friend Drew is this really hot dead guy, and it bites that the self-absorbed princesses at school cannot even see him. That’s right she can communicate with the dead. It’s the living she has trouble with. She and her mom inherited this awesome crib in Plymouth, MA. It’s quite a step-up from the homeless shelter in New Orleans, but there’s a catch. They can’t afford the past due mortgage, so Jolie’s working on that.

She starts a ghost hunting business called Ripsters. Somehow she’s managed to recruit Brittany, a glamour SAP smothered in pink, and a techie allergic to ghosts. Brit actually thinks he resembles the R&B singer Chris Brown. All that pink has clouded her vision. They both have special talents Jolie’s hoping will be useful to their venture. Right now, they’re working for a family in need of major therapy due to a dead guy with a hole in his head.

Chris Myers suffers from an overactive imagination. She spent her high school years writing torch songs for fantasy guys then moved onto writing thrillers and young adult. She has a real job but would love to write full time. Her books have won and placed in the finals and semifinals for several awards including Paul Gillette, Rocky Mountain Gold, and Amazon Breakthrough Novel. Chris lives in Colorado with her daughter, her better half, and BeBe, a rambunctious Bichon.

Twitter - Facebook - Website - Blog - Goodreads

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(3) Print Copies of Dead and Missing – US

(8) eBook Copies of Dead and Missing - International

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Promo Tour & Giveaway: Dollhouse by Anya Allyn

Dollhouse
By Anya Allyn

Book blurb:

Fifteen-year-old Aisha disappears in the dark forests on a school hiking trip. She's the latest in a string of children to vanish there over the past five years. The towns surrounding the forests are on edge and they want answers. And wildboy Ethan—Aisha's boyfriend—is on the run after he and his grandfather are blamed for her disappearance.

Cassie is just about the only friend Ethan has left. She's been secretly in love with him ever since her mother dragged her to the wilds of Australia from Florida six months ago.

Desperate to prove Ethan's innocence, Cassie searches the forests with Ethan to find out what really happened to Aisha. But Ethan's growing strangely silent, and Cassie's left questioning if her feelings for him are clouding her judgment.

Cassie discovers a dark secret lurking in the heart of the forests; a secret world of nightmarish horrors—where nothing is as it seems, where the supernatural invades your soul, where the people she trusts most might be the people she can trust least, and where escape exists only in dreams.

A YA Paranormal Mystery/Horror

kindle paperback

Book Trailer

Author Bio:
Anya Allyn lives near the beach an hour north of Sydney, Australia. She loves anywhere outdoors that is natural and wild. Or anywhere indoors where Black Forest Cake is on offer. She has four amazing boys and enjoys their energy and happy-go-lucky spirit, and wishes she could plug into some of that energy on days when her 'get up and go' has packed up and gone! She is a former Features' Editor/Community Manager for a media organisation in Australia. The idea for Doll House was born after a trip to the beautiful Barrington Tops region of Australia--sparked by places there such as Devils Hole, Ladies Well and Thunderbolt's Way.

http://dollhousetrilogy.com

*****Giveaway*****

Win an ecopy of Dollhouse -Kindle or PDF format! To enter leave a comment below. For an additional entry follow Breathe In BooKs blog. Winner will be chosen randomly. Open internationally. Must be at least 13 years old to enter. Winner will be announced on 8/8/12. Please leave an email or a link to find winner.
**Giveaway has been extended to this Monday the 13th!
This giveaway is now CLOSED!


 **Congratulations to the winner...Lorraine Beaumont!!**

Review: Inside Evil

Inside Evil
(Inside Evil Series #1)
by Geoffrey Wakeling
Publication Date: March 12, 2012
Formats Available: eBook ~176 pages

Synopsis: Roberta Arlington lives in Ridgewood, a small and sleepy town on the Scottish border, where she is completely content with her life. That is, until she stumbles upon a corpse at the local boarding school and finds that her world starts to unravel into chaos.
As questions begin to emerge as to just how the victim died, Roberta discovers herself caught in a world which she never knew existed. Like a shadow hanging behind Roberta’s own life, another world hovers in the background, waiting silently until trying to break through. Roberta soon discovers that she’ll have to find all the strength she has to survive the path laid before her. -from Goodreads

Cover: I’m not quite sure what it is about the color green that evokes feelings of evil, but it does. It is usually shown through a person’s eyes, but on the cover of Inside Evil the green encompasses the entire page. The picture is of a black cat sitting the woods, not scary by itself, but when you add the bright, glowing green the woods seem ominous. Very cool trick.

 

My Thoughts:

“It’s happening again…”

The small town of Ridgewood has a secret, one that only a select group of people know about. There is a curse, one that has been handed down from generation to generation. Every ten years there will be deaths unless a riddle is solved and to find the riddle is its own adventure. I was completely enthralled with this book. From the moment I began reading I could not tear myself away. What I first thought was a horror novel is actually a fantasy within a mystery.

Roberta, a teacher at the local boarding school, finds one of her students, Vanessa, dead in the hallway. Vanessa - a local girl who lived on campus, but her parents live in town. Her mother even runs a popular book shop. But ever since Vanessa moved to campus, things haven’t been right. Vanessa’s teachers think it may be drugs, but in reality it is something so much worse. When Vanessa is found dead strange things start to happen. Roberta isn’t quite feeling like herself anymore. She is quick to anger and at times violent, but she hasn’t any idea why. There is something inside of her. Whatever killed Vanessa is making its way into Roberta and sending her into a descending spiral of madness.

“For just the smallest second, the smile on her daughter’s face vanished and was replaced with a snarl. Lips drawn into the face of the devil, eyes hollowed and black…”

While I am not usually a fan of so many viewpoints being shown, the author Geoff Wakeling does a good job of making the transitions from one character to the next. His descriptions of the small town of Ridgewood were well written and I could imagine exactly what it looked like without him being overly verbose. The entire cast of characters made this book great. From Sam the reluctant believer to Detective Karl who has been investigating the unusual deaths for over 10 years to Martha whose husband was one of the lost; we see a web spinning them all together. Each character is well-rounded and thought out. The fantastical parts of the book, while not trying to give anything away, were imaginative, original and strange.

There is a big difference between American English and British English and for those who aren’t used to reading the latter will need to be aware of the variances. For example, the spelling is different: favorite is favourite, meter is metre. The punctuation is also different; as to where I would use a period after Mr. or Mrs., British English does not, so Mrs. Peacock is Mrs Peacock. In addition, there are a few British colloquialisms that are used, but nothing that can’t be understood.

Aside from the language variations, I really enjoyed reading Inside Evil and cannot wait until he writes the second installment in the series. Anyone looking for a good mystery/fantasy to cozy up to the fire with a cup of tea or to even sit and read on the beach, Inside Evil is a great choice.

Favorite Quote: “Black shining gems bored down onto her. It was like looking directly into hell where all things were evil.”

★ ★ ★ ★ ½

FTC Advisory: I was given a copy of this book from the author for an honest review. No backroom deals or whispered promises were made. 

Where to Buy:

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