Blog Tour Info: Bad Apple by Barbara Morgenroth

I know it's Tuesday and not Thursday. Therefore we should be having Tuesday's Weekly Musings today!

But, we are going to have a special treat and have a Tuesday Quencher! ;) You can still find our regularly scheduled Thirsty Thursday Quencher on 3/21 with Anthony Price's The House of Wood!

Are you looking to finding something new to read? Then I suggest Bad Apple by Barbara Morgenroth! Need something more convinving before you sink your teeth into the pages?

Then look no further! Library at the End of the Universe is proud to present the Bad Apple Blog Tour!

Below you will find the dates and links to the blogs hosting the first of the Bad Apple trilogy!

So, if you don't want to take my word on how awesome this book is, then I'm sure you'll take the word of the 24 Amazon reviewers which left Bad Apple with a glowing 4.3 stars, right?

No, still not convinced...

Well, then you can check out the reviews and spotlights on the following blogs!

3/18 Rambling Voices In My Head
3/19 Library at the End of the Universe
3/20 Krystal Clear Book Reviews
3/21 As You Wish...
3/22 Out of control characters
3/23 Mythical Books
3/24 Raven Reviews
3/25 Lynn's Read&Reviews
3/28 Recent Reads
3/29 Ever and Ever Sight

Convinced now?

Well, you should be! Go grab your copy of Bad Apple now for Kindle!

How Do You Spell Love? - By Zanna Mackenzie

Helllllo Everyone!
Sorry for the delay! Not really sure what happened. I had it scheduled to post for Thursday, and to me, it looked like it had! Then I realized that it wasn't up! :o

But, alas, our Thirsty Thursday Quencher is here for How do you Spell Love? for your reading pleasure! I want to thank the fabulous Zanna Mackenzie for taking the time to stop by and provide a post!

Thanks!
~K.C.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Many thanks for hosting me on your blog today!

My novel, published by Crooked Cat, is called How Do You Spell Love? Here’s the details:

Make A Wish…

Kat can’t help wishing there was more to life than this. What happened to her dream job? What happened with Nathan?

Summer is wondering where her life is going too… battling the developers of a controversial housing estate and working out why boyfriend Rob is increasingly distant.

When the developers win the battle and move into town everyone’s life is turned upside down.

Kat meets building site project manager Alex. She enjoys his company far too much, even though he’s on the town’s most hated list.

Summer meets Tom who has plenty of relationship troubles of his own, so things could get really complicated.

Soon everyone is keeping secrets, lives change and hearts are broken. Is everything falling apart, or does life just work in mysterious ways…

There’s a sneak peak of the book below and it can be purchased in paperback and ebook formats now on:

*Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Do-You-Spell-Love/dp/1908910771/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361800360&sr=8-2

 

*Amazon USA

http://www.amazon.com/How-Do-You-Spell-Love/dp/1908910771/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361800417&sr=1-3&keywords=zanna+mackenzie

 

How Do You Spell Love?

Kat pushed the last of the cottage cheese and shrimp sandwiches into the cool box and slammed the van door shut. As if her life wasn’t enough of a disaster zone as it was – no money, lousy job, losing Nathan, having to move back home to live with her parents – now this had to go and happen. Plus, of course, it didn’t help that today she was feeling shattered after spending half the night chanting some ridiculous protection spell in the middle of the allotments with Summer.

Cringing as a van full of builders stopped at the nearby traffic lights, Kat braced herself for the inevitable. After the standard-issue wolf whistles had drifted across from their van, next came the leered, “Wouldn’t argue with that, love!” as one of them nodded towards her sparkling clean van, parked neatly at the curb. The words “A Bit of Crumpet on the Road” emblazoned down the side in deep purple, glittery lettering. Not for the first time Kat cursed her boss Janice for calling her bakery-cum-deli that name.

Kat sighed, well it certainly drew comments from the public and from their customers, not always welcome ones, but as Janice was always keen to point out, any kind of publicity and attention was, in her eyes, good publicity and attention.

Pulling her navy and white striped apron more tightly around her T-shirt and shorts, Kat ignored the builders and climbed into her van to begin that morning’s deliveries. As she indicated to pull out into the busy street in Luisborough, she mulled over the bad news – that she was to add the controversial Netherton Meadows housing development to her daily sandwich round.

Netherton Meadows. Yippee. If Summer found out, she’d surely be ostracised for fraternising with the environmental enemy. This was a development that pretty much everyone in Luisborough had fought against for getting on towards a year. It had been the focus of STW campaigns. It went against everything that Kat believed in environmental-wise. Everyone hated the Netherton Meadows developers. Except, it seemed, Janice, who was perfectly happy to, in her words, ‘supply yummy builders with yummy sandwiches.’

Lost in thought, Kat just managed to spot the approaching traffic lights had turned to red and hastily slammed a foot on the brake. The van lurched to a halt and several boxes of crisps and one of the cool boxes in the back tipped over. Damn. It was shaping up to be one of those days.

Ten minutes later she pulled into the car park of Printing Phenomenon, hauled some baskets and a box from the van and headed for the reception area. It was getting towards late July and was another one of those blazing hot days that made every little thing feel as though it required a huge amount of effort. The kind of day the people of the UK are so unaccustomed to, where all you want to do is get a large, cool drink and collapse into a deckchair for a long snooze.

Two hours later Kat had visited all her usual drops, was extremely hot and bothered, and could put off going to Netherton Meadows no longer.

Driving through the assorted vans, machinery and portacabins Kat parked next to a building marked as being the Site Office and hit the button on the dashboard. Tinkling chimes filled the air as Kat climbed from the driver’s seat and made to open the back doors of the vehicle. It was embarrassing enough that the van had the company name in large lettering along its side but, just to make sure that it received maximum exposure – and achieved maximum embarrassment – Janice had had some irritating chimes fitted to the vehicle too. Kat was under strict instructions to sound the chimes when she called at all of the sites where people came out to the van; such as they were about to at Netherton Meadows.

A man came down the steps of the office with a grin on his face and walked towards her. “Hi, you must be Kat.” He wedged a clipboard under his left arm and offered a hand to shake. “I’m Alex. Project manager for the site.”

“Hi,” mumbled Kat, spotting a group of hard-hat-clad builders advancing towards her with hungry expressions on their faces.

“Right, lads,” Alex turned towards the men. “This is Kat and she’s very kindly agreed to venture onto this site to bring you all your lunch. Don’t give her any hassle, OK?”

The men laughed and then nodded. “Sure, Alex. You’re the boss.”

Fifteen minutes later it seemed that all of the team at the development had made their sandwich, crisp and drink selections and sloped off to devour them in the sunshine. Only one of the builders, a portly man who must have been twenty years Kat’s senior, had pushed the boundaries a little, despite Alex’s earlier warning. As he’d selected a smoked salmon and cream cheese roll – a choice that had surprised Kat somewhat, having pegged him as a ham and cheese kind of guy – he’d asked Kat if she’d fancy joining him for a drink sometime. She’d politely declined his offer, saying that she had a boyfriend. No need to tell him that, technically, she and Nathan were no longer an item. No need to tell him why either.

Just as Kat slammed the van doors shut, Alex re-appeared from his office.

“Thanks, Kat. I hope none of them caused any trouble?” he asked, taking off his yellow hard hat and running a hand through cropped dark brown hair in an agitated fashion.

“No, they were all fine.” Kat forced a smile, struggling to tuck an escaped tendril of curly blond hair back into her ponytail. God, it was hot today. “Thanks for being so gentlemanly about their behaviour.”

He grinned back at her. “No problem. I know what they can be like and as soon as I saw you getting out of the van I thought I’d better intervene. I’ve had enough problems getting a company to even contemplate coming to this site without them scaring you off on the first day.”

“Problems? Why do you think that is?” asked Kat, sensing an opportunity to make sure this man was fully aware just how much the people of Luisborough were still against the development.

“Because they hate us around here,” he said, shrugging matter-of-factly.

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Kat was now leaning against the van, noting that Alex seemed, somehow, a bit different to the rest of the team on the site. He had a jaded air about him despite the fact that he was clearly much younger than most of the others. Kat couldn’t help noticing that he was also extremely good looking.

“Yes, it bothers me but what can you do?” He sighed. “A job’s a job in this day and age. We all have to make a living, don’t we?”

Softening a little towards him, Kat nodded and rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

He moved to stand next to her, propping himself against the van. Kat hadn’t realised until that moment just how tall he was. “Take you, for instance. I can’t imagine it was your lifelong ambition to drive around in a van with that name on the side of it. You must get no end of grief.”

“I do but I need to earn some money to get my life back on track, so here I am.”

“Is this your first job?” he asked, setting his hat and clipboard on the roof of the van and looking at her intently.

“Pretty much. I recently finished a degree in environmental science and geography at university.” She added, trying to sound optimistic, “I’m waiting for my dream job to come along. In the meantime I work at the deli for a pittance and spend the rest of my time volunteering in a charity shop in town.”

“Dream job, eh?” He turned towards her, brown eyes looking at her in a genuinely interested way. “What would your dream job be, then?”

Kat smiled. “That’s easy. I’d love to work on a project like a nature reserve. Helping to preserve the environment, look after the wildlife. The charity shop where I volunteer is the Save the World one. My boss there, Summer, is a good friend and a great campaigner against developments like this.”

Aware that she was telling him things that she hadn’t really spoken to anyone about since Nathan, she quickly turned away. He was a complete stranger. A stranger who stood for everything she was against. He was the enemy, supervising the building of a development that she, and many others, had fought to try to prevent.

Reaching onto the van roof to hand the hat and clipboard back to Alex, she said, “I’d better be going.”

“Sure. Thanks for coming out here.” He started to walk away but then paused, turned back towards her and added, “See you tomorrow, then?”

Kat nodded. As she drove off, she felt more flustered than when she’d arrived. Unfortunately she had a growing suspicion that it had nothing to do with the hot weather or having to bring food to the development against her will. Rather, she suspected, it had much more to do with meeting Alex the site manager. Not a good sign at all.

------------------

Author bio

Zanna Mackenzie lives in the UK with her husband, 4 dogs, an ever expanding library of books waiting to be read, and a vegetable patch that’s home to far too many weeds.

Being a freelance writer and editor of business publications is her ‘day job’, but at every opportunity, she can be found scribbling down notes on scenes for whatever novel she’s working on. She loves it when the characters in her novels take on minds of their own and start deviating from the original plot!

Formerly a travel agent and therapist (she has qualifications in clinical aromatherapy, crystal healing, naturopathic nutrition and herbalism) she loves walking the dogs and gardening – that’s when she’s not writing or reading!

Zanna has written two novels, The Love Programme and How Do You Spell Love.

Find out more about Zanna at:

www.zannamackenzie.blogspot.co.uk

www.zannamackenzie.co.uk

 

The Devil Knows - Revamp

Hey there!


I know that I had previously said that The Devil Knows was available, but after much consideration, it's now down for a short period of time. I'm putting it through a bit of a revamp, and having it get a facelift! ;)

It's gone through a bit of editing, and having some Uber Beta Readers going through it! :) (Still a few slots open if interested!)

I'm hoping within a week or two, it will be back up and available for sale!

REAL COPS vs HOLLYWOOD

REAL COPS vs HOLLYWOOD

By Wayne Zurl

2013

Remember the TV series History versus Hollywood that originally aired between 2001 and 2005 on the History Channel? Narrator Burt Reynolds helped you debunk many of the myths perpetuated by filmmakers. I’d like to produce a show called Real Cops versus Hollywood (and some fiction writers.)

I began my police career back on the tail end of the wild and wooly days of law enforcement. Ernesto Miranda wasn’t yet a household word among career felons and Joe Wambaugh (a real cop) had just published his first novel, THE BLUE KNIGHT.

I remember the first burglary I worked with a veteran squad dick everyone called Mr. Ray, a guy willing to take the “new kid” under his wing.

Those were the days before CSI (Las Vegas, Miami, or New York.) Unless we had a homicide, bank robbery, or serial rapist, we did our own forensic work at the crime scene. We took photographs, dusted for prints, and other almost pre-historic things available to an investigator at the time.

Okay, back to my house burglary. It took me only ten minutes to establish that the break-in had been staged, for insurance purposes I assumed. The pry marks on the sliding glass door matched exactly to a sixteen ounce straight claw hammer hanging above the homeowner’s workbench. The dresser drawers were searched from top to bottom—something a good burglar never does. And the broken glass had been scattered too much. I called Mr. Ray aside and told him what I thought. He asked only one question. “Are you sure?” I nodded. His next move: He tossed the homeowner out a second floor bedroom window. His next statement: “Okay, kid, go ask that son-of-a-bitch if he wants to reconsider his complaint. Wild and wooly, not an investigative technique you should practice unless you want the Internal Affairs Bureau to have your desk phone on speed dial. So, what’s my point? Hell, I don’t know. I wanted to capture your attention.

But here’s a valid point regarding crime scene investigators—many of whom today are civilians. Now, read my lips. CSIs do not investigate crimes. They provide technical assistance to squad detectives who canvas neighborhoods looking for witnesses, check pawn shops, contact informants, interrogate suspects, and then (and only then) when they have reasonable cause to believe a certain someone committed a crime, they arrest the perpetrator—or poipuhtratah in Nu Yawk.

It’s just not logistically feasible for CSIs to “work” a case plus do all the horribly technical things they do at a crime scene and later at their office or lab and continue on until a case is cleared by arrest. Regardless of what TV tells us, it’s not possible.

I just mentioned reasonable cause to believe—sometimes called probable cause to believe—the standard of proof needed to make a lawful arrest or obtain a search warrant.

When I worked as a cop, I rarely watched TV police shows because the technicalities were so wrong I thought my head would explode. After I retired, that changed. For old time’s sake, I watched Law & Order. I loved NYPD Blue. And I even gave a few private eyes house room.

Let’s analyze Law & Order for a few minutes. Quite often, to build tension I suppose or to create illegitimate conflict perhaps (things people think are necessary in fiction) the boys and girls of the 27^th Squad would jump the gun and arrest their suspect before they had all their ducks in a row. D/Lt. Van Buren would complain, “1 PP (#1 Police Plaza—the address of NYPD headquarters) is breathing down my neck. Go out and get a clearance.”  With that admonition, Detectives Lenny Briscoe and Ed Green would break into a board meeting or doctor’s office and lock up their prime suspect—perhaps with only a reasonable suspicion—close but no cigar in laws of arrest.

Later, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy would lose a crucial piece of evidence at a pre-trial hearing or fail to get an indictment at grand jury. He’d then send one of his lovely assistant’s out on the street to backtrack and build a case the squad dicks should have tightened up prior to slapping on the cuffs.

Law & Order was a great show that ran for twenty years, but if a real detective made that many mistakes, he/she would end up walking a foot post in a very quiet neighborhood.

Hollywood also seems bent on misleading the public on the process of obtaining search warrants. When you know a suspect won’t voluntarily allow you to peek into their dwelling, vehicle, or workplace to obtain evidence or lock down the possibility that the items you seize won’t be questioned at a hearing, you should go in armed with a warrant. To get one, you don’t simply call the boss and say, “Have the day man (whomever he or she may be) get us a warrant to search…….(Where ever you want to look.)

The 4^th Amendment grants an individual protection against unreasonable search and seizure. There are exceptions to the basic rule, but this isn’t a law class and to keep me from rambling on too long, let’s agree you have the time and the best way to get a good search is to have a judge approve your warrant application by agreeing that you have good reason to believe you may find material evidence in the place you wish to look.

In my experience, the detective working the case applies for the warrant because he/she can best explain the reasonable cause to believe they have established.

One thing Hollywood gets right about search warrant applications—some judges are more pro-cop than others. Every detective has their favorite judge and may use them if they want a quick signature. But you don’t build a world-class conviction rate by using warrants that can be easily contested, resulting in lost evidence after a hearing. A good police supervisor should insure that warrant applications meet the burden of proof.

Another pet peeve of mine involves how Hollywood police supervisors never prep their cops before post-shooting press conferences. Invariably, some nit-wit reporter will ask, “Did you shoot to kill or shoot to wound?”

If you want to add a tidbit of reality to your book or story, there is only one way for your sharp cop to respond. “I shot to prevent or terminate (strike out the time frame which does not apply) the suspect’s illegal conduct.

As cops, we’re not gunslingers who don’t care if we bring’em in dead or alive and we’re not trained to shoot the gun out of a bad guy’s hand. Leave that to the heroes of those old B western movies. Police officers are trained to shoot for the largest target they can acquire—generally the criminal’s torso. Even with annual weapons qualification, many officers are not extremely good with a handgun much less distinguished experts. So, in the heat of a gunfight, all cops should make things as simple as possible and aim at the big picture.

But prior to taking that shot—using deadly physical force—the cop has to meet certain criteria. Hollywood sometimes fails to grasp this. I used to teach the law of justification in the use of force and I’d need lots more space to cover it adequately. If you plan on centering your fiction on a police shooting and you want to get the technicalities correct, some serious research is necessary to help you maintain credibility as a writer. Very basically, police officers may not use deadly physical force to prevent or terminate crimes against property. You can’t whack a kid to keep him from stealing hubcaps. If you, acting as a PO, reasonably believe it’s necessary to prevent or terminate crimes against a person, things like murder, a certain form of manslaughter, robbery (that means forcible stealing,) forcible sex crimes (rape or sodomy) or assaults that may result in serious physical injury, you may use deadly physical force—which is not limited to shooting. This is a complicated topic where generally cops have more latitude than civilians.

When I began writing fiction, I wanted cops, ex-cops, and serious fans of a police procedural to say, “This guy has gotten the details right.” No one writes without, at sometime, tacitly asking his reader for a little suspension of disbelief. But if you get those all important technicalities correct you can, with good conscience, stretch a fan’s S.O.D at an important time and in the interest of a good story.

If you’re writing about a sharp cop, have him or her get the little things right. They can make mistakes to build tension and cause your readers to grit their teeth, but don’t let them put a bloody blouse in a sealed plastic bag unless you want them to botch up an investigation.

Upcoming Events (With a Few Openings Still!)

Wowz!

The Cavanaugh Connection is hopping! We have lots of exciting things happening this month and next month so far!

As for guests, our days will be as follows:

Tuesday's Weekly Musings (guest posts about industry)
Thirsty Thursday Quenchers (reviews or book excerpts)
Saturday Hangout (author interviews)

This month you can expect:
3.14 Thirsty Thursday Quencher - Zanna Mackenzie's "How do you Spell Love?"
3.16 Saturday Hangout - Take the day off ;)
3.19 Tuesday's Weekly Musings - Still Open
3.21 Thirsty Thursday Quencher - Anthony Price's "The House of Wood"
3.23 Saturday Hangout with Zanna Mackenzie, author of "How do you Spell Love?"
3.26 Tuesday's Weekly Musings - Still Open
3.28 Thirsty Thursday Hangout (We mixed things up a little!) with Kamy Chetty, author of "Falling into Paradise"
3.30 Saturday Hangout - Still Open

Wanted: Beta Readers

Hello!

I'm currently looking for Beta Readers for a short YA thriller. It's currently 4 chapters, plus an Epilogue.

There will be five questions you must answer for the end of each chapter, plus several questions on the overall story. :)


Please comment below, email me at cavanaugh.kc@gmail.com, or write to me at www.facebook.com/cavanaugh.kc if you are interested.

Thanks!
~K.C.

Waking the Phoenix by Lindsay Avalon!

Welcome to the official cover reveal of Waking the Phoenix, book 2 in the Mythrian Realm series! Waking the Phoenix is the highly anticipated follow up to Breaking the Nexus, which released on 12/12/12. While there is no official release date set, Waking the Phoenix will be out early this summer!

In the meantime, I will be releasing Warrior Unleashed, a novella featuring Sha’s half brother, a panther Chimerae (shifter) named Achaius. Be sure to look for that this April!

Without further ado, I present the gorgeous cover designed by Blue Harvest Creative

Blurb:

As the Nexus continues to break down, evil threatens the Mythrian and Human Realms. Millennia ago, only the sacrifice of the Great Phoenix was enough to imprison Ferren, a blood mage with the power to destroy the Human Realm. When the Nexus falls, his prison will shatter and he will be free to walk the earth once more, leaving a path of destruction in his wake.

Chaos engulfs the Mythrian and Human Realms as Ferren fights to escape his prison. Connor and Sha must race against time to find the last of the phoenixes before all is lost. There’s just one problem: the phoenixes have lain dormant for thousands of years. Can they stay alive long enough to save their world?

The key to saving the Realms lies in waking the phoenix.

Don’t miss the first book, Breaking the Nexus, available now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in paperback!

Breaking the Nexus will be on SALE for $2.99 March 8-11 only!

Blurb:

A warrior trying to save humans. A detective searching for a killer. And a powerful romance neither expected.

Throughout history, myths and legends of extraordinary creatures have been told and retold. Fantastic tales of demons and banshees, gryphons and dragons, and of course, magic. Stories that every child grows to learn are nothing more than fantasy…or are they?

Beyond the world you see lies a hidden realm, the Mythrian Realm, inhabited by all of the creatures you’ve been told are mere fiction. Only one thing lies between humans and the truth: the Nexus. A magical barrier erected millennia ago to separate the two realms, it has stood the test of time. Until now.

For Mythrian Sha Phoenix, magic is nothing new. But when she stumbles upon a portal on the verge of collapse, her fate will forever change. Pulled through the portal into the Human Realm, she lands in the middle of Detective Connor Flynn’s brutal murder scene. Soon it is obvious someone is using blood magic to try to bring down the Nexus. Together, Connor and Sha must work to unravel the secrets before the barrier falls and the realms collide.

The Nexus is breaking and all hell is about to unleash…literally.

Buy it now:

·         Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Nexus-Mythrian-Realm-ebook/dp/B00AMPXDLQ

·         Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breaking-Nexus-Mythrian-Realm-ebook/dp/B00AMPXDLQ

·         Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/breaking-the-nexus-lindsay-avalon/1114319812?ean=9780615753140

·         Autographed Copy: http://lindsayavalon.blogspot.com/p/buy-my-books.html

Meet Lindsay Avalon!

I am a wife, a programmer, and now an author. I have an adorable mini Schnauzer and more books than I have room for. I love reading romance because no matter what may be happening in my life, I can always count on my books to end happily ever after. The day I met my husband was the day I truly began believing in happily ever after. After hearing me complain a few too many times that I had “nothing” to read despite the hundreds of paperbacks scattered around the house, my husband began suggesting I write my own stories. When I finally took his advice I discovered that although I enjoy my day job as a software engineer, my true calling is to be an author.

My sister drilled into me an appreciation for fantasy and mythology, something I try to bring to my books. My debut novel, Breaking the Nexus started as a book written for NaNoWriMo and has grown to so much more. It was the conduit that introduced me to a fantastic group of independent authors who have changed my life in unimaginable ways.

When I’m not writing, I’ve found a passion for blogging and interviewing fellow authors. I also love reading, baking, crochet, sewing sock monkeys, playing video games, and all sorts of random crafts. I have an incurable love of rubber duckies and stuffed animals, and I believe nobody should have to grow up if they don’t want.

Connect with me:

·         Blog: http://lindsayavalon.blogspot.com

·         Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/author.lindsay.avalon

·         Twitter: @LindsayAvalon

·         Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6568822.Lindsay_Avalon