Archive for February 2014 | Monthly archive page
In honor of Women In Horror Month, here, in no particular order, are my recommendations of women who write in said genre that you should check out. These authors also write dark fantasy, historical, young adult, romance, and in a variety of genres, or they review horror. Definitely visit their sites and pick up a book! You can also check out Women In Horror at Facebook.
Vanessa Fewings
Giovanna Lagana
Kate Jonez
Carole Lanham
Debbie Kuhn
K.H. Koehler
S.P. Miskowski
Eloise J. Knapp
Amy Grech
Colleen Wanglund
Congratulations to Theresa Brundage, the winner of The Black Act: Witch Twins Saga Raffle! I just emailed you, Theresa, to find out what format you’d like your books in. If you don’t receive the email, please give me a shout at blackfaery76@yahoo.ca with your chosen ebook format and I’ll get those right over to you. A big thank you again to everyone who tweeted and shared the raffle. I’ll be doing another one when the full serial novel is released, so be sure to watch for that and enter.
The Funky Werepig
And if you missed me on The Funky Werepig the first time around, you can catch me chatting with my dear pal Mr. Gregory L Hall over at iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-funky-werepig/id547094652?mt=2
Win a Copy of The Reading Lessons
Also don’t forget to comment on Carole Lanham’s guest blog to win a copy of her novel The Reading Lessons! You’ll love this book, folks. Carole has two copies left to give away: http://www.louisebohmer.com/site/2014/02/reading-lessons-blog-tour-review-reading-lessons-carole-lanham/
In honor of Women in Horror Recognition Month and to spread the word about a wonderful book, I’d like to welcome Carole Lanham to the forest today as she stops by on her The Reading Lessons Blog Tour. Carole sent me a copy of her first novel and it was a pleasure to read. Here’s some more info on the title and Carole, buy links, and my review below.
About the Book: Mississippi 1920: Nine year old servant, Hadley Crump, finds himself drawn into a secret world when he is invited to join wealthy Lucinda Browning’s dirty book club. No one suspects that the bi-racial son of the cook is anything more to Lucinda than a charitable obligation, but behind closed doors, O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright. What begins as a breathless investigation into the more juicy parts of literature quickly becomes a consuming and life-long habit for two people who would not otherwise be left alone together. As lynchings erupt across the South and the serving staff is slowly cut to make way for new mechanical household conveniences, Hadley begins to understand how dangerous and precarious his situation is.
The Reading Lessons follows the lives of two people born into a world that is unforgiving as a Hangman’s knot. Divided by skin color and joined by books, Hadley and Lucinda are forced to come together in the only place that will allow it, a land of printed words and dark secrets.
My review: Carole Lanham’s The Reading Lessons is a seamless blend of historical literary fiction and romance. She pulls you in with the opening sentence and the narrative never lets go. It’s impossible not to feel for Hadley Crump, a biracial boy living in Mississippi in the 1920s, who falls in love with the daughter of the white man his mother works for. Lucinda has a hot temper and manipulates Hadley to keep him in her life, but, though she denies it, it’s obvious from her more tender moments she loves Crump. The story is a bittersweet, honest portrayal of forbidden love in a time when interracial marriage could literally mean death. I fell in love with the characters and raged at Lucinda right along with Hadley when she pulled his strings, but was touched by her gentleness and devotion to him, too. You won’t forget this book. It will stay with you long after you’ve read the final page. I’m not too proud to admit the conclusion made me tear up.
From Mama’s superstitions, to Hadley’s struggle to desperately break Lucinda’s hold on him, to Dickie Worther’s dissatisfaction with a life he was born into, these characters are vibrant, realistically written, and they come alive on the page. The Reading Lessons is a deftly crafted tale of how society’s social mores often hold us back, how social classes divide us, and how when that’s briefly stripped away in secret meetings, two people can have a taste of what they truly want. I highly recommend this book!
You can pick up a copy of The Reading Lessons at:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
Nook
Kobo
About Carole: Carole Lanham is the author of twenty-four short stories and three books, The Whisper Jar (Morrigan Books, Oct 2011), Cleopatra’s Needle (Black Daisy Press, coming in 2014), and The Reading Lessons (Immortal Ink Publishing, Jan 2014). Her work has twice appeared on the preliminary ballot for a Bram Stoker award, she was short listed for The Million Writers Prize, and she has won two national writing contests.
Pulitzer Prize nominated author Thomas Sullivan has said of her work: “You will find enchantment, disturbing undertones, wry humor, romantic eroticism, intrigue, suspense, and sheer escapism in all of Lanham’s work. Aberrations abound, but they are told with such convincing nonchalance that you simply have to believe them. You fall in love with the characters, and your hopes rise for their quests to succeed even as they descend into consensual madness or impossible dreams or a struggle to survive. Whether they survive and how they survive if they do…well, that’s as unpredictable as a coin flip.”
Pay Carole a visit at:
Carole Lanham
Horror Homemaker
Facebook
Twitter
UPDATE: Hey, folks, would you like to win a Kindle copy of The Reading Lessons? First three people to comment on this blog post will receive an ebook from Carole!
Hey friends and fiends!
Finally it’s time to reveal the special guest author who has written up a fabulously fun introduction for The Black Act: Witch Twins Saga. I know you’re going to love it. My special guest author is none other than M.R. Sellars! M.R. is a paranormal thriller writer who is the brains behind the award winning Rowan Gant Investigations series about a witch who becomes an occult detective. I was pretty tickled to write a blurb for Miranda. Read on for more info about my awesome pal, M.R.!
A member of the ITW (International Thriller Writers), M. R. Sellars is a relatively unassuming homebody who considers himself just a “guy with a lot of nightmares and a word processing program.” His first full-length novel, Harm None, hit bookstore shelves in 2000 and he hasn’t stopped writing since. In addition to the award-winning Rowan Gant Investigations series, his catalog of fiction includes the Special Agent Constance Mandalay novels and numerous anthology shorts.
Sellars currently resides in the Midwest with his wife, daughter, Vicki the Wonder Dog, and a trio of rescued male felines that he describes as, “the competition.” At home, when not writing or taking care of the household, he indulges his passions for cooking and chasing his wife around the house. She promises that one day she will allow him to catch her.
M. R. Sellars can be found on the web at:
And on major social networking venues…
http://www.facebook.com/SellarsMR
http://twitter.com/MRSellars
M.R.’s books can be found on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. You can also add his books to your tbr list over at Goodreads. And don’t forget to grab your free read from M.R. when you’re at his site, Merrie Axemas! It’s the teaser novella that launched his Constance Mandalay series.
Huge thanks going out to M.R. for the introduction! I can’t wait to share it with you all with the re-release of The Black Act: Witch Twins Saga The Complete Serial novel. And I’ll have a cover reveal coming up soon for that, too. As well, keep checking back for updates on The Black Act: Witch Twins Saga Companion and the special guest author involved with this release.
Plus, I’ll be on The Funky Werepig this Friday with my dear pal and adopted bro, Mr. Gregory L. Hall! So please stop by and have some fun with us this Friday night at 9PM EST at the TMV Cafe: http://www.tmvcafe.com/#!friday/c25s
Don’t forget to also enter The Black Act: Witch Twins Saga Raffle! And big thanks to everyone who has entered so far. You can win all 6 ebooks in the series!
Hey folks!
Until Feb. 14, you can win all 6 parts of The Black Act: Witch Twins Saga serial. All you have to do is enter via the Rafflecopter giveaway and tweet about the contest or like my Louise Bohmer author page on Facebook. If you choose the like option, please make sure you still sign into the Rafflecopter giveaway and like via this page. This is so Rafflecopter records your entry. Sorry I didn’t mention that yesterday when I posted the raffle, folks!
Just click the banner above to enter via Rafflecopter, or click the embedded raffle widget below. You can keep up with the raffle via Facebook also: https://www.facebook.com/events/361555663986618/
And I’ll be announcing and profiling the special guest author who has written up an introduction for the re-release in a couple days, so be sure to return for that.