The Amuli Chronicles

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Featured Book of the Week: Week Two: My Soul to Keep by Gracie Lea Silverwood

Each week authors can submit one book for a chance to be the featured book of the week, and each week one book/author will be selected at random. The winning book each week will be featured on http://www.malloryrock.com, multiple book blogs, and social media platforms from various sources.

Are you an author? Would you like your book to be the next Featured Book of the Week? Check out all the details and entry form here: http://www.malloryrock.com/promos.html.

WEEK OF APRIL 14TH WINNER FEATURE

Gracie Lea Silverwood

Author of the nonfiction memoir, My Soul to Keep

Book synopsis/description:

Most little girls dream of tea parties and playing with dolls. Their biggest worry is making sure mommy or daddy chase the monsters out of their closets and out from under their bed. However what happens when your own mother is the monster, instead of the arms of love and safety? “My Soul to Keep” is the story of Gracie, a disabled little girl who, from day one, knew she was an unwanted child, just trying to survive and avoid her mother’s daily abuse. All the while, she struggled to hide her pain from the outside world.

To purchase My Soul to Keep today, please visit: This Web Page.

A Note from Gracie:

Thank you for allowing me to be on your site! It has taken me 32 years to get to this point in my life to be comfortable enough to share my story, it was very nerve-wracking to write because even though I love writing I have never written anything for the public before. I am a stay at home mom who is wheelchair bound because I was born with cerebral palsy. I am originally from Canada, but now I reside with my husband and children in a small town in Kentucky.

- Gracie

You can visit Gracie on her website, Facebook page, or Goodreads.

As the blogs progress, I'll be adding excerpts from the authors to give you a sample of the book and the author's voice. Enjoy!

Excerpt from My Soul to Keep

It was also that summer I discovered what a daddy of my own really was, even though he was technically my stepfather he never treated me as anything less than a biological daughter, and I was a daddy’s girl through and through. Along with a new dad I also gained another big brother whose name is Steve, and even though we only got to see Steve in the summers, he immediately accepted me as a little sister and not just a step sibling. It was Steve who took me on my first rollercoaster ride, when one weekend during a summer visit we went to Boblo Island Amusement Park near Windsor; it’s one of my favorite childhood memories. In my eyes, my daddy was my personal super hero, however, I also knew he was addicted to the same drugs as my mother. Unlike my mother, he was never mean or abusive to me and he tried to be a buffer when he could between me and my mother. She just learned to be more discreet about her insults and “punishments” when daddy was around, well in the beginning anyway.

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Are you an author? Would you like your book to be the next Featured Book of the Week? Check out all the details and entry form here: http://www.malloryrock.com/promos.html.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Featured Book of the Week: Week One: Imbroglio by Alana Woods

Hi, all! So, Mallory Rocks Arts is doing an amazing promotion to help authors, bloggers, and readers get connected! Each week, an author is chosen and Mallory sends out e-mails to all participating bloggers, letting us know what to post about. As part of the writing community, I'll be involved, and if you have a blog, you should sign up! If you have a book you want featured, check out more information on her Website and see if you can get your book on 10+ blogs to help get word out about your passion!

WEEK OF APRIL 7TH WINNER

Alana Woods

Author of the suspense intrigue thriller, Imbroglio

Book synopsis/description:

On a dark night in far north Queensland a car runs off the road and bursts into flames. Driving closely behind Noel Valentine doesn’t hesitate to pull over and drag one of the occupants to safety. In rescuing David Cameron she has an inkling of what she may be setting in train, but no idea that one outcome will be a fight for her own life. His baggage includes a shady lawyer, traitors and money launderers.

Would she have saved him if she had known she would be facing sharks of the finned as well as the two-legged variety? Her aim? To stay alive.

To purchase Imbroglio today, please visit this page.

Author Bio:

Alana Woods ... intrigue queen. As a novelist, that's me. I toyed with 'thriller queen' as an author description but my novels are much more suspense intrigue to my way of thinking. I don't believe in cheap thrills, I like them to have depth.

I have two suspense intrigue novels (thrillers), a short story collection and a writing guide for budding authors published to date, and I’m reworking a third thriller—which has spent several years in a drawer while I thought about it—that I hope will be out this year.

Quality is the name of the game—my career was as a professional editor—and it’s what I aim for. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and a Graduate Diploma in Communication. I was serious about being the best I could be.

Visit my website and send me an email, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think of my books and if they're suspense intrigue in your opinion: http://www.alanawoods.com.

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Are you an author? Would you like your book to be the next Featured Book of the Week? Check out all the details and entry form here: http://www.malloryrock.com/promos.html.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Dead Set by Richard Kadrey

As a Harper Voyager, I was sent a lovely package of wonderful books, and I've been reading them (albeit slowly) ever since. As I work about two hours from where I live, I don't have much spare time to read, and when I cracked open my copy of Dead Set by Richard Kadrey, I had no idea what to expect. I've never read anything by Kadrey before and my expectations were glued to what the back blurb said.

Fast-forward about four hours, and I'm almost done with the book. Another two, and BAM, another one bites the dust. This manuscript was well-paced, there were very few errors (I counted two; on page 44 (I think) Absynth was referred to as a 'he' and I can't quite recall the other one, so it was fairly minor), and the main character was wonderfully likable. Of course, she made dumb mistakes, but c'mon...mistakes are how a story moves forward and how a character learns lessons, and learn she did! It always aggravates me when a character doesn't learn something. In this case, Zoe learned a great deal about herself, about coping with death, and about how the world works.

For those not in the know, here's the blurb:

After her father's funeral, Zoe moved to the big city with her mother to start over. But change always brings trials, and life in the city is not so easy. Money is tight, and Zoe's only escape, as has always been the case, is in her dreams—a world apart from her troubled real life where she can spend time with her closest companion: her lost brother, Valentine.

But something or someone has entered their dreamworld uninvited. And a chance encounter at a used record store, where the vinyl holds not music but lost souls, has opened up a portal to the world of the restless dead. It's here that the shop's strange proprietor offers Zoe the chance to commune with her dead father. The price? A lock of hair. Then a tooth. Then . . .

This manuscript came at a particularly difficult time in my personal life. Last year, I lost five people in my life, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and my father was the only one in my family's house who was employed...and of course, we were all terrified for his health. None of us would say it, but the thought was ever there. Despite my tears while reading this novel and absolutely "getting" everything Zoe said and felt, I fell in love with everything from the prose to the dialogue, from the major characters to minor villains. Kadrey...well, he will stick with me for a long time, thanks to this amazing work.

If you're into dark fantasy, horror, or just want a YA novel that won't make you think it's all about finding true love, then this is your pick. The male lead opposing Zoe was artfully drawn out, and he took an interesting role in Zoe's life. I won't spoil it, but it made me consider other YA novels of the same genre and what those authors might learn from Kadrey's artful storytelling.