Blog Tour: Hunters by Gregory Marshall Smith (International Giveaway)

This virtual book tour presented by Bewitching Book Tours.

You can see the entire tour schedule by clicking HERE.

Welcome to The Wormhole and my day on the tour!

I am pleased to present Gregory Marshall Smith!

Gregory Marshall Smith, born in Somerville, Massachusetts and raised in historic Medford, is a decorated Navy veteran. Though sports writing is his profession, in his career, he has been, among other things, a national columnist, playwright, engineer, asset protection agent, editor, safety auditor, fingerprinter, training instructor and sometime actor (Heiju trilogy, Life As We Know It, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, Hail Mary, Walker, Texas Ranger). He is the author of the novellas Crawl and They Call the Wind Muryah (currently ranked #3 in contemporary fantasy and #9 in science fiction on Amazon), along with two anthologies (Dark Tidings Vol. I & II, ranked #63 in Amazon’s horror genre). He has had numerous award-winning short stories appear in Farspace 2, Writer’s Bump, Far Side of Midnight, Spectacular Speculations and SFH Dominion, among others. Hunters is his first full-length novel.

Ever restless, he currently resides near Columbia, South Carolina.

Greg’s Guest Blog

First off, I would like to thank the Wormhole for allowing me to toss a few words. I’ll try to keep it brief (those who know me are rolling their eyes right now).

Probably the one question I have gotten for most of my writing career has been why I, as an African-American, am writing in what, essentially, are “white” genres.

The answer is simple -- because I want to.

Seriously though. When I first began writing fiction, at the tender age of 9 (back in 1976 when I was known as an Afro-American), I didn’t go into the horror genre. I went for science fiction, a genre with even fewer black faces than horror. Back then, I had only Samuel R. Delany (Triton, Dahlgren) and Octavia Butler (Lilith’s Brood) to inspire me and, strangely, I couldn’t find their books on the shelves of the Medford (Massachusetts) Public Library.

I was heavily influenced by Creature Double Feature, a sci-fi anthology series on WLVI-Channel 56 in Boston that ran from 1974-1982. The three-hour show aired cheesy grade B sci-fi movies like Godzilla, King of the Monsters and Navy Vs. The Night Monsters. It also showed horror classics like Dracula, but I only had eyes for giant rubber monsters destroying Tokyo or fighting the American military.

I also liked Star Trek and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, feeding my science fiction bent even more.

Finally, I had all of the neighborhood kids razzing me for trying to be “white” for writing science fiction. That just made me more determined to stick to the genre.

Horror came along most unexpectedly in 1982. The NAACP had begun holding Academic Cultural & Technical Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) to give black kids a chance to shine in areas other than sports. At the behest of the Boston NAACP, a bunch of kids in Boston’s suburbs tried out, myself and my identical twin brother included. (Note: another entrant from Medford was my friend Terri Lyne Carington, Grammy-nominated jazz drummer; she used to play at a famous Boston jazz spot where, in my younger years, I used to hit on Conan O’Brien’s younger sister Kate).

I drew up a poster of a giant monster attacking Boston Harbor. This was to be my official entry. However, I was urged to enter more than one category and feverishly searched for one without a lot of entries, to give myself a decent chance of not being, like, twentieth best out of 20. I saw that only a handful of people had opted for playwright.

Don’t ask me how I came up with the idea but I got a book on writing plays and developed (in less than a week) a script called “The Ghost.” I turned it in right before the deadline and forgot about it because I knew it was a vast idea that couldn’t possibly be anything more than half-vast in execution. I concentrated on my “superior” drawing instead.

The drawing made the top 50. Ouch.

Dejected, I checked the rest of the results board and found “playwright.” I swallowed hard and couldn’t breathe. “The Ghost” had taken second out of 12 scripts.

Even though only the regional winners advanced to the national championship, I was happy to have placed so high. Turned out I had a knack for writing horror, as well as science fiction. Of course, I was also glad I hadn’t entered my “superior” comedy The Brown Cougar (a rip-off of The Pink Panther and the less said about that one, the better).

Ever since then, I’ve alternated between horror and science fiction, though sci-fi is my greater love. Numbers-wise, horror has more African-American authors, like Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes and Maurice Broaddus. Alas, in August, the publishing world lost L.A. Banks to adrenal cancer.

As for science fiction, there are few recognizable names, basically just Steven Barnes and Delany. Octavia Butler died a few years ago of injuries suffered in a fall.

So, for the foreseeable future, I will continue writing horror and science fiction, and I may even do some fantasy so a black face appears in that genre as well.

Excerpt from Hunters:

Above Kane’s body, the two silhouettes stopped. One stepped forward, into the moonlight, pulling something long and shiny from somewhere on his person. He raised it and, with one swing, made sure Kane would never take the blood of anyone again.

“God, I hate it when you do that, Ryker,” said the woman next to him.

“Show some backbone,” the man called Ryker snorted. “For a change.”

The woman glared at him, but stopped when she heard a moan nearby. She played her flashlight back into the shadows. Cursing, she moved over to Heidi’s body.

She didn’t pay attention as Kane’s corpse suddenly flared up like a match, dying out almost as quickly. Caring only about Kane’s victim, she called Ryker over to her.

“What about her?” she queried, sounding forlorn and sad. “She’s lost a lot of blood. She’s well into the turn. You know we can’t let that happen.”

“No, we can’t,” Ryker agreed. “But she might be one for the doc.”

“Always the pretty ones, right Cantrell?” the female commented, with disgust.

“Au contraire. I saved you, didn’t I?”

Glaring at him, the woman fought the urge to hit him with her flashlight.

“Very funny,” she said finally. “Okay, check her out then. If you think she’s worth salvaging, we’ll take her. But, if she can’t be helped, you’re the one who has to finish her.”

“So I have to do all the work, eh?” Ryker commented. “What else is new?”

Ryker looked down into Heidi’s eyes, feeling pity instantly. He knew she was yet another innocent victim, in a war she didn’t know had been declared. He saw her eyes darting wildly side to side, as if the brain behind them could not handle what was happening to it. Shaking his head, he checked her throat, touched her carotid artery, and looked at her skin pallor.

“I’m truly sorry about this, Miss,” Ryker said. “I really am. But, it’s war and everybody dies.”

As he lifted his obscenely long knife into her field of vision, her eyes stopped darting and grew wide in stark fear. Breaking contact with her almost pleading eyes, he lifted the knife and brought it down toward Heidi’s head.

Now for the giveaway

You can buy a copy of this book HERE or HERE.
Thanks for stopping by The Wormhole.
Happy Reading!

Winners!

Congratulations to:

Katie who won an ecopy of 

An Unexpected Bride!

and

Tammy who won an ecopy of Ardeur!

Blog Tour: Expendable by Maggie Jaimeson (International Giveaway)

This Blog Tour is presented by The Bookish Snob Tours.

You can get to the entire tour schedule by clicking HERE.

You can see my review by clicking HERE.

Welcome to The Wormhole and my stop on the tour!

I am pleased to present Maggie Jaimeson and an excerpt from Expendable:

During the week, Maggie’s days are spent assisting colleges and universities with technology, distance education, open source software, and open education resources. At night and on the

weekends, she journeys into the world of her imagination and writes novels that reflect her passions and her belief that the good guys win in the end and that love will conquer all.

Maggie has published several short stories in romance and science fiction, but since 2004 she has

focused on publishing novels. Expendable is her first romantic suspense novel and she promises there will be more. Also currently available is Eternity, an SF with romantic elements; and Undertones, a contemporary romance which is the first in a four book series about the women of the Sweetwater Canyon Band. All of her full length novels are made available in ebook and print by her publishers.

Excerpt:

The kid stepped off the trail on the up slope and started climbing cross-country, then scampered further south again. Reed closed the gap. Only a few more strides and he’d have him. The boy slipped and screamed, tumbling down the slope. Reed braced himself, scooped his arms down and caught the boy, bringing him up against his chest.

The boy flailed at him, kicking and crying.

“Hold on,” Reed said. “Just a minute. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

The boy kicked again, and Reed let out an “oof” as the boy’s foot connected with Reed’s kidney. He set the kid on the ground, tightly pressing down on his shoulders. The kid kicked his shin.

“F…if you do that again, I’m going to sit on you.” Reed said. The kid twisted in his grasp and Reed applied more pressure, forcing the kid to bend lower to keep his balance. “Now tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”

For a moment, the boy quieted, tears streaming down his face. For the first time, Reed had a chance to actually look at him. Red marks encircled the kid’s wrists, as if they’d been tied for a long time. A large purple bruise on his left cheek looked like he’d been hit hard by someone strong. His shirt was ripped at the collar with what looked like dried blood along his shoulder.

Reed loosened his grip a little. “What’s happened here?”

The boy’s shoulders slumped and he looked down at the ground. Reed let go completely and the kid took off again, running up the trail.

Shit! Whatever had scared this kid was way beyond Reed’s stupid flashback.

The boy turned suddenly, jumping over a large boulder and then veered sharply to the left. Reed tried to adjust, but he stumbled and landed flat on his chest and face-to-face with a woman on the ground. Obviously dead. Reed scrambled back to a sitting position and scanned the woods for the kid.

Nowhere.

Had the boy been part of this? Maybe escaped from the assailant?

The woman wore a nice suit—skirt and jacket—but she was bent in an unnatural way. One leg splayed out to the right crossing over the other, putting her almost completely face down, with one arm pinned beneath her. Her long blonde hair, matted with blood and needles from the conifers, looked sticky and stiff. She’d probably died several hours ago. He’d seen people bleed out in Afghanistan; he knew that look of resigned horror.

His training kept him close to the ground, though he doubted whoever did this was still around. If they had been, the boy would be dead too. He listened for a moment, unmoving, just in case.

Nothing.

Slowly, he turned the woman on to her back. Her clothes were intact except for an open shirt that showed some type of wound beneath her bra. Her hand compressed fabric against the wound, a torn yellow piece of paper clutched in her fingers with dried blood acting like a type of glue to keep the note there.

Based on the amount of blood, he guessed it had been a gunshot wound. Shit. No wonder the kid was running. He probably didn’t know the good guys from the bad.

Reed didn’t want to move her any more. The police would need to see her exactly as he’d found her. They’d want the kid, too. It’s likely the boy was a witness, and probably also a victim. He braced his hand against the ground and pushed himself up. To his surprise, the kid stood just ten feet off the trail. There were no tears now, no trembling, just him standing still as a statue with a tortured look in his eyes.

Reed didn’t move. He didn’t want to scare him into running again. “I’m sorry, kid. She’s dead.”

The boy stiffened and refused to look Reed in the eye.

“I guess you already knew that.”

The boy dropped his eyes to the ground and let out a big breath. His shoulders slumped.

“Do you know who did this?”

Again, the boy said nothing. He stared at Reed, his eyes wide, unblinking, as vacant as a sacrificial lamb. His lips trembled, but he didn’t cry out. Suddenly, he folded to the ground and curled into a fetal position.

Reed took a step forward, then another. When there was no flight reaction, he hurried to the kid and scooped him into his lap. Small arms went around his neck and held tight. Reed rocked him, hugging him to his chest.

“I don’t know what happened here, kid. But I’ll keep you safe. You hear? I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

The boy didn’t cry, didn’t say anything, but he held on as if his fingers had a death grip on a hand grenade.

The next stop on the tour is:  Oct 10 – Paranormal Opinion 

You can buy your own copy HERE or HERE.

You can enter to win a copy by filling out the form below!  Good luck to all who enter!

Connect with Maggie online at:

Website: http://maggiejaimeson.com

Twitter: @maggiejaimeson

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maggie-Jaimeson/118916694787820

Behind the Book blog where she interviews other authors: http://author-secrets.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by The Wormhole!

Happy Reading!

Review: Expendable by Maggie Jaimeson

Expendable by Maggie Jaimeson

***received this ebook in exchange for an honest review and participation in the blog tour.  The tour is being presented by The Bookish Snob Tours.

From the inside flap:
Jenna lifted up the blanket and gasped. "What the hell?" She was in only her underwear and an oversized T-shirt, not her own. No bra. No dress. No stockings.

"You bastard! What did you do to me? Where are my clothes?"

He slowly pulled a chair up to the bedside and she scrambled to the farthest corner away from him, wrapping the sheet around her. His dark brown eyes invited confidences, but she wasn't in the mood for sharing.

"I'm not going to hurt you--believe me. If I'd wanted to hurt you, you wouldn't be talking to me now." He patted the pillow where her head had been. "Please, relax. Come back and we can talk."

"I'll stay right here, thank you." Jenna edged a leg over the side and eyed the door. If he made one move toward her, she'd drop the sheet and run like hell. She didn't care if she was half naked; it would be better than being raped.

"Start talking," she said. "What happened after you hit me on the head?"

"I didn't hit you on the head."

"Right, and you didn't kill Tanya, and you didn't take her baby." She stared at him, her teeth clenched. She could bite him too, if she had to.

"Who's Tanya?"

"As if you didn't know, you murdering bastard."
My thoughts:
     I fell in love with this story as soon as I started reading.  The characters captured my heart upon introduction.  David - the small, frightened child.  Reed - the strong, ex-military man who was so very damaged.  Jenna - the peace-loving fighter.  Jenna's and Reed's friends too as we meet them.  I loved the parallels, three women and three men - all tough, amazingly single, so close to each other that they feel as if they are family and passionately protective.  Throw in their quirky personalities, a dangerous situation, a truly evil bad guy (Doctor Crane is terrifying and evil to his very core, the kind of villain that you instantly despise and secretly hope doesn't get to come out of the story unscathed), and a small child in need - and you have the makings of an incredible story.  
     Maggie Jaimeson does not disappoint!  She takes these cleverly created characters and puts them into a story filled with danger, death, desire, fear, and passion, then she throws in hope and love.  She takes you on the ride of your life as Jenna and Reed struggle with the problem of saving David from a madman when neither are totally sure they can even save themselves from themselves.  
     This story is a roller coaster of emotions.  We are taken along on a journey where the questions asked are hard and the answers can only be found within a field gray, where even more questions are asked. Questions of ethics, morality, and judgement.  What risks are worth taking? What cost is too high? Who gets to decide who is expendable and why?  What would be worth killing or dying for?
     Wonderfully written, exciting page turner!  Couldn't put it down!  
     

Blog Tour: An Unexpected Bride by Shadonna Richards

This virtual book tour is presented by Bewitching Book Tours.

You can see the entire tour schedule HERE.

Welcome to The Wormhole and my day on the tour.

I am pleased to introduce Shadonna Richards!

Author bio:

Shadonna Richards enjoys reading and writing about the magic of romance and the power of love. She is the author of the non-fiction books, A Gift of Hope and Think and Be Happy: 365 Empowering Thoughts to Lift Your Spirit (an Amazon Kindle #1 Bestseller in Meditation). Winner of Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write 2010 Day Two Challenge, she is a member of the Romance Writers of America. An Unexpected Bride is her first novel. She’s a proud mommy and wife and lives in Canada with her husband and son.
You can visit her at www.shadonnarichards.blogspot.com or join her on twitter at www.twitter.com/shadonna or send her an e-mail at Shadonna@ymail.com

She wonderfully allowed an interview:

? When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? I first realized when I was a little kid. (Smile) I began writing stories as soon as I could hold a crayon.

 

? How long does it take you to write a book? Depending on the length of the book it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 10 years!

? What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?  Hmm. I don’t think I have an interesting writing quirk.

? Do you have a routine that you use to get into the right frame of mind to write? Not really. I usually write when I’m inspired—which, thankfully, happens to be a lot. Life inspires me. Having said that, I write much better when it’s totally quiet in the house like very early in the morning.

? Where do you get your ideas or inspiration for your characters? I get my ideas and inspiration for my characters from my imagination and everyday life. I’m always asking myself the “what-if” questions.

? How do you decide what you want to write about? Ideas usually just come to me.  I’m often with a pen and paper and try to write them down as fast as they come.

? What books have most influenced your life? The Holy Bible.

? What is the first book you remember reading by yourself? It was that long ago…I really don’t remember. I’ve been reading since early childhood.

? What are you reading right now? I’m reading a few contemporary romances on my Kindle right now.

? What do you like to do when you are not writing? In addition to spending quality time with my family and socializing, I’d have to say reading. I love books.

? What is your favorite comfort food? Anything with chocolate.

? What do you think makes a good story? Great characters, a solid plot and a little suspense. I love trying to figure out what’s going to happen next.  

? Who would you consider your favorite author and why? Too many to name. I have a lot of favorite authors that inspire me.

? What book, if any, do you read over and over again? The Bible—in passages.

Fun random questions: 

·        dogs or cats? Both.

·        Coffee or tea? A hot, delicious mug of steaming tea, anytime.

·        Dark or milk chocolate? Milk chocolate.

·        Rocks or flowers? Both, it depends on the occasion.

·        Night or day? Day.

·        Favorite color? Pink.

·        Crayons or markers? Markers.

·        Pens or pencils? Pens. 

You can buy a copy of this book HERE and HERE.

Thanks for stopping by The Wormhole.

Happy Reading.

Review: The Nation's Daughter by Valerie Maarten

The Nation's Daughter by Valerie Maarten

*I received this ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Amazon Product Description:
After the cruel and brutal murder of Little Summer James a Nation takes up her cause to see that the person they hold responsible pays.

But when the judicial system let them all down by setting her killer free, the days are numbered for Autumn James...a baby-killer.


My thoughts:
Valerie Maarten has created dynamic characters.  She has given them personalities and qualities that make you like them or hate them from the start.  The story is short, but not an easy read.  The topic is the death of a small child and so there is nothing light and fluffy about this story.  The characters struggle with a variety of ideals throughout the story.  They are struggling with:  beliefs, the courage to defend those beliefs, the decision of innocence or guilt, and what to do when you find yourself not where you planned to be.
I was amazed by the number of characters that felt they had, by some action or verbal interaction, played a part in Summer's death.  I was equally amazed by their unwillingness to do anything about it.
The one theme that I found endearing was friendship/love.  What would you be willing to do for someone that you loved?
This was not my favorite story, the subject matter made  it a hard read.  I liked the book, the story was intriguing and moved along without getting lost in random, unnecessary details or fillers.   I was broken hearted by Autumn's callous behavior, and shocked by it at the same time.

If you like a quick thriller - check this one out!