Interviews 
   Roxanne St.Claire . . . . . . . . . . .  1
   Wild Rose Press  . . . . . . . . . . . .  7 
   Lyrical Press    . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7 
   
New Releases  . . . . . . . . . . . .  2,3,4

Reviews by
   Alan Chin  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
   Book Babbles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   Roberta’s Ramblings . . . . . . . . .  3
   Shannon’s Space . . . . . . . . . . . . 2






Q: What do you hope readers take with them after reading your work?
Hope, happiness, and belief in the power of love.

Q: What is the one question you wish an interviewer would ask you?
Gosh, I can’t think of one I haven’t been asked.  I guess why should people read my books?  And I’ll answer with this: I write a book that makes readers stand up and cheer in the end.  I write a book that makes readers laugh, cry, and get lost in another world.  And I write a book that I hope will stay with readers for a long time.  But, if not mine, just read any book -- because reading is the door to new worlds and great places!
For more on Roxanne St.Claire visit her website at:

http://www.roxannestclaire.com/

What She Left Behind by Tracy Bilen released by Simon Pulse –  May  2012 – 5 Stars!


“Don’t even think of leaving… I will find you,” he whispered. “Guaranteed.” Sara and her mom have a plan to finally escape Sara’s abusive father. But when her mom doesn’t show up as expected, Sara’s terrified. Her father says that she’s on a business trip, but Sara knows he’s lying. Her mom is missing—and her dad had something to do with it. 


Okay, so this was another “keep me up” all night book. I had no idea what was going to happen with Sara who struggles to be invisible as her father grows increasingly violent. 


Sara has to learn the truth about her missing mother and begins to play detective. To complicate matters, Alex, a football jock pursues Sara, thinking she’s the girl of his adolescent dreams and now her life is even more confusing. The descriptions of high school were very authentic, especially when she pretends that nothing is wrong so none of the administrators will contact her dangerous father. 


The portrayal of a family living on the edge of tragedy ripped at the heartstrings. I rooted for Sara, praying that she’d make it to the end. I desperately wanted her to survive, sharing her fears for her mother. I empathized strongly with the girl, but that made it difficult to believe that she was ready for a romance with Alex. Was it realistic for her to be falling in love with this guy when she was still dealing with so many life changes in her own family? I don’t want to give away the plot or throw in any “spoilers,” but there were a lot of undercurrents in this novel and all of them felt necessary. Mom’s disappearance is the obvious mystery that Sara needs to solve, but she also had other questions to answer. 


This story about abuse and survival may not be for everyone. The material may be too tough for a teen audience. The story is powerfully written and the realistic background could evoke a visceral response from readers. Of course, one would like to think that there were other choices for Sara and her mom, that they might have found help at any corner. Some readers may not like the world that Bilen revealed – but as Ayn Rand wrote so many years ago, “It’s not the muck in the pigpen that we find offensive, it’s the ray of light that shows it to us.”    


This was an amazing debut novel. I can’t wait to see what Tracy Bilen writes next!  


Shannon lives on the family farm, a riding stable in the Cascade foothills, where she organizes most of the riding programs and teaches horsemanship around her day-job as a substitute teacher. 

She writes books in her spare time, mainstream western romance as Josie Malone for SirenBookStrand and young adult novels for Black Opal Books and Fire & Ice YA. She’s a member of RWA, YARWA, the Greater Seattle RWA and Evergreen RWA chapters.  

 

Spring is Springing, and it's time to check in on some old friends and a few new ones.

The Christie Curse (Berkley, 2013,$7.99) introduces a new series by a mother-daughter team who write under the name of Victoria Abbott. Jordan Bingham is a young woman with a brand-new college degree and a slightly sinister family, who lucks into what she thinks is a dream job, doing research for an old woman with a vast collection of mystery books and a few secrets of her own. When she learns that her predecessor met with a sticky end looking for a previously unknown Agatha Christie play, Jordan gets suspicious, and starts investigating on her own. A cast of characters that includes a love-lorn mailman, an Italian cook, and a gardener with a grudge makes for a highly entertaining read. Luscious recipes are included.

Lorraine Bartlett's newest “Victoria Square Mystery”, One Hot Murder (Berkley, 2013, $7.99)
has Artisans Alley owner Kate Bonner truly frazzled. A heat wave has customers shunning the craft center, which has minimal air conditioning, for the cooler temperatures of malls farther away. A hold-over from the previous owner of the Alley is constantly complaining. Someone is stealing food from the communal refrigerator. Worst of all, a fire breaks out in the wood-working shop, and a body is found in the ashes.  Things really get sticky when it appears that the deceased was not burned, but shot.

A question of identity arises: is this the wood-shop's owner, an ex-teacher who was heartily loathed by his students? And if it isn't, who is it? Kate finds herself in hot water, as she teams up with the one person who has made her life miserable since she took over Artisans Alley, to face a most unlikely killer. No-bake recipes suitable for hot weather are included.

In a Witch's Wardrobe, by Juliet Blackwell (Obsidian, 2012, $7.99) has reluctant witch Lily Ivory up to her vintage-clad neck in trouble, when she attends an Art Deco Ball and comes to the aid of a young woman who falls into a coma. Lily recognizes the signs of a curse, but isn't too sure who would have cast it, or why.  When she finds out that other young women have also been poisoned, and the child of the woman in a coma is affected, Lily realizes that there is true evil in the San Francisco Bay Area, and that there is someone using witchcraft for nefarious ends.  San Francisco is known for its tolerance, but there's a group out to destroy the Wiccan community.  Lily tracks down the murderer, but there is more here than mere petty jealousy. Stay tuned for the next chapter in this on-going series!

Shiela Connolly stars a new series with Buried in a Bog (Berkley, 2013, $7.99). Maura Donovan has come to her grandmother's birthplace, a small village in Ireland, with no particular aim in mind but fulfilling Gran's final wishes. Her first week is filled with adventure and discovery, when a body is recovered from a local bog, and she becomes the target of a malicious thug. There's plenty of local color in this visit to the Emerald Isle, and Maura finds more about her family's past than she ever thought possible.  There's a special legacy waiting for Maura, and more adventures down the road for Connolly's faithful readers. 

In Fonduing Fathers, (Berkley, 2013, $7.99), Olivia “Ollie” Paras, the heroine of the “White House Chef” mysteries by Julie Hyzy, is called on to escort the President's son to a major food and cooking exhibition. At the same time, she's trying to organize her own life, introducing her mother and grandmother to her off-again, on-again lover, Gav. Then her mother drops a major bombshell: her father, Anthony Paras, was not the hero Ollie thought he was, but a spy and a traitor!  An exhibitor at the food fair may have clues as to what Anthony Paras was up to. It's up to Ollie to clear her father's name, and expose a costly fraud as well. Presidential recipes are included.

A Fall Festival is turned upside down in Paige Shelton's newest “Farmer's Market Mystery”, A Killer Maize (Berkley, 2012, $7.99). Becca Robbins, known for her home-made jams and jellies, is in another kind of jam, when her ex-husband turns up at the local Fall Festival, operating a shooting gallery. The Farmers' Market “regulars” taking booths at the Festival are having doubts about leaving their usual stands, and the feeling gets stronger when one of the old-timers is found hanging from his own ferris wheel.  Corn maze legends, spider tattoos, and local lore come together as Becca tries to keep her own store going while finding out why the nearest town is so secretive. Recipes included.

RETURN by Charity Santiago
Publisher: Charity Santiago
Format: Kindle Only
Price: $0.99
Genre: YA Fantasy/Adventure
Rating: 3.5


REVIEW


First, I have to say that Ashlyn Li is a great character. I loved that she wasn't the typical girl--she's Asian and a ninja assassin.  Second I loved her combination of snark and caring. It's pretty hard to write that type of character, and I think Ms. Santiago pulls it off. 


For the most part I enjoyed this book.  In the beginning, I had a love/hate relationship. I was drawn in by Ashlyn, the heroine of the story, and her immediate willingness to take responsibility for a war that started in her self-imposed absence.  I liked her lets-go-get-them-and-make-things-right attitude.  I also really loved Skye's down-to-earth and often profuond advice. On the other hand, I was frustrated with the two setups of the story that were too pat: 1) She didn't pursue a relationship with Drake because of a perceived slight when he smiled at another girl three years ago; and 2) Accepting responsibility for a war that occurred when she was gone--as if she had any control over that.  Also, in the first 20 pages or so I had some problems with the passive voice, a lot of telling to bring the reader up to speed on the background, and some missed editing. However, after those first 20 pages or so, the character of Ashlyn made me forget those things as her combination of wit, caring, and youthful exuberance propelled her forward to right all wrongs. 


Like many young people, Ashlyn is very focused and when it comes to saving her kingdom, she is not going to stop until she's accomplished that. Being a ninja has always been her calling. Not only is she proud of it, but she is very good at fighting and killing if need be. It was her three year absence from her kingdom that set up the situation where it was taken over by the bad guy.


Once the reader is brought up to speed on the background, the book becomes non-stop action. There’s a definite love triangle with Drake and Vargo. I won't tell you who I like best, it is up to you to choose. Personally, I would have liked a little more relationship development but I can't complain about the page turning action.  I am definitely going to pick up the next two books in the series so I can see what happens to Ashlyn and her friends.

It was difficult to write because I had to remove any inclinations toward visual descriptions. Every interaction between the characters had to be based on sound, touch, taste, and smell; and when you’re dealing with sex and love, those senses are often over-looked in writing. 

Q: Your book, Listening To Dust, has garnered several excellent reviews and a Rainbow Award. Can you tell us about it?
B: Dust is a hard look at love and loss. It is meant to be a book that doesn’t give an inch because sometimes life is like that. Despite how much we want everything to turn out okay, sometimes it just doesn’t, especially in matters of the heart. I wrote the manuscript over a decade ago and then lost it. But the story would never leave me alone and every time I sat down my muse would plague me with Dustin and the people around him. Finally, I let the muse go and wrote the current version in a frantic 22 days. When I was finished I sat down and cried my eyes out. The dedication in the book will likely tell most readers what and how much the means to me. 

Q: So, if you don’t mind sharing, would you tell us about your work in progress?
B: The next book is Cold, which I expect to be out in May. It’s a gay romance series about two completely different men who find a little piece of what is missing inside of them in the other person. I had thought the book would just be a single novel, but apparently the muse has other ideas. It begins in a prison environment and will continue on outside of prison. 
I am also in the process of bringing some of my unpublished work to print, some in sci-fi and some in horror. My fans have asked that the characters be LGBT inclusive and I am working on that as I write the Cold series.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing? 
B: Writing is still a hobby for me; it’s my break away from the chaos of the real world. If I’m not writing, I’m working. 

Q: Where can readers find out more about you and your books?
B: Readers can find out more about me, my books, and the charities I aid on my website. For more personal interaction I can often be found on the fan-generated Goodreads group, Twitter, and Google Plus. I’m just about everywhere online, except Facebook. 

Q: Anything else you’d like to share?
B: I am a staunch advocate for LGBT youth, particularly in regards to homelessness. 10% of the proceeds from the purchase of any of my books are donated to two charities working to get LGBT kids off the street. Readers can learn more, or donate to the charities on my website. 

Other books by Brandon Shire
Cold - Coming May 2013
Afflicted I
Afflicted Book II
Listening to Dust
The Value of Rain


For more information visit his website at:
http://brandonshire.com