Fabulous and Brunette: Last Star Standing by Spaulding Taylor - Book Tour - Book Trailer - Book Sale - Guest Post - Giveaway

Hi, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host Spaulding Taylor AKA Alice McVeigh and her new book, “Last Star Standing,” here on FAB!! For other stops on her Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $50 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!! Also, come back daily to interact with Spaulding AKA Alice and to increase your chances of winning!!

This eBook is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!! See below for more details.

Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of good luck in this fabulous giveaway!!

Last Star Standing

by Spaulding Taylor

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GENRE: Thriller (Speculative)

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BLURB:

Aiden has always felt like an outsider. After the rebel assassin is captured and imprisoned by the world’s galactic overlords, he awaits execution. Then a mole working for the occupying regime alerts him to a plot that could destroy the entire resistance...

Engineering a daring escape, Aiden’s growing feud with the new rebel leader leaves him out in the cold and smouldering with resentment. Faced with deceit and betrayals on every side, he recruits a group of overlooked outcasts and stakes everything on one last mission.

Can the restless, reckless Aiden take a stand long enough to save humanity from enslavement?

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BOOK TRAILER:

Check out the exciting new book trailer for “Last Star Standing,” below:

@alicemcveigh0
Last Star Standing: awardwinning action/adventure
♬ original sound - alicemcveigh0

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EXCERPT ONE:

Lips parted, the woman pressed eagerly forward. The target smiled at her but instead selected a pudgy lad of about six. He passed a skinny guy – who looked, the poor sap, practically broken-hearted. He was almost upon us. My heart sped until it seemed ready to jerk straight out of my chest. Choose me. Choose me. CHOOSE ME.

The Enlightened One seemed – or was it only my imagination? – to be gazing directly at me. Pushing swiftly past Petra I extended my hand. He turned, made a strange gesture, almost of benediction, then wired the back of my hand with that thick blackened stump. An instant surge of heat pulsed up my arm and throughout my torso. Then a wild swirl of fuchsia-slashed-with-orange flashed beneath my eyelids, as if the same stars, fiery and spot-lit against the black, had been injected into my brain. My every corpuscle felt fired, an almost intoxicating sensation, especially after the chill of the poison. I half-stumbled, almost squashing a smallish alien, and only saved myself from falling at the last second.

Through a haze – my eyeballs felt as if they were swimming in flaming waterfalls – I saw Petra and moved towards her. Of course. She couldn’t risk being stamped, in case the creature died too fast. As we walked the ornate brand began to swell on my hand – a warming, tightening feeling. The sense of strangeness accelerated, though this might have been from my borrowed DNA, the chilled poison in my blood, or the fiery stamp. But nothing could dent my happiness, because – I’d done it. I’d assassinated The Enlightened One.

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GUEST POST:

On Balancing Life and Writing

This is a tough topic to get right, and I doubt many writers succeed with it. Personally, though I longed to write, I spent years chasing around the world– no, I don’t want to think about my carbon footprint either – with various London orchestras, messing around with the cello. My work-life balance was so lousy – we were also trying to have an IVF baby – that, on one occasion, I drove to Heathrow airport, injected myself in the thigh with the IVF stuff and left the booth in the ladies’, the syringe still clutched in my hand.

Have never forgotten the looks I got (“Is it heroin?”... “Is she crazy or is she OK?!?”)

In fact, I was more than OK. That IVF worked, and our kid is now 25.

For me, work/life balance improved – strangely enough – with Covid. One minute I was wondering how to get out of various orchestras in order to write… the next minute – to be specific, on March 7, 2020 – I simultaneously got an awful case of Covid and lost almost all of the rest of that year’s orchestral work.

In health terms – asthmatic, before any vaccine had even been developed – I felt lousy. But in baseball terms – I was secretly thrilled to have been benched.

Seizing my chance, I got three books – one speculative thriller and two Austenesque novels – out within a calendar year. (To read about why this was, marketing-wise, a tough ask, see my Medium article here: https://astmcveigh.medium.com/on-releasing-three-novels-in-one-calendar-year-and-why-i-wish-i-hadnt-bc7c5f31af27)

Still, my work/life balance is SO MUCH BETTER!

I’m now sneaking back into a little professional playing, but on my terms, and without feeling as if the sky will fall if it doesn’t happen.

So yeah, oddly enough: Covid was good for me.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Alice (Spaulding Taylor) McVeigh has been published by Orion/Hachette in contemporary fiction, by Unbound Publishing in action/adventure and by Warleigh Hall Press in Austenesque fiction. Her novels have won Gold Medal/First Place is the Global, eLit and Pencraft Book Awards, been runner-up in the Independent Press Awards, finalists in the Eric Hoffer, Rone and Wishing Shelf Book Awards and selected by Shelf Unbound as one of the "top indies" of 2021. Two of her novels are currently finalists in the CIBA Book Awards (the Cygnus and Goethe Awards). Her most recent novel (Harriet: A Jane Austen Variation) was just selected as Editors’ Pick “outstanding” on Publishers Weekly.

A professional London cellist, Alice lives in London and Crete with her professor husband: their only child is completing her Masters in Chinese Literature. They also share two miniature long-haired dachshunds and an incurable addiction to tennis.

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CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR:

Website:

https://alicemcveigh.com

Facebook Fan Page:

https://www.facebook.com/alicemcveighauthor

Facebook Personal Page:

https://www.facebook.com/alice.mcveigh.5

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/astmcveigh1

Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/astmcveigh

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mcveigh.alice

Linked in:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-mcveigh-59ab1718

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@alicemcveigh0

LinkTree:

https://linktr.ee/ASTMcVeigh

Goodreads Author Page – Spalding Taylor:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21170683.Spaulding_Taylor

Goodreads Author Page – Alice McVeigh:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1108881.Alice_McVeigh

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57011486-last-star-standing

Amazon Author Page:

https://amzn.to/3PORBwO

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AMAZON BOOK BUY LINKS & BOOK SALE INFO:

**The Last Star Standing eBook is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!!**

Amazon US Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/3PGFrGa

Amazon US Paperback:

https://amzn.to/3B9VBDW

Amazon CA Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.ca/Last-Star-Standing-Spaulding-Taylor-ebook/dp/B08PF4ZTZF

Amazon CA Paperback:

https://www.amazon.ca/Last-Star-Standing-Spaulding-Taylor/dp/1789650976

Amazon UK Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Star-Standing-Spaulding-Taylor-ebook/dp/B08PF4ZTZF

Amazon UK Paperback:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Star-Standing-Spaulding-Taylor/dp/1789650976

Amazon AU Kindle eBook:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Last-Star-Standing-Spaulding-Taylor-ebook/dp/B08PF4ZTZF

Amazon AU Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Last-Star-Standing-Spaulding-Taylor/dp/1789650976

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Spaulding AKA Alice will be awarding a $50 Amazon OR Barnes and Noble Gift Card (Winner’s Choice!!!) to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those fabulous community outreach projects and awesome giveaways on here**

This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.