Blog Tour: Remote by Lisa Acerbo


  Remote by Lisa Acerbo
Published by: Etopia Press
Publication date: November 20th 2014
Genres: Romance, Science Fiction, Young Adult


When technology fulfills every dream, reality becomes a nightmare.
Below the streets of New State, the undergrounders fight to remain free of the technological control of the world above. Every night, Yara risks her life fighting New State’s deadliest weapons, the drones. Half human and half machine, their living half tortured until everything human is gone, the drones have only one objective. Kill. And they do it with exacting precision.
Yara is good at her job and committed to her raids on New State. Until one of those raids brings her face-to-face with Joshua, a New State citizen who doesn’t quite fit her preconceived expectations. After a couple of awkward encounters, he shows her the meaning of hooking up—a computer simulation that allows people to live out their fantasies—without the complication of emotional entanglements or physical reality. But what Yara feels for Joshua is very real. And it’s punishable by law.
As she and Joshua grow closer, she convinces him to leave New State for her underground cause. But as the unrest between New State and the underground escalates, and the drones move in to destroy her world, nothing goes as planned. Families are arrested, loyalties are strained, and Yara’s forced to choose between her people and her feelings. The wrong choice could mean the end of her people, and reality could slip away—forever…


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By 2xxx years, technology has advanced even further to the point that people can create realities of their own.
Realities where they can be different people from who they are outside the grasp of technology. Technology has embedded itself into these people and people became dependent of them. They no longer want to leave their  fantasies because for them, it's better.

Save for some people who think otherwise.  The grounders.

Joshua 15111 and Yara are the main characters. Joshua lived in the New State, the part of the world dependent entirely on technology while Yara lived underground, where she gets by without it. Their camaraderie and relationship was something that could lead to both aspects of society coming close and one is about to go down.

Personally, there were instances that the characters remind me of Katniss and Peeta and yet they are unique. Yara has that stubborn, strong-willed, and a little bit of reckless personality that truly screams "rebel" or "non-conformist". Joshua 15111, or Josh, was the curious one. In a way, he also has a little bit in him that rebels against the system.

"I always got in trouble at school for talking. My teachers could never understand why I wouldn't post to the communication link or the classroom screen. I was considered antisocial for wanting to share my views verbally."

 The parameters of the story are very believable particularly in this century with the betterment of technology as well as the role they play in the society. Electronics and especially the Internet has changed the way we live and communicate. The world that the characters live in makes me think that it can be quite possible in the future. Heck, we even now have augmented reality, the basics of the New State's fantasy-creating technology. Also, there is also the factor of those who hold power to have or display a superiority complex. In this case, they created what the people "hook up" to each night in order to avoid the people from leaving their homes at night. And, if things get a little out of hand, they have these grotesque drones to immediately stop the citizen's "destructing the peace".

I also liked how detailed the story is. The part I loved the most was the first part.

"Another nurse took the time to hook up Joshua15111's mother for the night. She pondered the virtual reality a new mother might create under the influence of all the medications.

Many miles away, deep below ground, another woman was in the throes of labor. She screamed with the pain, staring overhead at the high, cavernous ceiling of weathered rock that made up the underground infirmary." 

This part showed just how different the condition between the New State and the underground is.
And yet, there were times that there was little to no action involved. Maybe it's because of how the grounders always kept a low profile until the very fate of the two protagonists intertwined. And that is where some of the action comes in.

Though there are slow moments in the book, it's a good YA book to read. If you're the type who's always into usurping the corrupt and lifting up those who are in need, I think you would truly jive well with the book's message. Remote has everything that made the past year's YA books awesome, and a lot more. 





Lisa Acerbo is a high school teacher and holds an EdD in Educational Leadership. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, daughters, three cats, and horse. She is the author of Apocalipstick and has contributed to local newspapers, news and travel blogs including The Patch and Hollywood Scriptwriter.

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Book Launch: THE HIDDEN LIBRARY by Heather Lyons!


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We are dying to jump back down the rabbit hole with Heather Lyons' THE HIDDEN LIBRARY! THE HIDDEN LIBRARY is an Adult Romantic Fairy Tale, full of adventure and fantasy and the second book in Heather’s The Collectors' Society Series! Check out the latest fantastic installment in this series that brings you some of the classics with a twist.

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We are about to open the conference room door and enter the hallway when he stops. He turns to me, his lovely eyes achingly sincere. “I want to take you on a date when all of this craziness is over. A real one. We’ve kind of gone about this all backwards, haven’t we?”
One corner of my mouth lifts up. “Are you saying you’d like to court me?”
There is no playfulness to his face, no quirk to his own lips. My heart flutters at his seriousness. “Yes.”
He wants to court me.
Too many emotions rush around in a caucus race throughout my body. I have no doubts of Huckleberry Finn Van Brunt’s feelings toward me. I understood them two minutes ago just as well as I did this morning when I woke up and from the night before and from the day in Wonderland where he said, in not so many words, that he was falling in love with me.
I told him he was my north star, and meant it. He countered we are binaries.
He and I . . . We’ve never said those words, though, not the ones that truly spell out fragile, deep secrets of a heart and soul. Words so easily and yet unfortunately uttered by many, be it to express their appreciation of fried bits of potatoes to sports teams on the television. Words offered so frivolously about a variety of subjects and yet can be the most difficult, most painful, most meaningful, most cherished syllables we gift another person.
I have said these words before, to another man. Another man I still love. One I know, in the deepest confines of my heart, that I will love until the last breath escapes my body. A man who courted me in secret and then publicly in the face of astonishment, disapproval, confusion, and, in the end, prophesies.
I have willingly given the man in front of me my heart, though, whether he knows it or not. He now holds it in his hands, and while I pray he is my future, there is still a part of me that bucks in conflicted confusion and delight by this declaration of his.
He wants to court me.
And yet, as sweet and romantic as such a gesture might be, I require no such formalities. My affections for Finn Van Brunt have already solidified into something real and wonderful and meaningful.THL Teaser
Sometimes, the rabbit hole is deeper than expected . . .

Alice Reeve and Finn Van Brunt have tumbled into a life of secrets. Some secrets they share, such as their employment by the clandestine organization known as The Collectors’ Society. Other secrets they carry within them, fighting to keep buried the things that could change everything they think they know.

On the hunt for an elusive villain who is hell-bent on destroying legacies, Alice, Finn, and the rest of the Society are desperate to unravel the mysteries surrounding them. But the farther they spiral down this rabbit hole, the deeper they fall into secrets that will test their loyalties and pit them against enemies both new and old.

Secrets, they come to find, can reveal the deadliest of truths.

Don’t miss the first book in this series, THE COLLECTORS’ SOCIETY!
The Collectors' Society front cover

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Author Photo Heather Lyons writes epic, heartfelt love stories and has always had a thing for words. In addition to writing, she’s also been an archaeologist and a teacher. She and her husband and children live in sunny Southern California and are currently working their way through every cupcakery she can find.

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Book Launch: Confessions of a Reformed Tom Cat by Daisy Prescott!

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We're so excited to host the release day launch for Daisy Prescott's Confessions of a Reformed Tom Cat!! Daisy is sharing an excerpt with us, and a fantastic giveaway, so be sure to read all the way down to check out all the release day excitement!! TC teaser protective

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CoaTTC Amazon (1)I, Thomas Clifford Donnely, am a manwhore.
I’ve been told I’m irresistible to women. Like catnip for a different type of pussy-cat. I guess you could call me a Tom Cat.
This is the story about how I lost my wingman, broke all my own rules, and found myself falling in love.
Tom Donnelly isn't the marrying kind, or the dating kind. Even after losing his #1 wingman to love, he doesn't see the point in relationships. When his sister's best friend returns to Whidbey Island and propositions Donnelly for a one-night stand, he breaks one of his biggest rules—no fooling around with his sisters' friends. It's just sex, nothing more. That's what Tom does and does well.
What happens when "just sex" isn't enough?
Hailey King is more than a match for Tom's flirtations. She's known him most of her life and has heard the rumors about his "skills" for years. When her perfectly planned future falls apart, will the last man she should ever fall for turn out to be more than a one-night stand?tom cat teaser 1.6
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Before writing bestselling contemporary adult romances, I dreamed of being an author while doing a lot of other things. Antiques dealer, baker, blue ribbon pie-maker, fangirl, freelance writer, gardener, pet mom and wife are a few of the other titles I've acquired over the years. Born and raised in San Diego, I currently lives in a real life Stars Hollow in the Boston suburbs with my husband, our dog Hubbell, and an imaginary house goat.

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Book Blitz: This is the Wonder by Tracey Ward



This is the Wonder by Tracey Ward
Publication date: February 19. 2015
Genres: Comedy, New Adult, Romance



From the moment I saw him – all blue eyes and American pie – I knew I’d never be the same.
Determined to escape the pressure of her impending graduation, Wren Porter chooses to take a semester in Europe. She’s there to study, party, and hide from the question that’s haunting her – What’s next?
At least that’s the plan until one night in Munich when she meets Jax, an American soldier stationed overseas. He’s charming, he’s handsome, and in one small act of kindness he becomes Wren’s own personal hero. Suddenly the two are swept up in a mad romance that will cross countries, break laws, and leave them both breathless.
But Jax has questions about his own future and when reality comes calling their bond is put to the test. Are they only meant to have the nights they shared together in Europe, or could they be so much more?
Could they be the future they’ve both been looking for?


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Jax calls and I seriously consider ignoring him, but it’s a weak move and I’m bigger than that. I don’t run, I don’t hide, and if this is going to hurt then so be it. That’s life. If I didn’t want to run the risk of saying goodbye, I never should have said hello.
“When is your flight?” he asks.
His voice is horrible. It’s salt on the wound. It’s deep and slow, like he’s dragging time out. Laying it down and asking it to be still.
“Day after tomorrow. Early.”
“Can I take you to the airport?”
I close my eyes, so touched and so reluctant. Jax standing tall and beautiful in the airport watching me walk away to get on the plane – just the thought of it threatens to bring tears to my eyes.
“Wren?”
“I don’t want to say goodbye to you,” I whisper.
He breathes calmly but it sounds forced. “Let me take you to the airport tomorrow.”
“I don’t leave until the day after.”
“I’ll come get you tomorrow. We’ll have one more day. Give me one more day and then I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.”
I hesitate. I want it so badly. I don’t know what he has planned but I want to find out. I trust him implicitly. I’d follow him to the ends of the earth and, really, has he steered me wrong yet?
“Don’t say no,” he pleads.
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
I smile. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in the morning. Early. And, Wren?”
“Yeah?”
“You won’t be sorry.”
***
There’s a brittle cold snap to the air the next morning. It stings my eyes when I step outside and freezes my breath in my lungs. I could stay inside but I’ve already said my goodbyes and I don’t want to say anymore. Definitely not this last one.
Just as the first of many fat, fluffy snowflakes begin to fall around me, Jax’s car comes gliding down the road. He parks in front of me, throws on his hazards, and gets out to help me load my bags.
“What are you doing standing out here in the cold?” he asks, lifting two suitcases like they don’t weigh more than I do. “You should have waited inside.”
“I couldn’t stand to be in there anymore. I’m ready to go. All of this has been looming ever since finals and I just want it to be over.”
I don’t have a ton of bags. I travel light and all of it fits into Jax’s trunk and back seat easily. He has a small black duffle bag back there too and my heart leaps at the thought of spending one last day with him. One last night in his arms. Under his hands.
By the time we reach Frankfurt the snow is coming down heavily and the roads are getting dangerous. Jax sees my tension as the conditions worsen. He knows I can’t handle being on the roads much longer.
“I had a whole day planned,” he explains, his voice barely rising above the purr of the engine and the crunch of the wheels on the freezing asphalt. “We were going to go to Cologne. It’s really beautiful. The entire city was nearly destroyed in World War II and this church is one of the few buildings that survived the bombings. We were going to have lunch there, then dinner in Frankfurt.”
“That would have been nice.”
“There are a lot of places I wish I had time to take you to.”
I smile faintly as I stare out the window at the falling snow covering everything, the ancient streets and the new buildings. The old world and the new world being blanketed together as though they’re the same. As though they’re not separated by hundreds of years, hundreds of lives. Hundreds of stories that have played out between them, all of them the same but somehow different. Each one unique in its own right.
Jax and I are nothing new. Our situation is the same as so many others that happened before us. What makes us different is how we live it. How we write our story.
How we author our own fairy tale.
I roll my head toward him and smile. “I want to see Moscow with you.”
He glances at me, surprised. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to visit Russia. I want to do that with you. Let’s go tomorrow.”
“I thought you had a flight to catch.”
“But if I didn’t, would you go with me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“So we’ll visit Moscow. Then where?”
“Japan,” he says, no hesitation. “I want to see Japan with you.”
“All of it?”
“Every square mile.”
“That’ll take a while.”
He looks at me steadily. “We’ve got nothing but time, right?”
I smile encouragingly. “Right.”


"I don't write romances, I write relationships. One is pretty and perfect and all consuming. The other is real."

I was born in Eugene, Oregon and studied English Literature at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) I love writing all kinds of genres from YA Dystopian to New Adult Romance, the common themes between them all being strong character development and a good dose of humor.

My husband, son, and snuggly pitbull are my world.

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Book Blitz: THE RETURN by Jennifer L. Armentrout!

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We have been dying to bring you the Release Blitz for Jennifer L. Armentrout's THE RETURN! THE RETURN is a New Adult Paranormal Romance and is a part of Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Titan Series. Seth is looking to be just as dangerously delicious as we all hoped!!

  The Return - Cover

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Shaking my head, I pivoted around and walked down the long hall to my dorm room. As I reached the door, the shiver was at the base of my spine again, dancing its way up until it traveled across my shoulders. My heart turned over heavily and I closed my eyes.

Twice in one day.
Oh God.
I’d never felt this more than once in any span of several days.

Swallowing hard, I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob, battling the urge to turn and scan the hall, because I knew no one would be there.

Dragging in a deep breath, I opened the door and stepped inside the room. My brows flew up, and I forgot about the feeling as I closed the door behind me.
Erin was sprawled on the floor, palms pressed down on a mat, her spandex-covered behind jutting up toward the sky. She turned her head, peering at me from under her armpit.

Her armpit.

“How in the world do you get your neck to bend like that without killing yourself?” I asked.

“Skills, yo.”

Erin did yoga and meditation religiously, saying it helped merge her yin and yang together or something. She’d once told me she had a hell of a mean streak, and contorting herself into painful-looking positions helped keep “good vibrations” around her. Which was strange, because I’d never seen Erin lose her temper in the two years I’d known her.

Erin unfolded herself from some kind of downward dog or upward pony and grinned at me. “Check under the bed.”

Curious, I dropped my bag and stepped over her legs. Bending down, I lifted the bedspread and my eyes grew to the size of saucers when I spotted the bottle. I snatched it up and clutched it to my chest as I whipped toward her. “José!”

Her grin spread into a smile. “The best boyfriend ever.”
The Fates are cackling their bony asses off...

It's been a year since Seth made the deal with the gods that pledged his life to them. And so far, the jobs they've given him have been violent and bloody--which is kind of all right with him. But now Apollo has something else in mind for Seth. He's got to play protector while keeping his hands and fingers off, and for someone who really has a problem with restraint, this new assignment might be the most challenging yet.

Josie has no idea what this crazy hot guy's deal might be, but it's a good bet that his arrival means the new life she started after leaving home is about to be thrown into an Olympian-sized blender turned up to puree. Either Josie is going insane or a nightmare straight out of ancient myth is gunning for her.

But it might be the unlikely attraction simmering between her and the golden-eyed, secret-keeping Seth that may prove to be the most dangerous thing of all.

Because history has once again been flipped to repeat.

Author Photo
# 1 NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY Bestselling author Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki.

Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV.

She also writes adult and New Adult romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.

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Blog Tour: Sleeping Tom by E.V. Fairfall



Sleeping Tom by E.V. Fairfall
Publication date: February 15th 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult


Hitchhiking is a bad idea but Caden is desperate.
When she accepts a ride from the first car to come by she meets Gabriel. He’s her age, hot, and the closest thing she has to a savior. Problem is, he is a total jerk. With nowhere to go, Caden convinces Gabriel to let her stay with him for one night. He reluctantly lends a couch.
That night Caden wakes up to strange noises. Concerned, she rushes into Gabriel’s room, already anticipating his bad temper. Instead, he’s kind, sweet, and suspiciously harmless—nothing like the man who gave her a ride. He seems like a different person altogether, and claims he is. By night he is Tom, and by day he is Gabriel. Caden finds herself drawn to the mysteries hidden in his eyes.
For Gabriel, Caden is an annoying mistake. One night turns into many, and despite all his anger towards her, she stays. She even seems to accept him and his flaws, but he still doesn’t trust her—is she staying for him, or has she already discovered more than he’s willing to share?


Rebecca's life has fallen apart.
The guy that she has loved and given everything to left her behind, making her an empty shell of the person she was.
And at the lowest moment in her life, Gabriel comes to her aid.
But who is Gabriel really? Is he who he says he is?

The concept that Sleeping Tom presents to us is something that is really quite unique and that is what got my interest piqued in the first place.

"Gabriel had spoken with such sweetness, and he had held her hand the way Tom had... But when she had looked into his eyes they'd been copper, not brown."

 The contrast between Gabriel and Tom's character is great that, at times, I do treat them as a different person. It reminded me a little of David Levithan's One Day in terms of my hunch that maybe Gabriel or Tom possessing the other's body. And yet, throughout the end of the book, it wasn't like that at all.

Apart from that, I really also liked what Rebecca is going through. It may be crass of me to say so because of how her ex-boyfriend treated her but throughout her journey along with Gabriel, she began the process of moving on. She wanted to let go of her past so she fashioned herself Caden, a strong-willed, stubborn, invincible woman.

"She hadn't really thought Rebecca was a different person from Caden, but she also hadn't wanted to taint her new image with the insecurities Rebecca lived with."

Rebecca-- or Caden, fashioned herself a new character, far from the one she was before. She no longer let herself be vulnerable and dependent. Being Caden was the start for her to move forward. 

We all have our own ways of defense and coping from trauma. Some change the way they look, the way they project themselves and that is what both main characters project. Sleeping Tom shows us how people deal with pain, loss and disappointments that we either find the strength to move forward or be brought down by the hardships life throws at us.




I love to write just as much as I love to read. I try to read a book per week, which doesn’t always work out, but it’s the thought that counts. Aside from all that I am a huge animal person.

Transformed is my first novel, but it isn’t my first publication; I’ve had several short stories published over the last two years. My main goal as a writer is to explore humanity and to give people something fun to read.


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