Collide Review By Shelly Crane

Title: Collide

Author: Shelly Crane

Series: Book # 1 of 3

Release Date: June 12, 2011

Source: Copy From Author For Review

Blurb: Sherry has always known there was something out there. She's eighteen, works for a tabloid newspaper in Chicago and has a brother, Danny who is a lazy mooch. They live a pretty normal dull life with hippie parents and a normal existence Then the moon disappears and people start to go missing only to reappear later, but different. Sherry has an abusive ex-boyfriend who shows up and claims to be one of these beings that have been showing up around the world. He's no longer the same person in that body. He tells her he has come to protect her and her brother and takes her underground, against her will to save her, where they meet others like them. She begins to unravel the truth about Merrick, about what he's really doing here, about the way he looks at her, about the crazy dangerous world they live in. Can he convince her that he's here to help? Will she like what she finds when she opens up to the truth? Will he be the one to love her when everyone else has failed her? Will he be able to protect her?

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Warning: This book is CALIENTE! HOT... HOT... HOT...

My Rating:  5 of 5 Hearts

    

My Cover Thoughts: I love the cover of the kite flying high. To me it represents something flying to get somewhere and once there it will have meaning.

My Thoughts/Review: I absolutely love this book! Sherry is stuck in a ho hum job working at the local tabloid paper. She has a brother who is lazy and works at the local coffee shop and to make matters even worse her parents are stuck in the Woodstock hippie era. What is a girl to do? She is also getting over a relationship that was an abusive one. The only light at the end of her tunnel is her getting a job at the prestigious newspaper taking pictures of better things than the local crazies with all their talk about aliens coming down and taking over the world.

Then one day Sherry is out at her favourite spot overlooking a cliff looking at the moon when all of the sudden the moon disappears. She gets spooked and decides to go home to check up on her brother and make sure he is safe. When she gets home she sees her ex-boyfriend Matt across the street staring at her and she is in panic mode because he just won’t take no for an answer. Only when he crosses the road she sees he looks different and his eye colour is different. She is scared but he keeps saying he has to talk to her and her brother but she fights him off when all of a sudden she feels a prick and is knocked out. When she comes to she finds herself in her car with her brother and Matt. Sherry is not sure what is going on but she is about to find out and once Matt has told her and her brother the story sherry is sure she has gone crazy because she can’t believe the stories of aliens coming down and taking over the world.

Sherry and Danny are thrown into a world where they have to rely on each other and take care of each other because they are all that is left of their family. What sherry wants to know is why they came down to protect her brother and others. What do they want here on earth and is it possible to fall in love with an alien inhabiting a human body? What is she to do to keep her brother safe from harm.......

Sherry has created a story that has lots of toss and turns and where it leads no one knows, and yes swoon worthy guys and lots of action. Sherry and the others have to figure out what is going on and learn how to survive and whom to trust in the world. What will sherry do? Is she strong enough to fight evil?

Memorable Quotes: Page 3 The black ones, they’d been called. The dark ones. The immortals. Lighters. They’d been called many things over the centuries, all of which were true.

The Keepers, ever watchful and ever evasively present, stood by and waited. Waited for the moment where they could no longer sit idle and not intervene. This wasn’t the first time they’d fought for the humans. They always had and it wasn’t the first time they’d fought for earth. The Keepers just hoped that this time wasn’t the last time, that there would still be something left to protect and fight for.

Advice: This series is a must read! Shelly is the next Stephen King with this series J you will not be disappointed once you read this book. You will fall in love with the characters and want more.

Image and Blurb from: www.goodreads.com

Amaranth Contest

Thanks to Rachael Wade, I am hosting my first giveaway. If you want to read her book Amaranth here is your chance to win a copy. All you have to do is be a follower of my blog and leave your name and e-mail address so I can notify you when you win!

This series is an awesome series and if you are into Vampires and Voodoo you will love this book. I have five books to give away!

The contest ends August 25, 2011.

Knowledge changes everything… 

Hoodoo-influenced Southern Louisiana seems like the perfect place for Camille to relocate and escape her abusive past. She didn’t expect to fall in love and plummet herself into the world of Amaranth, a place of exile for reformed vampires. 

Thanks to her deadly vampire ex-boyfriend, she’s confronted with decisions that not only threaten her life but the lives of her inhuman friends that she has come to love. Entangled in her friends’ quest for freedom, she dives into their realm and faces the threats of the ruler of Amaranth—the mother of all vampires—and her own inner demons. 

Will she derail her life and make the ultimate sacrifice for the very monsters that interrupted her bumpy path back to sanity—the one she wanted so desperately in the first place? Or will she find a way to escape with her vampire love before it’s too late?

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Shrouded Secrets great summer read only .99 on Amazon

When a teenage brother and sister inherit secret metaphysical powers, they are unknowingly hunted by a group of clandestine immortals. While one of the siblings will reluctantly choose the path of righteousness, the other will defiantly dabble with the promise of true power and the darkness that accompanies it.


As David James begins his freshman year of high school, he learns that his older sister Danielle's popularity isn't genetic. However, their lives change dramatically with the discovery that they possess power which grants them vast unearthly abilities. The more they strive for reasonable normality, the more unstable their powers become when combined with the stresses of high school teenage life.

While jealousy, love, and anger unhinge their once typical lives, temptations to abuse their newfound gifts are manipulated by a shrouded and unyielding adversary who seeks to cast earth into a modern dark age. Soon secrets will injure the ones they love as the burden of true power begins to isolate them. Not even the ominous prospect of a crumbling world matters when each of them finds that they are helpless to control their own desires.

Shrouded Secrets is an imaginative story in which David and Danielle James encounter the realm Eruditus. It is there they are taught to employ powers of the Artifex. The Galinea, knighted protectors of Eruditus, have those among them who have gone rogue. These malcontents, known as the Shroud, have set their sights on the two siblings. A perilous adventure ensues as David and Danielle become entangled with enemies who seek to claim their very lives.
 
Get it Amazon.com for .99 what a steal! Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Shrouded-Secrets-ebook/dp/B004EYT3T2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313076569&sr=8-2
 
Want to read an ARC Copy of the second book The Shadow Harvest click on the link and tell Joel  http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/626726-coming-soon

Jayde Scott does it again! Another fab book by her :)

Witches, trolls, nymphs and Silverfurs are surely the figment of one's imagination. That's what Emily Jones used to think until she moves to Scotland shortly before her fourteenth birthday to live in her deceased grandmother's manor with her father. Ravencourt Manor's just as creepy as she remembered it with plenty of creaking noises, rattling doors and a hunched shadow that roams the manor's garden at night.


In the hope to bring her separated parents back together, Emily opens a portal to Black Wood; a world of dangerous and alluring nymphs dwelling beneath the streams ready to drown her, where the sinister guardian and keeper of the Black Heart and cursed trolls are waiting, desperate to be released. And so Emily's long and dangerous fight against the evil Muriel begins.

Will Emily learn to use her grandmother's legacy in time before the evil Muriel regains her full powers to summon and unleash her deadly servants on the world?

BLACK WOOD is the first book in the teen series, A WITCH RISING.

Here is the direct link to buy this book for the Kindle on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Black-Wood-Witch-Rising-ebook/dp/B005F9QQIG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312367069&sr=1-1

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Interview with Rachael Wade author of Amaranth

I am so excited that Rachael is my first interview for my blog! Here is what she had to say about her book Amaranth. 

First of all tell us a bit about yourself.

I live in Orlando but my heart belongs to the Pacific Northwest. I’ll get there soon enough. I live with my equally movie-obsessed, witty husband, 2 cats, and a crazy black lab retriever. I’m an animal lover, have a serious case of wanderlust, and am obsessed with indie films and music. Freelance writer by day, novelist and poet by night. Not a bad life.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I wanted to write since I was a kid, I just never thought I could actually pursue it and be successful at it. I sent off stories to publishers in 2^nd grade and got letters of encouragement, and grew up writing song lyrics, poetry, and movie scripts, but it wasn’t until high school and my first year of college that my English teachers began pulling me aside after class suggesting that I seriously consider writing. A few years ago after hopping from dead-end job to dead-end job and being really artistically frustrated, I decided to make it more than a hobby. My poetry started getting published in literary magazines and then I decided to release the book. I’ve felt at home ever since. I can’t imagine doing anything else now.

Your novel has recently been released, how do you feel about that?

I’m thrilled and kind of lost all at the same time. I love sharing my work with others, and yet I’m such a private person that wearing it on my sleeve for the world to see freaks me out a bit. I just feel humbled that anyone is interested enough to my work. I know how it is taking a chance on a debut novel and a new author, especially when there is already so much vampire fiction out there to choose from. I’m just really thankful and having a blast launching the beginning of the series.

What was the inspiration for the characters?

I get most of my inspiration from indie flicks and music I listen to, particularly gritty, dark, and moving films. And Tim Burton. Everything Tim Burton. Florence and the Machine is my biggest influence. I listen to them a lot when I write, and listen to a lot of opera and heavy rock, too. Emotional, dramatic movies and music in general inspired the characters. As did a former French teacher of mine, whose real first name was Samira. She inspired Samira’s character in a huge way. She was very exotic, elegant, and she intimidated me every day in class because I really looked up to her. So I turned her into this incredibly exquisite yet deadly woman with a lot of power. Audrey was inspired by a real best friend I’ve had and lost.

Did you take personal experience and adapt it into the book?

There are definitely a lot of experiences and thoughts in the story that were personal in a metaphoric sense. Others were based on literal experiences, such as a family history of abuse and drug problems. I drew from all of that and used it to shape the story and Camille’s self-deprecating personality.

Do you have any authors that inspired you?

Absolutely. Sylvia Plath would be the first. Her work is so beautiful and so haunting, it just cuts through me. I also love Cormac McCarthy, his poetic and profound prose really floors me. And despite all of the haters out there, I love what Stephenie Meyer did with Twilight. I’m a complete fan-geek girl of the series.

What kind of books do you enjoy reading?

I love all kinds of literary fiction and poetry, vampire fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. Right now I’m reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Angel Time by Anne Rice. I don’t mind super-girly romance, I’m just picky. Like I love The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, but don’t try to get me to read a Harlequin novel. I just start laughing and I can’t take it seriously. Not my thing.

Why did you pick the Bayou as your main scene for the book?

I’ve always had a fascination with Southern Louisiana, had always wanted to visit. I think it has this mystical, eerie quality to it that just lures you in. I finally got the chance to visit the areas I talk about in the book a few years ago and I was mesmerized the whole time I was there. That’s when the idea for the story came. I could see Camille and Gavin living there, could picture the bookstore where Camille worked, and the Hoodoo shop. Cafe Des Amis is a real pace, actually. I visited it while I was there and I remember passing through the bayous, too. I felt completely drawn to it. It’s very mysterious.

Do you believe in Voodoo or Hoodoo?

I had to do a lot of research on Voodoo and Hoodoo while writing the book, and while the story doesn’t follow the actual practices verbatim, it’s pretty close. In the very least, it’s heavily inspired by the real thing. I found that Voodoo is definitely a very old and a very real religion. Voodoo is the religion and Hoodoo is the application of specific folk magic practices, so they are different but are intertwined. I believe it’s very real. The history and culture behind it is all very fascinating.

Where can readers find your books?

The e-book version of Amaranth is available now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, and Smashwords. The print version will be available Sept. 30^th through the same venues. You can also visit RachaelWade.com for free samples and any current promotions.

I want to thank you Rachael for taking the time to answer a few questions and I can't wait for the second book to come out in January 2012.