Grayrider by Bruce Skye

About the Author:

A former technical writer, detail is important to Bruce Skye. His research for the Deathsong Chronicles included medieval armor and fortresses, as well as Celtic names and magic. "If you create a world, it must be consistent. And that's what I strive for Grayrider's world to be. I've built a database of material for each of the Deathsong Chronicles. Those databases aid me in keeping the world the same from book to book.

"When I wrote Grayrider, I followed the advice of Stephen King. I did not write the book following any sort of outline. I have no more idea than my readers do when I write a novel what will happen in the midst of the story. It makes it more exciting for both the readers and myself."

You can visit his website at www.bruceskye.com.

Guest Review by Tess of Fiction to Fruition:

This is a story set in medieval times about a young prince named Gabriel. Years ago, his parents were killed in the castle that they lived in, in the country of Boadhagh. They were poisoned along with some of their friends while eating there evening meal. Gabriel remember the sword "Deathsong" and retrieved it from his father's chambers. Deathsong had magical powers and he headed downstairs with it to the dining room while the enemies were still there. Who he didn't kill with the sword he made them eat the same food his parents ate and they also died.

Now it was time for more revenge. He grabbed his gray cloak, Deathsong, and his horse Windfire and headed to see King Airell, his father's friend. There he finds out that the citizens of Ansgar are fighting their way through the countryside to take over this King's country.

Gabriel, now called Grayrider, becomes the King's number one warrior. Along with the King's daughter, Deirdre, they try to stop the armies that keep approaching.

Deirdre is a sorceress with intense magical power and the enemy they are fighting is led by the Morrigan, the woman who took Deirdre under her wing as her apprentice.

This is a very intense novel full of fantasy and magic. There is also love, loyalty, betrayal, and redemption sprinkled throughout this book. The end is equally non-predictable and sobering. If you like this genre of books you will definitely love this one.

About the Book:

Gabriel, the exiled king of Rivalin, comes before King Airell to warn him the Ansgarian army will invade his kingdom before the night is over. Airell tells him he has no one to send. Gabriel wants revenge for the murder of his family by the Ansgarians. He decides to fight the incursion without help.

As this takes place, Deirdre (Airell’s daughter), flees the kingdom of Cynyr north of Boadhagh. She knows now her mentor, Morrigan, created the Ansgarian army her father has fought for years. She goes south to warn him of her. Because Deirdre does not believe in herself, the young sorceress has difficulty in performing magic.

Once she is reunited with her father, she tells both he and Grayrider about Morrigan. Her power is growing; only Gabriel’s magical sword may yet destroy her. He must go to Cynyr to fight her. He agrees if Deirdre attends him, seeking her counsel. On that journey they fall in love and foil many efforts by Morrigan to kill Gabriel by both armies and sorcerers.

Grayrider fights Morrigan and sees his beloved slain by the sorceress before he is finally able to kill her. He returns to Rivalin brokenhearted. The ending is a complete surprise the reader will not expect at all.

The Devil Can Wait by Marta Stephens

Join Marta Stephens, author of the crime mystery novel, The Devil Can Wait (BeWrite Books, Nov. '08), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in December on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion!

Editor's Note: Marta is the winner of a free virtual book tour sponsored by Pump Up Your Book Promotion. If you would like a chance to win a free book tour, leave a comment on our authors' blog stops and you could be the next winner! Winners are chosen at the end of every month!

About the author:

Marta Stephens is a native of Argentina who has made Indiana her home since the age of four. This mild-manner lady turned to crime with the publication of the first in her Sam Harper Crime Mystery series, SILENCED CRY (2007) which went on to receive honorable mention at the 2008 New York Book Festival and top ten in the 2007 Preditors & Editors Reader Poll. The second book in the Harper series, THE DEVIL CAN WAIT, will be released by BeWrite Books (UK) on November 3, 2008.

Stephens holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism/Public Relations from Ball State University (IN) where she is employed in human resources. She is a member of Sisters in Crime International, Sisters in Crime Speed City Indiana Chapter, and the Midwest Writer's Workshop.

Stephens believes learning is a life-long adventure. Aside from her writing, she is trained in graphic and web design. She co-designed the award-winning book cover of her debut novel, SILENCED CRY with friend Scott Parkison (IN), created the book trailer, and designed/administers her website, http://www.martastephens-author.com/, her personal blog, http://mstephens-musings.blogspot.com/, and the authors’ blog, MURDER BY 4 http://murderby4.blogspot.com/.

Stephens lives with her husband, daughter (22), and son (20). She enjoys oil paintings, gardening, the family’s pet Boston Bulls and mini Daschunds, and shared moments with family and friends.

About the book:

The city of Chandler, Massachusetts is plunged into terror when the bodies of three local teenagers wash ashore. While homicide detective Sam Harper hunts down the guilty, a sinister plot emerges overseas. From the Vatican to the jungles of South America, a cursed black pearl ring, the demonic prophecy it represents, and the men who pursue its powers find their unfortunate way onto Harper's turf.

Enthralled by the ring's story and a front-page spread, newspaper reporter Jennifer Blake agrees to pick up the ring at a local pawnshop for her former college professor. When she does, unforeseen events shoot Blake to the top of Harper's prime suspect list. Soon, the seemingly unrelated cases converge and the heat is on for Harper to expose the truth behind a Vatican secret and stop the self-righteous man who does the unthinkable in the name of God.

Review:

Marta Stephens knows how to feed the reader the clues and we’re given the opportunity to sit with the detectives as they hash over the cases. I recommend this series to any reader and am convinced it would interest anyone wanting to broaden their reading pleasure.Reviewed by Lucille P Robinson for Alternative Read

My Review:

It's been awhile since I've read a thriller - I have been trying to broaden my horizons when it comes to book reading and although this would have to be one of my favorite genres, I have tried to steer clear of it as of late. I sure am glad this is the one that I read first after being away for a short spell.

"The Devil Can Wait" is a Sam Harper Crime Mystery and is the second in the series. I have not read the first, and you certainly don't need to in order to appreciate this book. But I will certainly be looking for the first in the series, especially if it is anything like this book. The book focuses, or course, on the main character, Sam Harper. He is on the case of what appears to be a serial killer (I know some people will think I am strange, but serial killers, and books about serial killers fascinate me).

Teenage gang leaders are piling up in Chandler, Massachusetts. There is obviously a connection, but each is murdered in a different fashion, and there are no clues as to who is doing it or why. Sam is used to the nitty gritty involved in solving crimes that seem unsolvable to most, but this case will take him to a place most would never expect...the Vatican.

We also visit Colombia where we meet Alejandro. Recently beaten for skimming drugs from druglord Lorenzo, he is hiding with his mother, who is accused of being a witch and killing 3 priests...and she also possesses a black pearl ring - a ring that is wanted by some very dangerous people.

I really feel as if I am unable to do this book justice in reviewing it, without giving away too much of the story. Let me just say that if you are in the mood for a fast paced, well written novel there is no need to look further.

WIN PRIZES!

THE DEVIL CAN WAIT VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR '08 will officially begin on December 1 and end on December 23. You can visit Marta's blog stops at http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/ in December to find out where she is appearing!As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors' blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available. The winner(s) will be announced at the end of every month!

The Darker Side by Cody McFadyen

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Bantam; 1 edition (September 30, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0553806947
ISBN-13: 978-0553806946

Join Cody McFadyen, author of the suspense thriller, The Darket Side (Bantam, Sept. '08), as he virtually tours the blogosphere in October on his second virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion!

About the author:

Cody McFadyen openly declares his passion for words and credits his parents not just for opening that world to him but for teaching him how to dream. “I was raised by two idealists, children of the sixties who urged me to read Walden Pond and Lord of the Rings, and who explained Dylan songs to me when I was seven or eight years old.” One of the first gifts his mother gave him was a library card. He was six and he hasn’t stopped devouring books since.

Another gift was travel. The family spent most of their vacations in their car, exploring places as diverse as Louisville, Kentucky, where his mother grew up, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Wyoming, San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest. Along the way McFadyen shared the back seat with friends James Michener, Steven King, James Clavell, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and many, many others.

A childhood spent creating his own world through reading, listening to music and fantasizing with other kids likely sowed the seeds of his writing career. However, it was his parent’s idealism that gave him the lessons in living that stand him in good stead. Among them, the importance of doing something that matters and that helps other people. Also, quite simply, that people should reach for their dreams. “They never told me what the dream should be,” says McFadyen, “just that I was allowed to pursue it.”

It was awhile before McFadyen went after his own dream. After leaving school he went to work with a volunteer self-help group. He helped people get off of drugs and learn to study, did construction work and accounting and, continuing the McFadyen tradition, travelled extensively.

Ten years later, he changed direction, beginning his own “me decade,” adopting materialism and self-indulgence as his new mantra. Despite the chaos in his life at the time, he married and received the gift of a seven-year-old stepdaughter along with the responsibility of raising her. The experience changed him and, he says, “I came back to myself in the end.” He began to write.

He sold his first novel, Shadow Man, in 2005. It was followed by The Face of Death, published in 2007, and now The Darker Side.

Each of his three novels has been well reviewed, and his protagonist Smoky Barrett has been applauded by reviewers and readers alike. An FBI Special Agent, she is one of the agency’s best profilers and heads a handpicked team of law enforcement specialists. They’re relentless and they hunt killers.

Born in Fort Worth, Cody McFadyen has lived in Austin and Irving, Texas, and Kingston, New York. He now lives in southern California with his family and two remarkable black labs, often referred to as “The Black Forces of Destruction.”

You can visit his website at http://www.codymcfadyen.com/.

About the book:

A lie, a long-ago affair, a dark desire- everyone has secrets they take to the grave. No one knew that better than FBI Special Agent Smoky Barrett. But what secret was a very private young woman keeping that led her to her very public murder? And what kind of killer was so driven and so brazenly daring that he'd take her life on a commercial airliner thirty thousand feed in middair, a killer so accomplished that he'd leave only a small souvenir behind?

These are the questions that bring Smoky and her handpicked team of experienced manhunters from L.A. to the autumn chill of Washington, D.C., by order of the FBI director himself - and at the special request of a high-powered grieving D.C. mother.

As a mother, Smoky knows the pain of losing a child - it nearly killed her once before. As a cop with her own twisted past, she takes every murder personally, which is both her greatest strength and her only weakness. Brilliant, merciless, righteous, the killer Smoky is hunting this time is on his own personal mission, whose cost in innocent human lives he's only begun to collect. For in his eyes no one is innocent; everyone harbors a secret sin, including Smoky Barrett.

Soon Smoky will have to confront a flawless killer who knows her flaws with murderous intimacy.

THE DARKER SIDE VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR '08 will officially begin on October 1 and end on October 30. You can visit Cody's blog stops on a daily basis at www.virtualbooktoursforauthors.wordpress.com in October.As a special promotion for all our authors, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away a FREE virtual book tour to a published author or a $50 Amazon gift certificate to those not published who comments on our authors' blog stops. More prizes will be announced as they become available. The winner(s) will be announced on our main blog at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.wordpress.com on October 30!