Category: Events

JKS Communications Presents: 2013 HOLIDAY HOP

From Samantha at JKS Communications:

Tune in for some great Holiday Reading/Gift Lists and Giveaways!

We have so many fantastic books, and with Christmas fast-approaching, we’ll be working with some of our wonderful bloggers to do 12 great days of book giveaways and holiday lists to help you with holiday gifts this year!

Follow the Tour here for some
GREAT Giveaways and Gift Suggestions!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs 

When Tsara Adelman leaves her husband and two young children for a weekend to visit her estranged uncle, she little dreams he is holding several local children captive on his
lavish estate. Mike Westbrook, father of one of the boys, kidnaps her to trade her life for the children’s. Soon Tsara and Mike are fleeing through New Hampshire’s mountain
wilderness pursued by two rogue cops with murder on their minds.

                   WEBSITE   

A Measure of Blood by Kathleen George

Nadal watches for weeks before he first approaches the boy. No matter what Maggie Brown says, he’s sure Matt is his son, and a boy should know his father. After their first confrontation, Maggie should have run. She should have hidden her child. But she underestimated the man who was once her lover. With self-righteous determination, Nadal goes to her house. He demands to spend time with the boy. When she refuses, he reaches for a knife.

By the time homicide detective Richard Christie arrives on the scene, all that remains of Maggie Brown is a bloodstain on the floor. The killer has vanished, and Matt is too scared to remember anything but his mother’s fear. As Christie looks for the killer and Maggie’s friends fight to keep Matt out of the hands of Child Services, Nadal watches the news and waits. A boy should be with his father. He’s going to get his son.

               WEBSITE  

8-Bit Christmas by Kevin Jakubowski

It’s 1980-something and all nine-year-old Jake Doyle wants for Christmas is a Nintendo Entertainment System. No Jose Canseco rookie card, no GI Joe hovercraft, no Teddy friggin’ Ruxpin—just Nintendo. But when a hyperactive Shih Tzu is accidentally crushed to death by a forty-two- inch television set and every parent in town blames Nintendo, it’s up to Jake to take matters into his own hands. The result is a Christmas quest of Super Mario Bros. proportions, filled with flaming wreaths, speeding minivans, lost retainers, fake Santas, hot teachers, snotty sisters, “Super Bowl Shuffles” and one very naked Cabbage Patch Kid. Told from a nostalgic adult perspective, 8-Bit Christmas is a hilarious and heartfelt look back at the kid pop culture of the 1980s.

               WEBSITE

Southern League by Larry Colton

Anybody who is familiar with the Civil Rights movement knows that 1964 was a pivotal year. And in Birmingham, Alabama – perhaps the epicenter of racial conflict – the Barons amazingly started their season with an integrated team.

Johnny “Blue Moon” Odom, a talented pitcher and Tommie Reynolds, an outfielder – both young black ballplayers with dreams of playing someday in the big leagues, along with Bert Campaneris, a dark-skinned shortstop from Cuba, all found themselves in this simmering cauldron of a minor league town, all playing for Heywood Sullivan, a white former major leaguer who grew up just down the road in Dothan, Alabama.

Colton traces the entire season, writing about the extraordinary relationships among these players with Sullivan, and Colton tells their story by capturing the essence of Birmingham and its citizens during this tumultuous year. (The infamous Bull Connor, for example, when not ordering blacks to be blasted by powerful water hoses, is a fervent follower of the Barons and served as a long-time broadcaster of their games.)

By all accounts, the racial jeers and taunts that rained down upon these Birmingham players were much worse than anything that Jackie Robinson ever endured.

More than a story about baseball, this is a true accounting of life in a different time and clearly a different place. Seventeen years after Jackie Robinson had broken the color line in the major leagues, Birmingham was exploding in race riots….and now, they were going to have their very first integrated sports team. This is a story that has never been told.

               WEBSITE

The Glide Trilogy by Bill Gourgey

Captain Magigate, a legendary inventor and recluse who is equal parts Albert Einstein
and Don Quixote, confronts his own shadowy destiny when two adventurous teens
disrupt the status quo of his covert lab on Isla de Tiempo Muerto. When the captain’s
nemesis, the Prophet, who once had an iron grip over much of the world’s commerce,
escapes her island prison taking one of the teens hostage, Captain Magigate must face
not only his long-time foe and erstwhile lover but also the ambiguous legacy of his
inventions. “Glide” is a dark and quixotic look at what happens when invention reaches
beyond its pale to compensate for the shortcomings of heart and soul.

               WEBSITE

Letters To Ann: The Korean War 1950-1951 by Anne Marie

With North Korea rattling its saber again, Letters to Ann takes the reader back to the early years of the Korean War. Even in some of its darkest moments, Captain John Hughes finds and shares bits of humor about his daily military existence with his then four year-old daughter. It is a unique perspective of what so often is called “The Forgotten War.”

               

The Time Slip Series by Julie Tetel Andresen 

These novels are double romances: one love story is in historical time and produces long-term consequences; the other love story is in the present and is thoroughly enmeshed in those consequences.

                WEBSITE

Linguistics and Evolution by Julie Tetel Andresen 

Evolutionary linguistics – an approach to language study that takes into account our origins and development as a species – has rapidly developed in recent years. Informed by the latest findings in evolutionary theory, this book sets language within the context of human biology and development, taking ideas from fields such as psychology, neurology, biology, anthropology, genetics and cognitive science. By factoring an evolutionary and developmental perspective into the theoretical framework, the author replaces old questions – such as ‘what is language?’ – with new questions, such as ‘how do living beings become ‘languaging’ living beings?’ Linguistics and Evolution offers readers the first rethinking of an introductory approach to linguistics since Leonard Bloomfield’s 1933 Language. It will be of significant interest to advanced students and researchers in all subfields of linguistics, and the related fields of biology, anthropology, cognitive science and psychology.

               WEBSITE

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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 affiliate. I am providing link(s) solely for visitors that may be interested in purchasing this Book/EBook.

Congratulations Mark and Jess!

Last Saturday we celebrated the marriage of our youngest son, Mark and his bride, Jess. The wedding was beautiful.  It was an amazing and perfect day from the start, with the gorgeous weather, the blessed ceremony, the delicious food and fun at the reception to the after party at our hotel.  I wanted to share a few pictures with you.

Happy Veteran’s Day

Thank you to all our men and women who protect our freedom.

You are our Heroes!  God Bless You!

Back!!

I’m back!!  The past 3+ weeks I have been gone and it was due to an unexpected medical emergency that resulted in a hospital admission and 3 subsequent operations.  Starting today, I will be easing myself back to blogging, posting overdue showcases, guest author visits and giveaways that were scheduled during my absence.  I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.  Hopefully I will be up to speed over the next couple of days.  It’s good to be back!!

Blogfest 2013 09/27 to 09/29 ENDED

HOSTED BY A JOURNEY OF BOOKS

SEPTEMBER 27th to SEPTEMBER 29th, 2013

BLOGFEST 2013

 

$10.00 AMAZON GC GIVE AWAY.

HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO WIN.
*USE THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM BELOW
IN ORDER TO BE INCLUDED IN THE GIVEAWAY
*
BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS IN THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM
SO THAT I CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU WIN
*LEAVE COMMENT: IF YOU WIN, WHAT BOOK
ON YOUR WISH LIST WILL YOU ORDER?*

*GIVEAWAY ENDS SEPTEMBER 29th AT 11:59PM EST*

WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN BY RAFFLECOPTER AND NOTIFIED
VIA EMAIL AND WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO RESPOND
OR ANOTHER NAME WILL BE CHOSEN

 

HOP ON OVER TO THE NEXT BLOGS ON THE LIST

Hooked on Books
My Little Pocketbooks
Laurisa White Reyes
Susan Frances, Romance Author
Colloquium
Closed the Cover

YOUR JAVA SCRIPT MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED
IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
USING THE RAFFLECOPTER ENTRY FORM

a Rafflecopter giveaway

PTBT Presents Publication Day: OVER THE EDGE by Susan Lohrer

RELEASED TODAY!


Over The Edge by Susan Lohrer
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Published by: 5 Prince Books
Publication Date: July 25, 2013
Digital: ISBN 13:978-1-939217-73-8 ISBN 10: 1-939217-73-3
Print: ISBN 13:978-1-939217-74-5 ISBN 10: 1-939217-74-1

Purchase Link: http://www.5princebooks.com/buy.html

SYNOPSIS:
“Sometimes love sends you sailing over the edge.”
Kat Cherish, high school principal and activist (a combination that hasn’t been great for her career) heads back to her hometown to mend her dignity only to discover her estranged kid sister is a mess… and their childhood home is for sale. Getting the house back just might be the only thing that can put Kat’s complicated family back together… if she can cope with her mixed feelings for her ex-boyfriend, who’s been hired to completely remodel her house for another potential buyer… and if she doesn’t lose her new job because of the outrageous antics she’s pulling to keep her sister out of trouble.

READ AN EXCERPT

Kat shifted her wrists in the steel handcuffs. Rough, ancient bark pressed against her cheek, and the damp air intensified the resinous tang of the virgin forest. She’d been here since dawn—long enough to be on a first-name basis with Harvey, the Douglas fir. Which, if she let herself consider for more than a minute at a time, was kind of a weird development for a grown woman who had a respectable career. She’d consider it in more depth later. Right now she had enough on her mind.

A gust of coastal wind snatched her hat, and chilly rain plastered her hair to her scalp and trickled down her neck, making her teeth chatter. Nearby, a group of men wielded wrenches on a logging machine that refused to start. One of her students, the school board superintendent’s son, retrieved the hat and plopped it back on Kat’s head.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “they’re not going to get that machine going anytime soon.”

Alarm nibbled the back of her mind like a classroom gerbil gnawing a toilet paper tube.
“There’d better not be a reason you know that.”

He laughed. “I’m just saying.” Then, calling to his friends, he trotted off.

Kat wondered whether she’d still have her job at the end of the day.

The superintendent had made it clear she’d lose it in a blink if the kids did anything more than show up, and Kat had made them promise not to chain themselves to any trees. So far, all they’d done was text the protest’s breaking news to their friends… unless they’d messed with the equipment before she got here this morning. The thought made her stomach feel like she’d eaten fir needles for lunch. She stared up into the dense boughs radiating from Harvey’s trunk high above her.

“You don’t think the kids wrecked that machine, do you, Harv? I mean, they know my career is at stake here.” Harvey only sighed in the wind, branches waving toward the broken-down machine. Yeah, it had Kat a little worried, too.

She flexed her shoulders, stiff from the hours she’d spent shackled to the tree. She wasn’t against logging; she lived in a wood-frame house and used reams of paper. What school principal didn’t? And the logging industry in Mills Creek fed a lot of families.
In the last few hours, she’d had a chance to reevaluate her reasons for chaining herself to this tree. This was about so much more than the environment. It was about standing up for someone who couldn’t stand up for herself. Or in Harvey’s case, himself. It was about choices that had been taken away from her. It was about the fact that sometimes, no matter how wrong you were, you couldn’t undo what you’d done.

Her goal wasn’t to stop the logging, this community’s lifeblood. It was to protect something beautiful and precious. If she could win this one small battle, do this one small good deed, save just this one tree, maybe it would somehow make amends in her heart for what she’d let happen to her family.

A Jeep rattled up the steep gravel road and pulled off on the landing, followed a few seconds later by a police car. Kat’s stomach clenched.

A man exited the passenger door of the Jeep. His footsteps scuffed on the dirt road. Craning her neck, she peered through slanting late-afternoon shadows, making out only his easy gait and the set of his broad shoulders. Had they brought in a negotiator? He leaned into the police car for a minute, then stood, head down, hands on his hips, like a man bearing a heavy burden.

She almost felt sorry for the guy. She might look like a waterlogged rat at the moment, but he had no idea what he was up against. A tiny smirk crept over her mouth.

Now that this block of forest had been opened up to clear-cut logging, Harvey would have to watch while his family was torn away, one by one. She knew how he felt because the same thing had happened to her, until she had just one family member left. And she and Lacey weren’t even on speaking terms at the moment.

She dug her fingers into Harvey’s sturdy bark. “What am I doing talking to trees instead of making things right between Lacey and me?”

Soft footfalls on the carpet of needles behind her.

She straightened as much as she could. The chain connecting the two sets of handcuffs slipped and pulled her down with it until she had to slump against the tree trunk.
“Kat, what are you doing?” He sounded as exhausted as she felt. Sounded… disturbingly familiar.

That voice. Evan. Here? Memories grabbed her heart and sliced through it like the blade of the nearby feller buncher waiting to chop the young trees from their roots—if the loggers could get it running again. She strained her eyes to the left, looking without turning her head.

Evan was watching her, jaw clenched, rainwater slicking his blond hair.

She blinked the water from her eyes.

He was still there.

Not a gorgeous hallucination. A gorgeous reality. Her pulse whumped in her ears.

What was she doing? That was easy—she was running away from her failure to keep her family together. But what was Evan doing?


About Susan Lohrer:
Susan Lohrer grew up all over western Canada and lives in BC with her husband, their two children who are still at home, three dogs, and far too many aquariums. She believes life is always better with a healthy dose of humor.
How to contact Susan Lohrer:
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