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Tuesday, September 22, 2020

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman


The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Publisher: William Morrow
Year Published: 2013
Genre: Fantasy
Started: Sept. 1, 2020
Finished: Sept. 22, 2020
Rating: 5 Stars/ A


This has been on my list to read for many moons. I was excited to see the audiobook was readily available with Libby. My Mornings and chores for the over the couple weeks were a bit more interesting. Neil Gaiman doesn't leave you disappointed at all. Keeps you guessing all the way to the end, on who are all the key players. Who, what and why? When you finally get to the end of the story. You're left sitting there with your mouth hanging open. Going ... REALLY?!?


This is literally my favorite feeling. Gaiman always leaves me just sitting there at the end of a book, needing more. He is one of the few that can actually have me looking one way the entire time and pull a rabbit out of his coat pocket and leave there going what just happened? I can never truly guess what ride I will be going on.



Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark. 





Saturday, September 12, 2020

COVER REVEAL: NEUROSIS BY AMY HALE



Neurosis
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Author: Amy Hale
Cover Designer: Artist Regina Wamba 
Release Date: Winter 2020
Subscribe to Amy Hale's Newsletter to be alerted when Neurosis is available.


Seeing isn’t always believing.

Trapped by her past trauma, Macy McCall worked with a variety of therapists and medications- most yielding minimal results. Her newest doctor, Daniel Yates, helps bring forth her biggest breakthroughs and she believes she can see the light at the end of a very dark and scary tunnel. With a boyfriend and a good job, she enjoys her blooming independence. Then she sees her. The woman that looks exactly like her. 

This mirror image plagues her life in a way that she would never have expected. And when it all unravels, she won’t be the only one left wondering what is real and what is imagined.

| About the Author |


Since childhood, best-selling and award-winning author Amy Hale has been using the written word to inspire, encourage, and entertain. She loves creating characters and worlds from nothing but her imagination and a few glasses of wine. Her popular paranormal series The Shadows Trilogy has earned multiple awards, as have the Havenwood Falls books, of which she is a participating author. She's also a participating author in the Feisty Heroines anthology which became a #1 New Release and Bestseller on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Nook shortly after its release. She debuted her first fiction novel in 2015 after retiring from 13 years of non-fiction writing for various online entities. For the last couple of decades, she’s also carried the titles of Laundry Goddess, Chef, Butt Wiper, Soother of Temper Tantrums, and in more recent years, Moderator of Sarcastic Eye-rolls and Sass. She resides in Illinois with her husband and two grown children who claim they are never moving out. Regardless, they are the center of her universe, although her cat believes otherwise. If she had any spare time, she’d love music, photography, watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 with her family, and long rides on the back of her husband’s motorcycle.
Learn more at authoramyhale.com


More from Amy Hale



| Find Amy Here |






Thursday, September 10, 2020

BLACK WINGS BEATING BY ALEX LONDON


Black Wings Beating by Alex London
Publisher: Macmillan
Year Publish: 2018
Genre: Young Adult, Sci-Fi Fantasy, LGBT 
Started: August 4th, 2020
Finished: September 9th, 2020
Rating: 5 Stars/A

        Black Wings Beating has a nice even pace in the beginning, as you get to know the setting and meet the multiple characters around Brysen and Kylee. Meeting all these characters are not overwhelming at all. Alex London has a gift of introducing each one, with enough backstory that you can keep them straight in your head as they come and go through the story. 

Kylee is ready to leave the family business, she just wants to pay off the debt that her father had racked up. Brysen is content to continue doing what he is doing, with Dymain by his side. 

As their reluctant adventure takes off, each is faced with some truths about themselves and each other. But they are not alone on this, Nyall has joined them giving them strength in friendship and numbers. Let us not forget Jowyn, without him things would not be as they are. 

As mention before, Alex London has a beautiful gift for writing, and I highly recommend Black Wings Beating.  I know I have already added it to the readers in my family.


**Special Note: I was not going to put in my review that Brysen sets on this adventure for Love, not the love of his sister, but for his love for Dymain I felt that you could get that for the book’s blurb. Also, I felt that his love for the same sex had no real bearings on Brysen. It did not seem like this love was frowned upon, within the pages, as it should not be frowned upon today. It was as it needed to be. If this is not something you be able to handle, then I highly suggest taking a deep breath and giving the book a try. It might just surprise you.




The people of Uztar have long looked to the sky with hope and wonder. Nothing in their world is more revered than the birds of prey and no one more honored than the falconers who call them to their fists.

Brysen strives to be a great falconer—while his twin sister, Kylee, rejects her ancient gifts for the sport and wishes to be free of falconry. She’s nearly made it out, too, but a war is rolling toward their home in the Six Villages, and no bird or falconer will be safe.

Together the twins must journey into the treacherous mountains to trap the Ghost Eagle, the greatest of the Uztari birds and a solitary killer. Brysen goes for the boy he loves and the glory he's long craved, and Kylee to atone for her past and to protect her brother's future. But both are hunted by those who seek one thing: power.

In this first young-adult fantasy novel in a trilogy, Alex London launches a soaring saga about the memories that haunt us, the histories that hunt us, and the bonds of blood between us.

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Things I am excited about

Oh Lordy, it's September already! School officially started yesterday for us. 
While one child is enjoying it, the other is being a negative nelly. Oh well, can't win them all!


Things I am excited about this coming month...

        1. Starting a new journey as a Pharmacy Technician.  
        2. My brother's wedding, while I won't be there to witness the big moment I am so very excited for him and his Bride to be. 
        3. The Cover Reveal of Neurosis by Amy Hale, which will be making its debut on Sept 12th. It's something different from Amy Hale, and her first solo project in 2 years. If you like to help spread the word in the cover reveal & release you can sign up here → https://forms.gle/AVw8dBtYmiXWH2mW9
        4. Penned Con is having a Virtual signing Event on their fan page. Sept. 14th - Sept. 19th
Don't forget to vote here → https://forms.gle/awjUG1YVzCxD7yhh9
      

Releases that are dropping this Month 🎉🎉    

  1. With a Vengeance: Medical Thriller by Eileen Dreyer ~Sept.8th, 2020
  2. Head Games: Medical Thriller by Eileen Dreyer ~Sept. 8th, 2020
  3. City of the Dead: Medical Thriller by Eileen Dryer ~Sept. 8th,2020        
  4. Rahotep's Last Breath (The Artifact Hunters Book 6) by A.W. Exley ~Sept. 11th, 2020
  5. Girl From the Tomb (Ashes and Rose Petals Book 2) by ID Johnson ~Sept. 15th, 2020
  6. Any Luck at All: Asheville Brewing #1 by Denise Grover Swank ~Sept. 22nd, 2020
  7. Snow Queen (Secret Knights Book 4) by Mary Ting ~Sept. 24th, 2020
  8. Immortal Angel: An Argeneau Novel by Lynsay Sands ~Sept. 29th, 2020
  9. Angel Watcher: A Ditch Lane Diaries Short Story by D.F. Jones ~Sept. 29th, 2020 
  10. Battle Ground (Dresden Files Book 17) by Jim Butcher ~Sept. 29th, 2020
  11. Unrestricted Access: New and Classic Short Fiction by James Rollins ~Sept. 29th, 2020
       

Don't Forget 🐘

Do you love reading books before they are published and giving feedback? Are you excited when you get an advance copy of a new release? If this sounds like you, Amy Hale would love to have you join her BETA & ARC Team! 
You can fill out the application here: https://forms.gle/CVnMipHa6Yi7WLZj6




Sept. 22, 2020,  Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts: Paranormal-Contemporary-Fantasy-Historical will no longer be available. So grab your copy for .99cents before it's too late!




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