Cover Reveal: The Artisans by Julie Reece and Giveaway #M9BFridayReveals

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The Artisans by Julie Reece

presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

They say death can be beautiful. But after the death of her mother, seventeen-year-old RAVEN WEATHERSBY gives up her dream of becoming a fashion designer, barely surviving life in the South Carolina lowlands.
To make ends meet, Raven works after school as a seamstress creating stunning works of fashion that often rival the great names of the day.
Instead of making things easier on the high school senior, her stepdad's drinking leads to a run in with the highly reclusive heir to the Maddox family fortune, Gideon Maddox.
But Raven's stepdad's drying out and in no condition to attend the meeting with Maddox. So Raven volunteers to take his place and offers to repay the debt in order to keep the only father she's ever known out of jail, or worse.
Gideon Maddox agrees, outlining an outrageous demand: Raven must live in his home for a year while she designs for Maddox Industries' clothing line, signing over her creative rights.
Her handsome young captor is arrogant and infuriating to the nth degree, and Raven can't imagine working for him, let alone sharing the same space for more than five minutes.
But nothing is ever as it seems. Is Gideon Maddox the monster the world believes him to be? And can he stand to let the young seamstress see him as he really is?
The Artisans is a delectably rich, layered and dark YA Southern Gothic inspired by Jeanne Marie Leprince de Beaumont's classic Beauty and the Beast.

"The Artisans has all the elements I love - spooky intrigue, strong friendships, and a romantic tension to be savored." ~ Wendy Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of the Sweet Evil trilogy.

Title: The Artisans
Publication date: May 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Julie Reece

Born in Ohio, I lived next to my grandfather’s horse farm until the fourth grade. Summers were about riding, fishing and make-believe, while winter brought sledding and ice-skating on frozen ponds. Most of life was magical, but not all.

I struggled with multiple learning disabilities, did not excel in school. I spent much of my time looking out windows and daydreaming. In the fourth grade (with the help of one very nice teacher) I fought dyslexia for my right to read, like a prince fights a dragon in order to free the princess locked in a tower, and I won.

Afterwards, I read like a fiend. I invented stories where I could be the princess... or a gifted heroine from another world who kicked bad guy butt to win the heart of a charismatic hero. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? Later, I moved to Florida where I continued to fantasize about superpowers and monsters, fabricating stories (my mother called it lying) and sharing them with my friends.

Then I thought I’d write one down...

Hooked, I’ve been writing ever since. I write historical, contemporary, urban fantasy, adventure, and young adult romances. I love strong heroines, sweeping tales of mystery and epic adventure... which must include a really hot guy. My writing is proof you can work hard to overcome any obstacle. Don’t give up. I say, if you write, write on!

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Cover Reveal: VESSEL by Lisa T. Cresswell and Giveaway #M9BFridayReveals

Welcome to the Cover Reveal for

VESSEL by Lisa T. Cresswell

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The sun exploded on On April 18, 2112 in a Class X solar storm the likes of which humankind had never seen.

They had exactly nineteen minutes to decide what to do next.

They had nineteen minutes until a geomagnetic wave washed over the Earth, frying every electrical device created by humans, blacking out entire continents, and every satellite in their sky.

Nineteen minutes to say goodbye to the world they knew, forever, and to prepare for a new Earth, a new Sun.

Generations after solar storms destroyed nearly all human technology on Earth, humans reverted to a middle ages-like existence, books are burned as heresy, and all knowledge of the remaining technology is kept hidden by a privileged few called the Reticents.

Alana, a disfigured slave girl, and Recks, a traveling minstrel and sometimes-thief, join forces to bring knowledge and books back to the human race. But when Alana is chosen against her will to be the Vessel, the living repository for all human knowledge, she must find the strength to be what the world needs even if it's the last thing she wants.

Title: Vessel
Publication date: May 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Lisa T. Cresswell

Lisa, like most writers, began scribbling silly notes, stories, and poems at a very young age. Born in North Carolina, the South proved fertile ground to her imagination with its beautiful white sand beaches and red earth. In fifth grade, she wrote, directed and starred in a play "The Queen of the Nile" at school, despite the fact that she is decidedly un-Egyptian looking. Perhaps that's why she went on to become a real life archaeologist?

Unexpectedly transplanted to Idaho as a teenager, Lisa learned to love the desert and the wide open skies out West. This is where her interest in cultures, both ancient and living, really took root, and she became a Great Basin archaeologist. However, the itch to write never did leave for long. Her first books became the middle grade fantasy trilogy, The Storyteller Series. Her first traditionally published work, Hush Puppy, is now available from Featherweight Press.

Lisa still lives in Idaho with her family and a menagerie of furry critters that includes way too many llamas!

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Cover Reveal: Horror Business by Ryan Craig Bradford and Giveaway #M9BFridayReveals

Welcome to the Cover Reveal for

Horror Business by Ryan Craig Bradford

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Armed with a passion for classic B-grade horror movies, a script co-written by his twin brother, and a wicked crush on his death-obsessed neighbor; hardcore horror fan Jason Nightshade must finish his student film.

But his plans are derailed when the children of suburban Silver Creek start disappearing – his twin brother among them. Battling a possessed video camera, a crazy zombie dog, a monstrous bully, and a frighteningly broken down family life, Jason embarks on a mission to find his lost brother so the two can write an ending for his story.

As any horror fan knows, saving the day won't be easy, as Jason finds himself forced to face the real world where death isn't just a splash of fake blood on a camera lens.

Title: Horror Business
Publication date: February 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Ryan Craig Bradford

Ryan grew up in Park City, Utah. His fiction has appeared in Quarterly West, Paper Darts, Vice, Monkeybicycle and [PANK]. He currently lives in San Diego where he acts as Creative Director for the nonprofit literary arts organization So Say We All. He’s the co-editor of the anthology Last Night on Earth and founder of the literary horror journal, Black Candies.

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Call Me Grim

Call Me Grim- Fast paced in the way that only a story on a tight countdown that starts with stalker and cheating death can be. So very good.
— Biblivoracious (@Biblivoracious) August 13, 2014

Elizabeth Holloway hits the ground running and does nothing but pick up pace throughout Call Me Grim, the edgy YA novel that brings new meaning to the phrase "damned if you do, damned if you don't." In Call Me Grim though, Libbi isn't the only one who has to worry about damnation, she's got the soul of her best friend to worry about.

Full confession, I thought the premise had about a 75% chance of being pure cheese. It wasn't. This was like winning the book review lottery. The characters are fully formed, the dialog engaging, motives genuine, plot twists interesting and even surprising. I was impressed. Moreover, I can see this growing into an interesting series that is about something a heck of a lot larger than boy meets girl or girl saves friend, and I like that.

The premise: death saves a girl, but there's a catch, a huge catch, and it just might be a fate worse than death, caught me off guard. I was ready for "girl dies and gets offered a job to atone," or "girl inherits family job of collecting souls," but "girl trades in a chance at heaven to keep her friend from going to hell, all because the current reaper has personal reasons for wanting out of the whole reaper gig," well, where do I send the "thank you for your originality card?"

Pacing aside, what I liked the most about Call Me Grim, was that it contains a lot of food for thought, especially about what it means to be a friend, and the moral weight of our ties to one another. I'm not sure if that's what Holloway was aiming for, but that's what I came away with... well, that, and a heck of a rollercoaster ride of a story.


I received an ARC to review from the publisher.

Coral & Bone

Coral & Bone - Sirens and mermaids and bears, oh my. Otherworldly, dark, & enjoyable fantasy/social justice YA swims quickly along. Fun read
— Biblivoracious (@Biblivoracious) August 13, 2014

I had the opportunity to read Coral & Bone for an upcoming Blog Tour through Xpresso Blog Tours. You can check that review out on We Do Write in September.  Of course, I'm not big on waiting, so, I figured I'd dive on in now.

Can I just say, holy gorgeous cover, Batman?

Coral & Bone by Tiffany Daune was a pretty good book. I enjoyed the story and found myself laying awake later than I'd intended to finish just one more chapter, and then thinking about the characters long after I'd set it down.  It was not a one sitting book for me, partially because of it's length and the amount of world building, and partially because every few chapters I felt the need to pull on my swimming suit and find a pool.  My family jokes that I'm a bit of a mermaid myself, of course, in Coral & Bone, that's not a good thing.

In Coral & Bone, Halen, a nearly 15 year old girl, finds herself having returned to the dreary small beach town where her family lived when her father drowned in open water, which she recalls in images of silvery tails. Of course, Halen also finds fire tingling beneath her touch and goes to school with earplugs in to block the overwhelming sensory input of the world around her. Of course, the run-in with mermaids some six years earlier was nothing compared to the drama ignited when she reencounters them after a mysterious young man shows up on her front stoop.

In the first chapter, Halen passes out during a math test because she took out her ear plugs, and this moment sets the stage for the balancing act between her strengths and weaknesses throughout Coral & Bone. Again and again, her abilities push her over the edge, and again and again, she finds herself diminished by them. In some ways I thought the wording was ableist. Halen frequently questions her sanity toward the beginning, and yes, I imagine anyone being pulled from the mundane world into a realm with different rules and different beings might question their sanity, or at least struggle with disbelief. However, the frequency of "crazy" and "insane" statements detracted from the meaning of the words, because they felt like they were being used too liberally.  I know it's a small point, but it's one that wears on me, as a reader.

Similarly, I really dislike the magic k. I know, it's a personal preference thing, but I wish my e-reader had a way to go through and replace all the "magick" with "magic," because it throws me out of any text that isn't a historical text discussing the trend in neo-mystycism and pagan movements toward adding a k in order to differentiate between prestidigitation and illusion and their own brand of magic. It's like fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul.

Speaking of which, so is a cast of Earth dwellers living in contemporary times comprised entirely with bizarre names. Enter Halen, Daspar, Tage... you get the idea. However, it worked in this case. I liked them and their unique names fit the characters and their backstories in ways that Helen, David, and Teague wouldn't have. So props on that.

I think what I liked the most about Coral & Bone was that it surprised me, even the predictable parts surprised me. Sure, we all see them coming, but they unfold in subtly different ways, and it feels good to read the well foreshadowed event with the tiny little twist. I like that Halen was set up to be a bit of a swooning Bella, easily overwhelmed, easily captured, easily led along, despite obvious personal power, but then BAM- she makes choices without equivocation and sets her own destiny. I like that.

I also really enjoyed the world building Tiffany Daune put in. There's a great amount of detail, her magic system has rules and she follows them, and there is room to expand on it. Coral & Bone also exists outside the realm of quest or romance in that there is a political/social justice/ equality arc as well. While yes, there is the "destroy the bad guy, save the realms" element to the story, it really only serves to illuminate the greater problem, that Elosians truly believe that genocide is alright as long as it makes them feel safer. The social justice issues dominate the landscape of the story, and make for an interesting tale.

Cover Reveal: Dead Jed 2: Dawn of the Jed by Scott Craven and Giveaway #M9BFridayReveals

Welcome to the Cover Reveal for

Dead Jed 2: Dawn of the Jed by Scott Craven

presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

After a tumultuous first semester in seventh grade, Jed Rivers returns triumphant or so he thinks. After embracing his undeadness to put his archenemy Robbie in his place, the thirteen-year-old zombie thought he’d have a much easier time surviving the second semester relatively intact. That was before he came across the antizombie propaganda published by the mysterious NZN Network, a group trying to push Hollywood stereotypes as the truth. Through fear- mongering and outright lies, the NZN Network will stop at nothing to get Jed expelled.

Jed s attempts to blend in get even more difficult when news spreads that he’s created a zombie dog. And it’s no rumor. Jed shocks even himself when, after seeing a dog get hit by a car, he brings the dog back to life or at least to undeadness when some of his ooze slips into the dog s wounds. The good news is that Jed always wanted a faithful canine companion. The bad news is that the creation of Tread (so called for the mark on his ribcage) unnerves Jed s best friend Luke. Luke abandons Jed, who then learns Luke has been feeding the NZN Network inside information.

Determined to unmask those behind NZN, Jed gets his opportunity at the end of the school year during Pine Hollow s annual Science Fair. When the NZN s experiment goes horribly awry, Jed has a chance to show people that being undead isn’t always a bad thing.

Title: DEAD JED 2
Publication date: December 2, 2014
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Scott Craven

Proud graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, have one son who will turn 18 in March 2013, now a features writer for The Arizona Republic.

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The Girl With the Windup Heart

 I have an increasingly difficult time accepting the bad guy's primary motivation being "revenge," or "I want to make people suffer." If they're not the hero of their own story, they lose some credibility, so this series has increasingly become a tough sell for me. Yes, people are petty. Yes, revenge is a thing, but when revenge and sadism seem to be the whole of a character, it makes it hard for me to care.

Of course, I care about Finely and Griffin, Emily and Sam, Mila, and Jasper, and even Jack Dandy enough to keep coming back for more (even after the over-the-top retreat into bedroom scenes of The Girl with the Iron Touch).  In The Girl With the Windup Heart, I found myself caring ever more about Mila and Jack, but surprisingly less about everyone else. Really, at the end of chapter fifteen, when the arc revolving around Mila's integration seemed to have resolved, I was ready to put it down, because the high drama of Griffin's longstanding battle with The Machinist had just worn itself out with me. Again, I think this has a lot to do with The Machinist's extremely flat characterization and motivation. While I do love the detail Kady Cross has put into her version of the Aether, when it came down to it, between the two plots taking place simultaneously in this book, the one happening in the real world had, for me, more gravitas.

For a book that pays so much attention to artistry, I was surprised by the number of editing issues. Yes, my blog posts are filled with them, but I don't have editors, it's just me, usually at 2am, and possibly dealing with a crying kid. Although I checked it out at the library, it read like an unusually beautiful uncorrected galley.

That said, Kady Cross continues to do what she does best- deliver emotionally charged and romantic adventure in a well constructed alternate past, filled with great passages like, "Finley never thought she'd see a day when she'd be annoyed to be alive." As always, I am impressed with the nuanced world building that has gone into The Steampunk Chronicles. Kady Cross doesn't flinch from writing about the dark underbelly of the Victorian period- particularly gender and class issues, and takes on technological ethics issues as well. Although there are swoon worthy moments and a lot of the time the female characters sit around talking about the men in their lives, the text is not vapid, and definitely has more meat than "just a romance."

Of course, this is the fourth book in the series, and so if you've enjoyed the first three (or four, counting the novella The Strange Case of Finley Jane, which, was my favorite of them all) then you should pick this up as well. I'd rank it below The Girl in the Steel Corset, but above The Girl in the Clockwork Collar and The Girl With the Iron Touch, if that helps.