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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

The Tiger Like Me by Kelsey Lee - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!


Hello, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Kelsey Lee and her new book, “The Tiger Like Me”!  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 $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Kelsey and to increase your chances of winning!

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


The Tiger Like Me
by Kelsey Lee

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GENRE: Children's

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BLURB:

This is the story of Abhi, a brave young girl who dares to be different. As she follows the call of her adventurous spirit, she encounters inspiring creatures of the jungle who remind her to face her fears, recognize the beauty of the present moment, and walk the path less travelled.

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EXCERPT ONE:

Mom always tells me, “You need to slow down, and dress up like a princess, wearing your crown.”

Silly Mom, if only she knew. I don’t want to be pretty, and part of the queue. I have so many adventures to create and pursue.

I’d rather be wild and do things that shock her, than dress up in a gown, feeling improper.

Abhi’s my name, and adventure’s my game. My heart is open and it cannot be tamed.

Whatever the quest, I’m up for the mission. Limitless wonder, or focused expedition.

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GUEST POST:

Putting Yourself on a Page: What It’s Like to Share Your Most Personal Words with the World

Anytime we share a creative project with others or with the world, we are opening ourselves to vulnerability, and it takes great courage to be vulnerable. As Brene Brown so eloquently put it, "vulnerability is not winning or losing. It's having the courage to show up when you can't control the outcome." At times, fear and resistance hold many of us back (myself included) when sharing our ideas or creative projects. This aversion is often rooted in doubts about how others will respond to our open-hearted expression. Putting our work out into the world is the ultimate exposure, and thus equates to ultimate vulnerability.

When I wrote The Tiger Like Me, I wanted to share a character that inspires courage, curiosity, and individual expression, while acknowledging the value of diversity and friendship. This is what the main character, Abhi, and the book as a whole represent. As humans, we are all individuals from different places, appearing in various shapes, sizes, colors, and personalities. Yet, we are the same because we are all beings of this Earth. I know my heart and my truth stand in love while sharing these perspectives with the world, how others perceive my view is none of my business.

We all walk our own realities, and if someone reacts contrary to my belief, that is their right. Who am I to judge their perspective? For me, this is an acceptance of "winning" or "losing," a receipt of receiving praise or criticism. Some readers will love this book; some won't. This acknowledgment of admiration, disapproval, or indifference is what allowed me to pursue creating this book, and if The Tiger Like Me helps one person recognize the value of being unique than any feedback is worth the effort to bring this book to life.

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AUTHOR BIO:


Kelsey Lee is a writer and adventurer who lives in Calgary, Alberta. With a diverse background from business owner to yoga teacher, most often, you can find her writing, working with children, and exploring all that nature has to offer. Kelsey finds daily inspiration to value child-like curiosity and empathy through her two children, and her work in Equine Therapy. As a free-spirited child herself, Kelsey has always believed that anyone could achieve their wildest dreams, no matter how far-reaching. She passionately encourages self-empowerment and self-esteem, as The Tiger Like Me, aims to support the reader in honouring their individuality to be courageously unique, and playfully curious.

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CONNECT WITH KELSEY:

Website:

Email:

Facebook:

Instagram:

Goodreads Author Page:

Goodreads Book Page:

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BOOK BUY LINKS:


Amazon US Kindle eBook:

Amazon US Paperback:

Amazon US Hardcover:

Amazon CA Kindle Paperback:

Amazon CA Kindle Hardcover:

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

Barnes and Noble Hardcover:

The Book Depository Paperback:

The Book Depository Hardcover:

BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:

BAM! Books-A-Million Hardcover:

Chapters Indigo CA Paperback:

Chapters Indigo CA Hardcover:

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Kelsey will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.


**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 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.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Bennytown by Matt Carter - Book Tour - Book Sale - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!


Hi, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Matt Carter and his new book, “Bennytown”!  For other stops on his 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 $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Matt and to increase your chances of winning!

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

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


Bennytown
by Matt Carter

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GENRE: Adult Horror/Thriller

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BLURB:

For nearly sixty years, Bennytown has been America’s most exciting family theme park destination. Under the watchful eye of cultural icon Benny the Bunny, the park has entertained generations of children with its friendly atmosphere and technologically innovative rides, acting as a beacon of joy and wonder, where magic is real and dreams come true.

Bennytown once saved sixteen-year-old Noel Hallstrom’s life, and to repay it, Noel has applied for a summer job. Though the work is messy and the hours are bad, Noel is happy to be a part of the Bennytown family, until he sees the darkness beneath the surface. Strange, mechanized mascots walk the park perimeter. Elegantly dressed cultists in wooden Benny masks lurk in the darkness. Spirits of the many who’ve died in the park roam freely, and every night the park transforms into a dark dimension where madness reigns and monsters prowl.

Noel is about to find out more about Bennytown than he ever wanted to know, and that its darkness might have designs on him.

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EXCERPT TWO:

The third escalator is the longest, looking like a black cut has opened in the earth before me. Carefully and quickly, I bound down the steps.

Halfway down, Benny starts laughing over the speakers with a mechanical, staticky roar. His voice mingles with what sounds like a man whistling. The steps shake beneath me as the escalator jolts downward, twisting me off balance. The dolly flies from my hands, tumbling end over end down the moving steps. My arms reach out wildly for purchase, and I grab one of the rubber handrails, slowing my fall, but not stopping it.

I land on my back, upside down with the wind knocked out of me. I try to ignore the stabbing pain from the steps while Benny interviews Flora Fox about her upcoming movie over the loudspeakers.

The voices are shrill and the pain rings in my ears so loudly that I don’t realize there’s a humming sound coming from the bottom of the escalator.

The dolly lies at the edge of the disappearing final steps, tumbled and with a gouge in one of its wheels and a yellow sticker I’ve never noticed on the bottom of its scoop. In front of the dolly, I’m staring straight at the escalator’s base with welcoming spikes ready to swallow my hat, my scalp, and my face. I can picture the flesh being peeled from my bones. I try to claw my way out of my sprawl, but my hands are slick from sweat and rain.  My fingers can’t find anything to grip on the polished escalator sides. The motor is getting louder while the grinding vibrates the steps beneath me.

Wordlessly, I cry out, attempting to twist and fight my way free.

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GUEST POST:

Inventing and Developing Mystical Creatures:

I imagine that inventing and developing mystical creatures is a different kind of challenge across genres, be they fantasy, science-fiction, or in what is often my case, horror. Creatures of all sorts and natures have to fit their stories and have a life of their own, otherwise they won’t come alive to the readers and will simply feel like flat concepts on the page. I always try my best to not just bring life to whatever entities I choose to involve in my stories and make sure that they organically seem to live in their world, but make sure that they have a way of following the reader from there once they’ve finished with the story.

I’m going to use my newest novel, Bennytown, as an example for how I like to go about creating a world of mystical beings.

Bennytown is a horror novel set at a fictional, popular American theme park that has a twisted history of death, madness and dark magic. A variety of strange beings walk the park’s grounds, some of them living, some of them dead, some of them in some terrible place in between, while others defy such simple descriptions. While I don’t want to offer too much in the way of spoilers for the story, I’ll be happy to go into some detail about the creative process behind some of the park’s nastier denizens.

So, let’s talk about ghosts.

One of the biggest presences of the supernatural in the park comes in the form of its many spirits, mostly from the people who have died in Bennytown over the years. That was one of the ideas I knew I wanted from the start, that the park would be incredibly haunted, but it took a while of figuring out the rules for the ghosts, as no two pieces of fiction treat ghosts the same. Some are clear, some are human, some look normal, some are gruesomely rotten. Working on what I liked most cosmetically and what would best fit some of the twists and turns of the story, I decided that the ghosts would look human most of the time when they are visible, but when they are under incredible stress or they want to put on a good scare, they can easily take on the gruesome forms of how they looked when they died.

Trapped in Bennytown and not able to pass on to any other area of the afterlife, these are people who had lives once, employees or visitors to the park, people who came from different places and times, and by knowing who they were and what brought them to their terrible ends in Bennytown, I was able to bring them more to life, so to speak. Bored and driven mad from their imprisonment, most of them have become chaotic entities, harmless for the most part, but up for their share of mischief and mayhem when it suits them, allowing for some of the story’s more unsettling scares.

Of course, not all of the spirits of Bennytown are harmless.

Not all of the people who died in Bennytown were very nice, and I wanted to do something special with them. The more violent individuals who died within Bennytown’s hallowed come back as formidable revenants, monstrous mockeries of humanity who barely maintain a semblance of a human form. I wanted them to be immediately distinguishable from the other ghosts of the park so readers would know right away that these were not beings to be trifled with. From the electricity based Wallace Vickers to the twisted Doctor Dare and the nightmare-inducing Wilbur Walrus, I wanted them all to be as unforgettable to readers as they were frightening for me to come up with.

While ghosts aren’t the only dark denizens that prowl the hidden corners of Bennytown, I hope this look into my mind and creative process has proved entertaining, and might just have you considering booking a trip to Bennytown as well…

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AUTHOR BIO:


Matt Carter has used his lifelong love for writing, history and the bizarre to bring to life novels like Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel, Pinnacle City: A Superhero Noir, and the Prospero Chronicles young adult horror series (all co-authored with Fiona J.R. Titchenell). Bennytown, is his first solo horror novel.

He is represented by Fran Black of Literary Counsel and lives in the usually sunny town of San Gabriel, CA with his wife, their pet king snake Mica, and the myriad of strange fictional characters and worlds that live in his head.

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CONNECT WITH MATT:

Website:

Website:

Facebook:

Twitter:

BookBub Author Page:

BookBub Book Page:

Goodreads Author Page:

Goodreads Book Page:

Amazon Author Page:

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BOOK BUY LINKS & BOOK SALE INFO:

**The Bennytown eBook is on SALE during the book tour for ONLY $0.99!!!**


Amazon Kindle eBook:

Amazon Paperback:

Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

The Book Depository Paperback:

BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:

IndieBound Paperback:

Kobo eBook:

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Matt will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.


**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 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.

Monday, July 27, 2020

The Baby Contract by Nan Reinhardt - Book Blast - Giveaway - Enter Daily!


Hey, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Nan Reinhardt and her new book, “The Baby Contract”!  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 set of SIX lovely handmade wine charms AND a $10 Starbucks Gift Card to FIVE lucky winners!!  That’s right – there will be FIVE winners!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Nan and to increase your chances of winning!

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

Please note that this giveaway is only available to US residents.  Sorry INTL – please check out other giveaways on this blog.


The Baby Contract
by Nan Reinhardt

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GENRE: Contemporary Romance

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BLURB:

She wants a baby…he wants a family

Firefighter and paramedic Tierney Ashton has always been a bold adventurer, but at thirty-four she longs to embark on a new adventure—motherhood. But who will be the father? Although financially challenging, a sperm bank appears to be her best option. That is, until she shares her dream with her long-time pal, Brendan Flaherty.

Government analyst and world traveler Brendan Flaherty returns home to River’s Edge to help out at his family’s thriving winery and his brother’s new community theater. He also plans to finally achieve his lifelong goal of writing a novel. But when Tierney shares her wish, Bren offers to be her baby daddy—with one condition. Marriage.

It seems like a perfect contract, but will love get in the way?

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EXCERPT TWO:

Sean scowled, then acquiesced. “I don’t blame you.” He licked his fingers and wandered over to the wall full of photos that Brendan had hung earlier that morning. “Wow! Is that you on the Great Wall of China?”

Bren nodded, his mouth full of bread and cheese.

“And where is this?” Sean pointed to a black-and-white photo of Brendan standing in front of a huge clock.

Brendan swallowed. “Prague. That’s the world’s oldest astronomical clock. Amazing, isn’t it?”

Sean’s brow furrowed as he scanned the display of more than a dozen photos from places all across the globe—some that were obvious—Moscow, London, Paris, Tokyo—and some that Bren was sure Sean wouldn’t recognize, like Zagreb, Croatia, and Podgorica in Montenegro. “Good God, Bond, all those times you said you were ‘on travel,’ we had no idea you were all over the damn globe. Conny, Ace, come check these out.”

Bren grinned. “You never asked where I was going.”

“We weren’t sure we were allowed to ask.” Aidan rose from the table to amble over to the photo wall. “Who knew? If you’d told us, you might have had to kill us.” He peered at a framed photo of Bren standing in front of an ornate palace, his arm around an attractive brunette. “Who’s this and where are you?”

Bren stood and carried Griff, who was still gnawing on a chunk of bread, over to his brothers. “Oh, that’s Agent 99, we’re in front of Bojnice Castle in Slovakia.” He said, working hard not to crack a smile. . He couldn’t help being rather proud of his perfect Slovak pronunciation, particularly since it clearly impressed his gaping brothers. Because of the research and analysis work he did for several government agencies, he’d mastered, at last count, seven different languages, but that wasn’t something he boasted about. It was simply part of his job.

Sean stared at him over the top of his glasses while Conor looked askance and said, “Oh, sure, of course it is.”

“Agent 99?” Aidan chortled. “You’re kidding, right?”

Bren just smirked. They were so convinced he was a spy, it was a kick to tease them.

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AUTHOR BIO:


Nan Reinhardt is a USA Today-bestselling author of romantic fiction for women in their prime. Yeah, women still fall in love and have sex, even after 45! Imagine! She is a wife, a mom, a mother-in-law, and a grandmother. Nan has been a copyeditor and proofreader for over 25 years, and currently works on romantic fiction titles for a variety of clients, including Avon Books, St. Martin’s Press, HarperCollins, Kensington Books, Tule Publishing, and Entangled Publishing, as well as for many indie authors.

Although she loves her life as an editor, writing is Nan’s first and most enduring passion. She can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t writing—she wrote her first romance novel at the age of ten, a love story between the most sophisticated person she knew at the time, her older sister (who was in high school and had a driver’s license!), and a member of Herman’s Hermits. If you remember who they are, you are Nan’s audience! Her latest series, the Four Irish Brothers Winery series is available from Tule Publishing and all book retailers. Books 1 through 3 are currently available; Book 4 releases July 16, 2020 and is available for preorder.

Visit Nan’s website at www.nanreinhardt.com, where you’ll find links to all her books as well as blogs about writing, being a Baby Boomer, and aging gracefully…mostly. Nan also blogs every third Tuesday at Word Wranglers, sharing the spotlight with five other romance authors, is a frequent contributor the RWA Contemporary Romance blog, and she contributes to the Romance University blog where she writes as Editor Nan.

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CONNECT WITH NAN:

Website:

Blog – Word Wranglers:

Blog – RWA Contemporary Romance:

Blog – Romance University:

Email:
nan@nanreinhardt.com

Facebook:

Twitter:

Instagram:

BookBub Author Page:

BookBub Book Page:

Goodreads Author Page:

Goodreads Book Page:

Amazon Author Page:

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BOOK BUY LINKS:


Amazon Kindle eBook:

Amazon Paperback:

Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

The Book Depository Paperback:

BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:

Google Play eBook:

Kobo eBook:

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Nan will be awarding a set of six handmade wine glass charms and a $10 Starbucks gift card (US ONLY) to 5 randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour.


**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 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.