Review + Giveaway: Shudder by Samantha Durante

It's only been three days, and already everything is different.

Paragon is behind her, but somehow Alessa's life may actually have gotten worse. In a wrenching twist of fate, she traded the safety and companionship of her sister for that of her true love, losing a vital partner she'd counted on for the ordeal ahead. Her comfortable university life is but a distant memory, as she faces the prospect of surviving a bleak winter on the meager remains of a ravaged world. And if she'd thought she'd tasted fear upon seeing a ghost, she was wrong; now she's discovering new depths of terror while being hunted by a deadly virus and a terrifying pack of superhuman creatures thirsting for blood.

And then there are the visions.

The memory-altering "stitch" unlocked something in Alessa's mind, and now she can't shake the constant flood of alien feelings ransacking her emotions. Haunting memories of an old flame are driving a deep and painful rift into her once-secure relationship. And a series of staggering revelations about the treacherous Engineers - and the bone-chilling deceit shrouding her world's sorry history - will soon leave Alessa reeling...

The second installment in the electrifying Stitch Trilogy, Shudder follows Samantha Durante's shocking and innovative debut with a heart-pounding, paranormal-dusted dystopian adventure sure to keep the pages turning.

Stitch was one of those books that, even months and months later, has stuck with me. Five glowing stars, but the thing that made it difficult to review was the fact that I didn’t want to spoil anything for those who hadn’t had the privilege of reading it. Same goes here, and it’s so hard not to just gush about all the things I love about this series so far! To sum it up, Samantha Durante has this wonderful talent for taking it to the next level. Topping it off with a writing style that keeps you hooked, Samantha never fails to throw you for a loop, smacking you head on with surprises that you never see coming.

We jump right into the action with Shudder with Alessa and Isaac on the run, doing their best to survive winter storms, attacks from strange creatures, and the fear of the disease that’s wiped out the population. Where unusual circumstances left you wondering what their truths really were in Stitch, we really get to attach ourselves to these characters in Shudder. Their relationship and the way they hold each other up is amazing. You can’t not fall in love with them.

I’m a huge fan of multiple perspectives. I know a lot of people tend to find it disorganized or confusing when reading, but trust me, Samantha Durante pulls it off in a way that I’m sure every reader can appreciate. We get to see different sides of the story, get to feel the different emotions from various points of view. Not only that, but we are able to become close not only to Alessa and Isaac, but other characters who play an important role. How can you not become invested in a story with all that at your fingertips?

One element of Samantha Durante’s novels that has struck me is the world building and description. You really do feel like you’re there with the characters in whatever environment they find themselves in. Not only that, but the history and the background that she lays out as a foundation is done really well, allowing the rest of the story to be built in a way that seems effortless.

Shudder builds and builds and builds, intriguing you from the very beginning, making you question and wonder to again slap you in the face with another twist. Nonstop action, beautifully written characters, and impeccable world-building, this is definitely a series to add to your shelf.

Samantha Durante lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, Sudeep, and her cat, Gio. Formerly an engineer at Microsoft, Samantha left the world of software in 2010 to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams and a lifelong love of writing. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, Samantha is currently working full time for her company Medley Media Associates as a freelance business writer and communications consultant. The Stitch Trilogy is her debut series. Learn more about Samantha at www.samanthadurante.com.

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Tour Stop: An Endless Summer by CJ Duggan

Sean looked out over the lake, squinting against the sunlight. He turned to me, his expression sobering as his eyes flicked over my face in a silent study.

“Come on Amy, I saved you once, I’ll save you again.”
I met his stare unflinchingly. “I don’t need saving.”
A wicked grin formed slowly. “Don’t you?”

After a rebellious summer night that almost claimed her life, Amy Henderson – the Onslow publican’s only daughter – is sent away to suffer a fate far worse than any other punishment:

Boarding School.

Three years on, a now nineteen-year-old Amy returns to Onslow for the summer. What once was a cauldron of activity with live bands, hot meals and cold beers, the Onslow Hotel now lies dark, deserted and depressing. All fond childhood memories of loitering on the hotel stairs and eavesdropping on customers’ colourful conversations are in the distant past.

How had her dad let it come to this?

With the new threat of putting the Onslow up for sale, Amy reluctantly turns to a local tradesman for help: Sean Murphy, the very same Onslow boy who saved her life all those years ago. With his help and that of some old friends, the task is clear: spend the summer building the hotel back up to its former glory or lose it for good.

In an endless summer, Amy soon realises that sometimes in order to save your future, you have to face your past, even if it’s in the form of a smug, gorgeous Onslow boy.

C.J. Duggan has a writing style and an ability to tell a story that makes it impossible to put the freaking book down. I lost a lot of sleep reading The Boys of Summer, and I expected nothing less of An Endless Summer. 

Sean is one of my favorite characters in this amazing series. When I imagine him, all I can see is this mischievous glint in his blue eyes, and the rest is history. As for Amy, not so much. When a Henderson is described as pig-headed, I'd say that's an understatement. Amy is the queen of stubborn. So much so, that I kinda wanted to slap her around a bit to make her come to her senses and quit denying herself. 

The connection between Sean and Amy is... push and pull. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a spark that ignites a roaring flame, but holy crap, Amy does all she can to douse the heat. Thank goodness for Sean and his ability to keep it cool in the awkward situations Amy creates in her head.

The Australian setting and lingo are fascinating to me. Being an all-American girl, I had to look up a few of the words and try to imagine my butchered version of an Australian accent, but I loved being taken somewhere I've never been before. C.J. Duggan immerses you in this world of the Onslow and it feels like you're on summer vacation.

The characters in this series are intense. They've got their complications and conflicted emotions, and it's impossible not to love every one of them. Even Chris with his bossiness and constant grouchy aura. I felt a connection with Sean and Amy in the first book of the series, so reading a story about the two of them only made that stronger. 

I can't wait to see what Duggan comes up with next. Highly recommend!

C.J Duggan is an Australian author who lives with her husband in a rural border town of New South Wales, Australia.
The Boys of Summer is Book One in her Mature Young Adult Romance Series.

   

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Tour Stop! Review: In Too Deep by Michelle Kemper Brownlow

Gracie has just finished her freshman year of college in Memphis when she takes a job at a local pizza joint in her home town of McKenzie, Tennessee. She is the epitome of innocence when she meets Noah. Noah is unabashedly handsome, intriguingly reckless and just cocky enough to be sexy. Gracie’s instincts tell her to stay far away from him and based on the stories she hears from her co-workers he leaves broken hearts in his wake. But still, she can’t explain her fascination with him.

Noah puts aside his bad boy ways when what he thought was a summer crush has him unexpectedly falling in love. But soon after Gracie transfers to UT Knoxville to be with Noah, their unexpected love becomes riddled with anger, deceit and humiliation.

Jake, Noah’s former roommate and Gracie’s best friend, can no longer be a bystander. Gracie’s world falls out from beneath her and when she breaks she turns to Jake for strength. As Jake talks her through a decision she’s not yet strong enough to make, together they uncover a truth so ugly neither of them is prepared for its fallout. Will Jake pull her to the surface or is Gracie Jordan finally In Too Deep?

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes you dive into a novel and it touches you on such a personal level  that it changes your entire perspective. In Too Deep is one of those novels for me.

This may be when you decide if you're going to sacrifice what you deserve for something you settle for.

Grace falls under the spell of Noah, this bad boy with a reputation for treating girls like commodities. Somehow, though, he's different with her, or she lets herself believe.

The truth is, he treats her like crap, and everyone but Grace can see that. He manipulates her, making her believe that her pain is her own fault at times, so on top of her beaten heart, she feels guilt. It's mental abuse, and it sucks.

At times, I felt like I was Grace. I've been in her shoes, so while some may have seen her as weak, I could understand, to a certain extent, what she was experiencing and how she reacted.She was blinded by the belief Noah put into her mind that everything bad that was happening was somehow her fault. I'll admit, as the novel progressed, there were times I was annoyed with her. There were fleeting moments when I thought she'd finally stand up for herself, but she was always, always so afraid. She gave Noah way too many chances, and I was hoping she'd see she had a way out, but it took her a long time and an ocean of tears to get to that point. Grace, despite what Jake might say, was never a strong character. She always gives in despite her fears and better judgement, and even when there is a point when she was no longer blinded, she just keeps making stupid decisions that she knows will hurt her.  She feels like she can't stand on her own without someone holding her up, and it's this that made her weak. She refuses to face her fears, and if I was annoyed, it was because of that.

Grace is one of those characters that readers will either understand or won't be able tolerate. Unfortunately, and I hate to say this, but she may be what breaks the connection to this novel for some readers.

That being said, her character is not what touched me. It was the messages of those around her, those who loved her, that sucker punched me. Jake, for one, is an inspiration. He's too friggin' good to be true, and I love him for it. It's funny how long an experience like Grace's can stick with you. You're constantly afraid of letting people get too close for fear that they will begin to manipulate you - that you won't even know it until it's too late. You're also constantly on the defense, and you always feel like you owe people for their time.

Grace is one lucky girl to have someone like Jake who can make sense of the world she's become so lost in. He makes her believe that people aren't there just to take what they can from you. And in giving her his time, support, and love, that doesn't mean she owes him anything. That's what people who truly care about you do, unconditionally, and believing she's anything less than an amazing person that people would like to spend time with just to be around her is the work of Noah's poison.

The message really slapped me in the face, and at times, I had to put the book down and take a deep breath because of how overwhelmed I was. One thing's for sure: this book brought me to some realizations that never struck before, and I like to think I can see more clearly because of it.

I fell in love with this novel. It was tragic and extremely personal, but it was also hopeful all the way through. It's a book I would definitely recommend, but I would also remind you put yourself in Grace's shoes as you go along and have an open mind about how she's feeling. It can be frustrating, but more often than not, it rings true for a person who's been in her situation.

Michelle Kemper Brownlow has been a storyteller her entire life. Her debut was on the high school cheerleading bus granting requests to re-tell her most embarrassing moments for a gaggle of hysterical squadmates. Earning her Bachelor’s degree from Penn State University in Art Education and then marrying her very own “Jake,” she moved to Binghamton, NY where she taught high school. After having two children she quit work and finished her Master’s degree in Elementary Education at Binghamton University. The Brownlow family of four moved to Michelle’s hometown of Morgantown, PA while the children were still quite young. A few years after moving, her family grew by one when they welcomed a baby into their home through the gift of adoption. The family still resides in PA, just miles from where that high school cheer bus was parked. Michelle has been an artist for as long as she can remember, always choosing pencils and crayons over toys and puzzles. As a freelance illustrator, her simple characters play the starring roles in numerous emergent reader books published by Reading Reading Books. “Writing is my way of making sense of the world. When I give my characters life on the pages I write, it frees up space in my mind to welcome in new stories that are begging to be told,” says Brownlow.

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Book Blitz: Snow White Sorrow by Cameron Jace

What if all you knew about fairy tales was wrong?

Sixteen year old Loki Blackstar is no Prince Charming. His mother is a ghost. His only friend is a red Cadillac that sings to him through the radio. He looks like an Angel but acts like jerk. No wonder he has been banned from Heaven, which is the least of his troubles. Loki needs a job to pay for school and support himself.

Still, Loki has a rare gift: He is a Dreamhunter. One of the few in the world who can hunt and kill immortal demons in their dreams so they never wake up again. 

When Loki is sent to kill a sixteen-year-old vampire girl the locals call Snow White Sorrow, he is pulled into a magical but dangerous world. The locals believe the monster to be Snow White.

The real Snow White... living in the ruins of an ancient castle in a small town. She is described as horribly beautiful, terrifyingly enchanting, and wickedly lovely.

What he finds instead is a beautiful monster girl filled with rage and hurt, who has an epic untold story to tell of things such like why the Brothers Grimm altered the fairy tale, who the Evil Queen really is, where the mirror came from, and who possessed it.

Snow White has killed every person who has dared come near the castle where she once lived with the queen. Mysteriously, she lets Loki live, and whispers two words in his ears; two words that will change his life forever.

I've been looking forward to reading this one ever since I first laid eyes on the cover. Then I made my way over to the synopsis, and I was done for. A retelling of Snow White? In which she's closer to a monster than an angel? I can dig it. Love dark retellings of classic fairy tales, and this is one that I will most definitely be reading asap.

Sound good to you? How can it not? Seriously. To get a little more of Snow White Sorrow, keep scrolling for *bonus* a giveaway. On top of all that, I'm including an excerpt from Snow White Blood Red, the prequel to Snow White Sorrow.

:excerpt:

Dear Wilhelm Carl Grimm,

She is not that giddy, naïve, and helpless princess she pretends to be. Please don’t let her fool you with her innocence if you see her sing to the birds in the forest. Resist her charm from bringing joyful tears to your eyes, and shield yourself from her devious beauty before she deceives you into wanting to kiss her awake. It'll  be a kiss of death. Your death. That’s how she fooled the Huntsman, Prince Charming, and me, her birth mother.
I still remember the original script of the fairy tale, the one you wrote in 1812. It clearly stated that she was my own flesh and blood daughter. I don’t have the slightest idea why you altered it fifty years later.
What was the point of turning me into an evil, narcissistic, and heartless stepmother, blinded by jealousy and envy of the young princess?
For years, I have been looking forward to telling you the truth about her, but you were impossible to reach.
I am glad I found your brother, Jacob. He told me that you wanted to tone the stories down so children could sleep better at night, instead of having nightmares about the Queen who sought to eat her daughter’s heart and liver.
Shame on you, Wilhelm.
You, of all authors, knew why I wanted to kill her. My actions were justified. I was trying to save my kingdom from her wrath, before everything we loved was destined to an end. The same way you had to rewrite the true fairytales after cursing us, so the War of Sorrows would end forever after.
Night after night, and year after year, parents fed their children false bedtime stories, until your lies grew into inescapable memories. Your happily ever after lies, Wilhelm, shaped the so called fairy tale world.
I wondered why you didn’t burn the original scripts, instead of rewriting them. You must have figured out that sooner or later someone would dig up the truth and expose you. Altering it was the smarter solution. You let children believe that the bites were resurrecting kisses, and that torturing glass coffins were made for sleeping beauties, waiting for a prince to come and kiss them awake.
A wise man once said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he was someone else. You did the same with us, Wilhelm. You turned us into pastiches of the immortals that we really are, and made it harder for us if wanted to persuade the world otherwise.
I know that you did it to save us from her. And I appreciate how you concealed our real names, or we would have ended up like Rumpelstiltskin, tortured by those who knew of his real name.
But sometimes, I can’t help but wonder why no one ever questioned why I was called the Evil Queen, and why I was never given a real name in the books.
Was I so superficial to the world, so stereotypical and mundane? Why was I treated as if I were the monster of the week?
You know what I think? I think that the world never got the time to hate me. It just wanted to hate me long before it met me.
If I tell those who detest me about the true nature of their little princess, would they ever care about me half as much as they care about her?
I know that deep inside, they adore me. They like the way I talk, walk, dress, and even the way I kill.
They are just afraid to admit how much they love me. I am the Snow White Queen, strong enough that I don’t need anyone’s pity or love, because I am loved by the greatest and most majestic heart in the world:
Mine.

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Wonderlander, Neverlander, Unicorn-chaser, enchanter, musician, survived a coma, & totally awesome. Sometimes I tell stories. Always luv the little monsters      I write young adult paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and science fiction mostly. The Grimm Diaries series is a seven book saga that deals with retellings of fairy tales from a young adult POV - it connects most of the fairy tales together and claims to be the truth about fairy tales.      I live in San Fransisco and seriously think circles are way cooler than triangles.

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Excerpt + Giveaway: The Liberator by Victoria Scott

Bad boy, meet bad girl.

Dante has a shiny new cuff wrapped around his ankle, and he doesn't like that mess one bit. His new accessory comes straight from Big Guy himself and marks the former demon as a liberator. Despite his gritty past and bad boy ways, Dante Walker has been granted a second chance.

When Dante is given his first mission as a liberator to save the soul of seventeen-year-old Aspen, he knows he’s got this. But Aspen reminds him of the rebellious life he used to live and is making it difficult to resist sinful temptations. Though Dante is committed to living clean for his girlfriend Charlie, this dude’s been a playboy for far too long…and old demons die hard. 

With Charlie becoming the girl she was never able to be pre-makeover and Aspen showing him how delicious it feels to embrace his inner beast, Dante will have to go somewhere he never thought he’d return to in order to accomplish the impossible: save the girl he’s been assigned to, and keep the girl he loves.

Woohoo! I loved The Collector by Victoria Scott (Review here.) so I was more than stoked to discover I had this little gem of a sneak peak of the second book in the series, The Liberator. Not to mention that our lovely Victoria Scott is giving away a digital copy of The Collector. It's Dante time all year long ;). 

So without further rambling, here's the excerpt, as promised. (& keep scrolling to enter the giveaway!!)

When I open my eyes, the sun is trying to murder me. It’s shining on my face and making my head pound. Or maybe it’s my hangover that’s giving me the headache, but nonetheless—me and the sun?—we’re not on friendly terms.

Charlie murmurs beside me. My arms are still wrapped around her waist, and I suddenly realize I must have crashed out in her bed last night. If Grams wakes up and finds me here, she’ll run me a bath…and toss in the toaster.

“Morning, babe,” I whisper.

“Morning, hot stuff,” a distinctly male voice responds.

I whip around, my heart racing, and find Max sitting in a chair across the room. “You look so hot when you first wake up,” he says. He raises a hand to his hair. “Got that whole sexy bed head thing going on.”

Charlie doesn’t even move from her place, but I feel her laughing against me. “Your friend is kind of creepy, Dante,” she manages.

“Max, what the hell are you doing in here?” I ask, pulling the covers farther up even though I’m (regretfully) fully-clothed.

“Real question is, why did I wait so long to join you guys?” Max stands from his chair and cocks his head. A mischievous smile crawls across his face.

“No,” I say, trying to appear serious. “Don’t even think about it, dude.”

Max starts running in place, his smile widening farther until he looks deranged. “Ready or not!” Before I can stop him, Max races toward the bed and dives on top of us. “Oh! Oh it feels even better than I imagined.” He rolls back and forth across our bodies as Charlie laughs and I wonder why I’m friends with such a raging idiot.

With all my strength, I grab Max’s shirt and rotate him toward the edge. He falls off the side, his arms pin-wheeling. There’s a loud thud, and then nothing.

I wait for several seconds before leaning over to search for him. Max is lying face down on the floor, his arms and legs curled like a dead spider. “You’re not really hurt,” I say.

“I think you gave me spinal bifida. You need to call someone.”

“That’s a genetic disorder,” I respond with a sigh, collapsing back onto my pillow. A second later, he raises his head very, very slowly up from the side of the bed. It’s one of the more unsettling things he’s ever done. “Max, is there a purpose to this visit?” I ask. I want so badly to act like he’s annoying me. But he knows, and I know, that we both love this game: the one where I pretend he’s a pain in my ass, and he acts like a damn circus clown.

He stands up, crosses the room, and plops back down in the chair. “Valery sent me.”

I throw an arm across my eyes. “Of course she did.” Beside me, Charlie moves to get up and I immediately reach for her. She squeals and wiggles out of my grasp.

I watch as she walks around the bed and ruffles Max’s hair. The twenty-eight year old pants like a dog. It’s a bit disturbing considering Charlie’s seventeen. She eyes me with a grin. “I’ll make waffles.”

My face lights up.

“Yes,” she continues. “And bacon.”

I glance at Max and nod toward Charlie. “That’s my girl.”

“Damn straight,” he says.

“I’m still making breakfast for your birthday,” I call after Charlie. Then, looking at Max, I add, “My girl’s going to be legal soon.”

Max says, “Boom.”

YES! There's no lacking in the promise here. Love Dante. Love Max. Love Charlie. I really can't wait to immerse myself in their world once again.






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Review: Broken Flight by Elle J Rossi

Anna James never planned on dying at age nineteen or ending up somewhere other than heaven. Five years later, her heart is still on Earth with her soulmate Grey, while the rest of her struggles to survive in Beyond. Not quite heaven and a lot like hell, Beyond is a proving ground where only the strongest souls are allowed to move on. With no way out, Anna keeps her head down and plays by the rules... Until she learns Grey is about to die.

Grey Wilson would give anything to go back and stop the accident that ripped Anna from his arms. But when Anna appears on Earth again, he quickly realizes things can never be as they were. Death and Beyond have changed her; brought out the dark side and dimmed her inner light. Before they can even revel in this semblance of a miracle, Grey and Anna find themselves in the middle of an angelic civil war where sabotage and danger lurk around every corner.

Anna's dark side is exactly what Azrael - the leader of the Angels of Punishment - craves. When Azrael lays out his demands, Anna will have to make the biggest decision of her life.

There were no guarantees.
Not in life, and certainly not in death.

Everyone has some sort of opinion or belief as to what happens after you die. Anna James believed she'd find herself amongst long-passed loved ones. What she discovered, however, was a different kind of hell, and angels, despite their elevated residence, could have a closer resemblance to demons.

Anna is a genuinely flawed character, and I don't mean that in a negative way. She dies tragically, and even after that, Anna endures intense physical and emotional torture. Things like that don't happen to people without taking some kind of toll on a person. She's confused, torn, and sucked into the illusions the Angels of Punishment cruelly create, but she's always determined to do right by those she loves, despite the consequences she may face, and that is what makes her our heroine. 

The love of her life, Grey, finds himself face to face with the woman he lost. Determined never to let her go again, he stands by Anna, going head to head with the world's most dangerous beings. He's strong, tortured, beautiful, and loves with a passion we can only hope to emulate. Anna and his reunion, while heartfelt, isn't exactly all hugs, kisses, and smiles. They've both changed, but even while they argue and hurt each other with painful truths about themselves, their souls refuse to say goodbye again.

Where exactly did she belong? The only answer she could think of was with Grey. 

Elle J Rossi really loves to dig deep into her character's minds and thought processes. I knew Grey and Anna, and it's impossible not to feel connected to them, to their emotions and to understand their actions. Her character building is amazing, and the switch in perspective between Anna and Grey was easy. I could tell which character I was reading simply by their voice.

The angels, while demanding in their enormous presence, were awesome in their role of evil, but sometimes they didn't make sense to me. In an effort not to spoil it for you, I'll just say that their demands and subsequent actions didn't quite add up. Even so, it did make for an action-packed and dangerous story.

Elle J Rossi's concept of the afterlife isn't your typical Heaven and Hell situation. We've got Beyond, which I've begun to think of as some kind of purgatory, and it's a place "in-between." Why Anna ends  up there and not with her family is a question she's asked herself time and time again. Maybe everything she thought would happen after she died never existed. Or maybe she just needs to have faith.

Faith can be a scary thing. It's closely tied to hope and belief. Throughout Anna's afterlife and punishments, she's lost most of that faith, but Grey asks her to believe, asks her to make the most difficult decision of her life based on trust and love. Will that be enough?

With a fluid writing style, nonstop action, a roller-coaster ride of emotions, and well developed characters, Broken Flight is an intense read that's difficult to put down. Elle J Rossi takes the concept of angels and the question of life after death and creates her own unique twist, enthralling readers from page one.

Definitely recommend :)

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Elle J Rossi grew up in rural Indiana surrounded by great people, a huge family and more animals than she could count. But the sites and sounds of the world beckoned, so she left her small town to escape into a creative world full of music. As a full time singer she was able to lose herself in a thousand different songs in a hundred different places. After meeting the love of her life and settling down, she yearned to find a new and fulfilling creative outlet. Overly fond of the happily ever after, she wondered what it would be like to have her own characters lead her down dark and twisted paths. The very first word on the very first page sealed her fate. She’d found a new love. She’d found her escape. Now along with weaving haunting tales about the journey to love, she’s creating cover art for authors around the world and loving every second of it. For fun, she cranks country music to take her back to her roots, and sings karaoke anytime she gets a chance. Her husband, two children, and a cat that rules the roost keep her company along the way and guarantee she doesn’t get lost in the enchanted forest. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Tour Stop: Review ~ Deeper We Fall by Chelsea Cameron

Two years after her best friend was involved in a car accident that caused a traumatic brain injury, Lottie Anders is ready to start her freshman year of college. Ready to move on. Ready to start forgetting the night that ripped her life apart.

Her plans come to a screeching halt when not one, but both brothers responsible for the accident end up back in her life again.

Zack is cruel, selfish and constantly rubbing what happened to her friend in Lottie's face.

Zan is different. He listens to her awkward ramblings. He loves "To Kill a Mockingbird" as much as she does, and his dark eyes are irresistible. His words are few and far between, but when he does speak, she can't help but listen.

The trouble is, Zan was the driver in the accident, and now Lottie's discovered he lied to her about what happened that night. Now she must decide if trusting him again will lead to real forgiveness, or deeper heartache.

Deeper We Fall is one of those "true to life" stories that consumes and replaces our reality with the lives of its characters.

Lottie has a history and a grudge that she's trying to escape, and she believes that college is going to be the fresh start she's been looking for. However, her past follows her in the for of two brothers, Zack and Zan, forcing her to face her pain and guilt head on.

Lottie is a strong character in the sense that she's not afraid to be who she is, to express her emotions and thoughts, and she never falls into the notion that she needs to act or dress a certain way in order to be liked. She has great friends, whose loyalty and love mirrors her own.

Charlotte loved fiercely, and those people loved her fiercely in return. You couldn't really love her any other way.

Her weakness is her determination to hold a grudge and deny any and all forgiveness, even for herself, and it's this flaw that begins to eat her up and grind her down. That is, until Zan proves he's not who she thought he was.

I loved Zan. He had his demons, and rightfully so, but he's kind, honest, and loves deeply, even in the face of some major anger issues ~ issues I couldn't blame him for. 

I could cut my hair and change my clothes, but nothing could change the thing that hovered over me. The thing that people saw when they looked at me, the thing that made them look away and cross to the other side of the street.

He's all about action, knowing they speak louder than words, and he hopes these actions will one day allow him to be on Charlotte's good side. 

What I loved most about this book is that no character was left behind; ever single one of them was well developed, standing their own ground and carving a noticeable and rememberable space for themselves in the story. Whether it was in regards to their relationship to the main characters or to their own individualism, you felt for them. 

The story itself was heartfelt and just a roller coaster ride of emotions. I couldn't put this book down! The conflict and the struggle to find forgiveness in the face of your mistakes is something I think all readers can relate to in one way or another. There are just so many unexpected turns this story takes, but everything rings as something that can or has truly happened.

Chelsea Cameron's writing style, in addition to her ability to create dynamic characters and a well-rounded storyline, really brings it all together. It's witty, fun, and flows, but it's also deep, getting below the surface of serious emotions and problems that countless people face everyday. It's a wonderful combination of light and dark, drawing you under but bringing you to the surface just in time to catch your breath. 

Highly recommend Deeper We Fall! 

Chelsea M. Cameron is a YA/NA New York Times and USA Today Best-Selling author from Maine. Lover of things random and ridiculous, Jane Austen/Charlotte and Emily Bronte Fangirl, red velvet cake enthusiast, obsessive tea drinker, vegetarian, former cheerleader and world's worst video gamer. When not writing, she enjoys watching infomercials, singing in the car and tweeting. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Maine, Orono that she promptly abandoned to write about the people in her own head. More often than not, these people turn out to be just as weird as she is.

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Spotlight + Excerpt: Touched by A.J. Aalto

The media has a nickname for Marnie Baranuik, though she’d rather they didn’t; they call her the Great White Shark, a rare dual-talented forensic psychic. Twice-Touched by the Blue Sense--which gives her the ability to feel the emotions of others, and read impressions left behind on objects--Marnie also has a doctorate in preternatural biology and a working knowledge of the dark arts. She is considered without peer in the psychic community. 

Then her first big FBI case ended with a bullet in one shoulder and a chip on the other, a queasy heart and a serial killer in the wind, leaving her a public flop and a private wreck. When the FBI’s preternatural crimes unit tracks her down at a remote mountain lodge for her insight on a local case, her quiet retirement is promptly besieged by a stab-happy starlet, a rampaging ghoul, and a vampire-hunting jackass in tight Wranglers. Marnie figures the only real mystery is which one will kill her first. 

Too mean to die young, backed up by friends in cold places, and running with a mouth as demure as a cannon’s blast, Marnie Baranuik is about to discover that there’s no such thing as quitting time when you’re Touched.

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The sheriff of Lambert County had once been a Denver detective working homicide, and it showed in the shrewd tilt of his gaze. He moved like a blank-faced panther across the hospital room, sinuous and agile, oddly predatory for one of the good guys. If I hadn’t checked his pupils for a primal hint of flash I’d have thought him a lycanthrope in human form, but he was one hundred percent man; werekin can’t hide the gleam of lycanthropy.

The cop had perfect posture, loose at the joints, a confident bearing that warned other males his body was well-tuned, a trained weapon he knew how to use. I assumed he did a lot of martial arts in whatever spare time a small town sheriff might be afforded. He was young for his office, thirty-five at most, a true red-head, pale skinned with a smattering of freckles, narrow chin on a boy-next-door face, with swampy green eyes that were an interesting blend of sympathetic and skeptical: skeptithetic. If he smiled, I suspected he’d be handsome, though I was pretty sure I wasn’t on his Smile-At list just yet. Probably, he thought I was a troublemaker. Maybe he was right. I sipped ice water through a bendy straw and watched him pull up a stool beside the cranked-up hospital bed.

“Marnie Baranuik,” he began, rolling one shoulder. A shoulder holster creaked under the whisper of his heavy nylon jacket. The zipper was open in case he had to shoot me. Verrrry comforting. “I’m Sheriff Hood. Do you know why I’m here?”

“I’m assuming someone called you about my stabbing,” I said between sips. “Did you happen to see two miserable-looking FBI agents out in the hallway? One nerdy beanpole with classic male pattern baldness, the other with big shoulders and a real jerk face?”

He looked at me thoughtfully for a beat before shaking his head.

“No, ma’am, I didn’t. And yes, I’m here about the incident at the Ten Springs Motor Inn.”

“Incident?” I asked, hearing blame.

“Rodney, the night clerk at the Inn, told me it was a homicide. Bit of a miscommunication.” A brief apologetic smile flickered across his mouth. I was right: Hubba hubba ooh-lala. “I’ve since learned that you have a pulse.”

He scooted the rubber-footed stool closer and propped his boots on the low rungs, letting his knees fall slightly apart. One of those knees started bouncing. He sucked on something minty, which clicked against the inside of his teeth, and I thought, nicotine fit. I’ve seen my share of them. The left cuff of his pants didn’t sit exactly right: ankle holster for a back up gun. I’ve seen my share of those, too.

“You work for Gold-Drake & Cross out of Portland,” he began. “How come you’re living in my corner of Colorado?”

“I quit. I didn’t want to work with a bunch of weirdoes who actually believe in the supernatural.” Who, plain ole Mundane Me? I tried my winning-est smile. “I’m just a regular gal.”

Hood gave me his cop face, shuttered. The knee-bouncing stilled. “In 2006, you wrote your dissertation on the comparison of black plague and crypt plague in Venice, 1630-1631, the rise of Yersinia sanguinaria at the lazarettos, and true and false accusations of vampirism. In 2008 you did a series of training seminars for the FBI and various state law enforcement agencies on preternatural crime prevention and revenant mental health crisis management.” His lips hinted at a smile again. “Revenant?”

My shoulders crept up a notch. “It’s the term they prefer.”

“You mean vampires,” he clarified. “What sort of doctorate do you hold, exactly?”

I gave my best scowl. “Don’t profile me, sheriff. It’s rude, and I’m sure your mother raised you better.”

“She did,” he said pleasantly, like he had all the time in the world to play games with me. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere, connected to tubes and beeping machinery, and unable to stand up on my own.

“I know damn well what I wrote my dissertation on. How much of my life did you research?”

“Got a hefty file. Looks like I’m in for a night of heavy reading. How about you save me some time, tell me what’s not in there?”

“You’re not going to write anything down?” I asked. “For your incident report?”

“You haven’t really told me anything yet.” The smile reappeared and I was rewarded this time with a hint of straight white teeth. My brain melted like butter left on a hot stovetop.

“Well, I will. I intend to. Tell you, I mean. Every thing of the truth.” What the hell am I even talking about? “You’re going to want this on paper.”

“Maybe so,” he mused, scratching the back of his neck. “Since you’re about to tell me ‘every thing of the truth’.”

He fished around for a notebook in his pocket that looked like it had never been used, clicked a brand new pen. Not a lot of serious crime in Lambert County.

I shifted in the pillows propping me slightly upright, and tried not to think of staples clawing flesh together and sutures keeping skin in a taut line. Post-surgery painkillers kept the pain at a safe distance, but I could almost hear it pacing like an impatient Attila the Hun considering the distant walls of Constantinople.

“One huge waste of your time, coming right up,” I warned him, taking a deep cleansing breath. “My name is Marnie-Jean because my mother likes hyphenated names and the old cologne Jean Nate. I enjoy setting fires in a woodstove. Conversely, I’m afraid of BBQ grills; I’m sure the propane tank is going to explode and take my face right off. I’m also afraid of home invasions, clowns, Santa Claus, and the tooth fairy. I mean, what does she use those teeth for, anyway? It’s disturbing, when you think about it.”

Hood made no notes. I guess I hadn’t said anything good yet. When I launched into the layman’s explanation of my psychic Talents and my former position at GD&C, Hood’s pen moved but his eyes never left my face. Neat trick. He searched my eyes, his own face revealing nothing, and then surprised me with a thoughtful question.

“If you know stuff just by touching things, doesn’t that get a little…busy in your head?”

Relief—validation perhaps—flooded me; for a second I thought I might embarrass myself by welling-up. I showed him my bare hands. “Usually I wear gloves all day, inside and out, to block influxes of information. Leather works best.”

“We didn’t find any gloves at the scene.” So he’d been to the scene, check. I wondered if Harry’s motorcycle was in evidence also. Boy, would he be ticked.

“Maybe she took them?” Like she took my hair. And very nearly my life. “I took them off. They were on the floor beside the bed last I saw.” Or did Harry take them? I had a vague feeling he might have, but it all seemed foggy.

“Can’t you “tell” where they are?” He wiggled his fingers mysteriously.

I shrugged. “I might be able to link to and trace my own possessions. I’ve never tried it. What I can’t do is pull visions out of thin air. That’s a clairvoyant. I have to touch something, or feel someone’s changes in emotions. I can tell when I’m being lied-to, ninety-nine percent of the time. She fooled me. No, that’s not entirely true: I knew she was pissed off. I misread the depth of her hatred, and I believed she had information, and that she was truly in trouble. Being fooled by a successful liar bothers me like I can’t even describe. No one should be able to fool me.”

Hood’s lips twitched. “Ever thought of becoming a cop?”

“Criminals give me the wobbly-knees.” I shook my head. “I do like the law. The law is one of the few things that make me feel stable. Boundaries are good when the rest of you feels ready to fly apart.”

Hood gave another unexpectedly understanding nod, and I tried to probe at his aura and see if he was faking the sympathy. I couldn’t feel him. Lord and Lady, what the hell had I done to myself? Meanwhile he was watching expectantly, pen poised.

“Thanks to my partner, I’ve developed a strong sense of smell. I bet you didn’t know that tulips have what revenants call an under-scent. It’s mild, kind of citrusy. I also like over-cooked roast beef, sun-warmed Key limes and Canadians.”

“Canadians in general, or just the way they smell?”

“Canadians smell fantastic,” I deadpanned. Hood half-smiled; I don’t think he wanted to like me but I was winning him over. “I drink more espresso than is healthy and will undoubtedly die, Balzac-like, of caffeine poisoning. I cannot say no to a cookie. Sometimes when I’m alone I sing old Monty Python songs in the bath. And at the moment, I have titanium staples where my belly button used to be.” I shook my head. “But you don’t need to know any of this. You don’t need to know about my irregular periods or my crush on Wil Wheaton. So why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

“You were injured in Buffalo on your first official FBI case.” He watched me without blinking. “Gun shot wounds. The reports said you were shot by a vampire serial killer named Jeremiah Prost while you were working as a “preternatural forensic consultant” for the PCU. How did he escape?”

“Everyone’s got theories on my failure. Why ask me?”

“Maybe I like the sound of your voice. Besides, I didn’t say it was your failure; you were one of many on that team, correct?”

My shoulders fell. I told him a concise version of what happened, in Buffalo and at the Ten Springs Motor Inn, including the FBI but leaving out the sex and the vomit. Then I added the vomit, because I was pretty sure he’d seen that at the scene. I left Batten’s name out of it, and implied that Danika was resentful of me but left it at professional jealousy. I hoped he bought it.

He didn’t appear to buy a single word of it.

“Let’s see if I wrote this down correctly,” Hood said. The smile was gone and I didn’t like his tone anymore, but I guess that was fair; probably he didn’t like my story much. “You’re a witch. And a psychic.”

“Specifically, an ex-forensic psychometrist with secondary clairempathy who used to work for Gold-Drake & Cross. Third Floor, retrocognition.”

He clarified: “And you live with a vampire.”

“A revenant. There’s no such thing as a human psychic who isn’t DaySitting an immortal. The source of the Blue Sense is the revenant. You wield psi through the revenant. That’s the only way it works. Where have you been living?”

“In my own quiet corner of this great state,” he replied, and I picked up the undertone: where there are no monsters. I got a brief flash of understanding; Hood had left Denver for some small town serenity, and he wasn’t too impressed that I was slamming it from wall to wall. “So this, uh, revenant buddy of yours, he’s four hundred-years-old?”

“Approximately. You don’t ask an immortal how old he is. It’s bad form, and could get you backhanded through a wall.”

He exhaled slowly through his nostrils, and I thought ginger dragon. I bet he wished he’d sent a deputy to answer this call. “At one thirty P.M. you were called by another psychic named Danika Sherlock.” He tapped his pen. “As in Sherlock Holmes?”

“I didn’t pick the crazy twat’s name.” I sighed. “And coming from a man named Robin Hood, I should think you’d understand: sometimes bad names just fucking happen.”

A flinch around his eyes told me that even if I was wrong, his parents had done him no favors; he’d heard it ten thousand times. “I didn’t tell you my first name,” he said. “And Rob’s short for Robert.”

I offered him my open hand, as though for a handshake. He hesitated only for a second before laying his own huge paw in my small one. The skin between our palms crawled instantaneously as the spark of psi awoke to my command.

“Which is a partial lie,” I announced flatly. “Your name was Robin. Your father had a closeted homoerotic crush on Errol Flynn, though it was no secret to your immediate family. It made you feel squinky, so you legally changed your name to Robert in 1997. April.” I smiled at him. “A Tuesday. It was raining. And while I just made you feel violated right down to your toenails, you will successfully not show it on your face.”

A thoroughbred version of spooked excitement thundered through him. I broke contact, laid my hands in my lap, and continued, “Look, I’m the stab-ee here, not the stabber. Why are you giving me a hard time?”

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time, Mrs.—”

“Miss.” Why make that correction?

“You arrived at the Ten Springs Motor Inn at,” he consulted his notes, unnecessarily, possibly to humour me. “Approximately 2 pm. At which point she invited you into Room 4 and stabbed you in the back, causing you to drop your coffee.”

“And now she owes me two bucks.”

“You were both helping the FBI work on a murder case in Lower Downtown? Why are the FBI involved?”

“It’s a suspected preternatural crime, and the PCU was called in from Quantico. I only looked at a few pictures. She was assisting SSA Gary Chapel and Special Agent Mark Batten, who may or may not show up here any minute.”

I didn’t know whether they would or not. Last time I’d been injured, Chapel came every other day until my release; Batten hadn’t shown. Considering this time it was his fiancée who stabbed me, and she was pissed because of his cock’s activities, I thought the least he could do is put in a few minutes at my bedside. Did Hallmark make a “sorry my Love Muffin stabbed you repeatedly until she thought you were dead” card? On second thought, maybe I didn’t want to see him.

I realized that Sheriff Hood was reading the whole story as it crossed my face.

“Ok, fine! I nailed her man, OK?” I threw my hands up. “I’m a disgrace to society! Are you writing this down, word for word? Bowlegged slut can’t keep her knees together. Go ahead. Write it!”

He leaned back slightly, letting surprise flood his face. Big shoulders shook under taupe nylon; I realized he was trying not to laugh. He didn’t write a word. He just bounced his knee some more and gave me space to ramble.

“So she found out, and decided I was the worst person on Earth. I get that, I do. Hate my guts, fine, but don’t stab them.”

He waited, face gone cop-blank again.

“In my defense, I had no idea that Agent Jerkface was engaged,” I pointed out. “He never bothered to tell me, and I can’t read him psychically. So how is that my fault?”

“Agent Jerkface is …”

“Ah, fuck,” I straw-stirred the ice in angry circles in my big plastic cup. “Agent Batten. I know it’s wrong. We worked together. Briefly. We don’t even like each other. I’m not his type. Hel-lo! Do I look like a Barbie doll?” I sulked, stabbed at the ice chips with my bendy straw. He was staring curiously at my forehead. I wondered what the hell he was looking at. “I don’t even know why it happened. We were under a lot of stress, and he didn’t like needing to use my Talents and I didn’t like his attitude—which, by the way, is as close to asshole as you can get without actually being a sphincter—and we were stuck in a car on stake-outs for hours, then stuck in a cramped motel room in bloody Cheektowaga for days, overtired, keyed up, always fighting …” I drifted off helplessly.

I looked up to see if he got what I meant. The keen glint in his eyes said he knew exactly how it must have happened; he nodded almost imperceptibly.

“So anyways, about Room 4: I faked dead with a mimicry spell called necromimesis. When psychobeast left, I called 911. Harry showed first, and drove me to the hospital. We should have stayed, but I was afraid of the cops getting the wrong idea about the revenant and the blood if I passed out unable to explain. Besides, Harry drives much faster than an ambulance.”

“Go back to the faking dead part?”

“Bit of witchcraft involved. I’m not really sure how I pulled it off. Necromimesis is sort of out of my league.”

He looked at me doubtfully. “Could you do it right now, show me?”

“No,” I said truthfully. “I couldn’t. I don’t have any of the stuff …”

Hood took a clear plastic evidence baggy out of his inside jacket pocket, dangling it. In it was my onyx. “This yours, then?”

“Yes. Still, even with that, the bark and herbs are just symbolic objects for focus. The kind of energy output required for that level of spell is only drummed up by someone like me during periods of extreme stress. Energy, focus, belief, will, those are the real ingredients. This level of magic leaves a taint on your aura. I wouldn’t attempt it again, it’s not exactly clean.”

Hardly a proud moment for a white witch, but death wasn’t all black. It was the very definition of middle ground, the grey area, limbo, death being neither good nor evil. I’d only interrupted my own life, and I didn’t think one emergency spell was crossing over to “official dabbling”.

There was a soft knock at the door and we both turned our attention to Agent Chapel’s long-jawed Great Dane face peering in.

“Pardon me, sheriff. We’ll just wait in the hall until you’re done.”

We? My waffling heart flowed from boiling to frigid, flailed about like it was attempting a drunken River Dance under my ribcage, and then flushed back to hot, unable to decide between avid and avoidant. Probably my heart had finally lost its frigging mind. I no longer wanted to see Mark Batten walk through that door. There was a distinct chance that I was going to get blamed for this whole mess. It wasn’t my fault, but since when did that matter?

“I’m about finished here.” Hood stood, pushing the stool away with the back of his thick legs.

When Chapel disappeared, Hood scratched at the back of his neck with the end of his pen, his eyes playing down the length of the sheet over my legs. I picked up subtle flickers of his curiosity. It was wildly inappropriate, but he didn’t seem aware he was doing it so I let it go.

He said, “Have you ever taken any self-defense classes?”

“No, but I should,” I acknowledged. “Why do you ask?”

“Top of mind when I see an attack like this. Everyone should have at least some idea of how to fend an attacker off. I’m sort of biased,” he said, nodding. “I teach police defensive tactics.”

“Hence the hot bod,” came out of my mouth before I even knew I was going to say it. Horrified, I stuck my straw in my mouth and pretended great interest in my ice water so I didn’t have to meet his eyes.

He was quiet for a moment, assessing. “So when you played dead on the floor, you’re saying you somehow slowed your heartbeat and held your breath? Autogenic training, some Zen thing?”

“That’s not at all what I said,” I looked up into his perfectly human eyes. We stared each other down for a minute, the witch and the skeptic.

“Just clarifying,” he said amiably. The smile made another appearance, at which point I could have sworn I melted and slid into a puddle of mush beside the bed; it lingered lightly on his lips, like he wasn’t sure whether to call a shrink for me, or himself. He made to leave.

“And …” His boots scuffed the floor as he stopped suddenly. “When you called your revenant, did you do it with …” He made a wand-motion in the air that he must have seen Mickey Mouse make in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. “Mystical abilities?”

“No,” I said sourly. “I called his cell phone.”

“Right. Blackberry?”

“iPhone,” I sighed.

He nodded as though this made perfect sense, stroked his chin. “I’d like to speak to this Lord Dreppenstedt. Have him come into my little station in Ten Springs and make a statement. Or I could drop by your place?”

“Number one, on Shaw’s Fist. It’s the last cabin in the row, or the first, if you’re one of those annoying glass-half-full types. It would be better to come after dark.”

“After dark,” he repeated. “Because your buddy’s a real live vampire, right?”

“Revenant,” I reminded. “And I wouldn’t call him live, exactly.”

Hood paused in the doorway, tucking his notebook away inside his jacket. “Are you actually bowlegged?”

“No, but it sounded good at the time,” I said miserably, sinking back into my pillows.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” he started, and then apparently thought better of it. He had that charming redhead habit of turning helplessly pink when he was embarrassed and a blush crept up his throat. He smiled it away, full-beam this time; it was dizzying how gorgeous it made him. “I’ll check back with you if I have any further questions.”

I found my voice by some miracle. “You do that, sheriff.”

AJ Aalto is the author of Touched, first in the paranormal mystery series The Marnie Baranuik Files. Aalto is an unrepentant liar and a writer of blathering nonsense offset by factual gore. When not working on her novels, you can find her singing old Monty Python songs in the shower, eavesdropping on perfect strangers, stalking her eye doctor, or failing at one of her many fruitless hobbies. Generally a fan of anyone with a passion for the ridiculous, she has a particular weak spot for smug pseudo-intellectuals and narcissistic jerks; readers will find her work littered with dark, imperfect creatures, flawed monsters and oodles of snark. AJ cannot say no to a Snickers bar, and has been known to swallow her gum.

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