M9B Friday Reveal: Author Spotlight - Charles Curtis with Giveaway #M9BFridayReveals

M9B Friday Reveal: Author Spotlight - Charles Curtis with Giveaway #M9BFridayReveals

Welcome to this week’s M9B Friday Reveal!

This week, we are spotlighting

Charles Curtis

author of

Strange Country Days

a Middle Grade title from Tantrum Books, coming August 2015!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Twitter or Facebook?
I use both, but I'm plugged into Twitter every day for eight hours (I swear, it's for my job as a sportswriter! - http://connect.nj.com/staff/CharlesCurtis/posts.html).

Favorite Superhero?
I was hooked on Wolverine as a kid. Who doesn't love a sarcastic hero with a murky origin tale, claws and all the best one-liners?

Favorite TV show?
Current: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. All-Time: Seinfeld. Guilty Pleasure: Food Network Star

Sweet or Salty?
I will eat something sweet like a peanut butter cup and follow it up with a salty snack. It's a yin/yang thing I started doing as a teenager.

Coke or Pepsi?
Coke and it's not even close.

Any Phobias?
Three words: Big hairy spiders.

Song you can’t get enough of right now?
I just discovered an artist named Jacob Collier who does these incredible, mostly a cappella arrangements of songs and I'm hooked on his take on the jazz standard "Fascinating Rhythm." Amazing! [link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K28H04Y2IdE]

What are you reading right now or what's on your TBR?
I just started "The Maze Runner" and plan on reading Andy Weir's "The Martian" next.

Fall Movie you’re most looking forward to?
I've watched the Star Wars trailers about 80 times each and geek out. Every. Single. Time.

Charles Curtis is a writer and journalist based in New York City. He has reported and written for publications including NJ.com (where he is currently the site’s sports buzz reporter), The Daily, ESPN.com, ESPN the Magazine, Bleacher Report, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. Charles has covered the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, golf, tennis and NASCAR. He has also written about television, film and pop culture.
In addition, Curtis has also written, produced and was featured in videos for ESPN.com and The Daily. He has made radio appearances on stations including 92.9 The Ticket in Bangor, Maine, WLIE 540 AM in Long Island and on morning shows across Canada via the CBC.
He can be reached on Twitter: @charlescurtis82.

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Alexander Graham Ptuiac, the son of an inventor, wants to play for the school’s football team. During tryouts, and under the watchful eye of the team’s coach, he suddenly manifests mysterious superhuman powers. Alexander makes the team, but not before the some ill-intended adults take notice, putting his life in danger.

Alex struggles to suppress and control his strange new abilities, worried about exposing his secret and being kicked off the football team. Then he befriends Dex, a diminutive classmate who can somehow jump as high as ten feet in the air. Seems Alex isn’t the only one at school with a secret.

As the school year unfolds, Alex will find himself the target of bullies, holding hands with his first crush and discovering the shocking truth about himself and his parents.

Amazon | B&N | BAM | Chapters | Kobo | TBD | iBooks

Complete the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win!

Title(s) will be sent upon release.

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Waiting on Wednesday (107) The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, created by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on: 

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

A world battered by climate shift and war turns to an ancient method of keeping peace: the exchange of hostages. The Children of Peace - sons and daughters of kings and presidents and generals - are raised together in small, isolated schools called Preceptures. There, they learn history and political theory, and are taught to gracefully accept what may well be their fate: to die if their countries declare war.

Greta Gustafsen Stuart, Duchess of Halifax and Crown Princess of the Pan-Polar Confederation, is the pride of the North American Prefecture. Learned and disciplined, Greta is proud of her role in keeping the global peace, even though, with her country controlling two-thirds of the world’s most war-worthy resource — water — she has little chance of reaching adulthood alive.

Enter Elián Palnik, the Prefecture’s newest hostage and biggest problem. Greta’s world begins to tilt the moment she sees Elián dragged into the school in chains. The Prefecture’s insidious surveillance, its small punishments and rewards, can make no dent in Elián, who is not interested in dignity and tradition, and doesn’t even accept the right of the UN to keep hostages.

What will happen to Elián and Greta as their two nations inch closer to war? (Blurb via Goodreads)

Expected publication: September 22, 2015

What are you waiting on?

Teaser Tuesday (103) Safe at Last by Maya Banks

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read(s)
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) -- or less or more -- “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

“Rage. Grief. Fury. Soul-deep sorrow.”

page 56, Safe at Last by Maya Banks

{Book Blitz + Excerpt + Giveaway} Castle in the Air by Jennifer Tressen @JenniferTressen

Castle in the Air
by Jennifer Tressen
Release Date: July 23rd 2015

Summary from Amazon:
The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas has been called "America's Most Haunted Hotel" largely because of the events of the 1930s when Dr. Norman Baker ran a "cancer treatment hospital" which he called his "Castle in the Air." 

Follow the fictionalized story of Clara, the young, unwed pregnant niece of Dr. Baker who comes to help at the cancer center in exchange for room and board and finds things aren't quite what they appear to be. Caring for an ill young boy at the center she feels her maternal instincts kick in - something is definitely not right at her uncle's hospital. But what? Will she be able to piece together the clues in time to save herself and the boy? Or will be forever be doomed to reside in the Castle in the Air, where once you check in...you never leave. 

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble

{Excerpt}

On the second floor the distinct smell of a cedar tobacco pipe lingered in the air. Clara coughed as they ascended the stairs further.

“This is where sick folks get well,” Dr. Baker said opening his arms like a magician readying the crowd for his next trick. One bedroom door on the second floor was open. Clara curiously poked her head in. “Every room has a connecting bath.”

“Nice,” Clara mumbled as Dr. Baker quickly pulled the door shut coming within inches of smacking her in the face.

As they made their way up another level Clara began to probe her uncle. “So what is it you do here exactly?”

“We cure cancer, tumors…without operation, radium or x-rays.”

“And how do you do that?”

“I have found the cure.”

“It works on all cancers? Cancers of the stomach as well as the head?” Clara asked.

“Indeed,” Dr. Baker said, an air of arrogance in his voice. “Do you doubt me?”

Yes. Perhaps. I don’t know.

“No of course not. I’ve only just met you. Why would I doubt you?” Clara said, covering the truth of her thoughts.

“I once did a brain surgery in front of a live audience.”

“You made an operation into a show?” Clara asked appalled by his flamboyant excitement.

“But it is a show. A feat of nature, beating it at its own tricks. Don’t you agree?” he asked, searching her eyes for even the slightest falter of disagreement.

“I don’t know enough on the subject to have a real opinion I suppose. I’m only nineteen you know.”

Dr. Baker took a second more to stare at her before turning and pointing toward the staircase leading to the fourth floor.

Whew.

“Yes, well you do have a lot to learn. A bit of ignorance should be expected. I forget how vacant-minded the youth are these days. Lily will show you to your room.” With that he turned on his heels and began back down the third floor hallway.

“Bye,” Clara let out meekly. “Thanks for…the tour.”

About the Author

Jennifer Tressen is a wife, mother and writer. A former actor, she spent nearly ten years in the entertainment industry appearing in commercials, print ads and television shows. It was her love of storytelling that pushed her to the other side of the camera and sent her to film school at Chapman University. Although she entered as a Cinematography major, Jennifer graduated with a degree in Screenwriting after a single required screenwriting class forever changed her path. She found a passion for writing she had forgotten in her childhood. Everything she learned about screenwriting and especially storytelling she attributes to her mentor, the late Blake Snyder. 

After several years of writing and editing for producers and other screenwriters her curiosity led her into writing novels. As a huge fan of Young Adult and New Adult literature this is where her pen tends to lead her. However, she does have plans to release a few middle grade fiction and adult novels in the future.

Jennifer attributes her love of reading and writing to her mother who always reminded her of the power of literacy. Besides telling her and her siblings that they could do anything they wanted if they knew how to read and write, she said, "You can go anywhere in a book. You can be anyone."

Author Links:

   

GIVEAWAY:

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Stacking the Shelves (108)

 Stacking The Shelves, a weekly meme from Tynga's Reviews
where I list what I've read, what I've reviewed, what I've acquired
and anything else worth mentioning

• Hungry Like the Wolf by Paige Tyler - recommended
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir - absolutely LOVED it
• Everly by S.M. Shade
• Christmas with the Billionaire by Amy Lamont
• Sold to Santa by JA Bailey
• His to Dominate by Christa Wick
• Billionaire's Pet by Christa Wick
• Curves for Two by Christa Wick
• Wolf Curves by Christa Wick
• Missing Royal by Konstanz Silverbow
• Mason by SM Shade
• Baiting the Maid of Honor by Tessa Bailey - I love anything by Tessa Bailey
• The Alpha Wolf by Jen Wilde
• Smokejumpers Werebear by Kim Fox
• Call Me Saffron by Talia Surova
• Boss Alien by Sue Mercury and Sue Lyndon
• His Gift 1 by Aubrey Dark
• Encore by Jamie Salisbury
• Lost in Us by Layla Hagen
• Alien Blood by Melisse Aires
• Torque by Anna Snow
• Santa's Wrong Turn by Cyndi Raye

Sick this week - check back next week

Book image property of Microsoft  

{Book Blitz + Excerpt + Giveaway} For No Apparent Reason by S.K. Derban @skderban

For No Apparent Reason

by S.K. Derban 

Release Date: 11/10/13
Touch Point Press

273 pages

Summary from Goodreads:

A focused law student, romance has been absent from Madison’s life. She has successfully planned each phase of her life and resigned to the fact that there will be plenty of time for love after she passes the bar exam—that is, until the single act of seeking shelter from a spring downpour dramatically alters the course of her life.

Madison is lured away from the security of law school into a world where she learns about the destructive nature of greed. Thrust in a maze of money laundering and murder, Madison experiences the value of true friendship and witnesses the healing power of love. 

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble

{Excerpt}

While preoccupied with a mental debate about whether to tear open the package, Madison heard the doorbell. She sprinted down the stairs before the second chime, half expecting to see Jeremiah. Madison took a deep breath, steadied her herself for a confrontation, then opened the door. Instead of Jeremiah, she found herself face to face with a captivating stranger. “Hello,” she said, before panic set in. In her rush, Madison had failed to check the peephole.

“Miss Leigh?” he asked. His sensual drawl emphasized the “Lee” sound of her last name. His simple question instantly struck Madison with a lightning bolt of emotion. She wanted to respond, but couldn’t even remember how to speak. He stepped even closer. “You are Madison Leigh?” he pressed.

Her hands began to perspire. Finally, she managed to say, “Yes, I am.” Madison looked up and captured a glimpse of her own reflection in his mirrored sunglasses. The racing of her heart had caused her face to flush dramatically. She cleared her throat in a struggle to regain control. “And, who are you?”

“I’m an agent with the FBI. My name is Court Braxton.” Madison immediately relaxed.

“Court?” She sounded flirtatious. “As in basketball?” Through his sunglasses, Court watched as Madison squinted to pierce their opaque lenses. He felt an increased attraction for the spirited young woman as she continued to tease him. “Tennis? Racquetball?”

Court clenched his jaw in an effort to stall a grin. “Miss Leigh,” he interrupted. “Please feel free to just call me Agent Braxton.”

 

About the Author

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, S.K. Derban moved to London within the first three months, and remained in England until the age of five. Her father, an American citizen, was a decorated veteran of the second world war. Derban's mother, born and raised in the United Kingdom, was involved with the London Royal Ballet Company, and a great fan of the arts. Even after returning to the United States, Derban's life was filled with a love of the theatre and a passion for British murder mysteries.

S.K. Derban has always remained passionate about writing, and is thrilled to finally share her work with others. Her personal travel and missionary adventures also help to transport readers virtually across the globe. When writing, Derban relies on all aspects of her life, from her faith in the Lord, to her love and knowledge of the arts.

Author Links:

   

GIVEAWAY:

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