Author Spotlight & Giveaway: Cindy Spencer Pape {Blog Tour}

Hi guys! It’s Friday and that means it’s time for another spotlight & giveaway. This week I’m very excited to share with you an excerpt from a new steampunk novel, Ashes & Alchemy by Cindy Spencer Pape. Now, I admit, I haven’t read this series yet, but it certainly sounds fun, so on to my never-ending to-read list it goes and don't forget to add it to yours! 

Note: Scroll for the Rafflecopter giveaway below.

Happy reading!

Ashes & Alchemy (Gaslight Chronicles #6)
Cindy Spencer Pape

Release Date: January 6, 2014

Book Description:
London, 1860

Police inspector Sebastian Brown served Queen and country in India before returning to England to investigate supernatural crimes alongside the Order of the Round Table. If his wifeless, childless life feels a little empty sometimes, that's not too great a price to pay in the name of duty.

Minerva Shaw is desperately seeking a doctor when she mistakenly lands on Sebastian's doorstep. Her daughter Ivy has fallen gravely ill with a mysterious illness—the same illness, it seems, that's responsible for taking the lives of many of Ivy's classmates.

Seb sniffs a case, and taking in Minnie and Ivy seems the only way to protect them while he solves it. But as mother and daughter work their way into his heart and Seb uses every magickal and technological resource he can muster to uncover the source of the deadly plague, it's he who will need protecting—from emotions he'd thought buried long ago.

Amazon US | Goodreads | Barnes & Noble

Excerpt:

Police Inspector Sebastian Brown stirred the coals in his study’s small iron grate. The clock on the wall chimed quarter past two. Another night with no sleep, then. Bloody hell, this insomnia was getting to be a habit. Perhaps he should ask his superior to move him to the graveyard shift. If he was going to be awake all night, maybe he’d be able to rest during the day. It was better than what he was doing now, getting no sleep at all. At forty, he was too old to keep that up indefinitely. He eyed the half-empty decanter of brandy on his desk but shook his head. He’d tried that for the last couple of nights, and all it had earned him was a headache to go along with his fatigue. That, he could do without. It was bad enough that the British winter made his hip hurt like hell—except he knew from experience that hell was hot and dry, not frigid and damp.

Cover Reveal: The Book of Life

Exclusive US Cover reveal and excerpt: 'The Book of Life' by Deborah Harkness http://t.co/IkcC1Uolar via @usatoday #thebookoflife
— Deborah Harkness (@DebHarkness) January 9, 2014

O*M*G! I literally cannot contain my excitement. The US cover for Deborah Harkness’s third and final installment in the All Souls Trilogy, the eagerly anticipated The Book of Life was just exclusively revealed on USA Today! Go check it out and read the fabulous excerpt here. Squee!!!

Happy Thursday everyone!

The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3)
Deborah Harkness

Release Date: July 15, 2014

Book Description:

The highly anticipated finale to the #1 New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Discovery of Witches

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness’s enchant­ing series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they re­unite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its miss­ing pages takes on even more urgency. In the tril­ogy’s final volume, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In ancestral homes and university laboratories, using ancient knowl­edge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to the palaces of Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago.

With more than one million copies sold in the United States and appearing in thirty-eight foreign editions and translations, A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night have landed on all of the major bestseller lists and garnered rave reviews from countless publications. Eagerly awaited by Harkness’s legion of fans, The Book of Life brings this superbly written series to a deeply satisfying close.

Amazon US | Goodreads

Book Review: Songs of Submission: Sequence One

Songs of Submission: Sequence One (Songs of Submission #1-3)
C.D. Reiss

Release Date: March 24, 2013

Book Description:
Beg
My name is Monica. I'm a singer born and raised in Los Angeles.

I've stopped dating. When I cut a record, or win a Grammy, maybe then I'll be with someone, but every man in my past has done everything he could to make me submit myself to him, and it's gotten in the way of my career. I won't do it again.

But there's Jonathan. He owns the high-rise hotel where I work, and he is gorgeous and charming. I refuse to fall in love with him, even though when he asks me to submit to him, I want nothing more.

Tease
When Jonathan was gone I couldn't stop thinking about him, and the first thing he did when he got back was demand more of me. I'm willing to give him my body and my time, but I find myself giving up pieces of my heart.

My career is on track, and even though I can't write a thing, I can sing. So I'll go to the art opening with him, because his ex wife will be there. I feel this need to protect him from hurt, though in bed, his domination brings me to my knees.

This man is going to break me into a million little pieces.

Submit
"You're mine. The minute I told you to spread your legs and you did it, you were mine. When I told you to beg for it and you did, you were mine. When you put your hands behind your back without being told, I owned you. You never had to say a word. You are a natural submissive."

No. God, no.

My name is Monica, and no matter what Jonathan says, I am not submissive.

****18+ GRAPHIC LANGUAGE, SEX, AND ADULT SITUATIONS****

Amazon US | Goodreads

Review:
Hot, quick, with a touch of BDSM, these books are surprisingly addicting. Trust me; you can’t stop at just one…

Book Review: A Study in Ashes

A Study in Ashes (The Baskerville Affair #3)
Emma Jane Holloway

Release Date: December 31, 2013

Book Description:
As part of her devil’s bargain with the industrial steam barons, Evelina Cooper is finally enrolled in the Ladies’ College of London. However, she’s attending as the Gold King’s pet magician, in handcuffs and forbidden contact with even her closest relation, the detective Sherlock Holmes.

Not even Niccolo, the dashing pirate captain, and his sentient airship can save her. But Evelina’s problems are only part of a larger war. The Baskerville Affair is finally coming to light, and the rebels are making their move to wrest power from the barons and restore it to Queen Victoria. Missing heirs and nightmare hounds are the order of the day—or at least that’s what Dr. Watson is telling the press.

But their plans are doomed unless Evelina escapes to unite her magic with the rebels’ machines—and even then her powers aren’t what they used to be. A sorcerer has awakened a dark hunger in Evelina’s soul, and only he can keep her from endangering them all. The only problem is…he’s dead.

Amazon US | Goodreads

Review:
Egalley courtesy of Random House Publishing Group - Del Rey Spectra via NetGalley in exchange for fair and honest review.

What a great end to a wonderful series! I must admit, at over 600 pages long this book took me awhile to finish but it was well worth it. There is magic, gadgetry, intrigues and treachery, love, bravery, and much more. This beautiful dark magical world, so vividly drawn throughout the series serves as a perfect backdrop to the multiple storylines explored here, each having their own unique arc and purpose. And the fabulous cast of characters does not stop to impress. At the end, A Study in Ashes serves as a perfect conclusion with a hopeful glimpse into future possibility of more stories to come.

Author Spotlight & Giveaway: Diane Alberts {Blog Tour}

It’s the first Friday of the New Year so what are you reading? How about a nice New Year romance from the lovely Diane Alberts? Check out her new novel – Kiss Me at Midnight and enter for a chance to win Take a Chance series bundle. See the Rafflecopter giveaway below.

Happy New Year!

Kiss Me at Midnight
Diane Alberts

Release Date: December 30, 2013

Book Description:
Her New Year’s resolution was seduction…

Doctor Ashley Hanes has one mission and one mission only—end her annoyingly long dry streak and ring in the New Year with a bang. Literally. When her long lost and oh-so-sexy ex-best friend, Ethan Pierce, shows up as if he hadn’t broken her heart all those years ago, suddenly she doesn’t want to bring home just any man. She wants Ethan.

What should have been one night of blow-your-mind make-up sex quickly turns into another. And another.

Before long, Ashley thinks maybe she and Ethan should reunite for good. If only the elusive bachelor will stop running from his tortured past and trust a future in Ashley’s arms…

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