Book Tour: The Occasional Diamond Thief by J A McLachlan

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The Occasional Diamond Thief
by J.A. McLachlan
Release Date: 05/15/15

****GUEST POST**** 

 

Hello, I’m J. A. McLachlan, the author of The Occasional Diamond Thief. I’m so pleased to be meeting you, and I’d like to thank S.E. Daley for having me here on Semi Short Chic today. This blog tour is part of my online launch of The Occasional Diamond Thief, and I’ll have something different at each stop – book excerpts, author and character reveals, vlogs, reviews and blog posts – for you to enjoy. You can find The Occasional Diamond Thief at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NF9NYJM

Summary from Goodreads:

The Occasional Diamond Thief is the tale of Kia, who is courageous and practical with a quirky sense of humor, and a loner.

When 16-yr-old Kia is training to be a translator, she is co-opted into travelling to Malem. This is the last place in the universe that Kia wants to be — it’s the planet where her father caught the terrible illness that killed him — but it’s also where he got the magnificent diamond that only she knows about. Kia is convinced he stole it, as it is illegal for any off-worlder to possess a Malemese diamond.

Even worse, Kia must translate for Agatha, who is as different from Kia as it's possible for two people to be - Agatha is idealistic, naïve, and compassionate.

Using her skill in languages – and another skill she picked up, the skill of picking locks - Kia unravels the secret of her father's mysterious gem and learns what she must do to set things right: return the diamond to its original owner. But how will she find out who that is when no one can know that she, an off-worlder, has a Malemese diamond? Can she trust the new friends she’s made on Malem, especially handsome but mysterious 17-year-old Jumal, to help her?

And will she solve the puzzle in time to save Agatha, the last person she would have expected to become her closest friend?

Add to Goodreads

Buy Links: Amazon

Book Excerpt:

(This excerpt from the novel describes Kia’s first meeting with Jumal.)

The day is cold and overcast again, raining off and on in short, angry bursts. In the three days we’ve been here there’s been as much precipitation as we get in a year on Seraffa. I go out anyway, hoping to walk off the bad feeling I have, and trudge down the muddy road, flapping my arms to keep warm.

I stop when I realize I must look like a duck in the rain. Too late. I’ve already emerged from Prophet’s Lane onto the cobblestone street, and a guy about my age is staring at me as he walks past, his lips curved in a mocking half-smile. I stare back, partly because he’s being rude, and partly because he’s worth staring at: tall and slim, with high cheekbones and dark eyes framed with long, dark lashes my college roommate would kill for.

“Quack,” he says, laughs, and keeps walking. I stand there, trying to think of a clever reply to shout after him, but all my four-and-a-half languages fail me. I turn and walk in the opposite direction, feeling exactly like I must look: not just normal stupid, but major moronic.

Check here for the other places I’ll be:
http://yaboundbooktours.blogspot.ca/2015/03/blog-tour-sign-up-occasional-diamond.html

About the Author

J. A. McLachlan was born in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of a short story collection, CONNECTIONS, published by Pandora Press and two College textbooks on Professional Ethics, published by Pearson-Prentice Hall. But science fiction is her first love, a genre she has been reading all her life, and Walls of Wind is her first published Science Fiction novel. Her new science fiction novel is The Occasional Diamond Thief. She is represented by Carrie Pestritto at Prospect Agency. 

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook

GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

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Blog Tour Schedule:

May 18:

the bookdragon - http://sheisadude.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

Semi Short Chic – www.semishort.blogspot.com - Promo Post

Just Us Book Blog - http://justusbookblog.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

CBY Book Club - http://cbybookclub.blogspot.co.uk/ - Promo Post

May 19:

My Full Bookshelf - http://myfullbookshelfreviews.blogspot.com - Review

Mythical Books - http://www.mythicalbooks.blogspot.ro/ - Promo Post

3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too! - http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com - Promo Post

Poetry and Book Reviews of a Young Artist - http://t.co/fqlcLfSazh - Promo Post

V's Reads - http://vsreads.com - Review

May 20:

Sunshine Book Promotions - http://sunshinebookpromos.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

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Undercover Book Reviews - http://undercoverbookreviews.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

May 21:

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A Book Addict's Bookshelves - http://www.jesswatkinsauthor.blogspot.co.uk - Promo Post

May 22:

Author & Book Spotlights - http://authorcjanaya.com/ - Promo Post

The Written Adventure - http://nataliecarrollthewrittenadventure.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

Dreamscape - http://www.dreamscape-blog.com – Review

A to Z Reviews - http://bookreviewsbyjackie.com/ - Promo Post

Literary Musings - http://literarymusing.weebly.com/ - Promo Post

May 25:

Archaeolibrarian - I dig good books! - http://archaeolibrarianologist.blogspot.de/ - Review

Book Lovers Life - http://bookloverslife.blogspot.ie/ - Promo Post

Elsie Elmore - www.elsieelmore.com - Promo Post

May 26:

A Dream Within A Dream - http://adreamwithindream.blogspot.com - Promo Post

Dalene's Book Reviews - http://dalenesbookreviews.blogspot.com - Promo Post

May 27:

A Novel Kind of Bliss - http://www.anovelkindofbliss.blogspot.com - Review

deal sharing aunt - http://dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

May 28:

Writing Pearls - http://www.writingpearls.com – Review

Thewordsiread - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwPT71BRZiUVCwl2OVCkKxg - Review

Samantha Writes - www.samanthawrites.ca – Review

Living in a Bookworld - http://livinginabookworld.blogspot.gr - Promo Post

Le Petite Books – www.lepetitebooks.com - Review

May 29:

Books Tea and Cats - http://booksaccordingtomaria.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

Books Direct - http://booksdirectonline.blogspot.com.au/ - Promo Post

The Phantom Paragrapher - www.thephantomparagrapher.blogspot.com – Review

Indy Book Fairy - http://paranormalbookfairy.blogspot.com/ - Promo Post

Welcome to Book City – www.welcometobookcitynews.blogspot.com - Promo Post

Book Tour Organized by:

YA Bound Book Tours

Book Tour: Mysteries of Cove, book 1: Fires of Invention by J Scott Savage

***Author Note***
Like many of my books, the inspiration for my new series Fires of Invention came from the collision of two ideas. The first time the story occurred to me was while I was watching the musical Wicked with my wife. The moment I walked into the theater and saw the huge mechanical dragon above the stage, I thought, Wow! I have to write a story about that! A few weeks later, I was talking with my nephew, who is probably the most creative kid I know, but whose inventiveness often gets him into trouble, and I thought, What if a kid who had the talents of my nephew lived in a world where creativity was against the law? What if the kids were building . . . a steam-powered dragon? Bam! I had my story.


Powered by great feedback from my agent, Michael Bourret, my good friend and author James Dashner, my publisher, Chris Schoebinger, and the song “Warriors” by Imagine Dragons, I wrote the entire first draft of the first volume in the series, Mysteries of Cove in four weeks. This book is unlike anything I have ever written. There are elements of City of Ember, Dragon Riders, and Hugo in it all mashed up together in a world I fell in love with from the moment I started writing.

I think what’s most exciting to me about this book is that it’s about giving yourself the freedom to imagine. To take chances. Too often we limit ourselves by only trying things we’re confident we can succeed at when what we need to do is give ourselves permission to fail. Often it is when we attempt things with no idea of how we can possibly pull them off that we achieve our greatest successes.





Book Description:
STEAMPUNK! Plus Dragons!
Trenton Colman is a creative thirteen-year-old boy with a knack for all things mechanical. But his talents are viewed with suspicion in Cove, a steam-powered city built inside a mountain. In Cove, creativity is a crime and "invention" is a curse word. Kallista Babbage is a repair technician and daughter of the notorious Leo Babbage, whose father died in an explosion-an event the leaders of Cove point to as an example of the danger of creativity.

Working together, Trenton and Kallista learn that Leo Babbage was developing a secret project before he perished. Following clues he left behind, they begin to assemble a strange machine that is unlikely anything they've ever seen before. They soon discover that what they are building may threaten every truth their city is founded on-and quite possibly their very lives.

Author Bio:
J. Scott Savage is the author of the Farworld middle grade fantasy series and the Case File 13 middle grade monster series. He has been writing and publishing books for over ten years. He has visited over 400 elementary schools, dozens of writers conferences, and taught many writing classes. He has four children and lives with his wife Jennifer and their Border Collie, Pepper, in a windy valley of the Rocky Mountains.


FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/J-Scott-Savage/55805743891
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/jscottsavage
INSTAGRAM: jscottsavage
WEBSITE: www.jscottsavage.com

Cover Reveal: Holding Court by K. C. Held

I'm so excited to help out with this fantastic cover reveal! But first things first. What's the point of checking out a fabulous new cover, if we aren't already super intrigued by what the book will be about?

 

Holding Court
by K.C. Held

Release Date: March 2016

Entangled Teen

Summary from Goodreads:

When sixteen year-old Jules Verity, who suffers from what her best friend calls “Psychic Tourette’s Syndrome” (spontaneous outbursts of seemingly absurd prophecies that she can’t control) takes a job at a castle turned dinner theater known as Tudor Times, all she wants is the chance to make some money, wear a fancy gown, and ogle gorgeous-but-taken Grayson Chandler from afar. Instead she’s forced to wear the most mortifying costume ever, stumbles over a dead body that promptly disappears, and becomes a suspect in a jewel forgery scam.

Determined to prove she’s not a total freak who hallucinated a dead girl, Jules goes looking for answers in the secret passageways of Tudor Times. At first she’s thrilled when Grayson volunteers to help her on her quest to find a dead body, but his sudden interest in spending time with Jules becomes suspicious when she discovers his girlfriend may be guilty of a lot more than perfect hair and fabulous cleavage.

And if she can’t unveil the truth in time, wearing an embarrassing costume and her psychic outbursts will be the least of her problems.

 

Are you intrigued?

TA-DA!!!!!

 

Now, for a little about this lady who wrote the book.

(Seriously, I kinda need her cover model's boots. LOVE THEM!!!)

About the Author

K.C. HELD was born and raised in California with stopovers in Honduras, Mexico, and France. Married to her high school sweetheart, and mom to two wee bookworms, she holds an MFA in costume design and is an accomplished seamstress with a background in opera, theatre, film, and television. K.C. is represented by Kathleen Rushall at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Her debut young adult novel, HOLDING COURT, will be published by Entangled Teen in 2016.

Author Links:


Cover Reveal Organized by:

Book Tour: Regeneration X by Ellison Blackburn

If Charlotte Rhys Fenn could do it all over, knowing what she knows now, she would be different.Charley leads a comfortable life with her best friend and perfect match, Michael, a man with whom she shares two lovely pet children (canine and feline), and a home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She’s fortunate to have a caring and supportive family, and two amazing friends, Inez and Becks. Professionally, she holds a secure position as editor of a respected healthcare magazine. Her life is settled, as is her future.
Acquiring this existence of hers hadn't been easy. For at least twenty years she felt like a wind-up toy, methodically following preprogrammed rules—step one ... step two. She even imagined herself as a minuscule, but essential, cog inside a big machine with the mechanical brain. No matter what she tells herself, it hasn’t helped since another thought flutters through her mind as frequently: Going through the motions is the same as coasting toward nothingness.
It is 2025, the time is right. Technology, in a rapidly advancing world, makes it possible to reimagine the future by recreating the past or, more aptly, by creating another past.
Charley must either embrace her well-earned, sedate lifestyle, or invite a change that could alter her future irreversibly. It's a difficult decision, one that could destroy all she has endeavored for, turning their life not only upside down, but backwards, forwards, and inside out.

Grab your copy here!

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Regeneration-X-Ellison-Blackburn-ebook/dp/B00VUGO8LK

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25329560-regeneration-x

Ellison Blackburn is a full-time designer/web developer of fifteen years. Ironically, she often waxes nostalgic over simpler days. Her passions include writing fiction and poetry, painting, and collecting vintage thingamabobs.

Raised in Chicago, she relocated to the Pacific Northwest where she currently lives with her husband and three beastly, furry children.
She is a writer of fiction and poetry and the internationally published author of Regeneration X.

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

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109759466249678220940/posts

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ellis_blackburn

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/EllisonBlackburn

Author Ellison Blackburn's Top Ten Favorite Things

Blue
Smell of lilac
Peonies
Happy animals
Jane Austen
Pink Floyd
Reading a good book
Scotland
Lord of the Rings movies
W.H. Auden poem, Stop all the Clocks

Short Excerpt from Chapter 2:

Many of her ways were because she secretly longed for the slower-paced days. Days when people took time to appreciate their actual surroundings, other people and life, for example going for strolls or sipping a port or sherry over a philosophical conversation, instead of the occasional wine with dinner or a binge night out chatting about mundane details. She fancied the idea of a habitual thing, not something you just did on occasion between scheduled happy hours and video conferences, or amidst the chaos of group chats, social media, and messaging, virtual or otherwise.

All of the boxes that were part of today’s norm were tedious and as Becks called it, “soul sucking.” Charley agreed wholeheartedly and felt, sometimes, she didn’t quite fit into the modern world even though she could navigate through it well enough. She even had a HaloYou profile. She tuned-in to her connections’ lives, but rarely posted virtual moment videos of her own self and life. In this way she stayed informed; held fast to her privacy and managed some semblance of unspoken social responsibility. Privately, she also attempted to appease her quirks in a modern way, even though she was old-fashioned at heart. For example, since the beyond-repair fireplace was long gone (demolished during their remodeling) and she’d have to join some Meetup group just to play board games (she played Solitaire or Candy Crush on her tablet), and around Christmas, she launched a hologram of a roaring fire as part of their decorations.

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May 17

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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-Kirstys-Book-Reviews/740671655951314

 

Cover Reveal: Amber Prelude by Kevin B Henry

It's a COVER REVEAL!!!! And a very fun, unique one at that!  
Be sure to check out the entire post! 
There is a fabulous excerpt at the bottom.

First the book Description:

Mitchell didn't really believe the story the Man told him, Just take a sip and speak a year. He whimsically chose a historic event to witness. Little did he know he would become part of that history. Faster than you can say Teithwyr Amser our man Mitchell is chasing a bona fide assassin not only across America but across time.

Amber Prelude will require Mitchell to travel from the America he knows to France and Africa. He will travel to decades and centuries he is unfamiliar with. Mitchell will chase authentic villains and make historic friends, all in an attempt to set history back the way he remembers.

This fabulous book will be released June 1, 2015!

Publisher: Burst/ Champagne Books

Next, a little about the Author:

From an early age, Kevin B. Henry was a voracious reader. His collection of science fiction, fantasy and mystery books bring tears of envy to the eyes of many small community libraries.
Kevin has worked as an educator, technology specialist and day laborer most of his adult life. During all that time he lived the life of a frustrated author. That it took 30 years for him to piece together the series, Amber Gifts is a testament that the best meals need slow cooking to bring out the flavor.
The Amber Gifts Series begins with Amber Gifts. The second story, which is really the first, is Amber Prelude, and is available now. The third story, Amber Legacy continues where Amber Gifts left off. It will be available in November 2015. All are published by the wonderful folks at the Champagne Book Group. A fourth story is in the process of being written.
Kevin is a natural story teller, so it’s logical that he lectures occasionally. Topics range from the implementation of cutting edge technology hardware to the creation, modification and use of e-books within education. He constantly pursues research to expand his range of possible topics. His most recent research revolved around the aerodynamic properties of reindeer. He’s also been known to include little known facts and trivia within his presentations. Did you know just 146 years ago today the Union Army marched into Atlanta. It took longer than anticipated. They were delayed by a traffic jam on I-75 and the toll booth on Ga. 400
He continues to live in the Mid-West without human or domesticated mammal companionship.

Blog/Wesbite: www.ambergifts.blogspot.com

Twitter: @Kevin_Henry

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AmberGifts

What's that you say? Show me the cover already? 

TOUGH! 

Just kidding. 

How would you like to build it yourself? 

Solve the puzzle below to see the full cover!

Just incase the awesome puzzle that should be appearing above, doesn't work on everyone's browser, and also

for those of you not interested in having fun today, 

don't have time to solve the puzzle, 

or just honestly have no interest in piecing together a puzzle, 

here is the cover! 

Super eye-catching right?

 

Cover Artist: Ellie Smith

Now for an excerpt from the story:

I had not spent long hours considering the year I would move to. I flippantly selected 1963. It would give me almost ten years before my birth moment and I vanished from the universe forever. The Man was specific about not existing past my birth moment. It would give me a chance to see some of the most tumultuous years in America, civil rights marches, hippies, the moon landing. My choice of year would give me a chance to stand at Dealey Plaza and personally see if there was a second shooter. It was a shallow choice, but it was the best I could come up with.

My first thought as the world congealed around me was that I had said something wrong. Had I said 1863? It was night. The stars above me were crisp and clear. Sagebrush surrounded me in all directions. Gone were the smells of the city. My senses absorbed a clean, fresh smell. This was how I remembered the world use to be. A scrub oak blended with the evening shadows just a few feet to my right. To my left was a light in the distance, a campfire. The flames created dancing shadows on the two trees surrounding the fire. Someone sat next to the fire, stirring the flames, sparks rising into the starry sky.

I walked toward the fire. I didn’t see that I had any choice; every other direction was pitch-black. Halfway there he rose from his place at the fire and raised his left hand above his head.

He sparkled. It wasn’t anything residual from the fire. His whole body twinkled and sparkled. It was disturbing.

“About time, Mitchell,” he yelled. “I’ve been waiting here for damn near three days. Come on in. I’m sure you have questions, son.”

For more excerpts from the book, 

check out the other blogs assisting in this cover reveal!

Fang-tastic Books
www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com

Roxanne’s Realm
www.roxannerhoads.com

Lisa’s World of Books
www.lisasworldofbooks.net

The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom
www.creativelygreen.blogspot.com

3 Partners in Shopping; Nana, Mommy, and Sissy too!
http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com/

Shut Up and  Read
http://shutupandreadgroup.blogspot.com/

The Semi Short Chic
www.semishort.blogspot.com

Fantasy Book Lane
http://www.fantasybooklane.com/

CBY Book Club
http://cbybookclub.blogspot.co.uk

happy tails and tales
http://happytailsandtales.blogspot.com

Gothic Moms
http://gothicmoms.blogspot.com/