Book Blitz: Live Me by Celeste Grande


Live Me ~ a Pieces of Broken novel by Celeste Grande 
Publication date: October 27th 2015

Genres: Contemporary, New Adult

Broken…
Shattered…

How can you begin to live again when you’ve already been forced to…die?
Evangelina Ricci is trapped in a world that’s a never-ending nightmare, a constant ache in which consumes her every breath. Unable to bear the torture any longer, she does the one thing she can to take back control.
Run.
With her best friend Jace in tow, Evangelina attempts to escape her darkened past by leaving for college and diving head first into an aggressive schedule, determined with everything she is to make a name for herself. There’s only one problem—she can’t run away from the demons she struggles with. The demons that’ll forever be there, locked inside, battering her soul. Hiding behind a flawless façade, Evangelina faces her ghosts until her world is turned upside down, invaded by…him.
Blake Turner. Sweet, witty, flirtatious and drop-dead gorgeous, he finds Evangelina at every turn. Scared he’ll uncover the truth she keeps so well guarded, Evangelina tries her best to put on her act, deterring him like she has so many times before—only this guy’s different. He’s relentless. Utterly, absolutely and completely relentless. He sees her and he wants her and won’t stop until she’s his.
Will Evangelina succeed in pushing Blake away? Or will he break down her walls and be the person to make her realize life is worth living?



Purchase:

Staring at my booklet, I was oblivious to the fact he’d inched closer to me during our testing session.
            His warm breath at the soft spot below my ear made my belly clench. He pressed his chest against my side and pointed to the page in front of me. “Also, see right here where you keep using the same words over and over? That’s called an echo. You need to find other words and substitute them. It’ll flow better and be easier to read,” he whispered, burrowing his nose into my hair.
            My head tilted into him, his pull on me as magnetic as ever. I swallowed long and hard, willing my lungs to cease their need for oxygen so I didn’t have to breathe in his intoxicating scent. “You’re in my personal space.” Damn my voice for sounding so shaky.
            He brushed his nose down the side of my neck. “I just wanted to be sure not to disturb anyone else. We are in a library, after all.”
            “I can assure you, you don’t have to be that close in order for them not to hear you.”
            He chuckled, the sound deep and sensual. “True, but it was a good excuse to get close to you for as long as I could get away with it.” He dragged his lips up the length of my neck and nipped my earlobe.
            I gasped. “What’re you doing?”
            “It’s Tuesday.” He smiled and chomped down on his jaw, reminding me of when we’d first met and that he too bites on Tuesdays.
            Although my body was reeling, I covered it up with a burst of laughter, then quickly stifled it under my palm. “Remind me to steer clear of you on Tuesdays then. Sheesh. I didn’t know I needed to take you seriously if I didn’t want to become your next meal.”
            He leaned dangerously close, forcing me to bend back so far in my chair the top of it bit into my shoulder blades. “Angel, I would make you the appetizer, main course and dessert if you’d let me. You have no idea what my mouth is capable of. I would devour you inch by delicious fucking inch, and lick my fingers clean afterwards.”
            I was wordless, unable to form a coherent thought. Even here, in a library, he had my heart pounding and my hormones raging. I itched to plunge my fingers into his hair and pull his mouth to mine. This attraction was all-consuming and it was becoming harder and harder to say no.
            “You just let me know when you’re ready.” His eyes flicked to my lips, and my cheeks turned to flames.
            “Why do you do this to me?” My voice gave away my weakness.
            His serious gaze never faltered. He almost looked pained and the sincerity in his words shocked me. “I need you to know how I feel, Angel. I’ll try every chance I get to convince you you’re made for me. No regrets. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I can’t just ignore it. Whether you admit it or not, I can tell you’re drawn to me, too. You just keep fighting it.” He moved closer still, pinning me to the pressed wood at my back. “Give into it, to this.” He brushed his fingertips along my jaw and my eyes fluttered closed.
            I took a fortifying inhale but didn’t move from his touch. “Why don’t you stop? You’re relentless.”
            “I can’t, I told you. As long as you’ll have me around, I’ll never stop. Not until you're mine. You should just accept that you want me already so we can move on from here.” With a confident smirk, he ghosted his fingers down my arm and squeezed my hip.
            How did he always get the upper hand? I swallowed hard and my voice came out in a barely audible whisper, “You forget I have a—”
            “Boyfriend?” He scoffed. “Yeah, I’ve heard. You forget, I don’t really care. Let me ask you this, where is he, Evangelina? Not a very worthy adversary if you ask me. How can he go weeks on end without seeing you? Hell, I can barely stay away from you now. I’d rather not hear about your poor excuse for a man anymore. You need a real man.” He snaked his hand through the hair at the nape of my neck and inched me close. “One who’s right here. Flesh and blood. Who can take care of you.” He dragged his knuckles along my cheek and scraped his thumb across my bottom lip.
            Lost in the weight of his eyes, and the possessiveness of his touch, I fought to tear my gaze from his. Looking down in my lap, I toyed with a thread hanging from my shirt. “I told you … He’s away.”
            His focus darted from my pouted lip up to my eyes as he analyzed me. A disbelieving humph escaped his lips. Then he backed away, taking his heat with him, and didn’t say anything more.

Celeste Grande grew up loving words. From an early age, it was easy for her to open her heart through pen and paper and come away with something poetic. She never thought anything more than releasing her emotions would come of it though. A workaholic that can’t keep still, in her ‘real’ life, she’s a Certified Public Accountant who dreams of writing sexy books all day long. When she isn’t working, she’s reading, writing, mommying and being a wifey to the love of her life.
She lives in New York, still putting pen to paper and anxiously awaiting the debut of her first novel, Live Me, a new adult romance, in October of 2015.

Author links:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Tour: Meet the “Cast” of Paper Planes Back Home!

Paper Planes Back Home
Published on February 21, 2015
by Tara Frejas 
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Romance

Links:
Goodreads
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Apple iBooks

When Gianna wakes up on a cloud, she is disoriented yet fascinated. She thinks she's only dreaming until she gets a storm of paper planes—"They're thoughts of people who remember," a man on another cloud tells her—each pleading for her not to leave. The man tells her these planes are the key to get out of there, and while she thinks it's hard to believe, she decides everything is worth trying if it meant finding her way back home.

Meet the “Cast” of Paper Planes Back Home

Tara Frejas

Much of my fiction-writing background is rooted in writing fanfiction, which is now referred to as—and I learned this only recently—real person fiction or RPF. Eight years ago, I was writing fiction for the TVXQ fandom and had a relatively easy time, thanks to the five handsome and talented Korean idols I based my characters on.  Somehow, having a face to link a fictional character to as I write became the norm, and soon I’d began writing other stories and “casting” other people to be in them. I call them muses.

My first novel, Paper Planes Back Home (PPBH), has four main characters: Gianna, Aaron, Skylar, and Anna. In the book, I credit the four people who inspired these characters, but if you haven’t read it yet, this is the part where I get to tell you who they are.

GIANNA HAN
Jeon Jihyun
My love for Korean actress Jeon Jihyun is huge and it is everywhere.  She is my favorite actress and celebrity, and I cast her in every story possible just because. Jihyun is well known for her 2001 blockbuster hit My Sassy Girl, and the highly addictive K-drama My Love From Another Star which aired in 2013. Quite the character, the actress is known to her peers for being a lovely ball of energy and laughter, and to her fans for being an elegant goddess who could turn into a food munching maniac. She is an anomaly in that respect and in many others, and I love her for it.

In PPBH, she is Gianna Han, an art teacher who wakes up in a cloud after a tragic traffic accident. She possesses a kind and generous heart, one that leads her to decisions that prioritize others before herself.

AARON TAYLOR
Aaron Tveit
Aaron Tveit is a musical theatre actor I’ve started fangirling in 2012 after seeing him in the motion picture adaptation of Les Miserables. He has starred in a number of Broadway productions including Next to Normal, Wicked, and Catch Me If You Can, and was part of the USA TV series Graceland, which finished its three-season run last August.


He is Aaron Taylor in PPBH, Gianna’s currently unemployed boyfriend who dreams of being up on stage as a theatre actor someday. Over the years, his confidence and motivation had become anchored on Gianna’s encouraging presence in his life.

THREE LITTLE EXTRAS:

  1. My (crack)ship name for these two is GiAaron.
  2. This is not the first GiAaron thing I wrote. If you look hard enough into my Wattpad account, you’ll find a draft of something in there.
  3. A younger version of themselves have been “casted” in my most recent published work, The “Forget You” Brew, as Kyle and Allison.


SKYLAR LEVIN
Skylar Astin
I hadn’t been aware of Skylar Astin until I saw Pitch Perfect, and I found him really, really cute. Further research led me to learn that like Aaron Tveit, Skylar is also into musical theatre, his first production being Spring Awakening. He is a funny guy who’s into sports like baseball and MMA, and has a dog named Rock. His recent work includes the films 21 And Over and Pitch Perfect 2, and a sitcom called Ground Floor.

Skylar is the lonely soldier in PPBH, Skylar Levin, whom Gianna meets when she arrives in a cloud. Because he has been stuck in the limbo for longer than she has, he becomes his default (but very willing) “guide” to the place and the rules that govern it.

ANNA KERSTEIN
Anna Kendrick
It was Pitch Perfect as well that introduced to me the awesomeness that was Anna Kendrick. She’s bubbly and sassy and gorgeous, and I shipped him and Skylar really hard even after the film was over. Anna’s been really busy doing movies since then, starring in the recent film adaptations of Into The Woods and The Last Five Years. The last movie I’ve seen her in was Pitch Perfect 2, in which there was a severe lack of Jesse and Beca moments . . . which was really, really sad.

In PPBH, she is the dedicated nurse, Anna Kerstein, who goes into a solo mission to find the person SkylarLevin had be writing to before he met his fate and landed in a hospital. Because her deceased boyfriend had been a soldier as well, Anna feels an affiliation with Skylar.

THREE LITTLE EXTRAS:

  1. My ship name for them is SkylAnna.
  2. Unlike GiAaron, I have not written anything with this pairing before Paper Planes Back Home, but I do have a WIP with them in it.
  3. A spin-off drabble featuring this pairing and verse exists in my Wattpad, in a collection called Every Single Cliche.

How about you? Do you “cast” people when you write or read your books? Maybe you can share them in the comments below, and let’s chat!

Thank you so much for taking time to read this guest post of mine. Check out the Paper Planes Back Home Pinterest board too, for a peek at the images I “used” for inspiration as I wrote the book. It’s a nifty tool, and if you’re ever on it, please add me!



Tara Frejas is a cloud-walker who needs caffeine to fuel her travels. By day, she works in project management and events, and she writes down her daydreams at night. She began publishing fiction for public consumption in 2004, posting her pieces on various online channels like fan forums and Blogspot, eventually exploring other avenues like Livejournal, Soomp!, Tumblr, and most recently, Wattpad.
Aside from her obvious love affair with words and persistent muses, Tara is very passionate about being caffeinated, musical theatre, certain genres of music, dancing, dogs, good food, and romancing Norae, her ukelele. She owns a 6-month-old male bunny named Max who sometimes tries to nibble on her writing notes.
Paper Planes Back Home is her first novel.

Links:
Website

#StrangeLit and #SparkBooks Book Launch!

Pretty awesome events happened during the weekend and here's a short recap on the book launches!

The book launch for #StrangeLit happened in Eastwood at Recession Coffee by Digital Walker. The event started 2PM (i got lost and ended up late! ) and ended around 5-ish? When I got there, the authors were already reading excerpts from their stories. Some read it themselves and some authors invited someone else to read. 


There were a lot of people who attended and it was great. So while everyone was busy, I went to check out the giveaway section. SOOOO many cool and fun swag. I want to grabe them all and run hahaha


After the reading, it's time for photo sessions!

 A huge congratulations to everyone! 

For everyone who would like to avail a copy of the bundles, you can get an ecopy on Buqo (app)!




Yesterday, I attended the book launch of 6 wonderful ladies. 4 of them attended and signed books! Here are the books available:

The event started quarter to 5PM with introductions and readings from Chrissie Peria, Agay Llanera, Kate Evangelista and Dawn Lanuza!


Chrissie Peria
Agay Llanera
Kate Evangelista
Dawn Lanuza
After the authors read an excerpt from their books, there was a Q&A. No transcript. (SORRY!) Will try to get interviews from them and post it here. ;) 

Following the Q&A, there was a raffle for the attendees! Each author had come up with a goody bag. There were also gifts from Camille Cisco and Bianca Mori (shoutout to them!). When the names were drawn, there seems to be an abundance for the name "Camille". Hahaha like 4 to 5 winners with that name? AND most of the male attendees won something! CRRAAAAZY! 

Thanks to NBS and Spark Books for this event! And to the fun way the program ended! Now, onto our favorite part....BOOK SIGNING!


Got my books signed and went on ahead and took photos for this post. ;) 

You can get copies at NBS Stores for 185pesos! Also available on Amazon!!!

IT WAS AN AMAZING WEEKEND! Congratulations Dawn, Kate, Agay, Chrissie and StrangeLit authors! Just look at the swag I have! *.*