The Legend of Black Jack By A.R. Witham #Blogtour @arwitham @The_WriteReads #TheWriteReadsOnTour #Fantasy #YoungAdult

Today I have a spotlight for The Legend of Black Jack. Thanks to The Write Reads for inviting me to spotlight this fantasy for 13 to 18 year olds. Find out more below…

#1 New Release in Teen & Young Adult Norse Myths & Legends
Prepare to be whisked away to another realm in this epic fantasy adventure, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust characters or Patrick Rothfuss’s prose in The Name of the Wind.

Jack Swift can remember anything—even the horrible things he’d like to forget. To keep his guilt-ridden memories from haunting him, and to dodge his abusive foster mom, he buries himself in any book he can find, dreaming of his ultimate escape: becoming a doctor.

But fate has another escape in mind.

At 3:33am on his fourteenth birthday, Jack is kidnapped by a monstrous rhinoceros and whisked away to another sphere of existence: the land of Keymark. Though this world is filled with pixies, monsters, pirates, elves, warriors, and all sorts of mythical wonders, it is without healing magic—that magic was stolen by an evil, immortal prince hell-bent on domination. With no understanding of medical science to heal their wounds or illnesses, Jack’s kidnappers ask the impossible of him: use his knowledge to save a life…or be trapped in this bizarre world with no chance of rescue.

Jack doesn’t have secret magic, a great destiny, or any medical experience.

Why do they all expect him to become a legend?

They say he was an outsider. A man with no home, no family, and no friend to call his own. The man with nothing left to love. The empty man.

They say he talked to animals. They say he traveled between worlds. They say he killed a god, and they may be right. He prowled the border between light and dark. He beat the devil himself with a walking stick. He healed a thousand people in a single day and killed a dragon the same midnight.

They say there was a woman. They say he died for her. No one knows the truth.

Those are the legends about him.

If you want to know the truth I will tell you.

About the Author

A.R. Witham is an Emmy-winning writer who has written for film, television, and books. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and son, who is the reason Black Jack is being published (he’s just old enough to read it). He has hiked the Appalachian Trail, canoed to the Arctic Circle, and been inside his house while it burned down. This is his first fantasy novel.

#Review By Lou of #YA duology #BetterTogether Series – Being Is Better and Beyond Invisible By Marjorie Jackson @aurorapub #YA #MarjorieJackson #BeingIsBetter #BeyondInvisible

Being Is Better and Beyond Invisible
By Marjorie Jackson

I have a review encompassing what is a duology of books for Young Adult readers, which are best read one after the other. The first is Being is Better and the second is Beyond Invisible. The books encompass themes of epilepsy, family circumstances, loneliness, new-found friendship and coming-of-age. Find out more in my review. At the end of this I have included a blurb.
Thanks first to Pam Labbe for the opportunity to review.

This is a dual series for Young Adults. Both books would work okay as stand alone, but I’d recommend they are read together as this is how the story has been plotted. They are about Amber and Missy, in which the chapters in both, alternate between each other.

Amber suffers from epilepsy and Missy is struggling to come to terms with her brother dying in Afghanistan arms is a carer to her depressed mum.

There is an introduction to how the author was inspired by her own daughter’s epilepsy in the first book – Being Is Better.

Life can be a struggle for Amber and her epileptic seizures leave her exhausted, but then there is a new doctor on the scene, so all readers can do is hope that this doctor can help.

The book also highlights the issue of loneliness in teenagers, which both Amber and Missy, who become friends are also suffering from, even though they come from very different backgrounds. It’s an important issue to highlight as still, people perceive it to be mostly older people who get lonely, and yet it is endemic amongst all age groups. The book speeds up once a positive vibe of friendship begins and the pace, I felt was right as it matches the changing circumstances well, carrying readers on to see other aspects of their lives, including friendship, develop.

Being Is Better strongly establishes the characters and readers can enjoy getting to know their situations and finding out what happens when their worlds collide.

Beyond Invisible carries on with their story, moving forwards. There’s rocky relationships between Missy and her father that emerge. There is not only her dad she has been summoned to meet, but it comes with meeting his new girlfriend.

There’s also more burgeoning friendship between her and Amber and teenage hormones and moods and first love and a whole gambit of emotions and having to deal with the many situations life throws at them.

These are two excellently written books for the Young Adult market and will be relatable to so many as well as stories just to purely enjoy and take away whatever aspects they desire.

Being Is Better blurb

Fourteen-year-old Amber has battled medical challenges – specifically epilepsy – her whole life. Due to her physical limitations, she has no friends, but does her best to trudge through each day with a smile.

Fellow “middle-school senior” Missy has struggles of her own. Following her brother’s death in Afghanistan, her father uprooted them from everything familiar, only to divorce Missy’s mother and move away, leaving Missy friendless and angry, forced to care for her deeply depressed mother.

Two girls with different pasts, both fighting loneliness.

Can they learn to overcome life’s struggles and tragedies? Can they find each other and battle teen awkwardness together?

#Extract of Rising Star by Michele Kwasniewski @MicheleKwas @RandSmithBooks @RandomTTours #YA #RisingStar

Rising Star
By Michele Kwasniewski
Extract/Excerpt

Today I am pleased to show you an extract/excerpt from Rising Star, thanks to Random TTours Rand-Smith Books and Michele Kwasniewski for providing the passage.
I will also say that Rising Star is an interesting sounding book that looks at the price of fame and fortune, which is a highly fitting for today’s society of young adults. Find out about the author, the book and then discover an extract from it to get your reading eyes going.
Readers… meet Dani Truhart

About the Author

The author, Michele Kwasniewski, is an entertainment industry insider who has seen what the Hollywood machine can do to people – having worked for many years in film and television production on such films and TV shows as Primal Fear, Independence Day, Evita, Face/Off, Big Brother, and many TCL, HGTV, and Discovery series including: Meet the Pandas, Adoption Story, Wedding Story, and Extra Yardage.

With her book, she shares the glamour and excitement of fame as well as the hard work it takes to achieve success and the price of living life in the public eye. Everyone wants to be famous, but most people have no idea what that really means. Michele has seen it firsthand. She is an active member of the Producers Guild of America.

Blurb

What’s the Price of Fame?

In the first book in THE RISE AND FALL OF DANI TRUEHART series, RISING STAR, fifteen-year-old Dani Truehart is living a life that is not quite her own. Driven by her mother’s desire for fame and fortune, she has spent her childhood dutifully training for a career as a pop star. On the brink of discovery, doubts begin to creep into Dani’s mind as she questions her own desire for fame, and she wonders whether she can trust the motivations of the adults who are driving her forward.

Following a brilliant audition arranged by her vocal/dance coach and former ’80s pop icon Martin Fox, Dani is thrown full-force into the music industry. She leaves her friends, family and scheming mother behind to move with Martin, who has become her legal guardian, into the Malibu compound of her new manager, Jenner Redman. Jenner, the former swindling manager of Martin’s boy band, leverages what’s left of his depleted fortune to launch Dani’s career.

Isolated from her life at home and trying to stay apace with her demanding schedule, Dani struggles to keep in touch with those she loves, connect to her withholding mother and find her voice as an artist. With Martin and Jenner at odds over their rocky past and finding herself unprepared to handle the pressures of her future singing career, Dani’s debut album and future stardom are at risk of falling apart.

Extract/Excerpt

Sean, the lights, and the gym quickly dissolve into my shrieking

alarm clock and my equally grating mother yelling my name. I roll over groaning and blindly striking out for the clock, knocking odds and ends off the nightstand. A final violent swipe turns off the alarm. I pry open my eyes. It’s 5:12 a.m.

“Danilynn Marie Truehart, get up this instant! Don’t make me walk up those stairs and get you, girl.”

I pause for a second, wondering what evil I’ve done in my past life to deserve such torment in this one. Jodi Truehart is her own special brand of torture. Some days it’s all I can do not to either burst into tears or erupt in a tirade of swear words. My mother never stops. She is unrelenting, unforgiving, and utterly determined to make me into a star.

Sighing as I haul my bones out of bed, I remind myself that if I’m really that miserable, I could make the endless lessons and rehearsals stop. My mother is all about the bottom line. If there’s any chance she won’t receive a big payoff after all these years of pushing and spending, she’ll cut her losses and turn her maniacal stage-mother- ing skills to some other money-making prospect. She’d probably just have another baby. I chuckle to myself…third time’s a charm, right?

Grabbing the stack of workout wear on the dresser, I stumble down the hall to the bathroom. My father is shambling up the stairs from the kitchen, a steaming mug of coffee in hand.

“Sorry about all the noise, Dad. Guess I overslept.”

He shakes his head. “No worries, Marie. I had an early meeting any- way.” He blows me a kiss and continues down the hall to the master bedroom.

My dad is the only one who calls me Marie. I’m named after his mother, who used to visit us a lot when we were younger. We used to hang out at her house all the time, and she used to bake the best cakes ever. But there was some sort of falling out between her and my mom, and we stopped going to see her. No one ever mentions it, and I’m too scared to ask what happened. Though I haven’t seen her in years, I always think of her when he calls me “Marie.”

“Where’s my apology, superstar?” Geena appears in the doorway of her darkened room, arms folded across her t-shirt, her blonde hair tousled. She smirks and gives me a playful slap on the butt as I pass. “Better get in that shower.” Geena puts her hands on her hips and wags her finger at me in a perfect imitation of our mother’s Texas twang, “Don’t make her walk up those steps and get you, girl.”

I groan. “God, you’re lucky you’re the smart one! If you’d been able to sing, maybe they’d have stopped at one kid, and I’d be blissfully unaware up in the stars somewhere.”

“You make your own luck, sis, believe me.” Geena winks at me and disappears into her room.

#Bookreview by Lou of Thick and Thin by Upasa Borah @CherryPublishi2 #UpasaBorah #YoungAdult #YA

Thick and Thin
By Upasa Borah

Older young adults/teens and 20 somethings will discover characters in Raumah who have issues to overcome and there is also some lust and a lot of fists flying and other elements of action with family ties, romance and discovery. Find out more in the blurb and review.
Thanks to Cherry Publishing for gifting me the book to review

Blurb

In Raumah, a city where wealth and familial ties rule all, the four Kings of Raumah walk a path seemingly paved in gold.
Duante, the protector. Strong, amiable and desperate to keep his loved ones out of harm’s way.
Drayden, the golden boy. Smart and resourceful, heir to the country’s largest and most influential business empire.
Shohei, the celebrity. Delicate but determined, this fabulous fashion icon is the darling of Raumah.
Aqil, the prodigy. Truly gifted and academically dominant, but is it earned or is it his family ties that are the key to his successes?

Everything on the surface seems picture perfect, but dark secrets lie hidden behind the
frame. When Duante’s past comes calling, the Kings’ world is thrown into chaos.
Faced with the ghosts of his bloody past, Duante’s hard-earned freedom is put in jeopardy, just as Shohei’s love is put to the test. Drayden’s ruthless determination is usually his strength, but this time, will it blind him to what’s right? Can Aqil, the trailblazing son of the Faiz family, face his fears, before the fire burns him alive?
Facing their fears is no easy task, will they bow under the pressure or come out stronger than ever?

Themes: Family Ties, Friendship, Love, Lust, Identity, Self Discovery, Self Acceptance
Genre: Action – Romance, Queer Young Adult Fiction

Review

Thick and Thin gets off to a strong start. There’s Duante, the protector, Drayden, the golden boy and heir to the country’s largest and most influential business empire and Shohei, the celebrity who is a fashion icon. It’s identifiable to Young Adults. Loki also pops up.

The chapters present themselves as Acts, which adds some intrigue as does the four kings and the characters surrounding them. That makes it sound almost fantastical, but really there are just some average lives too, with pop culture and bookish references, such as Justin Timberlake and Harry Potter. It also has powerful messages about bullies and handling them.

The book is about identity and trying to accept who you are and makes me hopeful that people will become happy in their own skin. There’s also friendships embraced and characters like Aquil who just want to be included in plans. This is so relatable for the Young Adult audience with its powerful themes.
It also delves into darker sides of society, such as gun culture. I think there is a lot that young adults will find thought-provoking and some they may debate.
There is also part where Aquil has got powerful family ties who are influential, for readers to see if Aquil is working on own steam or if the family has a hand in things, such as a scholarship reward.

There is the occassional bit of humour of the teenage/young adult life. There is also a lot of that teenage angst, as well as a film of sadness going across it.

There is teenage lust amongst a couple of the characters, who pine after each other at certain points and some elements of self-discovery and mostly it is done well.

As much as it isn’t quite the page-turner, it is something that young adults can get their teeth into and to see who comes out of it all well. This would be good for older teens and 20 somethings.

About the Author

Upasa Borah (also known by her pen name glassEyed) is a 21 year old dreamer from a land of rivers and hills, called Assam, in India. Aside from writing stories, she dabbles in poetry and performance art. She is a spoken word poet who has been active in the slam poetry circuit in Delhi, as well as in her hometown, as a
featured performer, organiser and judge. A believer of magic and collector of stories, she loves
meeting new people and finding inspiration and muses in the mundane.

A #Spotlight into What Beauty There Is @coryanderwrites #YA #Teens #Thriller #TheWriteReads #TheWriteReadsOnTour

What Beauty There Is
By Cory Anderson
Spotlight

Something sinister and exhilerating is coming to the Young Adult book market… What Beauty There Is, is published by Penguin Random House UK on 8th April. It’s going to be one heck of an amazing ride, not for the faint-hearted!!! It has an all immersive atmosphere that will have you hanging in there for the duration of the book. It’s like hearing and seeing everything in 4D in your mind. It will set your pulses racing and eyes glued to every page! You will want to know what happens next this thriller that depicts beauty and brutality. This has a dark, intense grittiness within it as it poses the thought-provoking question of “How far will you go to protect your loved ones…”
This is a new thriller older teens and young adults will get much reading pleasure from.
What Beauty There Is, is a fast-paced, well-written thriller from Cory Anderson, who is a winner of the League of Utah Writers Young Adult Novel Award and Grand Prize in the Storymakers Conference First Chapter Contest. What Beauty There Is, is her debut novel.
Find out more in the blurb below.
In April, I will be back with a full review of this Thriller of a book!
Thanks to The Write Reads for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

Blurb

An exhilarating, emotionally impactful and superbly written thriller with the atmosphere of Winter’s Bone and the compulsive reading experience of Karen McManus.

Winter. The sky is dark. It is cold enough to crack bones.

Jack Morton has nothing left. Except his younger brother, Matty, who he’d do anything for. Even die for.

Now with their mother gone, and their funds quickly dwindling, Jack needs to make a choice: lose his brother to foster care, or find the drug money that sent his father to prison.

But in the harsh, isolated landscape of the mid-Rockies with winter approaching, it isn’t easy. And soon Jack realises he’s not the only one on the hunt . . .

An unputdownable thriller about how far you’ll go to protect those you love.

What Beauty There Is is Cory Anderson’s YA novel about brutality and beauty, and about broken people trying to survive—perfect for fans of Patrick Ness, Laura Ruby, and Meg Rosoff.

The Cauldron of Life by Caroline Logan @bearpuffbooks @cranachanbooks #Lovebookstours @lovebooksgroup #CoverReveal #BlogTour

The Cauldron of Life
by Caroline Logan

Today is an exciting Cover Reveal Day for Scottish author Caroline Logan’s young adult book – The Cauldron of Life, published by Cranachan Books.
In my opinion it looks magical and full of mystique, from the font to the wolf. It’s certanly eye-catching. Take a further look to see the cover for this new book in full and also for further details about the blurb, the publishing date and about Caroline Logan.
Thank you for the invite to be part of the blog tour.

Blurb

Join the journey; discover your destiny.

Harris has been captured by the Faerie Queen and Ailsa must journey once again into the heart of Eilanmòr to rescue him.

But Ailsa is struggling with her newfound magic and the revelations about her real identity. Is the Faerie Queen Ailsa’s mother? Is everything she believed about her past a lie?

Meanwhile, a war is brewing between Heaven and Hell, with the world as the battleground. The lines between good and evil are blurring, and Ailsa must decide where she stands.

Publication date: 1st October 2020

978-1-911279-52-5	The Cauldron of Life	Paperback
978-1-911279-53-2	The Cauldron of Life	ebook

About the Author

Caroline is a high school biology teacher who lives in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, with her fiancé. Before moving there, she lived and worked in Spain, Tenerife, Sri Lanka and other places in Scotland. She graduated from The University of Glasgow with a bachelor’s degree in Marine and Freshwater Biology. In her spare time, she tries to ski and paddleboard, though she is happiest with a good book and a cup of tea.

Caroline Logan is a writer of Young Adult Fantasy. Her debut novel, The Stone of Destiny, is the first in The Four Treasures series, and the much-anticipated, The Cauldron of Life, will be the second.

Instagram: @bearpuffbooks

Twitter: @bearpuffbooks