Straight Browsing from the Library: The Lei Crime Series virtual tour and giveaway

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The Lei Crime Series: eight novellas, by eight different authors, is based on Toby Neal's vivid and captivating Lei Crime Series.

Each week in June this tour will explore two different books in the series. This week we are featuring two Suspense titles: Hidden Poppies by M. L. Doyle and Saddle Road by J. L. Oakley .

The authors will be awarding a $30 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please click on the banner to see the other stops on this tour.


READ THE BLURBS

Nothing about this kidnapping makes sense.

An army colonel’s daughter isn’t a typical target, and that’s only the beginning. FBI Special Agent Marcella Scott knows that ‘unusual’ also means unpredictable and that translates to dangerous.

Just when they need to be at their sharpest, Agent Scott’s partner, Special Agent Ken Yamada suffers from personal distractions. He’s had to make painful sacrifices for his career. When the young girl’s abduction brings him face to face with one of those sacrifices, Major Chuck Mathews, Yamada begins to question his choices.

In their desperate search for the girl, the agents face foes willing to use deadly force to protect their secrets. But what was hidden before can now be revealed and the truth could change everything.

There's more to Hawaii than pretty beaches.

When a body shows up in Maui's Kahului Harbor, it looks like just another bad day for some poor soul in paradise. Detective Lei Texeira and Lieutenant Michael Stevens identify the victim as a well-respected veteran from Washington State. Soon, they find themselves in the middle of a charity scam where someone's skimming money meant for returning veterans with PTSD. During the investigation, Stevens enlists the help of an old buddy from the Marine Corps, Tom Harleson. The clues lead Tom, Lei, and Stevens to an exotic animal hunting club on the Big Island where they encounter the killer on the high lava deserts of Saddle Road.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

M. L. Doyle has served in the U.S. Army at home and abroad for more than two decades as both a soldier and civilian and calls on those experiences in much of her writing. The Master Sergeant Harper mystery series has earned numerous awards and five star reviews from readers who enjoy a strong female lead in a noir mystery which happens to involve military life.

Mary is the co-author of two memoirs; A Promise Fulfilled; the story of a Wife and Mother, Soldier and General Officer (Jan. 2013) and the memoir, I’m Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen—My Journey Home (Touchstone, 2010), which was nominated for an NAACP Image award.

Mary has also authored a series of four adult romance novellas in The Limited Partnerships series. (Sept.-Dec. 2013). And she is hard at work on a new paranormal mystery series she hopes to launch in the summer of 2015.

A Minneapolis, Minnesota native, Mary current lives in Baltimore. You can connect with Mary via email at mldoyleauthor@yahoo.com or go to her website, www.mldoyleauthor.com where you will find links to all of her other social media connections.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Lei-Crime-Hidden-Poppies-Novella-ebook/dp/B00VQWUCOK/

Janet Oakley grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After college, she worked her way west to the Hawaiian Islands. While going to school there, she met her future husband and for a time they lived on the Big Island. They moved to the Pacific Northwest where they raised three sons. An historian as well as an award winning author, her writings appear in various magazines, anthologies, and literary publications. Her historical novel, Tree Soldier, set in 1930s Pacific NW, won the 2012 EPIC ebook Award and 2013 Chanticleer Grand Prize. An 2013 Everybody Reads chosen by Pacific NW librarians, Tree Soldier is popular with book clubs around the country. It's prequel, Timber Rose, is on the short list for the 2014 Chaucer Award. The Jossing Affair set in WW II during is in edits for summer publication.

When not writing, Oakley demonstrates 19th century folkways at parks, gives talks, and presents history workshops to school age students. Saddle Road is her first mystery.

Amazon http://www.amazon.com/J.L.-Oakley/e/B004CF0W0W

Twitter @jloakley https://twitter.com/jloakley

Website and blog http://historyweaver.wordpress.com

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Lei-Crime-Saddle-Kindle-Novella-ebook/dp/B00VQWUE5C

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Straight Reading from the Library - Ribbons of Death

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Edita will be awarding a free Kindle format copy of Ribbons of Death gifted via Amazon to 4 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour. Please click on the tour banner to view the rest of the stops.

READ THE BLURB

When a horribly scarred man knocks on the door of Stella Hunter’s ramshackle cottage in upstate Montana, she lets him in. What’s there to lose? The book critics killed her chances to warn the world about myths and legends behind the myths and legends.

But once the man pushes a book smudged with bloody fingerprints across the table, Stella sees a glimmer of hope. She may yet repair her academic reputation. She may re-establish her credibility within the scientific community and she may vindicate her ‘peace-taker’ theory. She may also be murdered by anyone standing next to her if her theory is correct.

READ THE REVIEW

This author is a new one for me, but I will definitely be looking up other books by her after reading Ribbons of Death. The mystery was good and I really liked the characters-- especially the two main characters, Carter and Stella. I enjoyed watching their relationship grow and how they were so different, yet managed to work together to solve the mystery behind the seemingly random attacks.

Mythology has always been one of my favorite subjects, and it was intriguing to see envision a myth coming to life in these days.

I would love to see more of Carter and Stella--hopefully there will be other cases they can work on in the future. I'll certainly stay on the lookout and will be checking out Ms. Petrick's backlist in the meantime. 4 stars.

READ AN EXCERPT

“Of course. Why didn’t you just say so,” he said gruffly but knew she’d see that his eyes were laughing. Then something occurred to him. “Wasn’t the Benedictine order founded by St. Benedict?”

She rapped her knuckles on the back of his hand. “No. He only wrote their rule—its prologue and seventy-three chapters—commonly known as RB. It spells out basic virtues a man should have—humility, silence and obedience. It also gives details of common living and sharing. Many a broken marriage today would still be intact if the partners had only taken trouble to learn the ins-and-outs of St. Benedict’s Rule.” She let him ruminate on her lecture and turned to McEwen. “What’s in the tabloid/diary that would interest me?”

The antiquarian resumed his story. His friend Peter immediately set to translate the Latin text of the diary and, when finished, he sat back reflectively, much puzzled how such a fanciful tale could have indeed been written by a monk. Brother Lucien, the scribe at the Clairvaux Abbey, was inspired to become Abbot Bernard’s unofficial biographer when he heard that clergy in Paris had already started this noble pursuit.

MEET THE AUTHOR

By profession, I’m an engineer and ten years ago, I left a corporate job to concentrate on writing. It was perhaps the scariest thing I’ve done. Of course, there were other considerations at the time, life, kids, economy and my mother who was battling cancer. I wrote as means of staying grounded because I had to hold it together. There was no one else to pitch in. There wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t have doubts about whether what I was doing was the right thing or not, but doubts come and go, while the need to write goes on forever. Since 2005 I’ve published 5 books and this year alone I have 6 new ones coming out. I live in Toronto with my family and our two pets – wheaten terriers. And whenever I’m tempted to look back, and start second-guessing my past decisions, I sit behind the computer and start another book. At least for me, that’s a cure-all.

http://www.editapetrick.biz/
http://knotsinromance.blogspot.ca/
https://twitter.com/EditaBoni
https://www.facebook.com/edita.petrick

Buy Link:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ribbons-Death-Edita-A-Petrick-ebook/dp/B00T87E16A
Solstice: http://solsticepublishing.com/ribbons-of-death/

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Straight Browsing From the Library: Out of Control by Sarah Alderson

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Iris Dorbian will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn commenter and a signed copy of her new book, Conspiracy Girl, to a second randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour (US/Canada only on book). Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

READ THE BLURB

When 17-year old Liva witnesses a brutal murder she's taken into police custody for her own protection. But when bullets start flying, it becomes clear that Liva is not just a witness, she's a target.

Together with a car thief called Jay, Liva manages to escape the massacre - but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun two killers who will stop at nothing to find them.

When you live on the edge, there's a long way to fall.

READ AN EXCERPT

I stand, wiping off the dust and dirt from my hands on my shorts and then I balance on the very lip of the roof, my toes disappearing over the edge, feeling the first patter of rain dance on my bare arms. I stare at the tops of trees ink-stamped across the sky, at the water-stained clouds, and the thought whispers through my mind that I’m insane, that if I fell from this height I’d die for sure . . . but then the thought is swept away by a wave of pure adrenaline. I feel light as air, perfectly poised. There’s no way I could ever fall.

And then I hear the tinkle of glass breaking somewhere far below.

My arms whirl frantically as I fight to keep my balance. I tumble backwards on to the roof and crouch down low, my hands white-knuckled as they grip the ledge. I squeeze my eyes shut and tell myself angrily that it’s just breaking glass, that I’m stupid and just overreacting, and I’m forcing myself to my feet ready to go and investigate when a thud comes from somewhere deep inside the house.

My stomach folds tight, all my instincts, everything I’ve ever learned from my father and from Felix coming into play: Steady your breathing, don’t succumb to panic, consider your options.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah is the author of Hunting Lila (winner of the Kingston Book Award), Losing Lila, Fated, The Sound, Out of Control and Conspiracy Girl (all Simon & Schuster).

Having spent most of her life in London, Sarah quit her job in the nonprofit sector in 2009 and took off on a round the world trip with her husband and daughter on a mission to find a new place to call home (a journey that was documented on this blog and which is shortly to be published as a book).

After almost a year spent travelling the world, they settled in Bali where they lived for five beautiful years before the vagabonding urge became too great and they decided to embark on Can We Live Here part two. They are currently located somewhere between India, London, Canada and the US.

As well as writing young adult novels and screenplays, Sarah also writes adult fiction for Pan Macmillan (Simon & Schuster in the US) under the name Mila Gray.

Her first adult novel, Come Back To Me, was published in June 2014. The second, This One Moment, will be out in August 2015.

Buy OUT OF CONTROL

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Control-Sarah-Alderson/dp/1481427164/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/out-of-control-sarah-alderson/1116313400?ean=9781481427180

Website http://sarahalderson.com/
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/sarahjalderson
Twitter http://www.twitter.com/sarahjalderson
Instagram http://instagram.com/sarahaldersonauthor
Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sarah-Alderson/e/B004Z2L0FI/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Blog http://canwelivehere.com/

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