Hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading

This week’s question:
What attracts you to a book blog? What puts you off in a book blog? Do you share personal stuff on your book blog?
My answer:
For me, first and foremost, is if the blog has similar reading likes of genres that I enjoy and content.  At least once a week, I search the internet and visit many blogs, looking for hosts to invite to Partners In Crime Tours.  I am amazed at the number of book blogs that there are now, as compared to when I first started in this community.  Thousands.  A large majority being YA/MG.  The next is if the blog has a pleasant look and easy to navigate.  To me, that says that they put in a little extra for their readers since we are the ones who see the main page.   Things I don’t like are, and there seems to be less of it now than before, and that is music on the site, difficulty navigating, and word verification.  However, and it happened to me on blogspot, I understand why since there are those people/bots that fall under the category of spammers and one has to protect their site.

I do share some personal events in my life and also enjoy seeing the same on blogs that I visit.  I believe it gives one a little window into the blogger behind the screen.

August is being hosted by 5 Minutes for Books

Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia of A girl and her books and is now on tour.
According to Marcia, “Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.”
Click on text for more information/synopsis.

Monday:    The Last Innocent Hour by Barbara Taylor Sissel (gifted from Author)
Monday:    A Slice Of Death by Bill Walker (from author)
Tuesday:   Cabernet Sauvignon for Beginners by Sara Fasolino (WOW-Author)
Thursday: The Outlaw Among Us by Nathan Dodge (Simon & Schuster)

Hosted by Acting Balanced

I saw this meme on Vicki’s blog, I’d Rather Be Reading At The Beach, last week and thought it might be fun to participate.  So here goes….and btw…if you want to join me, just click on the link above to play along.

Rules:
Here are FOUR QUESTIONS that everyone can answer and then you have the option to add a fifth question of your own for those who are visiting your blog to answer in the comment section, along with commenting on the four standard questions you answered!

1. Finish this sentence – The thing I dislike most about shopping is….
is at the check out and seeing how much I spent lol.
2. What is your favorite flavor of jello?
Strawberry Banana
3. If you could trade places with anyone in the world for one day who would you be and why?
Oprah Winfrey.   She appears to be such a down to earth person with an unending amount of energy in everything she does.  Would love to see and participate in a day in her life.
4. Who changes the lightbulbs at your house?
Both my husband and myself.
Bonus question:
5.  What time do you start your day?
Usually 6am

….of The Violinist’s Thumb by Sam Kean

29 Stefanie McMullen Tweet About the Giveaway

14 Lilian Cheng Be a Public Follower of ‘CMASH Loves to Read’

129 Gary Costanzo Leave a Blog Post Comment

An email has been sent to the winners and they have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.  Thank you to all those that entered.

……..of Serenya’s Song by Mysti Parker

35 Sandy Vandenberg Leave a Blog Post Comment

10 Stefanie McMullen Tweet About the Giveaway

2 Erica Haspiel Szlosek Be a Public Follower of ‘CMASH Loves to Read’

14 Susan Varney Tweet About the Giveaway

29 Trisha Ridinger McKee Tweet About the Giveaway

An email has been sent to the winners and they have 48 hours to respond with the version they need or another winner will be chosen.  Thank you to all that entered.

Please, grab a coffee and have a seat, get comfortable because I have a real treat  for you today.  I haven’t felt this passionate about a book in a while!!

When I first started in this wonderful community, I was contacted by Mr. Lou Aronica, publisher of The Story Plant, to read and review a book by one of his authors, Michael Baron.  Since that day, I have become a fan of Mr. Baron’s and many other authors from The Story Plant.  Not too long ago, Mr. Aronica started a program called “Spread The Word Initiative” via NetGalley and I was invited to become a reviewer, which I accepted.  So when I got the email detailing last month’s novel being showcased for “Spread The Word Initiative” and saw that today’s guest was compared to Michael Baron, I HAD to sign on.

After I finished reading this author’s book on Monday, I just HAD to invite him to visit, which I am so lucky that he accepted because this is definitely an author to put on your radar!!  So without further ado, Please help me give a warm welcome to Mr. Steven Manchester!!

STEVEN MANCHESTER

After returning home from a difficult tour of duty in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, I stepped back behind the walls of a Massachusetts penitentiary where I battled each day as a prison investigator. Needless to say, there was great negativity in my life at that time, and very little opportunity to heal from my wartime demons (or pursue my dreams of being published). I finally decided to return to college to finish my degree in Criminal Justice. During one of the classes, my professor, Barry McKee, detailed police work, but barely touched on other topics. I finally raised his hand and asked, “As the criminal justice system is so vast, what about the courts, probation, parole – corrections?” Barry smiled and told me to see him after class. I thought I’d done it! In his office, Barry explained, “Except from the slanted perspectives of inmates, there’s no real written material out there on corrections, or prisons.” Barry smiled again and then dropped the bomb that would change my life forever. “If you’re so smart,” he said, “why don’t you write it?” It was the last push I needed to get writing. Nine months later, I placed the first draft of 6-5; A Different Shade of Blue (under the pen name, Steven Herberts) on Barry’s desk. From then on, I was hooked. I was a writer.

Under the pen name, Steven Herberts, I wrote in newspapers, magazines, and even penned two collections of poetry. Once I’d found my true voice, I began, The Unexpected Storm: The Gulf War Legacy; an emotional account of the Gulf War that would heal my soul, and the souls of other suffering veterans.

Today, 20 years later, I have been blessed with a beautiful family; my wife, Paula, and our four children–Evan, Jacob, Bella and Carissa. From a professional perspective, I’ve written 16 books (with 12 in publication), and have contributed to more than three dozen international anthologies. My work has been showcased in such national literary journals as Taproot Literary Review, American Poetry Review and Fresh! Literary Magazine, as well as various magazines to include Angels on Earth, Obadiah, Titan, G.F.O. (U.K.), Skyline Literary, Alive Now, Dark Animus (Australia) and Spinnings Short Stories. Hundreds of my essays, poetry and short fiction have been contributed to Internet publications such as Zine5, New Mystery Reader, Wilmington Blues, Heartwarmers, The Murder Hole, Father’s World, and dozens of others.

My work has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, CBS’s The Early Show, CNN’s American Morning, BET’s Nightly News, Good Day Atlanta; in the New York Daily News, Newark Star Ledger, Boston Globe, Detroit Free Press, Providence Journal, Dallas Morning News, Orlando Sentinel, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The Daily Oklahoman; and on 50+ nationally-syndicated radio shows from coast-to-coast.

As a public speaker, I’ve presented before thousands. From Congressmen to schoolchildren, my lectures cover the realities of the Gulf War, adult incarceration, and the motivation needed to write and become published. I currently teach the workshops, Publish: See Your Work In Print, and Writing Fiction That Sells.

When not spending time with my kids and wife, I’m either writing, teaching, or promoting my published books/films.
Visit Steven Manchester at his website here and on Facebook.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Don DiMarco has a very good life – a family he loves, a comfortable lifestyle, passions and interests that keep him amused. He also thought he had time, but that turned out not to be the case. Faced with news that might have immediately felled most, Don now wonders if he has time enough. Time enough to show his wife the romance he didn’t always lavish on her. Time enough to live out his most ambitious fantasies. Time enough to close the circle on some of his most aching unresolved relationships. Summoning an inner strength he barely realized he possessed, Don sets off to prove that twelve months is time enough to live a life in full.

A glorious celebration of each and every moment that we’re given here on Earth, as well as the eternal bonds that we all share, Twelve Months is a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit.
Read my review here.

It is such a compelling read that I HAD to share it with all of you. This novel will leave an indelible mark on your heart, soul and mind. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
Purchase links:   Amazon   B&N    IndieBound

Twelve Months by Steven Manchester
Published by: The Story Plant
Publication Date: August 14, 2012
ISBN-10: 161188053X
ISBN-13: 978-1611880533
Pages: 326
Review Copy from: The Story Plant(Spread The Word Initiative) NetGalley
Edition: Kindle
My Rating: 5

Synopsis from Amazon:
Don DiMarco has a very good life – a family he loves, a comfortable lifestyle, passions and interests that keep him amused. He also thought he had time, but that turned out not to be the case. Faced with news that might have immediately felled most, Don now wonders if he has time enough. Time enough to show his wife the romance he didn’t always lavish on her. Time enough to live out his most ambitious fantasies. Time enough to close the circle on some of his most aching unresolved relationships. Summoning an inner strength he barely realized he possessed, Don sets off to prove that twelve months is time enough to live a life in full.

A glorious celebration of each and every moment that we’re given here on Earth, as well as the eternal bonds that we all share, TWELVE MONTHS is a stirring testament to the power of the human spirit.

My Thoughts and Opinion:
WOW!!!! Warning: this review will be different and lengthy than most of my reviews, because there is just so much to say about this novel.

 Hosted by An Island Life

From An Island Life:
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, visit An Island Life answer the question and then post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

As some of you know, my son recently got engaged and he proposed with a Princess cut diamond ring.
So my question today is:
What is your favorite diamond shape?
My Answer:
I like a round  diamond.

I just love when authors come back and visit.  To me, this means that they have been very busy writing books that we enjoy reading and that they truly like the followers of CMash Reads.  I ask that you help me give a warm welcome back to Allan Leverone.

ALLAN LEVERONE

Allan Leverone is the author of the Amazon bestselling thriller, THE LONELY MILE, as well as the thriller, FINAL VECTOR and the horror novellas, DARKNESS FALLS and HEARTLESS. He is a four-time Derringer Award finalist for excellence in short mystery fiction and a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee. Allan lives in Londonderry, NH, with his wife of nearly thirty years, three children and one beautiful granddaughter.
Learn more about Allan on Facebook, Twitter or at www.allanleverone.com.

GUEST POST

Guest Post: Inspiration for Novels
By Allan Leverone

If a writer is paying attention, a plot idea can come from almost anywhere. It’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve written stories, novellas or novels based on: a line from a song, an item I saw on the news or on a television news magazine, a dream, a suggestion from my wife, an experience I had as a child, an incident I made up out of whole cloth in my mind, and any of dozens of other sources.

The one thing all of the above examples have in common, though, is that each idea was followed up with one simple question: “What if?” In most cases, the “what if” was then followed up with, “Well, if that happens, then what?” “And if that happens, then what?”

My most successful book to this point is an Amazon bestselling thriller titled THE LONELY MILE, which spent three days in the Top 25 in the paid store at Amazon back in February, peaking at #21 and selling over twelve thousand copies. It was based on a simple premise, one which can’t help but strike a chord with every parent: a man’s daughter is kidnapped by a remorseless sociopath, and he is forced into a desperate attempt to rescue her, racing against time to get her back before it is too late.

Is he successful? You’ll have to read the book if you want to find out, but this post is about inspiration, and the point is this: the idea for THE LONELY MILE came to me three decades before the book was written, when I was in college, driving nearly a thousand miles one-way several times a year between my home in central Massachusetts and my school, the University of Notre Dame, located in South Bend, Indiana.

The trip was a relatively straight shot. I would drive to Interstate 90, roughly twenty miles from my home, and then stay on that highway until I arrived in northern Michigan, where my exit would put me almost right on top Notre Dame’s golden dome. To save time, I would drive straight through, nineteen hours in one shot. It was a questionable tactic, one I would never allow my own kids to try, and one which almost cost me my life any number of times. It’s not something I would recommend to anyone.

But dotting the highway on those 950-mile sojourns from New England to Indiana and back were small Interstate rest stops, little plazas where weary drivers could pull in, gas up, get some fast food and coffee, and continue on toward their destination. Everyone’s seen them; you’ve probably used them dozens of times without thinking anything of it, right?

Well, try pulling into an isolated highway rest stop at three o’clock in the morning, tired and strung out. The places are never totally empty, but they are spooky and creepy, often populated in the middle of the night with questionable-looking characters, and I remember thinking—many times—how easy would it be for some psycho to pull in here, wreak havoc, and then take off? He would be miles away before anyone could even respond.

That was in the days before cell phones were anything more than a twinkle in some engineer’s eye, but even in this era of instant electronic communication, a highway rest stop located within a couple of miles of one or more exits still presents what seems like a pretty attractive staging point for an evil person intent on doing evil things, don’t you think?

Anyway, that one image, of an amoral sociopath using an isolated highway rest stop as an area to commit horrible atrocities, remained embedded in my mind for thirty years. When I began writing fiction, the idea crystallized into the modus operandi for the antagonist in THE LONELY MILE, a serial kidnapper/murderer named Martin Krall.

The important thing for the writer is not so much the inspiration, but the followup to the idea. Inspiration is everywhere. What makes or breaks the writer of genre fiction is the ability to take that inspiration to the next level, and develop a gripping, exciting storyline. I’d like to think I’m pretty good at that. I invite you to check out one of my books and see if you agree.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Mike McMahon moves to the remote village of Paskagankee, Maine, to take over as chief of police following a tragic shooting, he’s hoping for nothing more than to get a new start on life. Instead, he encounters a series of brutal murders, beginning almost immediately upon his arrival.

Together with a beautiful rookie cop and a disgraced college professor, McMahon races against time and a mounting body count in a desperate attempt to stop a seemingly unstoppable killer…

Book Details:
Genre:Adult, Horror,Suspense,Thriller
Publisher: Rock Bottom Books; First Edition
Publication Date: June 29, 2012
Pages: 224
Purchase:  Amazon

DISCLAIMER
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.
ADDENDUM
I do not have any affiliation with Amazon.com or
Barnes & Noble. I am an IndieBound affliate.
I am providing link(s) solely for visitors
that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

http://btt2.wordpress.com

This week’s questions:
A while ago, I interviewed my readers for a change, and my final question was, “What question have I NOT asked at BTT that you’d love me to ask?” I got some great responses and will be picking out some of the questions from time to time to ask the rest of you. Like now.
Two questions about selecting your books.
Pooch asks:
Overall, what factor most influences your choice of your next read?
Sefcug asks:
What is it that makes you want to read a book by an author you have never read before?

My answers:
Two questions today and both good.

1.)   This question, at least for me, is more difficult since there are a couple of factors that go into choosing my next read and all of them important.

When I first started accepting requests, my policy was to read a book in the order that they arrived in my house, however, after doing this for quite some time,  I  found myself going into frequent slumps because I would read books that I just wasn’t in the mood for but felt an obligation to read and felt that, after a while with this system, I was reading in a robotic manner whereas I wasn’t really enjoying a book,  it was more a a chore than pleasure.  I have since changed that policy.  Now what determines my choice of what’s on deck,  is still the time frame of  “requested reviews” but since I am still having the HUGE problem of saying NO to certain books that sound like something I would enjoy, there are still quite a few to choose from within that pile, including my “priority” novels that have been booked for a tour with Partners In Crime Tours, which lately are many, which is a good thing and something I am very proud of.  But overall, choosing a book from these piles is definitely my mood.  Now what I do is, I skim the synopsis of those TBR books, and what “hits” me is the one I will start.

2.) When it comes to deciding on a book by a “new to me” author, there are 2 reasons why I would choose to read the book.  The plot and recommendations from reviews that I will read/see from other bloggers/reviewers.  And I have to say, because of those 2 reasons, over these past 2+ years, I have found some really great authors that are now on my “TBR authors” list.

What about you?  How do you choose your next read?  What makes you want to read a book by a “new to you” author?