Book Blitz: Clock City by Rebekah Dodson!

Clock City
by Rebekah Dodson
(Realm of Elestra, #2)
Publication date: May 15th 2019
Genres: New Adult, Romance, Steampunk, Young Adult

Since Mom died and left me with my abusive, drunkard of a father I don’t have much of a life. My only sanctuary’s hidden in the woods. At least until I find a jeweled dagger and it transports me to somewhere called Elestra. I seriously can’t believe this isn’t some crazy dream, with mechanical horses, cat people, demons, and even metal dragons.
I just want to go home, but everything is a disaster in Clock City.
Who’s this mysterious girl who appeared in Elestra? Alayna wears strange clothes and keeps complaining about something called a “cell phone.” She even has a demon with her who’s sworn a life debt, and now I’m bonded to her to help save the kingdom.
I’m just Sebastian, a secret tinkerer. How am I supposed to help her, and the rebellion, save the city? My life has flipped upside down, and I don’t know if I have what it takes.
No matter what happens it’s up to us to show the world what freedom truly looks like.

Goodreads / Amazon

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Q&A with Rebekah Dobson:

Name/Pen Name: Rebekah Dodson
Where do you get your ideas? Mostly from my muse, a close friend of mine, and watching people. And maybe a little from my students, lol
What is your writing process like? I get up at 4am most days and write 2500 words. My day starts at 6am, then I teach college classes from 9am-5pm five days a week. Some days it’s hard to get up at 4am, so I have to double up on weekends. Usually I get in about 10,000-15,000 words on a Saturday.
What is your writing Kryptonite? Quick burn romances. I can’t do it. My character talks and talk and fall in love SO slowly. It’s annoying sometimes.
How do you deal with writers block? I travel! Seriously. I take the train often, talk to people, go to big cities. I get tons of ideas!
Do you write under different pen names? Not yet!
When did you write and publish your first book? What was the name of your book? I wrote my frist book, Postcards from Paris, in December of 2013. I was in grad school at the time, and going through some rough things. I really poured my heart and some personal experiences into that book. A fellow students of mine started a publishing company and offered to publish it, and put a TON of faith into my work. Postcards was published on March 6, 2014! I’ve written a book a month ever since!
Who is your favorite author and Why? I love Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instrument series, but I’m also a huge fan of Stephen King, RA Salvatore, Terry Goodkind, David Gemmel, Nora Roberts, and Charlaine Harris. For India authors I adore Brooklyn Knight, Candace Osmond, and RA Steffan. Their books will ALWAYS be a one-click for me.
How many unpublished or half written books do you have? Probably at least 20. 30?
What kind of research do you do and how long before writing your book? I usually research as I write, to be honest. I rarely know what my characters are going to pull/do. The current series I’m working on it
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex? Not much, actually. My bestselling series, The Curse of Lanval, is from my male main character’s perspective, Guillaume Lanval. Most of my romances are from both male and female first person perspectives. I really enjoy writing from the male perspective, actually.
How long do you try to write daily? An hour or two. Some days I can only voice text a few sentences, but I get them in.
Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with good and bad reviews? All the time. The harsest one was when a reader gave me 3-stars before she “couldn’t remember the book.” That made me cry. I never advertise that book anymore, but I read it every few months and determine to be more interesting than that book. For good reviews I sometimes share them with the world, but primarily I have the same reaction. Every time someone leave me a review, good or bad, I just enjoy the fact someone read it!
What’s your favorite genre to read? Urban fantasy and high fantasy mostly, but I also love historical romances.
Do you hide secrets that only a few people will find or easter eggs in your books? OH yes. Most of my characters are related, and their worlds are fundamentally changed by Gill’s time traveling. I’m just hoping someone figures it out someday.
What was your hardest scene to write? In Postcards from Moscow, my ballerina, Jacqueline, was a pill addict, and I had to write a scene where Vasily, the man who loves her, finds her not breathing on a bathroom floor. He revives her, but then he walks away. It was so hard to write that scene because I wanted them to be together SO bad, but it wasn’t going to happen, not until Jaqui got her stuff together. A close second is the moment that Guillaume loses someone he loves in the my time travel fantasy, Merlin. When I had to kill that character I felt his anguish and I cried all the way through it with him.
Do you write with music in the background or does it have to be silent? I need music!! If it’s a fight scene for a fantasy novel, I’ve got to have some wacky Voltaire or Mary Cromwell or Shyfer James in the the background, maybe a little Cog is Dead or Steampunk Giraffe. I also love my 90’s romance songs (Savage Garden, Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears) for romances. Sometimes you’ll even heard a little Five Finger Death Punch in there!
Do you have a favorite thing to snack on while you write? Gummy bears. It’s really an addiction at this point…
How much do your readers’ interests influence your writing? SO much. I actually have some fans that suggest directions and I almost always use them. My biggest fan is actually my beta reader now and I love her!
If you could tell your younger writing self anything…What would it be? PLEASE write that damn book and publish it, even though you don’t think you are good enough! I published my first book when I was 30, and I wish I hadn’t waited.
Any advice to other writers? Always get your product as polished as possible. Hire an editor, pay a lot for a cover. Find your tribe of other authors to support you and ask them for advice, often! Don’t pay for anything until people agree that it’s a good venture, otherwise you’ll waste a lot of money and time on poor quality professionals. Also, find your readers, and reward the crap out of them. Don’t lose those precious readers at any cost.

Author Bio:
Rebekah Dodson is a prolific author of over 30 romance, fantasy, and science fiction novels. Her works include the series Postcards from Paris, #1 bestselling Curse of Lanval series, Life After Us series, and several stand alone novels and short stories. She has been writing her whole life, with her first published work of historical fiction with 4H Clubs of America at the age of 12, and poetry at the age of 16 with the National Poetry Society. With an extensive academic background including education, history, psychology and English, she currently works as a college professor by day and a writer by night.

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Book Blitz: Fire Wolf by H. Danielle Crabtree!

Fire Wolf
by H. Danielle Crabtree
(Fire & Reign, #1)
Publication date: May 21st 2019
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Since the fall of the royal house, the four kingdoms have been divided and at war, leaving many without necessities to survive. Lady Myah Leicht would do anything for her people, even risk herself—the future high lady of Nordlin—to join her friends to raid supply convoys and storehouses belonging to the enemy army against her uncle and his council’s wishes.
Garrett wants nothing more than to be done with the Osten Elite Guard, but his position as master keeps him close to the queen and close the secrets the resistance needs. But only one secret he keeps matters to the future of the four kingdoms.
And that secret could burn Myah’s world to the ground.

Goodreads / Amazon

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SNEAK PEEKS:

The wind picked up, howling through the unsheltered channel. It prickled every inch of Myah’s skin, blasting through her damp clothes. A chill raced up her spine when the gust died.

It was not the wind marking her end, but the cries of the wolves.

Myah would die to their song.

—

“I find you baffling.”

He laughed quietly. “I get that a lot.”

“If you don’t want to blackmail me, then what do you want?” she pushed.

He leaned forward as if to get a better look at her in the moonlight. “To test a theory.”

“And what is your conclusion?” She was curious now, much less afraid, although still untrusting.

“Undetermined …”

—

Garrett’s breaths were becoming ragged. His blood, warm and hot and sticky, dripped down his chest. He could feel the moisture on his skin. He blocked a swing aiming for his head, and then took a knife to his left side. It was shallow, but his muscles knotted. He stumbled backward, lost his footing as he slipped in the snow, and went down hard on his side.

When he looked up, the man’s arms were raised over his head, the blade angled to drive it through Garrett’s chest. His breath caught.

Author Bio:
H. Danielle Crabtree graduated from the University of Oregon in 2004 with a professional journalism degree and worked in journalism as a writer and editor in Oregon and Arizona. She started freelancing as an editor in 2011.
Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines and anthologies, and she wrote with the G10 Writers group. Her first book with the group was published in 2011.
She lives in the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley with her two dogs. Outside her career in health care and her passion for writing, she enjoys hiking, gardening, and dog training, and she is pursuing a master's degree in public health at Oregon State University.

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Book Blitz: Neliem by Clare DiLiscia!

Neliem
by Clare DiLiscia
Published by: Month9Books
Publication date: May 21st 2019
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Half the population of the island of Madera are dead, killed by an unforgiving and indiscriminate plague. Oriana dreams of escaping her life of ruthless cruelty from the people who now rule over those who remain. No telling whom the plague will strike next, Oriana means to find freedom for herself and her people. Drawing strength from ancient tales of her enemy, young Oriana transforms herself from victim to warrior with the help of a mysterious and powerful dagger given to her by a kind and dying boy.
Years later, during her enemy’s betrothal ritual, Ezra, a boy she has never before seen, selects her as his mate. With servitude her only option, Oriana accepts the offer. Whisked away to a seemingly perfect world, Oriana discovers sinister secrets at every turn, including the identity of Tristan, a boy with whom she shares an undeniable but impossible connection.
Why would a boy she doesn’t know wish her to be his betrothed? Why does she feel such a strong pull toward a stranger? Someone in Ezra’s family not only knows the answer to both those questions, but also about the dagger Oriana possesses. He will do anything to stop the union. Now, with everything on the line, Oriana turns inward to find the strength she needs to seize the full power of the dagger so that she may protect herself and save her people.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

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EXCERPT:

I cringe; not wanting to confess the extent of my obsession of finding the boy I’ve convinced myself for too long never existed. After I’d miraculously healed from the fever, I went half mad looking everywhere for him. Like a maniac, I searched in every room, closet and under every desk at the schoolhouse for any indication where he might’ve gone. Then I took it one step further. Dressed like Neliem himself, I snuck at the crack of dawn into the Untouchable section of town which we are forbidden to enter. I scourged the marketplace, the temples of their false gods, the fields, the hills, our cave, any place I could think of, going as far as to risk my own life for weeks to find him. Just for the chance to see him and touch him again, I would’ve done anything. Me, who hated to be touched, ached for this boy the way a dying man aches for water in the desert.

Author Bio:
Clare Di Liscia grew up near the hills surrounding Dodger's Stadium. For University, Clare attended KU Leuven, in Belgium. She graduated with a Film Degree from Cal State Northridge, earning Dean's List recognition. Neliem won 1st place HM in SCBWI's Sue Alexander.

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Book Blitz: Timeless Sky by Paulina Ulrich!

Timeless Sky
by Paulina Ulrich
(Flightless Bird #4)
Publication date: May 15th 2019
Genres: Romance, Time-Travel, Young Adult

When it all ends…

In the tumultuous world of time travel, Livy does her best to adjust to her new life and abilities. Livy and Gregory’s shared dreams have them searching for clues to piece together their lives. In time though, Livy discovers that her lifeline to Gregory isn’t as strong as she thought and she now faces an even worse fate. A voice only she can hear has started to follow her and one mistake could keep her locked permanently in the past.

When people close to her begin to disappear, she and Gregory are compelled to join forces with any allies they have left. With Amelia on the path of revenge, the Society of Seven on the brink, and Damon still missing, the lives of those around them are in jeopardy and not all will survive.

Time is running out. How long will forever last?

Previous books in the series:

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

I took a drink of my water, watching him over the rim of the glass. “Any other theories we have to test?” I set my glass in the sink but something else was already on my mind and it had nothing to do with theories.
“Hmm…nothing comes to mind immediately.” Gregory scratched his chin, faint stubble was starting to appear.
“Good.” I reached up and kissed him, not wanting to feel anything but him. Gregory seemed surprised but I felt his arms squeeze me against his chest. He pulled away, but I was having none of it and with my fingers tethered in his hair, I yanked his mouth back to mine, kissing him earnestly. I made sure my body pressed against every lining of his, pushing against him and making him stumble backwards.

Author Bio:
Paulina Ulrich: author, book nerd, & crazy cat lady received her BA in Creative Writing and is the author of the young adult Flightless Bird series, the award nominated young adult Fighting Fate series, and many more stories to come. She also writes nonfiction and has been published in various literary magazines. When she's not writing, reading, drinking copious amounts of tea, or doing author-y stuff, she's out buying way too many cute shoes. Stay up to date with her at www.paulinaulrich.com

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Book Blitz: The Rule of Many by Ashley Saunders!

The Rule of Many
by Ashley Saunders
(The Rule of One #2)
Published by: Skyscape
Publication date: May 7th 2019
Genres: Dystopian, Young Adult

Born to a death sentence in a near-future America, rebellious sisters herald a revolution—if they can survive.
Twins Ava and Mira Goodwin defy the Rule of One simply by existing. The single-child law, ruthlessly enforced by Texas’s Governor Roth, has made the sisters famous fugitives and inspirations for the resurgent rebellion known as the Common.
But the relentless governor and his implacable Texas State Guard threaten that fragile hope, as Roth consolidates his power in a bid for ultimate authority.
As Ava and Mira relinquish the relative safety of their Canadian haven to stand against Roth, new allies arise: Owen, a gifted young programmer, impulsively abandons his comfortable life in a moment of compassion, while Zee, an abused labor camp escapee, finds new purpose in resistance.
The four will converge on Dallas for a reckoning with Roth, with nothing less than their destinies—and the promise of a future free from oppression—on the line.
Disobedience means death. But a life worth living demands rebellion.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

MIRA
Limos and luxury cars line the extensive circular driveway, stuffed with partygoers ready for the welcoming bash. Mrs. and Mr. Cross have already arrived with much fanfare from their son and his doting employees. I wonder if Ciro’s sisters are here.
I hear him get on the microphone, introducing his unwitting parents onto the stage of the overflowing banquet hall, the governor of Alberta and the mayor of Calgary looking on from the front row.
Everything’s falling nicely into place. If only the man of the hour would show.
I look at my watch: 7:30 p.m. He’s late. Ava’s knee bounces furiously, as if she can shake out her anxiety.
“He’ll come,” I say.
From our hideout in the corner of the foyer, shadowed and easily overlooked, we have the best seats in the house. A perfect vantage point to see and be unseen. Ava scans the budding festivities through the glass walls on our left. I keep my eyes on the glass windows straight ahead, seeing past the dazzling flares from the cars’ headlights, holding out for the first glimpse of the president.
A string quartet begins to play, and an electric energy pulsates through the hotel, enlivening the crowd around us with a giddy exhilaration, and I can’t help but feel it too. Eager, I spring to my feet. I pace up and down our tucked-away corner, checking the time, watching Emery from across the room, waiting on her signal.
“Do you hear that?” Ava asks. She stares up at the ceiling. I move beside her as we listen to the muffled roar of whirling blades slicing the air somewhere above the building.
“A helicopter,” Ava says.
“He’s here.”
We look to Emery, who stands near the entrance, her gaze locked skyward. Guests file past as she removes a headscarf from her pocket, drapes the silk over her distinctive curls, and pulls it into a tight knot at the back of her neck. She folds her right arm over her chest, our cue to move.
I feel, rather than see, Barend steal into place behind us, our long shadow, as we push to the end of the foyer. Pawel detaches himself from the crowd and crosses our path as he follows Emery out the front door. “Lots of luck,” he whispers earnestly. Like luck has anything to do with it. It’s all up to us.
Our target is the oversized clock that consumes the entire wall alongside the vacant concierge desk. Ava stops before the number six, and we slip behind a false door and stride side by side down an empty staff hallway. Three right turns, two left, a final door, and we’re outside.
There are no lights behind the hotel and no people. The night is chilly and moonless, but we find the footpath we were directed to take and make our silent way to the small grove of trees just twenty yards out.
Ten paces in, Ava and I turn from the path and weave through the evergreens until we spot the narrow clearing that is to be our stage. We position ourselves in its center, shoulder to shoulder, and wait. Somewhere to our right, concealed within the trees and darkness, Barend stands guard.
When told of the plan, Emery immediately authorized the private rendezvous. She knows pleading our case face-to-face with the president is the only way. Cameras and screens provide a barrier, Emery said. The media paints you solely as American rebels. Let him see how human you are. With Pawel at her side, Emery is to meet and escort the president here, while Ciro entertains his parents and guests, keeping them safely ignorant inside the banquet hall.
The minutes tick off, and Ava starts to shiver from either the cold or nerves. Or is that me shivering? Ava and I brought no weapons with us, to show good faith. No guns, no knives. Just us, with our naked conviction and hope.
This could be our last stop, a final end to the endless chase. A place to plan and plot and devise our crucial counterattack.
Ava nudges me with a sharp elbow. She points to the trees in front of us. Two distinct shapes emerge, a faint silhouette floating behind.
“Ready?” I whisper needlessly. Ava tightens her jaw, and I ball my hands into white-knuckled fists. I take a big gulp of air and exhale slowly. My breath comes out in swirling smoke, reminding me of a dragon. There’s a fire inside me, and suddenly I feel warm and calm. One look from Ava and I know she feels it too.
We’re ready.
The outlines become faces and bodies. Emery appears first, then President Moore, with Pawel a few steps behind. I stare at Moore, transfixed, my eyes glued to the man who can grant us refuge.
He stumbles forward, as if his own eyes have not yet adjusted to the dark. I search his every feature, looking for any hint of surprise, or shock, or understanding. But his face, though startlingly attractive in the starlight, is blank. Indifferent.
“President Moore,” Emery says, “this is Ava and Mira Goodwin.” He looks at us cross-eyed, his round eyes squinting as he takes us in. We all stand motionless, awaiting his response.
“You don’t look identical to me,” the president finally states, his thin voice magnified in the still night air. “One of you’s slightly taller, the other rounder.”
The leader of the free world opens with an insult. My first reaction is to defend my identicalness. Surprising, when all I’ve ever wanted is to be seen as different from Ava.
“Sir—” Ava and I speak at the same time.
The president laughs. “Ah, there it is.” The ground spins as he turns to leave. “This conversation will be moved to a different setting. Just the twins and me.”
Barend detaches from the shadows. Pawel and Emery enclose my sister and me. Ava grabs my arm, her grip tight enough to bruise.
“We do not agree to any change—” Emery starts, but Moore shouts over her.
“Security!”
Everything shatters, all plans and expectations smashed to pieces.
A gunshot rings out, then two more.
“Run!” Emery yells.
The last thing I see is Ava’s face, twisted in fear and fury.
Then something covers my eyes. My mouth.
I’m thrown over a bulky shoulder, the deafening sounds of a helicopter growing louder with every footfall. With every one of my muffled screams.
I’m shoved against something solid. I reach out, arms flailing, but there’s no one beside me. Ava.
I feel the chopper lift into the sky. Two spinning blades taking me higher and higher away from Common ground.

Author Bio:
Hailing from the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders are award-winning filmmakers and twin sisters who honed their love of storytelling at The University of Texas at Austin. While researching The Rule of One, they fell in love with America’s national parks, traveling the path of Ava and Mira. The sisters can currently be found with their Boston terriers in sunny Los Angeles, exploring hiking trails and drinking entirely too much yerba mate.

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Rowan Wood Legends (The Lost Clan #2) by Olivia Wildenstein (Review)

     The second installment in The Lost Clans series, Rowan Wood Legends
continues the tale of Cat, a young woman who is half faerie, half hunter. The faeries hate her for her hunter side, and the hunters desipse her for her faerie side, and she just wants be treated like a regular person. After loosing her mom, a best friend and a good chunk of her freedom, she is seesawed between a hunter that is obsessed with her because she looks like his dead wife, and a cocky jerk of a faerie that sees her as less-than because of her hunter side but still overwhelmingly wants her anyway. She wishes her two sides could just learn to live in piece, but with both kinds determined to exterminate each other, it doesn't look very promising.
       Just like the first book in the series, Rowan Wood Legends was okay. The love triangles in the two books are not fantastic, and I struggle to want anyone to succeed. Both also have plots, but they feel like sometimes dull ones. I really feel that these books could have done with some more immediate stakes, something with a time limit that would make the readers be more invested. A lot of the stakes in this book felt pretty nebulous, like they were there, but they might or might not actually end up mattering and there were no clear objectives to get Cat's butt into gear. Like she had MANY scenes of just shopping, eating at dinners and taking trips for fun. Any stakes in the book die in moments like that. It can't be that important if Cat has time to go chill and go clothing shopping during it. Anyway, the writing voice is competent and the universe has a lot of potential, so I give Rowan Wood Legends the rating of THREE AND A HALF STARS OUT OF FIVE!!!

*Advanced Readers Copy Review*

Dream Keeper (The Dark Dreamer Trilogy #1) by Amber R. Duell (Review)

   The Sandman is a mythical being that is the master of dreams. Using his sand, he puts people to sleep and rules the world of the night. In Dream Keeper, the sandman is real and in love with a young woman named Nora. Nora holds within her the power to effect the world of the night. She has the power to tip the balances between the Nightmare realm and the Dream realm, which makes her and her loved ones a massive target for The Weaver: the master of the Nightmare realm. She has this because of the Sandman, and he is relying on her not to cave and give in to the Nightmares, because if she does, all will be lost, in the Night world and in the normal human world.
     Twisted and waaaaay darker then I was expecting, this book has a hard focus on nightmares and horror movie level monsters and has almost no normal dreams or happy things (which is what I was expecting). Yah, this book is shockingly graphic and scary. It has grewsome self mutilation, multiple self murders through mind control, and a disturbing scene of self murder by pen violently being stabbed through the throat. Which leads me to my biggest complaint. Absolutely horrifying things happen in the real world to the main character (a normal teenage girl) and we are expected to believe she can just handle it and not have a massive mental breakdown. Its so unreasonable I was taken right out of the story. I don't know about you, but if a woman throat stabbed herself in front of me and my best friends killed themselves by ripping out there own eyes right next to me I WOULD LOSE MY CRAP! I'm talking about mental breakdown after mental breakdown, PTSD to the nines, becoming unable to see anything but the horror. Nora just takes it, brushes it off and keeps going. All of those events happen in the real world, those characters are ACTUALLY DEAD, and Nora is worried about if Sandman's affections are genuine. It was by far the worst part of the book. Otherwise it was a pretty okay book, and I give it the rating of THREE AND A HALF STAR OUT OF FIVE!!!

*Advanced Readers Copy Review*

Cover Reveal: Altered by Vicki Stiefel!

Altered
by Vicki Stiefel
(The Made Ones Saga, #1)
Publication date: August 12th 2019
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Romance

The Eleutians are dying out, one female at a time. To save their species, the powerful Alchemic Clan conscripts women from parallel worlds, altering them into the perfect breeding stock.
Kitlyn, a retired circus equestrian broken in both body and spirit, awakens on a strange world in her own much-younger body. She has been transformed into a Made One, but the gift of youth and the promise of a new life come at a terrible price.
Rafe, the Wolf Clan’s warrior champion, vows to find the cause of the species’ decline. He’s certain the Alchemics’ bid to save the Eleutians is but a thin veneer masking a dark purpose.
That vow becomes hard to keep with the threat of an inter-clan conflict and the arrival of the proud Made One named Kitlyn.
To save herself and those like her, Kit must carve a dangerous path in this new reality and make a choice that may cost her her freedom, her life, and the life of the Eleutian warrior she’s come to love.

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Author Bio:
Vicki's fantasy romantic suspense series, The Afterworld Chronicles, launched with Chest of Bone, followed by Chest of Stone and Chest of Time. She is currently pounding the keys on her series' fourth novel, Chest of Fire, and the first in a new series, The Made Ones Sags: Altered.
Her mystery/thrillers include Body Parts, The Dead Stone, The Bone Man, and The Grief Shop, a Daphne du Maurier prize winner. All feature homicide counselor Tally Whyte. All are available as ebooks.
She co-wrote (with Lisa Souza) and photographed the 10 Secrets of the LaidBack Knitters. With her late husband, William G. Tapply, she ran The Writers Studio workshops in creative fiction.
Vicki taught fiction writing and modern media writing at Clark University.
She loves both a well-crafted sentence and unlocking the doors of a student's imagination.
She grew up in professional theater and planned to become an actress, with a bent for song and dance. She didn't. Instead, she's been a professional photographer, a high-school teacher, a hamburger slinger, a scuba-shop manager, and an editor.
She's Blake's and Ben's mom, her favorite role of all.
Her passions include scuba diving and fly fishing and knitting; photography and movies; vinho verde and bourbon (not together!); Maine lobster and chocolate (also not together!); and musical comedy scores, which she sing in the shower, unfortunately not an Equity venue; and a fascination with people in all walks of life. .

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My Favourite Indie Authors

         Recently I was given the opportunity to get my hands on a large quantity of books of my choice, a readers dream! Where did I turn? Amazon. "Why Amazon?" you might ask, "Why not Chapters? or Barns and Noble?".  Well its pretty simple, the big book stores don't have a good chunk of my favourite novels... but Amazon does. Amazon is teaming with indie authors that I think write books with terrible covers and no advertisement, but that have so much heart and quality in their stories.

          Let's start with the hard stuff, what is difficult about reading Indie books. Weeeeeeeellllll, I'm just gonna say it, we are all thinking it: Indie covers are BUTT-UGLY 90% of the time. It gets really hard to want to own or read a book that makes you cringe while looking at the horribly photoshopped uncanny valley covers (which is because cover design is expensive, so don't get me wrong, I say this critique understanding the limitations indie authors experiance). People are visual by nature and books with ugly covers will rarely find an audience willing to give it a chance. Another rough thing about indie books is that there is absolutely no quality control. They physically can be fairly bad quality but that's not what I'm taking about, writing wise, you cannot be sure what you'll be getting with and indie book. It could be absolute trash with grammar errors and absolutely no plot, and you won't have a clue ti'll you've purchased and started reading it; which makes it very hard to trust indie books. It is safer to look at books that have been vetted and edited for formal publishing. 

           Now on the flip side, it's time to compliment indie books. Firstly,  just like there is no quality control without a publisher, there are also the MAJOR benefits of not having a formal publisher involved. Publishers can be greedy, shallow and shortsighted. They tend to publish based on perceived "trends" and have a history of turning away some of the best stories out there; for an example of this think about how many gosh-darn publishers rejected the world wide phenomenon of Harry Potter. Looking for books outside of the formal publication sphere can let you find some of the ABSOLUTELY MOST CREATIVE AND ADDICTIVE BOOKS YOU WILL EVER FIND ANYWHERE! Not only is the indie ecosystem massive, allowing for more natural talent to be discovered organically and for healthy competition, but it also allows the diamond in the rough authors to shine without the interference of a publishers demands and dumb additions/removals (which rarely ever actually improve the book). I love when a naturally talented author is just let to do their own thing, because that always makes the best stories ever. I can't even begin to gush about how incredibly addicting I find some of the indie books I've read. Another bonus is that indie authors are down to earth, and you can often actually interact with them online. They are super kind and tend to foster great literary communities that just mutually love books, unlike the stale facebook pages of publishing companies. Anyway, I've ranted long enough, now to gush about the books I got!

        I decided to take this opportunity and purchase the physical books from my all time favourite indie authors and show them some love for writing stories that I am ADDICTED to. 

I finally took the leap and got the whole seven book series of the Walker Saga! It is presently my favourite YA series, so I AM PUMPED! I also ordered the last two books in the Dragon Marked Series (I already own book one), since I really loved it.

I have been hooked on the Quinn Loftis Prince of Wolves series since middle school, and I still love the classic soul mates werewolf books. I ordered the all 11 books, and I got the 2 books in her Viking based series, since I have read and liked the first one (I reviewed an ARC of it), and want to give book 2nd a chance.

I got 3 of my favourite (that were available to purchase and in stock) Kelly Oram books. She is the only contemporary author that I like, her stuff is fantastic (quirky, but fantastic). I also got Remember Jamie Baker, the third instalment of the Jamie Baker series, and it will finally finish off my collection (something that is very long overdue).

This one is an oldie but a goodie. I got the 5 book series by Starla Huchton of her fairytale retellings. I have only read the first 2, years ago, but I loved them so much and I love fairytale retellings so I chose to get this series. I also read a few other Starla Huchton books and they are also good, and she is a good author from my experience, so the risk seemed worth it to me.

I have already read and reviewed Farah's 2 books, really liked them, and felt that she was worth supporting, this one its just as simple as that. I think The Last of the Firedrakes is worth a look to those who haven't heard of it before.

I got the last two books in the Curse of the Sphinx series, already owning book one and two. This will complete my collection. I really loved the way Raye presents mythology, and the sphinx is a rarely touched topic.

So this one has a story. Joss Stirling both is and isnt an indie author. She used to be published, but recently has become independent. This book, Flare is the third/final book in her independent series, which will complete my set (which is quite extensive). I really love her writing and both her published and indie books are worth a read. 

This one is a weird one, one of the only Chrissy Peebles books I've read, I loved it. It was quirky and had a spicy romance. Not much else to say about it.

I chose to get Fate's Fables by T. Rae Mitchell because I found its take on story hopping and fables/fairy tales to be really unique and interesting. I thought I'd add it to my collection.