Auralia's Colors Blog Tour

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
AURALIA'S COLORS
(WaterBrook Press September 4, 2007)
by
Jeffrey Overstreet

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeffrey Overstreet lives in two worlds. By day, he writes about movies at LookingCloser.org and in notable publications like Christianity Today, Paste, and Image.

His adventures in cinema are chronicled in his book Through a Screen Darkly. By night, he composes new stories found in fictional worlds of his own. Living in Shoreline, Washington, with his wife, Anne, a poet, he is a senior staff writer for Response Magazine at Seattle Pacific University.

Auralia’s Colors is his first novel. He is now hard at work on many new stories, including three more strands of The Auralia Thread.





ABOUT THE BOOK:
As a baby, she was found in a footprint.

As a girl, she was raised by thieves in a wilderness where savages lurk.

As a young woman, she will risk her life to save the world with the only secret she knows.


When thieves find an abandoned child lying in a monster’s footprint, they have no idea that their wilderness discovery will change the course of history.

Cloaked in mystery, Auralia grows up among criminals outside the walls of House Abascar, where vicious beastmen lurk in shadow. There, she discovers an unsettling–and forbidden–talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them, including Abascar’s hard-hearted king, an exiled wizard, and a prince who keeps dangerous secrets.

Auralia’s gift opens doors from the palace to the dungeons, setting the stage for violent and miraculous change in the great houses of the Expanse.

Auralia’s Colors weaves literary fantasy together with poetic prose, a suspenseful plot, adrenaline-rush action, and unpredictable characters sure to enthrall ambitious imaginations.

Visit the Website especially created for the book, Auralia's Colors. On the site, you can read the first chapter and listen to jeffrey's introduction of the book, plus a lit more!

PRAISE

"Film critic and author Overstreet (Through a Screen Darkly) offers a powerful myth for his first foray into fiction. Overstreet’s writing is precise and beautiful, and the story is masterfully told. Readers will be hungry for the next installment."
--Publishers Weekly

“Through word, image, and color Jeffrey Overstreet has crafted a work of art. From first to final page this original fantasy is sure to draw readers in. Auralia's Colors sparkles.”
-–Janet Lee Carey, award-winning author of The Beast of
Noor and Dragon's Keep

“Jeffrey Overstreet’s first fantasy, Auralia’s Colors, and its heroine’s cloak of wonders take their power from a vision of art that is auroral, looking to the return of beauty, and that intends to restore spirit and and mystery to the world. The book achieves its ends by the creation of a rich, complex universe and a series of dramatic, explosive events.”
-–Marly Youmans, author of Ingledove and The
Curse of the Raven Mocker

Try Dying Blog Tour

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing

TRY DYING
(Center Street October 24, 2007)
by
James Scott Bell

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Scott Bell is a former trial lawyer who now writes full time. He is also the fiction columnist for Writers Digest magazine and adjunct professor of writing at Pepperdine University.

His book on writing, Plot and Structure is one of the most popular writing books available today. The national bestselling author of several novels of suspense, he grew up and still lives in Los Angeles, where he is at work on his next Buchanan thriller.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

On a wet Tuesday morning in December, Ernesto Bonilla, twenty-eight, shot his twenty-three-year-old wife, Alejandra, in the backyard of their West 45th Street home in South Los Angeles. As Alejandra lay bleeding to death, Ernesto drove their Ford Explorer to the westbound Century Freeway connector where it crossed over the Harbor Freeway and pulled to a stop on the shoulder.

Bonilla stepped around the back of the SUV, ignoring the rain and the afternoon drivers on their way to LAX and the west side, placed the barrel of his .38 caliber pistol into his mouth, and fired.

His body fell over the shoulder and plunged one hundred feet, hitting the roof of a Toyota Camry heading northbound on the harbor Freeway. The impact crushed the roof of the Camry. The driver, Jacqueline Dwyer, twenty-seven, an elementary schoolteacher from Reseda, died at the scene.

This would have been simply another dark and strange coincidence, the sort of thing that shows up for a two-minute report on the local news--with live remote from the scene--and maybe gets a follow-up the next day. Eventually the story would go away, fading from the city's collective memory.

But this story did not go away. Not for me. Because Jacqueline Dwyer was the woman I was going to marry.

In Try Dying, this fast-paced thriller, lawyer Ty Buchanan must enter a world of evil to uncover the cause of his fiancee's death--even if hie has to kill for the truth.

"Bell is one of the best writers out there...he creates characters readers care about...a story worth telling."
~Library Review~

Deadfall Blog Tour

This week, theChristian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

DEADFALL(Thomas Nelson November 6, 2007)by

Robert Liparulo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Robert is an award-winning author of over a thousand published articles and short stories. He is currently a contributing editor for New Man magazine. His work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Travel & Leisure, Modern Bride, Consumers Digest, Chief Executive, and The Arizona Daily Star, among other publications. In addition, he previously worked as a celebrity journalist, interviewing Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Charlton Heston, and others for magazines such as Rocky Road, Preview, and L.A. Weekly.

Robert is an avid scuba diver, swimmer, reader, traveler, and a law enforcement and military enthusiast. He lives in Colorado with his wife and four children.

Robert's first novel painted a scenario so frighteningly real that six Hollywood producers were bidding on movie rights before the novel was completed. His acclaimed debut novel, Comes A Horseman, is being made into a major motion picture by producer Mace Neufeld and his short story "Kill Zone" was featured in the anthology Thriller, edited by James Patterson.

Bob has sold the film rights to his second book, GERM. And he is writing the screenplay for a yet-to-be-written political thriller, which sold to Phoenix Pictures, for Andrew Davis (The Fugitive, The Guardian) to direct!

He is currently working on his fourth novel.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Deep in the isolated Northwest Territories, four friends are on the trip of a lifetime. Dropped by helicopter into the Canadian wilderness, Hutch, Terry, Phil, and David are looking to escape the events of a tumultuous year for two weeks of hunting, fishing, and camping.

Armes with only a bow and arrow and the basics for survival, they've chosen a place far from civilization, a retreat from their turbulent lives. But they quickly discover that another group has targeted the remote region and the secluded hamlet of Fiddler Falls for a more menacing purpose: to field test the ultimate weapon.

With more than a week before the helicopter rendezvous and no satellite phone, Hutch, a skilled bow-hunter and outdoor-survivalist must help his friend elude their seemingly inescapable foes, as well as decide whether to run for their lives...or risk everything to help the townspeople who are being held hostage and terrorized.

An intense novel of character forged in the midst of struggle, survival, and sacrifice. Deadfall is highly-aclaimed author Robert Liparulo's latest rivetingly smart thriller.

Get Downloads and EXCERPTS at www.LIPARULO.com

"DEADFALL is drop-dead great!"
-In The Library Reviews

"What if Mad Max, Rambo, and the Wild Bunch showed up-all packing Star Wars type weapons? You'd have Robert Liparulo's thrilling new adventure Deadfall."
-Katherine Neville, best selling author of The Eight
"A brilliantly crafted thriller with flawless execution. I loved it!"
-Michael Palmer, best selling author of The Fifth Vial

"In Deadfall, Robert Liparulo gives us a fresh fast paced novel that instills a well founded fear of the villians and an admiration for the people who refuse to be victims. It truly deserves the name thriller.
-Thomas Perry, best selling author of The Butcher's Boy and Silence

"Another brilliantly conceived premise from Robert Liparulo. Deadfall will leave you looking over your shoulder and begging for more."
-DAve Dun, best selling author of The Black Silent

A NOTE from Bob: I’d like to give away five signed copies of Deadfall to readers of CFBA blogs during my tour. All you have to do is sign up for my e-mailing list (youwon’t be inundated!) by going to my website (www.robertliparulo.com) and going to the “Mailing List” page. Or email me with “CFBA giveaway” in the subject line.

And a second NOTE from Bob: I wanted to let you know that I’m holding a contest on my site:

**one winner a week till the end of the year for a signed Deadfall
**one winner a week till the end of the year for an unabridged audio MP3-CD of Deadfall
***and on Dec. 31, I’m giving away an iPod Nano, pre-loaded with an unabridged audio recording of Deadfall

Winners are selected from my e-mailing list—sign up at my site. If a winner has already purchased what he/she wins, I will reimburse them for the purchase price (or give them another—whichever they choose), so they don’t need to wait to see if they win before buying Deadfall.

Surrender Bay Blog Tour

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
SURRENDER BAY
(Thomas Nelson November 6, 2007)
by
Denise Hunter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Denise lives in Indiana with her husband Kevin and their three sons. In 1996, Denise began her first book, a Christian romance novel, writing while her children napped.

Two years later it was published, and she's been writing ever since. Her books often contain a strong romantic element, and her husband Kevin says he provides all her romantic material, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too!

In addition to Surrender Bay, the second Nantucket book releases in April 2008. The title is The Convenient Groom and features Kate Lawrence, a relationship advice columnist, whose groom dumps her on her wedding day. Denise is currently at work on the third Nantucket book (Oct 2008) which is untitled so far.



ABOUT THE BOOK: When Sam's estranged step-father dies, she inherits his ocean-front cottage in Nantucket--not because he kindly bequeathed it to her, but because he neglected to ever create a will. Sam returns to the island she left 11 years ago with her daughter Caden to fix up the house and sell it, but she isn't counting on is the fact that Landon Reed still lives two doors down from her childhood home.

As their long-dormant romance begins to bud again, Sam must face the fact that Landon still doesn't know why she really left the island. Will the secrets she's hidden all these years tear them apart? Or is Landon's love really as unconditional as he claims?



"I've always thought Denise Hunter was an amazing writer but this wonderful story sets her firmly at the forefront of compelling love stories. How Landon breaks down Samantha's determination that she is unworthy of love kept me glued to the pages. An amazing story!"
--Colleen Coble, author of Fire Dancer (Smoke Jumper Series)

FIRST Post: Hollywood Nobody

It is November
1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the
button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and his/her
latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature author is:

LISA SAMSON

and her book:

Hollywood
Nobody

Th1nk Books (August 30, 2007)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Samson is the author of twenty books,
including the Christy Award-winning Songbird. Apples of
Gold was her first novel for teens. Visit Lisa at http://www.hollywoodnobody.com/

These days, she's working on Quaker Summer, volunteering at
Kentucky Refugee Ministries, raising children and trying to be supportive
of a husband in seminary. (Trying . . . some days she's downright
awful. It's a good thing he's such a fabulous cook!) She can tell you one
thing, it's never dull around there.

Other
Novels by Lisa:
Straight
Up, ,
Club
Sandwich, Songbird,
Tiger
Lillie, The
Church Ladies, Women's
Intuition: A Novel, Songbird,
The
Living End

AND
NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Hollywood Nobody: April 1


Happy April Fool’s Day! What better day to start a blog about Hollywood
than today?

Okay, I’ve been around film sets my whole life. Indie films, yeah, and
that’s all I’m saying about it here for anonymity’s sake. But trust me,
I’ve had my share of embarrassing moments. Like outgrowing Tom Cruise
by the age of twelve — in more ways than one, with the way he’s gotten
crazier than thong underwear and low-rise jeans. Thankfully that
fashion disaster has run for cover.

Underwear showing? Not a good
idea.

Fact: I don’t know of a single girl who doesn’t wish
the show-itall boxer-shorts phenomenon would go away as well. Guys, we
just don’t want to see your underwear. Truthfully, we believe that there
is a direct correlation between how much underwear you show and how
much you’ve got upstairs, if you know what I mean.

I’ve seen the stars at their best and at their worst. And believe me,
the worst is really, really bad. Big clue: you’d look just as pretty as
they do if you went to such lengths. As you might guess, some of them
are really nice and some of them are total jerks, and there’s a lot of
blah in-betweeners. Like real life, pretty much, only the extremes are
more extreme sometimes. I mean honestly, how many people under twenty do
you know who have had more than one plastic surgery?

So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little hard on these folks. But
if it was all sunshine and cheerleading, I doubt you’d read this blog
for long, right?

Today’s Rant: Straightening irons. We’ve had enough of
them, Little Stars, okay? It was bad on Helen Hunt at the Oscars,
worse on Demi, yet worse on Madonna, and it’s still ridiculous. Especially
on those women who are trying to hold onto their youth like Gollum
holds onto that ring. Ladies, there’s a reason for keeping your hair at or
above your shoulders once you hit forty, and ever after. Think Annette
Bening. Now she’s got it going on. And can’t you just see why Warren
Beatty settled down for her? Love her! According to The Early
Show this morning, curls are back, and Little Me ain’t going to tell why
I’m so glad about that!

Today’s Kudo: Aretha Franklin. Big, bold, beautiful,
and the best. Her image is her excellence. Man, that woman can sing! She
has a prayer chain too. I’m not very religious myself, but you got to
respect people who back up what they say they believe. Unless it’s male
Scientologists and "silent birth." Yeah, right. Easy for them to say.

Today’s News: I saw a young actor last summer at a
Shakespeare festival in New England. Seth Haas. Seth Hot is more like it.
I heard a rumor he’s reading scripts for consideration. Yes, he’s that
hot. Check him out here. Tell all your friends about him. And look here
on Hollywood Nobody for the first, the hottest news on this hottie.
Girls, he’s only nineteen! Fair game for at least a decade-and-a-half
span of ages.

I don’t know about you, but following the antics of new teen rock star
Violette Dillinger is something I’m looking forward to. Her first
album, released to much hype, hit Billboard’s no. 12 spot its third week
out. And don’t you love her hit single "Love Comes Knocking on My Door"?
This is going to be fun. A new celeb. Uncharted territory. Will
Violette, who seems grounded and talented, be like her predecessors and fall
into the "great defiling show-business machine" only to be spit out as a
half-naked bimbo? We’ll see, won’t we? Keep your fingers crossed that
the real artist survives.

Today’s Quote: "Being thought of as ‘a beautiful
woman’ has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Beauty is
essentially meaningless." Halle Berry

Later!


Friday, April 2

I knew it was coming soon. We’d been camped out in the middle of a
cornfield, mind you, for two weeks. That poke on my shoulder in the middle
of the night means only one thing. Time to move on.

"What, Charley?"

"Let’s head ’em on out, Scotty. We’ve got to be at a shoot in North
Carolina tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got food to prepare, so you have to
drive."

"I’m still only fifteen."

"It’s okay. You’re a good driver, baby."

My mom, Charley Dawn, doesn’t understand that laws exist for a reason,
say, keeping large vehicles out of the hands of children. But
as a food stylist, she fakes things all the time.

Her boundaries are blurred. What can I say?

Charley looks like she succumbed to the peer pressure of plastic
surgery, but she hasn’t. I know this because I’m with her almost all the
time. I think it’s the bleached-blond fountain of long hair she’s worn ever
since I can remember. Or maybe the hand-dyed sarongs and shirts from
Africa, India, or Bangladesh add to the overall appearance of youth. I
have no idea. But it really makes me mad when anybody mistakes us as
sisters.

I mean, come on! She had me when she was forty!

My theory: a lot of people are running around with bad eyesight and
just don’t know it.

I throw the covers to my left. If I sling them to my right, they’d land
on the dinette in our "home," to use the term in a fashion less
meaningful than a Hollywood "I do." I grew up in this old Travco RV I call
the Y.

As in Y do I have to live in this mobile home?

Y do I have to have such an oddball food stylist for a mother?

Y must we travel all year long? Y will we never live anyplace long
enough for me to go to the real Y and take aerobics, yoga, Pilates or —
shoot — run around the track for a while, maybe swim laps in the pool?

And Y oh Y must Charley be a vegan?

More on that later.

And Y do I know more about Hollywood than I should, or even want to?
Everybody’s an actor in Hollywood, and I mean that literally. Sometimes I
wonder if any of them even know who they are deep down in that corner
room nobody else is allowed into.

But I wonder the same thing about myself.

"You’re not asking me to drive while you’re in the kitchen trailer, are
you, Charley?"

"No. I can cook in here. And it’s a pretty flat drive. I’ll be fine."

I’m not actually worried about her. I’m thinking about how many charges
the cops can slap on me.

Driving without a license.

Driving without a seat belt on the passenger.

Speeding, because knowing Charley, we’re late already.

Driving without registration. Charley figured out years ago how to lift
current stickers off of license plates. She loves "sticking it to the
man." Or so she says.

I kid you not.

Oh, the travails of a teenager with an old hippie for a mother. Charley
is oblivious as usual as I continue my recollection of past
infractions thankfully undetected by the state troopers:

Driving while someone’s in the
trailer. It’s a great trailer, don’t get me wrong, a mini industrial
kitchen we rigged up a couple of years ago to make her job easier.
Six-range burner, A/C, and an exhaust fan that sucks up more air than Joan
Rivers schmoozing on the red carpet. But it’s illegal for her to go
cooking while we’re in motion.

"All right. Can I at least get dressed?"

"Why? You’re always in your pj’s anyway."

"Great, Mom."

"It’s Charley, baby. You know how I feel about social hierarchy."

"But didn’t you just give me an order to drive without a license? What
if I say no?"

She reaches into the kitchen cupboard without comment and tips down a
bottle of cooking oil. Charley’s as tall as a twelve-year-old.

"I mean, let’s be real, Charley. You do, in the ultimate end
of things, call the shots."

I reach back for my glasses on the small shelf I installed in the side
of the loft. It holds whatever book I’m reading and my journal. I love
my glasses, horn-rimmed "cat glasses" as Charley calls them. Vintage
1961. Makes me want to do the twist and wear penny loafers.

"Can I at least pull my hair back?"

She huffs. "Oh, all right, Scotty! Why do you have to be so difficult?"

Charley has no clue as to how difficult teenagers can actually be. Here
I am, schooling myself on the road, no wild friends. No friends at
all, actually, because I hate Internet friendships. I mean, how lame,
right? No boyfriend, no drugs. No alcohol either, unless you count cold
syrup, because the Y gets so cold during the winter and Charley’s a huge
conservationist. (Big surprise there.) I should be thankful, though. At
least she stopped wearing leather fringe a couple of years ago.

I slide down from the loft, gather my circus hair into a ponytail, and
slip into the driver’s seat. Charley reupholstered it last year with
rainbow fabric. I asked her where the unicorns were and she just rolled
her eyes. "Okay, let’s go. How long is it going to take?"

"Oh." She looks down, picks up a red pepper and hides behind it.

I turn on her. "You didn’t Google Map it?"

"You’re the computer person, not me." She peers above the stem. "I’m
sorry?" She shrugs. Man, I hate it when she’s so cute. "Really sorry?"

"Charley, we’re in Wilmore, Kentucky. As in Ken-Tuck-EEE . As in the
middle of nowhere." I climb out of my seat. "What part of North Carolina
are we going to? It’s a wide state."

"Toledo Island. Something like that. Near Ocracoke Island. Does that
sound familiar?"

"The Outer Banks?"

"Are they in North Carolina?"

Are you kidding me?

"Let me log on. This is crazy, Charley. I don’t know why you do this to
me all the time."

"Sorry." She says it so Valley Girl-like. I really thought I’d be above
TME: Teenage Mom Embarrassment. But no. Now, most kids don’t have
mothers who dress like Stevie Nicks and took a little too much LSD back in
the DAY. It doesn’t take ESP to realize who the adult in this setup is.
And she had me, PDQ, out of the bonds of holy matrimony I might add,
when she was forty (yes, I already told you that, but it’s still just as
true), and that’s
OLD to be caught in such an inconvenient situation, don’t you think?
The woman had no excuse for such behavior, FYI.

My theory: Charley’s a widow and it’s too painful to talk about my
father. I mean, it’s plausible, right?

The problem is, I can remember back to when I was at least four, and I
definitely do not remember a man in the picture. Except for Jeremy.
More on him later too.

I flip up my laptop. I have a great satellite Internet setup in the Y.
I rigged it myself because I’m a lonely geek with nothing better to do
with her time than figure out this kind of stuff. I type in the info
and wait for the directions. Satellite is slower than DSL, but it’s
better than nothing.

"Charley! It’s seventeen hours away!" I scan the list of twists and
turns between here and there. "We have to take a ferry to Ocracoke, and
then Toledo Island’s off of there."

"Groovy!"

"Groovy died with platform shoes and midis."

"Whatever, Scotty." Only she says it all sunny. She’s a morning person.

"That phrase should be dead."

Honestly, I’m not big on lingo. I’ve never been good at it, which is
fine by me. Who am I going to impress with cool-speak anyway? Uma
Thurman? Yeah, right. "Okay, let’s go."

"We can go as long as possible and break camp on the way, you know?"
Charley.

I climb back into the rainbow chair, throw the Y into drive, pull the
brake, and we’re moving on down the road.

Again.

Sample from Hollywood Nobody
/ ISBN: 1-60006-091-9
Copyright © 2006 NavPress Publishing. All rights reserved. To order
copies of this resource, come back to www.navpress.com.