The Hypnotist: Third book in the Reincarnationist Series

Airel: YA at it's finest

A New Prospect: New York law meet southern society

Pump it Up Blog Tours: Revelations...A Jane Perry Novel

Sincerest apologies to my audience, to Tracy at Pump it Up and Laurel Dewey for the late review. I still love Blogger but he has been naughty lately.

Pump It Up Blog Tours: Stories of a Lifetime...

The Author


Hugh Aaron, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts, received a Liberal Arts degree in the Humanities at The University of Chicago. For three years as a Seabee he served in the South Pacific during WWII. He was CEO of his own plastics manufacturing business for 20 years before selling it to write full time. Several of his short stories have been published in national magazines and 18 of his essays on business management have appeared in The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Business Not as Usual: How to Win Managing a Company through Hard and Easy Times. Currently he’s writing and producing plays.
His latest book is a short story collection, Stories From a Lifetime.
You can visit his website at www.stonespointbooks.com or his blog at www.businesswisdom.blogspot.com.

Review of Godchild and a How To Be Friends With a Best Selling Author

So this post is supposed to be a review of Godchild (which is 99 right now) and an interview with it's author Vincent Zandri as part of his blog tour with Pump It Up Books. Well you aren't going to get exactly all that. But you will get your review and something more of an observation about Mr. Vincent Zandri.

If you didn't know Vince and I are colleagues and friends or online friends is probably more spot on there. I speak to Vince often usually through emails that resemble im chats with really long pause times in between responses and signatures that say "sent via blackberry" or "sent from Bri Clark's iPhone" (Oh you guys know I am not going to have not crapberry!) I know what your thinking how did a Amazon bestselling noir author become friends with a romance author? Believe it or not we actually have covered that before here.(FYI I'm the blonde bombshell)

So when you are friends with someone you notice little changes in their behavior when things are off. Now I'm not saying Vincent is on drugs or is doing illegal things or anything. I'm just saying I've noticed he's very very busy.( By product of success.)With that said I could not in good conscience do an interview when I knew that I might be able to ease up his schedule a little bit. So if you want to gripe about it in the comments go ahead. However, you can go here and see the review and interview of the prequel to Godchild the Innocent that I've done with him before. So pick you lip up go to your room and have your feelings then come back and check out this review.

Pump it Up Blog Tours: It's a Freebie Kind of Day: Who Wants a Book Like No Other? Life Choices Is The One

Today at the Belle we are featuring Life's Choices by Judi Moreo. This is a collaborative work by 26 authors who pulled together under Judi's amazing tutelage and shared how they made their dreams a reality one brave decision at at time. One lucky commenter will get a free print addition of this book and this is international. Without further ado Life's Choices

Blurb

If you have ever had a dream that you wanted to pursue but didn’t have the courage, if you’ve ever wanted to do something that you didn’t think you could do, if you have ever wanted to go somewhere but didn’t believe it was possible… READ THIS BOOK. Twenty-six authors share with you how they pursued their passions and made their dreams become reality.

Pump it Up Blog Tour: The Sandalwood Tree: Driving In New Dehli

I'd like to welcome Elle Newmark with an insightful and heartfelt post of her experiences riding in New Dehli. Welcome Elle.

Driving in Delhi

My driver wove us through Delhi’s traffic with his usual calm expertise, avoiding rickshaws and bony sacred cows and suicidal dogs. Whenever we stopped at a red light, sad women came up to the car, holding limp, unconscious babies; they tapped on the windows as if they barely had the strength to lift their arms, and mimed putting imaginary food into their mouths. The babies flopped on their arms looked dead, and I was later told they are in fact drugged so as not to bother their mothers while they are working. The women’s bleak faces could rip your heart out, and if you hand them a 100-rupee note (two dollars) they run like hell, veils flying, before you can change your mind. If you don’t give them anything, they might pound the window angrily, their faces morphing in an instant from pathetic to furious. Sometimes they whine, “You are riiiiich. I am poooor.” You will always feel like a heel around these women.

At one stoplight, a filthy, skin-and-bones child tapped on my window, hopping up and down to bring his pitiful face into view. At the same time, an old leper with fingers grown together so that he had paws rather than hands, tapped on the opposite window with thick yellow fingernails. Shocked by the double onslaught of misery, the light turned green before I could react.

I groaned as we drove away, but my driver said that as soon as the light turns green they lose the mournful look and laugh like hell if you gave them money or call you vile names if you didn’t. But does that matter? They’re human beings, grasping for survival. Does it matter whether their situation is slightly less dire than they make out? One was a child. The other was a leper.

Writer Wednsday...Welcom Laina Turner-Molaski

In this weeks Writer Wednesday please welcome Laina Turner-Molaski. She is the brilliant and lovely (totally love her author photo!!) author of Stilettoes and Scoundrels. I'll be reviewing it in April. So more about that later. Now lets get to know Laina and what she has to say about how much real life affects her fiction life.

Laina Turner-Molaski is a businesswoman, mom, author, Professor, and a major supporter of shopping. She has an undying love for shoes and coffee, which is why she created her main character and alter ego Presley Thurman.

With a lot of letters after her name and a ton of student loan debt, she is always working to pay the bills. While she enjoys her day job, her passion is writing, and she uses a lot of company time writing her fiction or working on her social website for women, Chiczofrenic.com. She is hoping to sell her book before she gets fired from her day job for goofing off.

Laina is currently living in Indiana, with her family, and is always writing something, whether it’s blogs, articles, business journals and books or ideas for her next novel. She is continuously doing what she loves which is writing or drinking coffee.

www.lainaturner.com

 

How much real life is in my fiction writing?

Someone asked me the other day how much of me and/or my friends pop up in the characters I create in my fiction writing. My answer is more than I realize after I read what I wrote. Funny how personal details just seem to sneak in when you don’t expect it.

It’s normal to take the familiar and put a fun twist to it. I have friends who ask to be a character in my books. They find it fun to be a part of something fictionalized. They give me all sorts of ideas on what they want their characters to do, which is a great help. I have a friend who in some form or another has made his way into almost every book I have written. No one but the two of us would ever be able to tell because it mannerisms, habits, personal type details that are slipped in, but we know the details are there and it’s fun.

I also ask my kids for ideas or to help me decide what hair color or eye color to give a character. It makes it a fun family event and increase my mommy cool factor.

Other real life aspects I utilize for my writing is just people watching. I love when I fly because airports are the best places to study people and write down observed eccentricities I may want to use later. Life is much stranger than anything I could ever make up and being observant to details and nuances is what makes me able to write what I do.

Laina

Presley Thurman, a sassy, thirty-something red-head, was looking to reinvent herself. She didn’t allow the fact she was recently fired to bother her – she was ready to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. Presley was a lover of shopping and Starbucks, and even though she sometimes had bad taste in men, she always had great taste in clothes.
Not looking back on corporate America, Presley decided to follow her dream. With her feisty nature and a spirit to not “sweat the small stuff,” she was ready to tackle any challenge (even if she had no idea how she would pay the bills). When her friend Trevor offered her a job with his online magazine to interview public figures, she jumped at the chance.
However, the new job turned into something unexpected when the U.S. Senator she was slated to write about was murdered – in her home town! Presley was excited – she hadn’t seen so much buzz since the spring sample sale at Saks. She was ready for this adventure, even if it didn’t seem to fit neatly into her life. She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be in the middle of the buzz.
Presley was determined (not to mention curious) to find the killer and write her story. After all, she couldn’t afford her shoe habit without a job and she was certainly not one to shy away from danger. The only thing standing in her way was an old high school fling, Cooper Sands, head of the Senator’s security. He was not actually standing in her way, but because of his good looks, he was the biggest distraction and one she was having the hardest time overcoming. Cooper felt it was too dangerous for Presley to look for a killer and tried to distract her with reliving the past; which Presley found more dangerous than any killer. While she attempted to resist Cooper’s good looks and charm, Presley was able to discover the Senator’s wife, Helen, had been having an affair… with her best friend’s boyfriend! Did Helen kill the Senator? Or was it the Senator’s love of gambling that got him killed? And what was Cooper’s secret tie to the mob boss Garrison Palazzo?
Presley’s betting her favorite pair of Manolo’s she will find the killer… but will time run out!

 Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stilettos-Scoundrels-Laina-Turner-Molaski/dp/0578034077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286689942&sr=1-1


Twitter:http://twitter.com/#!/lturnermolaski


Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/lainaturnermolaski


Thank you Laina for coming by and sharing your own experiences of real life and fiction silently infiltrating the other. I can definitely relate to that. How about any of you other authors? Has that happened to you?

Romance Reader/Author Reads Noir Thriller: Final Vector Review

Reeling from the brutal murder of his wife, air traffic controller Nick Jensen throws himself into his work at Logan International Airport in Boston. Returning to the operations room from a break, he sees three heavily armed men dressed in black fatigues and patrolling the corridors of the supposedly secure FAA facility. After having murdered two armed guards, the terrorists have unfettered access to the control tower while the president of the United States is nearing Logan Airport. To dismantle the terrorist assassination plot, Nick must risk everything. 






A random Pentagon worker married to an air traffic controller dies in a car accident. Seems pretty average right? Wrong! Throw in homegrown terrorists ,you actually relate to, the FBI and a whole lot of conspiracy and you get Final Vector. This novel for me was a first. I've watched the occasional action, conspiracy type movie with the hubster but never read an actual book. Alan has become a good friend online and I really wanted to support his work. Boy am I glad I'm such a good friend or I would have missed out on a great novel! The characters from victim to nemesis were all personable and relatable. The story was quick and fluid. An amazing novel!


You can find more info about Allan Leverone here. And you can purchase his book here.

Thanks for letting me read it Al.

Bri

Review of Quest for the Nail Prints

As a usual paranormal or thriller reader in my fiction I really was excited to try out some Christian Fiction. It's been a while since I read Christian Fiction. Don't get me wrong I'm a Christian and I read scripture daily...but it had been a while. If every author can pen a tale like Don Furr I'll be remedying that choice promptly.

Upon first thought Quest for the Nail Prints sounded like a biography of a man's journey beginning in Memphis TN (love that cause I'm a TN belle) then all his travels eventually arriving in Israel. When I read the acknowledgments and introduction this further fueled my assumption. Pleasantly surprised it couldn't be farther from the truth.

What do a smelly, wise, obese wisecracking religious studies professor, a twin emergency room physician and a pastor who got his call later in life all have in common? The same thing anyone of us does: Jesus. Quest for the Nail Prints is the story of how these three people come together for a once in the lifetime opportunity, fueled by the faith of ancestors, and spend time with Jesus and the disciples in his last days upon the earth. Their reactions are so human and honest that you can't help but shed tears of triumph in their joy as well as disdain for the traitor Judas. Imagine how you would react if you met Judas Iscariot prior to the crucifixion...can't well read the book then you'll know.

As someone who is indeed knowledgeable of the scriptures and the stories of the New Testament I can confidently say that Furr stayed true to the gospel and used his creative license in a tastefully eloquent and respectful manner. I give this book my full support and encourage you all to click the links highlighted and purchase it immediately.


Blurb

If you've ever imagined spending time with the Lord Jesus in His time, this energetic and ultimately gut-wrenching thriller may very well be just what the Great Physician ordered. Quest for the Nail Prints by Sheaf House Publishers is a new time-travel thriller by author Don Furr set in the final days of the life of Christ. Three twenty-first century travelers come face to face with the rugged, radical prophet known throughout the land as Jesus of Nazareth and find much more than they ever dreamed possible. And although there literally is a hole punched through the entire book from beginning to end, you'll find it fills some very important "holes in your quest for knowledge and understanding of our Savior's last days.