Spirit of Fire (Excerpt) Blog Tour

Today, I am excited to be one of the tour stops for Seventh Star Press's and Stephen Zimmer's Spirit of Fire, book three of Fires of Eden, blog tour. While I may not have read this series, I'm excited because his other series is one of my favorites.

I hope that y'all will enjoy this never before used excerpt from Spirit of Fire.
Spirit of Fire- excerpt

The Arcamon utilized its arts to a degree far beyond the collective strength of many human Sorcerers. The baleful servant of the Lord of Fire maintained a state of entrancement upon the two massive Uktena, as they were brought back to consciousness.

Dismounted from his winged steed, the Arcamon stood alone with the enormous, elongated shapes. Far to the back of him, a large force of men and Trogens watched with growing fascination, and heightening fear.

For the witnessing throng, it was a cheerless environment. The presence of the Arcamon was enough to foster a nervous energy within every warrior. Just a single, direct look from the shrouded entity was enough to send slivers of terror racing down their marrow.

Wish List Wednesday

The Mapmaker and the Ghost by Sarvenaz Tash, 2012. Published by Walker Childrens.

Goldenrod Moram loves nothing better than a good quest. Intrepid, curious, and full of a well-honed sense of adventure, she decides to start her own exploring team fashioned after her idols, the explorers Lewis and Clark, and to map the forest right behind her home. This task is complicated, however, by a series of unique events—a chance encounter with a mysterious old lady has her searching for a legendary blue rose. Another encounter lands her in the middle of a ragtag gang of brilliant troublemakers. And when she stumbles upon none other than the ghost of Meriwether Lewis himself, Goldenrod knows this will be anything but an ordinary summer . . . or an ordinary quest. Debut author Sarvenaz Tash combines an edge-of-your-seat adventure, a uniquely clever voice, and an unforgettable cast of characters to prove that sometimes the best adventures of all are waiting right in your own backyard.

Why: While the cover is very eye-catching, the synopsis totally has me wanting to follow the adventure that Goldenrod finds herself wrapped up in.

Teaser Tuesday (84)

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. To participate, simply do the following: Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “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!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Bright Young Things

Bright Young Things (Bright Young Things, 1) by Anna Godbersen, 2010; 389 pages. Published by Harper Collins. Source: Won.

The year is 1929. New York is ruled by the Bright Young Things: flappers and socialites seeking thrills and chasing dreams in the anything-goes era of the Roaring Twenties.
Letty Larkspur and Cordelia Grey escaped their small Midwestern town for New York's glittering metropolis. All Letty wants is to see her name in lights, but she quickly discovers Manhattan is filled with pretty girls who will do anything to be a star…
Cordelia is searching for the father she's never known, a man as infamous for his wild parties as he is for his shadowy schemes. Overnight, she enters a world more thrilling and glamorous than she ever could have imagined—and more dangerous. It's a life anyone would kill for . . . and someone will.
The only person Cordelia can trust is Astrid Donal, a flapper who seems to have it all: money, looks, and the love of Cordelia's brother, Charlie. But Astrid's perfect veneer hides a score of family secrets.

First Sentence:

It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer.

Wish List Wednesday

Sweet Shadows (Sweet Venom, 2) by Tera Lynn Childs, September 4, 2012. Published by Katherine Tegen Books.

Three teenage descendants of Medusa, now united, must claim their heritage to fight the monsters escaped from the abyss.
Gretchen may have known she was a descendant of Medusa long before her sisters--after all, she's spent her life fighting the monsters that escape the abyss--but that doesn't mean it will be easy to teach the other girls the ropes.

Greer has pressing social commitments on her plate and precious little time to train in her newfound powers. But that wretched second sight won't leave her alone, and her fabled heritage seems to be creeping into her fashionable life.

Grace has worries closer to home--like why her brother, Thane, has disappeared. He's hiding something. Could it possibly be related to the secret heritage the triplets share?

Why: Sweet Venom was one of my favorite books last year, and the way it ended has me wishing it were September already so that I can find out what is going to happen next to Greer, Gretchen, and Grace.

Teaser Tuesday (83)

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. To participate, simply do the following: Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “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!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Crusade

Crusade (Crusade, 1) by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie, 2010. 470 pages. Published by Simon Pulse. Source: Won.

For the past two years, Jenn has lived and trained at Spain’s Sacred Heart Academy Against the Cursed Ones. She is among the few who have pledged to defend humanity or die trying. But the vampires are gaining power, and the battle has only just begun.
Forced to return home after death takes a member of her family, Jenn discovers that San Francisco is now a vampire strong-hold. As a lone hunter apart from her team, Jenn is isolated — and at risk. She craves the company of her fighting partner, Antonio: his protection, his reassurance, his touch. But a relationship with Antonio comes with its own dangers, and the more they share of themselves, the more Jenn stands to lose.
Then Jenn is betrayed by one who was once bound to protect her, causing her to doubt all she had held as true. To survive, Jenn must find the courage to trust herself — and her heart.

First Sentence:

For thousands of years the Cursed Ones hid in the shadows, fooling mankind into thinking they didn't exist.

ARC Review: Small Medium at Large

Small Medium at Large by Joann Levy, July 3, 2012. 208 pages. Published by Bloomsbury. Source: won.

After she’s hit by lightning at a wedding, twelve-year-old Lilah Bloom develops a new talent: she can hear dead people. Among them, there’s her overopinionated Bubby Dora; a prissy fashion designer; and an approval-seeking clown who livens up a séance. With Bubby Dora leading the way, these and other sweetly imperfect ghosts haunt Lilah through seventh grade, and help her face her one big fear: talking to—and possibly going to the seventh-grade dance with—her crush, Andrew Finkel.

First Sentence:

Despite the suffocating mid-May heat, and the nonbreathable fabric of my lavender polyester dress, it was shaping up to be a very good day.

Wish List Wednesday

Fins are Forever (Fins, 2) by Tera Lynn Childs, 2011. Published by Harper Collins.

On Lily Sanderson’s eighteenth birthday she’ll become just a girl—still a mergirl, true, but signing the renunciation will ink Princess Waterlily of Thalassinia out of existence. That leaves plain old Lily living on land, dating the boy she loves, and trying to master this being-human thing once and for all.

Now that Lily and Quince are together, mer bond or not, she’s almost content to give up her place in the royal succession of Thalassinia. But just when she thinks she has everything figured out, the waves start to get rough. Lily’s father sends a certain whirlpool-stirring cousin to stay with her on land. What did Doe do to get herself exiled from Thalassinia and stuck in terraped form, when everyone knows how much she hates humans? And why why why is she batting her eyelashes at Lily’s former crush, Brody?

Why: I absolutely adored Forgive My Fins and need to know what is going to happen next...and what sort of trouble Lily is going to get herself into.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. To participate, simply do the following: Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “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!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Cloaked

Cloaked by Alex Flinn, 2011. 341 pages. Published by Harper Teen. Source: Borrowed from Library.

I'm not your average hero. I actually wasn't your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all. It all started with a curse. And a frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission. There wasn't a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I've ever heard. Before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Everglades.

Don't believe me? I didn't believe it either. But you'll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got cloaked.

First Sentence:

I've never seen a princess before.

Moving

So, I been trying to write this post for ages now, but I just have not had the time to sit down and write it.

As you can guess by the title of the post I am moving, and, will, in all likelihood not be around for a few weeks to a month. Hopefully, no longer than that (but I just don't know).

While I may be missing from the blogosphere, and Twitter, I have scheduled up posts so y'all probably want miss me too terribly much whilst I'm away.

Wish I had more to say, but gosh, I've been running around like a mad-girl for the last two months, and am too bushed to ramble on.

Side note: If you won or traded a book with me, I am trying to get it out in the post this week. I just have not had time to get to the post office recently. Hope y'all can forgive the tardiness.

Wish List Wednesday

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, 2011. Published by Philiomel Books.

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously-and at great risk-documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Why: Because this is simply one of the BEST books I have ever read! Y'all seriously need to read it, if you haven't already.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. To participate, simply do the following: Grab your current read Open to a random page Share two (2) “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!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Shade's Children

Shade's Children by Garth Nix, 1997. 345 pages. Source: Off my book shelf.

The Key to Survival Rests in the Hands of Shade's Children

In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live a day past his fourteenth birthday. On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene harvest resulting in the construction of a machinelike creature whose sole purpose is to kill.
 
The mysterious Shade -- once a man, but now more like the machines he fights -- recruits the few children fortunate enough to escape. With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than any to discovering the source of the Overlords' power -- and the key to their downfall. But the closer the children get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become ...

First Sentence:

Gold-Eye crouched in a corner under two birdshit-caked blankets, watching the fog streaming through the windows.