Clarissa Johal

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Blog Tour & Guest Author - The Wraith of Carter’s Mill : The Curse of the Carter Women by C. Evenfall #paranormal #suspense

Writing for Fulfilment          
by C. Evenfall  

I always wanted to be a writer. As a matter of fact, I do not remember a time when it was not dream of mine. As important as the goal was however, I do not think I ever considered how much or little money I could make doing it.

For me, writing was just something I felt compelled to do, but as I began to explore the publishing industry and the newer version, self-publishing, I came to see that a lot of writers are just entrepreneurs looking for the next best “work from home” opportunity. I clawed viciously at the pile, digging frantically, looking for the artists. . .the people who write “just because.” I was relieved to find that they are still out there; they just might not be getting the bulk of the attention.

I had to ask myself which mattered most, publishing a book that I could be proud of, that I thought other people would enjoy or mass producing mediocre fiction for the fast buck. The choice was easy for me. Before I pursued any publishing options, I decided that what mattered most to me was the quality of the work. Better to have a small following than to have a bucket full of disappointed readers.

The catch 22 is that in order to find those folks who will enjoy your book, there has to be some amount of marketing and that requires money. So. . . if you invest in something, you are hoping to get a return, or at the very least break even. Before I knew it, I was in the same situation every other debuting author finds him or herself, making business decisions about marketing my book. What a drag?

The main goal for me was simply writing good books, so marketing them is a struggle for me. I work very hard to create a balance between creativity and marketability when I am writing, but I think the most important thing I can do is continue to write just for the fun of it.

 ***

The Wraith of Carter’s Mill 
The Curse of the Carter Women
C. Evenfall

Genre: Paranormal Suspense
Publisher: Books, Authors and Artists
Date of Publication: March 31, 2015
ISBN: 1503205096
ASIN: B00VIU9YKS
Number of pages: 436
Word Count: 110,800
Cover Artist: Carolyn Holland

Book Description:

The Wraith of Carter’s Mill chronicles five generations of women from the turn of the century to present day. It depicts in startling detail the result of an old curse and the wraith that haunts the family. Sensitives, The Guardians and The Forgotten tell the tale while the fourth shocking segment, Carter’s Mill provides the back-story. It reveals the shameful truth behind a century of sorrow and the curse of revenge that plagues the Carter women.

Zeb, the Carter family patriarch, is a hard, callous man. He runs his thriving sawmill, farm and family with an iron fist. When he commits an incredible act of cruelty, he ignorantly brings a terrible curse down upon all his kin. Martha Thompsons’ prophecy proves true as the family falls into ruin, and the women pay the price.

Almost a century after Zeb’s death, a Carter daughter is born with notable yet uncanny gifts. It will be up to Shyanne to unearth a long buried family secret and set an old wrong back to rights. Will she find a way to lift the curse and banish the accursed wraith that haunts her? If she fails, she risks losing her own little girl to the dark entity forever.

A small North Carolina community, where everyone knows everyone sets the perfect stage for this suspenseful drama. Rich in history and southern culture, The Wraith of Carter’s Mill harkens back to a time when life was simpler, and superstition was part of everyday living.



About the Author:

C. Evenfall grew up on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina. In many ways, her community was isolated from the outside world, and time simply stood still. The old ways of “doing things” surrounded her, and she was both fascinated by the rich history and influenced by it.

As with any such place, the area was rich with ghost lore and old tales of “people done wrong.”

C. Evenfall, a child seen and not heard, hovered as close as she dared, listening to the old stories when the adults got together talking about old times. She also spent many nights with the sheet pulled over her head in childish fright.

A paranormal encounter when she was just six years old, experienced by two other people at the same time, convinced her that ghosts really did exist. C. Evenfall has been seeking answers ever since. Her fascination with the unexplainable, coupled with her love of history and southern culture and the role women play in both, have inspired her to write The Wraith of Carter’s Mill, a series of novellas. Each inspired by tales from her childhood and the family members who passed them down.

Life has taken her many places, but today, C. Evenfall resides with her husband in the same fishing village where she grew up. Together they enjoy hiking, camping, gardening and the outdoors in general. She forgives his skeptics’ dismissal of things that go bump in the night and loves him dearly in spite of it. They complement one another perfectly.

Twitter: @CEvenfall2

Tour giveaway

1$ 25.00 Amazon Gift Certificate 
5 Signed Paperback Copies of The Wraith of Carter’s Mill
a Rafflecopter giveaway




Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Blog Tour & Guest Author - Tales of Blood and Sulphur: Apocalypse Minor by J.G. Clay #Horror #Booktrope #forsaken

Here There Be Space Dragons
by J.G. Clay

Greetings one and all. It’s a pleasure to be here in a virtual sense. For those of you who have no idea who I am, please allow me to introduce myself. I’m J.G. Clay -horror writer, geek of some standing and general lad about town. Clarissa has very kindly invited me to do a guest spot promoting my new book ‘Tales of Blood and Sulphur: Apocalypse Minor’. With a title like that, it could only be horror. With a birthday and a backstory like mine, horror was the only genre I could ever write in. Please get comfortable and settle in. I’ll tell you a little bit about my journey through the darkest of Arts or more accurately, the point where my love affair with the Dark Side began.

I was born on Halloween. No, really, I was. It’s on my birth certificate. 31st October, 1973. That’s a good starting point for any horror writer. There is a tale that my mother got freaked out by the combination of a Halloween night birth and also a full moon, but that’s a tale for another time.

Flash forward a few years later. We’re still in the Seventies Britain. Punk was fading out, slowly being replaced by the energetic sound of Ska and the strange hairstyles of the New Romantics. The soccer stadiums of the UK were more akin to battlegrounds and racist skinheads still patrolled the streets looking for people of colour to beat up, main and possibly kill. As one author put it ‘It was no boogie Wonderland’.

Against this grim and quite miserable backdrop, a smaller version of myself first learned the delicious thrill of being afraid. The source may surprise you even more. Being a geek led me to horror. Back in those days, I was a full-on nerd, an impressive feat considering that nerds did not have the same cache that they have these days. Confessing to a liking for ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and ‘Blakes 7’ was a sure path to ridicule. I stuck it out and I’m still a geek to this day.

But does this have to do with Horror, I hear ask?

Well, it was Seventies British Sci-Fi that first scared me senseless. Nothing was off limits in those days (except sex and graphic gore, obviously). There was no watershed, no time where programmes deemed unsuitable had to be shown. From the grim Gothic Era of Tom Baker’s Doctor to the brutal Fascist Federation of Blakes 7, there were a lot of trauma inducing moments to choose from. The decaying Master and Mr Sin from ‘Doctor Who’ are but two examples but the one that stick in my mind to this day is the Space Dragon. On a bright Saturday morning, I experienced sheer terror. I’ve never looked back since.

The series in question was ‘Space: 1999’, a cult show starring the husband and wife combo of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. The show itself was a classic of its time and a simple enough premise –Moon gets ripped away from Earth orbit and wanders through the stars encountering new civilisations and threats – kind of like ‘Star Trek’ but with our beloved satellite fulfilling the ‘Enterprise’ role. In the episode in question, the crew encounter what can only be described a furnace mouth with tentacle, one eye and the most horrifying scream imaginable. As if that was pant wetting enough, Ol’ Furnace Mouth Space Dragon Creature fed by sucking people into its bright red hot maw only to vomit out their smoking remains afterwards. That episode scared me so much that I never watched ‘Space: 1999’ again until a few years ago. The seeds were sown however. Once the initial trauma had died down and I realised that Space Dragons don’t live under the bed, (they live in space, funnily enough), I began to turn to scarier things.

Within a few years of that fright, I was reading Stephen King and the late great James Herbert and watching the film that made me think ‘I can write stuff like this’. The film in question?
John Carpenter’s alien masterpiece The Thing. My course was set.

The reason I’m telling you all about this is because I’m convinced that the Space Dragon taught me to love scary things, to embrace the roller coaster ride of emotion that horror invokes. Without the ordeal of watching Michael Sheard being transformed into a smoking ruin, I may not have bothered with horror at all. (By the way, Michael Sheard was an accomplished British actor who had the distinction of being killed by Darth Vader. He was the unfortunate and incompetent Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back).

So now, with one book in the bag and plenty more to come, I have to thank my geeky instincts for setting me on the path of horror. I also have to thank the Space Dragon but that won’t happen anytime soon.

By the way, the episode in question is called ‘Dragon’s Domain’ and it’s on YouTube. If you watch it, please
tell me whether it’s aged well. I’m still too traumatised to go anywhere near it.





***


Tales of Blood and Sulphur:
Apocalypse Minor
Tales of Blood and Sulphur
Volume One
J.G. Clay

Genre: Horror
Publisher: Forsaken
Date of Publication: 24th July, 2015
ISBN: 978-1513701998
ASIN: 978-1513701998
Number of pages: 212
Word Count: 77,000 words approx.
Cover Artist: Ashley Ruggirello

Book Description:

Eleven Tales steeped in Blood and reeking of Sulphur

J.G Clay takes you on a journey through the voids of Reality and into dark places where demons, mutants and inter-dimensional creatures taunt, taint and corrupt Humanity. Survival is not guaranteed, sanity is not assured and death lurks in every corner. These are the Tales of Blood and Sulphur: Apocalypse Minor; eleven twisted tales of terror and mayhem..... There are cracks in the skin of Reality.

Some are microscopic, others are as wide as a four-lane motorway. As the fault lines increase and widen, the door to our world shines like a beacon in the darkness, a warm and inviting sight to others beyond our understanding. When They cross over into our realm, The Tales begin...... A gambler taking one last desperate throw of the dice. A struggling writer making an unholy alliance. An eternal being fighting to stay alive in the financial capital of India. A man burdened with a terrible town secret. The Law Enforcers who must never cry. The End of Days live and direct from the rural heartland of England.

The blood is warm, the sulphur is burning, the tales will be told, the Apocalypse Minor is imminent!


 ***

About the Author:

J.G Clay was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire on Halloween night, 1973. By sheer coincidence, it was the night of the full moon. The man was tailor made for the Horror Genre. A life-long horror and science fiction fan, he has written for his own amusement since his teenage years, taking time off to do the usual things that adolescent boys do and growing up disgracefully. Now in his forties, he has returned to his passion for the dark, the weird and the twisted. Tales of Blood and Sulphur is his first foray into the world of the Author but rest assured, there are plenty more stories to come. The man has a plan and he is out to scare the world, the solar system and beyond. Off duty, he has a passion for music, films and Birmingham City FC. He can also hold down a half decent bassline. J.G lives with his wife and step-daughter in Rothwell, Northamptonshire – the heart of the English countryside, an idyllic setting but a strange one to find a Nightmare Child of Halloween.




Monday, August 10, 2015

#MeatlessMonday - Green Gazpacho #summer #nocookrecipe #vegetarian #vegan

It's hot. Too hot to be in the kitchen. Here's a great no-cook recipe that you can make in the morning, and chill in the refrigerator for the day. By evening...voila! Dinner is served.
Enjoy!


Photo courtesy of Alan Sheffield via Flickr
Green Gazpacho

Ingredients:
5 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 medium-large cucumber, chopped
1/2 cup fresh spinach, chopped 
1 yellow pepper, chopped
6 green (or yellow) tomatoes
2 avocados
1 tsp chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

In a food processor: add garlic, lemon juice, cucumber, spinach and yellow pepper
Run until finely chopped and "soupy"
Add diced tomatoes and avocados, blend for about a minute. Salt and pepper to taste.

Chill for at least 2 hours. Garnish as desired (I like sour cream). Serve with crusty bread.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Blog Tour & Guest Author - The Reaper's Daughter by KM Randall #paranormal #darkfantasy #Booktrope

The Reaper’s Daughter Dream Cast
by KM Randall

I love seeing books that I’ve read get made into movies. Are they always good? Definitely not. But it’s one of my favorite parts to see who gets cast to play the roles. I love to daydream, and in my dreams, this would be my dream cast for The Reaper’s Daughter. Pay particular attention to Avan Jogia. I was thinking of him when I created Rishi. Meanwhile, I always have loved Grace Phipps’s amazing blue eyes, much like Blake’s, and the attitude I know she can pull off. The imagination is always the best casting director, but it’s fun to imagine who could pull the parts off in looks and talent from the pool of amazing actors out there.

Grace Phipps (Blake)
Shane Harper (Geoff)





Avan Jogia  (Rishi)

Josh Brolin (Hades)
Britt Robertson (Shelby)


Salma Hayek
(Santa Muerte, aka, Sebastiana)

Kate Bekinsale (Gr















***

The Reaper’s Daughter
The Reaper’s Daughter Series
Book One
KM Randall

Genre:  Paranormal/Dark Fantasy
Publisher:  Booktrope
Date of Publication:  5/9/15
ISBN: 978-1-62015-841-8
ASIN: B00X90741G
Number of pages: 244
Cover Artist: Shari Ryan

Book Description:

I've always felt like an average girl ... except for my strange relationship with death. You could say I like to court it. Whether I'm soaring through the air as a flyer for Specter University's cheer squad, or speeding down the steepest mountain with only grace and balance keeping me from an icy end, I've always needed to feel a rush. But now Death is courting me―in more ways than one. First, there's Rishi, a rogue death deity who has a penchant for annoying me nearly to my grave and whose intense gaze has the power to see right through me. Then there's Hades, who I'd rather had stayed just a myth. Now that he knows I exist, he's not going to leave me alone until I meet the same end as my mother.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention her? I spent my whole life thinking she had died when I was a baby, but now I've found out she's much more than dead. Fifty years ago, Hades banished my mother from the underworld and took away her ability to cross over souls―souls that have wandered lost through the world ever since. Now she wants me to clean up the mess.

You may have heard of her before...

They call her the Grim Reaper.



About the Author :

As a girl, K.M. always wished she’d suddenly come into magical powers or cross over into a Faerie circle. Although that has yet to happen, she instead lives vicariously through the characters she creates writing fantasy and paranormal.

When K.M. is not busy writing her next novel, she serves as a freelance editor and writer. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in English-Lit from Nazareth College of Rochester. K.M. lives in Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes region with her husband, her extremely energetic little boy, and their crazy goldendoodle Luna (short for Lunatic)

Learn more about KM Randall 

Twitter @KM_Randall


Tour giveaway



2 ebooks
2 paperbacks


Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Blog Tour - Legend of the Timekeepers by Sharon Ledwith #giveaway #‎YAlit ‪#‎timetravel

Welcome to the week long blog tour for 
Legend of the Timekeepers by Sharon Ledwith!

Follow the Tour (link to the schedule is below) to Read Reviews, Guest Posts, and Book Spotlights

There is no moving forward without first going back.


About Legend of the Timekeepers:

Lilith was a young girl with dreams and a family before the final destruction of Atlantis shattered those dreams and tore her family apart. Now refugees, Lilith and her father make their home in the Black Land. This strange, new country has no place in Lilith’s heart until a beloved high priestess introduces Lilith to her life purpose—to be a Timekeeper and keep time safe.
Summoned through the seventh arch of Atlantis by the Children of the Law of One, Lilith and her newfound friends are sent into Atlantis’s past, and given a task that will ultimately test their courage and try their faith in each other. Can the Timekeepers stop the dark magus Belial before he changes the seers’ prophecy? If they fail, then their future and the earth’s fate will be altered forever.

Book Information:

Title: Legend of the Timekeepers 
Series:  The Last Timekeepers, Book # 0.5
Author Name:  Sharon Ledwith
Genre(s): Young Adult, Time Travel
Tags: #‎YAlit ‪#‎timetravel
Length: Approx. 147 pages
ISBN: 9781619376236
Re-Release Date: August 1, 2015 
  
Read an Excerpt:

“Why are you here?” Lilith asked. “You’ve already got your life seal.” 

“I have more questions for Istulo.” She continued to stare at the disk. 

Lilith sighed. “My name is Lilith. What’s your name?” 

Her shoulders relaxed slightly. A hint of a smile broke out on her face. Her upturned nose wiggled. “She-Aba. I was born here in the Black Land. Both my parents arrived from Atlantis fourteen years ago yesterday. My mother gave birth to me the next day.”

Lilith perked up. “That would make today your birthday!”

She-Aba beamed. “Yes. That’s why I’m here. For my birthday last year, I had my life reading done by Istulo. But recently, there’s been a hiccup in my plans. It’s like my life seal rearranged itself, and now I’m confused. I’m here for a reaffirmation.” 

“What’s the problem?” 

She-Aba traced her life seal with the tip of her perfectly shaped fingernail. “My lifetime occupation was supposed to be to design clothing for the people of the various positions in the court and temples.” 

Lilith smirked. “That makes perfect sense.” 

“I know, right? So why, all of a sudden, would my life seal change from designing clothing to something completely different?” 

Lilith arched a fair brow. “How different?” 

“Well, instead of clothing people in lavish robes and gowns for others to appreciate, the seal suggests that I’ll be doing the opposite by covering up and hiding the truth. I don’t understand it at all. I thought my life was all planned out for me.” 

“I thought mine was too, until my country blew up and slid into the ocean,” Lilith muttered. 

“Hey, look at the bright side, at least your hair isn’t red like mine.” 

Lilith eyed She-Aba carefully. “What’s wrong with red hair? My uncle has red hair and it suits him fine.” 

She-Aba moved in closer. “If you haven’t noticed already, there aren’t many redheads around here. The natives think red is magical, and anyone with red hair is considered a freak of nature.” 

“That’s ridiculous!” Lilith said loud enough to cause an echo down the marble hallway. “Is that the reason why those artists were rude to you? Because you have red hair?” 

“Red is a very powerful color,” a raspy voice said from behind both girls. 

Lilith and She-Aba jumped. They slowly turned to find Istulo hovering over them. 

Wearing the same white gown and orichalcum headband Lilith saw her dressed in before, Istulo nodded slightly before she said, “Red represents the essence of life—if we are drained of blood, we are drained of energy. The people of the Black Land understand this, and therefore red is reserved only for their gods and goddesses.” 

Lilith giggled. “Don’t tell She-Aba that, she’ll think she’s a goddess.”

***

Purchase Links:

Amazon
MirrorWorld Publishing 
Barnes & Noble
  

Meet the Author:

Unearthing the uncanny one book at a time

Sharon Ledwith is the author of the middle-grade/young adult time travel series, THE LAST TIMEKEEPERS, and is represented by Walden House (Books & Stuff) for her teen psychic series, MYSTERIOUS TALES FROM FAIRY FALLS. When not writing, researching, or revising, she enjoys reading, exercising, anything arcane, and an occasional dram of scotch. Sharon lives a serene, yet busy life in a southern tourist region of Ontario, Canada, with her hubby, one spoiled yellow Labrador and a moody calico cat.


Connect with Sharon Ledwith:

Twitter: @sharonledwith

Giveaway Information and Entry Form:

One winner will be selected to receive the following prizes ~ 
 A signed paperback copy of Legend of the Timekeepers
A signed postcard 
 Two ‘The Last Timekeepers’ wrist bands
 A custom crafted ceramic Spiral Life Seal