Tuesday 31 March 2015

Book Tour - The Accidental Wife by Simi K. Rao

About the Book:

From the author of Inconvenient Relations Simi K Rao!

If you enjoyed Inconvenient Relations, you'll love The Accidental Wife, a new contemporary romance from Simi K. Rao.

Some accidents are meant to happen…

Dr. Rihaan Mehta is a brilliant young neurosurgeon who has no inclination for love or marriage. According to him wives and girlfriends are annoying accessories that one can do without. But when his mother dangles the sword over his head in classic Bollywood style, he succumbs, and sets out in search of a bride who would fit his 'requirements'. But can Rihaan deal with what he gets instead?


Book Links:
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The Accidental Wife is now available on kindle for 99 cents Only! Go get it now as the offer is for a short period only !!

Excerpt:

PROLOGUE

“Another beer to calm the nerves?” A distant cousin who Rihaan had never the pleasure of meeting before, suggested with a knowing smirk.

This was followed by a loud burst of laughter. It was close to midnight, but the party had just begun at the usually serene Mehta abode in South Delhi. “Rihaan doesn’t need anything to cool him down. He’s going to be a full-on man tonight! Can’t afford to disappoint bhabhi, right?” This was promptly followed by another outburst of mirth.
Rihaan submitted to several friendly thumps on his back, returning them with the obligatory wry smile that could be interpreted any which way they desired. He didn’t care about their opinions.
It was true, he hadn’t let a single drop of alcohol pass through his lips. Not because he was anxious to perform well on his wedding night and impress his new wife. On the contrary, he wanted to keep all his faculties intact so he could confirm the suspicion that had been gnawing at his brain ever since the wedding ceremony. And with each moment that passed, his unease had grown steadily.
Unable to bide his time any longer, he stood up and went toward his room paying no heed to the numerous whistles and catcalls that followed in his wake.
Thrusting the door wide open he strode toward the marital bed. It was bare except for his bride’s wedding finery that lay in a neat pile in one corner. His heart now thudding at a frantic pace inside his chest, he scanned the vicinity, fervently hoping his concerns were for nothing.
He approached the wide open balcony door, and his pulse slowed down slightly. Perhaps he’d just been imagining it all?
A girl stood there leaning against the railing, her face upturned toward the full moon. On hearing him approach, she turned around. “Finally! I’ve been waiting like forever!”
He frowned, straining to decipher her features obscured by deep shadow. “Deepika?”
“Naa…, not Deepika.” She stepped forward into the light, a bright smile illuminating her strikingly graceful features.
His heart sank. Not Deepika.
“I am Naina—the girl you married. Goodbye, Rihaan.”

About the Author:
Simi K. Rao was born and grew up in both northern and southern India before relocating to the U.S., where she has lived for several years. She is the author of multicultural contemporary romantic fiction.
The inspiration for her books and other creative projects comes from her own experience with cross-cultural traditions, lifestyles and familial relationships, as well as stories and anecdotes collected from friends, family and acquaintances.
Rao enjoys exploring the dynamics of contemporary American culture blended with Indian customs and heritage to reflect the challenges and opportunities many Indian-American women face in real life.
Much of Rao's down time is devoted to creative pursuits, including writing fiction, poetry and photography. She is an avid traveler and has visited many locations around the world.
A practicing physician, Rao lives in Denver with her family. Her published works include Inconvenient Relations and The Accidental Wife. She is currently at work on her next release.

Contact the Author:
Website I Blog I Facebook I Twitter I Goodreads


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Sunday 29 March 2015

Book Tour - Defined by Others by MCV Egan


About the Book:


A word, a single word defines a moment for Anne. She needs to find a new one when her spouse leaves her at the age of 47, coming out of the closet literally in a closet. She finds herself back in her hometown amongst her high school friends which she left behind in her past.

An inheritance from a friend leaves her with the means to meddle and spy on the lives of some of their mutual acquaintances. In an attempt to run from her reality Anne gets engrossed in a game of "fun" and "flirtation" with her friend and fellow sufferer Connie at her side. Anne however did not read all the files and what to her is fun games turns into a deadly reality. It is no longer a game.

Life, death and not even a defining word can stop the reality of manipulation.




Buy Links:
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Character Sketches:

The characters in Defined by Others are predominantly women. They are all flawed and for the most part very superficial. Some of their flaws are surprising and others are logical. 
I chose women born in the year 1965, I did this to work with a play on Chinese Astrology.  I made them 47 years old as the book takes place in 2012, one of the characteristics of female snakes according to Chinese Astrology is that they are all very beautiful.

I wanted characters that were superficial and very worried about their physique and how others see them; thus being defined by the opinions of others.

The women have a connection as teens from growing up in the same affluent town in the American Northeast. The story is fueled by who they are at 47 and who they were at 17.

ANNE is one of the main characters and the story is told from her point of view, in her voice. She is fluent in many languages and loves words. She likes to define every moment with just one word. Her husband recently left her, and he left her broken and confused. Divorce is hard at any age, but divorce because the man you shared almost two decades with realizes he is gay must be brutal
Anne has a nice side, she is forgiving of her husband, she tries to get into his skin and appreciate that his confusion, she is still however so confused and vulnerable that when life presents her with a way to make other’s suffer as she has, she is pretty quick to grab it.
She has adolescent twins, she is however a very detached parent, as the story evolves she identifies that she continued the family pattern with which she was raised.
In the course of the story she has to make numerous life changing decisions. Anne is in a journey of self-discovery and she has likable and dark traits.

CONNIE is also a main character, she is curiously linked to Anne because her respective husbands have fallen for each other and left them. Connie has been carrying the pain and confusion longer than Anne. She is broken and lonely and in Anne she sees the possibility of a friend, ally or at the very least fellow sufferer.
Like Anne she does not blame the man who left her, and respects that as the father of her children, she needs to wish him nothing but the very best.
She loves to nurture and to cook. She goes completely against her nurturing nature as the story evolves, because she is so hurt, confused and unbalanced.
As much as Connie chooses to also manipulate those she sees as her foes, there is a very tender and likable side to Connie. She loves her children very deeply and is very lost when the main focus of her life changes; she was born to be the quintessential mom.

AMANDA is dead, during the entire story-line she manipulates with her legacy from the very grave. She was ravaged by an illness that magnified her negative traits, and if the other characters are to be believed there was nothing positive about Amanda.
As the story progresses I do give Amanda a background a reason to be so dark, I did so because otherwise the character would be too flat or cartoon like as an image of pure evil.
During her illness she devices away to be cruel and most involved with the women in her past and present. Upon her death (not a spoiler this is the opening of the book) she leaves her “game” to Anne, it is a game of manipulation and deceit through social media.

ALLISON is mean, she identified as Amanda’s mean girl side-kick but she too is a victim of the manipulation game. I have had readers contact me, and it is indeed Allison they seem to dislike the most, I did not feel a need to give her as much depth or an excuse for her nastiness, as she is a secondary character. I just wanted to show that although she is vulnerable, she is also a natural leader.
She is clever and assumes she is far cleverer than she really is. As I wrote Defined by Others I did want Allison to be a sort of live walking continuum to Amanda’s nasty side.

PETER is the only male in the story who is very present, the husbands are in the sidelines. Peter is a lawyer, he connects with Anne at the beginning of the book as Amanda’s lawyer. 
He is kind and understanding, he falls for Anne and he falls hard, he is also divorced and as such looking for a new way to fit in. He is not privy to Anne and Connie’s machinations, but he does suspect they are up to no good.
I wanted Peter to be a very easy man to love, intelligent, successful, and vulnerable. I had to make him vulnerable by having his ex drop him in a cruel and hurtful way. I made him Amanda’s reluctant lawyer so that he would be aware that Anne had inherited something odd and questionable from Amanda, I did not want to turn him into a detective, he needed some level of awareness to make him believable. 
I also had him fall in love with Anne, but fall in love with Connie’s cooking and thus forming a strong bond with both women.

MRS. G. (Anne’s mother) is a character that is as much represented by her dialogue and appearances throughout the story as she is by her “secret room”. Mrs. G. was a liberal adventuresome lady who is also defined by others, and as such she pretends to be as conservative as those who surround her world.

She has a special room, full of New Age Books and other secrets, she is as such very present throughout the story.

About the Author:

M.C.V. Egan is the pen name chosen by Maria Catalina Vergara Egan the author of The Bridge of Deaths and Defined by Others. Catalina is originally from Mexico City, Mexico. She has lived in France, Sweden and various parts of the U.S.A.
She has called South Florida her home for the last twenty-five years; she is a writer, a mother a wife and a pretty good cook.

Her first book The Bridge of Deaths is available in two different versions, her book Defined by Others is the first in a series Defining Ways exploring what makes us flawed and human.

Book two Climbing Up The Family Tree; Defined by Pedigree will be released in November 2015.





Contact the Author:





Saturday 14 March 2015

Garden by Jane Yates - Blog Tour


About the Book:

Inspired by the classic novel The Secret Garden, Jane Yates introduces us to a steampunk world of bio-domes, robots and mysteries. Eleven-year-old Aberdeen is so used to being by herself that all she has to fill her thoughts are stories of mighty dragons and grand castles. Aberdeen’s world is soon thrown into disarray however; her parents murdered.
Having no choice, Aberdeen is sent to live with her uncle back on Earth where her fascination into her new surroundings begin to take hold. Untrusting of new people at first, it isn’t long before Aberdeen comes across 3 other children, and taking a risk, befriends them as she tries to adjust to her new home. And yet, along with Maisy, Peter and Lenard, Aberdeen comes across a riddle – a set of clues to reveal the hiding place of a lost manuscript. A manuscript that forces more questions than answers.
Oh, and there’s Frank too, Peter’s robot dog, who completes this special circle of friendship.
Garden is a journey of self-discovery, of trials and friendship. With adventure boundless, Jane Yates follows up her acclaimed Paradox Child trilogy with a new tale for young fans of steampunk and science fiction.

Buy Links:
Amazon Kindle UK I Amazon Kindle US I Smashwords

Jane Yates Top 10 Facts 

1 – Jane first got into writing when she submitted a cartoon strip for publication at a local newspaper called Leys News. After finding encouragement from Sarah, the editor, Jane attended a short journalism course and embraced this new idea. The cartoon strip was about her (then) fat Spaniel dog called Mandy.

2 – Jane has Scottish ancestors, which influenced her decision into naming the central character of Garden – Aberdeen, in a nod towards them.

3 – Jane has three tattoos, including a large dragon on her back, which her son aptly named Midlife-Crisis.

4 – Jane is a firm believer in never becoming too old to try new things. She wrote a yearlong column for the Leys News entitled Life Begins at Fifty. For this, Jane tried a wide variety of activities: archery, indoor sky diving, sewing and writing a novel for National November Writing Month. Her first published novel Paradox Child was the result of this.

5 – Jane is also an artist, whose work has been featured in galleries as well as being bought by collectors. Some of Jane’s favourite artists are Vincent Van Gough, Picasso and Rembrandt. Jane also drew flower sketches for Garden, which in turn became the chapter headings in the book.

6 – Jane has three children, one of which, Emily, is a steampunk artist. It was Emily’s influence that steered Jane towards the increasing in popularity Steampunk genre. Jane recently co-hosted a Steampunk Tea Dance event in her hometown of Oxford for the release of Garden. There was dressing up in Victorian dress, Steampunk headgear as well as dance lessons, tea and cake.

7 – Jane is dyslexic, and a real advocate for supporting and believing in this to not stop children and teenagers following their dreams. There are two dyslexic characters in Garden for this very reason – it was important for Jane to show dyslexia in a more positive light. In fact, Peter has Numerosity – it has been recently defined as a sort of sixth sense. It is Jane’s understanding that very few books feature Numerosity, which highlights Garden’s unique vantage point.

8 – There are actually three mini stories within the story of Garden. Jane invented a device called the chapter machine, which not only tells stories and information, but records the stories of Aberdeen’s new found friend Maisy. A prince sets off to marry a princess, a tiger ponders the nature of humans and a poor father and daughter discover a magical ribbon. Did we mention flying fish, too?

9 – Jane is an accomplished academic. She has studied at various places and has qualifications in Archaeology and environmental science.


10 – Jane’s next book is called the Octopus Pirate, and is a steampunk time travel romp, influenced by the Fight Club film.

Garden - ART
 

 

Book Trailer:


About the Author:
Jane lives in the historic city of Oxford, England with her two spaniels. She works at the Pitt Rivers museum there too and is amazed and inspired by its wondrous array of objects. Being a museum of anthropology and world archaeology, Jane often finds herself influenced by its exhibitions. And indeed it has helped Jane write a trilogy for children – the Paradox Child series.
Jane is not only a mother, artist and storyteller, but dyslexic too, which only highlights her success even more. Jane refuses to allow the disorder to halt her dreams and continues to enjoy her favourite hobbies. Jane is a lover of steampunk, adventure and children’s stories, which often play a huge role in her own books.


Connect with the Author:
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Publisher:




Buy the Book at an 35% discount for the duration of the tour from SMASHWORDS using the code - EN36V