Reading Wrap-up For November at Emeraldfire's Bookmark

 

Hello everyone out there and I hope that you all had a terrific reading month for yourselves. I am known as Emeraldfire around the Internet and this is my new personal reading blog.

Anyway, I started out November with about two hundred unread books lying around the house and ended the month with...umm...uncountable amounts of books unread. All of the books that I acquired this month came from authors, Amazon and Paperback Swap.

Let me try to break down the influx for you:

Changes to the TBR pile

Read from my TBR pile (Yes! I am a reading machine :))
- I, James by Mike Hartner
- Night Terror by Jeff Gunhus

Added to my TBR pile (oh well, you win some and you lose some! :))
- Love Begins by Teresa Slack
- Small Town Ghosts: Five Tales of Small Town Terror by Shannon Celebi
- Small Town Demons: Seven Tales of Small Town Terror by Shannon Celebi
- Blood Mission by Joni Parker
- Treasure Me by Christine Nolfi
- Sceadu: Your Shadow Holds a Secret by Prashant Pinge
- Wandering in Exile by Peter Murphy
- What Lies Beneath by Anne Stuart, Joanna Wayne and Caroline Burnes
- The Old Willis Place by Mary Downing Hahn
- Wildwood Road by Christopher Golden

Taken off my TBR pile and sent to a new home (Yay! Happy Dance! :))
- There's a Ghost in the Boys' Bathroom by Tom B. Stone
- Fantastic Stories: Tales of the Weird and Wondrous by James E. Gunn, Martin H. Greenberg and Patrick L. Price

Well, there it is...the breakdown! All in all, a very good reading month for me, considering. Here's a further breakdown:

Books Read: 2

Pages Read: 617

Grade Range: A!

So, there you go! The reading month that was November. I hope that you all had an equally good reading month; if not a little better. :) See you all next month! :)

Giveaway For Prashant Pinge's Young Adult Fantasy Sceadu From December 1, 2014 to December 21, 2014 - Come Join Us!

Hello Everyone! I am extremely happy to announce that Prashant Pinge will be running an awesome giveaway to celebrate the release of his young adult Fantasy Sceadu. This giveaway will be hosted by the author himself and will last from December 1, to December 21, 2014!

Mr. Pinge is giving away 10 Amazon Gift Cards worth $10 each and 15 e-copies of Sceadu (available in EPUB, MOBI and PDF formats) to twenty-five lucky winners at the end of his Giveaway. Be sure to fill out the Rafflecopter form below, and I wish you all the very best of good luck in taking part!

Meet Prashant Pinge

Prashant Pinge is a published author of short stories and books in the genres of children’s fiction and young adult fantasy fiction. He also writes historical fiction and romantic comedies. His book, Raja and the Giant Donut, was shortlisted for the Economist Crossword Book Awards in the Children’s Writing category in 2011.

Prashant lives in Mumbai, India, with his wife, Avantika, and son, Arjun.

Connect and Socialize with Prashant!

Website * Facebook * 'Sceadu' on Facebook * Twitter * Google + * Goodreads

Watch the Sceadu Book Trailer at YouTube!

About Sceadu:

"All this while, Matilda’s shadow had been growing larger and larger. Suddenly, it lunged out of the ground and swallowed her, like a python does its unsuspecting prey."

Nine year old Matilda ends up with a century old book through a series of strange coincidences. And disappears. Her brother and cousins are forced to suspend their hostilities and pursue her to Sceadu, a land inside the human shadow. Once there, the reluctant visitors find themselves chased by the vicious Hefigans, creatures of Sceadu. However, everything changes with the revelation of an ancient prophecy that foretells the doom of the world they left behind.

With the stakes suddenly raised, the children must now navigate the dangerous terrain, overcome grave challenges, and unlock the secrets of the shadow. But can they do it in time to thwart the plans of the treacherous Hefigans? Or will they succumb to the guile of a ruthless enemy who is equally determined to destroy mankind?

Sceadu is a fast-paced adventure which blurs the boundary between the physical and the psychological, the real and the mythical.

"Well-crafted and executed, this is a book that is worthy of belonging to the time-honoured fantasy genre." ~ Himanjali Sankar, Editor at Bloomsbury India

Purchase Your Copy From Amazon!

Prashant Pinge wants to give you a chance to win 10 Amazon Gift Cards ($10 each) and 15 e-copies of Sceadu (available in EPUB, MOBI and PDF formats)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May you read well and often

Giving Thanks For Our Many Blessings This Thanksgiving!

Facebook Graphics, Thanksgiving Graphics at WishAFriend.com

I hope that all my blog readers in the United States have a very happy Thanksgiving! May your Thanksgiving be filled with great food, wonderful friendship and all the family ties that you may wish for. :) So, Mom and I had turkey and gravy, roast potatoes and mashed potatoes; and mom had brussel sprouts while I had canned peaches for dessert. We also had strawberry rhubarb pie and apple pie with custard. After that, we may watch a movie or read books for the entire day! :)

May all of you have a wonderfully safe and blessed Thanksgiving. Be sure to find some quiet time for yourselves and count your blessings today when and if you can. I know that I'm incredibly thankful for my continued health and happiness, my mom's continued health and happiness, that we are both comfortable and love each other as much as we do, and that our family is as well as they are. We are also incredibly thankful for our three kitties - Ruby, Leila and Lollipop.

I also hope that everyone who is away from their families at this time, will know that they are sorely missed, truly loved and deeply appreciated by all! God bless all of you, may you have a very happy and wonderful Thanksgiving! :)

May you read well and often

I Just Joined The Society of Feathers - So Can You - You Can Spread the Word About The Society of Feathers Series by Emma Michaels!

I'm delighted to announce that that the first book of Emma Michaels' Society of Feathers Series - Owlet - will go sale for $0.99 on Amazon from Friday, December 26, to Friday, January 9, 2015! To celebrate this sale, Ms. Michaels tells me that she has created a project on Thunderclap and has named it "Owlet $0.99 Sale!". All that is required is that the supporters of her project buy a copy of Owlet - or get it for free on Kindle Unlimited - and then embed the following message on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr: “** $0.99 or #Free on #KindleUnlimited ** ~ OWLET ~ Somewhere between falling and flying… there is a girl."

Ms. Michaels hopes to get 100 supporters on board and joining her cause by the time that Owlet goes on sale on Friday, December 26, 2014! I know that she will appreciate your support very much. So now, go forth and spread the word! :)

May you read well and often

Book Blast and Giveaway For Tortured Souls by Kimber Leigh Wheaton - Come Join Us!

Hello Everyone! I was delighted to learn recently that Tortured Souls by Kimber Leigh Wheaton will be free to download from Amazon - at least for a short time! Yes, from Monday, December 15, 2014 until Friday December 19, 2014, Kimber Leigh Wheaton's supernatural young adult book Tortured Souls - Book 1 of her Orion Circle Series - will be available to download for free from Amazon.

Ms. Wheaton will also be hosting two awesome giveaways - she will be giving away a $20 Amazon gift card in a main giveaway. There will also be a host-only giveaway for a $20 Amazon gift card as a thanks to all participants. More information will be provided sometime on or before Thursday, December 11, 2014!

Meet Kimber Leigh Wheaton

Kimber Leigh Wheaton is a bestselling YA/NA author with a soft spot for sweet roance. She is married to her soul mate, has a teenage son, and shares her home with three dogs, four cats, and lots of dragons. No, she doesn’t live on a farm, she just loves animals. Kimber Leigh is addicted to romance, videogames, superheroes, villains, and chocolate - not necessarily in that order. (If she has to choose, she’ll take a chocolate covered superhero!) She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas but has been somewhat a rolling stone in life, having resided in several different cities and states.

 Tortured Souls by Kimber Leigh Wheaton (2014)

Length: 227 pages

Purchase your copy from Amazon!

Tortured Souls Blurb:

Sometimes Rest in Peace isn't an option

Kacie Ramsey sees ghosts - and it's ruining her life. Her mother left, her father blames her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't keep the ghosts away. Now a new power has emerged. Nightly visions of grisly murders and a relentless predator draw her to the brink of insanity.

When the phantom appears at a party, Kacie's longtime crush, Logan, saves her. He invites her to join the Orion Circle, a group of supernatural hunters with chapters in schools all over the country. Through the Circle, Kacie learns to embrace her spiritual powers, and for the first time in her life she feels in control rather than a victim.

But the Foxblood Demon will not give up so easily. A demented serial killer in life who trapped the souls of the thirteen children he murdered, imprisoning them within the walls of his mansion. Now in death, he plots his return while drawing power from the pure souls of the children. He recognizes something in Kacie he's never seen before - a medium powerful enough to provide a vessel for his tainted soul.

Kacie can't ignore the tortured souls of the children crying out to her every night. With Logan at her side, she will fight the Foxblood Demon. But can they banish this powerful phantom, or will Kacie lose not only her body, but her eternal soul to the monster.

Kimber Leigh Wheaton wants to give you a chance to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May you read well and often

Calling All Book Reviewers!

Well, with Christmas a little over a month and a half away, I thought that I would alert you to some early Christmas gifts - for yourself or someone you love! Kathryn Meyer Griffith would like to offer up for your reading pleasure, her popular horror books A Time of Demons, Dinosaur Lake and Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising; all of which are currently available to download through Amazon or Audible.

You can choose from a variety of spooky characters to read about: from demons determined to bring about Armageddon, all the way to ravenous dinosaurs roaming through Oregon, and everything in between - just take your pick!

Meet Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Since childhood I’ve been an artist and worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. But I’d already begun writing novels at 21, over forty-two years ago now, and have had twenty (ten romantic horror, two horror novels, two romantic SF horror, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel, one historical romance and three murder mysteries) previous novels, two novellas and twelve short stories published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books/Eternal Press; and I’ve self-published my last five novels with Amazon Kindle Direct and my dinosaur novels are my best-sellers.

I’ve been married to Russell for thirty-six years; have a son, James, and two grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and I live in a small quaint town in Illinois, which is right across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo. We have three quirky cats, ghost cat Sasha and Cleo, and live cat Sasha (Too), and the five of us live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the day I die…or until my memory goes.

2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *FINALIST* for my horror novel The Last Vampire - Revised Author’s Edition ~ 2014 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *FINALIST* for my thriller novel Dinosaur Lake.

Before the End: A Time of Demons by Kathryn Meyer Griffith (2010)

Length: 478 pages

Purchase your copy from Amazon and Audible!

Before the End: A Time of Demons Blurb:

Since Cassandra Graystone was a child and her family perished in a fire she knows and sees things other people don’t…when someone will die or that a demon lurks beneath a human skin. She sees phantoms. Yet she craves a simple life singing out with her musician brother, Johnny, and caring for her elderly aunt and uncle; to be with her friends, Sarah, a psychic, and Walter, a clown in a carnival circuit. But when Sarah sees apocalyptic events in her tarot cards and demons are everywhere, Cassandra fears she’s going insane or something terrifying is happening in the world.

Rayner, an ancient blood demon, lodges next door. He becomes obsessed with her. Never having felt pity or affection for a human before he believes he loves her, would die to protect her. The demon realm gathers for the final confrontation between us, Rayner warns. The apocalypse comes. You and your friends must prepare.

Cassandra flees that knowledge until an angelic being, Manasseh, appears. Your powers will grow. You must fight for humanity’s survival after the first wave is taken. Seek out others like you. Persuade them to join the battle. Only these can see and challenge the demons until the end when all eyes see them. She doesn’t want her life to change; doesn’t want to be a nomad who battles demons. Doesn’t want to be anyone’s protector.

Until a tornado flattens Sarah’s house. Johnny’s apartment. There are monsters maiming and killing everywhere. Demons persecute her and those she loves, burn down her home and force her family and friends onto the road, as everywhere cataclysmic weather and signs of the end days make things hellish for humans. Cassandra and her friends can no longer deny their destinies. They must fight…or see the remnants of humanity engulfed in flames.

Dinosaur Lake by Kathryn Meyer Griffith (2012)

Length: 451 pages

Purchase your copy from Amazon and Audible!

 

Dinosaur Lake Blurb:

Ex-cop Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for eight years and he likes his park and his life the way it's been. Safe. Tranquil. Predictable. But he's about to be tested in so many ways. First the earthquakes begin, people begin to go missing, then there's some mysterious water creature that's taken up residence in the caves below Crater Lake and it's not only growing in size, it's aggressive and cunning and very hungry.

And it's decided it likes human beings. To eat.

And it can come up onto land.

So Henry, with the help of his wife, Ann; a young paleontologist named Justin; and a band of brave men, must not only protect his park and his people from the monster but somehow find where it lives and destroy it before it can kill again.

Now Dinosaur Lake by Kathryn Meyer Griffith is a 2014 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *FINALIST* in their Suspense/Thriller category.

Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising by Kathryn Meyer Griffith (2014)

Length: 248 pages

Purchase your copy from Amazon and Audible!

Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising Blurb:

Prehistoric creatures have again invaded Crater Lake National Park…and this time there’s more than one.

Henry Shore has been Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake National Park for thirteen years now and thought the days when he’d had to fight a rogue dinosaur that lived in the caves below the lake were long over.

Until one of his park rangers, to save a visitor’s life, is in a deadly struggle out in the woods with a new breed of dinosaur worse than the last one. It’s as big as a man, but this one is a young one. And growing.

Then more of the creatures begin to show up everywhere, threatening people and destroying the tranquility and safety of his beloved park.

A tourist trolley filled with fifteen people is snatched up off the crater’s rim by another version of the younger one…but this one has grown into a giant with fangs, claws and a deadly tail. And this one has wings. Ugly Gargoyles, Henry calls them. For this one isn’t alone. They’re flying beyond the park’s boundaries into the neighboring towns.

So Henry, with the help of his son-in-law, a paleontologist named Justin, and a band of brave park rangers, and a few good soldiers, must not only protect his park and his people from monsters once more but find their lair and destroy it and them before the creatures kill again.

May you read well and often

Night Terror's Mama D. Muses on Halloween

Meet Jeff Gunhus

Jeff Gunhus is the author of both adult thrillers and the Middle Grade/YA series, The Templar Chronicles. The first book, Jack Templar Monster Hunter, was written in an effort to get his reluctant reader eleven-year old son excited about reading. It worked and a new series was born. His book Reaching Your Reluctant Reader has helped hundreds of parents create avid readers. As a father of five, he and his wife lead an active lifestyle simply trying to keep up with their kids. In rare moments of quiet, he can be found in the back of the City Dock Cafe in Annapolis working on his next novel.

His latest book is the thriller/horror novel, Night Terror.

Connect and Socialize with Jeff!

Website * Facebook * Twitter

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Sequel to the Amazon Bestseller Night Chill.

Ten years after her abduction and near-sacrifice to the Source, Sarah Tremont struggles to be a normal teenager. As much as she’s tried to suppress the power inside of her, it’s grown dangerously strong and has drawn the attention of those who want to possess her power for themselves.

The nightmare that she thought was long over starts again as powerful forces descend upon Prescott City to seek her out. With help from her parents and Joseph Lonetree, Sarah must stand up to an evil much more powerful than the one she faced in the caves a decade earlier. But in the end, she discovers the greatest danger might come from the power living inside of her.

 
Coming to Amazon on 8 September 2014!

I would like to welcome Jeff Gunhus, author of Night Terror to Emeraldfire's Bookmark. Mr. Gunhus was kind enough to allow one of his characters - Mama D. - to write a guest post for me and here it is below in 'her' own words:

'How Much Do I Hate Halloween...Let Me Count the Ways!'
by Jeff Gunhus

Mama D hated Halloween. All of the regular folk, the ones who crossed themselves when the wind howled through trees on a dark night, or turned on all the lights in the house because of a single creaking floorboard, pretended for a night that they enjoyed the macabre. Only they didn’t enjoy it. They mocked it, hoping in their primal brains that such mocking would immunize them from the very real world of terror that lurked in the unlit places ready to reach out, touch them on their bare skin and make them unclean.

Mama D scanned the revelers in the street with her eyes closed. The information she wanted wasn’t the kind reflected light could give her. It was the kind she could feel only using the acute senses she’d been born with, the senses that had enabled her to hunt and to feed for the last century. She breathed in deep as she sensed a pesh with a little bit of the gift inside pass her by. It wasn’t enough though. She thought she could find better so she waited. And she watched.

She knew there were others like her around the country, taking advantage of this night where inhibitions were lowered, where protective parents let their children run wild on a sugar-high up and down streets. Nowadays parents had become increasingly paranoid and usually made feeding more of a challenge. That and law enforcement was better than ever so Mama D and her kind had to be smart. The last thing she wanted was to end up in jail or, more likely, under some scientist’s knife once they realized what she really was.

Mama D shut out those dark thoughts and looked back over the crowd in the street. She sensed a powerful young pesh walking toward her and she felt her hunger rise in her chest. The crush of the crowd would make things easy for her. As she opened her eyes and spotted the young trick-or-treater walking her way she though that maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe Halloween was going to be fun this year after all.

May you read well and often