Shifter: City of Wolves - Blog Tour & Giveaway

Book & Author Details:
Shifter: City of Wolves by Avery Burch
Publication date: August 3rd 2015
Genres: Adult, Paranormal Romance

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Synopsis: He'll risk anything to be inside me. I'm his fated mate.
Lyla:
What the hell am I thinking? I can't fall for a wolf. He's a criminal and an outcast. I'm an elite. If we get caught, they'll destroy us. I'll be disgraced. He'll be tortured and killed. But his wolf instinct has locked on me. He says I'm his fated mate. And every time we're alone together, he melts my heart ... and makes me so wet I'll risk anything to feel him throb inside me.
Zac:
Everything they told me about fated mates is true. And that means I'm in a lot of trouble. I'm risking everything. As a shifter, I'm used to living on the edge. The regime wants me dead. But now it's so much more complicated. I'm obsessed with this girl. I can't get her out of my mind. I need to devour her, body and soul. I know I should resist, for her sake as much as my own, but I physically can't. My wolf lust has locked onto her. There's no way we get out of this alive, but one night inside her will be worth any punishment.

Author Bio
Avery Burch is a hot new paranormal romance author and her series, Shifter: City of Wolves is going to have a huge impact. She writes chilling tales of shifters and heart-wrenching stories of love and lust. If you like your romance spicy, your shifters sexy, your love stories intense, and your heroines passionate, then her books are for you.
She lives in Toronto, Canada.

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Prologue

My namE is shay cartEr and i am a shiftEr.
I am no longer afraid to say it. That fear is gone. Years on the road, hunted by police, reviled by my people, tortured by enforcers, those things change a man. Make him hard. A darkness comes over him that even kids on the street notice. They stop smiling, look away, avoid eye contact. The small things hurt the most.
That’s why I was so taken by Zac. He didn’t look at me the way others did. He was just a boy, a young kid alone in the world, but he saw me for the man I could have been. He saw the good in me. He saw me as a father. And he saved my life. I’d spent so many years hunted as an animal, I no longer remembered what it was like to be a man. I was a beast, a monster. I killed. I maimed. I knew the taste of blood. I never surrendered, never turned myself in, and I paid the price.

But this isn’t my story. This is the story of the boy, my son, for I truly think of him as such. Zac is my heart, my soul, and I gave my all to raise and protect him. Now that my life is drawing to an end, I realize how fragile it is. I put my hopes 11 for the future in Zac, my own boy, and trust he will find the happiness I could only pray for.

Yes, pray.
I may be a monster, but I am a pious monster. God speaks through the strangest of creatures, and if He doesn’t speak through Zac, then damn Him, He never spoke at all.
So go, my son. Go to the city. Find who you are. Find where you came from. Find the bone that lies beneath the flesh, and the marrow deep within it. Test your mettle against the crooked old world.

And one day, many years from now, under the glassy spires of the greatest city on God’s green earth, find your sister. Find her and cling to her, hold her and protect her, love her as your own flesh and blood. I could never be the father to her that I was to you. She was taken before she ever knew me.

I imagine she never even knew my name, but I have not for- gotten hers. Years have passed, decades, and every single night as my watery eyes stare into the flames of the fire, her name rests on my lips—Lyla. My daughter. What was taken can never be returned.

Her name lies on my lips, as does her mother’s—the only woman I ever loved—the only person I ever cursed—Edith. Edith Caledon.

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Rush: Book Blitz + Excerpt + Giveaway

Rush (The Game #1)
by Eve Silver
Release Date: June 11, 2013
Publisher: Harper Teen

Summary from Goodreads:So what’s the game now? This, or the life I used to know?
When Miki Jones is pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into some kind of game—her carefully controlled life spirals into chaos. In the game, she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures.
There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Miki has only the guidance of secretive but maddeningly attractive team leader Jackson Tate, who says the game isn’t really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival, and the survival of every other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn’t. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn.

Buy Links: (US/CAN)
amazon CA | amazon US | Kobo CA | Kobo US | iTunes US | iTunes CA | Barnes and Noble

Other books in this series:

Push│Crash

Excerpt

He catches my wrists and holds them, just tight enough that I can’t hit him anymore, but not so tight it hurts. I freeze, heart slamming against my ribs, because I’m angry and afraid, and because he’s touching me, his hands on my wrists, our faces inches apart.

My pulse races; my cheeks feel hot. Lots of people touch me, and it never feels like this.

“So now you know,” he says. “Happy?”

I pull my wrists free. “No,” I say. “Not at all.”

“I know.” He lifts his hands and closes them on my upper arms. I stand there, too numb to jerk away. Slowly, he pulls me closer. I let him. I let him wrap his arms around me. I let myself rest my cheek against his chest. And for a few moments, I just breathe and listen to the steady beat of his heart.

About The  Auhor
Eve Silver lives with her gamer husband and sons, sometimes in Canada, but often in worlds she dreams up. She loves kayaking and sunshine, dogs and desserts, and books, lots and lots of books. Watch for the first book in Eve’s new teen series, THE GAME: RUSH, coming from Katherine Tegen Books, June 2013. She also writes books for adults.
Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook│Tumblr│Pinterest

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Captivate : Blog Tour, Giveaway + Excerpt

Captivate Me by SJ Pierce
Publication date: April 1st 2014
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Tour Schedule

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Synopsis:“My mom had always told me – when you meet “the one”, you’ll know; they’ll captivate your heart the moment you lay eyes on them. I had always wondered, though, if my mom’s words of wisdom were finite – if they applied to everyone. Maybe those who had found their one great love were the lucky few, and maybe the rest of us would have to settle for less than earth-shattering.”
Seventeen-year-old Kat Walsh is a Gifted – a human with paranormal abilities. With her mom a former Angel and her dad a dream prophet, it’s always been in her genetic make-up to be extraordinary. But, unfortunately for her, the world can’t handle the strange or unusual. So when she slips up and uses her powers at her high school in Ireland, the entire student body treats her like a freak – even the ones she thought were her closest friends.
Broken, but hopeful for a fresh start, she allows her parents to enroll her in a boarding school buried deep within the forests of a small Colorado town. At Midland Pines, School for the Gifted, she feels as though she can finally be herself; she makes new friends and even has the attention of the most popular guy in school – Levi. Everything feels normal again… or does it?
Not long after her arrival, weird dreams of an alluring boy whom she’s never met surface during the night, and the eerie, shadowy trees encircling their school seem to call to her. As these disturbing, yet enticing developments intensify, other bizarre occurrences happen – students and staff turn up missing, and mystery visitors leave gifts while she sleeps. With all of these other things fighting for her attention, a desperate Levi has to fight even harder to keep her interest. But with the dreams of the attractive boy slowly captivating her heart, Kat has to make a choice – will she settle for ‘great’ Levi, or will she search for her elusive dream visitor, possibly stumbling across ‘amazing’?
From the author of the Alyx Rayer Chronicles, comes a refreshingly different Young Adult series with plenty of love, suspense, and a new take on the Paranormal.
Recommended for readers 16 and up due to mature content.

Excerpt

Once I had arrived back at our room, shaking but exhilarated, I stripped down to my shorts and tank top and slid into bed.

I laid there, gnawing my lip, twirling the flower between my fingers and thinking of the invisible boy who had given it to me. I moved to lie on my side. Would he bring me another tonight? I should still be thoroughly horrified at the thought of someone sneaking in while Anna and I had slept, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel the same repulsion. If it was, in fact, the boy from the woods, I knew he wouldn’t harm me. And in all truth, if he came again I hoped I would wake so I could feel his presence – his warm, soul-stirring presence. The kind of presence that kept me there with him when any normal person would have run screaming for the school.

With a longing sigh, I closed my eyes.

Despite my excitement, sleep came swift and sweet, scooping me into its arms and carrying me back into the darkness of the woods. I stood in the same spot as before – the open space with flowery bushes. Another form materialized, and I jumped. Black shirt, fair skin – the silhouette from the woods. My invisible admirer.

Except this time, he didn’t run from tree to tree; he stood exposed, allowing me to soak in his beauty, saturating my spirit. He towered over me, which didn’t happen often at five feet, nine inches tall; I wasn’t a short girl. His eyes twinkled icy blue, the angular attractive lines of his face a divine masterpiece. His chestnut hair had been cropped close on the sides but left longer on top, reminding me of a trendy rock star haircut, but flattering and oh-so-complementary to his porcelain features. And his lips, his supple lips drew into a knowing, heart-stopping smile as he plucked another flower from the bush and placed it into my waiting palm.

Honestly, I could have cared less about the flower this time, I wanted to feel him – his flawless skin. I reached out for his face with my other hand, and he stepped back, his smile wavering. Persistent, I tried again, and he took a bigger step back. Why couldn’t I touch him? I could see him, feel his presence... but I wanted to experience more of him.

I searched his eyes with a scowl, and his own expression melted into a frown. He didn’t like the distance, either. “What’s your name?” I asked. If I couldn’t touch him, perhaps I could hear him as a consolation.

He only stared back at me, sad and apologetic.

My eyes welled with tears. So not fair.

I looked down to my flower and held it to my chest. When I looked back up at him, he’d disappeared, and a foreign ache pierced my heart in agony. I’d only seen him, really seen him for a matter of a short moment, and he’d left me.

About The  Auhor
Susan James Pierce has a degree in Marketing Management, works for a Fortune 500 company in Atlanta, Georgia, and devotes her precious, spare time to writing Fantasy, Paranormal and Sci-fi novels.

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--25$ Amazon Gift Card

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Into the Blind: Book Tour + Giveaway + Excerpt

Into the Blind by Helen Rena

Release Date: 06/2014

Amazon
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What if a girl became all-powerful? Her boyfriend wouldn’t like it.

Summary from Goodreads:In a world where everyone is gifted, be it in dancing, lightning-bringing, or death-giving, Ever is born…all-powerful.
For this gift, she is kidnapped and trafficked at birth. Fifteen years later, Ever still hasn’t seen even a glimmer of her powerful gift. Locked in an abandoned mall in New York City, she’s fighting to survive her captivity, her brutal guards, and the other gifted kids in her cell. She would do anything to escape.
Fox is gifted with time manipulation. Like Ever, he hasn’t come into his gift yet; like Ever, he hates the mall; and like Ever, he longs to be free. But there’s one thing he values above his freedom—it’s Ever’s love…
…yet, when the two make a desperate attempt to escape, this attempt proves so dark and twisted that it just might destroy Ever’s love for Fox.

Praise

“A thrilling story…a must-read for the adventurous of heart!” —Gina Henning, author of Going Pecans

“…genuinely original and engaging…” —Jeanne Dallman, author of The Hour of Separation

“…unique voice…unique world…unique premise…” —Jon VanZile, editor of Dragon Tree Press

Excerpt

Chapter 1

The green cement floor under my feet wasn’t doing anything. I mean, I wasn’t sure what exactly was supposed to happen, but Sinna was looking down at the floor with so much focus. Presently, he raised his eyes at me, and since I’m blind but have this highly fortunate ability to see what the people around me are looking at, I saw the object of his gaze: myself. Together, Sin and I surveyed my short figure, my pale, heart-shaped face, and my hopelessly tangled white hair. Sinna sighed as if I were somehow wrong for what we were doing.

“Ever, I can’t,” he said finally. “It’s too dangerous.”

I made a funny pleading face. I wanted to joke, to ask him how a nightmare could be dangerous. It was just a hallucination. A waking vision that temporarily blocked out one’s reality. And if Sin succeeded in making it for me now, he’d be able to make one for our guards later. We could be free in half an hour! But I suddenly choked up. The room around me—the cold cement walls the color of gangrene, the ugly kidney-shaped wooden counter, and the piles of books, magazines, newspapers, and journals (for this room used to be a mall bookstore)—all of it began to suffocate me. I had to get out of here. I had to be free. How I wished I could make Sinna feel this crushing need!

He squeezed my shoulder: he understood. Then, sounding like the Collegiate Thesaurus he’d used for a pillow for the last several years, he said, “Very well, Ever-Jezebel. Do you recall what I have imparted to you not three minutes ago?”

I nodded and made my voice sound deeper to show Sinna that I was quoting him, “Ever, you ought to remember three things. First, if you notice that something, even the tiniest and most insignificant detail, deviates from the nightmare we have agreed upon, please stop me. Second, even if everything does go according to the plan, but you feel that you wish to be released from the nightmare, please stop me. Third, once in a nightmare, you will not be able to see through my eyes, and fourth, knowing that it’s not real is not going to help you in there.” I switched to my own voice, “Did I get it right?”

The sounds of steps and whacks came from the back room, where Sinna’s girlfriend was teaching my boyfriend a new method of killing people. By breaking their necks with the edge of a palm. I only hoped Demi wouldn’t kill Fox because that girl was freakishly strong.

Sinna chuckled. “Yes, it was all correct, although I do not believe I sounded even fractionally this excited. However, let’s proceed. An ocean. Blue and warm. With a school of fish that looks like the one on the cover of the Marine Atlas.” The last words he muttered quietly under his nose, clearly to remind himself of what I’d requested to see in a nightmare.

He backed away from me…a few steps…then a few more…then all the way to the massive steel door that stood between us and freedom. He stopped there, and again, we watched the dusty green floor by my feet.

Suddenly it quaked.

Yes, right under my feet.

The snapshots I was getting through Sinna’s eyes vanished, but somehow, impossibly, improbably, I was still seeing the floor by my feet. It quaked once again.

On its third quake, a coffin-sized segment of the green floor in front of me ballooned up. In perfect silence, it wriggled and jerked from side to side, as if something large was pushing our floor from beneath.

My heart sang with excitement: it was happening, it was here, the miracle that would set us free.

The bulge gave one last shuddering twitch and then, still silently, cracked open. A gush of clear, cold liquid shot straight up out of the hole, wetting my chin, my nose, and a lock of hair that had slipped out of my ponytail. As I wiped my face, wondering why the liquid smelled of rubbing alcohol, the water spurt hit the ceiling and came back down, this time soaking me head to toe, and I couldn’t believe it was just a vision. My skin felt wet. My hair and dress clung to me as if they were truly soaked, and the only word I could use to describe this fluid was “real.”

More water came through the crack in the floor, and then more still. Only it didn’t spread—it stayed around me in a large circular puddle. I hopped up and down in it.

“I’m loving this!” I told Sinna, not sure if I would get a response—he hadn’t specified if we’d be able to talk while I was inside a nightmare. But I did hear from him: he chortled and said, “Just don’t attempt to swim in this reservoir, Ever. It’s not real.”

The water kept on rising. Soon it touched my chin, and I hastened to press my lips together, which wasn’t easy because I was grinning so hard. Then I had to pinch my nose shut. Since I was a bit late on that, a little water trickled down my throat, and it tasted exactly like the tap stuff I drank every day. So…not a salty ocean after all? But no matter, it was still a fun nightmare.

A small, paper-white ghost flitted past me...

About The  AuhorHelen Rena loves reading and writing novels. And short stories. And flash fiction. She has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, and a vast collection of books and green bottles. She is still not sure why green bottles. She lives in Southern Oregon with her husband and two children. Please visit her at helenrena.com.

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Gypsy: Book Tour + Giveaway + Excerpt

Gypsy (The Cavy Files #1)  by Trisha Leigh
Release Date: 05/13/14
378 pages

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Summary from Goodreads:Inconsequential: not important or significant.
Synonyms: insignificant, unimportant, nonessential, irrelevant
In the world of genetic mutation, Gypsy’s talent of knowing a person’s age of death is considered a failure. Her peers, the other Cavies, have powers that range from curdling a blood still in the vein to being able to overhear a conversation taking place three miles away, but when they’re taken from the sanctuary where they grew up and forced into the real world, Gypsy, with her all-but-invisible gift, is the one with the advantage.
The only one who’s safe, if the world finds out what they can do.
When the Cavies are attacked and inoculated with an unidentified virus, that illusion is shattered. Whatever was attached to the virus causes their abilities to change. Grow. In some cases, to escape their control.
Gypsy dreamed of normal high school, normal friends, a normal life, for years. Instead, the Cavies are sucked under a sea of government intrigue, weaponized genetic mutation, and crushing secrets that will reframe everything they’ve ever been told about how their "talents" came to be in the first place.
When they find out one of their own has been appropriated by the government, mistreated and forced to run dangerous missions, their desire for information becomes a pressing need. With only a series of guesses about their origins, the path to the truth becomes quickly littered with friends, enemies, and in the end, the Cavies ability to trust anyone at all.

Excerpt

“Oh, Lordy, I am so sorry! My mom's always sayin' I'm so clumsy I could trip over a cordless phone.”

A breathless, sweet, female voice chatters the apology as hands try, with little success, to drag me back to my feet using the straps of my backpack. She's behind me, so not the person whose age of death I just saw in my first two minutes here.

Fail, Gypsy.

“Are you okay?” A second voice, male and with a smooth, local drawl, mingles with the first.

The dead kid is a boy.

I jerk my hands into my chest, trying not to be obvious about it. Wishing with all my might I could take it back. Forget. Turn away without seeing the attached face. Of course there isn't, and when my body remembers how to breathe again, I open my eyes.

He's tall, a few inches over six feet, with hair the color of sand and eyes that shift between gold and brown, like maple syrup in the sunlight. More than the intriguing shade, it's the genuine kindness in them that stands out to me. My heart flutters, then seizes.

Dead. He’s dead.

“It's okay, I'll live.” I wince at my choice of words and busy myself with brushing imaginary dust off the skirt of my uniform.

The clumsy girl stands as high as my shoulders, and the upturned nose and smattering of freckles combine with her chin-length white-blond hair to remind me of Tinkerbell. At least she seems to have a better attitude than the jealous, spiteful fairy.

Her pale eyes fling more apologies my direction, but I hold up my hand. “Really. No big deal.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you for being cool.” She grins, and it lights up her entire body. “I'm Maya.”

“Norah.”

“You're new?”

“How could you guess?”

“Because they rest of us learned to avoid Maya while she's double-fisting coffee and a cell phone back in the seventh grade.” Oh, goodnight nurse. The boy who’s going to die before he graduates from high school would have eyes that make my stomach attempt to fly.

I imagine literal, iron plates of armor clicking into place over my face, my skin, my heart, then flick a glance his direction. I snatch my cell phone from his palm. “Thanks.”

“I'm Jude.” He sticks out his hand.

Even though my aversion remains, even though I don't want to confirm what I saw, there's no point in keeping to my hands off rule. Not touching him now won't change anything.

“Norah,” I say again, laughing a little at the absurdity of repeating my name. Our hands touch, his skin soft and electric at the same time, like he scooted his feet across a shag carpet. The little hairs on my arms, at the back of my neck, stand up.

18. 18. 18.

I pull my hand away, fixing my smile and swinging back toward Maya. “You caught me, I'm new. And I'm supposed to be in the office but I have no idea where that is, so this is at least half my fault, stopping in the middle of the hall like that.”

“I'll walk you. It's right on my way,” the boy offers.

Maya rolls her eyes at me in a manner that suggests we've been sharing nonverbal cues for more than two minutes. “If you don't want to be alone with Jude, I understand. But if you don't care, I'm going to let him take you because I'm supposed to meet with the yearbook sponsor...” She glances at her phone. “Five minutes ago.”

“No, it's fine. He's fine.” Lord in heaven, did I just say that?

Maya snorts, and the heat in my face promises she didn't miss my unintentional comment.

I grew up around boys, so snorts at double entendre isn’t exactly new to me, which only makes the fire in my cheeks all the more vexing. It's surprising to learn that things can still embarrass me.

“You know, it's not the first time I've heard that,” Jude jokes, his smile catching my attention.

My lips return it without permission, even though my face is about to melt off.

“Yes, it is,” Maya chirps. “It so is the first time he's heard that. Norah, we'll have lunch instead, okay?”

I nod, but she doesn't see me because she's already halfway down the hall, waving over her shoulder.

About The  Auhor
Trisha Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things, in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses, reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law, coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.
Her family is made up of farmers and/or almost rock stars from Iowa, people who numerous, loud, full of love, and the kind of people that make the world better. Trisha tries her best to honor them, and the lessons they’ve taught, through characters and stories—made up, of course, but true enough in their way.

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Thunderlight: Cover Reveal, Excerpt, Giveaway

Title: Thunderlight

Author: Adrienne Woods
Series: The Dragonian Series, book 2
Genre: young adult fantasy
Publisher: Fire Quill Publishers
Release Date: 21 November 2014

Book Description:Vibrant, scale swathed wings… Abilities that can be harnessed by a chosen few… Dragons…

All this may seem like old news, but for sixteen year-old Elena Watkins the world of Paegeia is not finished revealing all its secrets. During a summer break intended for relaxation, she discovers that her harrowing adventure to retrieve the King of Lion sword wasn’t the destiny foretold by the cryptic Viden, a dragon with the ability to see a person’s true fate. The words inked onto the page of the mysterious Book of Shadows remains black and Elena must return to Dragonia Academy to discover their true meaning.
Upon her return to the magnificent castle she has to face a challenge of a different kind, keeping her boyfriend Lucian McKenzie, the Prince of Tith and love of her life, away from the dangerous new student, Paul Sutton. As a Wyvern, Paul has made it his mission to claim Elena as his rider but he is proving to be more perilous than at first glance.

Everyone knew that Wyverns were bad news, and just as evil as the darkness that lurked inside Blake Leaf, the Rubicon forced to fight against his inner nature every day. But Elena can see a small light lurking in the darkness, a destiny still unfulfilled; to prove that Wyverns can be claimed.

Will Lucian’s dark secret about Wyverns and Elena’s need to prove their true nature cause their love to be torn apart? And which of Elena’s friends will be sacrificed this time if she is wrong?

Excerpt

Chapter One

Castle of Etan

Anger, betrayal, and hate turned my stomach acid, it consumed my mind and I watched as bottles, papers and books on the desk, flew off and crushed to the floor.

A maid rushed to my side. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes reflected fear. The dustpan in her hand trembled as she started to sweep up the jagged shards of glass. Rising from the floor she began to straighten the books that had fallen to the floor in a heap. Every few seconds I would notice her eyes dart nervously in my direction as if a mere breath would make me lash out as her with my outstretched hand.

I touched her face gently until my hand reached her neck, tightening slowly as my anger began to rise once again. My grip tightened around her soft, shapely neck as I lifted her up from her position on the floor at my feet. Listening carefully I could hear her heart fluttering like a bird trapped inside a cage.

“How did I become this way?” I thought, giving voice to my reality softly.

She just stared at me with round, brown unblinking eyes. Her eyes were sunken deep into the surface of her face and her cheek bones were sharply defined.

Looking at her sullen face made me feel worse. I lifted up my other hand and struck the woman hard across her cheek.

A cry left her mouth and I threw her from me as if she weighed nothing. She skidded across the floor landing in a heap against a wall of cold, unforgiving stone. If I was a dragon I would blast fire, redeem this wretched place to a pile of insignificant ashes.

Two other maids, hearing the startled cry, rushed into the room. Their eyes were wide as they took in the room and the immobile heap near the far wall. “Sorry, me lord,” the older one said. “She’s new, we will train her better.”

They picked up the maid who had come too and begun sobbing. She clutched the side of her face, cover the huge red hand print where I struck her.

I nodded. The old maid knew her place well, although I still didn’t care for her name, she knew where she stood.

I plunged myself down onto the chair and closed my eyes. A silent roar growled inside of me lighting a fire of rage deep in my core.

The girl had made it.

The Rubicon saved her life, so a part of him was still fighting me. I could still see her eyes searching mine. They bore into my soul, seeking answers. How was this possible! The wall wouldn’t allow any human to go to the other side.

Albert’s laughter echoed inside the castle; a startling reminder that good would always win. He would pay dearly for this. I would find a way, but I promised she wouldn’t live much longer.

I got up, rubbed my face hard and let the emotion of my anger escaped my lips. The rage that emanated from deep within me overpowered the haunting laughter and echoed throughout the entire castle.

“Master,” Cain’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Speak my loyal servant,” I said out loud. “What is the news?”

“Everything is in place. We won’t fail you,” his voice said in my head.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and let it out hard. “We’ll see.”

About The  Auhor

Adrienne Woods was born and raised in South Africa where she still lives with her husband and two beautiful little girls. When she’s not dabbing into all sorts of genres, written under various different pen names, she’s busy being a mother, and a loving wife. Family always comes first and her hobby has to wait till she gets a chance to write.

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Gypsy: Book Blitz, Excerpt, Giveaway

Gypsy (The Cavy Files #1)
by Trisha Leigh
Release Date: 05/13/14
Amazon - B&N - Kobo - Book Depository

Summary from Goodreads:Inconsequential: not important or significant.
Synonyms: insignificant, unimportant, nonessential, irrelevant
In the world of genetic mutation, Gypsy’s talent of knowing a person’s age of death is considered a failure. Her peers, the other Cavies, have powers that range from curdling a blood still in the vein to being able to overhear a conversation taking place three miles away, but when they’re taken from the sanctuary where they grew up and forced into the real world, Gypsy, with her all-but-invisible gift, is the one with the advantage.
The only one who’s safe, if the world finds out what they can do.
When the Cavies are attacked and inoculated with an unidentified virus, that illusion is shattered. Whatever was attached to the virus causes their abilities to change. Grow. In some cases, to escape their control.
Gypsy dreamed of normal high school, normal friends, a normal life, for years. Instead, the Cavies are sucked under a sea of government intrigue, weaponized genetic mutation, and crushing secrets that will reframe everything they’ve ever been told about how their "talents" came to be in the first place.
When they find out one of their own has been appropriated by the government, mistreated and forced to run dangerous missions, their desire for information becomes a pressing need. With only a series of guesses about their origins, the path to the truth becomes quickly littered with friends, enemies, and in the end, the Cavies ability to trust anyone at all.

EXCERPT
The library is one of the bigger rooms in the house, converted from what used to be the upstairs parlor. The Professor looks out a window that overlooks the back lawn. Shelves, sagging with dusty books, cover every inch of the light blue, fifteen-foot walls. The morning sunlight still lingers around the front of the house, making this space dim, but motes of dust twirl and waltz like members of a royal court on the pale, reaching beams.

All at once, happiness floods my bloodstream, as though someone smacks good cheer into my chest cavity through my shoulder blades. The strange desire to burst into song hums along my nerve endings, as though I’m a Disney princess summoning her bird and varmint attendants at the window. It takes serious concentration to bite back the urge.

The abrupt change in mood announces another Cavy’s presence, but as hard as I try to glare at Pollyanna, my mouth refuses to cooperate. Her mutation, a reverse empath alternation that allows her disposition to affect the moods of people in close proximity, is more...invasive than most. Losing control of my own mind never fails to make me feel icky.

And given her insistence on cynicism and anger, she's not aptly named. Not at all.

“Feeling good, Gyspy?” She shakes out her long, blond hair and pins me with china-blue eyes. The faux-happy shroud crawling from her to me dissolves and my smile finally falls away. Polly nods. “That's better. You look weird when you smile.”

“Pollyanna, we have spoken at length about the perils of using your gifts on your fellow Cavies.” The Professor's patient, tired voice reprimands the youngest of his students, if only by several months.

The Philosopher, who runs Darley, took us in before we were three months old, and we all arrived between sixteen and seventeen years ago. 

“Sorry, sir.”

She's not sorry, but his chastisement and her apology are part of our daily routine. Of all the kids here, Pollyanna is my least favorite. She's everyone's least favorite, and even though she knows it she doesn't change. I guess she doesn't care.

“Sorry for what? Fucking with people again?” The voice bleeds out of thin air before Haint shimmers into view around it, face first. She leans against one of the bookcases once her shoulder appears, examining her nails as she waits for her daily reprimand.

The Professor doesn't disappoint. “Language, dear.”

He says nothing to me, not even hello, nor does he issue a warning to Haint about using her ability to go invisible. It’s not dangerous. Pollyanna could make any one of us walk straight off a cliff if she felt particularly suicidal that day.

The twins Athena and Goose arrive together, a tornado of rough-housing elbows and flashes of reddish hair, loosing half a shelf of books onto the floor and toppling an end table before getting themselves under control. The Professor ignores them, having long ago resigned himself to their antics.

We're all here now, at least those who are expected. Mole is still enduring his weekly brain prodding and so is Reaper. They’re our lethal Cavies, and are kept for testing more often and for longer than the rest of us. We're categorized according to our level of usefulness, the details of our mutations and abilities listed in records the Philosopher hopes might convince the government we could be potential assets as opposed to threats.

Three Operationals, two Substantials, one Developmental, three Unstables, and one Inconsequential. That’s me. The one who will never be an asset to anyone but can't be locked away and forgotten like an Unstable, either. They don't know what to do with me, so I shuffle along with the group.

“Everyone sit down, please.”

The Professor's command sounds more like a genteel request, and we drop into a circle of cross-legged teenagers on the oval Oriental rug that smothers the center of the room. He paces behind us, passing binder-clipped pages into our waiting hands.

I grab mine, excited as the title filters through my eyes and into my brain. It's a thesis, written by the Scientist back in the 1960s: Genetic Mutation and the Human Brain.

He died before any of us were born but his thoughts and experiments, his studies, help the scientists at Darley Hall figure out what might have caused the mutations that resulted in our “gifts.” Maybe one day they'll figure out how to switch off those screwy genes and I can touch another person without at least one layer in between us. Without the protection, touching someone means seeing a number in my mind.

The age the other person is going to die.

My “talent” is creepy at best, totally useless at worst, and being able to get rid of it has been a hidden desire for the whole of my life.

About the AuthorTrisha Leigh is a product of the Midwest, which means it’s pop, not soda, garage sales, not tag sales, and you guys as opposed to y’all. Most of the time. She’s been writing seriously for five years now, and has published 4 young adult novels and 4 new adult novels (under her pen name Lyla Payne). Her favorite things, in no particular order, include: reading, Game of Thrones, Hershey’s kisses, reading, her dogs (Yoda and Jilly), summer, movies, reading, Jude Law, coffee, and rewatching WB series from the 90’s-00’s.
Her family is made up of farmers and/or almost rock stars from Iowa, people who numerous, loud, full of love, and the kind of people that make the world better. Trisha tries her best to honor them, and the lessons they’ve taught, through characters and stories—made up, of course, but true enough in their way.

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