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MAY TOURS- Tours from Scholastic, Union Square, PRH, Vault Comics, & More!

Hey everyone! I am super excited to announce the May Tours I'm hosting! There's a mix of YA, MG, & Adult. This a great list with a great variety of genres from fantasy, horror, sci-fi, paranormal, contemporary, & more! There's EIGHT tours to sign up for so there's something for everyone! REVIEW COPIES- Most of these tours will have physical copies for US Residents only. It will say in each book's description below if there are physical copies or only eBooks. REMEMBER WE WILL BE GIVING AWAY A $25 AMAZON GIFT CARD OR $25 WORTH OF BOOKS FROM THE BOOK DEPOSITORY EACH MONTH TO ONE LUCKY BLOGGER! THE MORE TOURS YOU SIGN UP FOR THE MORE ENTRIES YOU GET! ALL TOURS WILL HAVE A PRE-MADE HTML POST AND INSTAGRAM PICS SO ALL YOU WILL HAVE TO DO IS COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR BLOGS, INSTAGRAM, OR TIKTOK! Check below for specifics on each tour and click on the book covers for the Goodreads links and book info. Details on giveaways are TK. If you'd like to be considered to be a stop on any of these tours, please first  sign up as a tour host  and fill out the form below. Please note:  Signing up for the tour does not guarantee you will be selected. I will reach out to all hosts that have been chosen once the sign-ups have closed. I am totally stoked for the tour for all of these tours this May. I can't wait for everyone to read them!

About the Books! 

Click on the covers to add the books to your Goodreads lists!

This Scholastic Press YA Gender Swapped Beauty & The Beast Fantasy tour runs for one month from May 1st-31st, will have one stop a day on  a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, excerpts, & spotlights. Priority will go to review stops. Physical books  (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks) I have the ebook on hand ready to send . There will be images for Instagram stops. 

About The Book:

*"A dreamy, sublimely written tale." -- Publishers Weekly , starred review

From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Jennifer Donnelly comes a revolutionary, gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast that will forever change how you think about beauty, power, and what it really means to follow your heart.

What makes a girl "beastly?" Is it having too much ambition? Being too proud? Taking up too much space? Or is it just wanting something, anything, too badly?

That's the problem Arabella faces when she makes her debut in society. Her parents want her to be sweet and compliant so she can marry well, but try as she might, Arabella can't extinguish the fire burning inside her -- the source of her deepest wishes, her wildest dreams.

When an attempt to suppress her emotions tragically backfires, a mysterious figure punishes Arabella with a curse, dooming her and everyone she cares about, trapping them in the castle. As the years pass, Arabella abandons hope. The curse is her fault -- after all, there's nothing more "beastly" than a girl who expresses her anger -- and the only way to break it is to find a boy who loves her for her true self: a cruel task for a girl who's been told she's impossible to love.

When a handsome thief named Beau makes his way into the castle, the captive servants are thrilled, convinced he is the one to break the curse. But Beau -- spooked by the castle's strange and forbidding ladies-in-waiting, and by the malevolent presence that stalks its corridors at night -- only wants to escape. He learned long ago that love is only an illusion. If Beau and Arabella have any hope of breaking the curse, they must learn to trust their wounded hearts, and realize that the cruelest prisons of all are the ones we build for ourselves.

This Infinity House Creative Middle Grade Contemporary Fantasy tour runs for two weeks from May 6th-10th & 13th-17th, will have one or two stops a day on  a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, interviews, pre-made guest posts, excerpts, & spotlights.  Priority will go to review stops. Physical books  (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks) I have the BookFunnel link on hand ready to send . There will be images for Instagram stops. 

“ The Thief of Time is a thrilling contemporary fantasy that will steal your breath away. Chock full of complex world building and magic that springs from the power of story, this book will definitely keep young readers turning pages.”—Polly Holyoke, Award-winning author

Unleash the Magic…

THE THIEF OF TIME is an exciting middle-grade contemporary fantasy adventure that takes readers on a thrilling journey through the realms of magic, friendship, and self-discovery.

On a visit to their local library, Ben, Bridgette, and Maya unwittingly unleash a dragon from an ancient book and find themselves fighting for their lives against a swarm of evil birds. They battle to escape with the help of the dragon and are whisked through a portal into the magical Great Library of Alexandria.

Once they pass the Trials and prove themselves worthy, they are invited to become students at Helicon Academy. There they train to become librarians for the Library of Alexandria, protecting books and the magical artifacts within.

Ben, Bridgette, and Maya fall in love with the story-themed dinners, fantastical animals, and fictional characters roaming the halls. But when they discover a dark and sinister mystery within the academy’s halls, the three must embark on a quest to protect the library and preserve the fabric of time itself.

This Crown of Thorns and Roses Press YA Thriller tour runs for two weeks from May 6th-10th & 13th-17th, will have one or two stops a day on  a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, pre-made guest posts, excerpts, & spotlights.  Priority will go to review stops. Physical books  (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks) I have the BookFunnel link on hand ready to send . There will be images for Instagram stops. 

A heart-pounding debut ready for fans of Cory Anderson's What Beauty There Is and Marieke Nijkamp's This Is Where It Ends .

"This ambitious debut novel...marks this young author as one to watch." —Corinna Turner, author of the Carnegie Nominated I Am Margaret series

Don't play. I saw you.

Paityn’s awake. Her near-terminal lupus keeps her that way. That’s how she crosses Tony Suarez again. That’s how she becomes the only witness to something she wasn’t supposed to see.

The first time, Tony shot Paityn’s stepfather. Now he wants Paityn. He wants to keep her quiet about what she saw. And the best way to keep Paityn quiet is to silence her family.

But Paityn’s not going to let Tony touch her family—not while she’s still alive. And she’s not dead yet.

This Erik Melendez YA Sci-Fi tour runs for two weeks from May 6th-10th & 13th-17th, will have one or two stops a day on  a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, interviews, pre-made guest posts, excerpts, & spotlights.  Priority will go to review stops. eBooks only available. I have the BookFunnel link on hand ready to send and will ask for book 1 if anyone wants it . There will be images for Instagram stops. 

Alex Connors returns for a new mission in The Omega Escalation. But this time, he must take on the most dangerous man in the Axel. A super soldier with years of combat experience, Axel is seemingly one step ahead of Alex in every way. What Alex thought would be a breeze turns out to be anything but. He’s still fighting the brainwashing from his training in the Omega Project, which prevents him from feeling fully human. Alex must figure out a way to outsmart and stop Axel . . . without losing what’s left of his humanity.

This Yearling/Penguin Random House Middle Grade Fantasy Adventure book tour runs for fifteen days from May 13th-27th, will have one stop a day on a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews,  interviews, pre-made guest posts, excerpts, & spotlights.   Priority will go to review stops. Physical books  (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks).  There will be images for Instagram stops. 

"Ben may only be pretending to be the 'Chosen One'—but I’ve definitely chosen this one as my favorite new fantasy series.”—Max Brallier, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Last Kids on Earth series

How far would you go to play the hero? One seventh grader gets way more than he bargained for when he is swept into the fantasy quest of his gaming dreams in this funny illustrated series full of adventure and twists.

It’s not so easy being the Chosen One (or in Ben Whitlock’s case, pretending to be the Chosen One). Sure, when you’ve been mistaken for a long-prophesied hero by a teenage girl/mysterious assassin and transported to a fantasy realm you're supposedly destined to save, you don’t have to worry about things like math homework. But when flying narwhals are trying to blast you into oblivion (gulp) and a bunch of old mystics in flip-flops want you to enter something called the Gullet of Eternal Torment (double gulp), suddenly a C in algebra doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

Back in the real world, Ben preferred to escape into fictional adventures and role-playing games. But the more he learns about his true quest, the more he realizes that being a hero goes way beyond rolling a few dice. . . .

This  Vault Comics coming-of-age horror story Graphic Novel  tour runs for  one month from May 20th-June 14th., will have one stop a day on  a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, excerpts, & spotlights.  Priority will go to review stops. Physical books  (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks) I have the ebook on hand ready to send . There will be images for Instagram stops. 

The Ring meets Empire Records in THE NASTY , a coming-of-age horror story splattered with dark comedy, as a group of horror movie-loving teens bites off more than they can handle when the most sought-after video nasty ever slips through their fingers, and they are forced to film their own video nasty slasher movie – where evil, screams, and nightmares bleed into reality

Keep telling yourself: “IT’S ONLY A MOVIE!!!

Scotland, 1994.

Eighteen-year-old Graeme “Thumper” Connell still has an imaginary friend: the masked killer from his favorite slasher film. Thumper is obsessed with horror and always has been. He fills his time with scary VHS rentals and hanging out with his friends and fellow fans, The Murder Club. But everything changes when his local video shop acquires one of the notorious films known as “video nasties” — films so scary they’re the target of the British Moral Decency League’s crusade to ban and burn.

But it’s only a movie, right?

It’s all just imaginary, isn’t it?

The Nasty is a story about the perception of evil, the power of genre, the love of fandom, the need to create art, oh, and crap-your-pants TERROR! Become a bonafide member of The Murder Club: pick up this book!

For fans of Stranger Things, Stand By Me, IT, The Monster Squad, Donnie Darko,Empire Records, My Best Friend’s Exorcism and other books by Grady Hendrix, fans of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, Little Monsters (Jeff Lemire & Dustin Nguyen), The Closet (James Tynion IV), The Me You Love in the Dark (Skottie Young & Jorge Corona), Giant Days, Afterlife With Archie, Killadelphia (Rodney Barnes & Jason Shawn Alexander), and Proctor Valley Road .

PRAISE FOR THE NASTY:

Horror Comics To Watch For in 2023 - Fangoria

“There is no other title I have been more excited about than this because it is a love letter to horror while tackling the conservatism we are seeing rise in pop culture today..." - Fangoria

“The Nasty is a bloody valentine to slashers and the outsiders who love them.”– AIPT

“The Nasty is a love letter to slasher flicks and a generation of kids who loved them. Tender, funny, surprising, endearing, with an emerging horrific twist. We had Faces of Death as the taboo underground horror tape that was whispered about but it wasn't cursed. The Nasty takes a fun nostalgic trip down memory lane and elevates it to a new level of horror. – Lotusland Comics

This  Union Square & Co. Thriller  tour runs for two weeks  from May 27th-31st & June 3rd-7th, will have one stop a day on a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, interviews, pre made guest posts, excerpts, & spotlights.  Priority will go to review stops.  Physical books available (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks).  There will be images for Instagram stops. 

A modern-day writer and a Harlem Renaissance artist are connected by a painting with a deadly secret in this gripping dual-timeline gothic thriller. 

Shanice Pierce knows better than to heed bad omens. But she has a hard time ignoring the signs when she finds herself newly single and out of a job on the same seemingly cursed day.

Then, while cleaning out her grandmother’s house, Shanice comes across a painting she hasn’t seen in years. Drawn to the haunting portrait in a way she can't explain, Shanice accepts her grandmother’s offer to keep the family heirloom.

She soon uncovers the story of the artist, a Harlem Renaissance painter named Estelle Johnson. The young woman was taken under wing by the wealthy art patron Maude Bachmann—or “Godmother” as she insisted her artists call her—and vanished shortly after Bachmann’s brutal murder a century ago.

As Shanice digs deeper, a paranoia that’s haunted her for years returns. She becomes convinced she’s being stalked, and that the deaths happening around her are connected to the staggering offer she turned down for the painting.

But the truth hiding in plain sight is even more shocking—and deadly—than Shanice could possibly have imagined . . .

This Scholastic Press YA Contemporary tour runs for one month from May 27th-June 21st, will have one stop a day on  a Blog, Instagram, or TikTok and consist of reviews, excerpts, & spotlights.  Priority will go to review stops. Physical books  (US addresses only)  and eBooks available (for international people and US readers who prefer eBooks) I have the ebook on hand ready to send . There will be images for Instagram stops. 

Jesse Dienstag's favorite sweatshirt says, "The real world isn't real." That's the slogan of the vacation-home community in Pennsylvania where his family has always spent every vacation and weekend for as long as he can remember. In the summer of 2019, as Jesse is about to enter his junior year of high school in New York City, he desperately wants to believe the slogan is true. For one thing, the two girls he loves -- equally and desperately -- are in Pennsylvania, and all the stresses and pressures of his daily life and school are in New York.

But when his parents stop talking to each other, it gets harder and harder for Jesse to maintain his dream life in Pennsylvania. And when Covid shuts New York City down in March 2020 just days after Jesse’s mother leaves his father, Jesse's worlds collide.

Sign up for all the tours HERE!

Blog tour- being free by @beingfreebooks with an excerpt & a #giveaway.

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the BEING FREE by J.H. Lyons Blog Tour hosted by  Rockstar Book Tours . Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

Author:  J.H. Lyons

Pub. Date:  November 1, 2023

Publisher:  J.H. Lyons

Formats:  Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Pages:  273

Find it:   Goodreads ,  https://beingfreebooks.com/

Based in part on the author’s own spiritual journey,  Being Free: On the Inside  is a magical realism novel of hope and redemption.

Corey Astin is a lawyer who will spend the next six years in prison.  He knows he did wrong, and wants to make amends, but needs guidance and protection.  The nature of his crime makes him an instant target for other inmates.  As you might expect, county jail offered only a tiny preview of the harsh environment in the maximum-security state prison.  Corey arrives in shackles in the middle of the cold Maine winter, to a poorly-heated cell block, knowing only one person, Carl, from his time in jail.  Corey soon meets Dalton, a man who will become his mentor and teacher of a special way of seeing and using energy called  The Choice .  Being chosen is a great honor, but Corey doesn’t know it yet.  He is just beginning to understand what kind of magical world exists within for those who can manifest it.  Told from a first-person perspective, Corey explains his experience in the prison, and his growing friendship with Dalton.  He tells the story as if you are with him, listening to his concerns, and baring his soul.  Get ready to experience the first part of a private and perilous journey into a world that few have ever known.

 Chapter 1

There was a time in my life, not too long ago, when the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world, was to die.  I was standing in a courtroom in my best tan suit, taking off my watch, my ring, removing my lacquered pens from my coat pocket, and putting them into a little pile for my lawyer to present to my mother.  The judge gave me fifteen years in prison, of which I would serve six, with good time.  Life as I knew it ceased to exist.  I consider the experience a blessing now, because losing everything and practically everyone, cleared the detritus of my greed-inspired life.  Only after I found my slate wiped mercilessly clean, was there room to see truth; and what I saw scared the hell out of me.  One man who helped me see it changed my life forever.  His name is Dalton.

Dalton McCormack does not approve of this book.  I have told him my plans to share the story with anyone who will listen.  He just laughed.  “No matter how many times most people look in a mirror, they still don’t really see themselves.”  I found it mildly amusing given the mirrored sunglasses he always wears and what I eventually saw in those mirrors.  But appearances are deceiving.  I take what he says seriously, because I know he is one of the very few who does see.  I’m going to tell you about him but first I need to go back and fill in some details because there was a time when I didn’t believe anything he said.  I didn’t even believe my own eyes. 

The first night I spent in the maximum-security state prison scared me half to death.  Noises of grinding, rusted metal permeated my tiny cell.  By tiny I mean that you could stand in the middle and touch both side walls with your fingertips.  The walls shook constantly, reverberating every time a barred door slammed violently shut.  Small flecks of paint and dirt fell from the ceiling.  They filtered like fine silt onto everything I owned: my hair, my clothes, and my books.  I had already spent six months in the county jail, but be advised, there is virtually no comparison between the two.  If jail is boot camp, prison is war. 

The day I arrived at the prison the property officer dispensed a pile of four molting woolen blankets to me that smelled of urine.  He topped them with two stained sheets.  The sheets were too small to fit the mattress and were not fitted so they came up around the corners and ended up in a ball in the middle by daybreak.  Some guys had a way of knotting them so it wouldn’t happen, but it took me years to figure out the trick.  As I stood six-feet tall, the mattress was barely long enough.  The smoke, during most waking hours, was so thick I had to fashion a makeshift ventilator from the dirty sheets to avoid inhaling it directly.  I looked into the mirror over the sink, saw my sunken brown eyes, my copper-colored, unkempt hair, and wondered how I would survive.  It took me several days to get a decent night’s sleep.

Especially during those first few weeks, the place was downright scary.  When I’m scared I can’t even think straight.  Sometimes I pretended to read a book so I didn’t have to listen to the slurs that some of my fellow inmates delighted in delivering on the way by.  One of my first major purchases was a large pair of ear-hugging headphones that I employed frequently to squelch the insults and other feral grunts of terminally angry men.  Although it had limited utility as a muffler, being ostensibly engrossed in music convinced most people to lose interest in taunting me after a few minutes.

My first friend on the inside was not Dalton.  Carl was a well-educated man with anger management issues who I had met in county jail.  He’d arrived at the prison about a month beforehand.  I found it ironic that we became such fast friends since he pathologically hated lawyers, and I was one of them.  He visited me briefly on my second day at the prison, looking surprisingly well-acclimated.  He stuck a small, brown, wrinkled paper bag through the bars of my cell.  “Can’t talk.  Take it.  I’ll try to come by later.”  Then he was gone.  I looked inside the bag and found a package of instant soup.  I am now convinced that the ramen soup people must have some kind of kickback in place as they are so popular in prison.  I added some hot water to the noodles and made the soup in a small white bowl he had also thoughtfully provided.  My first week passed slowly.  I read the Bible, wrote some panicked letters to my remaining friends, and generally became emotionally numb.

My first job assignment at the prison was in the kitchen.  I was issued a nice blue baseball cap and a bright white uniform, at least two sizes too large, even though I carried a little extra weight.  I felt shamed having to wear them at first.  People stared because they knew the lawyer was now the pots and pans washer.  I slowly devolved into a shadow of my former arrogant self.  I knew in some way it was good for me, but I resisted nonetheless.

Permanently discarding my infallible self-image is a first step toward living life in the real world.  I think it’s important to put some of what Dalton says into words here.  He sums it up this way:  “Some people live their entire lives in the cloud.”  Perhaps I should explain what the cloud is, since it is a metaphor I use a lot.  The cloud is an imaginary place that Dalton keeps talking about with rancor in his voice.  It is a rosy world where there are no felons, no crimes; nothing at all to disturb the calming fantasy that much of America prefers to live in every day.  “You shouldn’t stop with America,” says Dalton when I start talking politics with him, “it infects the entire planet.”

Every afternoon I have rec.  I can choose to go to a number of different places.  Most of the time I go to the library.  I have also been up to the prison Chaplain’s office quite a bit.  But sometimes, like when I have to buy something at the prison store, I have to go to the yard.  The yard is the place where people congregate, talk, show off, yell, lift weights, play pool, and make general assholes of themselves.  I do not use that word lightly; there are plenty of them in prison. 

The yard is also the place where I first noticed Dalton.  He was carrying a large grocery bag of stuff back to his cell from the prison store.  As he walked past me up the hill, he said “hello” for no reason at all.  If you haven’t had the experience, saying “hello” to someone you don’t know is a big deal in prison.  It can lead to a fight, ostracism, being strong-armed, being told to mind your own business, or just being harassed.  Personal space is at a premium on the inside and hello can be expensive.  I took it as a gift, returned the favor, and kept walking.  But I didn’t even really notice him before he said hello to me.  This too is part of the gift.

He was wearing a red bandanna, blue jeans, and a black jeans jacket.  His trademark mirror glasses hid his eyes, and, as I later found out, made it difficult to tell whether he was kidding.  He walked confidently and smiled.  When I began to see him around the compound more and more, I noticed that he smiled almost all the time.  It wasn’t a stupid smile saying, “I’m in prison and I like being here,” but a gentle smile that said, “happiness is a choice.”  I decided to ask Carl about him.

“Don’t know him.  What’s he look like?”  Carl wasn’t much help.

I first heard about the meditation group over the intercom.  The prison had acquired a large number of scratchy and garbled-sounding army surplus bullhorns, but seasoned cons could decipher the metallic, unsquelched announcements with all the alacrity of an NSA code breaker.

“Mdtashn ad dis dime, mdtashn.”

“What did they say?” I asked the guy in the box next to me.  I really had no idea.

“Meditation.  They shou’ finish chewing before dey use dat microphone.”  Ed was a very cool guy who occupied the cell next to mine.  He loved to talk.  When he wasn’t playing handball down in the yard he was working on college courses.  He grew up in New Jersey and everyone knew it from the moment he opened his mouth.  He also had a very open mind.  I thought about his translation for a minute.

“Maybe I should go.”  I was thinking aloud, but in prison no one notices.

“Go.  I went, dit’n do much for me.  You migh’ like it dough.”  Ed sounded genuinely encouraging.  That was another reason I liked him.

“OK.”  It took twenty minutes to coax a guard to descend one flight of stairs from his office and unlock my door.  I didn’t know all the rules yet, but I sensed that patience would edge me closer to the room where the people were meditating faster than any other strategy.  I thanked the guard.  He looked at me as if I was being rude.  Ok, so, I still had some things to learn.

I took the small white slip of paper that was my pass and hurried to the building where the group met.  I opened the metal door and stepped into a large, brown-paneled room that also served as a sanctuary for church services.  Metal chairs were arranged in a circle.  Ten to fifteen men were already seated there.  A few chairs remained empty.  I took one.  As I calmed down and let the tiny modicum of freedom permeate my being, I looked around to see whether I recognized anyone.  Carl had come, and so had Dalton.  They both nodded to me.  I nodded back.

The only woman in the circle was a volunteer.  She was a gentle person with brown, curly hair, who brought her own tire-sized dark-purple pillow to sit on.  The other men looked like they had all been coming to this group for a very long time.  The volunteer explained that I was to clear my mind of all thoughts, noises, and distractions.  Anything that caught my attention should float away like a cloud.

“Start by focusing on your breath.”  I closed my eyes, trying to relax and listen.

“Breathe in, I know I’m breathing in, breathe out, I know I’m breathing out.”  She repeated this phrase over and over and lulled me into a very peaceful state.  At first, everything around me seemed orchestrated to disrupt the class: people yelling outside, a phone ringing in the next room, a guard taking very little care to muffle squeaky door noises as he completed his rounds.   I kept returning to my breath.  The volunteer had become silent and I decided to open my eyes.  When I did, I got a shock that to this day gives me chills.  Dalton wasn’t there.  He had been there when I closed my eyes, but now his seat was empty.  Had I gone to sleep?  It made no sense to me.  I looked all-round the room and saw nothing out of the ordinary.  I decided to close my eyes again and tried to return to my peaceful state.  After a few minutes of trying I heard him whisper.  It came from directly behind me.  He very clearly said, “Look again.”  I opened my eyes and there he was, sitting right where he was supposed to be, a very peaceful smile on his lips that was also part smirk.  I opened my mouth to speak, but then, without opening his eyes, he shook his head ever so slightly to stop me.  A wide range of emotions ran through my mind: fear, excitement, panic, curiosity.  I remained silent.  To signal the end of the first sit, the volunteer took a small mallet and tapped a long metal chime three times.  It resonated gently through the room.  The others began to open their eyes slowly and stretch a little.  I looked around to see if Carl had noticed anything peculiar.  If he had, he wasn’t giving it away.  Then Dalton winked at me and smiled.  I almost leapt right straight out of my chair.  I couldn’t concentrate very well on what the volunteer was saying.  But I was dying to ask Dalton what had happened.  As it turns out, I didn’t get a chance to right then. 

“McCormack?”  A guard in a blue uniform was at the door.  Dalton got up.

“Yeah?”

“Visit.”  Dalton picked up his jacket and followed the guard out of the room.

“This time, try to really focus on the breath.”  The volunteer was leading us all back into another twenty-minute sit, but it was nearly impossible for me to sit still.

The next day I looked everywhere for Dalton but failed to find him.  Carl and I decided to go walking in the afternoon, even though it was cold.  It was probably twenty degrees out and the clothing I had on really wasn’t warm enough.  Still, we kept up a good pace and tried to act nonchalantly despite the fact that there was an armed guard walking the wall above us with a high-caliber rifle.  He, on the other hand, looked very warm.

“Did you see anything strange yesterday at meditation?” I asked Carl after a while.

“Just you.  You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

“I might have.”  I remembered closing my eyes and focusing on my breath.   Everything seemed normal, until it wasn’t.  “Did you get a chance to see the guy I was talking about the other day, you know, the guy they took to visits?”  My brown state-issue shoes were not insulated and my feet were getting cold.

“Oh yeah.  That’s the guy who said hello to you, right?”  Everybody was painfully aware of the hello thing.

“Right.  Did you notice anything weird about him?”  I liked Carl well enough, but I was still unclear about how open-minded he would be if I told him that one of the guys at meditation had spontaneously vanished, even if it were just for a few minutes.

“No, not really.  He struck me as pretty quiet.  Looks like he’s been in a while and has figured out how to do time.”  I wasn’t sure if he knew it, but Carl had given me another piece of the puzzle.  How to do time.  I had heard inmates talk about doing time as though it were a job: the fine art of turning something that should normally take five minutes into an hour.  The institution provided their own version of doing time by needlessly complicating things, in typical military fashion, and so most inmates found alternative ways to get the things they needed.

“Wonder what he did?”

“Probably murder,” said Carl.   “Anybody who’s been in that long must have killed somebody.”  He was right about one thing: Dalton looked as though he’d been in prison for twenty years.  There was no sense of shame about the man.  At first his serenity irritated me because it ran against the grain of what I had always been taught about criminals: that they should be ashamed for the rest of their lives.  I didn’t really believe that everyone was guilty, but I knew most were.

“What did you think was so weird about him?”  Carl asked the question before I had made up my mind.   I still debated whether to reveal what I saw.

“He winked at me.”

“Oh.   Yeah, well, there are a lot of guys like that in here.”

“No, not sexually, he just gave me a wink like he knew something I didn’t.”  Carl looked confused and decided to change the subject.

“You heard anything more from your girlfriend?”

“Nope.  I think she’s given up on me.  I don’t blame her though.  Who can wait six years for someone to get out of prison?”  Carl knew how unhappy I had been when I got my Dear John letter.  It was my own damn fault for lying to her.  I had told her I was innocent.  Technically true as a presumption, but in fact I was guilty.  There are some things that sorry just won’t cover, but I still keep saying it as if she can hear me.  I knew better than to ask Carl anything about his ex-wife.  Their divorce was epic in its devastation and had left him virtually penniless.  Small wonder he had such a deep hatred for lawyers.  We left the walking track and went back inside to warm up.

When I heard the call for meditation the following week, I was ready.  I had already secured my pass and reminded the guard that I wished to go.  He pressed the button for my door and it sprang open a hand-width.  I locked it behind me and walked quickly to the chapel, trying not to look at anyone along the way.  Even looking at someone could be as risky as hello. 

This time I was the first one there, except for the volunteer.  She introduced herself as Pam and apparently didn’t remember I had been there the previous week.  It made very little difference to me at the time since I was more concerned with talking to Dalton.  It amazed me how little contact I could have with some people in a prison that held just under five hundred men.  I didn’t know my way around well enough yet to visit someone intentionally.  That was a skill I would develop over time however, and I was doing the best I could.  Most people immediately recognized my status as a fish out of water (though perhaps a shark), and for some it was an opportunity to con me.  Others, like old Ronnie who lived on my cellblock, called me a “civilian” and gave me latitude when I failed to discern all the subtle nuances of the infamous inmate code.

Dalton came through the door and approached me as if we were old friends.  “Glad you decided to come back.”  He patted me on the back and went to take a seat in one of the metal folding chairs.  I was, once again, speechless.  I chose a chair next to his and he seemed pleased.  Carl didn’t show up, but I knew he might not since the group met during his shift in the laundry.  Attending programs was always encouraged by the institution, so he could go if he wanted to, but he still had a certain amount of work to complete; unless he found someone else with whom he could trade.

“Let’s begin.”  I tried to relax.  The volunteer struck the chime and closed her eyes.  I had been breathing rhythmically with my eyes closed for about ten minutes when I heard Dalton whisper.   “Can you hear me?”  I nodded.  “If you want to talk, then meet me at the gym tomorrow afternoon, right after lunch.”  I peeked around.  No one else seemed to have heard him.  I don’t think he had moved at all.  It was a little eerie, but I made the decision then and there that I wanted to know more, that I would go.  I whispered back to him, “Ok” and the whole group seemed to hear me.  Several men gave me sharp, disapproving glances before they resumed their meditating.  Dalton just grinned.

The next day passed very slowly for me.  I managed to get pretty much soaking wet while washing the pots and pans in the morning.  I also took much longer than any of the other inmates thought I should.  I never liked doing dishes for myself, much less for an entire prison.  But I had some help and although it became fairly cumbersome to organize the ever-growing pile of dirty pots, plastic tubs, and vats of doughy gunk, I did make it through.  When I came back to my cell, Ed nearly ran me over, hoping to ask me a legal question.

“Hey, Corey!  Can you still file an appeal after you take a plea bargain?”  I told him I couldn’t give him legal advice because I was suspended from practice, but I could tell him about my personal experience in dealing with the issue in Maine.   He seemed interested but disappointed I couldn’t give him a solid answer.  I also told him to write to his former lawyer.

“Well she’s da one who I t’ink screwed up!”  This was actually a fairly typical conversation for prison, and even more typical for me in county jail, but I did my best to ease people’s frustrations.  He saw I was getting frustrated and eased off a bit.  “So how’s dat meditation class goin’?”

“Good.  One of the guys in it wants to talk to me about it this afternoon actually.  It seems to be helping.”  I wasn’t lying either.  I had started using the time when I couldn’t sleep to meditate.  It was really doing wonders for my peace of mind and was a stark contrast to the Bible debates that seemed to preoccupy most of the otherwise gentle religious types in prison.  I had ongoing arguments with various fundamentalists who not only thought my newfound meditation un-Christian, but in some cases, satanic.  My fondness for Gregorian chant also led the resident Pentecostals to cast aspersions on my faith.  It was difficult for me to accept the lack of logic among people who were so completely rooted to literal interpretations of Bible passages.  Being an “intellectual” was a sin for them because it somehow separated you from God.  The theory is this: if you think for yourself, then how can you let God think for you?  Somewhat mind-boggling!

Ed excused himself and resumed his studies.  I changed out of my kitchen whites and got back into more comfortable clothes.  The typical uniform for that prison was blue jeans and either a t-shirt or a flannel shirt.  Most people wore sneakers and had their own clothes.  I hadn’t gotten enough clothes to be entirely comfortable yet, and so I wore state clothes on days when I ran out of clean clothes.  Carl managed to help me out with laundry though.  It was generosity on his part that I respected and admired.  There are actually a substantial number of people in prison who can manage to do something for nothing, even though it countermands the inmate code.

I got to rec and found Dalton standing outside at the end of the beige-colored, cinderblock building that served as a gym.  He was looking at the clouds.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?”  He seemed transfixed.  I looked at him and then at the clouds for a moment and wondered whether I had made a big mistake.  “Do you know that there are some prisons where you can’t even look at the sky?”  I knew what he was talking about.  During my six-month stint in county jail prior to the transfer to the Maine State Prison I had been in a cell where the sky was a tiny patch between two buildings that I could only see if I craned my neck all the way into a corner of my skinny cell window.

“I do.  It makes you appreciate it all the more.  Even grass.”

“Yes!  Grass is a luxury in here.  People take it for granted every day.  They curse it, cut it, make it grow faster, shorter, taller, wider, thicker, straighter.  There is no end to lawn care (especially for golfers), but how many people really appreciate grass?”  He certainly had a point.  Before I experienced life in prison, I had limited patience for appreciating the little things in life, and grass seemed quite insignificant.  Sure, I liked walking barefoot in the grass, but I always assumed I could do it if and when I chose.  The freedom to enjoy it was never an issue.

“I want to talk to you about meditation.”  I was trying to be as patient as possible, but the questions were nearly bursting.  “How do you do that?  I mean, what, exactly, did you do?”  I wasn’t being very clear, but I was nervous as hell.  Dalton motioned with his head for me to follow him and we walked a little way down behind the gym.  It was the area where they played handball in good weather, although now there were little patches of ice on the ground.  The sun kept the temperature bearable.

“What did you see?”  He was a man who answered a question with a question.  I stopped myself from saying something snide about being a lawyer and tried to calm myself down and listen.  There was a gracious plenty of the Socratic method in law school so it wasn’t actually unfamiliar territory.  But I was on his turf now, and I needed to learn and listen.

“You vanished.  Gone, poof, no more you.  Then when I looked again you were right where I thought you should be.”  I kept eye contact with his mirror glasses for a while until he looked away.

“I thought you might have.  You have the gift.”  He was smiling broadly, a proud, comfortable smile that belongs to someone who has traveled a long way and found what he wanted there.

“What gift?  What are you talking about?  I’m not the one who disappeared; I’m not the one who whispered in my ear without letting a whole room full of people know.  You couldn’t hear a pin drop in that place when you spoke to me.  I don’t think anyone else heard it.  What’s going on?”  I was getting riled up and trying to mask it, but my adrenaline was winning.

Dalton cleared his throat.  “Some people, when they have gone through a major loss, like you have, experience a change in perception.  It is a gift, and it brings with it a way of seeing the world in its raw form, untainted by the lies we are told and the assumptions we make about what we see.”  Deep inside, I had a fleeting feeling I knew what he was talking about.  When I was on the evening news for example, as opposed to watching it, when I heard my name, reality shifted for a moment.  The ride stopped.  I found myself at the top of the Ferris wheel, looking down, wondering if all the people below really knew how small they looked from there.  I certainly didn’t think of it as a gift though.  It kind of made me sick to my stomach.  Dalton was making me relive some of that feeling and it was uncomfortable.  I decided to sit down.  I walked over to a little retaining wall that was part of the building’s foundation and sat down on it.  I felt light-headed and flushed.  Dalton began to look concerned.

“When you begin to wake up from the dream we all live in, it is very scary.  You will begin to see things you won’t believe.  But these things are real.  They have been there all along.  When you see them for the first time, you may panic.  Your mind tries to take you back to the easy lies of the world you are comfortable in.

“Your body reacts: you sweat, you hyperventilate, you fear death.  What you saw was real.”  Dalton took his large hands and placed them on my head for a moment with his thumbs on my forehead.  I let him, as though he were my father, checking my brow for a temperature.  I experienced such an immediate calming sensation that I started to fall asleep, right there, in broad daylight, in the middle of the prison rec yard.  A black veil covered my eyes and I fell asleep.

Everyday life in a prison is far more time-consuming than you might think.  Remember, I have to live by two sets of rules: the guards’ and the inmates’.  Notice that I didn’t say the institution’s rules, because every officer decides which rules he or she will enforce.  The same is true for civilian police, but in prison the problem is in your face, every day, for every small decision you make.  Some things are Catch-22’s and there is no right answer.  You have to violate somebody’s rules.  In those circumstances, if you want to survive, you choose to live by the inmate code.

The next time I saw Dalton, he was walking into the dining room.  He had his tool bag with him.  Dalton’s job at the prison is maintenance.  He says it’s spiritual maintenance.  I believe him.  He has the air of someone who can fix anything.

“Are you allowed to be in here right now?”  I was very naïve for the first few years I was incarcerated.  Dalton sat down at the same stainless-steel table where I was sitting.  The table seated eight people and had the appearance of a giant metal mushroom bolted securely to the porcelain-tiled, blue-and-white floor.

“This bag is my pass to any place in the prison I want to go.  Guards don’t ask me much anymore.  They know me.”  I was eating lunch early, as was my privilege for working in the kitchen.  There were several inmates eating at other tables, but for the most part the large room was empty.

“Want something to eat?”

“Nope.  Just thought I’d come by, see how things were going.  Got my lunch right here.”  He showed me an apple.

“That’s all you eat for lunch?”  I was beginning to wonder whether Dalton was really from this planet.

“Today it is.  Got a lot to do.  I’ll be starved by supper, but that’s the way I like it.  I treat hunger like a friend.”  Hunger like a friend.  I liked that.  “So what do they have you doing now, more pots and pans?”

“Yeah.  Never ends.  Listen, Dalton, about yesterday in the yard.  I don’t remember what happened much after I fell asleep.  What happened?”

“I knew you needed some rest, so I helped you get some.  You had some real sleep, dreamless sleep, sleep that doesn’t drain you.”

“But how…?”  I couldn’t even formulate the question, but he knew what I was asking.

“All in time.  I told you; you have the gift.  But even if I told you how I gave you sleep, even if you understood what it meant to unplug your consciousness and really relax to the point where you feel free, you wouldn’t understand.  The bigger question is this: are you willing to learn?”  I was about to answer him, but he stopped me.  “I mean really learn how to change your perception in a way that will also change your life?  You’ve already had the first, the biggest, step taken for you.  You’ve lost practically everything.” He paused and took off his glasses.  “You’re Christian, right?”

“Sure.  Are you?”

“I believe in God and Christ.  But I believe there are many paths to heaven.”  He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes, breathing deeply as he did so.  He appeared to be consciously centering himself in the moment.  It looked refreshing.  “Do you remember what Christ said to us about having to lose everything?”

“Of course.  He said you have to lose everything to enter the Kingdom of God, or something like that.”

“He said that if you give up everything for him, then you will surely go to heaven.  That’s what the apostles did.  Things are not important.  People are important.  The easiest way to understand that is to lose everything.  How many people have you seen who live only to buy more things?  They accumulate massive hordes of stuff, and then have most of it thrown or given away when they die.  Nothing goes with you.  Consider that space in your head where you go when you meditate and find serenity.  Nothing goes in there with you, and yet it’s the most peaceful, calming, place you can go on earth.”

“I really do want to learn,” I said.  “What do I have to do?”

“You are in training, as of now.  You can walk away any time you like, but there may be consequences.”  I raised my eyebrows.  Was the meditation mafia going to come get me in the middle of the night or something?  Was Guido going to put me on his hit list?  Focus on the breath or I break both your legs. 

Dalton continued.  “Consider it like an operation for your soul.  If we end the operation before I’ve sewn you back up, you won’t heal and you’ll be in more pain than you can imagine.  It is very important that you go into this with the understanding that there are risks, great personal risks that you will need to take.  I’m not talking about anything illegal, but it will certainly be very scary at times, and very painful.  You have a lot of good in you Corey, and I wouldn’t have chosen you if I had any doubts whatsoever that you could do this.”  I had been feeling very serene all morning.  The sleep he had somehow induced on me the day before had given me energy I hadn’t felt in at least six months.  Now I was feeling scared again.  I didn’t know if I could do it.  Was I willing to give myself over to something as magical and amazing as what Dalton taught?  I have to admit the faith he professed had also reassured me.  I trusted God and opened myself in prayer to him for an answer.  I felt that accepting Dalton’s offer was what God had in mind for me.

“Ok.  I’m willing to do this training you’re talking about.  But how much can you tell me?  I don’t mind telling you that I’m scared.”

“I know you are.  I hope you are.  Fear is the one thing that you need to be aware of in every aspect of your life.  It can cripple you if you let it.  Just breathe with it for now.  Do not ignore it, feed it, minimize it, or try to turn it into anything else.  I will tell you nothing more today.  But tomorrow I want you to tell me what you are afraid of.”  He got up, patted me on the shoulder, and left.

What am I afraid of?  I wondered to myself.  The real question should be: what am I not afraid of?  I took my tray up and stacked it with the others waiting to be washed.  I knew there was something very strange going on, but I doubted that it was just my “perception” as Dalton called it.  He seemed so clear, so calm to me.  Sure, he looked a little rough around the edges as my mother says, but then, so do most of these guys.  What intrigued me most about him was that he was challenging me.  He aroused my competitive instinct and dared me to go further, to learn more about the secrets of life, the secrets of faith, and the contents of my soul.  An operation on my soul?  Was it really ailing so badly that it needed an operation?  I went to see the guard at the desk and got a pass to go back to my cellblock, still lost in confusion and fear.

I almost missed meditation the next week because my television arrived from the repair shop.  I had gotten it lobotomized at a local electronics store.  Prison regulations do not allow speakers in televisions or radios in order to cut down on noise pollution.  Fifteen minutes before the group was scheduled to begin, my door opened mysteriously. I knew that usually this meant I needed to come out and report for something.  The guard at the end of the corridor told me I had to go to the property room and pick up a package.  They didn’t know what it was, and looked irritated if not irate that I should even get a package. When I got there the officer made me sign a receipt and I carried my television back to my cell.  I was delighted.  News is very difficult to get in prison and current affairs are not popular topics.  The most important issues were always who ratted on whom and who committed a sex crime.  One’s reputation depended entirely on recognizing these people and ostracizing them.  It virtually guaranteed the survival of the inmate code.

After I had thrown my television on my bed and locked my cell again, I went up to the Sergeant’s office for a pass to meditation.  The trip to the property room had complicated my plans.

“Didn’t you just go somewhere?”

“Property room.”

“Now you want to go somewhere else.”

“Yes sir.”

“Medi-fucking-tation huh.  Well, if you think it’ll do you any good, go ahead.”

“Thank you.”  I left.  Not all guards were like this, just most of them.  As I later found out, the only topics that were universally entertaining to the officers were guns and pay increases.

Carl had gotten there before me and I decided to sit with him this week.

“Where’s your friend the guru?”  I had tried to tell Carl a little bit about what had happened to me and the conversations I had with him. Carl was skeptical at best.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think meditation is soothing, calming, and helps me live in this God-forsaken hell-hole.  But do I think you can levitate, have little outer-body travels, or enter an altered state of consciousness, like that movie where the guy turned into a monkey—no!”  He wasn’t angry, just very energetic when he argued about things.  He still had a big smile on his face and it always seemed to grow wider after he uttered the critical words “No, I think you’re wrong.” 

Dalton walked in at that point and put his tools under one of the literature tables that the chaplain’s office kept stocked at the back of the room.  Then he took the same seat he had the previous week and nodded to both Carl and me.  I said “hello.”  The volunteer corralled the group’s attention and began the sit, once again ringing the chime three times at the beginning, but this time she added a little prayer by Thich Nhat Hanh about inviting and listening to the sound of the bell. 

I let the words wash over me, bathe me in the sweet serenity that was so difficult to find in prison, but I considered God’s greatest gift when I could find it.  I recognized that this woman’s prayer was healing to me, welcoming me back into the fold from which I had been banished.  It gave me both comfort and purpose.  I began to clear my mind of all thoughts and just remain with the feelings of acceptance the words had left in me. 

About J.H. Lyons:

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but raised in New England, J. H. Lyons now lives in rural Maine with his husband, their Mini Aussie dogs, and a cat in a "big house, little house, barn" farmhouse. He holds degrees in law, political science, computer science and French.

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Rockstar Book Tour Review: The Golden Frog Games by Claribel Ortega

I have something a little different today. These days, I don’t often participate in official blog tours, but when I saw that Rockstar Book Tours had open spots on their Witchlings tour, I couldn’t resist. This is a series I’ve been meaning to get into, and it made the perfect excuse for me to catch up on the first book, which I missed, and jump into the second one. Here are my thoughts, plus links to an interview by the author and a giveaway.

The Golden Frog Games (Witchlings #2) Claribel Ortega Scholastic Press Published May 2, 2023

Amazon  |  bookshop  |  goodreads, about the golden frog games.

Seven Salazar is a Spare.

And now, she’s the most famous Spare in the Twelve Towns, along with Valley Pepperhorn and Thorn Laroux, her two best friends.

After being named the new town Uncle, she’s undergoing intense training to learn how to use her abilities to communicate with animals. But Seven has a secret: the only creatures’ voices she hears clearly are those of monstruos. Something is terribly wrong with Seven’s magic.

Meanwhile, it’s the Golden Frog Games, a week of magical competitions among the Champions of the twelve towns, and Thorn is competing in fashion design!

But when Thorn’s competitors start to get turned to stone, suspicion lands on Thorn and the other Witchlings. Despite their fame, there are still many in the town who think that only the Spares would sink so low to win.

Can Seven overcome the problems with her magic and find out who is stonifying the competitors . . . before Thorn becomes next victim?

This is such a cute series! I loved getting to revisit Ravenskill to follow Seven, Thorn, and Valley through another adventure. The Golden Frog Games sounded like such a cool series of events, too. I liked the descriptions of the ceremonies and challenges.

One of my favorite things was Seven’s relationship with the raccoons. The way they took care of one another was so sweet. Their names and naming conventions cracked me up.

I think this book did a great job at giving us characters who felt like they’d leveled up since WITCHLINGS, but that still felt like middle grade characters. I could see ways in which Seven and her friends had grown since the first book, but they still felt like twelve-year-olds, too.

Though it’s got a lot of lighthearted moments and scenes, the story explores some more serious ideas, too. As a Spare, Seven and her friends experience fierce prejudice and blame when something near them goes wrong. Seven learns about how Spares are treated in other communities, and what it means to them to have a Spare chosen as a town Uncle, like Seven, or entering the Golden Frog Games, like Thorn.

All in all, I would easily recommend this series to readers looking for fantasy, magical mystery, and the power of friendship.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages  8 to 12.

Representation Seven Salazar is Latine. Two girls are in a dating relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content None.

Romance/Sexual Content Two girls are dating. Seven goes to a formal event with a boy.

Spiritual Content Characters are witches and have magic abilities. Seven can hear and speak with animals and monstruos (monsters).

Violent Content Situations of peril. Someone is using dark magic to curse witches and turn them to stone. Magic battle scenes.

Drug Content None.

Note:  This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE GOLDEN FROG GAMES in exchange for my honest review.

About Claribel A. Ortega

Website | twitter | facebook | instagram | tiktok | pinterest | tumblr.

Claribel A. Ortega, New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Squad , Witchlings , and Frizzy (Pura Belpre Award-winner), is a former reporter who writes middle grade and young adult fantasy inspired by her Dominican heritage. When she’s not busy turning her obsession with eighties pop culture, magic, and video games into books, she’s cohosting her podcasts Write or Die and Bad Author Book Club and helping authors navigate publishing with her consulting business, GIFGRRL. Claribel has been featured on BuzzFeed, NPR, Good Morning America, and Deadline. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at @Claribel_Ortega and on her website at claribelortega.com.

Claribel Talks About The Golden Frog Games

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Rockstar Book Tours: Return to Yoon Ha Lee’s Thousand World Series in ‘Tiger Honor’

Title:  TIGER HONOR (Thousand Worlds #2) Author:  Yoon Ha Lee Pub. Date:  January 4, 2022 Publisher:  Rick Riordan Presents Formats:  Hardcover, eBook, audiobook Pages:  256 Find it:   Goodreads ,  Amazon , Kindle ,   Audible ,  B&N ,  iBooks , Kobo ,  TBD , Bookshop.org

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Yoon Ha Lee’s companion to the best-selling and award-winning DRAGON PEARL, another space opera inspired by Korean mythology, this time told from the point of view of a nonbinary tiger spirit. “A zesty mix of Korean folklore, magic, and science fiction that will leave you  longing  for more adventures in the Thousand Worlds!”–Rick Riordan, intro to DRAGON PEARL “With crisp dialogue, a winning protagonist and a propulsive plot, this tale is enormously entertaining.”– New York Times Book Review  of DRAGON PEARL Sebin, a young tiger spirit from the Juhwang Clan, wants nothing more than to join the Thousand World Space Forces and, like their Uncle Hwan, captain a battle cruiser someday. But when Sebin’s acceptance letter finally arrives, it’s accompanied by the shocking news that Hwan has been declared a traitor. Apparently the captain abandoned his duty to steal a magical artifact, the Dragon Pearl, and his whereabouts are still unknown. Sebin hopes to help clear their hero’s name and restore honor to the clan. Nothing goes according to plan, however. As soon as Sebin arrives for orientation, they are met by a special investigator named Yi and Yi’s assistant, a girl named Min. Yi informs Sebin that they must immediately report to the ship  Haetae  and await further instructions. Sebin finds this highly unusual, but soon all protocol is forgotten when there’s an explosion on the ship, the crew is knocked out, and the communication system goes down. It’s up to Sebin, three other cadets, and Yi and Min to determine who is sabotaging the battle cruiser. When Sebin is suddenly accused of collaborating with the enemy, the cadet realizes that Min is the most dangerous foe of all… Yoon Ha Lee brilliantly turns the tables on DRAGON PEARL in another unputdownable sci-fi adventure about what honor really means.

Grab book 1, DRAGON PEARL NOW!

3 winners will receive a finished copy of TIGER HONOR, US Only.

About Yoon Ha Lee

Yoon Ha Lee  (yoonhalee.com) is the  New York Times  best-selling author of  Dragon Pearl,  a companion to this book and winner of the Locus Award and the Mythopoeic Award. He has also published several books for adults, including a standalone fantasy entitled  Phoenix Extravagant , and the Machineries of Empire space opera trilogy:  Ninefox Gambit ,  Raven Strategem , and  Revenant Gun . Yoon draws inspiration from a variety of sources, e.g. Korean history and mythology, fairy tales, higher mathematics, classic moral dilemmas, and genre fiction. His website can be found at yoonhalee.com and his Twitter handle is @deuceofgears.

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They Stay by Claire Fraise | e-ARC Review | RockStar Book Tour

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the THEY STAY by Claire Fraise Blog Tour hosted by  Rockstar Book Tours . Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Author: Claire Fraise

Pub. Date: October 12, 2021

Publisher: Sabertooth Press

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Find it:   Goodreads ,  Amazon , Kindle , B&N , TBD , Bookshop.org

Read for FREE with a Kindle Unlimited Membership!

For fans of  Stranger Things  comes a suspenseful YA mystery about a missing kid, a girl who can see ghosts, and a horrifying crime only four outcasts have the power to stop.

What if the only person who could help you find your missing brother was dead? Nothing is as important to sixteen-year-old Shiloh Oleson as her little brother Max. So when the six-year-old goes missing without a trace, a heartbroken Shiloh refuses to believe nothing can be done and sets out to find him. When one of Shiloh’s classmates says she knows where Max is, Shiloh hesitates to believe her. Francesca is creepy. She says she can see ghosts, but everyone knows ghosts aren’t real … right? But Francesca says that Max is going to be murdered. And a ghost told her where he is. As the line between the dead and living begins to blur, Shiloh starts to think Francesca might not be as crazy as she believed. One thing is becoming clear. Someone has gruesome plans for Max, and Shiloh must confront her worst nightmares to find him before it’s too late. THEY STAY  is the first book in the thrilling They Stay Series by award-winning author Claire Fraise. Read on if you like ghost stories, plot twists, enemies-to-friends, creepy circuses, budding romance, and unlikely heroes.

CONTENT WARNINGS: This book contains physical and mental abuse, death, violence, kidnapping, gun violence, alcohol abuse, references to suicide, implied sexual abuse (non-graphic), bullying, and mild adult language.

Praise for THEY STAY:

“Fraise successfully creates an atmosphere like a cold graveyard, and a heart-thundering story that will haunt you more than any ghost can.” — Briar Esterline, author of  Ablem’s Sanctuary

 Download a  SNEAK PEEK  of THEY STAY here!

Book Trailer:

Rating: 4 1/2 bookish stars This YA mystery novel is full of twists and turns which glued my attention to the story until the very end. I just had to know what happened and couldn’t put the book down for one second. The writing style was unique and I loved it that the characters were written in a way where you could put yourself in their shoes for a second. It made them seem more real. “They Stay” is also a fair rep for mental health as it talks about some mental health issues. Which might not be for everyone as there are mentions of suicide, abuse and bullying. So be aware of that before reading the book. Also be aware that you will become obsessed with ghosts after having read “They Stay” and maybe you might be able to associate them as something else as dangerous. At least Francesca thinks so. If you are a fan of spooky mystery YA thrillers that can get too intense then this novel is one that you should read!

About Claire Fraise:

Claire Fraise earned her B.A. in English from Tufts University. She published her debut novel when she was 16 (award-winning YA dystopian novel IMPERFECT), and her YA supernatural thriller THEY STAY is coming out in October 2021. When Claire’s not writing, she likes crocheting amigurumi animals, reading, and hanging out with her dogs. Even though it goes against every introverted bone in her body, she is on social media. Connect with her on Instagram at @clairefraiseauthor, on YouTube at Write with Claire Fraise, or visit her website at clairefraise.com.

Sign up here to get Claire’s Newsletter –> https://mailchi.mp/40f6e2a8c635/claire-fraise

Website   |  Facebook  | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest |  Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will win a finished copy of THEY STAY, US Only.

Tour Schedule:

Week Three:

*DISCLAIMER: A review copy of this book has been sent to me by the author and RockStar Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own and the review copy has in no way influenced me.

Thanks to RockStar Book Tours for the spot! I’m glad that I could be a part of this tour.

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Hi! I'm a 27 years old bookseller based in Luxembourg. In my free time, I like to read and to write. My favourite genres are Fantasy, Sci-Fi, YA, Historical Fiction, LGBT+ and many more. I'm the owner of the Phannie the Ginger Bookworm Blog since June 2017 and this blog is self-hosted since July 2021.

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Review: The Seven Hungers: Rise of the Crimson King by Morgan Quaid [Rock Star Book Tours]

Last Updated on June 25, 2023 by Louisa

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on THE SEVEN HUNGERS by Morgan Quaid Blog Tour hosted by  Rockstar Book Tours . Check out my review and make sure to enter the giveaway!

Affiliate Disclosure : This post is a sponsored post in conjunction with Rock Star Book Tours. It may contain affiliate links, meaning we may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase. 

About The Book

“Jaw-Dropping action, a great blend of investigation and horror, I’ve never quite read anything like it!” Censured Crown sorcerer Ambrose Drake is hired to investigate a bizarre emergence in a city halfway across the world from his native London. Drake soon learns that a being from one of the Seven Hungers beneath our world is attempting to cross over.

Flanked by his ex-lover and betrayer, Agent Karen Winter, and a young acolyte with a severe lack of magical ability, Drake must plunge once more into the depths to save humanity. The Seven Hungers is a fast-paced fantasy thriller that blends sorcery, horror elements, and the exploration of dark new worlds with intense emotional struggle. Perfect for fans of Jim Butcher’s  The Dresden Files , Charles Stross’s  Laundry Files , and the  Alex Verus  series by Benedict Jacka.

Epic Book Society’s Thoughts…

The seven hungers: rise of the crimson king by morgan quaid.

Action-packed, gripping, and fast-paced. A dark and riveting urban fantasy story that leaves you anxiously awaiting the sequel.

By Louisa Smith

I like my villains to be villainous; I want to loathe them and yet love them at the same time. I like my heroes to be relatable and yet have their own uniqueness that can only be found in fiction. Morgan Quaid has successfully given this to me. I was intrigued by The Seven Hungers by its promise of offering a bizarre mystery packed with magic and fantasy elements. The story follows a Crown sorcerer, Drake, who is hired to investigate an emergence of “non-terrestrial phenomena” that appears halfway across the world. We’re first introduced to Drake in battle, kicking off the novel right in the thick of the action. Drake is clearly arrogant, but we soon learn that underneath the cocky and sarcastic exterior, he’s battling his own inner demons as well as paranormal beings in the mortal world. We’re then introduced to Agent Karen Winter, who’s not only Drake’s ex but his new partner in this mission. The relationship starts out all business, but it softens as the story pans out. Another favorite character of mine is Rook, a deaf soldier who first appears as Drake’s partner in crime. It’s clear that Drake is fond of her, but no romantic intentions are given. Without giving too much of the story away about the story, what I really liked about this novel was the character development. I didn’t hate any of them, even when they were given unlikeable personalities. They all developed and grew as the story went on and I found myself being able to relate to them in some way. If I had one critique, it’s that it would be that the “Hungers” were not explained early enough in the story. Upon reading, I kept asking myself “what is this Hunger that’s being referred to?” and didn’t really learn this until late in the book. I guess that was part of the reason I kept reading, but I feel like the story was compelling enough that I would have continued even if I learned this earlier on. It’s not really a downside though, as you do finally get the answer to the question; it would just have been helpful to know sooner. Overall though, it’s a very enjoyable read and kept me hooked throughout. Judging by how the story ended, it appears a sequel is in store, so don’t devour it too quickly!

About Morgan Quaid:

Morgan Quaid is an Australian-based writer of speculative fiction, fantasy and horror, specializing in fast-paced page-turners set against expansive fantasy backdrops.

Quaid writes comics, graphic novels, short stories volumes, and novels.

Website  |  Twitter  | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

Giveaway Details:

2 winners will receive a finished copy of THE SEVEN HUNGERS, US Only. 2 winners will receive an eBook of THE SEVEN HUNGERS, International. Ends September 6 th, midnight EST.

Tour Schedule

Week Three:

About Louisa Smith

Editor/Founder - Epic Book Society

Louisa is the Founder, Editor, and Head Honcho of Epic Book Society. She was born and raised in the United Kingdom and graduated from the University for the Creative Arts with a degree in Journalism. Louisa began her writing career at the age of 7 when her poetry was published in an anthology of poems to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee. Upon graduating university, she spent several years working as a journalist writing about books before transitioning to become a Primary School Teacher. Louisa loves all genres of books, but her favorites are Sci-Fi, Romance, Fantasy, and Young Adult Fiction. Read more Louisa's story here .

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Virtual Book Tours and Blog Book Tours | Ramona Morrow Books

Your key to success - bookstastic, the official ramona morrow books website.

Ramona Morrow | Canadian Children's Book Author and Blogger

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Virtual Book Tours

Thank you for visiting Book Marketing and Promotion Ideas to learn more about Virtual Book Tours. Below you will find a list of 30+ Top Virtual Book Tours that will be extremely useful with the promotion of your book. Virtual Book Tours are sometimes called, Book Blog Tours or Virtual Author Tours. They can also include book cover and synopsis, book excerpts, book giveaways, book reviews, character interviews, contests, cover reveal, guest blog posts, interviews, podcasts or radio show appearances, social network events, video content posted by blogs and webinars. Every book tour site differs in the genres they promote, venues, and the type of content.

A Powerful Promotional Tool for Authors!

Virtual Book Tours or Book Blog Tours consist of numerous bloggers to review or interview you about your upcoming or published book. The blogger or publicity website will publish the review or interview on their blog or website. They will make it available to their hundreds or thousands of followers. This is how they will generate buzz for your book.

Virtual Book Tours are typically done as part of the launch of a new book. After your book has been published or even on the market for a while you can still start a virtual book tour and still have a successful promotion. You know when the publicity pays off because it creates sales for your book and revenue in your pocket. Some of the virtual book tours I have done in the past didn't monetarily pay off well, but in the end they did generate book buzz. 

Make sure you take advantage of everything that virtual book tour sites offer. Use the virtual book tour sites that offer a different variety of promotional tools. Thoroughly review each virtual book tour site to make sure your book will fit in with their genre and it suits the type of book promotion and price you are looking for. Make sure you give the blog host a complimentary copy of your book. With my book, Jamie's Pet, I give them a copy of the book and a couple of days later I heard back. They told me "It would be a honor for them to do a book review, author review, or a book reading." That is when you know you have a good book. You have hooked the blog host and now you have to hook their readers into buying your book.

You don't need to do all virtual book tours and book blog tours at once. Pick out one or two virtual book tours a month or every two weeks depending on your financial situation. Make sure they offer different promotional tools. You don't want duplicate book tours at the same time. You want to make sure that you cover the book market with different book offerings, book giveaways, book reviews, book and author interviews, spotlight radio interviews, podcasts, webinars that create wonderful book buzz. Once you are finished with the guest blog interview or book review and it has been added to the host blog's website, you need to link back from your website to their website. Your next step is to share with your social media networks and the host blog website shares with their social media networks. This is how your book buzz and audience grow.

Building an audience for your book will take a lot of energy, planning, time, and don't forget patience. Do what will feel comfortable for you and stay within your promotional and marketing budget. That is the key. Don't get carried away because virtual book tours are just one portion of your promotional and marketing plan and campaign. With the virtual book tours I don't follow the normal rule where you just concentrate on book tours for two to four weeks. I do them throughout the year until I do them all. As an author you are always trying to find new ways, old ways to promote and market your book. You are not doing it for weeks then waiting for the money to roll in. Remember, you need to create book buzz 24 hours a day even when you are sleeping. That is why virtual book tours are a powerful promotional tool for authors because they create book buzz while you are sleeping.

More valuable information on the Book Marketing and Promotion Ideas page that will help your book or company.

I am leaving the websites I found where the 'Page No Longer Exists", so you don't keep going to them thinking you haven't seen this one. I think my long-term memory is going. When searching the internet, I would come across some of them thinking I never saw them before until I open up their home page again. So, I started a list and now I don't have to go to them anymore.

I hope you find this information helpful in your marketing and promoting adventure. I decided not to charge for this information as other people do. The only form of payment I want is for you to purchase my book, Jamie's Pet children's paperback book available on Amazon only if you want to. It is your way of paying it forward. Remember, please leave a review where you bought the book.

All companies and individuals are encouraged to read and understand each service, their policies, and then decide if they are the right fit for you.

Report any Broken Links so they can be Fixed.

FREE Download Top Virtual Book Tours and Book Blog Tours List here:

Top 10 Virtual Book Tour List

These are ramona's favorite because of the packages they offer or the look of their website., start with these first.

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30+ Top Virtual Book Tours and Book Blog Tours List

Orangeberry Book Tours - Beware: A Porn Site when you click on link

Read Between the Lines Blog Tour - Content Warning: Before entering site

Page or Site No Longer Exists

Warning: do not use these websites if you are contacted by email or using your favorite search engine search bar and you come across them. if you are contacted by telephone do not give them any information about you or your company. you don't want to be scammed..

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FREE Download Virtual Book Tour Email Pitch Template here :

For My Virtual Book Tour Email Pitch Template , I use this one I found from Self-Publishing Review – Article: 27 Places to Get a Book Tour . This sample came from an excerpted from Build Book Buzz Publicity Form & Templates.  T his template has all the information you are going to need.

Virtual Book Tour

Email Pitch Template

Your brief email message should include the following information:

Your name, book title and any special, relevant expertise: Put this in the first two or three sentences.

Your Proposal: Are you proposing a book review? An author Q & A with the blogger? An author Q & A with blog readers? Author posting on the blog? etc. What is it you want the book tour to do and what exactly you are paying for? Be specific.

Timing: When is your virtual book tour?

Other information that will influence the blogger: This might include links to favorable book reviews or an upcoming event that makes your proposal timely. Think in terms of what might influence the blogger to accept your proposal.

Your book's announcement press release: Paste this into the body of the email below your signature. It's important background information that will answer, many of the bloggers' questions about the book.

Next steps: Will you send a book if they write back saying they'd like to see it? Send a follow-up note in a few days? Make it clear who should do what next.

Contact Ramona

© Copyright 2019 - 2022 Ramona Morrow Books, All Rights Reserved

Ringo Starr talks hanging with McCartney, why he's making a country album and new tour

To look at Ringo Starr is to observe a legend who looks decades younger than his soon-to-be 84 years.

The regular workouts , jogs and healthy diet can be credited to an extent.

But Starr seems to thrive on work.

Since 2021 he has released four EPs, and a fifth, “ Crooked Boy ,” arrived in April. The four tracks written by musician/producer Linda Perry range from the reflective title track (which includes a Starr-specific line, “I speak of love, I speak of peace”) and the jubilant “Gonna Need Someone.”

Starr also resumed touring with his All-Starr Band in 2022 after pandemic-related closures halted momentum and will return May 22 for a few weeks of shows before another spate of dates in September.

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Joining him for this excursion are Men At Work frontman Colin Hay, Toto veteran Steve Lukather , keyboard stalwart Edgar Winter, saxophonist Warren Ham (Toto, Kansas), drummer Gregg Bissonette (David Lee Roth, Joe Satriani) and Hamish Stuart (Average White Band, Paul McCartney).

Chatting from his home studio in Los Angeles, the affable drummer leapfrogged topics from his upcoming country album to his feelings about The Beatles’ final recording to hanging out with McCartney.

Question: You’ve worked with Linda Perry on a couple of songs in the past, and now she’s written all of the songs on your new EP. What is it about her vibe that makes you two click?

Answer: Her songwriting is really great; she plays really great and she does all of her demos in a Liverpool accent (laughs). We just became friends and got on right away. She’s very straightforward , very bossy.

You look like you’re having so much fun in the video for “Gonna Need Someone.” How do you stay so upbeat?

I just always believe in keeping the energy up. It’s never a bad thing to be energized, but I’m quite lucky because I can be the other guy, too. Besides, “Crooked Boy” is out now, and Linda is great and I’m working on a real CD. I haven’t done one in so long.

What can you tell us about it?

It’s a country one. I’m working on it with someone very special – T Bone Burnett. He’s doing stuff in Nashville and he comes to LA and it’s all working out. He came to me with nine songs. It won’t be out until October, at least.

How often do you play your drums if you aren’t on the road?

I don’t even look at them. I’ve never liked just drumming by myself. I always want to be in a band with players. If you play whatever, I’ll play with you all night. (As a kid) I went upstairs the traditional way from all of those black and white movies where the drummer goes upstairs to his kit and hits them. Well in my neighborhood, I was this close to being stabbed! Everyone in the neighborhood was going, SHUT UP! (Laughs.) But I’ll play anywhere. My first band was the guy from next door, Eddie Miles, and my best friend Roy taught us bass and that’s what we’ve done: just keep playing with other guys.

More: Beatles movie 'Let It Be' is more than a shorter 'Get Back': 'They were different animals'

How do you feel about “Now and Then” finally being out?

I did love “Now and Then,” and we did hear it in 1995 and we’d done (the other two vault songs) already, and then it came to a halt. And then I got a call from Paul (in 2022) and he asked, "Do you want to drum on it?" It’s great for me to have John’s (Lennon) voice coming at me. Thanks to Peter Jackson with the machine that can pull out anything from anything. Paul went in with a string section; he worked really hard on it and I just sang on some of it.

Is it sad to think that is the last-ever true Beatles recording?

I think I’m past that, really. I miss them, but we’re getting on with our own things now. Paul and I will have dinner together; we’re still buddies. George (Harrison) and John , I certainly miss them. I’m an only child, and suddenly I had three brothers and it was great.

It seems like you and Paul are spending more time together lately.

If he comes to LA we certainly do something, and when I get to England we’ll do something there. It’s just what we do. We went to Paris together (in March) for Stella McCartney’s clothing line . But really we went there for the lunch. (Laughs.) But no, really, we were hanging out. We went by train and were all sitting in the same carriage. We had a good time.

More: James Taylor talks koalas, the 'gravitational attraction' of touring and Taylor Swift

Most of the guys in the All-Starr Band have been with you for years. What is it about this group that complements the show so well?

When I first started this, I was invited to put a band together and go on tour, and I said yes, and then I said: What do you mean, yes? You‘re the drummer in other people’s bands! But I opened my phone book and called everyone I knew and they all said yes. So I had to close my book.

And there are frequently changes in the lineup.

I’ve had like five new bands. Just to change it up years ago, some people were asked to leave and others brought it. Like (Steve) Lukather was brought in (in 2012). This time … we have Colin (Hay) , who is great and has hits, and Hamish (Stuart) I had in one of the other All-Starr Bands and he came back. But Luke (Lukather), I’ll never get rid of Luke. He has a lifelong ticket. He’s my last best friend. You need time to make best friends. He’s an incredibly good musician and an incredible human being.

How much longer do you see yourself going out for these tours?

Until the end of this year, at least. We have the May-June shows and then the fall. That’s where I get my rocks off playing. I play to all of their songs, they play mine. This band is very close and very interested in the other person. No one is hanging out alone having a cigarette.

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