Cover Reveal for After She's Gone by Lisa Jackson

Welcome to my stop on the Cover Reveal Tour, presented by Pump Up Your Book, for After She’s Gone by Lisa Jackson.  Please leave a comment or question for Lisa to let her know you stopped by.  

 After She’s Gone

By Lisa Jackson

Publisher: Kensington Books

Release Date: December 29, 2015

Genre:  Thriller

Length:  416 Pages

ISBN:  978-1617734656

ASIN:  B00VQFKHFQ

About After She’s Gone: 

Cassie Kramer and her younger sister, Allie, learned the hazards of fame long ago. Together, they’d survived the horror of a crazed fan who nearly killed their mother, former Hollywood actress Jenna Hughes. Still, Cassie moved to L.A., urging Allie to follow. As a team, they’d take the town by storm.  But Allie, finally free of small-town Oregon, and just that little bit more beautiful, also proved to be more talented—and driven. Where Cassie got bit parts, Allie rose to stardom. But now her body double has been shot on the set of her latest movie—and Allie is missing.

Police discover that the last call to Allie’s phone came from Cassie, though she has no recollection of making it. Instead of looking like a concerned relative, Cassie is starting to look like a suspect—the jealous sister who finally grew sick of playing a supporting role. As the tabloids go into a frenzy, Cassie ends up on a Portland psych ward. Is she just imagining the sinister figure who comes to her bedside, whispering about Allie—a visitor of whom there is no record? Is someone trying to help—or drive her mad?

Convinced she’s the only one who can find Allie, Cassie checks herself out of the hospital. But a sudden slew of macabre murders— each victim masked with a likeness of a member of Cassie’s family—makes Cassie fear for her safety and her sanity. The only way to end the nightmare is to find out what really happened to Allie. And with each discovery, Cassie realizes that no one can be trusted to keep her safe—least of all herself…

PRE-ORDER INFORMATION

After She’s Gone is available for pre-order at  Amazon, Kobo and Google Play

About Lisa Jackson:

Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of more than 85 novels, including Afraid to Die, Tell Me, You Don’t Want to Know, Running Scared, Without Mercy, Malice, and Shiver. She is also the co-author of the Colony Series, co-written with her sister, Nancy Bush. There are over 20 million copies of Lisa Jackson’s books in print in twenty languages.

Before she became a nationally bestselling author, Lisa Jackson was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, the USA Today, and the Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

With over thirty bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity – and back – in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions.  She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional and downright twisted.  As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims, and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families.

For More Information

Visit Lisa’s website.

Connect with Lisa on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Goodreads

Spotlight & #Giveaway for December by Linda Oatman High

Welcome to my stop on the Spotlight Tour, presented by Bridging the Gap Promotions, for December by Linda Oatman High.  Please leave a comment or question for Linda to let her know you stopped by.  You can enter the tour wide giveaway, for a $10 Evernight Teen Gift Certificate and 1 Signed Print Copy of December, by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  You can follow the rest of the tour by clicking on the tour banner above.  

December

By Linda Oatman High

Publisher:  Evernight Teen

Release date:  April 23, 2015

Genre:  Contemporary YA Romance/Bullying

Length:  170 Pages (54,000 Words)

ISBN:  9781772333374
ASIN: B00WLGVGRW

Buy Links:    Evernight Teen    Amazon   ARe

About the book:

“Editor’s Pick”

Lake Millay has goals, hopes, and dreams...until she moves to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and becomes ensnared in a vortex of violence. 

Bullying and stalking become Lake’s life, and ultimately the destroyer of her dreams.

A cautionary tale based on the true story of Laurie Show, murdered by three teens in 1991.

EXCERPT:

 “This gazing globe’s really old, like from the 1800s.  People believed that a witch couldn’t sneak up on you when you were looking into the dome.”   The voice comes from nowhere and from everywhere, and an electric bolt of fear buzzes through my body.  My heart thunders, filling my chest and ears.  I’m dizzy, numb with shock, not able to move. 

Then a face appears––a face––blurring and blending into my own in the rounded silver of the globe.   I scream, filling my body and my heart and my ears, and I leap and fall backwards, banging hard into flesh and bone:  a person.

I scream again and fall on my knees in the mud. 

“HELP!  NO!”

“Man.  You’re jumpy.  Sorry if I scared you.”

It’s a girl, just a scrawny anorexic-looking girl, about my age, fair-haired and pale, with fake-looking cobalt-colored eyes.  She’s one of those girls with an upturned little nose and perfect teeth.  Flawless complexion.  Makeup.  Teeny-weeny, clean white shorts.  Tanned cheerleaderish legs.

I gasp, trying to catch my breath.

“You scared the crap out of me.”

“Man, you scare easy.”  Knuckles on hips, she cocks her head to the side, pale hair falling over those bright blue eyes.

I press my hand to my heart.  Puke climbs up my throat, and then slides back down again.

“What are you so jumpy about?  There’s nothing to be scared of around here.  Not like it’s an epicenter for crime.”

There are definitely shades of cheerleader in this girl, yet none of that high-pitched perkiness.  Clouds of sadness seem to be leaking from her eyes and her smile and her voice, despite the faultless exterior.  A tiny diamond-like chip glints on her nose. 

“We don’t even lock our doors around here,” she says.

I heave myself to a standing position.  My heart’s still racing in a marathon of terror.

“What did you think I was?” the girl asks and I shrug.

“A wacko.  Weirdo.  Murderer.  You never know.”

She barks out a laugh. 

“All of the above,” she says.  “You better run.”

I try to smile.

“Here,” she says, reaching down to pluck a flower. “Peace offering.”  She holds a red-nailed hand toward me––her thumb and finger, daintily holding the stem of the red flower.

I take it.   Our fingers graze.

 “Servants also used these gazing globes to be sneaky and watch their bosses,” the girl says.  “Pretty far-out, huh?”

I’m still shaking, but I nod.

“Cool shirt.  I can tell that you’re not from around here.”

I look down, suddenly super-aware I’m about fifty pounds bigger than this chick.  This makes me irritable, and I shove the red flower into the pocket of my shorts.

 “What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask.  “Don’t they have laws about trespassing around here?”

“Just checking out the new neighbors,” she says with a shrug of bony shoulders.  Her voice is like cornhusk: raspy and rough.

 “Where’d you come from?”

“Over there.”  She points with her sharp little chin.  “Through the field and to the left.  When the corn’s down in the winter, you can actually see our place.”

“Okay.”

“I’m Brit Dannon,” she says.   “Brit with one T, not two.  You’re the new preacher’s kid, I presume?  Got any pot?”

“What?”  I almost laugh. 

“Got any weed?”

“No, I . . . don’t smoke.”

“Man.  You really aren’t from around here.  What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lake Millay.”  There’s a final feeble clank of thunder, like beaters in an empty metal bowl, and then the sun comes out, shining.  Brit Dannon seems to shimmer:  shiny hair and makeup and nails and that perfect-girl sparkly shirt, with sequins spelling out the word Princess. 

“Welcome to Badger Gap, Lake Millay,” she says.  “The Center of the Universe!  The most happenin’ location on the planet!  The place that’s going to freaking change your life!” 

About the Author:

Linda Oatman High is an author/journalist/playwright who lives in Lancaster County, PA. She’s published more than 20 books for children and teens, and her books have won many awards and honors, including VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) “Perfect Ten” awards. Linda also writes for adults, and her short story NICKEL MINES HARDWARE, based upon the Amish school shootings of 2006, was honored in England in 2012 with the Sunday Times EFG Short Story award shortlist. Linda holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she presents at schools from K-college both nationally and internationally.

www.lindaoatmanhigh.com   &   lohigh@frontiernet.net 

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Review Tour & #Giveaway for Samantha's Secret by Betty Bolte

Welcome to my stop on the Review Tour, presented by Book Partners in Crime, for Samantha’s Secret by Betty Bolte.  Please leave a comment or question for Betty to let her know you stopped by.  You can enter her tour wide giveaway, for a prize pack including a Heart-shaped smoky quartz pendant in handcarved jewelry box; signed AMPU Books 1 and 2 (Emily’s Vow and Amy’s Choice), by filling out the Rafflecopter form below.  

Samantha's Secret

by Betty Bolté

Series: A More Perfect Union, #3

Genre: Historical Romance

Release Date: April 21, 2015

Midwife and healer, Samantha McAlester returns from the front lines to find Charles Towne under British siege and the town's new doctor at war with its citizens.

Dr. Trent Cunningham intends to build a hospital staffed solely with educated doctors. What he doesn't need is a raven-haired charlatan spooning out herbs and false promises to his patients, while tempting him at every turn.

Then a mutual friend develops a mysterious infection.  Trenton is stumped.  Samantha suspects the cure but knows treatment will expose her long-guarded secret, risking all she holds dear... including Trenton.

While it’s often easy to remember America’s fight for independence from the British during the revolution, we often overlook the contributions made by the “pioneer” woman to the war effort.  They not only supported their husband, son, or father, who went off to fight in battle, they often took over managing the sole care of the family, the family’s property and if they were of the merchant class, the running of the businesses in town.  An occupation or calling often overlooked, and often underappreciated was that of a midwife and natural healer.

A historical romance focusing on one of three women who had vowed to remain single and pursue their own course in life, Samantha’s Secret by Betty Bolte focuses on a woman who defies society’s expectations.  A strong independent heroine, colorful secondary characters and the battle between scientific and homeopathic medicine take center stage in Ms. Bolte’s story, while at the same time the author reminds us that the battle for freedom and equality was far from done. 

A well-educated woman by society’s standards, Samantha McAlester is both a midwife and natural healer.  Having just survived a recent battle outside of Charles Towne, she looks forward to what the future will bring for her new country.  While waiting for the British to depart, Samantha finds herself having to defend her midwife and natural healing skills from Dr. Trent Cunningham, a new arrival in town determined to show how “modern scientific medicine” is the only safe route for the future.  While both eagerly approach the “professional” challenge, Samantha is determined that nothing of a personal nature will grow between them. 

Ms. Bolte does a good job developing both Samantha and Trent’s characters; while Samantha is beautiful, she’s also smart, kind and feels the call to help others.  Recently graduated from medical school, Trent also feels the call to heal but is sure that scientific medicine is the way to go and while he doesn’t want to insult Samantha, he doesn’t respect her methods and many times he speaks before he thinks.  To be frank, I am just glad that I was not a sick patient at the time, I think I would probably have died from treatment by either one of them.  Though Samantha’s “herbal” treatments (with a few changes) would have probably worked out okay.  The romance is developed a little too quickly for my tastes, but it is well done and I felt that Samantha and Trent are a good match for each other because of their wit, their desire to help and heal others and their mutual attraction.  

  

The secondary characters are mostly Samantha’s friends (who are the main characters in previous books) and the townspeople of Charles Towne.  While they all contributed something to the story, Amy and Emily are Samantha’s closest confidants and the men they are betrothed to, Frank and Benjamin, quickly become friends with Trent.  While there are no specific “villains” so to speak, the departing British, the diseases and injuries from the war and even the lack of freedom women and slaves experience, took their place.  I was again reminded of how much both groups have had to fight in order to become equal to men.

Will Samantha’s homeopathic treatments work when put to the test?  Will Trent realize he’ll need to treat Samantha as an equal to win her love?  You’ll have to read Samantha’s Secret to find out.  I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing which character Ms. Bolte writes about next.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Crowns

4/27 - Monday

Em & M Books

4/28 - Tuesday

Laura's Interests

4/29 - Wednesday

Steamy Book Momma

4/30 - Thursday

Queen of All she Reads

5/1 - Friday

Book Heathens

Book 1: Emily's Vow

Book 2: Amy's Choice

Betty Bolté writes both historical and contemporary stories featuring strong, loving women and brave, compassionate men. No matter whether the stories are set in the past or the present, she loves to include a touch of the paranormal. In addition to her romantic fiction, she’s the author of several nonfiction books and earned a Master’s in English in 2008. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Historical Novel Society, the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and the Authors Guild. Get to know her at www.bettybolte.com.

   

   

   

 

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