BOOK TOUR: Traitor, by Nicole Conway (The Dragonrider Chronicles #3)

Hello, good morning! Welcome to the blog tour of the day, haha! And it’s a very special one from Chapter by Chapter, as we have the participation of a very special guest 😉 But for now, let me introduce the star of the hour: Traitor, third book in The Dragonrider Chronicles, by Nicole Conway ❤

Traitor

The Dragonrider Chronicles #3

by Nicole Conway

Release Date: May 10, 2016

Publisher: Month9Books ( ❤ )

Can anyone survive being lost in Luntharda?

No amount of training has prepared Jaevid Broadfeather for the frontlines of battle. Now facing the true horrors of war, with Luntharda looming on the horizon, Jaevid has begun to question everything he thought about his heritage. The only thing keeping him going is his oath to protect his dragonrider brothers. But in an instant, even that slips through Jaevid’s fingers as he steps from the safety of his dragon’s saddle into the depths of his mother’s wild homeland—the kingdom of the gray elves.

Stranded in Luntharda with his partner, Lieutenant Jace Rordin, Jaevid must finally confront the demons of his own past as he uncovers the truth about a war that began before he was ever born. Armed with a new appreciation for destiny, and flanked by his trusted friends, Jaevid moves to make the final strike against an enemy that has hidden in plain sight for far too long.

One kingdom’s traitor will become the world’s last hope.

You can find Traitor in paperback, ebook and audiobook formats 😀

Google Play | BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | TBD | iBooks

JUST GUESS WHO IS HERE TODAY WITH US?! Annelise, dear, every time you say someone stopped over your blog in the middle of a book tour, it’s the author in digital flesh.

But it never makes the experience any less magical! ❤ Thanks so much to Nicole Conway for indulging me and stopping by! *–*

AND GUESS WHAT I ASKED HER TO DO?! Annelise, dear, you always ask the same thing to authors, so we already know that you asked her to tell you 5 interesting facts about her series and/or writing process.

But I always ask the same thing because I love learning backstage stories and fun facts about books! So let’s enjoy Nicole’s ride, okay? 🙂

5 Fun Bonus Facts about The Dragonrider Chronicles!

 1) It’s about the riders, not the dragons.

I understand that, being a fantasy series, people are interested in the dragons. Who wouldn’t be? But this story is and has always been about the riders, their lives, and their struggles.

 2) The two “champion” fighters from each side are both women.

Jaevid may be the main character, but he’s not the best fighter. With Beckah “Seraph” Derrick fighting alongside Icarus for Maldobar and Araxie, princess of the gray elves, remaining dominant over the other warriors from Luntharda – these ladies mean business!

 3) Jaevid is gray elf royalty.

Among the gray elves, royal bloodlines are traced through the mothers rather than the fathers, as is customary for human monarchies. Jaevid’s mother was a princess, sister to Erandur, the current King of Luntharda. Despite being an illegitimate child, since he was kept and raised by his birth mother, he would be able to retain his noble title of prince. Jaevid’s own mother could have held the title of queen if she had not been chosen as lapiloque. That sacred calling supersedes all royal duties and so the crown inevitably passed to her brother, instead.

 4) Jace is the only dragonrider to have been recruited from prison.

Yep, you read that right. He’s the ultimate rehabilitation story. After a rocky past as an orphan and a criminal, Jace was offered a place in the dragonrider’s academy because of his skill with the blade. It saved him from being hung, but even more so, it revealed that he wasn’t too far gone. Sile is the only one who knew about Jace’s questionable past, but agreed to keep it a secret since Jace was trying to turn over a new leaf and make a new life for himself as a dragonrider.

 5) Sile and Ulric were best friends.

Before his heinous act of stealing the god stone, Ulric was a very different man – and not so different from Jaevid. His memories are now skewed and it’s difficult to say just how much of his life he actually remembers. But one thing is certain, Sile still cares greatly for his friend. That is the reason he has found it so difficult to treat Jaevid as a student and not a family member – because Ulric was like a brother to him.

Am I the only one that just HAS TO read this series right now?! That was awesome, thanks so much, Nicole ❤ ❤

Nicole is the author of the children’s fantasy series, THE DRAGONRIDER CHRONICLES, about a young boy’s journey into manhood as he trains to become a dragonrider. She has completed the first two books in the series, and is now working on the third and final book.

Originally from a small town in North Alabama, Nicole moves frequently due to her husband’s career as a pilot for the United States Air Force. She received a B.A. in English with a concentration in Classics from Auburn University, and will soon attend graduate school.

 She has previously worked as a freelance and graphic artist for promotional companies, but has now embraced writing as a full-time occupation.

Nicole enjoys hiking, camping, shopping, cooking, and spending time with her family and friends. She also loves watching children’s movies and collecting books. She lives at home with her husband, two cats, and dog.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram |Goodreads

FIVE INTERNATIONAL lucky winners will take home each a digital copy of Traitor (The Dragonrider Chronicles #3), by Nicole Conway!

To enter this awesome giveaway, just click here and good luck: GIVEAWAY!

That’s it, thanks for reading! Also, thank you Nicole for stopping by and thanks to Chapter by Chapter for my spot and making my guest post possible ❤

NEW BOOK ALERT: Keeper of Pleas, by A. Wendeberg

Hi, there! Welcome to one of those serendipity moments that I have here and there to discover new book birthdays all by myself, haha!

Today is the release day of Keeper of Pleas, by Annelie Wendeberg, also credited as A. Wendeberg! ❤

from my Instagram 🙂

On December 10, 1880, Coroner Sévère makes a gruesome discovery: nine newborns, buried in flowerpots, and hidden in plain sight in Whitechapel. A mortician receives the bodies and vanishes. Clues for the two seemingly unconnected cases are scarce.

When police and coroner learn that the missing mortician might have spent his last moments at the bosom of the infamous prostitute Miss Mary, a series of events is nudged into motion. Lies are unearthed, rumours spread. Yet, the killer remains a faceless phantom.

His secret seems buried forever.

Until the night Sévère requests Miss Mary’s services…

Warning: Post-mortems and prostitution are shown unprettified.

You must be wondering why is this book relevant to me, right? Well played, dear friend. Well played. You may want to sit, it’s story time.

As soon as I started my Journalism major in 2012, I started to read ebooks. One of my first ebooks was this freebie that I got at iBooks called The Devil’s Grin, first in the Anna Kronberg Thriller series. It was a Sherlock Holmes adaptation and IT WAS AWESOME! I loved it to the core and that was one of the books that made me really take an interest in ebooks – before that, I’d only buy or download an ebook on my phone if it was a gay romance, haha! Annelise, dear, you are a lost cause.

Anyway, the time has passed and I unfortunately never had the opportunity of finishing the Anna Kronberg Thriller series, but I did find Annelie again online and started to follow her on Instagram and subscribed to her newsletter. AND GUESS WHAT?! Some days ago, she sent me Keeper of Pleas in exchange for an honest review!!! *—*

No need to say how incredible happy I was, right? Thanks again for the honor, Annelie!!

[Update: you can read my review for Keeper of Pleas here! 🙂 ]

Story time is over, thanks for your audience, haha!

You can find Keeper of Pleas in both ebook and paperback formats! If you look for the paperback, go to Barnes & Noble 🙂

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes Store

Way back then: Grew up at butt-end of the World, also called “small East German village”, total loser at school, then went out with little hammer & little chisel to help tear down the Berlin wall. End of communism resulted in beginning of creative freedom. Best thing ever, even learned something in school. Somehow ended up at university, studied biology, graduated, went with ship across the Atlantic (marine biology, yay!), chucked 20.000€ worth of sampling equipment into deep sea (hauled it up again, phew!), got some price fellowship from Caltech without realising they hand out only one per year, returned to Germany two years later.

Some time in the middle: Adjunct professor in environmental microbiology; blogger for Nature and Spektrum der Wissenschaft.

Right now: Scribbler of Things (which somehow resulted in an award and 4 countries picking up my work for translation), workshop giver on Creative Science Writing, editor (e.g  “The Remedy” by Thomas Goetz, Penguin/Gotham), cover designer, mentor for the Afghan Women Writing Project, house-fixer-upper, veggie-grower, cheese-maker, and typo-producer.

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads

That’s it, guys! I hope I haven’t bored you too much 🙂 If you like Victorian era, mystery and thrillers, you need Annelie’s books in your book shelves, whether they are physical or digital ❤

Beneath the Surface, from M. A. Church

Good morning! Look who is up and shinning so early today, haha! This posts concerns a very special book review, part of the Beneath the Surface blog tour hosted by Bewitching Book Tours ❤ If you’ve been here for a while, you know I’m crazy about gay romances – if you haven’t, well… SURPRISE! Haha ;D Anyway, Beneath The Surface, from M. A. Church, is our star of the moment and you will soon find out why!

Also, I’ve received my review copy from Bewitching Book Tours in exchange for an honest review 🙂

from my Instagram 😀

(Goodreads’ blurb)

A whole different world exists beneath the surface.

The last thing Nisha expects while patrolling his territory is to find his mate, but his instincts tell him the handsome human diving into the surf is the one meant for him. Two bites and Kannon will be joined to him forever. But when Kannon’s father disrupts the mating process, Nisha releases his claim, hoping beyond hope his mate will one day return.

While free diving with his father, Kannon is bitten by a seductive merman. Although he swore to never go near the ocean again, the pull to return to the water and his mystery man remains strong. Finally, after fifteen years away, an impromptu wedding brings Kannon back to the Seychelles, and his destiny.

Kannon only plans to stay on the island for a week, but this time Nisha won’t let his mate go without a fight. Merfolk and human culture collide as the embers of Nisha and Kannon’s mate bond ignite, and Nisha must complete the mating before it’s too late.

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

Beneath the Surface was my first gay romance involving mermaids and my third overall book involving mermaids in life. I’m fascinated about mermaids – or merfolk, as in this case I’m talking about both girls and boys with tails – so it felt like Church just got some glue and united the best of both worlds for me. I even joked with an offline friend that if the book was set in the 19^th century and Kannon was a vampire, this book would have reached the ultimatum perfection for me, haha! As it is, Beneath the Surface is already a pleasant enough read 😉

Despite my high satisfaction upon ending the book, I must warn you that there are some flaws on it. Some loose ends in the plot, the writing style could become a little rough sometimes, this kind of stuff. And, as I said once before, my reviews are fair and analytical – my rating is totally personal. The book suited me, suited my tastes and was exactly what I was pinning for, so I happily gave it five stars 🙂

The narrative style was my favorite: third person with switching points of view between the main couple, Kannon and Nisha. I laughed had with Kannon, as he was new to the merfolk world just as the reader is – at least, how I am, haha! Three mermaid books in life is hardly a number that can turn me into an expert, right? 🙂 Nisha’s parts were cool because we could understand his reasoning and motives better, but he’s the mainstream tall, dark, handsome and sexy type of guy. He engaged on Kannon’s humor, but rarely started it himself.

The plot was simple and straightforward, with Kannon and Nisha having to work their relationship to a level that is agreeable for both of them. What I really liked about Beneath the Surface is that there is no instalove, not even with the mating deal. Nisha for sure cares about Kannon to the point of stalking and Kannon worries about Nisha, but in not a single moment they say they are in love. In fact, Kannon express that he doesn’t love Nisha yet, but the bound that he feels with the merman for sure can’t be ignored and would easily grow into more over the time. I loved it ❤

Now, let’s talk for a moment about things that weren’t that good in Beneath the Surface. I wasn’t impressed with the characters overall, I think they were pretty superficial. I know the book is short – practically a novella – but it is possible to construct deep and awesome characters with even less pages than this. Just ask Ava March. I was a little sad to see that there wasn’t anything else beneath the character’s surface (you see what I did there? Haha). Also, there were small loose ends that bothered me a little and some events that sound kind of an excuse for Kannon and Nisha to have sex. Don’t get me wrong, Church can pull off a sex scene like a pro, but the knitting of them with the plot sometimes had me wondering. And, the last problematic point was the writing style. Sometimes, it was fluid, interesting and seat grabbing. Other times, it dragged and turned rough, like I was reading a play rather than a book 😦 Oh, and I won’t even mention all the problems with the cover art.

Okay, going back to the good vibes: the characters! Unfortunately no one in Beneath the Surface made it to My Bookish Boyfriends list, but I still had a great time with Kannon. He was so funny and optimistic all the time! You know, all the time that he hasn’t scared to death, haha! I wasn’t impressed with Nisha – cool and quiet guys that act as dominant aren’t really my thing. I usually go with funny, relaxed and dorky. But one thing I can say: Nisha is beautiful and no one can deny him that, haha!

One thing that really stands out on the book is how Church pictures the merfolk. I know I haven’t a lot of experience in the area, but Nisha’s lectures one of the best parts of the book! I loved to learn more about how merfolk function and the details on Nisha’s transformation were breathtaking!

Overall, Beneath the Surface is no deep and complex book by any means, but if you enjoy gay romances, mermaids and quick reads, you totally should give this one a go!

Thanks so much for reading my review! Bellow you can find information about where to find Beneath the Surface, the author and a lovely giveaway 😀

You can find Beneath the Surface in ebook format only 🙂

ARe  |  Amazon |   iTunes  |  Kobo

 

M.A. Church is a true Southern belle who spent many years in the elementary education sector. Now she spends her days lost in fantasy worlds, arguing with hardheaded aliens on far-off planets, herding her numerous shifters, or trying to tempt her country boys away from their fishing poles. It’s a full time job, but hey, someone’s gotta do it!

When not writing, she’s exploring the latest M/M novel to hit the market, watching her beloved Steelers, or sitting glued to HGTV. That’s if she’s not on the back porch tending to the demanding wildlife around the pond in the backyard. The ducks are very outspoken. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, and they have two children. She was a finalist in the Rainbow awards for 2013.

For more information on other books by M.A., visit her official website.

Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook

 

• Two lucky winners will take home a digital copy of Rush, by Penelope Rivers, each!

To join me on this chance, just click here and good luck: GIVEAWAY!

That’s it, thanks so much for reading the whole post! And thanks to Bewitching Book Tours for sending me my review copy and selecting me for the tour 😀

Slumber, from Christy Sloat (The Slumber Duology, #1)

Hi, there! Hope you had a lovely Sunday ❤ I come back to you with another book review 😀 Today I finished Slumber, the first book in The Slumber Duology, from Christy Sloat! I received my copy from YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the chance and let’s go 😀

from my Instagram 😀

The Story

It’s been a year since Rory arrived to Spindle Ridge Asylum. It’s been a year since everyone on that awful place tried to convince her that she was a murderer. That she had stabbed her ex-boyfriend Phillip twenty times.

The thing is Rory couldn’t see herself stabbing anyone once, imagine twenty times.

There were also Rory’s dream. She always would dream of the same scene: a huge party for a baby girl being crashed by an evil witch.

The little control Rory had over her reality completely vanishes when a new doctor and a new patient arrive, pledging they would help her remembering who she was and why she’s trapped on Spindle Ridge Asylum. And as much as Rory wants to believe the kind female doctor and the funny and charming male patient, she’s scared. What if they were just playing tricks with her?

What if they came there to break Rory for once and all?

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

As you probably have guessed, this is a Sleeping Beauty retelling and a good one at that. Rory was pretty decent as a protagonist and I liked how Sloat rebuilt Sleeping Beauty’s world and story. I already mentioned once or twice that Aurora is one of my favorite Disney princesses, so I was jumping in excitement to read this and it didn’t disappoint. Also, I really loved Sloat’s narrative choices, that switched from Rory to Maleficent to Swayer during the book. The only thing that really bothered me was the final battle scene, that sounded rushed, messy and not epic at all. All things considered, it’s a four stars book 🙂

The narrative style was really peculiar and really pleased me, as it brought the best of both worlds: Rory’s point of view was first person styled as Maleficent’s and Swayer’s were third person styled. Besides filling in a lot of blank spaces during the plot, this choice also made it easier for the reader to not mix up who was narrating ❤

Sorry, I just had to put this here.

The plot was complex and ingenious. As you start reading it already knowing that it is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, some things are pretty obvious since the beginning, but Sloat compensates her reader by building deep and delicious mysteries with the little unknown that she has and manages to surprise you out. Even at the end, I found myself gasping at one of her twists. I take my hat off for her, this girl is on fire.

Sorry, it’s been a long day. Moving on.

The characters didn’t amuse me as much as I’d like them to. I loved how Swayer was a breath of fresh air for Rory in that awful asylum and how he was easy going and funny despite everything. Unfortunately I wasn’t so carried away and he didn’t make it to My Bookish Boyfriends list. More luck on the next book, pal!

Rory was a decent enough protagonist. Not over power, not over stupid. You feel that she really wants to believe those strangers that are trying to save her, but at the same time, you feel her fear of being deceived and just end up suffering more. It’s so realistic that my heart clenched for her 😦

I generally liked these book characters, with the exception of Phillip and Aurora’s father, King Stephen. Both were jerks, haha! I mean, they were so well constructed that I hated them. Did I made any sense here? I’m sleepy. #ironiesoflife

As I commented, the only thing in this book that simply didn’t work for me was the battle/final confrontation scene, when Maleficent is discovered. I can’t say more doing spoilers, but I can say that the moment was fleeting and that there was no emotion on it at all 😦 Everything pointed to a big moment for the book, but it ended up being confusing.

Now, let’s take a moment to appreciate this wonderful cover.

Overall, if you like fairy tale retellings, mystery, good writing and cliffhangers, you have to put Slumber on your list!

That’s it, thank you for reading! And thanks to YA Bound Book Tours for the chance of reviewing this jewel ❤