Tag: dream

Fantastic Hope laurell K Hamilton and William McCaskey

I have had the pleasure of getting an advanced reader copy of Fantastic Hope, the new paranormal anthology that was released on April 7, 2020. This arc was provided via Netgalley, the best place for reviewers and avid readers to get and review new books.  This anthology is a great way to be introduced to a wide variety of authors and writing styles.  You may just buy it for one author and find a whole new library to read during this uncertain time.  With a wide variety of bestselling authors this anthology has a lot of bang for your buck.
While I could go crazy with this book review and write pages upon pages and bury you in paper, time is at a premium.  This anthology is a great way to get acquainted with a number of authors and their writing styles.   You may buy it for the latest in one series and end up with a new series to read, to love, and maybe even obsess about.  These authors each have unique backgrounds and those backgrounds inform each story with details that will delight readers,   .  Rather than going through each story and providing spoilers that might make longtime fans and new readers alike angry, I will cede this space to a part of the Foreword and the words of the editors.
“It’s a place where the hero wins, the bad guy is punished, and the monsters are only real while you’re reading the story. You can close the covers and be safe. Unlike the real terrors of the world online and in the news lately…welcome to a collection of stories where you can find hope, happy endings, loyalty, freedom, love, all the positive things that make the best of us. Welcome to thrilling adventures and a modern take on two-fisted adventure stories…Have faith in yourself, in the people who love you, in magic, in religion, in Deity, in science, and in things harder to label with just one word. Believe that there will be smiles after the tears, joy after the pain, and that it will all work out, that good will triumph and evil will not win forever…You’re holding people’s dreams in your hands, dreams made real for you to read and share. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.”   Laurell K Hamilton
“Laurell is a big proponent of people doing their therapy and working through their shit. We sat over lunch and talked about the depressing stories that seemed to be everywhere, in the news and in fiction, and lamented that there weren’t more uplifting stories…  Laurell and I are both survivors and we know that the world is not all unicorns, rainbows, and glitter. but we also know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that the darkness can be pushed back, even if it starts with a spark….I hope that in this book you find a story that speaks to you that reminds you that tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities.” William McCaskey
Believe again.  Dream again.  Know that you have the power to do the impossible and conquer your demons.  Start a new relationship with favorite authors and new voices.  Start here.

#netgalley #LaurellKHamilton #FantasticHope #lkh #AnitaBlake #WilliamMccaskey #vampirehunter #supernatural #JonathanMaberry #Sharonshinn #LarryCorreia #KaceyEzell #griffinBarber #GriffinBarber #KevinJAnderson #JohnGHartness #PatriciaBriggs #RobertEHamilton #LEModesittJR #PatrickMTracy #MCSumner #MichealZWilliamson #JessicaSchlenker #MonaLisaFoster #Zombies #ghosts #necromancers #magic #vampires #witch #JoeLedgerRogueTeam #JoeLedgerRogueTeamInternationalAdventure #TwilightFalls #NotInThisLifetime #MrPositiveTheEternalOptimist #NoGreaterLove #BrokenSon #HeartofClay #Reprise #AsilandTheNotdate #inthedust #Fallen #workingConditions #lastContact #Ronin #skjolmodir #bondsofloveandduty #zombieDearest #donShambleZombiePI #MercyThompson #AlphaandOmega #MonsterHunterInternational #grimnoirchronicles #deadsix #SagaoftheforgottenWarrior #DragonAwardwinner #quincyHarker  #sagaofrecluse #militarythriller #romance #paranormalromance #urbanfantasy #newsfromtheedge #geeks #doctoriteinwhat? #gunsmith #shapeshifter #anthology #shortstory #novella #whattodowhenunderquarantine #Stuckathome #booktoread #lateststory #apocalypse #magic #dreams #hope #sciencefiction #fantasy #horror #betterfuture #betterpresent #happyending #magicalthinking #dragon #dystopian #goodconquersall #heros #villians #impossible 

Why I Read… And Who I am Reading…

I am a reader. The thought of going without my books is inconceivable. For the most part, I have my favorites, books that are a comfort no matter what my life throws at me. When I was little, the books were something I needed. I travelled with a copy of “Little Women”. Jo and Beth, Meg and Amy were very real to me. I read that book until it literally fell apart – but it did not matter since they became a part of my brain. I know that they came from another persons brain. I know how much they meant to me. But it wasn’t just them. It was Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking and Cutter and Leetah. It was Amelia Bedelia and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and a magical doorway to Narnia that kept my imagination in thrall. It was the thought of Tesseracts and the pagentry of fantasy novels and the words of a bard. Its the words of Elizabeth Dickinson and the words of Keats. And, slowly, it became what was the fabric of my life. The threads I can remember, as well as the ones that I didn’t incorporate into my world view.
As an adult, I read everything and found myself finding more companions. Around other things that happened in the real world, there too were the characters of Anne Rice, Nora Roberts and Guy Gavriel Kay. And something amazing came from the books. It was friends who were only a few pages away. They were never too busy. It was the knowledge that, just by reading a book 📖, I could recapture where I was when I read it the first time as well as some of the minutia I had missed the first time around because I wanted to know what happened. Knowing what happened meant I could pay more attention to the characters that were secondary. And, there were times in my adult life when I had to read those treasured pages one word at a time. It was harder that way.
All of this was a little bit away from my main point. I said I was a reader and I am. It means that I escape into those other worlds and learn the rules… Whether it is based on mythology or vampires, society or shapeshifters it gave me an escape and a place to hope and dream about, while my body betrayed me. I also, somewhere along the way, developed a rule that if I started a book, I finished it. And, then, I found myself feeling a drive to finish a series, even if it wasn’t up to my standards. But, I started this blog to highlight one of my favorite authors and the two heroines of her novels. Karen Chance reminded me why she held a place among my favorites with Dragon’s Claw. It’s the latest release of the Dorina Basarab plot line which is a companion to the Cassandra Palmer series. I realized that I had missed Dory and Marlowe. And, reading it, I felt that excitement that comes from a new adventure and some old friends. I cannot wait for the next story.
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Celebrate women on International Women’s Day

Today is supposed to celebrate women around the world… And it’s a tough time to be a woman but hopefully we can make it a better world for our daughters… I have a dream of a world where women don’t have to work twice as hard for equal pay, where paternity leave is as common as maternity leave, and where women are celebrated for the fact that they give life and aren’t told that math and science are too hard to worry their pretty little heads about. A world where people look back in amazement that in 2018 1 in 6 women have survived an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes… And to honor all that I hope you watch one of my idols and a person who inspires me…

https://youtu.be/ffb_5X59_DA

If you don’t have the time to hear it live maybe the transcript will speak to you

I am a nasty woman.

I’m not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust. A man whose words are a distract to America; Electoral College-sanctioned hate speech contaminating this national anthem.

I am not as nasty as Confederate flags being tattooed across my city. Maybe the South actually is gonna rise again; maybe for some it never really fell. Blacks are still in shackles and graves just for being Black. Slavery has been re-interpreted as the prison system in front of people who see melanin as animal skin.

I am not as nasty as a swastika painted on a pride flag. And I didn’t know devils could be resurrected, but I feel Hitler in these streets—a mustache traded for a toupee; Nazis re-named the cabinet; electro-conversion therapy the new gas chambers, shaming the gay out of America turning rainbows into suicide notes.

I am not as nasty as racism, fraud, conflict of interest, homophobia, sexual assault, transphobia, white supremacy, misogyny, ignorance, white privilege.

I’m not as nasty as using little girls like Pokémon before their bodies have even developed.

I am not as nasty as your own daughter being your favorite sex symbol—like your wet dreams infused with your own genes.

But yah, I am a nasty woman?!

A loud vulgar, proud woman.

I’m not nasty like the combo of Trump and Pence being served up to me in my voting booth.

I’m nasty like the battles my grandmothers fought to get me into that voting booth.

I’m nasty like the fight for wage equality. Scarlett Johansson: Why were the famous actors paid less than half of what the male actors earned last year?

See, even when we do go into higher paying jobs our wages are still cut with blades, sharpened by testosterone. Why is the work of a Black woman and a Hispanic woman worth only 63 and 54 cents of a white man’s privileged daughter?

This is not a feminist myth. This is inequality.

So we are not here to be debunked. We are here to be respected. We are here to be nasty.

I am nasty like the blood stains on my bed sheets. We don’t actually choose if and when to have our periods. Believe me, if we could, some of us would. We don’t like throwing away our favorite pairs of underpants. Tell me, why are tampons and pads still taxed when Viagra and Rogaine are not? Is your erection really more than protecting the sacred messy part of my womanhood? Is the blood stain on my jeans more embarrassing than the thinning of your hair?

I know it is hard to look at your own entitlement and privilege. You may be afraid of the truth. I am unafraid to be honest. It may sound petty bringing up a few extra cents. It adds up to the pile of change I have yet to see in my country.

I can’t see. My eyes are too busy praying to my feet hoping you don’t mistake eye contact for wanting physical contact. Half my life I have been zipping up my smile hoping you don’t think I wanna unzip your jeans.

I am unafraid to be nasty because I am nasty like Susan, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Amelia, Rosa, Gloria, Condoleezza, Sonia, Malala, Michelle, Hillary.

And our pussies ain’t for grabbin’. Therefore, reminding you that are balls are stronger than America’s ever will be. Our pussies are for our pleasure. They are for birthing new generations of filthy, vulgar, nasty, proud, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sheikh—you name it—for new generations of nasty women. So if you [are] a nasty woman or love one who is, let me hear you say, “HELL YEAH!”

I am a survivor in many ways. I’m a survivor of rape and the fact that just typing those words made me pause and wonder how my friends will take that admission and feel even the slightest bit of shame, tells me how far we have yet to go…

Please help me make a world where women are celebrated… And one(ok it’s really two) last thing to inspire you… Have you heard Patrick Stewart speak on violence against women? I was a trekkie (always gonna love me some star trek the next generation) but I fell in love with the person behind my favorite captain when I heard his response at comicon take the time to watch these speeches… It is time well spent

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Review Of Karen Chance’s Ride the Storm

I have long been a fan of Karen Chance’s body of work.  I am a loyal fan and have remained undaunted in the face of all the machinations of the publisher and publishing machine.  Karen Chance has long kept the faith with her readers.  She often offers free stories that add to her published works to create a more complex, multifaceted and fulfilling world in which all her novels take place.  Readers who only read the novels from the publishing house lose a lot of the details and the joy of seeing the characters in multiple lights.  All that being said, Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer novel Ride the Storm has been one of the most anticipated novels in my memory.  This is not the fault of Karen Chance and that cannot be said firmly enough.  The publishing house has been moving dates on this novel for over a year with little to no explanation.

The previous book, Reap the Wind was judged too long by the publisher when submitted by the author.  This led to a quick rewrite and the split of the book almost in half.  This also left an unfulfilled feeling at the end of Reap the Wind.  Many plotlines were left hanging, which left some readers unhappy and the continuous manipulation by the publishers with moving dates and little communication lost even more of the fan base.  Ride the Storm is the second half of the previous book with a little bit of newer information which furthers the plot of the Cassandra Palmer novels.

I was recently asked by a friend to explain the Cassie Palmer novels and I drew a bit of a blank—how do you explain such a complicated and multifaceted storyline as the one Karen Chance has created?  I told her she just needs to read it and we will talk about it once she has.  To say that all of the Cassie Palmer novels are fast paced is kind of like saying a quadruple shot espresso is a little bit energizing.  These books move along at a frenetic pace and always have plot twists that are unexpected to say the least.  It is impossible to have predicted where the main characters end up at the beginning of this book, let alone at the end of the book.

So much happens in this book to move the plot along that after reading it 3 times, I am still finding new details to enjoy.  This is not a book to start when you have a deadline coming up or really anything planned.  Depending on your reading speed and availability, you should plan to be unavailable until you can finish the book.  This is not one you are going to want to put down as there are no really good stopping places.  My recommendation is to start it on a Friday so you can have the weekend to take a break from reality and a trip into the Cassandra Palmer universe.

This book brings resolution to a lot of the ongoing plot lines that readers have been gnashing their teeth to know.  We find out why MIrcea is so interested in Pythias.  We get to see Pritkin rescued.  We get to see Cassie find her feet and establish her own space independent of all the forces tearing at her. We learn more about Cassie’s parents.  Dorina and Cassie finally meet. We go careening through the story and learn so much along the way that it’s hard to even begin to summarize it so I am not going to even try.   Despite this, there is a seeming resolution to the love triangle between Cassie, Mircea and Pritkin but it is open ended enough that I see it more as an affirmation of the fact that Cassie has complicated emotions and feelings for both men.

This book is a solid addition to the Cassandra Palmer world and yet leaves a lot of storylines open for more exploration.  It is my sincere hope that Karen Chance continues to publish Cassandra Palmer books for a very long time.  In order for that to happen, fans have to not only buy this book, but review it.  Talk about it with friends and build it up so that the publishers contract with Karen Chance for more Cassie Palmer books.

I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/

In the interest of full disclosure, I received an ARC ebook in return for this review.






Ride the Storm Book Cover




Ride the Storm




Cassandra Palmer





Karen Chance





Paranormal




Berkeley




August 1, 2017




606



The New York Times bestselling author of Reap the Wind returns to the “fascinating world”* of Cassie Palmer. Ever since being stuck with the job of pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world, Cassie Palmer has been playing catch up. Catch up to the lifetime's worth of training she missed being raised by a psychotic vampire instead of at the fabled pythian court. Catch up to the powerful, and sometimes seductive, forces trying to mold her to their will. It's been a trial by fire that has left her more than a little burned. But now she realizes that all that was the just the warm up for the real race. Ancient forces that once terrorized the world are trying to return, and Cassie is the only one who can stop them...

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Review of Amy Lane’s Rampart Volume 1 — Yay Cory’s Back!

Format: Kindle Edition
The book picks up pretty much where we left off in Bound. There is an odd news story and they send Teague with Mario to check it out. Unfortunately, what they find is a zombiefied Bear which follows them home to the Hill. After a comical battle, in which the fae get their pound of flesh by throwing Bracken at it, they go down and find a young girl who was brutally raped and turned into a vampire and then abandoned. She did what lots of vampires do and returned to her family and brutally killed them. She them started killing wild animals for companions and then trying to convert them so she would have friends. Cory and the Dream Team bring the little vamp back to the hill, but have no choice but to keep her locked in the vamp proof rooms. They trace the pedophile to Redding and go to find out what the heck is going on…and find themselves trapped in a sitcom. Like, really-everything that can go bizarre does! And with this crew thats quite a bit of WTF to try to manage…






Rampant, Volume 1 Book Cover




Rampant, Volume 1




Little Goddess





Amy Lane





Paranormal Romance




DSP Publications; 2 edition




e book




https://www.amazon.com/Rampant-Vol-Little-Goddess-Book-ebook/dp/B01LW8X5KJ/ref=pd_sim_351_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=7HQC62EF4FZHTK4QDJ0K#customerReviews



2nd Edition

Little Goddess: Book Four
Vol. 1

Lady Cory has carved out a life for herself not just as a wife to three husbands but also as one of the rulers of the supernatural communities of Northern California—and a college student in search of that elusive degree. When a supernatural threat comes crashing into the hard-forged peace of Green's Hill, she and Green determine that they're the ones in charge of stopping the abomination that created it. To protect the people they love, Cory, Bracken, and Nicky travel to Redding to confront a tight-knit family of vampires guarding a terrible secret. It also leads them to a conflict of loyalties, as Nicky's parents threaten to tear Nicky away from the family he's come to love more than his own life.

Cory has to work hard to hold on to her temper and her life as she tries to prove that she and Green are not only leaders who will bind people to their hearts, but also protectors who will keep danger from running rampant.

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Review of Amy Lane’s Rampant Volume 2 : Chaos, War, Grief, Love and a human bimbo who won’t accept no for an answer…

 
Format: Kindle Edition
So, we left off with our Dream team rather desperately listing Good things, because everything seems to be going WEIRD. Nicky’s Parents have brought the Bimbo from hell to be the replacement for Cory and Cory is trying to stop EVERYONE from killing her! They finally figure out who is the cause of the WTF and boy is it a shock. It’s a child of chaos and man. Unfortunately that means that hes a chaos magnet…but now they can manage it. Cory finds the Vampire in charge to have been a good man put in a bad position-but that quickly changes when the people he asks to take care of the pedophile decide it would be easier to just get rid of Green! Let’s just put that in the bad idea category, shall we? And Cory finds herself facing the kind of grief that swamped her after Adrians death and that just ain’t gonna happen. Green survives, although it scares the hell out of everyone. Green is also dealing with a slimy reporter who thinks hes found the story of the century with the existence of the fae. And it all goes downhill from there. You will have to read it to find out what happens from there…






Rampant, Volume 2 Book Cover




Rampant, Volume 2




Little Goddess





Amy Lane





Paranormal Romance




DSP Publications; 2 edition




e book




305




https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M1C29R3/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

Little Goddess: Book Four
Vol. 2

Lady Cory has carved out a life for herself not just as a wife to three husbands but also as one of the rulers of the supernatural communities of Northern California—and a college student in search of that elusive degree. When a supernatural threat comes crashing into the hard-forged peace of Green's Hill, she and Green determine that they're the ones in charge of stopping the abomination that created it. To protect the people they love, Cory, Bracken, and Nicky travel to Redding to confront a tight-knit family of vampires guarding a terrible secret. It also leads them to a conflict of loyalties, as Nicky's parents threaten to tear Nicky away from the family he's come to love more than his own life.

Cory has to work hard to hold on to her temper and her life as she tries to prove that she and Green are not only leaders who will bind people to their hearts, but also protectors who will keep danger from running rampant.

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Shiloh Walker’s Pieces of Me

Book Review of Shiloh Walker’s Pieces of Me

I am a huge fan of Shiloh Walker.  I have been for a very long time, so when I
heard about Pieces of Me I got excited.
I love all of Shiloh’s series and had read a good number of her other
works.  The great thing about Shiloh’s
work is that even within the same genre each story is unique.  Shiloh is able to really encapsulate the
feelings of her characters and this book did not disappoint.   If you like romantic suspense novels, this is
definitely a great read.  This book has
graphic sex and violence against women.
While the heroine does a great job being a survivor, it could be
upsetting to those who have experienced abuse.

You have the main
heroine, Shadow Grace-A woman who has been broken so completely she doesn’t
know how to survive.  She struggles to
make a life for herself while recovering from a traumatic experience that makes
Russian prison camps look nice.  Yet, as
broken as she may be, she clings to her art and has the talent to bring beauty
into an unforgiving world.  Shadow isn’t fully
healed but every day she is getting stronger and she dares to reach by starting
to fantasize about a guy she sees on the beach regularly.  Shadow barely dares to dream about a man, but
for some reason, this one-well he sticks in her brain.  And he doesn’t come out easy, even when
fantasy starts to merge with reality and they meet.

The hero of our story seems perfect in so many ways.  Strong, supportive and a little bit dark with
a body that doesn’t quit, Jenks seems like the perfect man.  As they start to build something together, he
doesn’t fall apart when Shadow starts the revelation process, in fact he seems
to stick a little harder.  But he has a
secret and once it is revealed-well things are not quite as simple as they
first seem.

Of course, the past comes back to haunt Shadow and not only
Jenks but some of the other friends she has made find themselves in
danger.  While Shadow know just how sick
and depraved people can be, others doubt that it could have really been that
bad.  When the past swallows all of them
whole, only a few will have the chance to survive.  And after that—life will never be the same.

Shadow manages to rebuild herself and truly become strong,
facing not only her past but her present and deciding that she deserves more
than what Jenks can give.  But when her
past still threatens her, she finds that safety can be found in a strong
partner and Shadow has to decide whether to stand on her own or chance being
hurt again.








Pieces of Me





Shiloh Walker





July 25, 2017

Obsession can be deadly... Nobody knows that better than Shadow Harper. It seemed like a dream come true when a rich, suave older man noticed her during her second year of college. Stefan Stockman seemed to love her obsessively. He came into her life and swept her off her feet, seduced her, married her...and then slowly, eventually, that dream come true became a living nightmare. Now, three years after she finally escaped him, she's trying to put her life back together. Haunted by memories, struggling with post-traumatic stress, she spends most of her time locked away in her home on Pawley's Island, a small town on the South Carolina coast. Her rare moments of joy come from her trips to the nearby beach. She compulsively checks the locks on her doors, makes sure she has her cell phones--five of them--and if she misses something on her schedule, it throws her into a panic. When she accidentally leaves a sketchbook on the beach, an anxiety attack seems imminent. Her art has become her salvation, her sanity, and losing even one sketch is like losing a piece of her soul. When she returns to hunt for the sketchbook, already fearing it's gone for good, she's surprised to find it still sitting there, saved by a sexy fellow beach lover--the mysterious Dillian Jenkins. He's brash, bold, brutally handsome...and gentle. He's the exact opposite of the man who'd tormented her for years, and Shadow finds herself slowly, almost reluctantly, falling for him. Even obsessing over him. When her ex-husband once again intrudes on the happiness she's finally discovering, Shadow turns to Dillian. But will she find shelter there...or another betrayal?

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Good Rules of Thumb

skip-beat-manga:

KyokoRen Week 2017 | Day 7 – Smile

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain

live,laugh,love

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In the Old Language, he said, “ Wherever I go, you shall ne’er be far from me. Wherever I sleep, you shall be beside me. What I eat, I shall share with you, and when I dream, we shall be together once again. My love, you are not gone from me ever, and I shall not take another. Till the very night I die .”

JR Ward, The Chosen 
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I want a love that defies the universe. I want Joscelin Verreuil storming La Dolorosa prison just for love. I want to have someone with me to travel to the southern tip of Africa in search for the Name of God. I want to be there, weeping, when in every language that name translates to Love. I want Imriel de la Courcel to think he is a completely different person. Travel through Empires to retrieve and convince his love Sidonie de la Courcel that she is under a spell. To get her to trust him and fall back in love with him even though he doesn’t know himself. I want Bao to travel to the feet of the Falconer and his bewitching Spider Queen demanding the release of his love, Moirim. I want him to crumble when thinking she is dead. To overcome the false lust and influence of opium when he learns the truth of her life. I want a love that will live throughout time and create legends.

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