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Hey everyone! Welcome to my new Blog! My old one (For The Love Of Film And Novels) is currently active and will be until this June.

This Blog still needs A LOT of work haha :) as you can see, but it should be up and ready with all of my old followers from my other blog and other posts sometime in April so yeah just wanted to all let you know and I apologize if there's any confusion! Oh and if you are new, please do follow, any way you can and hope you visit again :)

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Now or Never By: A.J. Bennett *Book Spotlight & Giveaway*



Book Description:

Twenty-one year old Grayson Alexander finally breaks away from an abusive relationship and finds herself free for the first time in three years.

Determined to enjoy her new-found freedom, Grayson is intent on sticking with 'no strings attached' relationships—one-night stands, and steamy sex.

But she didn't plan on Derrick. 

Her attraction to the sexy man in uniform quickly turns into an unhealthy relationship. They both try to resist the pull, but neither can stay away. 

When tragedy strikes, Grayson realizes it's now or never—walk away or make it work.


Add “Now or Never” to your Goodreads TBR list.

Purchase “Now or Never”:



Author Bio:
A.J. Bennett lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and bulldog. She's addicted to coffee, popcorn and books. Becoming an author has been a lifelong dream, and she's extremely excited about her debut novel Now or Never.


Author Links:


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Feature & Follow *20*

Hey everyone! Ok, I have done this Meme in a LONG TIME, maybe since March? So yeah, I thought I should get back into memes, and I do love this one a lot, and saw this week's Q and it looks like a great one, so I can wait to see what you have to write about my post & I look forward checking out and of course following others :)


Feature & Follow is a blog hop hosted by Parajunkee & Alison Can Read. The purpose is to meet people and gain more followers in the book blogging community.


Q: Back to school. Create a reading list for the imaginary English Lit class you’ll be teaching this semester. 

 Ok, I love this question! I'm not looking to be a teacher, but a lot of books on this list, are mostly ones I would have liked to have read in school, and there are ones that would just be fun to add :)

- Rebecca By: Daphne du Maurier (I love mystery and I'm a Hitchcock fan, so this is a must!)

- Gone With The Wind By: Margaret Mitchell (I'm a fan of both the book and film)

- East Of Eden By: John Steinbeck (I'm not a Steinbeck fan, and every year in High School except senior year, we had to read one, and surprisingly I actually liked this one. I wish the film though concentrated on more of the beginning of the story including to when the brothers are growing up)

- Jane Eyre By: Charlotte Bronte (This is such a great book)

- Sense And Sensibility By: Jane Austen (This is my favorite Austen book)

- The Perks of Being A Wallflower By: Stephen Chbosky

- Short Stories/Poems from Flannery O'Connor, Wordsworth, Eliot, Plath, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth & Lord Byron. (Yeah, I love the British Poets. Thank you Brit Lit. Class)

Big Essay Due towards the end of the Year Topic: (Yup, I'm definitely having fun here.) 

Pick two of the books/short stories/poems from either below, or from above. The above list is what we will/have read. The list below are books we are not going to read together, but they are very good ones, so check them out and decide which two you would like to discuss. If you choose one of your choice, let me know, so I can approve it.

- After you have chosen two books, first, compare and contrast them. What makes them different and the same? (Is it types of characters, situations, era etc.) And pick scenes, characters, and themes (etc.) that could relate to you, and discuss what is relatable.

- Double spaced please and at least three pages or more. 


Book List For Paper

- Any books from Above

- Any Harry Potter Book by: J.K. Rowling

- The Hours By: Michael Cunningham

- The Last Queen By: C.W. Gortner (I love European history, and historical fiction based on real Kings/Queens from Europe. This story is very very good!)

- Forever Amber By: Kathleen Winsor (I really enjoyed this book. Wish there was an updated version of the film. The 1940s one is good, but I feel like there could have been more story in there.)

 - Great Expectations By: Charles Dickens (Read this in High School and in College. I definitely appreciated it more in college)

- A Tale of Two Cities By: Charles Dickens (For some reason, I want to read this badly)

- Her Mother's Hope & Her Daughter's Dream both by Francine Rivers (This is a series of two books. They are phenomenally written well. I don't usually read Christian Fiction, but to me, I saw that there was more family issues here. issues revolving mother/daughter relationships and there are parts that actually made me cry and I'm not a book crier, so this took me by surprise. Some things here were relatable to me so maybe that was it, but anyway it's a beautiful story that is inspired by the Author's own family)


- Well, that's my list :) I know there's more novels, but for some reason I could not think of anything else.

- Please leave a comment with your blog url if you want me to check yours out and please follow either by GFC, Bloglovin or Google+ 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Marissa

Friday, August 2, 2013

Bittersweet Junction by: Ivy Sinclair *Guest Post & E-Book Giveaway*

Bittersweet Junction by Ivy Sinclair
Publication date: 2013
Genre: NA Contemporary Romance


Synopsis:
Best friends once, lovers never, yet an attraction that can’t be ignored.

Five years ago, Julia Bell walked away from her life the moment her high school diploma was in her hand. She left her family and friends behind to start over and escape the chokehold of small town life in Benton Hill. But an urgent call from her little sister brings Julia back to her hometown wholly unprepared for what awaits her.

Ben Miller was always the nice guy. Just before high school graduation, he stepped out of that role hoping to capture the heart of the woman he loved. Instead, in quick succession he lost the girl, and the future he worked so hard to achieve.

Even though Julia and Ben are drawn to each other, echoes of the past block them at every turn. Secrets are exposed, and reality needs to be dealt with if they can ever hope to move past the bittersweet junction that ripped them apart.

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18158385-bittersweet-junction?ac=1

Purchase:
-Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Bittersweet-Junction-ebook/dp/B00DV8UAOY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374021903&sr=1-1&keywords=bittersweet+junction
-B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bittersweet-junction-ivy-sinclair/1116001325?ean=2940148331803


Guest Post
I lived in a small town until I was twelve years old. My sixth grade class had thirteen students, twelve girls and one boy. Needless to say, my odds were practically non-existent for young love. Not only did I spend those formidable years in a small town attending a small school, but my family lived five miles outside of town “in the country”. Standing in my front yard, I saw nothing but open fields and gravels roads.

With nothing else to do, I escaped to new places through books. I had a few friends, but the friends that I really cared about existed within the pages of my favorite stories. It didn’t seem that strange to me at the time. It was just my life.

I didn’t realize how small my small town life was until I moved to another state into an actual city between sixth and seventh grade. To say I experienced a tremendous culture shock would be an understatement. It forced me out of my shell.  Although still a voracious reader, I made a larger circle of friends, and started doing things with people outside of my head. Eventually I grew to love living in a city.

I only went back to that small town a few times throughout junior high and high school to visit family. By the time I was in my early 20s, the shift in my perception between small town and city was noticeably evident. When I would go back for a visit, even though I had been gone for a decade, I still ran into a lot of people who acted like they knew me even though I had no idea who they were. “Oh- you’re Jerry and Nancy’s daughter. How have you been?”

It was odd to me how interested these strangers were in the specific details of my life. What was even more uncomfortable was hearing stories about my parents’ adventures when they lived in town, which occurred more than twenty years ago. People had long memories, and not all of those stories were especially flattering, but there were sweet and funny stories too.

Those are the experiences that I drew on when I wrote about Julia, the main character of Bittersweet Junction, coming back to her hometown of Benton Hill. She’s been gone for five years, but when she returns, people expect her that she’s the same person, even though she’s not.

Benton Hill itself is one of the main characters throughout the book, and I believe that anyone who has lived in a small town will be able to related to that. Ben, who used to be Julia’s best friend and is now her love interest, never left Benton Hill. He finds the scrutiny of living under the microscope of small town eyes frustrating and heavy with expectations. This causes several complications for Julia and Ben.

I’ve reached a stage in my life where I can appreciate the benefits of living in a small town. The pace of life is slower, and friendships can easily span a lifetime. Yet I find that I am now a city girl at heart. Between my childhood in a small town, and adult life in the city, I think I’ve had the best of both words.



AUTHOR BIO
Ivy Sinclair cut her romance teeth on classics like Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, An Affair to Remember, and Sabrina. She is a firm believer in true love, a happily ever after ending, and the medicinal use of chocolate to cure any ailment of the heart. Ivy’s guilty pleasures include sushi, endless Starbucks lattes, and wine. Readers of Ivy’s stories can expect smoldering sweet stories of romance that tug at the heartstrings.


Author Links:
Website / Goodreads


Giveaway Details & Rules

- This is an International Giveaway!
- Ends August 8th!
- There Will Be 2 E-Book Copies Given Away.
- The Winners will be picked by Rafflecopter!
- I will be Checking the Entries Regularly, so if there is Cheating, those Entries Will be Disqualified!
- As you submit Entries, be sure to use an Email that you use Daily, as that is how I will contact you, if you Win.
- You will have 48 hours to Respond, or I will have to Choose a New Winner! Check Your Spam Folders, just in case it goes in there.
- And Good Luck! :)

*Come back to this post, when the Giveaway is over, to see who won. I usually do Facebook it as well*

1 Day E-Book Giveaway for: Wuther by V.J. Chambers!!

Wuther by V.J. Chambers
Publication date: July, 2013
Genre: New Adult Retelling


Synopsis:
his new adult retelling of Wuthering Heights is intended for mature readers due to explicit sexual content and coarse language.

Instead of storms tearing through Yorkshire moors, the sounds of '90s grunge rock whisper through backwoods American cornfields...

And give new life to the Bronte characters you love to hate.

A gypsy orphan, Heath Galloway adores Cathy Earnshaw, his childhood sweetheart. He would do anything to protect her from her drunken, abusive father--even push the man down a flight of stairs to stop him hitting her.

But with her father dead, Cathy's older brother Matt runs the Earnshaw farm and both of their lives. And Matt despises Heath. Forced to drop out of school and work the fields, Heath is separated from Cathy and the two begin to drift apart. 

When Cathy meets the rich, blond, and suave Eli Linton, she finds herself torn between Eli's charm and Heath's brute potency.

Fiercely proud and stubborn, Heath doesn't take well to being brushed aside. He'll get what he wants, or he'll get revenge. No matter how long it takes.

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18042503-wuther?ac=1

Purchase:
-Amazon: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/search/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=wuther+chambers&rh=n%3A916520%2Ck%3Awuther+chambers&ajr=2
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wuther-v-j-chambers/1115477174?ean=2940016591544


AUTHOR BIO
V. J. Chambers likes bad boys, but she likes them to be actual bad boys, not misunderstood weaklings who cover up their emotional scars with a thin veneer of pretend bad-boy-ness. 


She likes to tackle difficult philosophical questions. She likes to push fiction to the edge, to go just a little farther.


She writes stories about difficult people living difficult lives in difficult situations. Usually, there’s magic. Or monsters. Or space. Or gun fights. A lot of times, there’s also L-O-V-E. (Or at least uncomfortable conversations about sex.)
She’s the author of the Jason and Azazel series and many other stories for teens and adults. She lives in Shepherdstown, WV with her boyfriend Aaron and their cat.

Author links:
Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter



Giveaway Details & Rules
- This is an International Giveaway!
- Ends tonight! This is a 1 Day Giveaway!
- There Will Be 1 E-Book Copy Given Away.
- The Winner will be picked by Rafflecopter!
- As you submit Entries, be sure to use an Email that you use Daily, as that is how I will contact you, if you Win.
- Please Respond ASAP if you get an e-mail from me! Check Your Spam Folders, just in case it goes in there.
- And Good Luck! :)

*Come back to this post, when the Giveaway is over, to see who won. I usually do Facebook it as well*


a Rafflecopter giveaway



Thursday, August 1, 2013

Over the Rainbow By: Brian Rowe *Book Excerpt & Author Guest Post*



Book Description
YA Fantasy
Date Published:  8/6/2013

16-year-old Zippy Green never meant to fall in love with a girl, but when she does, her ultra-conservative father tries to send her to anti-gay camp. At the Kansas City airport, however, she hides inside a giant suitcase and sneaks onto an airplane headed not to the camp, but to Seattle, where her online love Mira lives. Halfway through the flight, the plane barrels out of control and crashes into the ground, knocking her unconscious. 

When Zippy awakens, she finds that most of the passengers have vanished. She doesn’t know what’s happened, but she’s determined to find out. She begins a quest on foot toward Seattle, and along the way, she meets a teenager with a concussion , a homeless man with a heart condition, a child without a shred of bravery, and a terrier named Judy. Together the group discovers that more than two-thirds of the world's population has mysteriously disappeared. But that's only the beginning...

All Zippy wants is to find her Mira, but before she can she has to contend with two outside forces. The first is her homophobic father, who does everything in his power to keep her from the girl she loves. And the second is extinct creatures of all shapes and sizes, including living, breathing dinosaurs, which have replaced the missing population.

Book Excerpt
The end was coming, faster and faster, as the plane plummeted. I peered into the carrier to see a little white terrier staring back at me.
When I closed my eyes for the final time I felt two ice-cold tears roll down my cheeks.
“Mira… I love you… I love you… I—”
The plane collided against the Earth, and I launched forward, struck my head against the cargo door, and blacked out.    


The Author's Guest Post
 
Over the Rainbow, a book that incorporates a love story, loads of action, the rapture, dinosaurs, and The Wizard of Oz, started with one simple idea. What if a gay teenaged girl escaped from her bigoted father by packing herself into a large box and mailing herself across the country, all the way to her true love? This nugget of an idea stuck with me for a few years, and I'd always been meaning to explore it. It wasn't until I told the concept to Shaunta Grimes (author of Viral Nation) in January 2012 that I started getting more excited about turning it into a book. 

Shaunta was so enthused about the project that she started working with me on it almost every day in spring 2012, allowing me to toss ideas off her. She helped me conclude that putting her on an airplane would be more interesting than her just getting packed away in a mailing box. And she also helped me with the apocalyptic elements of the scary new world I introduce in the book. I'll never forget the look on her face when I told her I wanted to incorporate dinosaurs into the plot. The book was already getting a little crazy, and then I made it even more nutso by introducing the living, breathing dinos. I really wanted to be the first author to mix an LGBT coming-of-age story with a Jurassic Park-like action adventure. Lo and behold, Over the Rainbow was born.

Over the course of eighteen months, Over the Rainbow has turned into something entirely different than I ever could have imagined way back in January 2012. It has certainly evolved into something unique and surprising, over the course of ten drafts, professional editing, and two rounds of copyediting. But I'm proud to say I think it's my best and most ambitious work yet. And I'm so very excited to for all of you to read it. 

About The Author
Brian Rowe is a writing fiend, book devotee, film fanatic, and constant dreamer. He's written nine novels, dozens of short stories, five feature-length screenplays, and hundreds of film articles and essays. His fiction has appeared in Dreamspinner Press, Mobius Magazine, and Wilde Oats Literary Journal. He is one half of the YA book blog Story Carnivores, where he reviews the latest in books and film. He is currently pursuing his MA in English at the University of Nevada, Reno, and is hard at work on his first New Adult novel, which will be released in November 2013.

 Websitebrianrowebooks.com
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