Book Blitz + Giveaway - In the Echo of this Ghost Town C.L. Walters

 

 
 

 In the Echo of this Ghost Town by C.L. Walters
Publication date: October 12th 2021
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

When everything in your life unravels and the future you imagined disintegrates into dust—how do you decide which way is forward?

Griffin Nichols has lost everyone close to him. Unhealthy choices rooted in unmet expectations have him feeling like he’s failing at being a man. Everything he thought he knew about being a good son, brother, and friend has him feeling as substantive as an echo.

He’s lost.

Then Maxwell Wallace walks into his life and teaches him that sometimes in the weakness of the echo is where he can claim his strength.

 

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 —

 

EXCERPT

 

“Hey.”

I look up at the sound of a voice, grateful to be jerked from the train of my thoughts.

The girl. She’s standing on the other side of the table in her dark t-shirt and cutoff shorts, her back to the gas pumps and road. The light from the store illuminates her, and I think she’s cute, but obviously not all there if she’s talking to a stranger.

“Yeah?”

She sits down with a Slurpee, and I look at it longingly but also wish I had some vodka to spike it with. I conjure Danny’s words from the night before. I’d told him I’m always drunk. What had he said back? “Yeah. Maybe that’s the fucking problem. It’s time to grow up, Griff.” What if I do have a problem? Then I’m annoyed by the stupid thought—of course, I don’t. What the fuck? Can’t this weird girl tell I’m busy sulking?

My face must screw up because she says, “I’m not carrying any diseases.”

I take a sip of my water, not sure what to do about this stranger who’s sat with me at a table outside of Custer’s. I glance to check if someone is playing a joke on me, but all my friends have abandoned me. So yeah, there’s that. I look at her. She’s got a round face, but it’s smooth and pleasant looking. Brownish hair, I think, because it’s pulled back in a bun or something off her face. Black eyeliner. Black T-shirt with the words Def Leppard inside a Union Jack.

She pinches the straw and moves it around the slushy. It squeaks. “Decide I’m not a serial killer?” She smirks, and my eyes are drawn to her blunt black nails at the end of her long fingers holding the red straw.

“Jury’s out.” I look away and take a sip of my water, annoyed but kind of curious.

“Why’s that?”

I shrug. “What if I’m the serial killer?” I can’t look at her, though I’m not sure why. It isn’t like I’m nervous, even if she’s a little unnerving. Why have I said that? The idea of being compared to a killer takes me backward. Griff Nichols, son of a murderer, when I’d been alone, but I’d shed that persona with my crew. I shove the reminder aside.

“It’s a distinct possibility.”

My eyes connect with hers, the curiosity revving up a notch. “Why’s that?”

“Guy sitting outside of a convenience store on a Monday night looking all moody. Definitely sending shady vibes. You spike that unassuming water bottle? Use the innocence of water to lure in your victims but in reality, you’re just setting the trap?” She smiles, and I see that she’s joking around even though I don’t know her; it’s the squint of her eyes.

“You’re weird.”

“I get that a lot.” She pauses and leans forward to take a sip of her drink and looks over at me. Her eyes sparkle with mirth, but it’s hard to tell what color they are even in the light. Lightish. “So, what do you do in this town for fun?”

“Get drunk. You new?”

“Yes. Why aren’t you doing that?”

“It’s Monday.”

“So, a drunk six days a week? You have standards, I see. So that must be real water.” She pauses and raises a single eyebrow—which bugs me for some reason. “You don’t look much like the type with standards.”

I’m not, but I don’t say it. “Neither do you.”

“Touché, serial killer. So, you don’t drink on Monday for other reasons, then?”

“I didn’t say I don’t drink on Monday. I just said it was Monday. You made the assumption.”

She laughs, but it’s mostly air. “Fair enough.”

This conversation could die. I could stand and walk away. I don’t. I blame it on my lack of being alone, which I’m going to have to reestablish. “So, you’re new here?”

“Yep. Just moved. Only here for the summer.”

“Why’s that?”

“Why what?” She takes another sip of her slushy.

I watch her swallow it. Then I look back at my water bottle to resume plucking the plastic label. “Only for the summer?”

“The band I play with is going on tour.”

“Really?”

She laughs. “No.”

“You’re weird.”

“So you’ve said.” She stands. “Well. Thanks for sharing the table.”

“There were two other ones you could have chosen.”

She glances at the other two and then leans forward. “But then I wouldn’t have gotten to talk to a serial killer.” She smiles, offers me a nod, and with her hand wrapped around her cup, she walks away. She’s wearing jean cutoffs, tight, and the strings of the cut denim hang against her long and shapely legs.

I scoff, looking away because I don’t want to notice her. A serial killer. Stupid.

As I watch her—the nameless, weird girl—walk away, I realize I forgot what I was sulking about.

Author Bio

 

 

 

As a kid, my world revolved around two things: stories and make believe. I have built a real life around those two things as well: I am a teacher of stories and a writer of make believe.

 While I went to high school in a small town in Oregon and college in a smaller town in Oregon - both gifted me with treasures to fill my creative reservoir and most importantly, my husband. We got married, I followed him from Oregon to Hawaii (it was that or forgo the marriage).

We have two children, and several furry kids.

I read and write everyday.

 

Author Links:

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bookbub / Pinterest / Newsletter

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Blog Tour + Excerpt + Giveaway - Love Spells and Other Disasters by Angie Barrett

 

Find the tour schedule here.

 

 

Love Spells and Other Disasters by Angie Barrett

Publication Date: February 1, 2021

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Blurb:

I didn’t know when I wrote the first love spell that it would actually make things happen. Like, actually make people fall in love with each other…

How could I have known something like that? I mean, magic isn’t real, right?

But here’s the thing—the spell does work and so does the next one and the next one...and suddenly I’m getting a whole lot of attention from everyone at my high school. Me, Blend-into-the-Walls, Please-Let-Me-Introvert-in-Peace Rowan Marshall. And not only that, but I’ve also caught the attention of Luca Russo, a godlike, football-playing hottie who claims he likes me just the way I am. Ummm...

But as I’m about to learn, playing around with things you don’t understand means when things go wrong—like really, very awfully wrong—you don’t know how to fix them.

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Purchase Links:

Google Play | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | iBooks

Excerpt:

I ask to go to the restroom. The substitute doesn’t even glance up from her book, so I slip out and immediately head toward the restroom that Ethan and I always meet in. I pause outside the door, then take a left in the opposite direction. The last thing I need is someone walking in while I’m burning a piece of paper and some hair. Knowing my luck, I’d probably set off the sprinkler system with the smoke.

I make it to the back doors near the gym before realizing that I don’t actually have anything to light the paper with. It’s not like I’m a smoker. After a second or two of thinking, I detour again and head for the bleachers out back. There’s got to be someone there who has a lighter.

“Oh hey!” Two big arms wrap around my waist and pull me backward, not in a terrifying way, more like a I’ve-got-you way just as the door immediately in front of me slams open and a group of guys come barreling out. “Gotta watch it around here.” His voice is gruff, his arms still holding me tightly, and his breath is sliding down my neck. Every nerve ending in my body blinks on like sensor lights in a dark hall.

I barely know him but everything about him is familiar in this moment. “Thanks, Luca.”

Luca slowly unlatches his arms, turning me around so I’m farther away from the doors but still pretty up close and personal with him. “Didn’t mean to manhandle you but you were walking pretty fast and these goofs never look before they come barging out.”

Just then the gym door flings open again and another pile of guys come jogging out. I’m staring up at him, into those green eyes of his only to realize that they aren’t exactly green…they’re blue…or maybe aqua. So pretty. Did my brain liquify a second ago? Is it seeping out of my ears? I think I might be gawking but I can’t seem to stop.

“We’re heading out for a run.” His hands are still on me, holding my hips lightly and he’s staring at me, too. I’m sure that I can’t speak. I mean, my heart is jammed up into my throat.

“A run?” I manage. “Outside?”

He smiles, his eyes light up, dazzling me all over again. That smile could totally slay a million hearts. He lifts one hand so he can brush his hair away from his face. “Yeah, I know. Hardcore, right?”

Actually, no. Of course he’s running outside. That’s what all the athletes do.

“It’s important.” His voice goes husky, a tone I haven’t heard before, and it does a number on me. There’s so much heat pooling to the center of my body that I can’t explain the goose bumps rising or the shiver that quakes over my skin. Whatever is happening to me feels so strangely good that I don’t want it to stop. “Gotta keep the stamina up, you know, to stay in shape…” He makes sure I’m steady before letting me go.

Yeah, well, he’s definitely in shape. I feel like a lump standing next to him. I clear my throat. “Um…well…thanks for the rescue. It’s nice seeing you again.” I try to side step him before I fully descend into awkward mode.

He gets in my way again. “Hey, before you go…” He pulls his cell out of his pocket and offers it to me. “Can I get your number?”

“My number?” I gawk at his screen.

“Yeah, so I can text you.”

“What for?” I’m literally kicking myself right now. What for? What the heck, Rowan!

“I mean, sure.” I hastily take his phone, pray that I don’t drop it, then send myself a smiley face emoji. A smiley face. OMG.

“I’m thinking maybe we could hang out sometime,” he says as he takes his phone back. I check his eyes, expecting to see amusement despite the serious look on his face. His eyes are not laughing. His eyes are looking hopeful, like he’s waiting for me to—

“Hang out?” I recover my brain. “I mean, yeah, sure, I’d like that.”

“Great. Good.” His smile is huge and totally contagious. I can’t help but smile the same way back at him. I think I’d do anything to keep him smiling like that.

 

 

About the Author

 

  Author Angie Barrett lives in a small town in Ontario, Canada in an old century home that is also known as the “cat house” because, well, Angie likes cats. A lot. She also likes shopping for books, or for anything really, and spending time RVing in the summer with her family. She has worked for sixteen years as a high school English teacher and Librarian and is currently a Curriculum Consultant for new teachers. Angie has always dreamed of being a published author and strives to create worlds where there are strong, relatable characters who maybe are not always perfect but who understand the meaning of friendship and loyalty and who will use their collective strengths to overcome adversity.

Author Links:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

 

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Blog Tour + Excerpt - The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes by Francesca Burke

 

 Find the links to other stops on the tour here.

 

 

 

Title: The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes

Author: Francesca Burke

 

Short Blurb: 

On the magical island of the Three Kingdoms, disparaged teenagers quest to save their people from dragons, duplicity and dictatorship. This is a book of fairy tales, but not of happy endings. Don’t expect to fall asleep to sweet dreams when you’re done.

 

 Longer Blurb:

  Princess Amelia’s home, the Kingdom of Mirrors, is on its knees, ravaged by the cantankerous Sapphire Dragon. She must find a way to rid her country of its unwelcome guest and work out how to restore its fortunes before her parents marry her off to clear the kingdom’s debts. Prince Richard of the Valley of Dreams knows he’s not very heroic… he’d rather read about quests than actually go on one. But when he finds himself travelling to a haunted tower, he discovers a treacherous conspiracy that could rip the Three Kingdoms apart… and learns there might be some heroism tucked up his sleeve after all. Esme Delacroix is a psychic living in Stormhaven, the only part of the Three Kingdoms where magic is taboo. A terrifying vision sends Esme and her friend Violet on a perilous quest that shakes Stormhaven and the Three Kingdoms to its core.

 

Originally published on the author's Patreon, the novel is now available as an ebook:

Goodreads | Kobo | Amazon

 

 

Excerpt:

 

Prologue 

Not all fairy tales have happy endings. Some end with a marriage, which could be a happy ending or a happy beginning, depending on how you look at it. Some end neatly, which could be a happy ending or a sad ending but is more often quite a boring one.Then there is this fairy tale, which ends neither happily nor neatly. 

The island of the Three Kingdoms is tucked away at the edge of nowhere and surrounded by violent sea on all sides. It slightly resembles a crescent moon and greatly resembles the sort of place you find silver-tongued elderly ladies with a tendency to cast enchantments and witty young men with a tendency to embark on valiant quests and declare themselves heroes.There are surprisingly high levels of hygiene and health and safety given the lack of electricity and standardised paperwork.

Several thousand years before the witty men and the hygiene standards, the Three Kingdoms was merely a small, volatile, pocket of ocean. One afternoon the earth sneezed, accidentally spewing out a handful of magical creatures, a variety of poisonous plants and four strains of the common cold. The ocean viewed all these things as the unfortunate natural by-product of a sneeze and made to clear them away, so the earth hastily spat out a spectacular island of mountain ranges and beaches and lush green valleys, offering its exiles a comfortable prison. Magic seeped through the earth and out into the sea, calling out for humans to come and look and stay a while. This was probably where things went wrong.  

The islanders promptly set about harnessing the magic and taming the creatures and figuring out which plants could be eaten if cooked properly.They also named the Three Kingdoms the Three Kingdoms of something, but they kept claiming one another’s thrones via wars or marriages (or a war disguised as a marriage) until specifics faded away and all that remained were three royal families and three tenacious nations, mutually enjoying the eternal bonds of shared history and common culture. 

Well, three royal families and three tenacious nations with a lot of shared history.

 

 

 The Princess and the Dragon

Chapter One

The Kingdom of Mirrors, the loudest, southernmost and most magical of the Three Kingdoms, filled the bottom third of the crescent moon with olive trees, fishing boats and about ten thousand mirrors. It was ruled by the Durante line of the House of Stars, whose family tree was dotted with the types of people whose exploits are written into ten-minute songs about burning cities, eccentric fashion sense and enormous acts of courage in the face of fire-breathing dragons. Princess Amelia, the youngest of the Durante family, knew from early childhood that she, too, would one day have to defeat a dragon. 

Nobody initially expected Amelia to facethe dragon in question, partly because she was a girl and partly because she had been born second in line to the throne. Her older brother, Prince Nicholas, was both dashingly handsome and perfectly capable of embarking on such a heroic quest by himself. Unfortunately for Amelia, by the time she reached her teens Prince Nicholas found himself indisposed, so although most people were too polite to mention it, the task of dragon-slaying ultimately fell to her. 

Amelia was fourteen, and in happier stories she would be learning how to dance or dabble in magic. In this story, Amelia was in charge of olive oil production. She was also kingdom treasurer, head of the royal family’s public relations department, occasional fisherwoman and part-time carer to her ailing father, the king. For someone born into a centuries-old dynasty, she spent a lot of time with ancient legal documents and recently gutted fish.

 

 

 

About the Author

 

Born in Rochford in 1995, Francesca Burke decided at an early age that the worlds inside books and television were infinitely preferable to the real one. Initially put off the idea of being a writer because it requires one to sit alone and ignore people, she now finds sitting alone and ignoring people to be the most satisfying parts of the job. She lives in Southend-on-Sea.

 

 Author Links: 

 Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Blog | Patreon | Ko-Fi | Website | Stories Blog

 

 

Read a Q&A with Francesca here.

 

 

Blog Tour + Excerpt - Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

Synopsis:

Hannah Capin's Foul is Fair is a bloody, thrilling revenge fantasy for the girls who have had enough. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes.

Jade and her friends Jenny, Mads, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of. Every party is theirs and the world is at their feet. Until the night of Jade's sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Andrew’s Prep party. The night the golden boys choose Jade as their next target.

They picked the wrong girl.

Sworn to vengeance, Jade transfers to St. Andrew’s Prep. She plots to destroy each boy, one by one. She'll take their power, their lives, and their control of the prep school's hierarchy. And she and her coven have the perfect way in: a boy named Mack, whose ambition could turn deadly.

Purchase from Wednesday Books

 

Blurbs:

"Fierce, vicious, and electric. If books had teeth, Foul Is Fair would have fangs. Capin's language glitters dark and her writing cuts deep. Revenge is a dish best served by this deliciously unapologetic coven." - Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, author of Firsts and Last Girl Lied To

"Capin’s writing will seduce you with its beauty and then, when you least suspect it, slice you to the bone—just like Foul is Fair’s captivating, vicious, entirely unforgettable heroine, Jade." - Layne Fargo, author of Temper and co-host of Unlikeable Female Characters Podcast

“Vicious and beautifully brutal, Foul is Fair gives a sword to every girl who has ever been a victim and makes them a warrior. This book is pulls no punches and will make anyone think twice before uttering the phrase ‘just a girl’. An unapologetic feminist battle-cry that leaves you breathless and thirsting for vengeance.” - Sonia Hartl, author of Have a Little Faith in Me

"Foul is Fair delivers the story of a girl who snatches control back from a world that stole it away, through whatever means necessary. Hannah Capin deftly combines stunningly lyrical prose with the raw power of engulfing fury, sending a message written in blood. In a world where too many are forced into silence, this book roars back." - S. Gonzales, author of The Law of Inertia and Only Mostly Devastated

Excerpt:

Sweet sixteen is when the claws come out.

We’re all flash tonight. Jenny and Summer and Mads and me. Vodka and heels we could never quite walk in before, but tonight we can. Short skirts—the shortest. Glitter and high- light. Matte and shine. Long hair and whitest-white teeth.

I’ve never been blond before but tonight my hair is plati- num. Mads bleached it too fast but I don’t care because tonight’s the only night that matters. And my eyes are jade-green to- night instead of brown, and Summer swears the contacts Jenny bought are going to melt into my eyes and I’ll never see again, but I don’t care about that, either.

Tonight I’m sixteen.

Tonight Jenny and Summer and Mads and me, we’re four sirens, like the ones in those stories. The ones who sing and make men die.

Tonight we’re walking up the driveway to our best party ever. Not the parties like we always go to, with the dull-duller- dullest Hancock Park girls we’ve always known and the dull-duller-dullest wine coolers we always drink and the same bad choice in boys.

Tonight we’re going to a St Andrew’s Prep party. Crashing it, technically.

But nobody turns away girls like us.

We smile at the door. They let us in. Our teeth flash. Our claws glimmer. Mads laughs so shrill-bright it’s almost a scream. Everyone looks. We all grab hands and laugh together and then everyone, every charmed St Andrew’s Prepper is cheering for us and I know they see it—

for just a second—our fangs and our claws.

 The first thing I do is cut my hair.

But it isn’t like in the movies, those crying girls with mas- cara streaks and kindergarten safety scissors, pink and dull, looking into toothpaste specks on medicine cabinet mirrors.

I’m not crying. I don’t fucking cry.

I wash my makeup off first. I use the remover I stole from Summer, oily Clinique in a clear bottle with a green cap. Three minutes later I’m fresh-faced, wholesome, girl-next-door,  and you’d almost never know my lips are still poison when I look the way a good girl is supposed to look instead of like that little whore with the jade-green eyes.

The contact lenses go straight into the trash.

Then I take the knife, the good long knife from the wed- ding silver my sister hid in the attic so she wouldn’t have to think about the stupid man who never deserved her anyway. The marriage was a joke but the knife is perfectly, wickedly beautiful: silver from handle to blade and so sharp you bleed a little just looking at it. No one had ever touched it until I did, and when I opened the box and lifted the knife off the dark red velvet, I could see one slice of my reflection looking back from the blade, and I smiled.

I pull my hair tight, the long hair that’s been mine since those endless backyard days with Jenny and Summer and Mads. Always black, until Mads bleached it too fast, but splin- tering platinum blond for the St Andrew’s party on my sweet sixteen. Ghost-bright hair from Mads and jade-green eyes from Jenny and contour from Summer, almost magic, sculpt- ing me into a brand-new girl for a brand-new year.

My hair is thick, but I’ve never been one to flinch. I stare myself straight in the eyes and slash once— Hard.

And that’s it. Short hair.

I dye it back to black, darker than before, with the cheap box dye I made Jenny steal from the drugstore. Mads revved her Mustang, crooked across two parking spots at three in the morning, and I said:

Get me a color that knows what the fuck it’s doing.

Jenny ran back out barefoot in her baby-pink baby-doll dress and flung herself into the back seat across Summer’s lap, and Mads was out of the lot and onto the road, singing through six red lights, and everything was still slow and foggy and almost like a dream, but when Jenny threw the

box onto my knees I could see it diamond-clear. Hard black Cleopatra bangs on the front and the label, spelled out plain: #010112 REVENGE. So I said it out loud:

REVENGE

And Mads gunned the engine harder and Summer and Jenny shrieked war-cries from the back seat and they grabbed my hand, all three of them, and we clung together so tight I could feel blood under my broken claws.

REVENGE, they said back to me. REVENGE, REVENGE,

REVENGE.

So in the bathroom, an hour later and alone, I dye my hair revenge-black, and I feel dark wings growing out of my back, and I smile into the mirror at the girl with ink-stained fingers and a silver sword.

Then I cut my broken nails to the quick. Then I go to bed.

In the morning I put on my darkest lipstick before it’s even breakfast time, and I go to Nailed It with a coffee so hot it burns my throat. The beautiful old lady with the crooked smile gives me new nails as long as the ones they broke off last night, and stronger.

She looks at the bruises on my neck and the scratches across my face, but she doesn’t say anything.

So I point at my hair, and I say, This color. Know what it’s

called?

She shakes her head: No.

I say, REVENGE.

She says, Good girl. Kill him.

About the Author

 

Hannah Capin is the author of Foul is Fair and The Dead Queens Club, a feminist retelling of the wives of Henry VIII. When she isn’t writing, she can be found singing, sailing, or pulling marathon gossip sessions with her girl squad. She lives in Tidewater, Virginia.

 Find Hannah on Twitter and Instagram @tldaaollf