Sunday Post #54

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It's a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share new about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

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I missed a week of Sunday Post because I was at Balticon...I don't know what more to say. lol. Balticon is four days of amazing. Amazing books. Amazing people. Amazing panels. AMAZING! I am working up a post for the weekend for you all. It's just that so much was done and seen I don't think I can share it all.

Then yesterday I went to the PA Literary Festival in Uniontown Pennsylvania. It was at the mall and free to walk around and meet the authors. A few I wanted to meet after seeing their books weren't at their table, due to panels and I was there at lunchtime. But was still awesome in all. I took a friend and her daughter along with her friend. They had a great time and found a college for the daughter to check out. I think one of the best things was seeing them love it. For me it was a win.

What's Happening in Books:

Current Read:
Shadow's Master by Jon Sprunk

AND have been reading as chapters come up:
Soulless by Skyla Dawn Cameron (2 chapters a week for free on her site!)

Current Podcast Book Listen:
Broken by Cedric Johnson & Veronica Giguere


Finished Last Weeks:
A Wanderer's Tale: Rusted Memory by Jennifer Melzer

Finished Podcast Book Listen:
....

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Last Week on the Blog:

Cover Reveals: (click titles to go to post & learn more)

Shadow Hunter by Kait Ballenger

Posts:


Around the Internet...



Reviews:

Evolution: Sage by S.A. Huchton

Walking Sticks: The Gift by Sharron Riddle

Podcast Review:

Mama Bitchstress Reviews:

GIVEAWAYS:



Weekly Posts:

***NEW*** Mythical Monday Amanda Bonilla talking the Shaede and Lyhtan races. And Bethany Herron talking on Nickar.

Throwback Thursday

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This Week to Come on the Blog:

Mythical Monday Not this week. I'm collecting authors for this blog special. (Mon)

Release Celebration (and a giveaway!) With Amanda Carlson (Mon)
EXCLUSIVE Cover Reveal for River by Skyla Dawn Cameron (Tues)

Book Review Aces Wild by Amanda Carlson. (Wed)
Book Review Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn by Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Day Al Mohamed (Thurs)

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Received Last Weeks:

This was two weeks of collecting, and over a convention which I usually come home with a boat load of books from.

Review:

Stoned in Charm City by Kelly A. Harmon
Goodreads Synopsis:
"No Good Deed Goes Undamned"

Forty dollars. Two crisp twenties. All that stands between Assumpta Mary Margaret O’Connor and homelessness.

For the price of forty dollars, she helps archeologist Greg LaSpina find something he’s lost–and causes all Hell to break loose.

Literally.

With demons tormenting their every step, Assumpta and Greg become both hunted and hunter in their search for a way to send the demons back to Hell. One careless mistake could cost them their lives.

Wrestling with her faith, Assumpta considers an offer made by one very sexy demon: sleep with him, and learn how to rid the world of the escaped evil.

But the offer comes with a steep price: her immortal soul.

Selk Skin Deep by Kelly A. Harmon
Goodreads Synopsis:
Kennedy never envisioned a Navy SEAL like him.

1967. Vietnam. Fat-boys and comp-B bombs explode aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Livingstone killing thousands. Everyone dies if the carrier sinks, unless one SEAL – one selkie – puts the lives of humans ahead of his need to keep his secret.

Inspired by the true story of the U.S.S. Forrestal fire of 1967, award-winning author Kelly A. Harmon weaves alternate-history and fairytale into this action-packed and emotionally charged story.


Purchased/Winnings/Gifts:

Dirty Magick: Los Angeles Edited by Charlie Brown
Goodreads Synopsis:
"Dirty Magick: Los Angeles" is an urban fantasy anthology exploring the crossroads between magic and crime. Set in the city that invented noir, these stories comb the back streets and side alleys where the shadows are so sharp, they can shave you clean. Featuring such distinguished writers as Neal Pollack, Richard Rayner, Justin Macumber and Terry Mixon, this collection, edited by Charlie Brown, presents a whole new approach to urban fantasy.

TV Gods Edited By Jeff Young and Lee C. Hillman
Goodreads Synopsis:
Coming 5-24-14, your favorite TV Shows done by the gods themselves.

The great pantheons of the world run amok through eighteen tales of wonder and hilarity. Discover how the Egyptian gods use night court for judging the souls of the dead. What will happen when an office of Greek gods gets downsized? Why are there Norse gods on a spaceship? There are Stooges building a world! Deities on game shows!

Stay tuned for these shows and more!

Cybrosis by P.C. Haring
Goodreads Synopsis:
For Agent Ciris, the mission should have been simple: get in, apprehend the target, get out. But when the simple snatch and grab goes horribly awry, the worlds first cyborg finds herself backed into a corner. At odds with her superiors, she becomes embroiled in two conspiracies — one intended to destroy her with a cybernetic virus that will neutralize the technology that keeps her alive, the other intended to keep hidden the untold secrets of her origin. With the walls closing in around her, Ciris becomes a rogue agent with no one to trust and only one objective — unravel the shrouds of secrecy before time runs out.

Evolution: ANGEL by S.A. Huchton
Goodreads Synopsis:
Candace Bristol has always been obsessed with comic books, but in a world where the nightly news often mirrors these inked stories, her dreams of becoming a real superhero could actually come true. After being rescued by members of the government’s AdvaNced Genetic EvoLution (ANGEL) Project four years ago, getting recruited for this elite team is all she's wanted.

Now 18, she's finally reached her goal after years of study and physical training, but little could have prepared her for life as a genetic experiment. As though coming to terms with her new ability to manipulate water isn't tough enough, she never expected to be swept off her feet by one of her fellow recruits. 

With genetic alteration, the threat of physical and mental instability hangs over every superhero like a shadow. When one of their own tumbles over the edge of madness, Candace will have to choose between protecting the world, and saving the one who holds her heart.

Evolution: SAGE by S.A. Huchton
Goodreads Synopsis:
Devastated by her choices, Candace Bristol is on the brink of losing it all: her mind, her hope, everything she thought she was.

But from the ruins rises new purpose. An enemy has emerged and it will take everything to combat this new threat. Broken as she is, picking up the pieces and carrying on might be the hardest battle to win, but it's either fight, or lose what little she has left.

Amongst the wreckage, hope still burns. The flicker of a flame kindles something within her she thought was dead.

Love can break you.

So, too, can it bring you back to life.

Call of the Herald by Brian Rathbone
Goodreads Synopsis:
Book One of The Dawning of Power trilogy. Echoes of the ancients' power are distant memories, tattered and faded by the passage of eons, but that is about to change. A new dawn has arrived. Latent abilities, harbored in mankind's deepest fibers, wait to be unleashed. Ancient evils awaken, and old fears ignite the fires of war.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Goodreads Synopsis:
Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soiless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Shadow's Son (in audio) by Jon Sprunk
Goodreads Synopsis:
Treachery and corruption lurk at the end of every street, in the holy city of Othir. It’s the perfect place for a freelance assassin with no loyalties and even fewer scruples.

Caim makes—or perhaps more accurately, takes—his living on the edge of a blade. Murder is a risky business, but so far he reckons he’s on the right side of it. Or he was... because when a short-notice contract job goes south, Caim finds himself thrust into the middle of a sinister plot in which he seems to be one of the primary marks. Pitted against crooked lawmen, rival killers and the darkest kinds of sorcery, it’s going to take more than luck if he’s to get through this alive.

He may lack scruples, but he’s still got his knives, and his instincts, to rely on—and a developed sense of revenge, or should that be justice?—to fall back on. But when his path leads him from the hazardous back streets of Othir and into the highest halls of power, will instincts and weapons alone really be enough?

If Caim is really going to unravel the plot which has snared him, to unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the empire, he will have to finally claim his birthright as the Shadow’s Son...

Blood and Iron by Jon Sprunk
Goodreads Synopsis:
Set in a richly-imagined world, this action-heavy fantasy epic and series opener is like a sword-and-sorcery Spartacus.

It starts with a shipwreck following a magical storm at sea. Horace, a soldier from the west, had joined the Great Crusade against the heathens of Akeshia after the deaths of his wife and son from plague. When he washes ashore, he finds himself at the mercy of the very people he was sent to kill, who speak a language and have a culture and customs he doesn't even begin to understand.

Not long after, Horace is pressed into service as a house slave. But this doesn't last. The Akeshians discover that Horace was a latent sorcerer, and he is catapulted from the chains of a slave to the halls of power in the queen's court. Together with Jirom, an ex-mercenary and gladiator, and Alyra, a spy in the court, he will seek a path to free himself and the empire's caste of slaves from a system where every man and woman must pay the price of blood or iron. Before the end, Horace will have paid dearly in both.

House of the Rising Sun by Kristen Painter
Goodreads Synopsis:
Augustine lives the perfect life in the Haven city of New Orleans. He rarely works a real job, spends most of his nights with a different human woman, and resides in a spectacular Garden District mansion paid for by retired movie star Olivia Goodwin, who has come to think of him as an adopted son, providing him room and board and whatever else he needs. 

But when Augustine returns home to find Olivia's been attacked by vampires, he knows his idyllic life has comes to an end. It's time for revenge—and to take up the mantle of the city's Guardian.

Blood of the Pride by Sheryl Nantus
Goodreads Synopsis:
When a severed rabbit's paw is delivered to her office, outcast cat shifter Rebecca Desjardin recognizes the summons home. One of their own has been murdered--and a shocking photo published in a local tabloid--and her Pride needs Rebecca, now a private investigator, to track down the killer.

Investigative reporter Brandon Hanover wants to find out who slipped the photo of the half-shifted cat-woman under his door, marking him as a suspect in her death. Determined to stay one step ahead of the sexy journalist, Rebecca reluctantly agrees to partner with him to find the real murderer. But as their mutual attraction heats up, Rebecca finds it harder and harder to keep Brandon from discovering the existence of the shifter society--and her own true nature.

When the search leads them back to the Pride, Rebecca must attempt to Change for the first time in years to face the killer, and save the man she loves...

Last Man Home (audio) by John Mierau
Goodreads Synopsis:
Eight years after the war with the Alotans, Jake, Teddy, Gris and Dru are the only survivors of Tom Callahan's squad. They're gathering in the small town Jake calls home for their annual reunion-but this year a new face wants to join in. One of Jake's alien army buddies will crack when he faces a monster from his past, and it's down to him to save the Alotan going by the name of... Tom Callahan.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (audio) by Douglas Adams
Goodreads Synopsis:
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.
Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!


Free Ebooks:

Five by Christie Rich
Amazon Synopsis:
Rayla Tate dreams of escaping her ordinary world for a bright future in the art world. Throw in an overbearing aunt who is keeping major secrets, a disgruntled best friend tagging along to college, and a bunch of fae warriors waiting in the wings to claim her the minute she leaves her sleepy little town, and Rayla’s dreams are about to shatter. 

She soon discovers she is a coveted Elemental with power she never knew she possessed—a power that could change the world. Everywhere she turns another man tries to woo her. The weird part is she’s drawn to each one of them. Who are these strange men, and what dark power do they hold over her? Rayla must quickly learn to fend off these beautiful and seductive pursuers using any means necessary or find herself lost to the fae world forever.




Free Audio Books/Stories:

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Goodreads Synopsis:
Graceling meets Beauty and the Beast in this sweeping fantasy about one girl's journey to fulfill her destiny and the monster who gets in her way-by stealing her heart.

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

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Reviews to Come:

Double Share by Nathan Lowell - a podcast reading of the book

Captain's Share by Nathan Lowell - a podcast reading of the book

Owners Share by Nathan Lowell - a podcast reading of the book

Ravenwood by Nathan Lowell - a podcast reading of the book

Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow
Marco and The Red Granny by Mur Lafferty (in audiobook while at work)

Earth by Mur Lafferty (in audiobook while at work)

Wasteland by Mur Lafferty (in audiobook while at work)

War by Mur Lafferty (in audiobook while at work)

Tales of the Children by P.G. Holyfield (in audiobook while at work) An Anthology collection in the setting of Land of Caern.

The Secret World Chronicle: Invasion by Mercedes Lackey & Steve Libbey (in audiobook while at work)

The Secret World Chronicle: The Hunt by Mercedes Lackey & Steve Libbey (in audiobook while at work)

Rusted Veins by Jaye Wells

Haunted by Amanda Bonilla

The Secret World Chronicle: World Well Lost by Mercees Lackey,Steve Libby, Cody Martin, & Dennis Lee

Morevi by Tee Morris & Lisa Lee
Tales from the Archives, Vol 3: #1 by Tee Morris, Pip Ballantine, & others.

Tales from the Archives, Vol 3: #2 by Tee Morris, Pip Ballantine, & others.

Tales from the Archives, Vol 3: #3 by Tee Morris, Pip Ballantine, & others.

Flash in a Can by Danielle Ackley-McPhail

Crossing Lines by John Mierau

Marked Man by John Mierau

Harlan's Wake by John Mierau

The List by John Mierau

Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn by Danielle Ackley-McPhail & Day Al-Mohamed

A Curse Awakened by Cecy Robson
Sound and Fury by S.A. Archer & Ravynheart
Evolution: SAGE by S.A. Huchton

Ace's Wild by Amanda Carlson

Walking Sticks: The Gift by Sharron Riddle
A Wanderer's Tale: Rusted Memory by Jennifer Melzer