I am very excited to let you know that my publisher, Booktrope has entered into a new business relationship with Amazon, beginning with a mutual licensing deal that deepens ties with Amazon to a much more significant degree.
Digital versions of a select number of Booktrope titles will be reissued under Amazon Publishing as e-books under Amazon’s imprint while still crediting Booktrope, which is very cool for all parties concerned. Paperbacks are unaffected. This licensing deal directly impacts me because my tango mystery Dead on Her Feet was selected for this opportunity. I have no idea what the criteria was but I am peeing in my pants with excitement (can I say that, oh yes I can) to have been included.
Check out the most recent wave of the titles Amazon selected – maybe you’ll find a new author or two. There are short blurbs about each book, along with the author websites, so you can parse through them and decide which to read first.
I am so honored to be part of the Booktrope community and thrilled to have my tango mystery included in Amazon’s program. I’ve known about this for quite a while but was asked to hold off on making any announcement until all the proper authorities had been notified. As I am terrible at keeping secrets – and keeping my mouth shut generally – I am happy to be able to break the seal of the confessional. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Please share with your book loving friends!
Lisa
The Paragraph Ranch – Kay Ellington, Barbara Brannon
EVERY WRITER KNOWS YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN. But that’s just what is required of West Texas expatriate Dee Bennett-Kaufmann when her mother is badly injured in a mysterious car accident.
Single-again “Dr. Dee” has never been on the “A-team” in her trendy East Coast MFA program. When a prestigious summer fellowship gives her the chance to finally finish her book, salvage her career, and spend some quality time with her college-age daughter — Dee’s certain her luck is about to change. Returning to care for her irascible, widowed mother threatens all of that.
With so much at stake, Dee engineers a series of unorthodox strategies and creative tradeoffs to keep her options in play—and despite herself finds friendship, love, and the power of words in the unlikeliest of places.
Autumn Getaway – Jennifer Gracen
Author Jennifer Gracen brings together a colorful cast of friends and family in Book One of the Seasons of Love series, Autumn Getaway. Newly divorced mom Lydia is just getting back on her feet. Her college roommate’s wedding promises a much-needed getaway weekend with old friends, at a beautiful manor in Connecticut.
When she meets Sam, a handsome friend of the groom, she’s nearly overwhelmed by a confusing mix of hope and trepidation. Their instant connection feels intensely real, to both of them, but the ink is barely dry on her divorce decree. It takes all her nerve, and more than a little prodding from her girlfriends, to convince Lydia to give her heart — and Sam — a chance. But when the magical weekend comes to a close, Sam must return to Chicago, while Lydia heads back to her complicated life and young son in New York. Can their newfound connection survive the trials of physical distance and years of emotional baggage?
Written with an appreciation for the day-to-day struggles of a newly single mom, Autumn Getaway explores the burdens and blessings of family, revels in the spirit of friendship, and celebrates the power of romance and hope as Lydia and Sam take a second chance at love.
Waiting for You – Heather Huffman
For years, Karise McAlister has been running: from her family, from herself, and from her dreams. Now she’s made it, with a successful career and a promising engagement. But when she meets the compelling and creative Aidan Donnelly, his down-to-earth charm provides the wakeup call Karise badly needs. Moving across country to start over, Karise devotes herself to her work, convinced she needs to be independent. But with handsome Aidan just down the road and a mischievous group of friends determined to set her up, Karise must face her concerns about life and romance head-on.
Running Secrets – Arleen Williams
http://arleenkaywilliams.blogspot.com
In RUNNING SECRETS, flight attendant Chris Stevens is bent on self-destruction until she meets Gemi Kemmal, an Ethiopian home healthcare provider. Gemi and Jake, a paramedic, help Chris heal from and confront her difficult past, and regain a passion for living. In the process, Chris and Gemi forge an unusual friendship that bridges cultural, racial and age differences. Their friendship gives both women the support each needs.
Gemi comes to question restrictive traditions dictating her immigrant life, such as the headscarf she’s worn since entering puberty and the celibacy she’s practiced since the brutal death of her husband and infant in the violence that destroyed her homeland and family. Chris uncovers family secrets that challenge everything she’s ever known to be true.
Together the women learn that racial identity is a choice, self expression is a right, and family is a personal construct.
Please, Pretty Lights – Ina Zajac
It’s September when good girl Via Sorenson stumbles into a Seattle strip club, drunk and alone on her twenty-first birthday. Matt and Nick—best friends, bandmates, and bouncers—do their best to shield her from their sadistic cocaine-trafficking boss, Carlos. They don’t realize her daddy issues come with a forty-million-dollar trust fund and a legacy she would do anything to escape.
She is actually Violetta Rabbotino, who had been all over the news ten years earlier when her father, an acclaimed abstract artist, came home in a rage, murdered her mother, then turned the gun on himself. Young Violetta was spared, hidden behind the family Christmas tree, veiled by the mysticism of its pretty lights whose unadulterated love captivated and calmed her.
Now, desperate to shed her role as orphaned victim, Via stage dives into a one-hundred-day adventure with Matt and Nick, the bassist and drummer of popular nineties cover band Obliviot. The rock-and-roll lifestyle is the perfect distraction—until she is rattled by true love. As Christmas looms closer, her notorious past becomes undeniable. How will she ever untangle herself from her twisted string of pretty lights?
The Dirt – Lori Culwell – Young Adult Fiction
Lucy Whitley cannot wait to get out of Palm Desert. It’s not a place for a frizzy-haired science nerd, particularly when her fashion-obsessed older sister Sloane is the head of a clique of pretty girls who rule the school – and practically the whole town.
Fortunately, life is about to change forever. Lucy’s dad is getting re-married, and then she can transfer to a boarding school in Connecticut, escaping all the mean girls and the endless whispers about the Whitley family scandal. Everything is going to be perfect – as long as the wedding goes smoothly.
A Medical Affair – Anne McCarthy Strauss
After a terrifying life-threatening asthma attack induced by the fumes in her swanky new apartment, Heather Morrison falls for the handsome but very married doctor who saved her. Her “knight in shining armor” turns out to be less of a knight as time goes by and more of a heartbreak waiting to happen. As the saying goes, this is not what the doctor ordered. When the relationship ends, Heather’s life dramatically changes as she finds herself addicted to prescription pills she never needed and her future as a mother in question. Set in the bustling city of New York, A Medical Affair by debut author Anne McCarthy Strauss could be a game changer for many women as it exposes the truth behind her doctor’s behavior and her subsequent filing of a civil suit. Although a work of fiction, A Medical Affair was extensively researched. This is truly a story that must be told.
Billy Purgatory: I am the Devil Bird – Jesse James Freeman
http://www.jessejamesfreeman.tumblr.com
Times are tough for Billy Purgatory. He’s a badass skateboarder and easy-livin’ doctor of love, but lately, danger and treachery have started a freeway pile-up that’s wrecking his life plan. From trouble with beautiful ladies to supernatural forces no man should have to reckon with, he conquers or escapes time and again. With a tour in the military, a crank as a mechanic and altercations with monsters, devil birds, time zombies, and the sexy vampire fatale, Anastasia, Billy Purgatory by author Jesse James Freeman is fuel for the biggest adrenaline junkie. The first book in a thrilling series.
Unfinished Business – Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
http://www.carolynridderaspenson.com
Stay-at-home mom Angela Panther is living the good life. Happily married with kids, a house in the suburbs and a fantabulous best friend – she’s got it all. But hours after Angela’s mother dies, her ghost pops in for a visit, leaving the door to the other side wide open. Suddenly Angela’s life is filled with ghosts – ghosts who need her help.
Now she must find a way to balance the needs of the living along with the unfinished business of the dead, while keeping her mother’s feisty ghost in line. Hilarious and bittersweet, Unfinished Business tackles the emotional rollercoaster of mother/daughter relationships, and the desperate desire for one last chance to tell someone we’ve lost how we feel.
Of Stardust – February Grace – Fantasy Romance
http://www.februarywriter.blogspot.com
“Dreams are sacred…”
At the age of twenty-six single, geeky bookseller Till Nesbitt inherits the shock of a lifetime: a huge Victorian farmhouse filled with unique tenants, and the knowledge that there is a reason she’s always been different. She’s destined to become a Fairy Godmother, because the skills are written into her DNA.
Till embarks on her fairy education at Dreams Come True University with much trepidation, guided on her journey by a unique mentor: a Celtic hybrid with a secret by the name of Gus.
When Till falls head over heels for Gus, will she break the most serious law in the Fairy Code, or will the truth of what really happened to Gus’s parents keep them from repeating history?
Eyes of the Enemy – Kelly Hess
When a rogue band of the dreaded Sorak attacks his village, twelve-year-old Beynn Firehand escapes into the darkness of BlackMyst Forest to find help. During his quest, Beynn discovers his own powerful magic abilities.
The price of his newfound powers, however, may be higher than he ever imagined.
Death Rejoices – AJ Aalto
Marnie Baranuik is back, and this time, the Great White Shark of psychic investigations has “people skills” and a new assistant who seems to harbor an unhealthy curiosity about Harry, her revenant companion. Together, they’ve got a whole lot of questions that need answering. Is an ancient vampire hunting in Denver? Who is stalking Lord Dreppenstedt? How do you cure a slipper-humping bat, ditch an ogre, or give a demon king the slip? And what the hell was she thinking, swearing off cookies?
Teaming up with her sexual nemesis, Special Agent Mark Batten, and their long-suffering supervisor, Gary Chapel, Marnie discovers that vampire hunters aren’t easy to rescue, secrets don’t stay buried, and zombies sure are a pain in the ass to kill.
Undersea – Geoffrey Morrison
In a world flooded and irradiated by a nearly forgotten cataclysm from generations passed, all that remains of civilization clings to life in two war-torn, city-sized submarines. For fifty years, the only peace between them had come from separation.
Now, young council woman Ralla Gattley has uncovered mysteries that will bring these two factions face-to-face, initiating a series of events that will forever change their undersea world. She didn’t expect to meet Thom Vargas, a bored fisherman and aspiring drunk who merely wants to climb one rung on the social ladder. Little did he know that single step may well put the fate of the world in his hands.
Rivercreek Crossing – C.L. LeMay
In 1984, the twelve-year old Caldwell twins, Reese and Luke, are living the typical middle-class American childhood, until Luke is brutally murdered. In present day, Reese is a forty-two year old life coach in the public’s eye but a vigilante in private, never believing the system was adequate in finding her brother’s killer. Her secret identity is partnered with the ghost of her twin, and together they hunt the criminal scum of the earth, child killers and rapists. Although their relationship is unorthodox, they are closer now than ever and together they manage to dig up past demons that won’t stay dead.
Doublesight – Terry Persun
After the Doublesight Wars, dangerous and mean-spirited shape shifters were killed off, causing other doublesight to hide their gifts, congregate into their own villages or clans, and avoid most humans. Zimp and Zora are the twin granddaughters of the crow clan’s sage. The reticent Zimp is relieved that she has not been chosen to take her grandmother’s position, but after Zora is murdered after an attack on the clan, Zimp is forced into her obligations. Rumors, stemming from Castle Weilk, suggest that dangerous throwbacks have been born–gryphons, harpys, dragons–and, once again the humans decide to hunt them down. Fear leads to mistrust, and mistrust to murder, all seemingly. The doublesight council assembles to assess the situation and sends five doublesight to investigate the rumors, placing Zimp in charge of four men. Struggling with her own intuitive abilities, and trying to hold a stable position as leader, Zimp finds herself in the center of a changing world and must decide on her real place within it.
For fans of fantasy fiction, fantasy novels with shape shifters and based on Native American totems, animal totems, and other shape shifting totems, such as dragons, crows, thylacines, bears, snakes, horses, gargoyles, harpies, harpys, gryphons, part lion, part eagle. Fantasy novels that are a mystery, suspense, or thriller. Similar to novels with werewolves, these are were-animals like werehorses, weresnakes, werecrows, weredragons, and that sort of thing. There is a war involved, too, where the shape shifters, including dragons, crows, horses, and bears fight against the humans. This is similar to a historic novel for The Great Land, where the book takes place. It’s also very much a sword and sorcery novel, where the shape shifters and humans battle in a battlefield where swords are used. The sorcery is mostly in the way of predictions, shamanism, shamans, and other occult happenings done by the dragons, crows, horses, snakes, and other shape shifters. Omens and dreams are also very important in the novel. After all, the crows are psychic and intuitive and can see into other worlds using altered states of consciousness. The main character uses her shamanic abilities, including runes, divination elements, intuition, visions, dreams, etc., to find signs and signatures of what’s to come.
Revision 7: DNA – Terry Persun
Time traveling robots, a walking medical experiment turned detective genius, and a kidnapped psychic combine in a story that will tear at your heart and get your adrenaline pumping.
the problem…
When it comes to investigating missing objects, Neil Altman stands out. After all, his parents severed the two halves of his brain when he was a child and then trained him to use each half independently. The problem is that he doesn’t believe in time machines, so Dr. Eric Steffenbraun’s project, stolen or not, already sounds far-fetched.
the proof…
Video is hard to deny, but Neil isn’t sure if the beings coming through the time machine are humans with masks or illegal humanoid robots. Besides, Dr. Steffenbraun could have faked the video if he feared the project was about to be cancelled.
the complication…
Neil’s wife, Mavra, is a well-known psychic in the area, and believes that Neil could be in danger. Knowing how she can get involved even when asked not to, he includes her in on the investigation. His plan is to keep her out of harm’s way. That is until she’s kidnapped.
the wildcard…
Miles away from Neil and the time machine, Fenny is trained to think on his own. He’s a utility robot with little understanding of what’s going on around him except what Dr. Smedley Klein has taught him—for now. Things are about to change for Fenny once Revision 7 is installed.
Exodus 2022 – Kenneth Bennett – Scifi, thriller, action adventure
http://www.kennethgbennettbooks.com/
Joe Stanton is in agony. Out of his mind over the death of his young daughter.
Unable to contain his grief, Joe loses control in public, screaming his daughter’s name and causing a huge scene at a hotel on San Juan Island in Washington State. Thing is, Joe Stanton doesn’t have a daughter. Never did. And when the authorities arrive they blame the 28-year-old’s outburst on drugs.
What they don’t yet know is that others up and down the Pacific coast—from the Bering Sea to the Puget Sound—are suffering identical, always fatal mental breakdowns.
With the help of his girlfriend—the woman he loves and dreams of marrying—Joe struggles to unravel the meaning of the hallucination destroying his mind. As the couple begins to perceive its significance—and Joe’s role in a looming global calamity—they must also outwit a billionaire weapons contractor bent on exploiting Joe’s newfound understanding of the cosmos, and outlast the time bomb ticking in Joe’s brain.
Schasm – Shari Ryan
Chloe Valcourt drifts between two worlds: the dark reality of her domineering mother and feeble father and the vivid fantasy of her imagination. With her condition comes the harsh observation of doctors who intend to cure her of it. But a chance encounter with a handsome and vaguely familiar young man in her dream world hints at the possibility of hidden truths–and a life she can’t remember. As her drifts become a greater escape from the cruelty of the real world, Chloe finds herself lost between what is real and what is imagined, questioning her very existence. Can she remain in the lush new imagined landscape to find happiness in a realm of her own invention? Is she doomed to return to the harsh reality of the outside world forever? Or will she become trapped somewhere between the two…unable to return to either?
Essence – A.L. Waddington
Jocelyn Timmons does not believe she is anything special — just an ordinary high school senior, living an ordinary life full of school-work, volleyball and friends. She’s about to find out how wrong she is.
Jackson Chandler moved in to the house across the street. His dark wavy hair, green eyes and charismatic personality draws everyone to him. Everyone, but Jocelyn.
Whenever Jackson gets near Jocelyn she feels ill and dizzy. When he touches her, she blacks out and has visions of another life, in another time. As the odd hallucinations evolve and become clearer, she feels a strong pull towards the people she sees there. Frightened, she watches her once stable life begin to crumble around her and she begins to question her own sanity.
Could it be possible that these episodes are actually her own memories of a life she is living somehow, somewhere, some-when? Maybe this is time-travel or some other paranormal mysticism? Our minds often wander, but can our souls?
Spellbound in His Arms – Angel Sefer
A mansion full of secrets…
From the moment investigative reporter Jackie Alexander steps foot inside the mansion dominating the Demiris estate on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu, her suspicions are on high alert. This is no ordinary assignment… the life of her beloved cousin, Aphrodite, is in grave danger, as the heirs to the incredible fortune of Greek tycoon Andreas Demiris are dying one after the other, under mysterious circumstances.
A man with secrets of his own…
The only person who can help Jackie is Michael Apostolou, former Special Forces Officer and one of the finest detectives on the Athens police force. Jackie realizes soon enough that despite her simmering desire for him, she can’t really trust him, as the seductive detective seems to be investigating those mysterious deaths for reasons of his own.
Double Blind – Tiffany Pitts
Delilah Pelham’s brother, Paul, is missing. She should probably be worried about that but honestly, he’s been in trouble since the day he learned the words “trust me.” In fact, if it weren’t for his roommate, Carl, she would gladly leave him to his fate.
Carl is a good guy, even if he’s a bit of a dork. Okay, a large slice of a dork. Possibly the entire cake.
But he wants to help, as do his gamer friends; which is how Deli finds herself in the middle of Hong Kong with the King of the Dorks, running from creepy guys with slicked back hair and shiny black guns.
Back at home, Carl’s friends aren’t faring nearly as well. All they had to do was monitor the situation and feed Deli’s cat while she was gone. How could that possibly end in bloodshed?
Who Killed ‘Tom Jones’? – Gale Martin
In Gale Martin’s newest novel, Ellie Overton is a 28-year-old rest home receptionist with a pussycat nose who also happens to be gaga for the pop singer Tom Jones. Regrettably single, she is desperate to have a red-hot love relationship, like those she’s read about in romance novels. Following an astrological hunch, she attends a Tom Jones Festival and meets an available, young impersonator with more looks and personality than talent. Though he’s knocked out of the contest, he’s still in the running to become Ellie’s blue-eyed soul mate—until he’s accused of killing off the competition. It’s not unusual that the handsome police detective working the case is spending more time pursuing Ellie than collaring suspects. So, she enlists some wily and witty rest home residents to help find the real murderer. Will Ellie crack the case? Must she forfeit her best chance for lasting love to solve the crime?
Dead on her Feet: A Tango Mystery – Lisa Fernow – mystery
What happens when a dancer violates the tango code?
When a badly behaved and much-hated newcomer to the Atlanta tango community is stabbed in the middle of a dance, the last thing tango instructor Antonia “Ant” Blakeley wants to do is help the police work out how someone could have struck the fatal blow unseen. Her troubled nephew is first on the list of suspects, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect him. Unfortunately for her, she’s up against Detective Sam Morrow, a former marine who isn’t about to let a civilian hijack his investigation. Only one of them will get what they want.