Hotwire Blog Tour

Tour Schedule

Welcome to the blog tour for Hotwire by Cindy M. Hogan!

 

Division spy Christy Hadden can't wait for her latest assignment posing as a student at a prestigious New York City academy and car thief extraordinaire. The best part of the mission is her attractive handler, Jeremy, and her new team. The worst part? The sociopath masquerading as the academy's most popular guy. But soon she realizes the car thieves are much more than they seem. Her simple spying mission becomes more dangerous than anyone imagined. If the organization discovers her true identity, they won't hesitate to kill her, and if she fails, others will suffer the same fate. Young Adults, teens and adults will love this exciting suspenseful adventure with a dash of romance. You won't want to put it down.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Kobo

iTunes * Smashwords

 

Author Cindy M. Hogan

Cindy M. Hogan graduated with a BA in education and is inspired by the unpredictable teenagers she teaches. More than anything she loves the time she has with her own teenage daughters and wishes she could freeze them at this fun age. If she's not reading or writing, you'll find her snuggled up with the love of her life watching a great movie or planning their next party. Most of all, she loves to laugh. She is the bestselling and award winning author of the Watched trilogy, a YA suspense series with a dash of romance. She has since branched off to write a mystery, Gravediggers, that won Best YA novel of 2013, a contemporary romance, Confessions of a 16-Year-Old Virgin Lips, and two in a spy series, Adrenaline Rush and Hotwire.

Website * Twitter * Facebook * Pinterest

Excerpt

“Shhh!” he whispered, pulling me close to him. I could feel his heart pound against my chest and his shallow breath on my neck. Heat permeated through me. Once I gained my senses, I said, “Sorry, this spot is already taken.” I had to get into the mansion, alone.

He pulled back and looked at me. “I thought you were vacating it.”

My face reddened. “I had already chosen this spot, but realized I needed to use the bathroom, so I was going to try to make it inside and back in time for a sneak win. Seriously, the guy is so far from the can, anyone could beat him there.”

“You think you can beat Austin until you find out how fast he is. He’s the wide receiver for a rec football team. They nicknamed him Wind.”

I totally wanted to take him up on the implied challenge, the competitive part of me burning to win, but I knew it would make it more difficult for me to complete my mission tonight. I had to stick with the bathroom excuse.

I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Maybe I’ll give him a run for his money when I get back.”

His firm grip on me relaxed. I crouched down, and he followed suit.

“Cross your fingers for me.”

“Maybe I should go with you,” he said.

“How embarrassing would that be? No, just wait here. When you see me next, I’ll be kicking the can in victory.”

He let go. I turned, and after checking the area again, I slunk up next to the house, slid along the exterior stones and through the door. I kept it slightly ajar and moved quickly to the west wing and up the stairs, not running into a soul. I could hear clanging of dishes and muted voices coming from the dining hall as I passed, but I thought it interesting that no one stood guard anywhere like earlier. A place like this called for security guards, didn’t it? That’s when I realized I must be on camera.

Blog Tour Giveaway

$25 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash
Ends 12/26/14

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Soul Ajar Book Blast

Welcome to the book blast for The Soul Ajar by Kiana Davenport.

 

From bestselling Hawaiian author, Kiana Davenport, comes 'The Soul Ajar,' a riveting political thriller and love story. Set primarily in contemporary Russia and the United States, here is a novel that brilliantly knits together four seemingly unconnected lives: Adam, a CIA intelligence operative who suffers from albinism, and searches for the Russian assassin who killed his mother, an act he witnessed as a child; Lily, a young Hawaiian-Chinese journalist who falls in love with him; Bazil, an Indian intelligence operative from Mumbai who befriends Adam; and Zahira, a beautiful Afghani girl mutilated by the Taliban. In this searing and multi-faceted novel, Davenport reveals the paths these characters travel as their lives become intertwined in a haunting and timeless story of the love that binds humans together, and the wars that continue to tear us apart.

Amazon

Goodreads Book Giveaway

THE SOUL AJAR, A Love Story

by Kiana Davenport

Giveaway ends December 01, 2014. See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Author Kiana Davenport

KIANA DAVENPORT is descended from a full-blooded Native Hawaiian mother, and a Caucasian father from Talladega, Alabama. Her father, Braxton Bragg Davenport, was a sailor in the U.S. Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor, when he fell in love with her mother, Emma Kealoha Awaawa Kanoho Houghtailing. On her mother's side, Kiana traces her ancestry back to the first Polynesian settlers to the Hawaiian Islands who arrived almost two thousand years ago from Tahiti and the Tuamotu's. On her father's side, she traces her ancestry to John Davenport, the puritan clergyman who co-founded the American colony of New Haven, Connecticut in 1638.

Kiana is the author of the internationally best-selling novels, SHARK DIALOGUES, SONG OF THE EXILE, HOUSE OF MANY GODS, THE SPY LOVER, and most recently, THE SOUL AJAR, now available in paperback and on Kindle. She is also the author of the collections, HOUSE OF SKIN PRIZE-WINNING STORIES, CANNIBAL NIGHTS, PACIFIC STORIES Volume II, and OPIUM DREAMS, PACIFIC STORIES, VOLUME III. All three collections have been Kindle bestsellers. She has also been a guest blogger on Huffington Post.

A graduate of the University of Hawaii, Kiana has been a Bunting Fellow at Harvard University, a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University, and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her short stories have won numerous O. Henry Awards, Pushcart Prizes, and the Best American Short Story Award, 2000. Her novels and short stories have been translated into twenty-one languages. She lives in Hawaii and New York City.

Website * Facebook

     

Book Blast Giveaway
$50 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash
Ends 11/27/14

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Motive for Murder Blog Tour

Welcome to the blog tour for Motive for Murder by Marlene Bateman!

Meet Erica Coleman—a gifted and quirky private investigator with an OCD-like passion for neatness and symmetry, a penchant for cooking, (ten terrific recipes are included), and a weakness for chocolate.

Erica imagined that her trip to Florida would be a slice of heaven—a chance to get away from it all and catch up with her best friend, Wendy. But one day into her vacation, all hope of fun in the sun is dashed when she stumbles, literally, over a dead man on Wendy’s driveway. With police closing in on her friend as their main suspect, Erica must find the real killer before Wendy ends up behind bars.

With Erica’s skill, solving the mystery should be a piece of cake but then a second homicide-attempt hits close to home and generates a whole new list of suspects. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, a murderer is on the prowl, and no one is above suspicion.

As the plot thickens, it appears Erica may have bitten off more than she can chew, but she forges on, sifting through mounting evidence until she hones in on the killer who has a surprising motive for murder. With a dash of romance and some surprising twists, this thrilling mystery will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page.

Find the book online at Seagull Book, Deseret Books, and Amazon. Also available on CD.

Praise from Traci Abramson and Betsy Brannon Green:  

Motive for Murder is fresh, captivating, and cleverly written. The colorful cast of characters will enthrall readers as they try to navigate the clever twists and turns of this captivating mystery. Intriguing, memorable characters, and a skillfully written mystery make Motive for Murder Marlene Bateman's finest work yet—a must read!  -Traci Abramson

With a fresh, crisp writing style, Marlene Bateman introduces readers to a fascinating cast of characters and skillfully unravels an intricate plot full of twists and surprises!  I loved Motive for Murder and you will too!  -Betsy Brannon Green

Excerpt

“As she drove back to Wendy’s house, the headlights cleaved the darkness and the rain, which was falling harder now. Erica had to park across the street and was nearly to Wendy’s door when she stopped suddenly, catching herself as she nearly fell over something.

It was the still figure of a man lying face down on the driveway. He was strangely unmoving. The light from the porch illuminated a puddle alongside him, which was growing bigger by the second. A chill shivered down Erica’s spine as she noticed that the puddle was streaked by dark red threads that ran and merged with rivulets of rain.”

Biography

Marlene Bateman Sullivan was born in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She graduated from the University of Utah with a BA in English. She is married to Kelly R. Sullivan and they are the parents of seven children.  

Her hobbies are gardening, camping, and reading.  Marlene has been published extensively in magazines and newspapers and has written a number of non-fiction books, including:  Latter-day Saint Heroes and Heroines, And There Were Angels Among Them, Visit’s From Beyond the Veil, By the Ministering of Angels, and Brigham’s Boys. Marlene also wrote the best-selling novel, Light on Fire Island.

A busy writer, Marlene is set to have three books published this year. Gaze Into Heaven, a fascinating collection of over 50 documented near-death experiences in early church history, was published earlier this year. Next is Motive for Murder, the first in a mystery series featuring the quirky Erica Coleman. In July, Heroes of Faith, a collection of stories about people who risked their life for the gospel, will be released by Cedar Fort Inc.

For more info on Marlene Bateman Sullivan, check out her website. 

Hope you enjoyed learning a little more about this book. Looks interesting (and a bit scary)! Be sure to check it out, and thanks for reading!

Review: Some Kind of Peace by Camilla Grebe and Asa Traff

Title:		Some Kind of Peace
Author:		Camilla Grebe & Asa Traff
Translator:		Paul Norlen
Publisher:		Simon & Schuster
Imprint:		Free Press
Pub. Date:		7/10/2012
ISBN:		1451654596 (ISBN13: 9781451654592)
Pages:		352

"It seems so idyllic. But something is out of place. In the neatly raked gravel parking area is a dazzlingly clean black Jeep. The paint of the Jeep reflects a clematis with large pure white blossoms climbing up a knotted old apple tree. Someone is lying under the low trunk and crooked branches of the tree. A young woman, a girl. . . ."Siri Bergman is a thirty-four-year-old psychologist who works in central Stockholm and lives alone in an isolated cottage out of the city. She has a troublesome secret in her past and has been trying to move on with her life. Terrified of the dark, she leaves all the lights on when she goes to bed--having a few glasses of wine each night to calm her nerves--but she can't shake the feeling that someone is watching her through the blackened windows at night.

When the lifeless body of Sara Matteus--a young patient of Siri's with a history of drug addiction and sexual abuse--is found floating in the water near the cottage, Siri can no longer deny that someone is out there, watching her and waiting. When her beloved cat goes missing and she receives a photo of herself from a stalker, it becomes clear that Siri is next. Luckily, she can rely on Markus, the young policeman investigating Sara's death; Vijay, an old friend and psychology professor; and Aina, her best friend. Together, they set about profiling Siri's aspiring murderer, hoping to catch him before he kills again.

But as their investigation unfolds, Siri's past and present start to merge and disintegrate so that virtually everyone in her inner circle becomes a potential suspect. With the suspense building toward a dramatic conclusion as surprising as it is horrifying, Siri is forced to relive and reexamine her anguished past, and finally to achieve some kind of peace.

(Summary and cover via Goodreads)
            **************************************************


Siri Bergman is a psychologist who is trying to deal with her own tragic past. The death of her husband several years ago has left her scared and scarred, leaving her unable to be alone in the dark of her remote country home. When the body of one of her patients is found near her home, Siri finds herself involved in something even more frightening then she had imagined. Someone is after Siri, and they are using her patients to get to her. They have an intimate knowledge of her life and practice, and Siri cannot think of why someone would do this. With the help of her colleagues and friends, Siri must use all the knowledge she has to try and figure out who is after her before it is too late.

I found this book very intriguing. I could tell reading it that the authors knew a lot about psychology, and I thought this made for a more thrilling book. This book was quite scary for me. I think that I feel for Siri living alone out in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to just pack her up somewhere with more people. Not knowing what would happen next was frightening. Luckily it wasn't too scary. I probably wouldn't read it at night alone, but the mystery of trying to figure out who was doing it and why did distract me from the terror a bit. I will admit to some quickened heartbeats though. I don't do well with creepy stuff though.

For me, the payoff was truly in the end. It was just so frightening yet real to me that this could happen. There were some random things dropped to throw you off the trail of the real killer though that were never explained. This kind of left me hanging. I wanted to know why the characters acted the way they did, but I never got that. That was kind of a let down. Overall though, this was a psychological thriller at its best. If you like mysteries and creepy psychological thrillers, you will definitely enjoy this book.

Book provided for review.

Caller ID Blog Tour- Review and Giveaway!

Welcome to the blog tour for Caller ID by Rachelle J. Christensen!

The author is hosting a great giveaway, but first some info about the book.

When twenty-three-year-old Courtney Beckham, the privileged daughter of a highly successful land developer, is abducted in the mountains near her home, FBI Agent Jason Edwards investigates the ten-million-dollar ransom and turns up more than just a kidnapping crime.


And when Courtney catches a glimpse of the caller ID in her kidnapper’s home, what she sees sends ice through her veins. Even if she escapes her captors, something much more dangerous lies ahead.


From the author who brought you Wrong Number comes another story featuring Agent Jason Edwards that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

For more information about the author, Rachelle J. Christensen, see her website and Facebook page.

For more information about the publisher, Cedar Fort, check out their website, Facebook page, and Twitter.

Review:


Courtney Beckham leads a privileged life, and she knows it. She is beautiful and rich. Everything changes one day when she is on a horseback ride. She soon discovers a secret being hidden in the beautiful mountains next to her home. This secret causes her life to be put in peril when she is kidnapped. Now Courtney must try and find a way to stay safe and alive. Things become very complicated though, and now Courtney wonders if she will ever be able to get out of this mess. It will take everything Courtney has to survive this ordeal, but dealing with the aftermath may be even harder.

This was a mysterious and thrilling read. I thought I knew exactly where the story was going, but things got twisted and turned around several times. I like when a story can surprise you. Courtney was a great character. At first I thought she seemed a bit spoiled, but she proved me wrong. I also cannot blame her for being attracted to the hunky FBI agent trying to help her out, Jason. They made a good team. As I said before, there were several things I didn't see coming, and I am usually pretty good at guessing what will happen. There was a twist at the end that particularly caught me by surprise. It helped to make for a very satisfying ending.

Fans of mysteries and suspense will enjoy this book. It wastes no time getting to the action, and then the action doesn't stop until the end. The book was also very fast-paced, so it is able to keep your interest very well. I don't know if I'd read it at night though; it has aspects of a thriller. I definitely worried about Courtney's safety. It is a quick read though, and one which many people will enjoy.

Book provided for review.

Now here's the best part- a giveaway!

To celebrate the release of CALLER ID, Rachelle is hosting a contest for a new Ultra Flip Video Camcorder (4GB memory, Records 120 minutes Value $149.99) and other great prizes. You can enter to win between now and April 14, 2012. Winners will be announced and notified April 16, 2012.

For how to enter, click here.

Join the Book Bomb effort taking place Thursday, March 22nd. Click here for details.

Be sure to check out all the stops on the tour!

Blog Tour Day 2- Youth and Other Fictions Guest Post and Giveaway

Welcome to second post of the Youth and Other Fictions blog tour on this blog! Today I have a guest post and giveaway. For a review of the book, see my previous post. 

Jonathan M. Cook has kindly written a post on finding inspiration.

Sunday Wings; or, A Table of My Own


Most Sundays, I have wings for dinner: boneless, spun in Spicy Garlic, chased with an ice-cold Killian’s. I do this almost ritualistically, to the point where most of the hostesses will simply tell me to take my seat and the servers will ask “A tall Killian’s today?” as I pass by their station. Weather permitting, I sit on the patio, at the corner table, safely behind a wide stone pillar. The music is turned down. Ranch dressing and celery sticks are automatically added to my order. During my wait, I read on my Kindle.


Yes, I sit alone.


If Virginia could say that a woman needs her own room, the very least I can suggest is time to eat and ponder the universe alone, because life too often denies us any semblance of quiet. The perpetual noise of the Real World, the constant drone of people and cars and elevators and keyboards and heels, offers little in the way of respite. Consider how many people who used to go on vacation with the expressed purpose of cutting off all telecommunication
are now bound to their cell phones, enslaved by omnipotent ringtones. Consider how often lunch breaks are interrupted by banal conversations with co-workers who simply cannot stand the idea of enjoying their food in silence. Are we really too busy to be silent, or are we just looking for ways to avoid it? What is it about silence that so unnerves the American populace? Why this almost compulsive need to fill silence with trivialities?


It has been said that American creativity is on an overall decline. Sure, David Lynch and David Fincher continue to direct movies, Paul Auster and Cormac McCarthy continue to write novels, and Philip Glass and Trent Reznor continue to compose music, but a country’s aesthetic successes cannot be judged solely by its geniuses. Do we promote creativity and sufficiently deep thinking in our classrooms? I’d love to say yes, but that would be disingenuous; teachers have too much to juggle as is with No Child Left Behind and state standards. Is our nightly television offering us thought-provoking material? Judging from Mad Men, Lost, and Breaking Bad, I’dhave to say Americans have become the worst kind of thinkers: superficial thinkers who desperately want to believe they’re deep thinkers.


Who is at fault here?


I blame anyone who does not take a moment of silence now and then. I do not mean a moment to smell the roses, though there is something to be said for admiring the natural world, nor do I mean stopping to commune with your higher power—after all, there’s only one real deity and the odds are squarely against yours being it. I mean taking a moment to actually let the world fade away, to lose yourself in quiet, to become one with the Tao.


Odd choice of words coming from a Roman Catholic—go Pope Benedict!—yet still it moves: accept that if there is noise, there must be silence; if there is good, there must be evil; if there is activity, there must be idleness. All of life is composed of opposites, opposites that balance each other, opposites that give shape and definition to life. How can anyone understand what is good unless he/she understands what is not good? Grandparents are particularly fond of saying that life has its ups and downs, and rightly so; they’ve lived long enough and seen enough to know it’s true.


I say, go out, then, and eat alone! Go, sit by yourself in the patio section— skip the Singapore Slings with mescal on the side—and enjoy a quiet meal with only your thoughts for company. Offset some of that tireless god-eat-god
daily grind with some good ol’ silence.


Maybe you’ll find inspiration. Maybe you’ll rewrite classical physics. Maybe you’ll discover a cure for cancer. Maybe you’ll simply be a little bit happier.




Thanks so much! I feel strangely inspired to go eat. Check out the giveaway details after the break!

Blog Tour Day 1: Youth and Other Fictions by Johnathan M. Cook

Welcome to the blog tour for Youth and Other Fictions! I have two days worth of posts for this tour. Today is a review.

Jonathan Cook's debut novel, Youth and Other Fictions looks at the horrors of a school shooting and its psychological effects on those involved. Told from two perspectives--one a student's and one a teacher's--the story reveals the inner concerns leading up to the moment when the world falls apart and the anxieties of coping with the broken pieces afterwards. 

"A thriller of horrific proportions.  The debut novel by Jonathan M. Cook is a thriller that will keep you guessing at every turn. In the first portion of the book it seems a monotonous style will be established, yet the climax in the tale will leave you second guessing. A wonderful and terrifying look into the souls of troubled teens from the point of view of an actual teacher sheds new light on our youth. A must read for teens and older!"- Ikdido, Amazon Reviewer

About Jonathan M. Cook:

Jonathan M. Cook is a high school English teacher.  He earned his MA in Literature from Eastern Illinois University.  He currently lives in Robinson, IL, where he is working on his second novel and grading term papers.

Jonathan's Website

Review:

We've all heard the stories. Students bring guns to school and kill others, often ending by killing themselves. This book looks at the effects of such an event on students and teachers. The first half of the book tells the story of Jack, a outcast who is often bullied. He struggles with how he is treated by others at school. While he wishes for revenge, he is soon faced with the aftermath of someone else taking the ultimate revenge. As Jack tries to deal with what happened, he feels his life spiraling out of control. Jason is another student who survives the tragedy. He returns to town years later to teach. However, Jason is left answering questions from his school days. When bad things start happening again, he has to sift through all his emotions to be able to cope.

This book starts off as one thing and ends as another. With Jack, I felt bad for him. Here was a boy that was clearly bullied and depressed, and yet no one did anything for him. I wanted to get him help so bad. I was so caught up in him story that when the school shooting occurred, it really got to me. Seeing Jack trying to deal with all the feeling afterword was even more difficult. With Jason, I was definitely unprepared for where his story went. He talks of his class being considered by some to be cursed, and I started to believe that. I found the ending to be a bit abrupt and confusing though. I wasn't even sure what was real by the end. 

Overall, I can't say I enjoyed this book in the sense that it was a fun read or anything. In fact, it was fairly hard for me to read because of the subject matter. I wanted so much to be able to change things for the characters. I will say that the story completely absorbed me. I did not want to stop reading because I had to know what would happen. This book does a brilliant job of getting into the heads of Jack and Jason. It shows the horrors of having to deal with the tragedy of a school shooting. It goes places you never expect. I think it is a book that people will want to read.

Book provided for review.


Be sure to check back tomorrow for a guest post by Johnathan M. Cook and a giveaway!

The Arranger Blog Tour- Author Guest Post and Giveaway

Welcome to the blog tour for The Arranger!

The year is 2023 and ex-detective Lara Evans is working as a freelance paramedic in a bleak new world. She responds to an emergency call and is nearly killed when a shooter flees the home. Inside she finds the federal employment commissioner wounded, but she’s able to save his life.

The next day Lara leaves for the Gauntlet—a national competition of intense physical and mental challenges with high stakes for her home state. She spots the shooter lurking at the arena and soon after her contest roommate turns up dead. Who is the mysterious assailant and what is motivating him kill? Can Lara stop him, stay alive, and win the Gauntlet?

L.J. Sellers has written up a great post

 for us on world building.

World Building: Less Is Better

I’d wanted to write a futuristic thriller for years, but I knew it wouldn’t be dystopian or fantasy-based. I imagined that the future world would be changed, and not for the better, but I didn’t want it to be so different that it distracted from the story.

While writing The Arranger, I read a blog by a sci-fi author about world building, and it struck a chord with me. Essentially, the author said that world building is simply description and that description is boring. The author was making the point that readers want story—characters, events, and emotions—and that spending a lot of page time detailing the alternative world/future is counterproductive. A few brief, vivid sentences, or paragraphs, woven into the narrative are all you need to do the job.

I was relieved to be reminded of this facet of good writing. It saved me the trouble of creating a lot of unnecessary detail that a good editor would have made me cut or most readers would have skipped over.

Still, in the futuristic, sci-fi, and fantasy genres, readers expect a creative and unusual background, and I wanted to give them one. When I first started plotting this story, it never occurred to me that the backdrop would be an endurance competition called the Gauntlet. But characters often dictate the story, and once I decided that Lara Evans from my Jackson series would be the protagonist, I knew I had to give her an opportunity to be as physical as her character demanded. I also wanted to create a competitive environment for the unemployment crisis I foresaw in the future. From there, the Gauntlet was conceived.

Structuring and writing the competition scenes were the most challenging things I’ve ever done as a novelist. For inspiration, I envisioned scenarios from American Gladiator, Wipe Out, and a little Fear Factor thrown in, but I stepped up the intensity and duration and pushed the contestants right to the edge. I also gave the worldwide viewers the ability to alter the contest—to reward or punish contestants with the level of difficulty. That created some surprising moments for the contestants!

It was important to me that the competition have at least one intellectual component, so that the overall contest couldn’t be won by sheer strength or endurance. So I created the Puzzle, a locked-room situation that requires a MacGyver-type solution, with timing counting toward a win. The brainteaser seemed particularly important because in the Gauntlet, men and women compete against each other. Don’t worry, ladies, my protagonist kicks ass.

The contest is only one element of the plot though. There’s also a parallel story told by Paul Madsen, a software technician who’s given access to information that he can’t resist exploiting. In Paul’s world, the federal government is a fraction of its former size and is a lean, mean employer. But again, I made a conscious choice not to bog down the story with extraneous detail about bureaucratic structure.

Admittedly, Lara’s world was more fun to write about, but Paul’s world is the one I fear could come to pass. I hope readers enjoy both scenarios and find the level of detail I’ve included to be just right.

Well if you're not interested now, I don't know 

what will do it! Thanks so much for that 

awesome post!

L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist and the author of the bestselling Detective Jackson mystery/suspense series: The Sex Club, Secrets to Die For, Thrilled to Death, Passions of the Dead, and Dying for Justice. Her novels have been highly praised by Mystery Scene, Crimespree, and Spinetingler magazines, and the series is on Amazon Kindle’s bestselling police procedural list. L.J. also has three standalone thrillers: The Baby Thief, The Suicide Effect, and The Arranger. When not plotting murders, she enjoys performing standup comedy, cycling, social networking, and attending mystery conferences. She’s also been known to jump out of airplanes.


Check out the author's web page and blog.


Review:

The future is not so bright for Lara Evans. The ex-homicide detective lives in a world where natural disasters abound and jobs are extremely scarce. Her current job as a paramedic allows her to rescue someone very important right before she goes to compete in the Gauntlet, a competition that will allow her to bring home money and jobs to her home state. However, she soon discovers someone is after her, and they don't just want to congratulate her on a job well done. Lara will be forced to face her past and make some hard decisions to deal with her present. 

This book is action packed, but it never feels rushed or too dense. Lara is very interesting, and she becomes even more interesting as you slowly learn about her past. Mixed into Lara's story is the story of a man named Paul. He has a boring life as a computer programmer, but his new task at works provides him with some interesting new information. As he decides what to do with his new knowledge, Paul begins to make decisions that will change his life for good. Soon Lara and Paul are on a collision course with destiny (and each other of course). I found the world Lara lived in to be scarily believable. The Gauntlet was a very unique concept, and it allowed a chance for Lara to really show her stuff.

I loved reading about such a strong female character. Lara is someone who meant business. She was smart and tough. I found myself drawn into the book, and I did not want to put it down. This book has everything- action, romance, mystery, and intrigue. I definitely recommend this book to people who want a great read, but I will give fair warning that you may not stop reading until you are done!

Book provided for review. 

So we have a great giveaway for you all. I have one e-book copy of The Arranger! That means this giveaway is open internationally. The only requirement to enter is to leave your name and email. Bonus entries for following L.J. Sellers on Twitter, liking her Facebook page, becoming a fan on Goodreads, and tweeting about this giveaway. 


Be sure to check out the rest of the stops on this tour! For more information check out the tour page. Thanks for stopping by and good luck!!


Check out the Rafflecopter entry form by clicking on the page break.