Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Celebrate Sci-Fy Blog Tour: Guest Post by Michelle Birbeck and #Giveaway



Say NO to REALITY!
This May, TWCS is paying tribute to the SciFy genre in honour of the EPIC Star Wars series and LEGENDARY The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, amongst others...

BOOKS ON SALE FOR ONLY 99 PENNIES!

LEGACY OF A DREAMER, Allie Jean, Paranormal
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Chantal Breelan is plagued by horrible nightmares too realistic to ignore. Her past has been a mystery, and the foster system isn’t providing any answers. Starting a new life alone at eighteen is a challenge, especially when things that go bump in the night appear out of the shadows, and her dreams begin to breach reality. Darkness surrounds her from all sides, but is it only evil that hides in the shadows, or are the answers to her past lingering just beyond?


ZOMBIFIED, Maggie LaCroix, Paranormal Fantasy
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Monsters know their place: vampires are sexy; zombies just decompose.  But Maggie La Croix’s Zombified conjures up an entirely different kind of undead raised by good old-fashioned Voodoo. Take Henri—still gorgeous, over one hundred years after his death. And now a hurricane has set him free from a curse.
Enter Josie, a reporter with her eyes on Henri. But falling for a man without a heartbeat could get her more than a broken heart. It could get her zombified.


 THE SIX, K.B. Hoyle, Fantasy
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Darcy Pennington feels like she is an insufferably average thirteen-year-old, but when a change in her dad’s job forces her to attend Cedar Cove Camp, she unwittingly stumbles upon a magical gateway. Along with five other teenagers, she will travel to a world called Alitheia. The “arrival of the Six” was prophesied long ago, but will she have what it takes to save Alitheia?


MORE, T.M. Franklin, Paranormal
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Haunted by terrifying nightmares and certain she’s being watched, college student Ava Michaels finds an unlikely ally in Physics tutor Caleb Foster. But Caleb isn’t quite what he seems. In fact, he's not entirely human, and he's not the only one.
Together, the duo faces a threat from an ancient race bent on Ava’s capture, and possible extinction. As Ava fights to survive, she learns the world’s not what she thought.
It's a little bit more.


THE SILVER CRESCENT, Debby Grahl, Paranormal
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An ancestor’s tale of betrayal, murder and a stolen fortune in silver leads Elise Baxter to Max Holt’s Victorian inn.
She is reluctantly, though irresistibly, attracted to Max. Leery of loving again, Max lets passion overrule caution, tumbling them into an erotic encounter.
Guided by ghosts and opposed by an evil presence, the couple searches for the treasure. But there are others who will stop at nothing to unlock the mystery of the Silver Crescent.


 THE MEMORY HEALER, Julie Filarski, Paranormal
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When Beth Montgomery reluctantly agrees to carry out a psychic assessment of Carrington House, she is transported to another era, where she sees a date on a calendar that fills her with dread.
Back in the present time and sensing an eternal bond with the irresistible Dr Matthew Jamieson, she wonders whether he was once the darkly handsome but unfaithful Samuel Methven. Beth must regress to the tragic events of 1895 to learn the truth.


HUNTED, Lorenz Font, Paranormal
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Disease is ravaging the vampire community in New York City’s underworld. Harrow Gates is sick, alone, and hunted. When Pritchard Tack offers him a new beginning, he is in no position to refuse.
Jordan is a young vampire whose only focus is revenge. In her search for her family’s killer, she meets a man who threatens to pull her heart away from her sworn mission. Is love strong enough to override her thirst for vengeance?


MOUNTAIN CHARM, Sydney Logan, Paranormal
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“True love and sweet whispers, till death do us part;
Send someone to love my Appalachian heart.”
At the age of thirteen, Angelina Clark followed in the footsteps of her ancestors by casting an Appalachian love spell, which promised she would blossom into a beautiful and gifted woman who would find her true love. A young Angelina had been thrilled to participate in the sacred ritual, but through the years, her father’s untimely death and her mother’s failing health have shaken Angelina’s magical faith to its core. As her twenty-first birthday approaches, she refuses to practice her supernatural gifts and no longer believes in the love charm.


REDEMPTION, Lindsey Gray, Paranormal
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Life is for living. Afterlife is a chance at redemption. As the only remaining female vampire in existence, Lily attempts to make her way towards her ever after. But with best friend Becca, new beau Ian, human husband Ryan, Archangel Peter, and a host of demons all standing in the way of Lily's chance at a peaceful eternity, how can she possibly survive?


CONVERGENCE, J.D. Watts, Paranormal
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Daniella Rossi is a nineteen-year-old college student who sees the world quite differently than those around her. From infancy, she was aware of the beings that walked among her kind who were not like them, as well as her own personal Guardian who watched over her. Dani always knew she was different, but she never dreamed the full scope of her importance. When a new male Guardian comes to replace her lifelong friend and companion, will Dani be able to accept him as she deals with a world full of the other Children of Creation, Angels, both good and evil?


OBVIOUS CHILD, Warren Cantrell, SciFy
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In 2015, Sam Grant is chosen to take part in a contest that will choose the world’s first time traveler. There’s just one problem—Sam doesn’t want anything to do with the contest. Yet his deliberately profane public appearances and sabotaged interviews only boost ratings. Now stuck, Sam must plot how he’ll get out of the contest, or if he should embrace it all and become the most famous person in history.


GHOSTWRITER, Lissa Bryan, Paranormal
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Unemployed, with her savings dwindling, Sara Howell thinks things are looking up when she lands a ghostwriting job and rents the affordable island home of her favorite author, Seth Fortner, who mysteriously disappeared in 1925.
Strange things happen, making Sara wonder if Seth ever left. When she finds an old trunk of Seth’s letters, she delves into a world she never imagined, filled with love and a family curse it seems only she can break.


THE STARS ARE FALLING, Michelle Birbeck, Paranormal
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Jenny’s life revolves around surviving university, watching the stars, and staring at her housemate, Dale. But as the night sky glows with the light of falling stars, Jenny’s classes and crush seem unimportant. The Stars are retaking Earth, saving mother nature by eliminating the problem. Together, Jenny and Dale can save the world and the human race, but surviving long enough to convince the Stars of that is perilous and may kill them both.


EVERYBODY OUT OF THE LAUNDROMAT, I NEED TO THINK!
Phil G. Glenn, Paranormal
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When the ordinary life of Virgil Blaine crosses the path of the even more ordinary Doug Coulthard, it sets off a series of extra-ordinary events. Doug Coulthard is a Filing Clerk and the President of the Unpublished People’s Poet’s Party –Political Unit (UPPPPU) where a catastrophe has just happened; two of his long time members have been published. The UPPPPU goes on a recruiting drive by distributing leaflets, one of which finds its way into Virgil Blaine’s pocket. Virgil Blaine, who is a slight poet himself, attends one of the meetings where he meets Forward Slash who offers Virgil Blaine a job. The offer comes with two things Virgil Blaine has never had; a job and a car and on a whim he accepts. The problem is, through no effort of his own, his position is suddenly elevated. Virgil Blaine says the job is ‘messing with his DNA – Deliberate Non-Achiever’ and he misses his old life and so hatches a plan to get it back…


SEBASTIAN AND THE AFTERLIFE, William j. Barry, Paranormal
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Sebastian, an average seventeen-year-old boy, has just paid this debt. He awakes in a surreal world somewhere between mortal life and the afterlife, where the Grim Reaper rules and his loyal agents maintain the law. But not all is peaceful in this mystical realm. Axis Red and his soul pirates threaten the future of all who dwell there.
Sebastian soon finds himself at Sapentia, a high school for the departed. There he makes new friends but longs for his lost love, Sarah, who is still alive in the mortal world. Some things are forbidden; some lines cannot be crossed. What will Sebastian risk to be close to Sarah again?
Continue the adventure with Sebastian and the Afterlife Book II - Agents of the Reaper


Guest Post by Michelle Birbeck:

Why stars, and what challenges did you face converting something that is generally inanimate to something more humanoid?

The Stars Are Falling began with an image that wouldn’t leave me alone. In my head was a night sky with a dozen falling stars. Under the sky was a young girl, running away from the stars. But why would anyone feel the burning need to run away from stars? They are millions of miles away, and even if we could reach them, or them us, it would take a life time… right?

As the image played over and over in my mind, it got me thinking. The stars in our skies have shone down on us for millennia. There are paintings and records dating back as human history goes, all documenting the heavens.

I began thinking, what if they are not just stars? What would happen if our constant nightly guides were there for a reason?

Of course, making the stars in our sky more than they are comes with its own set of challenges. The biggest of which being, if they have a purpose, what is that purpose? Why are they more than they appear? And why was the girl in my head so afraid of them?

The answer to those questions came from a quote from a poem by Francis William Bourdillon: the night has a thousand eyes.

I did not, however, take this quote in its original meaning with the rest of the poem of the same title, which is well worth a read. I took this quote in a more literal way. Eyes watch; they scour the sights for information, and they judge.

For the stars to be eyes, however, they needed something to judge, and a reason for watching over us all of the time. They also needed a reason for watching the world much longer than the human race has been around. For longer, even, than anything has been alive.

Except for the planet itself.

As this point in the creation of The Stars Are Falling, the pieces of the book began sliding into place. The fear of the girl in my mind made sense if the stars above were raining down in judgement. If we, the human race, are used to viewing the stars above as inanimate objects who shine at night and disappear during the day, then to see them raining down around us and rising out of the craters then fear is exactly what that image would instil in us.

There were, of course, more particulars that cropped up during writing, such as what they were judging us for, how they worked, and what they looked like. But if I mentioned all the details I went into, it would spoil some parts of the book that are better left for reading it.

The last thing I will say, though, is that through all of the ups and downs of creating a set of stars in our sky that were more than they appear, I had a fantastic time writing the book, working out the details, and joining the characters on their journey of discovery.







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