Read an excerpt from Queen of Iron and Blood by Melissa Wright with Giveaway

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

Welcome to the blog tour for Queen of Iron and Blood by Melissa Wright. Today I have an excerpt for you to enjoy before you download your own copy. Please enjoy and then remember to enter the giveaway for a great prize pack at the end!

Please note that affiliate links are present within this post. Should you make a purchase through one, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Queen of Iron and Blood (Shattered Realms #2) By Melissa Wright YA, NA Urban Fantasy, SciFi ebook, 148 Pages August 20th 2018

The storm was only the beginning…

Mackenzie Scott is trapped in another realm, but that’s the least of her problems. Magic runs through her veins, and even now she can feel herself changing. She’s managed to help her brother, but in exchange, she’s turning into one of them. Worse, Mackenzie’s not just a monster. She’s their queen.

Hunter had one job: open the gateway between worlds to keep his realm alive. He hadn’t counted on betrayal. He hadn’t counted on being saved by a human girl. And he’d never guessed he couldn’t trust his own king. Now he’s trapped in a world to which he can never truly belong.

Separated by realms, Mackenzie and Hunter must save the other’s world. But the divide isn’t the only thing working against them. Beasts and men fight a dangerous battle that pits Hunter and Mackenzie against those they’re trying to protect.

And the clock is ticking.

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Read an excerpt:

Weeks after the original invasion, after the Breach and all that followed, Hannah had been in one of the trucks sent to ground zero. She had known the other soldiers for only a matter of days, but they were not easy days. She and a seventeen-year-old redhead named Riley had become close. She’d relied on him, she realized later, in a way she’d never meant to. And when Riley had told her what happened, when it had turned out he needed her, Hannah could not keep herself from promising she would help. She didn’t think she regretted it, but it was hard to be sure. 

She’d followed Riley across the storm-beaten land, home after home destroyed to the point they were no more than lumber strewn over pads of concrete, and into the one house that had weathered the Breach. It stood, albeit marked by the event and missing half a roof over the upstairs bedrooms, and they’d walked in to search for Riley’s sister Mackenzie. They’d found her. With a creature. 

Hunter, she’d called him, as if he were merely a man. And he did look more like a man than a beast—he’d no wings or horns like the others who had attacked. He’d been dressed in jeans and tee shirt, not capes and furs and war paint. But Hannah had seen the marks glowing through his skin. She’d felt the energy radiating from him. 

Hannah had shot him.

Other Books in the Series
King of Ash and Bone (Shattered Realms #1) By Melissa Wright YA, NA Urban Fantasy, SciFi Paperback & ebook, 216 Pages February 2nd 2015
When flying monsters break through the veil into her world, Mackenzie Scott has nothing left to lose. Her brother has been taken, her future has vanished, and all that remains is a desperate need for revenge. After discovering the breach the creatures used as a gateway, Mackenzie devises a plan to stop them, whatever the cost.

When she finds an injured stranger in the street, he just might be the key she needs to succeed. What Mackenzie doesn't know is that this stranger isn't the helpless boy he appears to be. He's one of the monsters. And he's got plans of his own.

Thrown into a dying city in another realm, Mackenzie is powerless to get back. With the gateway closing, time is not on her side. But the stranger is, and if they can escape execution, this girl and her monster might be able to save both their worlds.

Grab an ebook of the first book in the series for FREE!
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About the Author

Melissa Wright is the author of the Frey Saga, Descendants Series, and Shattered Realms Series. She is currently working on the next book, but when not writing can be found collecting the things she loves at Goodreads and Pinterest. Contact her through the web at www.melissa-wright.com.

Website│Blog│Goodreads│Twitter│Pinterest│Instagram│BookBub

Tour Schedule

August 20th:

Launch

It's All About the Romance
SilverWoodSketches
An Indie Adventure
Mythical Books
August 21st:
Declarations of a Fangirl
My Life, Loves and Passion
Letters from Annie (Douglass) Lima
August 22nd:
Andi's Young Adult Books
Wishful Endings
Angel's Guilty Pleasures
August 23rd:
Reading On The Edge
Getting Your Read On
Colorimetry
August 24th:
Stacking My Book Shelves!
Nicole's Book Musings
August 25th:
Grand Finale

Tour Giveaway

1 winner will receive an awesome prize pack with "survival" gear: print copies of The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, Angelfall by Susan Ee, and King of Ash and Bone by Melissa Wright, plus Be Your Own Hero bracelet, lip balm, compass, playing cards, emergency blanket, and other fun stuff 
US only
Ends August 29th

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Life in the Atmosphere by Anthony Wilson

Welcome to the blog tour for Life in the Atmosphere by Anthony Wilson. Check out this YA urban fantasy and then be sure to download your own copy!

Please note that affiliate links are present within this post. Should you make a purchase through one, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Life in the Atmosphere

by Anthony Wilson

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Release Date: January 19th 2018

Summary from Goodreads:

Jahlil Adams is just a regular teenager. In fact, you could say that he is “super regular” with his glasses, comic books, and cheap fashion sense. He doesn’t want popularity. He doesn’t want a pretty girlfriend. He wants to just be who he is. Well that and not to be bullied by Max Maniac.

Yet, everything changes once Mr. Malachi gave Jahlil a necklace that he didn’t even want.

After that, everything was not the same. In fact, Jahlil began to realize that there was much more to who he was. There was much more to who Mr. Malachi was. There was much more to his existence. The lid of limitations was lifted from Jahlil’s life.

Now, all that mattered was the limitations that the sky had to offer.

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Author Links:

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Blog Tour Organized by:

YA Bound Book Tours

Read an excerpt from Her Revolution by C.S. Hand

Welcome to the blog tour for Her Revolution by Caroline Hecate Cavendish and translated by C.S. Hand. Today I have an excerpt for you to check out from this dystopian book, plus there is a great giveaway to enter.

Please note that affiliate links are present within this post. Should you make a purchase through one, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Her Revolution

For fans of Divergent, Red Rising, and The Hunger Games comes a gripping new tale of ambition, treachery, and love.

When what appears as a prank on arrogant ambassadors at an exotic vacation city turns out to be the first tremors of a revolution, the Enlightened Council of Castillia turns to its 11-year old undefeated military prodigy and her loyal Guardians for help.

After all, it was Innocence who liberated the Jewel of All Cities in the first place. Everyone knows she will be the last to let it slip from her grasp.

But why would anyone want to leave Castillia? Its laws are just. Its Council is democratically elected. It has liberated more cities than any other Republic, past or present.

But Castillia has enemies, that’s for sure.

Sedition is the favorite trick of the southern Republic Ausonia. In fact, the exotic vacation city used to belong to Ausonia—and they have always wanted it back.

But could those hedonists really organize anything between all their dancing and drinking?

Or has Vesper, the mighty Republic to the North finally woken from its slumber? It has plenty of old scores to settle with Castillia and it’s palm-lined streets.

Squashing the uprising and re-uniting the town and her city could be the perfect way to end the most legendary military career Castillia has ever known and begin a new, exhilarating life as a prominent politician.

But it also might just be the perfect way to start what Innocence has secretly always yearned for: her own Empire.

Add to Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Salute

“As long as the enemy is not defeated, he may defeat me; then I shall no longer be my own master; he will dictate the law to me as I did to him.”

Clausewitz

When I was six I commanded the Sun Battalion to charge the center of Ausonia’s forces at Serenissima, the most beautiful and opulent city on this planet.

Every single man, woman, and child from that legendary unit died in the melee.

But it broke Ausonia’s center and then we out flanked them—on both sides.

Ausonians begged for their lives, but when you lose your Republic’s most famous battalion you cannot allow for survivors.

Even if you have just stolen the jewel of cities from an enemy’s grasp.

When I was seven I saw my own army nearly overrun.

That was until I came out from my command hub and grabbed the banner from a fleeing Guardian and turned Lazarus on, then began sweeping through the enemy’s ranks with my sword of trembling lightning.

That was the first time I had ever been shot more than thirteen times.

When I was eight I had to execute my second-in-command for treason. We were low on ammunition and my lightning blade wouldn’t turn on, so I had to do it with a rock.

When I was nine I led a lightning-sabre charge straight into the heart of Vesper’s Hyper Accelerated Rifles.

Everyone but a child named Beatrice was mowed down.

But between myself and Beatrice and the second, third, and fourth fearless waves we cut them to pieces.

The problem with Hyper Accelerated Rifles is if they fire too fast for too long they overheat and then don’t fire at all.

That was not the first time I had killed defenseless human beings—and enjoyed it.

When I was ten I ambushed Jacob Heist and his band of outlaws who were traveling to various cities in the South preaching about freedom and liberation and brotherhood—the very ideals my City was founded upon.

They said we were the very opposite of those things and that we were what they called a “Dysotpia,” which is a new word used by uneducated thugs to incite rebellions against people like me.

When we ambushed them on the shore and they didn’t even try to run I assumed it was because they knew it was over.

They had no weapons but refused to surrender, even after I offered it to them a second time.

So we murdered the band of outlaws and searched for the weapon we knew we would find, “The Chariot Buster,” which they usually used to blow our ships out of the sky.

Heist and his gang loved to beam our hovercrafts into vapor, like he did the previous seventeen times we tried to ambush him. In fact, he did it so much, we called it “bait and beam.”

But all we found in his traveling caravan were hundreds of copies of an unsettling novel from some ancient planet about an elf and a minotaur who overthrow an entire world.

If that isn’t criminal literature worthy of suppression then I don’t know what is.

What I also didn’t know was that we were being recorded and streamed live over an inventive social media application called Periscope.

So it looked like I butchered a peaceful intellectual on a paradisiacal white sand beach in spite of his repeated cries for mercy and justice.

Blogs went crazy.

They reported that we murdered them when they were defenseless and did terrible things to their corpses.

What they didn’t mention is that my dogs were starving and that we had a long march back. We weren’t going to be the ones eaten alive.

Besides, you can’t take heavy machinery on an ambush.

The outlaw preachers would have heard us coming miles away.

So I had to take the dogs.

And the dogs had to eat.

There were hundreds of uprisings.

I crushed them all.

My City stood by my side. Esteemed Council members lost their seats because of me, some had attempts made on their lives, and some were successfully assassinated.

That’s when I learned someone can strike at you even from death, and when possible never turn an enemy, who is mortal and fallible, into a martyr, who is infallible and immortal.

I’m eleven now, and this is my last year as Commander.

After this year I will retire from my duties as a Guardian of the Republic, squelching rebellions from the other cities who never pay their tributes on time, are never fair in their dealings, and are always plotting against my perfect, beautiful City.

Oh, my name is Innocence—which as far as I can tell is just some made-up word.

Available on Amazon

Read a guest post from C.S. Hand on reading here.

About C.S. Hand

C. S. Hand loves philosophy, literature, and science-fiction and fantasy books. He studied British Romanticism at Cambridge before leaving to translate great science-fiction and fantasy books. You can read more about his 3 great loves here.

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads

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The Heart of Aleppo by Ammar Habib with Giveaway

The Heart of Aleppo

After standing for over 7,000 years, Aleppo's ruin came overnight. Separated from his family during the night the rebels attacked the city, thirteen-year-old Zaid Kadir is lost in the middle of a war zone. Alongside his friends, he is forced to survive the dangers of a civil war he does not even fully understand. Zaid witnesses the destruction of the brutal Syrian Civil War as it grows more deadly by the day and rips his city apart. However, as he braves this destruction, as he desperately tries to survive this catastrophe, he discovers something. Zaid realizes that it is in the darkest hours when humanity's spirit of hope burns brightest.

Goodreads * Amazon

 

About Ammar Habib

Ammar Habib is a bestselling and award-winning author who was born in Lake Jackson, Texas in 1993. Ammar enjoys crafting stories that are not only entertaining but will also stay with the reader for a long time. Ammar presently resides in his hometown with his family, all of whom are his biggest fans. He draws his inspiration from his family, imagination, and the world around him.

Social Media Links

Website: www.ammarahsenhabib.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ammarahsenhabib

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmmarAHabib1 @AmmarAHabib1

Blog: www.ammarhabibblog.wordpress.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Ammar_Habib

Instagram: https://instagram.com/ammar.a.habib/ @Ammar.A.Habib

Contest!

In conjunction with the release of The Heart of Aleppo, I am running a giveaway from July 26^th to August 3^rd. The prize of the giveaway is a signed copy of my national award-winning novel, Memories of My Future. Memories of My Future is a historical/inspirational novel that was published in 2016. It received several accolades after its release, including the Independent Press Award in May 2017.

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Read an excerpt from Clandestine (Ascension #2) by Hannah Rials

Welcome to the book tour for Clandestine, the second book in the Ascension series by Hannah Rials. Today I am bringing you an excerpt from this book. You can also check out a bit about the first book, Ascension. Be sure to add them to your Goodreads!

Clandestine (Ascension #2)

by Hannah Rials

Genre: YA Paranormal

Release Date: July 2018

Aletha Press

Summary:

Cheyenne Lane never believed it could come to this—imprisoned by her own family, who are plotting to overthrow the Vampire Council. Ripped away from the happiness of her summer romance and friendship in New Orleans, Cheyenne is forced to begin her education at Clandestine, the secret Deuxsang University, one year early.

She is guarded constantly, separated from her best friend Anne, and desperate for any word from Eli and the witches. Meanwhile, her cousin Lilith has discovered that Cheyenne possesses all four vampiric abilities—unheard of for a Deuxsang—and intends to use her in the Ascending’s rebellious scheme.

At 17, Cheyenne finds herself the center of a centuries-old conspiracy involving the vampires, Deuxsang, and witches, and everyone is telling her who she should trust and what she should do. Her head is too full of voices and opinions, and it’s time for Cheyenne to make up her own mind.

Is she ready to step into the role she was made for? Who can she trust? Who is her friend and who is her enemy? Is she really a born leader? All questions that only she can answer. As the information and scenario gets more confusing, she knows she must listen to her intuition if she is going to shift the truth from all the lies.

Read the Kirkus Review.

Read an excerpt:

Prisoners. Me. Anne. We’re actually prisoners. Held captive by our own families. For our own good? My brain’s still having a hard time processing all this insanity, and we’ve been trapped in here for a week now. No word from Eli or Mason, or even my parents, who apparently support this. I keep asking myself how they can let this happen, how no one is speaking up against this, and I can’t come up with a good answer. This is all ridiculous, even for my parents, who I can’t begin to understand. To let their psychotic niece imprison their youngest daughter in order to “fix her” based off some insane plan to overthrow the vampires?

Everyone’s completely lost their minds.

Are they so desperate for me to be normal that it’s come to this? I glance at Anne sitting at her desk. She hasn’t really spoken much since we have expended all of our escape possibilities. We’ve failed so many times, but not for lack of trying. Thomas is just too paranoid and thinks too far ahead. Deuxsang are highly discouraged from practicing our abilities on our own kind, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I tried compelling our guards—and I somehow succeeded without any training whatsoever— but we didn’t even make it to the stairs before Thomas stopped us.

Anne tried dreamwalking, searching for Mason or Eli or anyone, but we learned that it’s a lot more complicated than it sounds. You just think of someone, see their dream, and slip right in, right? Wrong. Anne got shoved out of so many dreams, and she couldn’t even find Mason. She ended up with a migraine that made her throw up all over the place for a couple days. I really didn’t want to try inflicting, but seeing Anne so sick, paired with my own desperation, made me get over it.

Plus, it was kind of fun to see the guards weak.

That was the closest we came to being free. I had all of our guards crying out on their knees, wishing for release. I made myself sick to my stomach. I had my hand on the front door, when all of a sudden, we were both knocked to the ground. My eyes went black when my head cracked against the cold tile of the Lacroix’s foyer. We didn’t even see who hauled us back upstairs and locked us in our impassable tower. Ever since then, Anne hasn’t said much to me.

It’s three days, and I’m going mad. I’m normally the one telling her to shut up, but now I can barely get a syllable out of her. It’s like she’s broken. And I get it, I guess. This is all falls back on me. My cousin is the one with the insane, suicidal plan; my family is the one keeping us here. I’m the one they need to “fix.” My boyfriend…ex-boyfriend…is the one who got himself kidnapped. If it weren’t for being friends with me, she’d be cuddled up in some jazz club, listening to Monde Musique and staring all moon-eyed
at Mason. Life would be normal.

Well, as normal as a rule-breaking Deuxsang can get.

And now she knows the truth about her brother— that he was different, like me, and the Council took him for it. Now he’s probably dead. Her parents let it happen, but what’s worse, they lied to her about it. How could they do that to her? How could anyone do that? I saw a piece of her break when her mom finally told her the truth. She can’t look at either of her parents now. Again, that’s my fault.

 Buy from Audrey Press

Hannah's favorite quote from the book:

“If you fail, you'll wish you'd never been made.”

Ascension Testimonials

"Their love story anchors the novel, the first installment of a series, and sets the stage for the cliffhanger ending. An entertaining and promising series opener about an appealing human and vampire hybrid. " -Kirkus Reviews

What an extraordinary debut novel with new and intriguing twists on vampires—a strong female protagonist as one. I already can’t wait for book two. -Jill Murphy Long, author of The Conduit

This book is by the far the BEST YA/Adult fiction that I’ve read in a very long while. So exciting!-Rebecca F

The wait is over-Ascension is here! Thrilling and entertaining, like the experience on a crazy roller coaster. Hannah has grown into the most amazing writer. Watching her journey has been as much fun as holding the book in my hands. A "must read" for YA and thriller fans! -Valarie B.

Rials has created a complex, fascinating, hidden world within our world. And I think we're just beginning to scratch the surface." -Kris Whorton

"Dark, surprising, and full of twists, the Ascension series is a delectable addition to vampire canon. Rials paints a rich and engrossing world of vampires, half-vampires and witches– each with their own agenda. Cheyenne’s struggle to be free is one that every girl will recognize, and I rooted for her as she bristled against the roles cast for her by society. It’s the story of a girl yearning to come into her own powers, powers both frightening and beautiful." -Maggie Thrash, author of L.A. Times Book Prize nominee Honor Girl

Buy Ascension at Audrey Press

About Hanna Rials

As Maryville native and a senior in college at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Hannah Rials began writing her first novel, Ascension, at age twelve. Her first YA novel Ascension is a modern day teenage romance filled with "double-blooded" vampires and revengeseeking witches. Published by Aletha Press of Maryville, TN is the second book in the trilogy, Clandestine, was written and editing while she was a full-time college student. After graduating from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a BA in Creative Writing, she will be attending college at Bath Spa University’s MA (England): Creative Writing for Young People; a yearlong master’s degree.

Hannah is a vampire fanatic, a New Orleans lover, and a dog obsessor. She loves her friends, family, and finding new adventures. To keep up with Hannah, you can find plenty of pictures of her corgi Buddy and her travels on Instagram @herials because who doesn’t love a cute corgi picture? Connect with Hannah on Facebook, Twitter and via her website.

“I feel like I am living proof that dreams do come true.”- Hannah Rials

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook

Blog Tour Organized by:

YA Bound Book Tours

Freaking Fast by David Pereda with Giveaway

Looking for a new futuristic YA action/adventure novel? Then welcome to the blast for Freaking Fast by David Pereda! Check out an excerpt and then follow the tour for even more. Make sure you leave a question or a comment for the author! There's also a giveaway that you can enter along the way.

Please note that affiliate links are present in this post. Should you make a purchase through one, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Freaking Fast

The city is Asheville, North Carolina, and the year is 2066. As renowned mathematician Alexandra Martin travels in her self-driving car to assassinate the love of her life, she reminisces about how they met and fell in love fifty years earlier in middle school when she was a thirteen year old poor math whiz and he a wealthy teenager. Alex recounts her struggles to be admitted to the best private school in the county, her happy teenage years running track, and her close relationship with three handsome and charming boys: Xavier, the intellectual; Andrew, the golden boy; and Vitali, the suave foreigner. One by one, she visits the three boys of her youth, now successful professionals in their sixties, one of whom is her intended victim.

Available on Amazon

Read an excerpt:

Year 2066
8:30am. Asheville, North Carolina

Today I’m going to kill the love of my life.

This deliberate act should not to be misinterpreted for what the sensationalistic media will surely call a crime of passion, because it isn’t. There’s nothing passionate in what I am about to do. My action is premeditated, has been planned for a long time, and will be executed for the benefit of our city, our country, and our crumbling world – as well as for my own peace of mind.

I know people say things they don’t mean all the time, especially when they are stressed out, upset, or angry. People lie either to hurt others or to protect themselves or simply because they like to lie. I swear that every word written here is the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. May He also forgive me for this murder I’m about to commit.

I have chosen this date for a reason. Today is my birthday, and the anniversary of our first kiss, fifty years ago. I turn sixty-three years old today. Five decades ago, I would have been considered an old woman at this age, gray-haired and wrinkled, and possibly
overweight. But that was then. Nowadays, thanks to the medical advances of the past fifty years, of which I have partaken freely – they’re there, right, so why not make use of them? I’m in the prime of my life. I look and feel not a day over thirty and have the sculpted
body, the vigor, and the mental acumen of a highly intelligent woman in her twenties.

When I was a teenager, there was this beautiful model named Cindy Crawford, who in her sixties looked like she was in her late thirties and was an example to women all over the world. She was to me. But the world has evolved, and that was then, and this is now.
Were Cindy Crawford alive today she would look like my older sister or maybe my young-looking mother, even though we would both be about the same age.

But I digress. I have, perhaps, too much on my mind. Images of the past keep streaming through my head. I think of the love of my life, him, and wonder what could have been but wasn’t; what was and shouldn’t have been.

I feel like crying as I see my life play out, in black-and-white like an old movie, on the screen of my mind.

About David Pereda

David Pereda is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Havana Blues and However Long the Night, as well as the Havana Series of thrillers featuring the dashing Doctor Raymond Peters and the beautiful but deadly Cuban assassin Marcela. He has traveled to more than thirty countries and speaks four languages. Before devoting his time solely to writing and teaching, David had a successful international consulting career with global giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked with the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Peru and Qatar, among others.

A member of MENSA, David earned his MBA from Pepperdine University in California. He earned bachelor degrees in English literature and mathematics at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

He lives in artistic Asheville, North Carolina, with his youngest daughter Sophia, where he teaches mathematics and English at the Asheville-Buncombe Community College. He loves sports and is an accomplished competitor in track and show-jumping equestrian events.

Author’s Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/David-Pereda/e/B002BML17Q

David will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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