The Fulfillment Series

The Fulfillment Series

Friday, September 26, 2014

Book Blitz--Katie Carroll


I am so stoked to tell you about an excellent book by an amazing lady! Please welcome Katie Carroll and ELIXIR BOUND to the blog!


ELIXIR BOUND
YA fantasy
by Katie L. Carroll

Katora Kase is next in line to take over as guardian to a secret and powerful healing Elixir. Now she must journey into the wilds of Faway Forest to find the ingredient that gives the Elixir its potency. Even though she has her sister and brother, an old family friend, and the handsome son of a mapmaker as companions, she feels alone.

It is her decision alone whether or not to bind herself to the Elixir to serve and protect it until it chooses a new guardian. The forest hosts many dangers, including wicked beings that will stop at nothing to gain power, but the biggest danger Katora may face is whether or not to open up her heart to love.




Ebook on sale for $.99 until September 27:


Signed paperback giveaway on Goodreads until September 28: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15821579-elixir-bound


Teaser!!




About The Author

Katie L. Carroll began writing at a very sad time in her life after her 16-year-old sister, Kylene, unexpectedly passed away. Since then writing has taken her to many wonderful places, real and imagined. She wrote ELIXIR BOUND and the forthcoming ELIXIR SAVED so Kylene could live on in the pages of a book. Katie is also the author of the picture app THE BEDTIME KNIGHT and an editor for MuseItUp Publishing. She lives not too far from the beach in a small Connecticut city with her husband and son. For more about Katie, visit her website at www.katielcarroll.com and follow her on Twitter (@KatieLCarroll) or Tumblr.




The Prophecy's Cover Reveal!!!


It's COVER REVEAL day! Deek and I are way excited! Can you tell?? ;) 


Let me start off by thanking the AMAZING cover artist, Anita Carroll at Race-point! <BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE> She is just a pure T pleasure--sweetness and talent all wrapped up in one. Anita took all of my random musings and managed to create a cover that left me breathless. Truly breathless.

So....where is this mysterious cover for The Prophecy, you ask? It's available on THREE different sites! I encourage you to visit them all as each blogger has added his or her own flair to the delivery!


     Deek Rhew                                              Mary Waibel                                              Eric Price


What do you think?? Do you love it as much as we do??

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

12 Random Facts Part 2


As I'm moving my blog over to ErinRhewBooks.com, I see all the old 12 Random Facts posts that authors, bloggers, and friends did, and I realize I want to start that back up. So, I figured I'd kick off the game to remind people how to play and to give an example. I am FULL of random quirkiness and idiosyncrasies... If you're curious just how many, here is a link to Part 1


1) I am scared to death of fire. I don't even allow candles on birthday cakes in my presence. Yep, I'm starting this freak show off right. I'm also afraid of flying.  


2) I dyed my hair 15 different times my senior year of high school. Very soon, I will get purple streaks to celebrate the paperback release of The Prophecy. That will be the first time I've had a non-natural hair color in my life (with the exception of the accidental grape color I had when I tried to dye brown over blonde at home). 


3) I have been told I'll create a superbug with the amount of hand sanitizer I use. The funny thing is, I'm not a germaphobe. I just can't stand to feel like there is a film on my hands (you know, that griminess you feel after touching a cart), so that's why I use the santizer when there's no water around...

4) I'm sure this one will start a debate, but I prefer Coke over Pepsi. And I think I have a drink-crush on Coke. If Coke were a man, I'd be drooling. That's how much I love Coke...




5) I am a very anxious driver but a more anxious passenger. You don't want to drive me around if you don't have to. I think it stems from my teen years when I was in 8 accidents where other people were driving.


6)  I really hate to be cold...or hot. LOL! I need to live in a place that's about 70 all the time.


7)  When I'm really cold, I can't stop shivering or giggling...sometimes both at the same time.


8)  I really enjoy the movie Reality Bites, but I have absolutely no idea why.


9) I am left-handed, but I eat with my right hand. Unless I'm nervous, then I eat with my left hand.


10) Repetitive sounds, like smacking gum, make me see red. I think it actually raises my blood pressure!!


11) I never know what to do with my hands when I'm just standing around talking. I don't want to cross my arms because my non-verbal professor in college said that's a closed off stance. So, I usually fidget, stick my hands in my pocket, or twirl my rings. I'm not sure that's better than just crossing my arms...sigh.


12) I am the luckiest woman in the world because I have this guy right here...



Tuesday, September 23, 2014

KING OF BAD--Damaged Goods Blog Tour

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Hey everybody, my name is Kai Strand. I was unpacking books at a signing and came across a copy of King of Bad with a torn cover. Bummer. I can’t sell that! But my loss is your gain. Because I can hold a giveaway instead!

Along with a slightly damaged copy of King of Bad, I’m also giving away several sets of character trading cards. These cards have been specially designed for book one in the series. There will be a separate set of cards designed for each book – so be among the first to own a set.
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About KING OF BAD

Jeff Mean would rather set fires than follow rules or observe curfew. He wears his bad boy image like a favorite old hoodie; that is until he learns he has superpowers and is recruited by Super Villain Academy – where you learn to be good at being bad. In a school where one kid can evaporate all the water from your body and the girl you hang around with can perform psychic sex in your head, bad takes on a whole new meaning. Jeff wonders if he’s bad enough for SVA.

He may never find out. Classmates vilify him when he develops good manners. Then he’s kidnapped by those closest to him and left to wonder who is good and who is bad. His rescue is the climactic episode that balances good and evil in the super world. The catalyst – the girl he’s crushing on. A girlfriend and balancing the Supers is good, right? Or is it…bad?

Available in print or electronic: Whiskey Creek PressAmazonBarnes and Noble

Excerpt:

Jeff admired the growth of the flames as they devoured wads of paper and fast food wrappers in the wire mesh trashcan. He slipped the book of matches into his pocket and sat back on his heels to admire his work. One side of the can merely smoldered so he blew gently to fan the guttering flame. It reminded him of how blowing on Jasmine’s neck the night before had resulted in a lovely arch of her back. He growled a throaty sigh, remembering Jasmine’s blissful distraction as he’d nibbled her earlobe.

“ Hey!”

Jeff glanced over his shoulder. A man, who looked like he belonged behind a desk in a downtown high rise, jogged toward him.

“ Ah, the sweet sounds of discipline.” Jeff stood, stuffed his fists in the front pockets of his jeans and shook the long bangs out of his eyes. He half expected the guy’s slick-soled business shoes to slip as he jogged across visitor parking. This was Jeff’s favorite part. Almost getting caught. When the guy was a baseball’s toss away, Jeff turned. He walked a couple steps then skipped up into a jog.

“ Kid, stop!”

Jeff chuckled to himself and said, “Yeah, sure,” and loped across the soccer field.

“ Wait a minute.”

Jeff stole a look over his shoulder. The guy was close even though he didn’t seem to be running very fast. Jeff grinned at him and increased his pace. A seven-foot tall chain link fence ringed in the far side of the field to prevent stray soccer balls from breaking the windows of passing cars on the street below. Jeff leaped onto the fence without slowing down and in two cat-like movements, launched himself over the top. He dropped to the ground, landing on a hill pocked with gopher holes, as easily as if he were jumping around in a bounce house. He smoothly transitioned back into a sprint and dashed across the street, startling a lady driving an SUV.

“ Kid, hold up.”

Jeff almost tripped; the guy was half way across the street already. He smirked, finally a decent chase, but not for long. With little effort, Jeff stepped up to a blurring speed. He dashed up a peaceful street that ran perpendicular to the school, where kids rode bikes and ran through sprinklers. Jeff recognized one of the “good” kids from school, washing a ’57 step-side Chevy.

“ Sweet ride,” Jeff called out. The kid looked up at him, but then snapped his head to the left. That guy cannot be that close! Jeff looked over his shoulder to find the guy was only a house length behind him. Holy crap, Batman. No one ever keeps up with me!

For the first time in a long time, Jeff worried. But only a little. With a deep, fortifying breath he pumped his thigh muscles harder. He whizzed past houses so fast he doubted anyone would be able to describe him if they were asked to later. Tears streamed sideways from the force of the wind his speed created. He’d only started to breathe a bit more heavily than normal. Jeff was built to run.

“ Kid, hold on just a second.”

Jeff stumbled, but regained his footing again before becoming road rash. The guy sounded as if he was only a bus length away. How can that be? No one runs as fast as I do. Jeff’s lungs constricted. An alien emotion, panic, budded in his chest. Stay focused. Controlled, deep breaths allowed calming oxygen into his lungs and up to his brain and Jeff’s airways opened fully again.

Real speed required concentration. Jeff concentrated on his thigh muscles. Usually he only bothered to think about the front muscles in order to ignite his unusual speed, but this time he thought about the sinewy, sleek muscles that wrapped gracefully around the larger front muscles. He envisioned how the smaller muscles provided strength and support to the larger working muscle. He pictured that strength extending into his gluteus maximus to sustain a strong stride. The resulting speed was completely inhuman.

Reviews:I loved the world building! It made me wish I was part of it. Strand does a fantastic job of making the world of King of Bad seem like it's a real thing. -Heather

King of Bad sucks you in from the first page and doesn't let you go. I couldn't put it down! –Amazon Review

About Kai Strand

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When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died. The end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers and short stories for the younger ones, Kai entertains children of all ages, and their adults. Learn more about Kai and her books on her website,www.kaistrand.com.

GIVEAWAY!!

ENDS IN
10days
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15hours
256total entries
0/60entries earned
  • Signed copy of King of Bad (w/torn cover :( ), set of KoB trading cards
  • 10 sets of KoB trading cards
Log in to enter this giveaway.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Survival Colony 9--Joshua David Bellin

Guys and Gals, I have the distinct pleasure of hosting my friend Josh, otherwise known as The YA Guy! He's here to discuss his debut novel, Survival Colony 9, which releases TOMORROW! Woot! So read up about his amazingness and get yourselves a copy! 
Fourteen-year-old Querry Genn's world is a desert where small groups of survivors struggle against heat, starvation, and the creatures known as the Skaldi, monsters that appeared on the planet after war swept away the old world. Suffering from amnesia brought on by an accident, Querry struggles to recover the lost memories that might save the human race. But the Skaldi are closing in, and time is running out on Survival Colony 9.

In this excerpt, a scouting party investigates the western desert, where the colony has been driven following a Skaldi attack. There they find an abandoned settlement. Through Querry’s eyes, we meet some of the novel’s main characters: the commander of Survival Colony 9, Querry’s father Laman Genn; Laman’s second-in-command, Aleka; and Querry’s nemesis, Yov. We also hear rumors of the Skaldi, who are an ever-present threat in this world.


The trucks crawled up the hill, coughing and wheezing, pulled up on bare dirt and stopped with a squeal. My dad, moving faster than I’d seen him move in weeks, jumped down from the cab. He took a long look at the place, hands on hips, nodding slowly. Then he turned to us.

“Who found it?” He directed his question at Aleka, but I could tell he hoped the answer was me.

“Yov,” she said. “The kid’s got eyes like a hawk.”

My dad stepped over to Yov and reached up to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder. Yov had a calm look on his face, like he was saying, “hey, just doing my job,” but I knew I’d be hearing about this later. From both of them.

“Good work,” my dad said.

Sure enough, Yov looked sidelong at me and smirked.

“We’ll have to double-check,” my dad said. “Aleka, have your team sweep the perimeter. Querry,” he signaled. “Get over here.”

While Aleka and the others fanned out to circle the compound, I accompanied him to the interior, near the crater. For an hour he had me get down on my hands and knees to peer in the dust for signs of Skaldi. He’d taught me how to detect their presence, but it’s not easy. When they leave a body behind, there’s nothing much to see. Emptied, like a sack of skin.

He kept up a running commentary as I crawled around in the dirt searching for evidence. “It doesn’t have to be much,” he reminded me. “Scraps, flakes. Teeth. Anything they might have left behind.”

“What about this?” I lifted a long, thin strip of some translucent material from the floor of a ruined house.

He scrutinized it. “I don’t think so. Bring it back, though. I’ll have Tyris take a look at it.”

Eventually we came to the very lip of the crater. He considered sending me down inside, but the walls fell away steeply and the rock looked precarious. He made me hunt around the edge anyway.

“Seems clean,” I told him when I was done.

“Check again,” he said.

I dropped to the dust and searched once more for signs I couldn’t see.

We strolled back to the others when he was satisfied with my inspection. “Something about this place,” he said. “Familiar. Like I’ve heard someone talk about it before.”

He shook his head, remembering, not remembering. He’d told me stories about what cities used to look like, with shining towers of steel and legions of cars streaming down the avenues. But he’d never seen one himself, not that he could remember. Only the old woman had, and the holes in her memory gaped as wide as the cracks in the houses that were left.

When we returned to the others, I could feel the anticipation in the air. No one budged, but all eyes zeroed in on him.

“Aleka,” he said. “Report.”

“No sign,” she said. “And Laman—there’s food.”

The magic word shivered through the crowd. His face remained composed, but I saw his eyes light up. “Where?”

Aleka led the two of us to the structure farthest from the nucleus of camp, a windowless square of gray cinderblock overlooking the hill’s eastern edge. My dad said it looked like a bomb shelter, but even if bombs had been flying or Skaldi breathing down our necks, there was nowhere near enough room for our whole camp. Probably it had belonged to a single family in the time before. It seemed to be the only building in the compound with working locks, two in fact, one in front and one on a trapdoor that led to a basement level. But the doors stood open, the deadbolts sprung. A flight of rickety wooden stairs led below. And in a corner of the basement, on the packed dirt floor, sat a pyramid of wooden cases filled with rusty metal cans.

“You’re sure it’s edible?” my dad asked, holding one of the cans up in the glow of Aleka’s flashlight.

“According to Tyris, properly canned goods have an effective shelf life of forever,” she answered. “But Laman. . . .”

He lowered the can. “I’m listening.”

“It might be best to take what we can carry and go. I’m not—comfortable here. We’re exposed. There’s only one way out. If they were to block the road. . . .”

“Not their typical behavior,” he said. “And you told me the perimeter’s clean.”

“So far as we can ascertain,” she said. “But this room—I suspect it’s been looted.” She shone her flashlight on the floor, revealing parallel tracks where cases had been dragged. “We may not be the only colony to have visited this place.”

“And the ones who beat us to it are plainly gone,” he replied. “Driven away by Skaldi, most likely. Leaving nothing but food the Skaldi won’t return for.”

“Unless they return for us.”

SURVIVAL COLONY 9 is available now from Simon & SchusterAmazon,Barnes & NobleIndieBound, select Wal-Mart stores, and other online and physical retailers!

About me:

I've been writing novels since I was eight years old (though the first few were admittedly very short). I taught college for twenty years, wrote a bunch of books for college students, then decided to return to fiction. SURVIVAL COLONY 9 is my first novel, but the sequel’s already in the works!

To connect with me and learn more about SURVIVAL COLONY 9, check out the following links:

Website
Twitter
Facebook
Blog
Goodreads

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Coming soon!

Very shortly, this website blog will go inactive, and I will move over to www.erinrhewbooks.com! I hope you will pack your virtual bags and follow me on over.

Why the change? Love, my friends. This man right here...
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Comments

09/22/2014 8:36am
Oh, Erin, I am beyond honored! I am honored to be taking your name as my professional one and as the man in your life. I love you, sweetheart.

Thank you for taking this journey with me!

Friday, September 19, 2014

Where is THE PROPHECY?

 
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Yep, adding silly pictures of myself just for the fun of it. ;)
So, you may have notice that The Prophecy is nowhere to be found right now. What happened? Where did it go? And more importantly, when can you get it again? Well, you can receive all those answers here! Woot!
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The fan caught my hair on this one. LOL!
The Prophecy has a new home with BookFish Books!!!!!!!!!!!!! It will be receiving a new cover (that is TOTALLY amazing), created by the wonderful Anita at Race-Point! AND, I am getting a new name as well! I am linking myself permanently to the dashingDeek Rhew, so I will become Erin Rhew! 


To recap: New home, new cover, and new author name! <happy dance>
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I *may* have been told a time or two that I have big, expressive eyes... ;)
So here is the rundown of events:

-The Prophecy ebook will be re-released on October 1 (new cover and author name as Erin Rhew)



-The Outlanders (sequel to The Prophecy) ebook will be released on Oct. 21 (that's also my parent's anniversary--squeal).


-The Prophecy will be released in paperback in time to coincide with the 1 year anniversary of the original release on November 15. 

-The Outlanders paperback will release either the same day or shortly thereafter. 
I am TOTALLY stoked, and I hope you are too!

**If you left a review for me on Amazon the first time, would you be so kind as to leave it again when the new Prophecy comes online? A million thanks!*
 


Comments

09/19/2014 12:46pm
Erin, I am so beyond proud of all your hard work and this amazing series of books you're putting out. The writing is phenomenal and you finally have a cover that will give it the credit it deserves. There are so many things happening at once, but you've handled it all with grace and dignity.

As for permanently linking yourself to this Deek Rhew fella, well that just makes my heart triple-beat for happiness! Thank you for being part of my life, Erin. You and I making "us" is the best thing to ever happen to this ol' boy. I love you! :-)

09/20/2014 1:08pm
Congrats!! I wondered when you'd jump to your own house :) Looking forward to your new release, and let me know if I can help in any way!!

09/21/2014 4:32am
Wow, lots of stuff happening all at once! It's fun, huh? I hope all goes well, and if you need a place to land for a cover reveal, interview, book spotlight...whatever, you know where to find me. I'm always willing to help out a fellow author, especially a friend. :)

Michelle :)

Bestselling author of PODs, available now!
Finding Willow, a prequel, available October 3, 2014
Unspeakable, available February 10, 2015
Milayna, available March 17, 2015
Milayna's Angel, available, March 31, 2015
The Innocent, available, April 7, 2015
The Infected, a PODs sequel, TBA, 2015