Tag Archives: New Adult

BOOK BLITZ & GIVEAWAY: Reclamation by Kristen Zimmer

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Reclamation
Kristen Zimmer
(Dark Horse Series, #1)
Publication date: December 9th 2025
Genres: Adult, Dystopian, New Adult, Science Fiction

Kristen Zimmer, author of The Gravity Between Us, When Sparks Fly, and Forbidden Girl takes readers on an adrenaline-fueled dystopian journey into the future where a scrappy band of rebels rise up to bring down an unequal and unrelenting government.

This is your future.

The United States of America has been gone for over a century.

In its place, The Unified American Territories—a nation divided, the impoverished and the wealthy are separated by a looming steel wall. In the Northern Territories—The Vault, as it is known by its inhabitants—the government rules with an iron fist: All citizens are tested for intelligence and aptitude, thrust into compulsory higher education and saddled with insurmountable debt. All student loans are granted and controlled by a branch of the regime called The Federal Bureau of Education. Failure to repay their debt consigns borrowers to the Knowledge Reclamation Process, a mysterious government-sanctioned brainwashing program that strips them of their education with dire mental and physical side effects.

Fletcher Daniels is a recent college graduate struggling to stay ahead of her arrears. After a visit from Reclamation Agents, she knows her life is about to change for the worse. Enter Youth Opposed to Reclamation, a scrappy band of rebels who try in their own small way to bring some relief to the people of The Vault by smuggling as many potential Reclaimees to safety as possible. When Fletcher meets and falls for fellow female YOR member, Sparrow, her world is twisted away from the one she once knew even more radically. The group offers Fletcher a chance to escape her fate, but through them, she sees the promise of bringing real change to The Vault. History has taught her that even the smallest rebellions can trigger revolutions. It’s time for history to repeat itself.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks

—

EXCERPT:

FLETCHER HAD BEEN ENJOYING the luxury of her sole day off work, reading The Scarlet Letter. Happily. Quietly. Until some unknowable thing, a strange tug in her chest, made her look up. She shut down her antiquated digireader with a tap of the cracked screen and watched from her bedroom window as a sleek, silver sedan pulled to a stop at the curb outside of her dilapidated row house. Agents.

She couldn’t see them through the car’s blacked-out windows, but it was obvious. The simple fact that the vehicle had the shine of something new was enough to give the Agents away. Being from The Vault, or The Northern Territories, as Fletcher’s part of the country was known officially, she rarely saw any cars on the road at all; cars in such impeccable condition were all but complete anomalies. Why do they even bother plastering the Department of Reclamation’s seal on the doors? She wondered.

That hideous seal. Words failed to capture how much Fletcher both loathed and feared it. The great red and black per bend crest, showcasing a scroll of parchment in one half and a tasseled mortarboard in the other, had always been reviled by citizens of The Vault. It meant that someone hadn’t paid their dues, and The Department of Reclamation had come to collect.

The Department of Reclamation employed the Agents who did the strong-arming for The Federal Bureau of Education. While the BOE housed the bookkeepers, The Department of Reclamation’s Agents handled the unseemlier work… and their work was generally quite unseemly. The Governing Council of The Unified American Territories had long ago authorized Reclamation Agents to use brute force “in the event of necessity.” More often than not, visits from Agents did end in violence—if not on their first visit, when a potential Reclaimee received their Notification of Violation, then most definitely on their second visit, when the Agents returned to take the Reclaimee into custody. Reclaimees seldom initiated said violence, of course; Fletcher had heard that most cried or begged for just a few more moments with their loved ones. They would be flogged once or twice and give up or otherwise be knocked out with narcotics. Occasionally, a Reclaimee would try to escape. Those individuals had it much worse. Fletcher closed her eyes and, although it pained her to do it, allowed herself to envision the brutality Agents inflicted upon braver people: Arms twisted so violently that shoulders snapped out their sockets, fingers bent backward with such force that the metacarpals fractured, skulls cracked against living room floors. She shuddered as if her skin had been kissed by an icy wind.

Reclamation Agents were no strangers to The Vault, considering it was the part of the country reserved for the impoverished, the destitute and the disillusioned—those who needed “excessive assistance” from the Government. Those like Fletcher. She would need at least ten more fingers to be able to count the number of times she had seen Agents in her neighborhood in the last week alone. Watching these two men march toward her home, she couldn’t help but wonder if they had come for her this time.

“Fletcher,” her father’s voice boomed through the dimness of her room. “Can you come out here, please?”

“I’ll be right there.”

She peered into the tarnished mirror atop her bedside table. Using the remnants of daylight to aid her vision, she pulled her long blonde hair up into a ponytail. “Alright,” she sighed to herself, her sharp jawline clenching and her hazel eyes burning with angst. “If they are here for you, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Author Bio:

Kristen Zimmer is the author of The Gravity Between Us, which spent 12 weeks as the number one best-seller in both the Lesbian Fiction and Lesbian Romance genres on Amazon. It was listed as one of USA Today’s “10 Best books to read for Pride 2018” and in December 2021 was named one of Reader’s Digest ’50 Best Romance Novels of All Time’

That same year, her follow-up novel, When Sparks Fly, debuted as the best-seller in Lesbian Fiction and Lesbian romance, and clung to the spot for four weeks.

Her latest novel, Forbidden Girl, a dark mafia sapphic romance, is available now.

Kristen lives in Salem, Massachusetts— yes, where the witches were.

Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram / Amazon


GIVEAWAY!

Reclamation Blitz

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BOOK TOUR: The Defiant and the Damned by EC Garrett

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The Defiant and the Damned is now available! Read the whole series now on Kindle Unlimited

The Defiant and The Damned (The Dragon Queen #2)

Publication Date: February 24, 2025

Genre: NA Dark Fantasy/ Gridmark Fantasy

🖤Morally Gray Cast
🖤Reluctant Antiheroine
🖤Vengeance Plot
🖤Multi-POV
🖤Sapphic & Queer
🖤Dragon Lore
🖤Heist
🖤Found Family
🖤NA & Spicy w/ Medium-Burn
🖤Inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy: Purgatory
🖤 Feminist John Wick meets Eragon and Game of Thrones

*The following blurb contains spoilers for The Forgotten and the Feared.

Amalia Roth is dead.

She died alongside the Crimson Queen in the arena two years ago. Donning her Gray Wytch persona, Amalia and the Dragon Ryu have spent the past year hunting down the Fae who wronged her. All the while, Amalia struggles not to crumble under the weight of grief.

Across the Midheym Sea on the isle of Elysium, Dyana grapples with her newfound magyk under the guidance of the ancient dragon, Vesimyr. She quickly learns that Elysium isn’t paradise – it’s a prison. Trapped under the claws of the Dragon Regent, she cannot leave. But Dyana knows Amalia is alive and will stop at nothing to get back to her sister – even if it means taking on the Regent alone.

The rebel Mirielle has lost everything. Her life’s goal was to take down the High Council, but doing so only made things worse. Lost and alone, Mirielle begins plotting a way back home, regardless of the risk.

With the High Council gone, the Archmage has risen. Storms shake the continent as the situation grows more dangerous by the day. Ur Daoine lies on the brink of civil war. In secret, the heretic Prince Nyall Drayven leads the growing rebellion. After Nyall convinces Amalia to join him at the front, a divide within the rebel factions, and his carefully built control begins to crumble.

When one of the rebels’ carefully planned missions goes wrong, a familiar face steals Ryu and reveals a truth that will change everything; someone from Amalia’s past is alive.
FROM ASHES AND PAIN, AMALIA ASTEROTH HAS RISEN.

Return to a world full of romance, rage, rebellion…and Dragons, in the stunning sequel to EC Garrett’s debut novel, The Forgotten and The Feared.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

TD&TD is extremely dark & violent. The Dragon Queen series is set in a Grimdark, medieval fantasy world, with a high amount of violence, gore, and danger. All incidents involving animals are inspired by the real-life cruelty animals in our world experience every second of every day. If The Dragon Queen series was a movie, it would be rated R or NC-17 due to graphic violence, graphic sex, language, and dire situations. The full TW list can be viewed at the beginning of the book or on my website. https://authorecgarrett.com/pages/trigger-warnings

BOOK TOUR ORGANIZED BY:

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BOOK BLITZ: Inked in Blood and Memory by Allison Ivy

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Inked in Blood and Memory
Allison Ivy
Publication date: December 3rd 2024
Genres: Horror, LGBTQ+, New Adult

Recluse Sophie Vanguard’s winter cabin retreat turns ominous when blue flowers mysteriously appear. They’re everywhere. On her front porch, in kitchen cabinets, and even on her pillow. It isn’t long before chilling whispers echo in the halls, and her journal repeats seven unsettling entries.

Enter the bloodied and beautifully eccentric Ly Thi Ren. Though Ren seems familiar, Sophie refuses to believe the girl’s insistence that they are trapped inside a book.

In a land of fiction, truth and lies blur together, clear decisions are marred by doubt, and shared family trauma lurks just below the surface.

Can Ren and Sophie make it out alive? Or will they end up nothing more than words inked in blood and memory?

With elements of gothic horror, splatterpunk, romance, and fantasy, Inked in Blood and Memory is a self-aware LGBTQ+ horror that wraps its clutches around the reader and doesn’t let go.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo

—

EXCERPT:

You never forget your first ritual sacrifice. So why had I? That seems like something you’d remember. It’s not something most American families gather for.

Hey, Má. Could you pass the rau răm? Oh, and what time is the sacrifice tonight?

And yet, I had forgotten. I had forgotten the little things, too. My mother’s laugh, her abrupt chortles that often devolved into giggles. My childhood nickname.

We eat pho the night our own parents sacrifice one of my best friends. It’s weird what sticks with you after years of trying to forget. We eat in silence, though I haven’t yet realized the reason for the solemn mood. My nine-year-old brain doesn’t quite grasp the idea of “sacrifice.” I can’t wait to wear my new ceremonial cloak. I begged my parents to let me wear it through dinner, but they refused.

“It’s too special,” they say. “You don’t want to ruin it, do you, con gái?”

No, I don’t want that. Still, my eyes wander to the piece of clothing that hangs on the coat tree next to the front door. The intricate symbols fascinate me. The only other place I’ve seen them is on the book. Not just any book. The book.

I get to see it on special occasions during the four months out of the year our family guards it. The other eight months are split between two additional families. My best friends’, Sophie Vanguard and Jeremy Berg-Nilsen.

We’ll join them later for the ceremony or the “thanksgiving,” but not that Thanksgiving. We are not pilgrims, but our three families are special. Chosen. And today, Jeremy is the most special.

“Ông xã, are you sure this is the only way?” Má squeezes Ba’s arm.

Ba remains quiet for so long I almost ask him if he’s heard Má. I’m not sure what she means by her question or why it’s gotten even quieter than before.

Ba answers before I speak. “It’s too late to back out. Maybe we could have years ago, but not now. This is how we keep our family safe.” He kisses my mother’s hand and stands to clear the plates.

I knit my brows together. Why are they so serious? It’s like they’re sad. But it’s the day of the thanksgiving. They should be happy.

Later that night, I beam proudly in my cloak with the strange symbols, relishing the feel of the velvet hem between my fingertips. Incense burns in a corner, permeating the air with a smoky aroma that I’ve always hated, but it reminds me of the days we celebrate the four equinoxes.

The adults hug and talk amongst themselves excitedly. All but Mrs. Berg-Nilsen, Jeremy’s mom. She stands against the wall, keeping to herself. Her long blonde hair covers most of her face, but I can tell her cheeks are wet.

I ponder this as I sit cross-legged on the antique rug with Jeremy in his family’s living room. We sip Capri-Suns and talk about what we think will happen in a few minutes.

“Happy birthday, Jeremy,” Sophie says after arriving with her parents and barreling through the adults’ legs. She holds a cloak that matches mine out behind her as she runs like she’s a superhero or a bat and plops down on the rug between us.

“Thanks, Sophie,” Jeremy mumbles, staring at his Capri-Sun.

Of the three of us, Sophie is the most frenetic. I think that’s the word Ba used. The adults are always hiding the sugar from her. She channels her chaotic energy for good most of the time. At school this past week, a couple kids from our grade cornered Jeremy. Sophie took me by the hand and came to Jeremy’s aid, not letting up until the kids backed off.

“Why is your mom crying?” I ask Jeremy.

His eyes move from his drink to his shoes, and he tugs at the laces. “Dad says she’s happy, but she won’t look at me.”

“Grownups are weird,” I say, watching Jeremy’s parents lead the rest into the kitchen.

“I think I did something real bad,” Jeremy says.

The door swings closed, and I’m on my feet, ignoring Sophie’s questions and drawn to the conversation happening behind the closed door.

Author Bio:

Allison Ivy writes under a pen name and grew up reading a book a day. She graduated from Penn State with a B.A. in English and a Creative Writing certificate. She currently lives in Connecticut and listens to far too many show tunes and DVD commentaries. The Dragon and the Double-Edged Sword is her first novel.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram / X / TikTok


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BOOK TOUR: Heir of Sin by C.L. Qvam

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Happy publication day and congratulations to author C.L. Qvam! Treat yourself to a copy of Heir of Sin. You won’t regret it!

Heir of Sin (Fallen Sins Book 1)

Publication Date: September 24, 2024

Genre: NA Romantasy

  • He Teaches Her
  • One Mattress
  • He Falls First
  • Seven Deadly Scenes
  • Djinn MMC
  • Female S3xual & Personal Liberation

Would you trust the Djinn of Lust with your body?

Keira’s nan always warned her about djinns, but after the fall of the Tyrant Emperor and his court of vices, Keira never thought she would meet one. That is until the man of her dreams and key to future happiness is promised to another.

In a last attempt to win August back, Keira stumbles across and enlists the help of a particularly troublesome djinn, promising him a favour for a favour as long as it doesn’t involve him making a claim on her body.

But, as the djinn challenges Keira to step out of her comfort zone and discover new pleasures, Keira learns that there might just be worse things a djinn could take than her body. Things such as her heart…Particularly, when the djinn has secrets and an agenda of his own.

KINGDOM OF THE WICKED meets ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART with cottagecore vibes and spice in C. L. Qvam’s NA romantasy debut, HEIR OF SIN – the first in a new series of interconnected spicy standalones featuring the seven deadly sins as djinns, and the women (and men) who bring them to their knees.

18+ content. Reader discretion is advised. See CWs at the front of the book or on the author’s page.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

BOOK RELEASE BLITZ:

R&R BOOK TOURS

BOOK BLITZ: Splintered Realms by L.A. Myles

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Splintered Realms
L.A. Myles
(Doorways, #1)
Publication date: July 20th 2024
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult

College is everything art student Taylen dreamed it would be. But her first trip home doesn’t end with her mom’s homemade brownies. Instead, she’s hurled into a strange medieval land where a woman without family has no say. Desperate to get back to her world, she’ll have to find others she can trust if she hopes to find a way home.

But trust isn’t easy to find. Surrounded by accusations of espionage, kidnapping, murder, and refusing to become chattel, Taylen discovers she has the unique ability to see the doorways between realms. Leaving the Realm of Men behind, she enters the land of the fae-like Ays Shee. They can get her home, but first she must help them solve the mystery of what’s dissolving the barrier between realms before it rips the world apart, and Taylen with it.

Goodreads / Amazon

—

EXCERPT:

A curve in the road revealed hills covered with vineyards. The vines were mid-transformation, changing from their summer green to fall’s stunning array of deep golds and burnt reds.

“Now I’m in the vineyards.” Taylen sighed.

The road opened out, the trees moving away from the asphalt and stench of exhaust to perch atop hills or slip down their sides. They hovered in sparse clusters among the vineyards, distant reflections of the road-scape she’d just left.

“If you keep your pace,” Mom said, her voice warm with delight, “you’ll arrive the same time the brownies are coming out of the oven.”

“You made brownies?”

“Of course.” Mom laughed. “It’s been two months. You must be going through brownie withdrawal by now.”

“How’d you guess?” Taylen grinned.

The sun sank toward the hills on her left, coloring the few clouds in the sky with luminescent oranges and reds. Sunsets, like sunrises, were the best parts of the day. They were magical, a time in flux in which one thing merged into the next.

She glanced down to switch on her headlights. The glint of sunlight off the chrome trim running along the edge of her windshield caught her eye.

“Well—” The line in her ears went dead.

“Mom?” Her gaze flicked back up. The lights clicked on first in the dash, then on the tree ahead of her.

Tree!

She swerved right. More trees blocked her path. She flung the steering wheel left to avoid another, veering between tree after tree while careening through a brightly lit forest. Bushes broke and cracked under and against her car, creating a cacophony of breaking wood and screeching metal. The car bounced and jarred her to either side, the seatbelt catching her with bruising force.

Another tree appeared in her path, this one fallen over. She cursed and stomped on the brakes. The car spun left. A jarring thump and a loud bang signaled a back tire blowing out. A branch slammed into her windshield, cracking it.

She screamed as another branch shattered her passenger window when the car lurched sideways. A clearing in the trees beckoned ahead of her, then it was behind her, and a sickening weightlessness lifted her off the seat.

She had a moment to take in the view. A forest stretched out in all directions from around a large pear-shaped lake, its surface a dark reflective gray sheet. Gravity reclaimed her and her car, and she plunged toward the water below. Her shriek ripped through the air.


Author Bio:

L.A. is a fantasy fiction author. She scribes epic fantasies filled with adventure, mythical creatures, struggle, and the magic that can come from strong friendships, especially between females. Characters going through proverbial hell as they come into their personal power resonate the most with her and are what she writes.

For her, stories always arrive first as a single clear snapshot. Usually, the image is of a pivotal moment. After that, it’s like a portal has opened and L.A. is the conduit the story flows through, as opposed to the conductor of the tale. It often makes writing as exciting as reading.

After decades of migrating from one US coast to another and then abroad, L.A. has settled in the Pacific Northwest, U.S.A. with a couple of high-powered kids, a husband, two cats, chickens, and a flock of wild turkeys that have decided to make the family’s property theirs.

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram


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BOOK TOUR: Autumn and the Silver Moon Stallion by V.P. Felmlee

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Autumn and The Silver Moon Stallion
Book 3, The Abandoned Trilogy
V P Felmlee
Publication Date: November, 2023
Publisher: TCS Publishing
Page Length: 280
Genre: Young Adult / New Adult Fiction

An abused, neglected filly is abandoned on a remote country road, left to die.

A young woman grieves the loss of her best friend, the champion horse she had built

her life and future around.

The heir to one of the largest ranches in Wyoming comes home to face the ire and

disappointment of his grandfather.

A world-renown scientist clashes with the U.S.government over a brutal,

decades-long war to decide the fate of thousands of

mustangs, a beloved icon of  the American West.

Autumn and The Silver Moon Stallion is their story of love, hatred, and death.

Will their struggles give them hope to fight for their beliefs, or tear them forever apart?

Buy Links:

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/4NDrwY

Excerpt:

The next night, they were ready to move. There were a few clouds; an almost-full moon broke free from time to time, giving them some light.

Quietly, almost as one, the stallion led the way down the ledge onto the soft dirt below. They did not stop to forage; when they reached the river, they did not stop to drink.

With one mind, with one purpose, they crossed at a narrow point. These mustangs were strong and young, but the water was cold, the current swift.

In a single line, they treaded the water. The black mare got ahead of the stallion, the current almost carrying her away from them. She raised her head, eyes wide in panic. He drifted to her side, then around, and nudged her body back to the straight course.

Finally, all three found their footing and splashed to the shore, dripping wet and huffing.

The mare who almost drifted away was trembling. The stallion walked over to touch her neck and back.

She appreciated his concern. “I’ve never gone into water before. I won’t do that again.”

“You won’t have to,” he promised.

He looked around, getting his feel for this new land. A trail led north into open range. He rejected this, they needed as much shelter as they could get, not to be seen nor discovered for as long as possible.

Another possibility was a wide opening with high walls on either side. The clouds wafted across the sky, allowing the moon to brighten his view. A narrow path beckoned him. He followed it a short distance, then returned to the mares.

“Follow me,” he told them. “We’ll be safe here.” Without hesitation, they followed him and were soon wrapped in the darkness.

The white stallion now belonged to Silver Moon Canyon.

Author Bio:

V P Felmlee is the author of The Abandoned Trilogy: Price Tadpole & Princess Clara; Good Boy Ben; and the third book in the series, Autumn and the Silver Moon Stallion. A former newspaper reporter and editor, she has a degree in geology, and has been active in historic preservation and animal welfare issues. Her articles have appeared in several magazines and she has won numerous awards.

She will be the 2025 president of Women Writing the West and lives in Grand Junction, Colorado, with her husband, two dogs, and six cats.

Author Links:

Website: www.vfauthor.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lilhistorian

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicki.felmlee.7

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/V-P-Felmlee/author/B0BQJKNSKJ

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23381045.V_P_Felmlee

BOOK TOUR & GIVEAWAY: Hot & Cold by Tara September

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In the game of love, who will
melt first?

Hot and Cold

A Lesson in Love Novella
#3

by Tara September

Genre: New Adult Sports
Hockey Romance

In the game of love, who will melt first?

LUKE:
No one seems to comprehend the pressures of playing
for an NCAA college hockey team and being in the pre-med program. With the NHL draft and
graduation looming, I can’t handle any distractions in my life. Discipline and focus are my two best
friends.

The absolute last thing I need my senior year is to be roped into some campus
social media project with a sexy junior who changes majors more times than she does clothes. Yet
here I am, posing for a calendar I had no intention of participating in, attending parties, and making
out, among other things, in public. And yeah, if I’m smiling the whole way, it must be because I’ve
finally cracked. That’s the only explanation why I’ve let Jax sashay her way into my every thought.
Puck me!

My world has been irrevocably turned upside
down once already, and I won’t let it happen again—even if it means becoming the “Ice Man” that
everyone calls me.

JAX:
It might have taken me three
years to decide on a major, but I’ve got it all figured out now, and I’m going to win a coveted
communications internship too. I just need the grumpy hockey captain to relax a bit and help me
help his team. So what if I know diddly about the game and that he won’t even let me past the front
door? I’ve got this! And if I’m shivering at his touch, it’s because he’s so cold, not because he
makes me hot.

Nope, despite the rumors circulating on campus, we’re only spending
every waking minute together because of my assignment, that’s all. Although, maybe we’re dating?
I don’t know, but I plan to find out! Because it’s starting to feel real, especially his kisses. Yup, I’m
totally pucked!

**NEW RELEASE
– Get it Now!**

Amazon * Apple * B&N * Google * Kobo * Smashwords *

Books2Read * Bookbub * Goodreads

**Don’t miss the rest of the series! **

Find them on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4NBHMJ3

Bestselling, multi-award-winning romance author of steamy
& sassy Contemporary and New Adult stories that will leave you “grinning like a Cheshire
Cat.” Residing in NYC and Southwest Florida, Tara holds a master’s degree in journalism from
New York University and is the proud mom to twin boys and four writing distractions, I mean cats.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

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BOOK BLITZ: The Trials of Imogene Sol by C.L. Walters #NewAdult #SciFi

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The Ring Academy: The Trials of Imogene Sol
C.L. Walters
Publication date: August 1st 2023
Genres: New Adult, Science Fiction, Young Adult

Imogene Sol has had to work twice as hard for everything she has earned as a cadet at The Ring Academy on Serta. An orphan of notorious parents who killed hundreds of thousands of people in a bombing against the Federation, most people hate her by name alone, others have gone out of their way to make her life difficult. Though she’s managed to acquire a handful of trusted friends over her years at the academy, most of her peers loathe her. But she’s made her mark in the top ten of her cadet class and she’s ready to compete for what’s next.

As the Year Seven Final Trials begin—a series of tests to determine placement within the Federation—Imogene knows all her hopes are riding on her performance. But when she’s framed for an offense that could not only get her expelled from the academy but also incarcerated, Imogene must discover who’s behind the threat against her. When her greatest competition, Timaeus Kade, offers to help her solve the mystery to clear her name, Imogene must decide if she’s willing to trust him. The stakes are high. Only the mysterious saboteur strikes again, justifying she needs his help, proving the stakes aren’t just her future anymore but her life.

Goodreads / Amazon

—

EXCERPT:

Imogene raced across the room to grab the bo staff leaning against the wall, her opponent just steps behind her. The zip of his staff buzzed the air near her head as she ducked, rolled across the mat, and grabbed the weapon she needed from the holder. She turned and crouched with her back to the wall, wielding her staff to block her attacker. The clack of his weapon against hers vibrated up her arm through her elbow, jarring her teeth, but she ignored the discomfort—she was used to it—and shot forward.

“That’s all you’ve got?” She smirked at her opponent.

Vempur growled, showing his sharp incisors. His stark, black hair curled against his umber-toned temple slick with sweat as he followed it up by stabbing the end of the staff toward her face. His eyes, usually green flecked with sparkles of gold, turned completely black as he swung.

She blocked and went for a jab.

Vempur parried, then swung the staff at her head, once more with a loud grunt and frustrated huff. “You’re too quick,” he snapped.

Imogene smiled at her best friend but subdued the laugh. She knew he wouldn’t take it well in the middle of a fight. Not with everyone watching. Their silent, judgmental gazes were enough of a deterrent to keep Vempur’s temper in check. Besides, she wouldn’t have appreciated his humor at the moment either. There was too much on the line.

“You’re stronger. Taller,” she grunted out as she ducked once more. It wasn’t to feed his ego. “Find my weakness.”

“What weakness?” he snapped, frustrated more with himself than her, it would seem. “You haven’t lost yet today.”

“Exactly. I’m tired.”

Vempur growled, surging forward.

But she couldn’t afford to lose and that was the difference.

She rocked back, arching as the staff narrowly missed her gut, then swung her stick out to catch Vempur’s feet. He jumped and brought his bow down to the mat barely missing her back as she rolled out from under his strike.

“Stars!” Halo Mins—their instructor—yelled across the sparring room. “It shouldn’t look like a dance. It should look like a fight!”

Several of the other Year Sevens in the room snickered, and she knew it was at their expense.

“Shit,” Imogene swore, resetting as she hopped away. “He’s going to knock me down.”

“He won’t. He can’t.” Vempur punched out, and Imogene blocked the weapon. They pushed against one another and locked, resting for a beat. “You’ve dominated everyone today.”

“Not everyone.” She pushed, using her momentum to twist and swing, the pole wide, catching Vempur’s ankles. His giant frame slammed against the mat, and she went in for the kill, feigning a stab into his throat.

Vempur opened his hands against his bow staff in supplication and frowned. “Everyone knows you belong on the leaderboard, Imogene.”

Author Bio:

As a kid, CL Walters, world revolved around two things: stories and make believe. She’s built a real life around those two things: a teacher of stories and a writer of make believe.

With four books now published, she’s looking forward to her fifth release October 13, 2020, a YA Contemporary Romance called The Stories Stars Tell.

Sign up for her newsletter for news, goodies, and fun (www.clwalters.net)

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RELEASE BLITZ: Amid the Haze by Jessica Cranberry #NewAdult #LGBTQ

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Title: Amid the Haze

Series: Hazel & Maeve #2

Author: Jessica Cranberry

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 07/04/2023

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 85900

Genre: Contemporary, genre fiction, contemporary, new adult, historical (early 2000s), bisexual, F/F, cisgender, college mystery, crime, suspense, law enforcement, police academy, slow burn, toxic masculinity, hazing, sports team, power imbalance, therapy

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Description

Maeve Drakos and Hazel Fischer continue their college journey, moving back to the city and starting the peace officer training program at the community college. They pick out their first apartment, and everything seems awesome. Until they meet the neighbors.

Members of Oakley University’s men’s lacrosse team live in the big house behind them. After many late-night parties and several instances of vandalizing the girls’ apartment, Maeve has had enough. She decides to confront them on their own turf. Except while there, she discovers team secrets far darker than broken windows and spray-painted walls. Yet they all insist it’s nothing—just tradition. The captain’s a nice guy; they’re all good guys. Yeah, no.

Maeve thought she and Hazel were supposed to be the perfect team—in more ways than one. But when she approaches Hazel about reporting the guys, Hazel doesn’t necessarily see what’s happening next door the same way. And she’s hardly ever home anyway, because she’s been spending loads of time with her friend Doug. All this leaves Maeve doubting herself and questioning everything she thought she understood so clearly their freshman year.

Yet there’s no time to figure anything out before Maeve and Hazel find themselves embroiled in another murder mystery. Who has time to care about a crush when there’s a rotting corpse in the basement?

Excerpt

Amid the Haze
Jessica Cranberry © 2023
All Rights Reserved

Maeve

April 7, 2001

Cool blasts of April air blew her hair around the car, swirling around her head, whipping against my cheek every now and then. It had grown longer, the weight of it suppressing some of her natural wave. We were headed to Indy—just the two of us. Behind us had been hours and hours of nothing but long, straight road, pumping music, those crispy, fried, onion-flavored chips, and countless cigarette butts streaming out the windows as I drove full throttle across I-70. Acres of farmland surrounded us, mounded rows extending beyond the horizon, prepped for corn or soybean seed, until a new city emerged with tall buildings cutting through a span of sky and a falling orange sun. As we navigated through downtown, through the maze of asphalt and concrete, the open fields fell away as if they ceased to exist.

Hazel flicked the radio off and lit another cigarette. She’d started smoking again, and I wasn’t going to complain about it. That probably made me a shitty friend, but I was glad to have a smoking buddy.

“I brought you something.” I reached into the backseat blindly, keeping my eyes on the road, and felt around in my bag until my fingers grazed the thin pages of the city newspaper. “Check out page three.”

Hazel unfolded the Ledger Dispatch and found our story, the one Gayle Jackson had interviewed us for, detailing last autumn’s campus murder of Ryan Newsome (asshole and sexual predator, although most media outlets left those bits out) and how we’d pieced it all together…not totally unscathed.

“Good for her. She said she wasn’t going back to the Echo after they canned her last year.” Hazel carefully refolded the paper along the creases as if it contained nothing more than the crossword.

“You’re not gonna read it?”

“I know how it ends.”

Hazel hadn’t gone back to school after Newsome’s murderer attacked us. She needed time to heal—physically and emotionally. We all did. But I couldn’t escape the feeling something else was keeping her away, distant. Before today, I hadn’t seen Hazel since October, the morning I’d followed her into the police station to give a statement. We’d been emailing back and forth, but neither of us ever mentioned what had happened all those nights ago—what it had been like seeing her blood soak through her clothes, fear as thick as fog, a death so close you could taste it on the air like the salt and sand of a new shore. No, we’d skirted around all of that.

It didn’t stop me from wondering how she felt or what she thought about it. Hazel could be a bit of a mystery to me. Most folks I could see right through, not her. She kept everything wrapped up so tight inside herself, I didn’t think I’d ever break through. And maybe that was okay. Maybe even better than okay.

“I haven’t been in a real city for months. I forgot how pretty they can be,” she said. “All the bustling around. Life, I mean, you can see it happening.” Her cigarette bounced with the motion of her lips. She tucked it between her fingers and blew out a long, lingering exhale as though she’d been born knowing how to do that.

“Have you been here before?” I asked.

“As a kid, we hit up the children’s museum.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, when my parents… We used to live right on the border of Illinois and Indiana.”

I still couldn’t believe it took her so long to tell me what she’d lived through. But knowing the ways people have been hurt changed relationships—sometimes for the better, sometimes not. So I got it; she didn’t want pity anywhere near us.

“You’re a regular child of the corn, then, huh?” And this seemed to be how we handled the big traumatic things, poking fun around what caused the most pain. Joking. Deflecting. Sidestepping anything that hurt.

“I told you my middle name, didn’t I? It’s Malachi.”

I laughed and pressed the cigarette lighter. Hazel instinctively reached for the pack in the cup holders and got one out for me. I rolled down my window just as the lighter popped back up, its coils burning orange and hot.

“Do you know where we’re headed?” she asked.

“Not really. I printed out a MapQuest for it though. It’s in the glovebox.”

She took out the directions and spread the folded papers over her lap. “What street are we on?”

“Ohio.”

“We’re close. If you can find a place to park, do it.”

Brake lights glowed red in front of us. I slowed down and watched the last of the sunset, streaking pink and purple behind the high-rise buildings of the Midwestern city. The air smelled of exhaust. I followed the inching traffic into a parking garage.

“You think all these people are going to the same place we are?” Hazel asked.

“Maybe? She has a following.”

By the time I parked, night had fallen. Streetlights clicked on and cast the sidewalks in a tangerine glow. Hazel folded the directions and tucked them in her hoodie pocket.

We ended up not needing the map. A decent-sized crowd of mostly women seemed to all be going in the same direction. We just fit in and followed. As we got closer, a line had already formed, and we waited, stuck behind a rowdy group of college-aged kids with dark lipstick and short flowery dresses. They were probably the same age as Hazel and me. They seemed so much younger, though, with all the laughing and the squealing.

Hazel surveyed them; her right eyebrow cocked the way it always did when she tried to puzzle out someone’s behavior. I handed her the silver flask I’d slipped in my jacket pocket. Elbowing her, I told her to relax.

“I’m relaxed,” she said and took a swig of the peppermint schnapps.

Spring flowers and just…joy scented the air. Yeah, that was it. Joy. After such a dark year, I barely recognized the feeling. The line shuffled forward. Ani DiFranco’s name, in black block lettering, stood against the marquee’s glow.

“I can’t believe you scored tickets,” Hazel said.

“I told you we should go.”

Hazel’s expression lightened whenever I pressed Play on Living in Clip, and in the middle of all the shit that had gone down at school last fall, there’d been a notice in the paper about this tour. I figured right then and there I’d pay whatever price to get Hazel to this show if we made it out of that mess.

“I didn’t really think it would happen. Especially, in the middle of…everything.”

“So, how’ve you been dealing with all of that?” Asking was a risk, but I wanted to take it. While I gave her a pass on talking about her family, I needed to know about this because the nightmares hadn’t stopped for me. I still woke up in a sweaty panic, Shirlee’s glowing glasses disappearing and reappearing like pieces of the Cheshire cat.

Hazel shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and stared at her feet. “Honestly, I don’t know that I am.” Her eyes met mine. “I just ignore it mostly.”

“Me too.” Time heals all wounds. Unless it didn’t.

She fiddled with her hair, braiding the ends absentmindedly. We moved forward a few more steps. At the double doors, security guards shined flashlights in purses and patted down coat pockets.

Hazel pushed her hair back from her face. “I feel kinda frozen in place, ya know?”

“I do.”

“Aunt Liddy says not to rush anything. That everything will settle back to normal in time. But what if it doesn’t?”

“Maybe this is the new normal.”

“Exactly.”

“They haven’t filled your space in our dorm yet. You could always come back.”

“No. I withdrew.”

“You did?”

She laughed in that self-mocking way she had sometimes. “You know I’m not meant to be anybody’s teacher.”

The thought of her surrounded by little kids made me laugh too. “There are other programs.”

She shook her head. “I don’t belong there. I knew it on day one. The only good thing that happened was meeting you and Doug.”

“You guys still talk?”

“Yeah, through email mostly. Like with you.”

“That’s cool.” But my heart said, Oh.

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Meet the Author

Jessica Cranberry lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills and spends most days striking a balance between parenthood, teaching, and writing suspense novels or eclectic short stories. Learn more on Jessica’s website.

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RELEASE BLITZ: Elaine’s Gift by Victoria St. Michael #NewAdult #ComingofAge #FamilyDrama @ninestarpress @GoIndiMarketing @vicstmichael

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Title: Elaine’s Gift

Author: Victoria St. Michael

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 04/18/2023

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: No Romance, Female/Female

Length: 22800

Genre: Contemporary, Contemporary, Family-drama, New Adult, Coming of age, Illness/disease, Grief, Mental illness

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Description

Still reeling from the untimely death of her wife, Elaine, twenty-seven-year-old Kit Barrows is a ghost of herself. But Kit’s fractured life is about to take a turn for the unexpected when she wakes up one morning to discover a mysterious envelope and a notebook sitting on her nightstand, with a note inside—a note addressed to Kit—in Elaine’s handwriting.

As Kit is led on a heartwarming journey of self-discovery and healing, she encounters a homeless veteran on the brink of death, two eccentric old ladies, nine porcelain dolls, a large sum of money, and an anonymous benefactor. As she learns to process her grief, Kit learns that even in death Elaine still has so much to teach her.

Excerpt

Elaine’s Gift
Victoria St. Michael © 2023
All Rights Reserved

As Kit steps out of the Uber into the howling wind and rain, the little voice in her head begs her to turn back. Wouldn’t you be so much more comfortable in bed, the voice asks, filling her with anxiety. Curiosity killed the cat, isn’t that what they say?

Kit shoves the voice into a box in the back of her mind and puts it on a shelf. Now muffled by her resolve, the voice continues to whine in the background as she fights desperately to ignore it. The urge to return to the car and head straight back home to her dusty, leaky apartment is overwhelming, but Kit gives the driver a quick wave and sloshes through the deep puddles to the sidewalk.

Ice cold water seeps through the worn-out soles of her boots as she clutches a little black notebook, no bigger than the palm of her hand, tightly to her chest. Kit has no idea how the book came to be in her possession, only that she had been meant to find it. It had been propped up on her bedside table when she had awoken this morning. Only four pages had been written on, the rest were blank.

The brief note scrawled in Elaine’s familiar, barely legible handwriting on the fourth page is imprinted in her mind. Kit had stared at it for so long that she had unconsciously memorized it:

Miss me? Eleanor Roosevelt said the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. So, go live. I love you; I’ll see you in Paris. – E

Paris, Kit thinks bitterly to herself, another dream we were forced to put away on a shelf, left up there to collect dust. It’s just like E to be so frustratingly whimsical. Already slick with rain, the leather-bound cover of the notebook sends tiny shock waves from Kit’s fingertips to her chest. I can’t turn back, she tells herself. I have to do this. For her.

The hospital looms ahead, a pitch-black monster silhouetted against the angry storm clouds clogging the evening sky. Kit hates hospitals, this one more than most. She has not been here since that day and had not planned on ever returning if she could help it. And yet here I am, all because of this stupid book. She curses her own morbid curiosity.

Kit steels herself against the stinging wind and trudges up the steps into the fluorescent lights of the hospital lobby. She shakes droplets of rainwater off the notebook in her hands and opens it to the first page, feeling her pulse quicken as she reads the name and address written there:

Ridgeview Trinity Hospital: 394 Ridgeview Rd. Room 317, Thomas Greene.

It’s eerie, seeing Elaine’s loopy, slanted letters written so plainly on the page. Haunting. It’s something that Kit had never expected to see again. A hollow pain begins throbbing from somewhere deep in her chest. Kit remembers how Elaine used to say her thoughts flew by too rapidly for her hand to possibly keep up. She wonders when Elaine had written the note and tries to imagine her wife’s dainty porcelain hand gripping the pen. A tangible memory to hold onto.

Somewhere in her mind, Kit wonders why Elaine had even bothered to write down the hospital’s address. They had both learned it by heart, by the end.

She approaches the nurses’ station. Ridgeview is a small hospital; Kit could likely find Room 317 on her own, but she figures it would be more polite to ask. The nurse seated at the desk looks up from her book with surprise.

“Kit! I wasn’t expecting to see you here so soon. It’s a terrible night to be out and about! How are you holding up?”

Kit ignores the question.

“I’m looking for Room 317. I’m here to see,” she checks the name written in the book again, “uh, Thomas Greene?”

The nurse looks confused for a moment; then her face lights up. “Oh, that’s wonderful to hear. Tom never gets any visitors! This will make his night. Technically visiting hours ended at five, but I think we can make an exception. Tom has no family that we know of. Not even a next of kin, the poor man. Let’s go see if he’s awake, shall we?”

The nurse stands and hurries down the hall, gesturing for Kit to follow.

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Meet the Author

Victoria St. Michael is a writer from Ontario, Canada. She has an Honours Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Ottawa and a Diploma in Journalism from Algonquin College, with bylines in various publications across Canada and the U.S. In her spare time she enjoys photography, horror movies, spilling her chaotic thoughts on her blog and going on adventures with her partner and their furbabies.

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