Cover Reveal: A Stranger in the Night by Kristy Centeno

A Stranger in the Night

by Kristy Centeno

Genre: Paranormal Romance/Erotic Romance/Contemporary Romance

Rerelease: December, 2012

Publisher: Tease Publishing LLC

Cover art design: Amanda Kelsey ~ http://razzdazzdesign.com/

Author’s Website: www.kristycenteno.com

Author’s Blog: http://booksbycenteno.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/KristyCenteno

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/8896423-kristy-centeno

Keiran McDermott has lived by one simple rule for over a hundred years: keep a safe distance from humans at all times. He knows from experience that close proximity to them can be disastrous and more often than not, end up badly. But when the need to explore a nearby town places him directly in the path of a woman being stalked by two foul predators, the instinct to protect the young beauty from the men intent on causing her harm forces him to break his self-imposed law.

However, once she’s safely away from her attackers, Keiran finds himself locked in another battle. He knows his weakness can kill; it did so in the past. But how can he find the courage to stay away when the image of her lovely face torments his mind?

When a new threat forces him to come to Celine’s aid again, will Keiran be able to fight temptation long enough to keep her alive and protected, even from himself?

Blog Tour: Island of Tory by Regina M. Geither - Book Excerpt

When my body stopped tumbling, everything was silent. Eerily silent. No crying. No screaming. No moaning. No more breaking glass. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing until a pitiful whimper escaped from somewhere deep inside of me, “Mom? Dad?” The sound of my own voice scared me. I started to cry. That was when I felt the throbbing in my head. It felt like someone had put a vice around my skull and was slowly winding it tighter and tighter. Within seconds, the pressure was unbearable.

That was when I realized that my feet were above my head. I was wedged inside the car upside down. I felt around for the door’s handle. Instead, I found an opening where I guessed one of the windows had been. My hands groped the edges of the hole. Something sharp poked my palms, and a stinging pain shot through my fingers and up my arms. My hands turned wet and slippery. My breath caught in my throat as I realized I was bleeding. I forced my body through the gap in the wreckage and rolled onto the ground.

The throbbing in my head subsided, and I stared into the darkness. I half wondered if I was blind. Everything was black. I couldn’t see a shadow, the outline of our car…nothing. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t feel the ground. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. I just felt numb. No, not even numb. Detached.

I felt like crying again, but I couldn’t. Was I dead? I suddenly began searching through my consciousness for a memory of what had happened. I didn’t understand where I was. Panic shot through me. I felt the desperate need to escape.

That was when the first shadow appeared. It was just a pinpoint at first, a dark gray mass in the abyss surrounding me, but it grew larger and began to pulsate. I felt an inexplicable wave of terror pass through me. This thing was headed toward me, and it made my mind race with dread. I had no idea what the shadow was; still, I was scared of it.

The shadow triggered a memory of my parents at the dinner table. “When ya die, Deirdra,” I heard my father say, “all of your past comes back ta ya, and ya must answer for the good or evil ya’ve done.”

“Ya’re wrong, Thomas,” my mother had corrected. “When ya die, the energy of your consciousness leaves your body. There is no judgment, just death.”

I had scoffed at their theorizing. However, as I lay staring at the growing shadow approaching me, I anxiously began to speculate on who was right.

The feeling in my limbs suddenly returned, and every one of my muscles began to shake with fear. It was then that I remembered tomorrow was my birthday. I would have been seventeen.

Author Bio: 

Regina M. Geither was raised on stories of legends, curses, and all things paranormal.  Today, she is a teacher, writer, and published author of the middle grade short story, Swamp Stallion, part of McGraw-Hill’s Imagine It! reading series.  Her most recent publication is the young adult paranormal fantasy novel, Island of Tory, a tale of Celtic myth and Irish curses.  Along with being an intermediate school teacher, Regina teaches adults novel writing at Polaris Career Center.  She resides in northern Ohio and is currently working on the sequel to Island of Tory, Cursing Stone.  Find out more at www.reginamgeither.com.

Follow the author and book:

Loconeal Publishing   http://loconeal.com/store/island-of-tory/

Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Island-Tory-Regina-M-Geither/dp/0985081708

Amazon UK  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Tory-Regina-M-Geither/dp/0985081708

Barnes and Noble online  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/island-of-tory-regina-geither/1038260843?ean=9780985081706

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Island-of-Tory-by-Regina-M-Geither/158924204171998

Twitter  https://twitter.com/reginamgeither

My website  http://www.reginamgeither.com

Review: A Breath of Eyre (Unbound #1) by Eve Marie Mont

(Click image to add to your to be read pile)
Title: A Breath of Eyre (Unbound #1)
Author: Eve Marie Mont
Publisher: K Teen
Genre: Young Adult: Contemporary Romance, Young Adult: Paranormal, Young Adult: Historical Romance, Teen
Format: Paperback
Buy: Amazon / The Book Depository / Barnes & Noble

In this stunning, imaginative novel, Eve Marie Mont transports her modern-day heroine into the life of Jane Eyre to create a mesmerizing story of love, longing, and finding your place in the world... Emma Townsend has always believed in stories-the ones she reads voraciously, and the ones she creates. Perhaps it's because she feels like an outsider at her exclusive prep school, or because her stepmother doesn't come close to filling the void left by her mother's death. And her only romantic prospect-apart from a crush on her English teacher-is Gray Newman, a long-time friend who just adds to Emma's confusion. But escape soon arrives in an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre...

Reading of Jane's isolation sparks a deep sense of kinship. Then fate takes things a leap further when a lightning storm catapults Emma right into Jane's body and her nineteenth-century world. As governess at Thornfield, Emma has a sense of belonging she's never known-and an attraction to the brooding Mr. Rochester. Now, moving between her two realities and uncovering secrets in both, Emma must decide whether her destiny lies in the pages of Jane's story, or in the unwritten chapters of her own...

Jane Eyre is my all-time favorite novel. It was the only thing that kept me company when I was in my pre-teens. It was the book I relied on. I couldn't get enough of the movie and tv adaptations that I decided to search around for retellings and re-adaptations of the novel and I found A Breath of Eyre. I was ecstatic and thrilled about my find that I bought it immediately. The moment it arrived, I started reading it and I knew I couldn't stop.

Emma Townsend is a lonely teenager who confides herself in Jane Eyre's world. And when disaster strikes in reality her whole world turns upside down and she's thrown into the fantasy that is Jane Eyre's shoes (literally). She lives out Jane's life for her. She teaches Adele, chats with Mrs. Fairfax and falls in love with her employer, Mr. Rochester. Her image of reality and fantasy slips a little the first time she makes it to Jane's world. But when she returns to reality, she wants nothing more than to escape back to the illusion of Jane's world. By illusion, I don't mean Emma is crazy and is seeing things. Each time she's in Jane's world, she's in a coma in reality. As she explores her feelings in Jane's shoes, the author changed my whole outlook of my childhood best friend Jane and my childhood crush, Mr. Rochester.

She portrayed Jane Eyre as a feminist that stupidly fell in love with a controlling monster who married his wife, Bertha for money then drove her into a state of loneliness and depression. This eventually drove her so insane and violent that he locked her up like an animal just because he didn't want to deal with her. If I think about it long enough, it may look that way if we sat in Bertha Mason's place. But honestly, what happened to the bi-polar-ness that drove every female in Bertha's family insane? Bertha Mason is self-destructive, and Rochester did what every man would do in that era: lock her up because they were afraid of a mental illness that they did not understand. I see no harm in Mont's perception of Jane Eyre, after all everyone is entitled to their own opinions. And this particular opinion can be a real eye-opener and I tip my hat to Mont for her concept twist.

The unique twist, the emotional and dark characters, the romance, the fights and interactions that were realistic, brought this book together pretty well. Despite all the copy-paste from the original Jane Eyre book, I still found myself loving this book, if not whole-heartedly but sincere enough to say that I adored the message that came with it: Appreciate and be grateful of the people who love you in reality because people in fantasies are just scripted, unreal and well... an illusion. Nothing beats reality, even if reality beats you.