Tag: bbnya

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Rise of Riverstone – Mandy Schimelpfenig

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

She was forced to watch her world burn.

They should have killed her when they had the chance.

Praed is a country of vast prairies and looming mountains where the elite make their homes along a mighty river. For hundreds of years, to wear the crown is to tempt fate, for in Praed, any man may become king if he’s strong enough.

Laria Audrey lives in privilege as the daughter of a famous knight, until one night she’s ripped from her bed to find that her entire life has gone up in flames. Forced to serve those responsible, Laria pretends to be deaf and mute to survive. But when days turn to weeks, Laria loses hope of awakening from the nightmare and must admit she’s truly alone.

When her sworn enemy approaches her with a shocking proposition, Laria must decide if she’ll resign herself to misery or become the hero she never believed she could be.

CW: This book contains references to sexual assault.

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Mandy received her B.S. in Zoology from Washington State University and an A.S. in Veterinary Technology from St. Petersburg College. Clearly her life goals were not geared toward a career as an author. She is a Certified Veterinary Technician specializing in small animals. When she’s not saving lives, she’s weaving tales of strong women using their intelligence to pursue incandescent happy endings. The Rise of Riverstone is the debut novel in her medieval historical fantasy series, Daughters of Riverstone. She lives on the Washington Coast with her husband and their four children. Besides leaning uncomfortably over a computer screen, Mandy enjoys camping and hiking with her family, reading, and wearing out her dogs on the beach.

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Raven Tower – Emma Miles

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

How much would you sacrifice to save your people? Your freedom, your home … power … love … your life?’

Four lands beneath the sky. A haven of peace, a kingdom of plenty, ravaged islands, and a nation of cruel, dark magic. One will try to devour them all.

Spring brings the ruthless Borrow raiders much earlier in the year, their attacks more ferocious, more desperate. When Kesta uses her magic to see in the flames who is really behind the raids the Independent islands of the Fulmers seem doomed to fall. Their only hope is to cross the sea to seek the help of the King of Elden and his dangerous sorcerer, the Dark Man; but what price will the king demand for his aid?

Wild Kesta has been raised to be a leader, trusted, loved, with the freedom of her cherished Islands. Can Kesta subdue her fiery nature and work with a man she hates, a man she fears, to stop the evil that will consume their lands and enslave them all?

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I often get asked when I knew I was a writer; the answer is always. A writer is what I am, it’s in my soul. There have been times in my life when I couldn’t write, and times when my writing has been the only thing that kept me going. I think I always longed for something deeper from life, something more meaningful, and I found it in my imagination and in the music of words.

It was poetry which first caught my attention, and whilst my younger cousins called for ghost stories it was animals I first wrote of. I think I gravitated toward fantasy because of the freedom it gives, I could create my own worlds and decide my own rules. My Wind’s Children trilogy was born from an image that came to me whilst daydreaming, of a young man sitting alone below a bridge. I didn’t know who he was; it turns out neither did he, but we found out together. 

I’m now working on my seventh book and love writing more than ever, it’s an addiction, an obsession, but one I now share with my wonderful writing family. My beta readers, my editor, and you, my readers, having you with me on my journey means the world to me. 

I write as much as I can around work, but I also try to squeeze in a ridiculous amount of hobbies! I’m a wildlife photographer and do a little archery. I paint, sculpt with clay, withies and driftwood, preferring to be outdoors if I can. I still have a love for the theatre, having started out in life studying backstage crafts, and a great love for language. I speak a little French, Romanian and Italian, ma non molto bene!

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Rarkyn’s Familiar – Nikky Lee

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

An orphan bent on revenge. A monster searching for freedom. A forbidden pact that binds their fates together.

Lyss has heard her father’s screams; smelled the iron-tang of his blood. She’s witnessed his execution.

And plotted her revenge.

Then a violent encounter traps Lyss in a blood-pact with a rarkyn from the otherworld and imbues her with the monster’s forbidden magic. A magic that will erode her sanity. To break the pact, she and the rarkyn must journey to the heart of the Empire. All that stands in their way are the mountains and the Empire’s soldiers—and each other.

But horrors await them on the road, horrors even rarkyns fear. The most terrifying monster isn’t the one Lyss travels with…

It’s the one that’s awoken inside her.

Monsters of a feather flock together.

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Nikky Lee is an award-winning author who grew up as a barefoot 90s kid in Perth, Western Australia on Whadjuk Noongar Country. She now lives in Aotearoa New Zealand with a husband, a dog and a couch potato cat. In her free time she writes speculative fiction, often burning the candle at both ends to explore fantastic worlds, mine asteroids and meet wizards. She’s had over two dozen stories published in magazines, anthologies and on radio.

Her short fiction has been shortlisted six times in the Aurealis Awards with her novelette Dingo & Sister winning the Best Young Adult Short Story and the Best Fantasy Novella categories in 2020. In 2021, she received a Ditmar Award for Best New Talent. Her debut novel The Rarkyn’s Familiar won the 2023 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Youth Novel, three 2022 Indie Ink Awards, Bronze in Young Adult Fiction at the 2022 Foreward INDIES Book of the Year Awards, and was a finalist in the 2022 Aurealis Awards for Best Young Adult Novel.

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Point Where the Ocean Ends – Siobhan Murphy

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Fate can conspire to put two people in the exact right place at the exact right time. And just as easily it can tear them apart.

As winter turns to spring on the North Cornish coast, Kerensa O’Connell receives an unexpected message relating to a passionate relationship from deep in her past. A message which stirs up vivid memories, and threatens to derail the comfortable life she has created for herself after years of drifting.

While the world is forced to press the pause button, Kerensa battles both mental and physical health issues and has no choice but to slow down and confront the demons that have plagued her throughout her life.

Simultaneously unfolding over a few months and several decades, the story moves from the windswept plains of East Africa to the stunning islands of the Great Barrier Reef, the tranquil mountains of the Himalayas, and the bustling cities of Europe. Kerensa confronts happiness and heartbreak through the lens of her camera and her connection to the people she loves. Piecing together her memories of love, loss, and adventure, she starts to make sense of the choices she has made and question the internal chaos that has always defined her.

Finally the secret she has been kept buried for years comes to light and Kerensa must decide once and for all what she is looking for from life and whom she wants by her side.

An unforgettable love story about wanderlust, heartbreak and colliding life paths.

A lyrical meditation on the importance of our memories and a reminder that sometimes, letting go of the past can take a whole lifetime.

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Siobhan Murphy a contemporary women’s fiction writer based in the UK. Over the years she’s drifted around the world in search of adventure, hoping to figure out what to do with her life. She is not sure if she’s found the answers, but loves to learn and has always wanted to write books.

As an impulsive and easily bored individual with hundreds of ideas spinning around her brain on any given day, she has turned her hand to many jobs over the years. Her favourite job was as a bookseller for Waterstones, recommending books to customers and applying those 3 for 2 stickers that people find so hard to remove. For the last 17 years she has been a professional photographer, taking portraits of humans – often the really, really small ones.  

She is unable to use 3 words where 300 will do and suffers from a condition called Pareidolia, which causes her to see faces in everyday objects. Her hobbies include eating sweets, talking nonsense and walking into rooms wondering why she is there.  She overthinks everything so will no doubt keep deleting and re-writing this bio for the forseeable future. 

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Phoenix and the Sword – J C Snow

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Cursed with immortality and destroying fire, Aili Fallon will cross life and death to find the truth.

Aili is desperate.

Determined to escape her past, the young woman refuses to let anything impede her training as a combat nurse. But when the woman she loves binds her with blood and disappears, Aili is transformed into a magical killer, a blood-bound healer, an immortal being.

Gambling with her own existence, she crosses through phoenix gates into a new world. But when she is reunited with her lost love, she learns they have been pawns in an ancient game of immortals, the keystone in a demon’s curse.

Will Aili’s newfound power and the secrets of her past destroy her, or can she and her lost phoenix unravel the binding of life and death?

The Phoenix and the Sword is the first book in the Crane Moon Cycle, a queer epic fantasy novel set in a world of spiritual powers, past lives, and beings of myth and legend. Unexpected, multilayered, and beautiful, The Phoenix and the Sword begins a tale of love and adventure that crosses centuries and worlds.

***

The Crane Moon Cycle is set in a world that includes war and violence, and themes that may be difficult for some readers. Please see the author’s website, jcsnow.carrd.co, for list and details.

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J. C. Snow (she/her) is a queer fantasy author. Her fantasy worlds are inspired by diverse historical and cultural settings, and her stories always center queer characters. She holds a PhD in Religious Studies from Columbia University and has written extensively on religion and race in American history, including a book on religion and early Asian immigration to the United States. She lives with her amazing partner and child in the Bay Area. When not writing she is mostly wishing she could be writing, or wandering around unsupervised at night listening to spotify character playlists.

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Only Exception – Claire Huston

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Lucinda Green knows something is missing from her life. But what? Her catering business is enjoying modest success and she loves her cosy house, even if she does have to share it with her irritating ex-fiancé.

Whatever’s making her unsettled and edgy, Lucinda’s certain that a lack of romance isn’t the problem. How could it be when she doesn’t believe in true love?

But Lucinda’s beliefs are shaken by a series of electric encounters with Alex Fraser, a newly notorious actor who gradually proves himself to be infuriatingly funny and smart, as well as handsome.

Not that any of that matters. Because Lucinda doesn’t believe in all that ‘The One’ nonsense. That’s the rule.

But doesn’t every rule have an exception?

A sweet, slow-burn romcom perfect for fans of Portia MacIntosh, Trisha Ashley and Kathryn Freeman. This standalone, grumpy-sunshine romance is part of the Love in the Comptons collection.

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Claire Huston lives in Warwickshire, UK, with her husband and two children. She writes uplifting modern love stories about characters who are meant for each other but sometimes need a little help to realise it.

As well as her website, clairehuston.co.uk, you can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok: linktr.ee/clairehuston_author

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Lost Sentinel – Emma L. Adams

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

They say the country of Zeuten no longer has any need for heroes.

Quests have been completed, the great Powers have withdrawn from the world, and the Sentinels

who guard the last Relics are largely forgotten. Unlike their neighbours in the country of Aestin, whose Invokers wield the magic of the deities in exchange for glory and prestige, they leave the gods alone, and the gods extend the same courtesy to them.

When Zeuten’s last Sentinel disappears, Zelle, her granddaughter, intends to track her down. Instead she runs into an Aestinian stranger with no memories of his past, who claims to be looking for a long-lost Relic hidden in the mountains by the first Sentinels. To Zelle, the rumours of lost Relics are just stories told to trick gullible travellers, but the hordes of enemies on the stranger’s tail suggest otherwise. Armed with nothing but her grandmother’s sentient (and temperamental) magical staff, Zelle finds herself tasked with keeping them both alive.

Between monstrous beasts, magical storms, and an enthusiastic but inept aspiring assassin and her dragon sidekick, Zelle has her work cut out if she wants to survive long enough to save her grandmother and prevent the destruction of a nation.

Maybe Zeuten is in need of a few heroes after all…

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Emma L. Adams spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy novels. She has a BA in English Literature with Creative Writing from Lancaster University, where she spent three years exploring the Lake District and penning strange fantastical adventures.

Now, Emma lives in the middle of England and is the international bestselling author of over 50 novels including the world-hopping Alliance series, the urban fantasy Changeling Chronicles series, and the fantasy adventure Relics of Power trilogy. When she’s not immersed in her own fictional universes, Emma can be found with her head in a book, playing video games, or wandering around the world in search of adventure.

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Ghosts in the Flames – Seann Barbour

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

For centuries, the Four Kingdoms have lived in fear of the dragon Raksen-Kal, who roosts upon the peak of the Black Mountain. To satiate his hunger, a noble maiden is sent to the dragon as tribute every Autumn, with each of the kingdoms trading off the duty of sending the sacrifice year by year.

Shivuri is the youngest princess of Endaru, the smallest and poorest of the Four Kingdoms. Today, her cousin is sent to the dragon, and in four years’ time, she will be as well.

As the day of her death draws ever closer, the young princess seeks solace in darkness, and explores the forbidden art of witchcraft. In doing so, Shivuri learns of secrets that would once have filled her with terror– and of freedom that she never before could have imagined.

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Seann Barbour is a writer of fantasy and horror who resides in Virginia. When not reading or writing, he’s usually either playing games, working with dogs, or spending time with his girlfriend. You can find him on Twitter at @SeannWritesStuf, Instagram at SeannWritesStuff, Bluesky at seannb.bsky.social, and Tumblr at AMonsterOnMapleStreet

blog tour, books

BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Flaws of Gravity – Stephanie Caye

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

The existence of tequila is at stake. Oh, and humanity too.

Half-Faerie Jude’s been playing both sides of a supernatural cold war. While collecting a paycheck from the Consilium for fighting against the Faerie Court, she’s also helping her friend Aubrie search for illicit magic behind their backs. Aubrie wants more than magic, though, and when Jude finds herself pitted violently against her human colleagues on his behalf, he lets her take the fall.

Now she’s got enemies everywhere. Before she can cut and run, preferably to a warm, sandy beach somewhere in the vicinity of “The Hell Away from This Mess,” a shady group of Faeries steps in. They want her to steal the spell Aubrie’s searching for, that would give him the power to merge the human and Faerie worlds and control both. In return for Jude’s help, the Fae promise her freedom and safe, anonymous passage to her chosen sandy paradise.

There’d better be one hell of an umbrella drink waiting.

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Stephanie Caye grew up in Michigan wanting to be a famed, reclusive novelist.

Then she moved to Texas, got a job in tech, started volunteering with shelter cats and dropped both “famed” and “reclusive” from her childhood dream.

She now lives in Montreal–happy to have four seasons again–still working in tech, still volunteering with cats, and still writing.A former recipient of a University of Michigan Hopwood award, her urban fantasy novel The Flaws of Gravity was published in 2022. The sequel comes out this fall.

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BBNYA Semi-finalists: The Crew – Sadir S. Samir

ramblingmads

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Kings of the Wyld meets Deadpool in this action-packed fantasy adventure set in an Arab-inspired landscape.

Varcade fled to the deserts of Harrah to escape his past as an Educator, a member of an order of zealot warrior-monks that aims to shape the world according to their sacred Teachings by force. Varcade makes his living as a reckless sword-for-hire, caring only about himself, until his self-centered lifestyle is turned on its head when he is contracted to recruit a misfit team of unruly assassins and take out the mighty Bone Lord of Akrab.

But the Bone Lord is aware of the plot and sends her band of Dusters to stop them; individuals who have gained bizarre and lethal magical powers by snorting the pulverised bones of dead gods. Hunted by Educators and Dusters in a city-state where an escalating conflict between the human and demon population threatens to boil over in a civil war, will Varcade and his ragtag crew save Akrab from the cruel Bone Lord, or will they make things even worse?

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SADIR S. SAMIR spent his first years in the Middle East before moving to Sweden. A passion for storytelling manifested early in childhood, and he always knew that would be his guiding light in life growing up. That passion eventually led him to the video game industry where he’s been working as a game writer and a producer for over a decade. Now he lives in the medieval city of Uppsala, where he writes tales of the fantastical and bizarre.