Monthly Archives: April 2021
Book Blast – REEL TO REEL
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Lights, Camera, Action! From the very beginning, the world of cinema has captivated us. We have found ourselves laughing at our favorite comedies, crying when love finally comes to fruition, being beamed to other worlds or battling in the midst of action sequences. While movies might be the perfect entertainment, most have slight imperfections, mistakes, which go unseen, until they’re released and caught by the movie audience. These mistakes don’t detract from the film, and finding them are just as fun as watching the movie. For the past several years, Isla Grey has written a “Movie Mistakes” column for Bellaonline. “Reel to Reel” is a collection of some of those columns, spotlighting the fun goofs found in some of our favorite movies. Can you spot them? Grab the popcorn, sit back, and happy movie watching!
Read an Excerpt
Love Story
Wealthy, preppie and angry hockey player – Harvard law student, Oliver Barrett IV, meets and falls in love with Jennifer Cavalleri, a head strong music student. Despite the misgivings of his mother and father, Oliver asks Jenny to marry him, and she accepts. The two marry and struggle to make ends meet during the first few years of their marriage as Jenny teaches school while Oliver finishes law school. Just as things start to look up for the young couple when Oliver gets a job at a big law firm, tragedy strikes. Here are a few movie mistakes to look for while watching “Love Story”.
In the second hockey game, against Cornell, Oliver’s dad is in the crowd. Oliver gets penalized and is sent to the penalty box for five minutes for fighting. His face is bleeding but there is no blood on his shirt. It cuts to a view of his dad and then back to Oliver. There are now splotches of blood on his left shoulder.
Jenny and Oliver receive the invitation to the dinner for his dad’s birthday. Jenny is reading the invitation out loud and the view of the two shows her holding the invitation down, near her lap. It cuts to a right-side view and she’s holding the invitation in her right hand, up in front of her face. Also, when it cuts to the right-side view, Oliver is holding a pencil in his left hand that he was not before.
About the Author
Isla Grey is from Central Virginia and at an early age developed a love of movies. She shared many Sunday afternoons watching old favorites with her grandmother that included everything from “Gone with the Wind” and “Rio Bravo” to “Titanic” and “The Mummy”. (Her grandmother may or may not have made fun of her when she covered her eyes during “Anaconda”.)
Working as Bellaonline’s Movie Mistakes editor since 2012 has given Isla the opportunity to indulge in two of her passions—movies and writing.
When Isla isn’t writing or watching movies, most of her time is spent with her ever active daughter and her band of cats. She also enjoys good music, reading biographies and ghost stories and taking quiet strolls.
Website: http://www.islagrey.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorIslaGrey/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IslaGrey1
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0918MM97L
Isla Grey will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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Book Blast – REALM OF DRAGONS
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
The Realm of Dragons is in peril from hidden plots and conspirators, which threaten not only the crown, but the dragons that are at the very heart of it.
Teagan Loinsigh, long ago banished from her magical home of dragons now lives on Earth. Her dreams and memories of the great creatures are put down to fantasies and an overactive imagination, until one day she comes across a creature so unlike any other in the land she lives in. A baby dragon.
Muniath Magaoidh, a Dragon Warden fallen so low by a failed mission, must be brought back from his despair to retrieve what is lost.
Scetis Mordha, alone in the world since he was a child. Finds himself in the middle of intrigue and conspiracy against The Realm of Dragons.
Tying them all together is a dragon. Not just a dragon but The King of Dragons.
Can these four save The Realm of Dragons?
Read an Excerpt
“I don’t understand, what do you want to do?” she asked, collapsing to the hot rock.
“Stand before the fiery pit. Face your fear and grow into who you were meant to be.” His voice boomed not only in her mind but echoed off the circular cavern.
“I’ll die,” she whimpered.
“No, you will not. Now stand,” he commanded.
Slowly she got to her feet. Sweat dripped from her body in rivulets, stinging her eyes as she wiped her face on her sleeve to clear it. As she did, Gremlin moved and the full heat from the lava hit her. She stumbled back, but he supported her with his neck, holding her up. The fiery liquid turned her skin first red, then it started to blister. Teagan screamed at the pain and with fumbling fingers began to tear at the remaining clothes she had on. Now standing nude, her body shook as the outer skin burned away. It melted from her body, slipping, and exposing raw flesh underneath. A scream she so desperately wanted to release caught in her throat.
“Into the lake.” Gremlin commanded.
Each step she took was laboured. She tried to stop herself but found her body would not respond. Her mind screamed at the thought of the agony and death that she was sure awaited if she obeyed the Dragon King. But she went. Standing on the precipice, in a gap of the wall, the scream at last escaped her lips as she stepped down into the rock from the centre of the world.
About the Author:
L.C. Conn grew up on the outskirts of Upper Hutt, New Zealand. Her backyard encompassed the surrounding farmland, river, hills and mountains which she wandered with her brothers and fed her imagination. After discovering a love for writing in English class at the age of eight, she continued to write in secret. It was not until much later in life that L.C. turned what she thought was a hobby and something fun to do, into her first completed novel. Now married, L.C. moved from New Zealand to Perth, Western Australia, and became a stay at home mum. While caring for her family and after battling breast cancer, a story was born from the kernel of a dream. The first book of The One True Child Series was begun, and just kept blooming into seven completed stories, which have garnered great reviews. She continues her career with more stories waiting in the wings to be released.
EMAIL: raindropc1970@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/LCConn
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ConnLoraine
INSTAGRAM: https//www.instagram.com/l.c.conn
WEB PAGE: https//lcconnwriter.wordpress.com/
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17714374.L_C_Conn
L.C. Conn will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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Facebook – Complete invasion of privacy
Ever since my status was set to being “single” on Facebook recently, on the news feed I am bombarded by every ad they can throw at me about all types of ‘single women’ on the planet, in an effort to get me ‘hooked up’. The amount of ads I see on the news feed is absolutely absurd, with about every 2nd post on the news feed is about some dating app/site, stating such fantasic things like:
“Slavic girls waiting for you!”
“Asian hotties ready for your message!”
“Cosplay hunnies waiting to meet you”
“Star Wars Geek Girls Ready For dates”
“Star Trek Geek Girls”
Such ads like these:
This kind of shite I block all the time, but… I continue to see the SAME crap and spam from Facebook!
Half of my time on the news feed is spent by either hiding ads or reporting them as spam.
I even saw one ad tonight on my news feed that was advertising a “personal razor to shave your balls“!!!!!
Seriously Facebook???? Are you THAT desperate???? I have no idea who does a search on Facebook or Google for Razors to shave ones balls, as I do a fine job myself at doing that!!!!
So facebook is taking their ads too far with the crap they throw in my face!
I never consented to see such ads, and as such, I am fed up of seeing such crap!
Book Blast – Tiger Stripes
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Four psychiatric wards
Three rehabs
Two jail cells
And a suicide attempt…
Hannah was told she would not make it to 25 with the way she was living. She had struggled with mental illness her entire life, but at 22 her demons came to a head at the grips of severe substance abuse, life-changing trauma, and two major deaths in her life.
Hannah’s struggles land her places no one ever hopes to grace; jail and psych wards lead her to the brink of death. Running out of options she’s left with two choices: live or die. This heart-wrenching memoir combines recovery with bittersweet romance told in a raw presentation that immerses the reader into the author’s dark state-of-mind in every page.
Tiger Stripes is going to add a valuable voice to the conversation about women’s mental health issues.
Read an Excerpt
THE LETTER H
October 7, 2019
“HENRY! HENRY! HENNN-RYYYY!!!!”
I am screaming at the top of my lungs and can feel my throat tearing, becoming raw. I don’t know how many times I have said his name now, but it is all I know how to do because nothing is making any sense.
I am in a locked room and flashes of images are going through my head, but there is only one thing, one thought that I can focus on, that is pounding through my brain throughout this confusion and that is pouring out of my lungs to the point that my chest feels like it is going to rip.
“HENRY!” I choke on his name and a sob.
He cannot hear me, and he is not coming. He doesn’t know where I am and I don’t know where I am, but I know I am not supposed to be here—and I have to get out.
I beat at the metal door that barricades me from something unknown and choke on words that begin with H.
“HENRY!”
“HELP!”
“HENRY!”
“HELP!”
I repeat these words for what feels like a lifetime, until I forget how to speak and my begging turns to carnal screaming—shrieking.
No one comes. No one answers. I wait for footsteps, for the sound of the door unlocking, but all I can hear is the sound of my frantic breaths and the echoes of a lamentation that is anything but human.
I look down at my body. My feet are bare against the concrete floor; I cannot feel them. The jean shorts I am wearing show off my slender, scratched legs and remind me that I am small and feeble at this moment, but in an act of desperation, I put all of my faith in the power of momentum and I run. I fucking run as fast as I can from the three paces it takes to get from the wall to the ominous looming, locked door and attack it with my entire being, letting out my most vicious battle cry as I fumble towards it.
The door wins.
I try again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
I am degraded to a crumbling, bruised ball of flesh.
I can barely speak, my throat reduced to sandpaper.
Everything hurts and I can taste the bitterness of blood in my mouth. The floor is like ice against my bare legs. Through the tears in my eyes I see the moon shining through a window at the top of the room. It is full and brilliant and illuminates the white of the brick walls that surround me. I realize that there is writing on them. People have been here before me. People will be here after me. Why am I here though? I should not be.
I should be home, where I belong. In bed, with him. Safe. I feel anything but that word in this moment, as terror sweeps through every single one of my nerves.
I whisper in one last futile attempt:
“Henry?”
But there is silence. Horrible, deafening, fatal silence.
And it seems to last forever, until I hear it, or think I do. A click, the door unlocking, and the small room is suddenly filled with light. Fluorescence suffocates me.
When I dare to open my eyes, they do not find Henry. Instead I find a police officer looking back at me. He wears broad, black framed glasses that are too big for his face and he looks eerily familiar. A sudden memory of lying in a hospital bed comes to me but does not fully resonate. His face is forlorn and almost disappointed, as if he expected more out of me.
“I thought you were going to hurt yourself,” he tells me. “Promise you’ll stay calm and you can come out for a bit. We’ve got to get you fingerprinted.”
It’s then that I have the shattering realization that I am drunk and in a holding cell at a police station. The reason why escapes me though, as I try to grab onto flashes of sober memories but drown in my current state-of-mind.
I try to breathe with intent as I remember every single arrest-cliché in the book, and I cling to the fact that I am going to get my phone call. They will probably let me go—they have to. If anything, they will make me stay the night at the most.
I remember the silent promise I had once made myself—that the moment I got a DUI that I would put down the bottle for good. Jail was the worst it could get. It had been my crowning achievement at my last three rehabs that I had never graced the inside of a jail cell and I never planned to.
“Continue down the path you have been,” one of the staff members at my second treatment center had told me after sharing her own story about prison, “and jail is a guarantee.”
And here I am. Her words have come to pass, as promised.
I then remember what else she told me as we talked over a pack of Marlboro Reds on a warm Orange County night.
“Finish the 90 days,” she had said, “Or you will not make it and there will come a day where you will no longer be able to cry out ‘I’m a good person!’. You will lie. You will steal. You will become someone and something else. You will hurt everyone you love. You will lose everything, and just when you think you have lost it all, you will lose something else.”
About the Author:
If there is anything Hannah believes in, it’s hope, but that wasn’t always the case. For a long time, chaos was comfortable for Hannah, but at just 22 she would have to make her hardest decision yet: was life really worth living? Since picking up a pen Hannah has had a love for writing, and as an adult it would become her greatest tool in healing from an almost decade-long battle with severe mental illness and substance abuse. Her first book, Tiger Stripes, is a harrowing, raw telling of her year in and out of hospitals, treatment centers, and jail that finally led her on the road to recovery and freedom.
Hannah was born in Orange County, CA but has lived in the Los Angeles area for several years. She now lives in West L.A. with her boyfriend. When she is not writing she can be found reading, running, cooking, or finding the best vegan eats in L.A.!
Website – http://hannahrenaeauthor.com/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/byhannahrenae
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hannahrenae/
Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.com/hurnpublications/tiger-stripes/
Book Landing Page – https://hurnpublications.com/tiger-stripes/
Buy Links:
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08WM2S9Y2/ref=as_li_tl
BN – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tiger-stripes-hannah-renae/1138814034?ean=9781736450901
Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tiger-stripes
Apple Books – https://books.apple.com/us/book/tiger-stripes/id1553383519
TBD – https://www.bookdepository.com/Tiger-Stripes-Hannah-Renae/9781736450901
Indigo – https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/tiger-stripes-a-memoir/9781736450918-item.html
Hannah Renae will be awarding a $100 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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Movie Review: Godzilla Vs King Kong
Godzilla Vs King Kong … Review
SPX – Good
Plot – Mediocre
IMDB Rating: 2/10
Downfall: Going by the last installments of the “King Kong” “Godzilla” franchises, I expected a lot more from this installment , rather than the rushed out “Power Rangers/Pacific Rim” piece of trash they threw out with this “installment.”.
What can I say about this “Masterpiece” that “Hollywood” threw at us?
Hmmm lets see….
- Mecha-Godzilla… Seriously? That is about as lame as Sand Sharks or other crap films as “5 headed sharks” or “sharknado”.
- Pacific Rim/Teen Titans/ Power Rangers reference… Yeah okay…
- J. R. R. Tolkien reference of Middle Earth…. Hahahahahahahaha. I was expecting to see Gandalf, Frodo and Sam to make a cameo…
- For the reportedly $200+ million they spent on this, I expected a lot more than a lame-ass installment of “Pacific Rim/Power Rangers”.
Don’t waste your time of this $200M+ POC.
Verdict: Wait for the Snyder Cut
Book Blast – HE’LL BE WAITING
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
What would you do to remember? What would you give to forget?
When Tess Porter agrees to pick up her boyfriend’s college pal at the airport on a snowy December night, she has no idea she’s about to embark on the most dangerous ride of her life.
Two days later, the 17-year-old wakes up in a hospital with broken bones, unable to remember how she got there. Her parents are acting strange, and neither James, her boyfriend, nor her best friend, Izzy, has visited.
As she struggles to physically recover, Tess wrestles with haunting questions: What happened? Will her memory ever return? And what if she’s better off not recalling any of it?
Read an Excerpt
A blast of heat smacks my face as I walk through the automatic doors. I look at the monitors. If someone gave me a dime for every time the word “canceled” appears beside a flight, I could buy a private jet.
Stranded holiday travelers sleep on the floor using their suitcases for pillows. Families eat dinner slumped against garbage cans. The stale air smells like French fries and feet. It’s chaos, and though I don’t want to drive again anytime soon, I’m jumpy to get out of here as fast as possible.
Circling the baggage carousels like a shark, I’m bursting with adrenaline after that hell ride. My shirt, damp with sweat, sticks to my skin. I feel chilled beneath Mom’s coat. I’m wondering how I’ll ever find Nick Lawrence in this sea of people when a guy walks up to me. At first, I think he’s going to ask me for money or a ride, but then I take a closer look. Dark hair, dark eyes, empty-looking duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He’s wearing a lightweight hoodie over a t-shirt. The neck is stretched out and wavy. He looks sloppy, not like a guy who attends a top university, but maybe he’s shot from finals too. His eyes, vaguely familiar, meet mine. He holds out a thick, clammy hand. When our palms touch, an electric shock passes between us. He holds my hand a beat too long and smiles, a weird, goofy grin. I have the sudden urge to pull away, turn around, leave him standing there. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy James would befriend, but James always reminds me: Don’t judge a book by its cover.
About the Author:
Liz Alterman lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Parents, McSweeney’s, and other publications. She spends most days microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LizAlterman
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21164511.Liz_Alterman
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/liz-alterman
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liz.alterman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethalterman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizalterman
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091N9XH9M
Liz Alterman will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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SHE’S THE ONE WHO CARES TOO MUCH
She’s the One Who Cares Too Much
(Book Two of the War Stories of the Seven Troublesome Sisters)
by S. R. Cronin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Historical Fantasy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Coral, the second of seven sisters, has been hiding her affair with the perfect man until her older sister can get her life together. But the perfect man is getting impatient and now she’s gotten pregnant. Coral decides it’s time to consider her own happiness.
But what does she want? The perfect husband turns out to be less than ideal. She adores the small children she teaches but the idea of being a mother fills her with joy. Meanwhile, her homeland is gripped by fear of a Mongol invasion and she can’t stop crying about everything now that she’s with child.
Then a friend suggests the ever-caring Coral possesses a power well beyond what she or anyone else imagines. Does she? And why is the idea so appealing?
When Coral’s big sister loses faith in the army and decides to craft a way to use magic to save Ilari from the Mongols, she decides Coral’s formidable talent is what the realm needs. Can Coral raise a baby, placate an absent military husband who thinks he’s stopping the invasion, and help her sister save her homeland?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT:
The wedding was only four anks away, and I’d wondered where I’d live afterward. I could stay with my folks, though married women seldom did so. I hadn’t figured Davor would look for a solution but he arrived one morning to announce he’d found a house for me he liked.
We rode to it slowly, in consideration of my pregnancy and the morning sickness that now lasted all day. When ee reached the cottage in the late morning. I loved it as soon as I saw it. It was small, but with a big covered front porch and large trees well cared for by a previous owner. Davor had hired workers to fix it up, as it had been empty awhile, and he was having furniture made to go in it. Furniture for me.
“Best of all,” he said “it’s less than ten minutes ride to your school. Do you think some of the older students, or perhaps your youngest sisters, would watch the baby for you while you teach?”
“You don’t mind if I keep teaching after the baby is born?” This was far better news than I expected.
“Of course not. I won’t be around much; you won’t need to care for me. And I’ve heard you’re uncommonly good with the little ones. I’ll put in a word, let them know how strongly I feel about your getting to use your talents. I think if I twist a few arms…” he gave me that charming smile, “… they’ll let you teach until you near your time to have the baby. Then you can come back after he’s born, whenever you’re ready.”
Well. This made my decision easier. I’d once thought falling in love with a man would be the most important thing in my life, but it now appeared Davor and I didn’t have to love each other for me to get almost everything I wanted. My own house. My own baby. A husband almost everyone else adored. The rare chance to keep teaching after my child was born. And my time to spend as I pleased.
Did it matter that I already knew our marriage would be a sham? It didn’t, at least not nearly as much as I would have guessed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Sherrie Cronin is the author of a collection of six speculative fiction novels known as 46. Ascending and is now in the process of publishing a historical fantasy series called The War Stories of the Seven Troublesome Sisters. A quick look at the synopses of her books makes it obvious she is fascinated by people achieving the astonishing by developing abilities they barely knew they had.
She’s made a lot of stops along the way to writing these novels. She’s lived in seven cities, visited forty-six countries, and worked as a waitress, technical writer, and geophysicist. Now she answers a hot-line. Along the way, she’s lost several cats but acquired a husband who still loves her and three kids who’ve grown up just fine, both despite how odd she is.
All her life she has wanted to either tell these kinds of stories or be Chief Science Officer on the Starship Enterprise. She now lives and writes in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where she admits to occasionally checking her phone for a message from Captain Picard, just in case.
Author Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cinnabar01
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/46Ascending
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/5805814.Sherrie_Cronin
Amazon: www.amazon.com/Sherrie-Cronin/e/B007FRMO9Q
Author Blog: https://sherriecronin.xyz/
Book Series Blog: https://troublesome7sisters.xyz/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY
S. R. Cronin will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
C.A. Milson 