Blog Tour (Excerpt): Branded by Aby Ketner & Missy Kalicicki

Branded by Abi Ketner & Missy Kalicicki

A Sinners Series

Fifty years ago the Commander came into power and murdered all who opposed him. In his warped mind, the seven deadly sins were the downfall of society. He created the Hole where sinners are branded according to their sins and might survive a few years. At best. 
Now LUST wraps around my neck like blue fingers strangling me. I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit and now the Hole is my new home. 

Darkness. Death. Violence. Pain. 

Now every day is a fight for survival. But I won’t die. I won’t let them win.

The Hole can’t keep me. The Hole can’t break me. 
I am more than my brand. I’m a fighter. 
My name is Lexi Hamilton, and this is my story.

Excerpt

I turn on the faucet for a long while only to discover ice-cold water rushing out. The water never warms and I begin to understand. The Commander thinks he can wash away my soul by freezing me to death. He thinks he can destroy me by stripping away my possessions. But he can’t and I won’t let him take my memories, my ambition, and my pride.

He thinks I’m so easily broken.

The Commander doesn’t know anything about me, what I grew up with, what I endured—the father I lost, the mother I hate, the brother who walked out of my life, and the stepfather I was forced to accept. He thinks since I was rich, making me poor will cause me to give up. What he doesn’t understand is that, after my father passed away, I grew up behind walls of hatred. I had nothing, but had everything at the same time. I owned expensive clothes, enjoyed good schooling, and lived in a nice home. But my body was just a shell protecting an empty, desperate heart. My life was a colorful façade.

I had so much time to sit and think. I spent the majority of my life between four walls. I was abandoned, neglected, starved, betrayed, and abused. I’ve already been treated like the scum of the earth, so the Hole is nothing new. He wants to erase every sign of my existence on this earth, but I won’t let that happen. He can strip me naked, but he’ll never reach my soul.

It’s personal, completely personal.

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About Abi and Missy 

Abi and Missy met in the summer of 1999 at college orientation and have been best friends ever since. After college, they added jobs, husbands and kids to their lives, but they still found time for their friendship. Instead of hanging out on weekends, they went to dinner once a month and reviewed books. What started out as an enjoyable hobby has now become an incredible adventure.

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Abi's Goodreads / Missy's Goodreads

Blog Tour: Tied by Laney McMann (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Tied
By Laney McMann

Series: A Fire Born Novel, #1

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
Publisher: J. Taylor Publishing

Normal people don't believe their nightmares stalk them. They don’t fall in love with boys who don’t exist, either.

Seventeen-year-old Layla Labelle, though, is far from normal. Her delusions walk the earth. Her hallucinations hunt her, and her skin heats to a burn every time her anger flares.

Or is that all in her head?

Layla doesn't know what to believe any more because if none of that’s true, Max MacLarnon must be an illusion, and her heart must still be broken.

No matter how much she wants to believe Max is real, doing so would mean everything else is, too. How, then, is that possible?

The answers lie in an age-old legend the supernatural aren’t prepared to reveal, and with a curse that could tear Layla and Max apart forever—if it doesn’t kill them both first.

In TIED, book one in the Fire Born trilogy, learning the truth will mean fighting an arsenal of demons, and being with Max will put Layla on a path toward her own destruction.

Just how far will Layla go to protect the one she loves?

The answer may never be far enough ... away.

Book Trailer

 
Tied on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble

 

About the Author
 

With a passion for the supernatural and all things magical, Laney developed a voracious appetite for reading fantasy at a young age. A vivid imagination helped set the stage for creating her own worlds and placed her onto the writing path.

By the time she reached her teens, she'd accumulated notebooks full of poems, which led to short stories and finally novels. Young adult dark fantasy, paranormal romance, and mythology are among her favorite genres.

A former classical dancer and chef, she grew up in sultry Florida where she still resides with her family.

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Facebook Profile, Facebook Author Page
Pinterest, Tumblr

Excerpt

 

My window opened easily. The same way it had so many times before. Climbing out on the ledge, I found the ground empty and dropped from the second floor—a jump I'd made a hundred times. In another life.

My feet sunk into the sand, and I followed the well-worn pathway through the dunes. Even the strong evening winds hadn’t misshaped the deep gully. The ocean's breeze lashed at my hair as the moonlight glinted off the water’s surface. Seagulls flew up from their nesting grounds. They should have recognized me, since I’d been wandering at night for so long. Wrapping my arms around my knees to block the slight chill, I settled in the sand, and the birds quieted in a tight huddle, the wind blowing their feathers in awkward angles.

My gaze fell on a figure standing beyond the dunes edge, a shadow hidden within the darkness. My pulse quickened, but I didn't move. Another trick—an illusion. Weary of the games my mind continued to play, I bit back tears and the catch in my throat. I should have been immune to them—the hallucinations—the way they haunted me and followed me, but I wasn’t.

Forcing myself to blink, I turned my head away. The visions had grown worse as I’d become older. I’d tried to convince myself they were nightmares—or weird dreams. Hoped for years they were, but only people who sleep dream.

Unable, or unwilling to stop myself, I glanced back over my shoulder, thoughts flooding my brain. Memories I knew couldn’t be memories but I cherished all the same. For years I’d tried to shake them away. To make myself forget.

I couldn’t.

#**#**#

A stone raps against my bedroom window. I creep over and peer through the blinds.

"You’re late." I lean out over the sill, grinning at the boy staring up at me.

"Come on, let’s go before she comes," he says.

I climb onto the window ledge. "Be nice. She’s my friend."

"Okay. Jump." He waves at me to go faster.

"Move, and I will."

He takes one casual step to the side.

The jump isn’t too high; I make it all the time.

He grabs my hand when I land beside him in the soft sand. "Ready?"

I nod.

"One, two …"

"I’m going to tell!" Benny runs across my yard toward me, her blonde pigtails flapping in the wind. "You’re not allowed to talk to that boy, Layla! Your mom said!"

Max tightens his grip on my hand.

"Shut up, Benny! I'm old enough."

"You’re only nine. Don't go! "

"Three!" Max and I leave the ground.

“You're going to get in so much trouble.” Benny’s yell rings in the distance.

Our feet touch down in the wet grass of the Otherworld, icy sea air whipping at my face.

"Hopefully, she won’t follow us again." Max lets go of my hand.

"She won’t. I told her not to." I lead the way down the cliff face to the ocean.

"She never listens to you."

 

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Blog Tour: Resonance (Holloway Pack 2.5) by J.A. Belfield

Author Bio

Best known for her Holloway Pack Stories, J.A. Belfield lives in Solihull, England, with her husband, two children, three cats and a dog. She writes paranormal romance, with a second love for urban fantasy.

Links:

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

 Resonance (Holloway Pack 2.5)

Release Date: April 2^nd 2013

Title: Resonance

Series: Holloway Pack 2.5

Publisher: J. Taylor Publishing

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Blurb:

Guilt is a heavy burden for the one carrying it.

Jem Stonehouse is no exception to this rule.

What if she’d acted sooner? What if she’d fully recognised the threat? What if she hadn’t allowed the male pack members to head into the witches’ ambush?

For one, youngest pack member Josh Larsen wouldn’t be trapped in the sleep of the dead.

Now, Jem is convinced it’s her job to bring him back to life no matter what it takes— learning more about her heritage, risking pack exposure, or travelling to places she couldn’t have imagined possible.

Even if the journey endangers her soul.

Excerpt:

Whiteness reflected back at me from the ceiling above—a blank canvas of nothingness. For two weeks, I’d spent a few hours each day in the lilac bedroom. For two weeks, I’d prayed for a

miracle. For some kind of enlightenment. Or at the very least, for Jess to find a way to wake up Josh.

Some days, the emptiness dulled my senses to a warble of incoherency. Thankfully, on those days, Sean came to my rescue, reminding me life still existed beyond the four, pale purple walls. Somehow managing to convince me that everything would work out.

If Sean believed Josh would awaken, what right did I have to dispute him?

If the rest of the pack believed, who was I to douse their flames of hope?

Yet, no matter how many hours, how many days, how many weeks I spent at Josh’s side in a show of optimism, the ache in my heart belied any positivity I feigned.

Rolling onto my side caused the mattress to dip, but even that jostle didn’t stir Josh. I flicked at an errant, dark blond curl, poked at his cheek. Still, he didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t acknowledge my prodding.

Again.

Poor kid had probably been poked more in the past fortnight than he had his entire life.

As my heavy sigh eased out, footsteps ascended the stairs outside the room. I knew from sound alone who they belonged to, didn’t even need to inhale to confirm. That didn’t stop me, though, and my lids lowered as my mate’s bouquet found home within my olfactory.

Seconds later, Sean’s body filled the doorway and cast a shadow across the carpet. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I whispered without looking up.

“Anything?”

I tapped my fingertip along Josh’s jawline, willing him to react yet knowing he wouldn’t.

Josh hadn’t moved the entire two weeks he’d been under. Heck, we’d barely moved him. No toileting. No sweating. He didn’t seem to feel, hear, taste, see or smell.

All thanks to being in a death sleep, Jess had said.

I slaughtered the witches responsible for putting Josh under—for bewitching him in the worst possible way. At the time, their deaths had seemed fitting. That had been before I realised Josh’s predicament.

With a small head shake, I rubbed my hand along Josh’s arm as if the friction would help a body lacking in heat. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Thought I heard the turning of rusty cogs.”

My gaze skittered to the left and landed on Sean’s lopsided smile. Dark hair stood on end above dark eyes staring back at me. All male, all muscle, all mine, Sean Holloway got me like no other.

“You going to make me pry it out of you, Jem?”

Rolling my eyes at the suggestiveness of his tone, I brushed a kiss across Josh’s cheek and wriggled off the bed. At the door, I grabbed Sean’s hips and steered him backward across the landing and into our room.

His left eyebrow arched up. “You do want me to pry it out of you.”

I breathed out a laugh as I trotted over to the bed and sat crosslegged, tugging him along with me until he mirrored my pose. Nudging his hand up, I placed my palm flat against his, studying

the size difference as male dwarfed female in a way I rarely noticed. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

Giveaway

J.A. Belfield has an awesome giveaway going on! You may have seen my entry earlier this week. 

Everyone who enters will get a copy of Resonance then on top of that you're also entered to win this goodness

You can learn more about the giveaway HERE and you can also enter using the below rafflecopter.

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