VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR - Two Romantic, Two Suspenseful by Harmony Stalter ~ Romance, Chick Lit, Suspense

TITLE - Two Romantic,Two Suspenseful

AUTHOR - Harmony Stalter

GENRE: Romance, Chick-lit, Suspense

Book Blurb:

Two Romantic, Two Suspenseful has four very different short stories.

The Former Student - A shy girl returns to her school to see the teacher she has always had a crush on still there. When fantasy becomes a reality for them both, the teacher becomes the student.

The Stolen Child - A mother chooses to ignore the warning given to her by a strange and mysterious woman. When her child is taken, it becomes a race against time to rescue the child alive.

My Death- A woman chooses to put her career first, but at what consequence. Witness the accounts of a break up gone terribly wrong.

Dancing the Night Away - Two people, who have been hurt countless times, finally find love in the unlikeliest of places.

Excerpt:

The Former Student: Alana returned to her old high school seven years after graduating. She took the open English teachers position. When she walked through the doors on her first day of work, she could not believe it looked the same. There was one classroom she was particularly interested in, his room. She wanted to know if he was still working here. She walked up the flight of stairs and turned left. Two doors down, she peaked in the room on the left side of the hallway. There he was writing his name on the board in preparation for the first class. She smiled. He still looked the same with a bit of gray peppered throughout his hair. She knocked on the door. He turned and smiled that same innocent smile she seen every day of her senior year.

The Stolen Child: Louise ran all the way home with Jenny in her arms. By the time they got home, the rain fall had increased and they were soaking wet. Louise placed Jenny on the porch, sandwiched between her and the front door. Looking around, she made sure that the woman had not followed them home. She unlocked the door and ushered Jenny on the house. Securely locking the door behind her, she turned to Jenny.

My Death: I felt him slip one of his muscular arms around my waist. The other one wrapped around my shoulders, his hand covered my mouth. I could smell the soap he used to wash his hands. My heart and mind were racing. I did not know what was going on. I began to panic. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fight back the tears. I began to weep. He cinched his grip tighter..

Dancing the Night Away: I spotted her as I walked in the door; she was with a bunch of her friends.  The girls were all out on the dance floor, with their purses in a pile in between them.   They had their drinks in one hand, and their bodies all moved in a cohesive rhythm.  She was wearing a knee length, cobalt blue dress with a pair of black pumps.  Her copper red hair was wet with sweat, and her fair skin had a glistening sheen. 

Buy Links:

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About The Author ~ Harmony Stalter:

Harmony Stalter (1976-Present)was born in Newburgh, New York. She currently makes her home in Central Florida, and is a freelance writer that currently writes for a monthly magazine called All Access Music Magazine. She was an architectural drafter for three years before she dove head first into pursuing her career in writing, her first love. Employee Body Language Revealed: How to Predict Behavior in the Workplace by Reading and Understanding Body Language is her first book. Since completing this book, she has written Dancing the Night Away, Bulk Cooking: Everything You Need to Know, and The Great Wolf Lodge 2011 Travel Guide.

Author Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HarmonysFreelanceWritingWorld

Twitter: https://twitter.com/writer247

Website: http://www.harmonysfreelancewritingworld.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4639373.Harmony_Stalter

Book Trailer:

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Book Tour & Giveaway - How You Leave Texas by Alana Cash - 3 short stories

HOW YOU LEAVE TEXAS won a first prize in the Global Book Contest 2013

How You Leave Texas is a volume of three short stories and a novella about four young women who leave Midland, Austin, Fort Worth and Mayville, Texas for New York, California, Jakarta, and in one instance, jail.  The young women seek escape from boredom and sorrow and they find it.  Hilarious, tragic, and revelatory, the stories are about extraordinary women with ordinary lives

Synopsis of individual stories:

Dam Broke – On the night of their high school graduation, Annabelle and Mickey ride a scooter in pouring rain as they reveal closely held secrets. (6 pages). 

In sixth grade, I abandoned the reading glasses for a blond wig and a fake mole above my top lip. Mickey started wearing sunglasses indoors and carrying business cards.

 Camille’s Net Worth – On the day she turns 40, Camille’s life goes from bored to worse in uncontrolled demolition.  She accepts an exciting job opportunity and travels back and forth to Indonesia.  The job isn’t what is appears, but the irony of how things turn out causes Camille to laugh until she has tears rolling down her face. (42 pages). 

“I’m not going to spend much time repeating myself,” Camille said, “I want you to remove whatever you want to keep from this house. You can store your stuff in a rental truck if you need to until you find a new home, but you will be gone from here by midnight and never return.”

“You can’t do that!”

“If you are not gone by midnight, I will set fire to the house.” 

Krystal’s Wedding – Krystal leaves her seriously flawed family in Midland, heading for New York City, where she takes a few slippery steps.  Krystal’s mother encourages her to find a husband in order to escape her loud roommate in Hell’s Kitchen and her boring job. However, Krystal actually gets her footing in New York and in life when she is offered a new, fulfilling direction (21 pages). 

Krystal felt safer with Hudson there, but it must be as clear to him and his family as it was to her that theirs was a match of china and paper plates. As Krystal faked a sip of the champagne with a name she couldn’t read because it was printed in twirly letters in French, she wondered how hard his mother would try to prevent Hudson from getting too serious … 

Frying Your Burger – Nicky and three irreverent friends spend mornings at a coffee shop tossing repartee on love, sex, and religion.  For a short while, Nicky is caught up with a sexy Hollywood player, becoming a pawn in the battle of egos between two movie directors trying to ruin each others careers.  The affair flares, then fizzles, but Nicky lands on her feet (108 pages). 

I went into the room marked Cashier and got into a long line. And there he was. Grinning that grin. He should have had a license for it. It was that bright. I stood next to him in my white t-shirt and white pants looking like someone straight out of the “hospital orderly fashion catalogue.” It was all I had clean that day. 

About the Author:

Alana Cash is an adventurer.  She's been on ride-alongs in New York City patrol cars. She’s kissed a man inside Norman Bates’ Psycho house. She trekked alone through war-torn Serbia.  She’s used her experiences as inspiration for her work as an acclaimed writer and filmmaker.  Some of her favorite accolades are:

• She was one of 60 US teachers profiled on the PBS series, "A Writer's Exchange," for her talent as a teacher at the University of Texas Informal Classes 
• Her feature film, "Tom's Wife," based on her novel of the same name, won awards all over the world
• Her documentary "Anna Freud: Under Analysis," part of documentary trilogy on women in science, was translated into German for broadcast in Austria, Germany & Switzerland

She’s a native Texan and makes great chili.

WEBSITE:   WWW.ALANACASH.COM

Wikipedia

IMDb

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Book review - Tales from the Heart by Sophie King

Tales from the Heart

by Sophie King

Published by: Corazon Books

Available at:- Amazon Kindle

Blurb from Amazon.
A woman cooks a meal for her ex-husband, but has more than food on her mind...
Can a new arrival remind a family of what is really important in life..?
A young couple's love transports an elderly woman into the past...
Will love second time around heal old scars..?
Warring grandparents refuse to see eye to eye...
Are family secrets best kept hidden..?
A wise man's last request brings surprises for his great-niece...

Told with wit, understanding, humour, love and romance - these Tales from the Heart, which have appeared in a range of popular women's magazines such as Woman's Weekly and My Weekly, are brought together in one collection for the first time.

Plus, as a special bonus, the first two chapters of Sophie's witty new novel, Divorce for Beginners!

My review

Sophie King is well known for her short stories, written for womens magazines. T he nice light hearted reads that you can read and finish over a cup of morning coffee or afternoon tea.
This is a book full of 20 wonderful warm hearted short stories. Short stories that start you off on one line of thinking, only to surprise you near the end.

It includes reads such as "Under My Feet". A story about someone who stay's at home to keep house whilst their partner goes out to work. Their partner then gets given early retirement, threatening to disrupt the smooth running household.. A daunting feeling when you've had the house all to yourself and suddenly you're going to have someone under your feet. I loved this feel good tale of families and relationships. It amazes me how an author can give you so much information on a family and their life, in such a short story, but still have a full story.

One of my favourite tales was set in wartime Britain, and was the tale of a music box, and how it was such a wanted gift of a child with inquisitive eyes. I always remember the thrill of being bought a music box by my grandparents when I was a child. This lovely tale is about several generations of a family coming together in trying times. It really leaves you with a warm feeling at the end of it.

All 20 of the stories in this book are light hearted tales, with feel good endings. Its an ideal book to keep, to dip in and out of when you have a few minutes to spare. You won't be disappointed and you'll always be left with a smile on your face at the end of each story.

About the author

Sophie King is the author of the The School Run, Mums @ Home, Second Time Lucky, The Supper Club and The Wedding Party. Her first short story collection, Tales from the Heart, has just been released, and her latest novel, Divorce for Beginners, will be published later this summer.

Sophie's books are aimed at teenagers, mums and grans, or anyone else who can identify with a chaotic family life. Sophie has three children, a dog, a cat and a sleepy terrapin – all of whom make her laugh or cry, depending on how she feels.

Sophie has a pen name to distinguish her novels from her journalism. As Jane Bidder, she has written for The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, Woman, Woman’s Weekly, My Weekly, Good Housekeeping and many other national publications.

She has interviewed several big celebrities including her childhood hero David Essex, Michael Palin, Penny Vincenzi, Deborah Moggach, Julie Walters, Nigel Havers, Carolyn Quentin, Lord Lichfield, Martina Cole, Linda Robson, Lesley Joseph, Barbara Taylor Bradford and countless others.

This e-book was given to me to review, free of charge, by Great Stories With Heart
www.greatstorieswithheart.com. I was not paid for my review, and the words and thoughts are all my own.