A Blog Silence

Dear faithful readers --

As many of you know, I'm off to Alaska again for the summer! Last year, I scheduled reviews and other posts to go out all summer -- this year, the blog will be silent until I return. Hopefully then I can resume posting. LITFUSE: I will be back in plenty of time to read and review "Glamorous Illusions"! :)

I'll miss y'all this summer, but will look forward to returning and playing catch-up this fall! Until then, have fun reading through old posts when you need a dose of Austenitis -- we all know there are enough of them.

--Charity

Cover Reveal: Bleeding Heart (includes Giveaway!)

I am so honored and thrilled to be part of the Cover Reveal team for Amber Stokes' book! You see, Amber is a friend of mine, so when she started looking for people for the team, I definitely wanted to be a part -- and when I finally saw the cover for her book? Ooo-la-la! I loved it! Without further ado, here's the cover for Bleeding Heart:

Isn't it lovely? Now, read on to figure what story this stunning cover gets to cover...

A bit about the book:

Five bleeding hearts. One profound journey.

Summer 1886

Sally Clay’s livelihood has been snatched away, but in its place arises an opportunity to escape
from her sordid past and an unrelenting, unwanted suitor. Boarding a train with a heartsick
rancher and an enigmatic miner, she leaves Virginia City behind and heads to Northern
California, waiting for the chance to make right what went wrong three long years before.

But the road to revenge is far from smooth. Sally soon learns that the jagged pieces of a broken
heart can far too easily wound the hearts of others – and hers isn’t the only heart that’s broken.
Tragedy and fear dog her steps as she flees from the redwood forests to the high desert and back
again. Will her bleeding heart ever find a way and a place to heal?

A desperate soiled dove. Three men who come to care for her. One man determined to claim her.

All on a journey that will show them what true love really involves.

Tell me that's not a great peek into what will no doubt be a stunning story! I'm so excited for this. Next, meet Amber!


Amber Stokes has a Bachelor of Science degree in English and a passion for the written word - from blogging to writing poetry, short stories, and novels. After her brief time at college in Oregon, she is now back home among the redwoods of Northern California, living life one day at a time and pursuing her passion via freelance editing and self-publishing her debut novel,
Bleeding Heart. You can connect with Amber on her blog, Seasons of Humility.

Want to learn more about the book? Check out the book blog, because in conjunction with the cover reveal, Amber’s doing a “blog reveal”! You can find all
the latest news about Bleeding Heart, along with book extras, at the Bleeding Heart blog. Hop on over to Amber's blog, Seasons of Humility, to get the link.

Now, the giveaway! Amber, along with a couple sponsors, is giving away two beautiful prizes: a pack of Bleeding Heart note cards, and some pink and clear teardrop earrings (which I'm in love with). Here they are:

 

These prizes will be purchased for the winner from Cindy Lundgren and Belle on the Budget.

 

Ready to enter? Just go through the Rafflecopter below...and remember, this is all in celebration of the Bleeding Heart Cover Reveal!

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Tour: Reign

Author: Ginger Garrett

Genre: Life, Bible times

Series: Lost Loves of the Bible

Number in series: 3^rd

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 8.5 (high)

Type: Fiction

Number of pages: 304

Time period: Bible time (around 925 B.C.)

Publisher and price: David C. Cook, $14.99

My overall opinion: I’m so happy to be telling y’all…I enjoyed this one more than Desired! I read them basically right in a row, so they’re both fresh in my mind. Now this? Is the story…of Jezebel. Let me guess…you’ve never read a story about Jezebel. Me either, until this one! It’s amazing – you fully understand, as you read, just how wicked Jezebel is/was – you abhor her, practically hate her for what she’d doing. Yet at the same time, you understand her, and you pity her. She’s such a sad person…your heart goes out to her. Who knew that one could feel such loathing and compassion for one character at the same time! I don’t think I’ve experienced that before.

It was also very interesting to get to know the prophet Elijah. There are also part of the story told from Ahab and Obadiah’s view-points (not in first person, thankfully). While Obadiah isn’t in the Biblical story itself, I believe that the Obadiah in this book is supposed to be the one who has a Bible book named after him. There were one or two times when the book wasn’t quite accurate to some of the Biblical details – always disappointing. Overall though, it did a good job of representing the truth. There are a few things (though not as many as in Desired) that make me say only for older readers.

All in all? It was good, and I’m keeping this book! Oh, and the reason it got a (high)? There were some a.m.a.z.i.n.g.l.y. great descriptive passages in here – great word pictures. Really enjoyed that.

**The Book Club Network Inc. and the publisher sent me this book for my honest review. I have done my best to honestly portray my thoughts concerning this book. I wasn’t reimbursed for this review, or required to post positively.**

Revell Blog Tour: That Certain Summer

Author: Irene Hannon

Genre: Life, family

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 8.5

Type: Fiction

Number of pages: 299

Time period: Present

Publisher and price: Revell, $14.99

My overall opinion: I was excited to try a book in a new genre by Irene Hannon – all her works that I’ve previously read were suspense. In the end? I prefer her suspense. But this book was very good and definitely kept me reading! It had an interesting story, and the character development was amazing – I certainly felt like I knew them all. Really enjoyed that a lot! Like I said, a good story…and really, a fascinating exploration into human nature. I would recommend it for all Irene Hannon fans and for people who enjoy contemporary stories that aren’t romances. Overall, I enjoyed this book and will read it again. (Most of all though, looking forward to the next book in the Private Justice series, “Trapped”!)

Available June 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

**Revell sent me a free copy of this book as part of the blog tour. I was not required to post positively, only honestly. I was not reimbursed for this review in any other way.**

Barbour Blog Tour: Talon

Author: Ronie Kendig

Genre: War, life

Series: A Breed Apart

Number in series: 2^nd

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 8.5

Type: Fiction

Number of pages: 343

Time period: Present

Publisher and price: Barbour, $12.99

Passage from book: Across the street. He saw the opening to the alley. Saw the laundry strung from balcony to balcony. The clothes draped the alley in darkness. No way to see if Aspen was there. Or still there. Or alive. Oh man. He didn’t need that thought. Chest burning, legs rubbery, Cardinal pushed. Hard. Harder. A car burst from the left. Cardinal dove over it. Banged his knee. Cursed but didn’t stop, despite the numbing pain. Couldn’t slow. Couldn’t stop. Aspen. Weakness gripped him. Slowed him. His mind screamed not to slow. His body warred for supremacy. A scream from the alley punched through his chest, ripped his heart out and bungeed it back to its owner… [from page 212]

My overall opinion: Another great book from Ronie, as the passage above shows! Full of action and adventure, unique twists and turns, scenes that will tear YOUR heart out or make you fall in love…it’s not every day you find a book that can do all of that within 343 pages! There were scenes in here, especially toward the end, that literally had my heart pounding and my eyes flying over the page. I didn’t have so much empathy/love for Talon (the dog) as for Trinity from book one. However, as you can see, I still really enjoyed this book. I smiled several times over the interactions between Candyman and Timbrel…really looking forward to reading their story (and Beowulf’s!). I’m including the cover for Beowulf below because I love it so much.

Ahhh! Love it! Timbrel's absolutely stunning (a bit prettier than I'd pictured, but I like it!) and Candyman is perfect, as is Beowulf himself. Love this cover!

Also, have you heard about the new book Ronie has just announced? It’s called Raptor 6, has a great cover, sounds fascinating…you can learn more about it here on Rel’s blog.

**The publisher sent me a copy of Talon for review. I wasn’t required to post positively, and I wasn’t paid for this review.**

Desired

Author: Ginger Garrett

Genre: Life, romance

Series: Lost Loves of the Bible

Number in series: 2^nd

My rating on a 1-10 scale: 8

Type: Historical fiction

Number of pages: 349

Time period: Bible times

Publisher and price: David C. Cook, $14.99

My overall opinion: Being a girl with a big enjoyment of Biblical fiction, I knew I wanted to give this book (and this author) a try as soon as I heard of it. It took a while, but then I got signed up to review Reign by the same author – and David C. Cook sent me all three of her books. I started with this one. You know, there aren’t just a whole lot of books about Samson and Delilah…so this one was definitely a first for me! It’s got a lot of fiction, but the Bible parts were well done. By fiction, I mean the author made up a lot of backstory and added in a lot of details – more than many Biblical fiction books I’ve read. However, most of those were about characters where we know more about their lives. Some of the material here was a little more descriptive about matters appropriate for more  mature readers than most books like this that I’ve read – nothing really bad, but I’d still only recommend for 17+. The switching view points did a good job conveying the thoughts of each individual woman, but they also annoyed me a lot sometimes…it was a lot of switching, and not always completely smooth. At the end of the day? It was a good book, very interesting, well-written, and I enjoyed it.

**The publisher sent me this book as a complimentary copy. I wasn’t required to review it, wasn’t reimbursed for doing so, and wasn’t obligated to review it positively.**