The Ghosts of Aquinnah Release Day, Soul Cutter and The Dream Destination Hop!

Thanks to Lexa Cain for this awesome banner!

I'm so excited that my release day is officially here!! The Ghosts of Aquinnah is now available from Ink Smith Publishing and can be purchased through Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and the Ink Smith Store.

I've also been so thrilled to receive some wonderful reviews of the book already. Huge thanks to Christine Rains, Cherie Reich and Lisa Regan! 

From Cherie: "Touching and tragic, The Ghosts of Aquinnah by Julie Flanders will stick with you." 
Christine: "Two stories from different times woven together with elegance and emotion."
and Lisa: "I know a book is great when I keep thinking about it long after I've put it down."

It's safe to say these reviews made my week. Thanks, ladies!

I'm also beyond thrilled to be able to share the intro that the amazing Michael Di Gesu wrote for my story. Michael is the artist behind my cover and also the wordsmith who wrote my blurb for me, and while I loved both of those beyond measure I think he outdid himself with this piece. Michael is such a superb talent! Please visit his blog here to read his intro.  

Before I get to the Lexa & Julie Dream Destination Blog Hop, I am thrilled to be able to share this info about Soul Cutter, the new novel by my hop partner-in-crime, Lexa Cain. Congrats, Lexa!

BLURB: 

The Soul Cutter is hunting again.

Seventeen-year-old Élan spends her free time videoing psychic scams and outing them online. Skepticism makes life safe—all the ghosts Élan encounters are fakes. When her estranged mother disappears from a film shoot in Egypt, Élan puts her medium-busting activities on hold and joins the search.

In Egypt, the superstitious film crew sucks at finding her mom. When a hotel guest is killed, whispers start—the locals think their legendary Soul Cutter has come back from the dead. Élan's only ally is Ramsey, a film-crew intern, but he’s arrogant, stubborn—and hiding dangerous secrets.

When Élan discovers the Soul Cutter is no scam, she finds herself locked in a deadly battle against a supernatural killer with more than her mother’s life at stake.

Élan is fighting for her very soul.

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

MuseItUpPublishing

Kobo

One more thing before I get to the hop! I have to send a huge thank you to Lexa for asking me to co-host with her and for making me the wonderful banner at the top of this post. Lexa, you totally rock! :)

Okay, so what is my Dream Destination? I'd love to have unlimited time to take a driving trip all over the western United States. I've been to Arizona and California and loved both, and I'd love to see more. The Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, Zion National Park, Glacier National Park... I think the scenery and the atmosphere of the west is simply extraordinary. 

Angel's Landing at Zion (Source: Wikimedia)

So maybe one of these days Clancy and I will hop in the car and go on some extended travels. Here's hoping! :)

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the Hop! If you'd still like to join, simply sign up on the Linky List below. And don't forget to enter to win tons of great prizes through the Rafflecopter! 

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Realms Faire & Blog Hop Update

This is going to be a fun week in the blogosphere as the Realms Faire is now here!

The Realms Faire is the brainchild of M. Pax, and she is hosting her second annual joust on her site all this week. Visit each day to cheer on your favorite knights and be eligible for daily prizes!

In addition, Angela Brown is hosting a Masquerade Parade, Samantha Geary is holding a Collective Stage Performance, River Fairchild has a big Dragon Hunt going on, Gwen Gardner has a bunch of authors on trial in the Stockade Brigade, Laura Eno is running a Castle Jumble, and Christine Rains is hosting the irresistibly titled Drench-a-Wench and Soak-a-Bloke. All of these great hosts are offering individual prizes for their respective events, so there are tons of chances to win.

As if all that isn't enough, the Untethered Realms blog is holding a Phasers game every day this week. We at Untethered Realms got together to offer a Realms Faire grand prize of a Kindle or a huge bundle of UR author ebooks, so we are really excited to have everyone join us! You can enter to win through the Rafflecopter form at the bottom of this post.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the Dream Destination Blog Hop and Giveaway that Lexa Cain and I are hosting together in December. Our Linky List will be open all month so if you'd still like to sign up on the entry form below please feel free.

We are super excited to announce the prizes we have lined up for the giveaway so far.

Ebook copies of our books The Ghosts of Aquinnah & Soul Cutter

A 5 page critique from Lexa's agent Michelle Johnson of Inklings Literary Agency

A query critique from Michelle Johnson

An ebook bundle from my publisher Ink Smith Publishing

An ebook of Champion in the Darkness by Tyrean Martinson,

A digital copy of The 13th Floor Complete Collection by Christine Rains

An ebook of Drowned Sorrow by Vanessa Morgan

An ebook from M. Pax
A Kindle copy of BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. by Medeia Sharif 
An ebook from Nicki Elson - winner's choice of Three Daves, Divine Temptation or Hans & Greta

Major thanks to Michelle, Ashley at Ink Smith, Tyrean, Christine, Vanessa, Mary and Medeia for these generous donations. If anyone else if interested in donating a prize, we'd be thrilled to include it. The more, the merrier! 

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Enjoy the week at the Faire! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Lexa and Julie's Blog Hop!

I am skipping my Friday Faves today because I am excited to announce my first ever blog hop!

The brilliant Lexa Cain suggested that she and I host a blog hop together to celebrate our book releases in December. My The Ghosts of Aquinnah will be released on Thursday, December 5 and Lexa's Soul Cutter will be released the next day on Friday, December 6. Lexa came up with the idea and the art work and I am thrilled to be able to hop on board and host with her.

So here are the details on our hop:

To celebrate the launch of their books
Soul Cutter and The Ghosts of Aquinnah
Lexa and Julie invite you to a
Blog-hop and Giveaway

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Beaches of Hawaii? Slopes of Vail? Cancun, Paris, or Rome?
Where is your Dream Destination?

On Dec 5 or 6, post about your Dream Destination
(with blog-hop badge and links to Lexa and Julie's blogs)
Go to Lexa and Julie’s blog to enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway
and from Dec 5 - 8, use the Linky tool to visit the other bloggers
to see the wonderful places they want to visit.

Prizes to be announced.

 Anyone who’d like to donate a prize, please contact:
Lexa: laura.6eg@gmail.com  or  Julie: juliflan@yahoo.com

We are still working out the details on prizes but we will definitely be giving away copies of our books. And if anyone would like to donate copies of their ebooks to include as prizes we would be thrilled to help spread the word about your work.

To participate in the hop please sign up on the Linky List at the bottom of this post. We hope you'll celebrate with us!

And speaking of celebrations, for this week's Celebrate the Small Things hop I'm celebrating the blog hop! I am super-excited about hosting a hop for the first time. But I also have a few other things:

1) I won books in giveaways hosted by E.J. Wesley and Yolanda Renee. So fun! I won a paperback copy of the Death by Drive-In Anthology from E.J.'s Coffin Hop and an ebook copy of Sunrise by Kody Boye from a giveaway on Yolanda's site. Very cool surprises to get in my email. :)

2) I am so grateful for all the encouraging and wonderful comments left on my IWSG blog post this week. If I didn't already know how lucky I was to be part of such a kind and supportive group of people that would definitely have convinced me. Thanks to all!

3) It's Friday and the weekend is here. Enough said! 

Happy weekend, all. :)

Soul Cutter Cover Reveal, Favorite Quotes, and the Cephalopod Coffeehouse

Today is the big day - the Soul Cutter cover reveal challenge!

The wonderful Lexa Cain has come up with a really fun and clever way to reveal the cover for her upcoming novel Soul Cutter. Find the errors in the covers she has posted all over the blogosphere today and you can win a prize! See the list below for the participating blogs and good luck!

Lexa’s Cover Reveal Challenge

Can you find the error on this cover?

To win a prize, find the cover error in each of these 10 blogs:

Alex J. Cavanaugh

PK Hrezo 

Father Dragon Writes 

Bards and Prophets 

The Write Game

Ellie Garratt 

Klahanie

Julie Flanders

In High Spirits 

Mainewords

For the correct cover, rules, and prize list, go to Lexa Cain’s blog.

Soul Cutter releases from MuseItUp Publishing on December 6, 2013.

Congratulations to Lexa!

Today is also the day for the monthly meeting of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, hosted by Armchair Squid. This is a fun book club where we share our favorite book we read this month. Visit Armchair here to visit participating blogs and sign up yourself. 

I wasn't able to do much reading this month except for the time I spent on jury duty, where my Kindle was a lifesaver! So I'm sharing the two books I read during that time, both of which are from some super nice ladies here in the blogosphere, my friends Cathrina Constantine and Debbie Christiana. I can't choose between them so I'm just going to share both!

Wickedly They Come by Cathrina and Solstice by Debbie are both fast-paced reads which will definitely keep readers turning the pages. I wrote reviews for both of them so if you'd like to know what I thought of each one read my Wickedly They Come review here and my Solstice review here. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from both Cathrina and Debbie, my two jury duty saviors. :D

I'm also back to my Friday Faves after taking the last few weeks off and this week I thought I'd share five favorite quotes. I've had favorite quotes on this blog since I first started writing it, but I always seem to come across more. So I'm sharing some favorites I've discovered and found inspiring, touching, or both. 

1. It always seems impossible until its done. ~ Nelson Mandela

2. If you ask me what I came into this life to do I will tell you: I came to live out loud. ~ Emile Zola

3.  I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  ~ Maya Angelou

4. Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ~ Edgar Allen Poe

5. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. ~ Mark Twain

As someone who is an admitted chicken, the last one really speaks to me. ;) 

I'm skipping the Celebrate the Small Things hop today as I think this post is long enough, but I hope everyone has had lots of things to celebrate this week. 

Have a great weekend!