Halloween IPad Magic is Amazing!

SteffiSoehnchen posted this Twitter and it is so cool that even though I am not being original I am putting it up so you all can see it. It is. Here's a link to the people who have the whole story online: Mashable.





The magician is Simon Pierro.   He tells Mashables's Charlie White that it took ten weeks to prepare the spooky presentation. It is a bit darker than it is cute but either way it is amazing!


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Champagne Wishes and Incubus Dream: Anita Blake is Insatiable!

Image via WikipediaOh yes, I date myself with that reference.  Well, a long time ago there was a TV Show called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous hosted by an Englishman, Robin Leach.  The show, airing in syndication 1984 - 1995, capitalized on the American fascination with the lives of wealthy and famous people.  Back then champagne was "it," and Caviar was well beyond the reach of the normal person (still is I think). The tag of the show was Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams. A lot had to do with how Leach said it. When something is called three syllable word and dreams that jumps into my tiny  little head.  According to Jean-Marc Roche on IMDB.com:

Marking the start of a new era of celebrity-worship, this program spotlighted the eccentricities and excesses of a different member of the "rich and famous" each week. Special attention was always given to the prices paid for the various luxuries with which the upper crust enhanced their daily lives, ranging from spacious seaside villas, to classic cars, to gold-plated bathroom fixtures. Written by Jean-Marc Rocher <rocher@fiberbit.net> 

I tried to find you a soundbite of the tag line but couldn't.  Enough of that,...

So in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Series I am up to book 12, Incubus Dreams.  Books up to here have been crime and action with sex as a back theme. First Anita was, not a virgin but quite religious and saving herself for marriage. She then meets and falls in love with Richard a werewolf.  The couple decide to remain chaste until their marriage. Then they share Marks ( the way vampires connect to humans) with Jean Claude. As the Vampire Marks issue changes and grows, Anita ends up sleeping with many more men, And, in this book I actually lose count of how many men she has sex with.  Has she gone slutty, maybe a little, but most of her sluttification arises from a powerful energy suck called the ardeur.  It requires that she feed off sex and lust. If she gets too weak from not feeding this need a vampire tied to her starts to meet the true death.  He is one of the vampires with the wild hair so we wouldn't want him to die. 

Unfortunately, the ardeur strikes at the most inconvenient of times: the office, while she is driving, in the middle of anywhere. She has to at least have an orgasm.  So, she is living with 2 guys both were-leopards (she is the were-leopard queen), Micah and Nathanial.  Micah is the super supportive male were leopard counterpart, and Nathanial the ultra submissive stripper with floor length hair. A big question in this book is whether she will have sex with Nathanial. She is seeing up to 3 vampires and she still hankers after the werewolf she was in love with. She actually can't go anywhere, it seems, without someone with whom she can have sex. It's a good thing she's gained healing abilities because otherwise she would have internal injuries.

What happens as the sex become focal is that the action and the zombie raising become less important. As she leaves her plain old humanity aside, she is becoming a colder killer. But for the people she loves, she is anything but. This was a long Anita Blake book, it has startlingly hot sex scenes—very explicit oral sex especially, some other types of action, some zombie raising.

This is apparently an important book in the series. Since I haven't moved on it would seem to be a  break in her behavior as a paranormal criminologist. This book goes in real time so she only raises the occasional zombie and she is so powerful she doesn't need blood to bring them up anymore.

I found it very steamy—super steamy—is it hot in here steamy, I liked the minimizing of gruesome crime scenes.  I would sincerely recommend this.  It is certainly not a place to start the series.

By the way, I have found this site http://www.anitablakewiki.com/ very helpful in visualizing the characters since I find Laurell K. Hamilton's descriptions come up in my head with the thought that she has a screw loose.

Synopsis

Anita’s life is more complicated than ever, as she is caught between her obligations to the living and the undead. A vampire serial killer who preys on strippers is on the loose. Called in to consult on the case, Anita fears her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City. Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her, Anita does something unprecedented: she calls for help.
Anita is pushed to her limits-both professionally and passionately-when she is called in on what appears to be a case involving a vampire serial killer preying on strippers.  http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/works/incubus-dreams/

Mass Market Paperback: 752 pages
Publisher: Jove (September 27, 2005)
Kindle Edition: 1222 KB
Print Length: 752 pages
Sold by: Penguin Publishing
Also available in various audio formats

Purchasing the book through my website (click box below) helps me to offer giveaways as I receive a small commission. I often ship the books at my own cost and sometimes even buy them.  I cannot shop through my own portal.

Kindle format purchased.

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More Laurell K. Hamilton and Anita Blake

Cerulean Sins

Laurell K. Hamilton

Cover via Amazon

Cerulean Sins, the eleventh entry in the hugely-popular Anita Blake series, finds everyone’s favorite vampire hunter keeping house and kicking butt.
Anita Blake is trying to get her life back to “normal” after a break-up with her werewolf lover. She has settled into a pattern of domesticity, which means that the new man in her life, the leopard shapeshifter Micah, has no problem sharing her with Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City. Things are as peaceful as they ever get for someone who raises the dead, when Jean-Claude receives an unexpected and unwelcome visitor: Musette, the very beautiful, very twisted representative of the European Council of Vampires. Anita soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous game of vampire power politics.
To add to her troubles, she is asked to consult on a series of brutal killings, which seem to be the work of something un-human.
Once a sworn enemy of all monsters, Anita is now the human consort of both Master Vampire Jean Claude and leopard shapeshifter Micah. When a centuries-old vampire hits St. Louis, Anita finds herself needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves.
Anita Blake returns to find hell hath no fury like a vampire scorned.

The "official blurb" on LKH's website says

The investigation leads her to Cerulean Sins, a vampire-run establishment that deals in erotic videos, videos that cater to very specific tastes.

I thought that perhaps I had read the book while intoxicated and had forgotten the entire plot but a search of video, erotica, cerulean and sins, store,  brought up nothing having to do with an adult book store.  The criminality comes from an entirely different sector and ties into some friendly fed connections that Anita forged in Tennessee and New Mexico. What is developing is an attempt to balance her love life, her job, and being a Federal Marshall. She has to come to grips with new powers resulting from her membership in the triumverate, especially the ardeur a need to feed not on blood but on sex.  And, in this novel the hot heats up with the mysterious ardeur that Anita has picked up as a new power.  I think the ardeur gives Hamilton a license to have Anita screw anyone as needed with Anita then inculpable for her behavior; the ardeur made her do it. The violence is super gristley.

I do agree with some of Hamilton's critics, not only in this series but in the Meredith Gentry series Hamilton is obsessed with men's hair. Damian's hair "fell in a straight, silken curtain. scarlet, like a spill of blood."(Kindle Ed. p. 44) Asher's  hair is golden, Jean Claude's black. Jean Claude and Asher dress like the shopped at a Neverland Ranch Yard Sale.  I have a hard time not seeing the two ancient vampires as if they were in The Three Musketeers.

The upshot is that the I couldn't stop reading it but she should spend a little less time dressing up her men.  Somebody get Laurell a Bob Mackie Ken Doll!

• Mass Market Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Jove (August 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• Kindle Edition: 863 KB
• Publisher: Jove (April 1, 2010)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing

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A Guest Post from Eryn Lockhart About A Kick Ass Heroine

Welcome Eryn Lockhart and thank you for filling in for me while I let my now cancer free leg heal! I put out a request and Eryn stepped right up to the bat:


Hi everyone, I’m Eryn Lockhart, debut romance author a long-time  PNR/UF romance fan :) I’m thrilled to guest blog on Fangs Wands & Fairy Dust with a review for a  historical romance that has a little bit of fey magic, and a whole lot of enchantment:  Stronger than Magic, by Heather Cullman. Tracking down a copy without the aid of Amazon would probably be a heroic quest in its own right–but this story is unforgettable. How much so? More than 10 years and several hundred books after I first read it, I still remember the title, the story, and the characters–and it STILL ranks among the best fantasy romance I’ve ever read.

Stronger Than Magic presents a breathtaking fairytale, fully realized and fleshed-out, with characters that will make you laugh, cry, and keep rooting for them until they finally reach their hard-won happily ever after…but what truly makes Heather Cullman’s tale unique is the heroine. It’s not difficult to find a romance where the hero struggles for redemption;  but in this fairytale, it’s the heroine who takes the hard road, battling to right past wrongs, redeem herself, and save the one she loves.

I’ve always had a soft spot for heroines who claim their own destiny–and Alys is a girl who overcomes her flaws to save herself and her hero as well. Her transition from a vain, selfish, prideful beauty into one with heart, charm, and a tireless devotion to redeem the hero she unwittingly cursed and herself in the process is  fascinating to watch. The tortured hero’s growth from a withered soul to one who realizes the joy of living and the magic of love is enchanting–and the incorrigible presence of a wisecracking, lewdly perceptive hob are hilarious. The fairy realm and the London Season collide in a magical tale of redemption, salvation, misbegotten curses, & hilarious hi-jinks…and ends with the triumphant realization that true love really is Stronger Than Magic.

Here is a bit about Eryn from her website:

I am a latter-day gypsy, bookworm, and unrepentant chocoholic—few things are as exciting to me as travel, I practically inhale novels and could spend all day at Barnes & Noble, Borders, or Half-Price books, and I firmly believe dark chocolate isn’t candy, it’s heaven in bite-sized pieces.


I’ve been addicted to the Romance genre since my mom busted me for raiding her special shelves when I was 12; though it wasn’t until several years later that I began toying around with writing my own novels. I write historical, contemporary, and paranormal/urban fantasy romance, and right now I’m celebrating over finally releasing my debut novel, After Midnight.


I grew up as the oldest of five children, with a menagerie of pets. To this day, I’m still not a cat or dog person, I’m an animal person. Once you’ve added snakes, squirrels, sugar gliders, and iguanas to the usual line-up of companion animals, it adds a whole new dimension to the kinds of critters you feel comfortable with.


When I’m not writing or reading, I’m usually watching movies, listening to music playing videogames, or experimenting with spicy food (my specialties are Tex-Mex and Thai). On nights when I go out, it’s usually to karaoke, dance halls, restaurants, or (if I’m lucky) travelling and scuba diving. http://www.erynlockhart.x10.mx/books.html#books

Eryn's own books include:

The Hellfire Bride  is my 1st novella, a Regency Romance set in 1827. At approx. 14,700 words, it's a wonderful story perfect for lunch breaks, before bed, or whenever you've got a few moments to spare. So, feel free to check it out, and spend a little while in a thrilling escape to a by-gone era, on a whirlwind journey of suspense, passion, and love.
http://www.erynlockhart.x10.mx/books.html#books

After Midnight: Lucien Warrick's years of service as an agent of the Crown have prepared him for anything...except Jacqueline Gervais; a spirited French refugee who's skills in deception and sabotage rival his own. Together, they discover that the path to true love goes hand in hand with a mission that can make or break an empire.
http://www.erynlockhart.x10.mx/books.html#books

ERYN,
THANKS SO MUCH








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Hop On Board Parajunkee Follow Friday

THIS WEEK'S FOLLOW FEATURES:

If you are new to the #FF fun, Feature & Follow Friday is a blog hop that expands your blog following by a joint effort between bloggers. Feature & Follow Friday is now hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee's View  of course and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it’ll allow us to show off more new blogs!

This week we are asked:

Q: If you could have dinner with your favorite book character, who would you eat with and what would you serve?

I think I would want to have dinner with Alexia Tarrabotti from the Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger.  Alexia has never been shy of letting us know what her favorite foods are so the menu would be simple: High Cream Tea with Treacle Tarts and assorted other finger foods.

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BETTER OFF RED, New Giveaway Prize!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rebekah Weatherspoon

Introducing Rebekah Weatherspoon

Another lovely writer also offered to step up and help me out today.

After years of meddling in her friends’ love lives, Rebekah turned to writing romance as a means to surviving a stressful professional life. She has worked in various positions from library assistant, meter maid, middle school teacher, B movie production assistant, reality show crew chauffeur, D movie producer, and her most fulfilling job to date, lube and harness specialist at an erotic boutique in West Hollywood. She was raised in Southern New Hampshire and now lives in Southern California with an individual who is much more tech savvy than she ever will be. Better Off Red is her first novel.

Better Off Red: Vampire Sorority Sisters Book 1 

Synopsis:

Every sorority has its secrets...

And college freshman Ginger Carmichael couldn't care less. She has more important things on her mind, like maintaining her perfect GPA. No matter how much she can't stand the idea of the cliques and the matching colors, there's something about the girls of Alpha Beta Omega—their beauty, confidence, and unapologetic sexuality—that draws Ginger in. But once initiation begins, Ginger finds that her pledge is more than a bond of sisterhood, it’s a lifelong pact to serve six bloodthirsty demons with a lot more than nutritional needs.

Despite her fears, Ginger falls hard for the immortal queen of this nest, and as the semester draws to a close, she sees that protecting her family from the secret of her forbidden love is much harder than studying for finals.

❦

In discussing this post with Steph, she threw a few questions my way. Mostly to get me thinking, but two of the questions she posed actually struck my interest. Why do I write paranormal romance? And how does lesbian paranormal romance differ from heterosexual paranormal romance or in other words, why lesbian paranormal romance?

I'm horrible with academic responses, but I can tell you how I feel. I haven't read every lesbian romance there is and I certainly haven't read every paranormal romance, but at some point in the last three years I fell in love with vampires and werewolves. Like some of you, my first taste of paranormal romance came through JR Ward and Lara Adrian's Brotherhood and Midnight Breeds. Twilight was my first foray into the genre, but I consider that to be a young adult romance since Meyer's vampires don't act very vampirey. :). Kate Douglas and Patricia Briggs introduced me to their werewolves of the Northwest and after reading and in most cases rereading these love stories, I was hooked. Glamored even. There's something so sexy about a vampire that wants your love, your body and your blood. How hot is it to think that some sexy man-wolf can over come his inner beast to choose the right woman to be bound with forever. I loved the worlds that were being opened to me through vampires and weres and those were worlds I wanted to play in myself.

Why lesbian paranormal romance? People ask me this all the time, so I'll share it here.The answer is, I don't know. I've written straight romances, gay and lesbian and bisexual romances and they all share similar themes. Men and women do relate to each other differently and of course there's the matter of sex, but a love story is a love story. Following a couple's journey as they fight the odds to come together is a universal thing, in my eyes. The difference with Better Off Red lay in the fact that the idea of a lesbian sorority that caters to the needs of a group of female vampires, came to me all at once. There was no brainstorming.
The characters came to me quickly and right away there was no considering whether or not Ginger should be a lesbian, she just was. She's a redhead. I love redheads. She's got a good sense of humor and she's a little bit of a nerd. I liked her and I wanted to write more about her and her collegiate adventures. Hence the sister of Alpha Beta Omega Sorority were born.

I'm hoping readers in the LGBT community can related to Ginger's experience, but they aren't they only group of readers who can find LGBT stories to be accessible. Labels, though sometimes necessary when it comes to shelving and search results, can scare some people away. Readers might think, “I'm not a lesbian. This book isn't for me.”, but I'll say Ginger isn't a stereotype. Ginger is regular college student. She's studies hard and sometimes she oversleeps. In the end she falls for another woman. I would call this a romance first, a vampire romance second and then a lesbian romance to narrow down the specifics. Anyone who has felt that first taste of infatuation can relate to Ginger. At least I hope so. :)

EVEN BETTER

  REBEKAH is adding a signed paperback of her steamy new book to the Spooktacular Hop going on until the 31st on my giveaway page.

Easy entry, no follow required, there will not be a quiz. 

THANKS REBEKAH FOR HELPING ME OUT!  Much Appreciated and I owe you!

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (November 15, 2011)
• Language: English

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Third Sentence Thursday has Incubus Dreams

Third Sentence Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Sniffly Kitty's Mostly Books which likes to curl up with a good book and hot chocolate!

1) Take the book you are reading now and post the third sentence on your own blog or over at Sniffly's please post a link to it here and I will love to check it out!
2) Review this sentence anyway you want (funny and silly reviews encouraged)

Image via Wikipedia3) Post a link to your sentence here (in the comments) or if you don't have a blog let me know you have popped over to Sniffly's!

This week I am feeding a craving for Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Series. I am on the twelfth book,
Incubus Dreams. These books have definitely been heating up in the past few volumes.  But you wouldn't know that from this third sentence which I have gussied up in honor of Halloween!

Well, that sounds charming, kind of like the bride is marrying Sweeney Todd. If the bride baked meat pies I'd be concerned. But, thank goodness she is just a witch and  police officer.


SPEAKING OF HOT:
Tomorrow, I have an exciting guest post from author Rebekah Weatherspoon and we'll be adding a signed paper back copy of her new book, Better off Red  to my SPOOKTACULAR GIVEAWAY HOP CONTEST (Domestic only)! All entries will count toward this book.

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Anita Blake Goes Wild!

Narcissus in Chains

Laurell K. Hamilton

Synopsis:

Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the New York Times bestseller A Kiss of Shadows, returns to the series that started it all. Narcissus in Chains, the tenth installment in the ever-popular Anita Blake series, finds everyone’s favorite vampire hunter back on her home turf and delving into the heart of human—and non-human—darkness.

Men are men. Jean Claude and Richard are each something else entirely. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, torn between them, has been avoiding both vampire and werewolf for months. But when a kidnapper targets innocents she has sworn to protect, Anita turns to them for help, which will require harnessing both their powers—and their hungers…

Six months of celibacy have made Anita crave the two men in her life like never before. But merging their powers together will give this mortal woman a taste of immortal hunger that she’ll never be able to forget. http://www.laurellkhamilton.orghttp://www.laurellkhamilton.org

The first Anita Blake book I read was late in the series; past this one and Cerulean Sins. I can't remember which though.  In it Anita has her many beaus and seems much more confident in her sexuality and pretty much everything. So when I started the series you can imagine my surprise on finding this very young woman who had such a stick up her, you get the idea.  If I hadn't read the later book (Flirt maybe?) I probably wouldn't have stuck with the series since people in chaste, adult relationships struggling with their religious issues is so not my interest. Been there.

For me the value in this series is the growth of the main character, Anita Blake, who finally in this book has removed the big stick and replaced it with something much sexier. But, she also is coming to grips with a morality that doesn't come out of a book or a building, she is learning about her moral boundaries and where she will go to protect the people she loves or for whom she has taken responsibility.  It's just shy of being Bushian in its you're either with us or agin' us black or white.  Like a painter she is learning to see a wider range of grey. She is also learning that the darkest places in the soul can yield great strength, and they are often dark due to our own projections.

  Alternate cover Image via Wikipedia

What attracted me first to Hamilton's work was the Meredith Gentry series.  It is fascinating that LKH has two series each with a female main character with multiple male partners.   And LKH has a deft hand with prose.  There are often beautiful sentences mixed in. Especially where sex is involved.

I am amused that Anita has a job but spends more of her time chasing the monsters than she does necromancing the zombies from the earth. She has found a whole new level of necromancy—similar to the theme of last season's True Blood but minus the Inquisition.

So, since I am ahead right now I am going to present several of these books this week.

I highly recommend the series.  Narcissus in Chains has some gruesomely graphic violence and some equally hot love scenes. Enjoy!

Mass Market Paperback of Narcissus in Chains 656 pages
Publisher: Jove (September 24, 2002)
Language: English
Kindle Edition of Narcissus in Chains  988 KB
Print Length: 432 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0425181685
Publisher: Jove (October 1, 2001)
Sold by: Penguin Publishing                               Which cover do you like better????

 

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Kitty Is An Odd Name for A Werewolf

Kitty and the  Midnight Hour (Kitty Norville, Book 1)
Carrie Vaughan
Image via Wikipedia
 

Kitty Norville is a midnight-shift DJ for a Denver radio station?and a werewolf in the closet. Her new late-night advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged is a raging success, but it?s Kitty who can use some help. With one sexy werewolf-hunter and a few homicidal undead on her tail, Kitty may have bitten off more than she can chew?

 This inaugural book in the Kitty Norville series came out in 2005 so I am a bit behind the times. But, I hate to pick up a series and feel I am missing so much history and back story.  I also think it is likely that  there are a few people who haven't'  gotten to this series yet.
Once again we have a world where humanity is learning that it has other species living side by side with it: were-creatures and vampires, so far. Kitty is sort of the one to break the news to the world and that has a lot of ramifications for people, and the other people who are not entirely human.  But, with a few exceptions it's not humanity being the big bad wolf here, instead it is the big bad wolf and the big bad vampires.

During the  1980's in the work world when women were continuing to break professional limitations you would hear that women were our own worst enemies.  Well, in this book you see the werewolf Alpha being a bad influence on his pack. And, the rogue elements doing stupid things, they aren't helping any. Human police aren't interested in pack law.

The writing here is dancing around the ideas that are probably going to define the series in the books that are currently out.   Kitty's independence and empathy, friendship, brokering compromise between herself and other species.  Humanity getting it together on the issue.  It would be a lot like discovering life on other planets, only that life would be here. I hope we get to romance at some point. I already have book two Kitty goes to Washington.

I am looking forward to seeing how Ms. Vaughn has developed the characters and the story.

• Kindle Edition: 385 KB
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (January 9, 2007)
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English

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SPOOKTACULARLY SPOOKTACULAR GIVEAWAY HOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excited about Halloween??
I SURE AM!

Hosted by

I AM A READER NOT A WRITER &

THE DIARY OF A BOOKWORM

Over 400 blogs participating!

PRIZES

INTERNATIONAL ONLY (NOT USA)

Up to $10 worth of books from the book depository If and Only If your country is on the list of countries to which they ship free. And entrant must certify they are of legal age in their location and entering and receipt of a giveaway prize is legal where they reside or are domiciled.

USA ONLY I HAVE TWO COPIES OF DRINK DEEP BY CHLOE NEILL and ONE COPY OF THE NIGHT STRANGERS (signed) by CHRIS BOHJALIAN to offer as prizes:

 TO ENTER GO TO MY

GIVEAWAYS PAGE!

DRINK DEEP COPIES Thanks to the lovely people at  New American Library of Penguin Publications!

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THE NIGHT STRANGERS Chris Bohjalian

A Dark, New Hallway for This Popular Author

I have already written about Chris' new book, The Night Strangers in my post, Meeting Somebody You Already Know. He sometimes jokes that he should add Vampires to the titles of his books, or even come combination of Vampires and The Vatican, or The Davinci Vampires so they would achieve a wider audience (though he doesn't do too badly). 
He also credits the spate of popular books in the Paranormal genre have come out  with increased readership statistics.

But, if Chris were speaking about spooky and paranormal  as far as content goes he has hit the spooky nail on its metaphysical head. This book was scary on many levels.  The whole plane crash into a lake, in this case Champlain was pretty terrifying (Chris offers three plane crash survival tips should you ever be so unfortunate).  Then being haunted by angry dead passengers is another.  And, the thrills keep on coming. This is the most viscerally scary book I have read in a long time.  Granted, I don't read scary much because I am easy to scare.

Here is a synopsis of the story from Chris' website:

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story.
In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.
The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?
The result is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply.
The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead. http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/the-night-strangers

I asked Chris three questions about the book which he answered between planes on the book tour.

ME: In the book the pilot, Chip, is written in the second person which Wikipedia defines as the rarest form of Narrative.

How did you decide to write Chip in the second person You and what does it represent—detachment, dissociative disorder?

CHRIS: I used the second person for a portion of the novel for two reasons. First, I liked the immediacy and the way it drops a reader directly into Chip's battered psyche. Think of when we usually see the second person: cookbooks ("now you break two eggs") and ikea assembly instructions. Second, I hoped it would convey his disorientation and his descent into
madness. When I was writing those scenes, it helped me to experience the way regret and remorse were literally driving him mad.

ME:  In the book, several of the rooms in the old house which they are renovating have ghastly and disturbing wallpaper. I asked: What is the nightmarish wallpaper about--you  mention it several times?

CHRIS: Some of that was inspired by some of wallpaper my wife and I stripped from our house when we moved in — though none of it was quite as disturbing as what the Lintons found.


In the novel, I wanted the house to be a character, too: foreboding, yes, but also eccentric and idiosyncratic. I wanted it to be a little menacing, like all good haunted houses.

ME: We hear a lot from authors that the characters take on a life of their own.  Other authors say that they plan every detail. I would be rather surprised if  a character took on a life of its own. I asked Chris what surprised him when he was writing the story?

Chris:  I was most surprised when the metaphoric ghosts became literal ones. I was about a third of the way through the novel. I did not expect that when I started the tale.

The book is a real thriller. Chris often writes emotionally disturbed characters, but her he has also written in the paranormal elements:  ghosts and witches.   I highly recommend this to adults. There is a little sex, and there is quite a bit of unsettling imagery. 

❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦

Chris has an uncanny knack for writing female characters. And, one reviewer for A Midwives Tale reviewed the book as if he were a woman. I often don't read male authors because they just don't get the voice. Chris' is the one male writer I read regularly.

Get the book. It is just the right time of year!

I will be giving one signed copy of THE NIGHT STRANGERS to a lucky winner in the Spooktacular Give away hop which begins at the first strike of twelve Monday morning(9/24) and ends on Halloween! I will also be giving away a new copy of Chloe Neill's new release, DRINK DEEP. The book giveaway is US only but for people living outside the US I am offering up to $10 in books at the Book Depository (as long as they shop to your country free, and you are of legal age to enter contests there).

DETAILS
Chris' Website: http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/

Amazon Availability:
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown (October 4, 2011)
Language: English
Kindle: 2295 KB
Print Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown (October 4, 2011)
Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
Also available is audio formats.

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A Touch of Frost And I thought Nike was just a brand name

Touch of Frost

by Jennifer Estep

Seriously, I had no idea what was going on behind the walls of private schools!

From the outside, Mythos Academy looked like an elite Ivy League prep school, even though it was located in Cypress Mountain, just outside of Asheville, up in the high country of western North Carolina. Everything about the academy whispered of money, power, and snobbery, from the ivy-covered stone buildings to the perfectly manicured grassy quads to the dining hall that was more like a five-star restaurant than a school cafeteria. Yeah, from the outside, the academy looked exactly like the kind of place rich people would send their spoiled trust fund babies to in preparation for them going on to Yale, Harvard, Duke, or some other acceptably expensive college.
Inside, though, it was a different story.
Excerpt: Touch of Frost Chapter Two

Book Description

Gwen Frost is an outsider at Mythos Academy, a school of myths, magic and warrior whiz kids, where even the lowliest geek knows how to chop off somebody's head with a sword. Gwen is an outsider both to the students of the Academy and the rest of the world. But when her gift of psychometry - the ability to know an object's history just by touching it reveals dark undercurrents and danger afoot, she has no choice but to get involved.
Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy) Amazon.com

THE GODDESS NIKE
http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/T24.1.html*

What a good story. This series is for older teens. I admire that Estep doesn't try to gloss over the vices of teens; there is no "visible" sex but it is inferred and "heard," and there is a reasonable amount of I-am-going-to-kill-you-bitch violence.

I did ask Estep about the age thing and it is she who recommends the
High School and older. The description of sex throughout, mostly in Gwen's personal monologue is pretty , is not explicate, then vivid.

But, I admire that Jennifer steps up to the plate.  Teens don't necessarily "hook-up," but they also don't just go down to the soda shop for a cherry coke. It is more likely they are at an event, with other teens and there may be substances around and there will be sex. Or, they might be at a house listening to music or watching a movie. Or, any one of a hundred things but teens have massive amounts of the hormones that make you sexual and their frontal lobes have not even fully developed yet.   Too often the truth of that is ignored. Rachel Vincent also gets it. But a lot of YA writers don't write the realities of teen life.
Sorry for the little rant.  It takes guts to write the sex in.
 
And, like a teen, Esteps's characters are  at times  mature and at times immature; like the breaking of an adolescent boy's voice. Sometimes Gwen is strong and does the adult thing. And others she wears a bravado and then there is the girl who lost her mother six-months ago. And, I don't think she would be sexually active yet, but Gwen is no shrinking violet. She has some very romantic feelings. For a time she seems physically inept due to having been kept in the dark about her heritage, but she has courage in spades!

I recommend that a parent at least skim the book, although I recommend to them as a good read as well, so s/he can discuss it with their teen.

Estep did a ton of research for this book.  I had no idea about Loki being imprisoned. I also enjoyed all the groups mixing together: the Vikings, the Romans, The Spartans, The Valkyrie, the Amazons, etc.  Gwen is a Gypsy.  Estep says,

Gypsies are folks/families who are gifted by magic by one of the gods — not just Nike. Gwen will meet other Gypsies who serve other gods as the series goes along.

There are some similarities between this and other stories in this YA genre, for example Percy Jackson.  Bringing a lesser known goddess like Nike into the mix is nice as it frees us from what we think we know about mythology. 

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys YA, but only older teens.

Amazon Availaility: 

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Kensington; 1 edition (August 1, 2011)
• Kindle Edition: 488 KB Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
•  Also available in a library binding

I would love for you to use my Amazon link to buy this book. It is available at a variety of online shops and brick and mortar bookshops.

* Description of art:
Museum Collection, Archer M Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA 
Painter: Attributed to the Oionokles Painter, Date: ca 470 BC Period: Early Classical
Description: A flying, winged Nike Mousa, goddess of musical victory, with kithara and phiale.

Disclosure: I won this book in an online giveaway from the author.




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