Coming August 1st …..

A New Kindle Vella Story!

In an alternate reality where Atlantis never sank, the people of the underground are under the thumb of Atlantean rule, left with the steam-powered crystal tech of a bygone era.

Sparks, a young elite female, is fighting this reign with everything she is. Now that her older cousin, Gage, has joined the elite Atlantean guard called the Nasaru can Sparks keep her secret from him—the person closest to her, who has been like her brother?

Will the underground forever be stuck in the steam-powered past?

Awakened (The Gods and Guardians Trilogy #1)

 photo Awakened-Blitz-Banner.png

 

 photo Awakened.png
 
 
 
Title:   Awakened
Series:  The Gods and Guardians Trilogy #1
Author:  CJ Anderson
Published:  August 28th, 2015
Genre:  YA Sci-Fi Fantasy
Content Warning:  Mild violence
Recommended Age:  13+

 
 
 

~Synopsis~

 

     The new guy in town has a few secrets …one of which is the ability to levitate and use telekinesis to move objects – Dru Sanjay hasn’t been able to share his secrets with anyone. That is until he meets…HER.
     Alayna West can see and experience emotions as color. Her only desire is to complete high school, go to college and create a better life far away from her rural roots. But plans change when she meets…HIM.
     When Dru and Alayna meet they experience a hair raising, skin prickling, and unexplainable connection. As Alayna is drawn into Dru’s world, she learns of the Guardians; others like her who have special abilities, whose genetics can be traced back to the Gods. Only the Gods and the other Guardians are actually extraterrestrials who have been banned from Earth for the last 2,000 years.
     Alayna’s plans for a better life are shot to H-E-double toothpicks when she discovers another gift and Dru struggles with keeping his last secret. All the while, the chemistry between them, along with outside forces, pose a threat that could change their futures forever.

 

Excerpt from Awakened – Book 1 of the Gods and Guardians series by CJ Anderson

 

“It all happens so fast. Dru is calling my name and I look up toward the cliff. When I move my head I catch a glimpse of something in my peripheral vision; something big, something that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight. It’s some sort of large and scary looking creature and it’s prowling straight toward me.
The creature is as large as a bear, but it has the body and head of a lion with something that looks like a goat rising out of its back and a long tail, at least six feet long, whipping around with the head of what looks to be a large, creepy venomous snake. My pulse quickens as if fear itself were trapping me and I’m incapacitated.
I think I must be either a) dreaming, b) crazy, or c) dead because then I see Dru flying through the air. What the hell? He is going to kill himself! What is he doing?
Dru slams into the monster; it flies through the air and then drops to the ground. As far as I can tell, with the exception of the snake, which is partially smashed beneath the body, the monster is knocked out. The snake head is making a high pitched hissing sound and it makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Then, Dru is right beside me holding me tight against him. Both of our hearts are pounding.
“Alayna! Alayna, luv, are you OK?” Dru asks, his voice uneasy.
I’m baffled. “Me? Am I OK? What about you? You just jumped, no flew, no, I don’t know what the hell you did but you just slammed into a…a …a…was that a chimera?!…and after jumping from that height, you just walked away!” I stammer.
“I know,” Dru says, “and I can explain. But first, I think we need to head back the way we came before our friend wakes up. She is going to be pissed off!”
He grabs my hand and we run. I’m fast, but it’s hard to maneuver through the woods with all the brush and vegetation, much of which is waist high.
We’re about a quarter mile from the motorcycle when we finally see the trail. Dru slows down for just a moment, looks around and grabs my hand. “Faster!” He yells. “It’s coming.”
I chance a quick glance behind us and see three enraged heads. One is roaring, one hissing, and one is making a terrible ear-deafening bleating sound. I run faster than I have ever run before, even faster than yesterday at the track. Adrenaline is rushing through my veins so quickly that it keeps me going.
We’re almost there but the creature is gaining on us. We can see the motorcycle at the bottom of the cliff. All we have to do is run down the hill and turn the corner and we will be home free.”

 
 

 photo CJ-Anderson.png
  

 
                                          About the Author:


     CJ Anderson has been obsessed with science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. Star Wars, Superman and Transformers are among her earliest memories. But it was Madeline L’Engle’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, that first grabbed her attention as an elementary student to the genre in the world of books. She has been reading Young Adult, Science Fiction and Fantasy ever since!
     Creating stories has been a life-long journey for CJ. As a young child she create stories to tell her imaginary friends. Later on in school, when she became bored during class, adventures in fairytale lands, were a common theme running wild in her imagination. It never really occurred to her to write them down, though, until she was older and taking a class on creativity. Once she started writing, she never wanted to stop. She says it’s one of the best decisions she’s ever made.
     CJ has been teaching Gifted & Talented for six years and has been both encouraged and inspired by her students. She lives in Iowa with her husband, two beautiful daughters and two cats. When she isn’t writing, teaching or spending time with her family, you can find her working out, reading or fangirling, of course! The God Kissed: Awakened is her first novel and the first book in a planned trilogy.


Giveaway Details:
There is a tour wide giveaway. Prizes include the following:
  • A $25 Amazon gift card
  • 5 $5 Amazon gift cards

Giveaway is International.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

//widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

 photo JGBSLogo.png

Twists in Time

 photo Twists-in-Time-Tour-Banner.png

 
 photo Twists-in-Time-Antho.jpg

 

Title:  Twists in Time
Authors:  Various
Published:  June 16th, 2015
Publisher:  Clean Teen & Crimson Tree Publishing
Genre:  Science Fiction, Time Travel
Content Warning:  Some stories may include mild violence and language.

 
 

 
 

~Synopsis~

 

     What would happen if time, the fragile thread that both leads and binds us, could be unwound as simply as untying a knot? Would we go back, charging through our own history, changing and tweaking, plucking at that fragile thread until time itself unraveled all around us? Would we create countless universes through which we could live our fantasies—or would we become our own nightmares? Would we blaze ahead, reckless and wild, into our own futures? Would we become our own heroes, or would we become villains?
     Join us for a series of stories that explore time, through the eyes of those bold enough to conquer it, and foolish enough to try to control it. From the award-winning team of authors at Clean Teen Publishing, Twists in Time will both entertain and challenge the way you see the world around you. Because when one finds a way to break the barrier of time, endless worlds of possibilities emerge.

 

 
 

 photo Author Montage_1.jpg
~Featured Authors and Stories~

 

“After Time” by Sandy Goldsworthy
“The Fall” by Holly Kelly
“The Kiss of Time” by Amanda Strong
“With a Grain of Sand” by Kathy-Lynn Cross
“The Before Sky” by Sherry D. Ficklin
“What You Wish For” by Kelly Risser
“Tides of Time” by Julie Wetzel
“It’s The Little Things” by Jon Messenger
“Romeo and Juliet Times Infinity” by Kasi Blake

 
 

 photo CleanTeenPubLogoSm.jpg
Clean Teen Publishing Links:
Giveaway Details:
There is a tour wide giveaway. Prizes include the following:
  • A bookmark swag pack, winner’s choice of any Clean Teen Publishing eBook, and a $15 Amazon gift card.
Giveaway is International.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 photo JGBSLogo.png

 
 

Cinderella, a cyborg? What?

Cinderella, a cyborg? What?

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Cinderella, a cyborg? What? This is not the Disneyfied version I grew up with, and I have to admit, I had my reservations about making Gus Gus’s Cinderelly into a mechanical wrench wielding ungirly heroine, but for the first time in years I have not been able to put a book down. I love the futuristic independent original girl I found in Cinder. For anyone who loves the classics and scfi, this is a must read, I don’t care how old you are.

5 Flames

Wounded by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

Wounded by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

Title: The Wounded
Series: The Woodlands Series, Book 3
Author: Lauren Nicolle Taylor
Published: February 28th, 2014 by Clean Teen Publishing
Word Count: 91,000
Genre: YA Mature Dystopian Romance
Content Warning: Graphic Violence
Recommended Age: 16+
Synopsis: You think you’re in control. That it’s your hands on the reins. But I’m starting to think either someone else is driving, or the reins are attached to nothing. Just flapping and snapping in the breeze. What could be simple, never is.
Rosa doesn’t want to get used to being separated from Joseph, from Orry. So she must find the strength to battle her way back to her family, while mustering the courage to face her father, his secrets.
With her best friend, Rash, by her side, she feels blessed and cursed. He is her saving grace, but will Joseph accept him and forgive her for leaving?
Rosa must pull these threads together as she hacks her way to The Wall with the aid of her new companions but, heartbreakingly, without the one person she’d planned to save.
Finding her way home is only the beginning. The biggest changes, the shocking truths, are waiting, hovering over the town like a menacing vapor.
The Wounded have waited, nursed, and been dormant for too long. And now they’re coming… dragging the ghosts of their lost ones behind them.

~ Excerpt ~

I’m collapsing into a dream. Folding in on myself over and over until I’m nothing but a pinch of paper.

I know I’m not where I’m supposed to be.

The arms holding me are the wrong arms—wiry and warm. But it is unwelcome warmth.

The slosh of mud lapping around boots was my first reminder. I screwed my eyes tightly shut, trying to keep it out as it rapped loudly on my aching head. My boots swung limply back and forth past the trees. My trees. I let the smell of wet fronds and bent pine needles swirl around me, grateful I was at least back in the forest. I imagined myself cradled in a bough: Leaves swept across my face, branches held their slender limbs across the tree’s mouth-like hollows and whispered, ‘shh’.

“Shh! She’s waking up.”

Movement ceased, ejecting me from my dream. Smooth fingers grazed my face. The wrong fingers. I opened my eyes warily. It was unfamiliar, yet not, like half of me wanted to nestle into his chest and the other half knew not to.

As I let the light in, the exposure cleaning up and drawing the fuzzy shadows into sharper images, the first thing I saw was my own eyes staring back at me. I closed mine slowly, hoping the view would change like a slide clicking over. But when I reopened them, I still saw my eyes in a man’s face. A worn face, which once you rubbed back the lines and pulled up the skin, was a face that looked just as I remembered. A ghost. I shouted out and sprung from his arms, landing in the mud and splattering everyone’s concerned faces.

“You,” was all my feeble head could come up with as I stumbled woozily for several seconds, pointing my shaky finger accusingly at the tall, dark man in front of me. As I connected the random pathways that brought me here, threads of sense drifted in front of my eyes, but I couldn’t quite pull them together. The daughter in me was stubbornly fighting against the truth.

I ran my hands through my hair and grasped at the strands, pulling them together into a thick rope in my fist. I shivered, the air wet and sludgy around me. My aching head took in the darkness creeping away as morning peeled back, slow and heavy like the night didn’t want to give in.

He approached me gently, hands held out in front of him like he expected me to climb back into them. I shook my head, feeling nauseous and upended. When he made a sudden move towards me, I startled like a deer. He pulled back, looking hurt. He would never harm me, but I was afraid of what he might say. I leaned airily, putting my hand out to steady myself, but connected with nothing. Rash was quickly at my side, and I held onto his arm to stabilize myself physically and mentally.

Rash. I had Rash. My heart pumped faster, and my blood warmed as I felt the real fleshiness of him. I looked down at my feet, twisting my ankles and burying them in the mud. “How long?” I asked the ground, little bubbles popping around my sinking boots.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads

About the Author:

Lauren-Nicolle-Taylor

Lauren Nicolle Taylor is a 33-year-old mother living in the tiny, lush town of Bridgewater on the other side of the world in Australia. She married her high school sweetheart and has three very boisterous and individual children. She earned a Bachelors degree in Health Sciences with Honors in Obstetrics and Gynecology and majored in Psychology while minoring in Contemporary Australian Writing.

After a disastrous attempt to build her dream house that left her family homeless, She found herself inexplicably drawn to the computer. She started writing, not really knowing where it may lead but ended up, eight weeks later, with the rough draft of The Woodlands.

In 2013, Lauren Nicolle Taylor accepted a publishing contract with Clean Teen Publishing. Her first published novel, The Woodlands, was released in August 2013 and quickly became a best seller. The second book in The Woodlands Series titled: The Wall, was published in October 2013 and followed suit, maintaining it’s position on the best seller charts for three months in a row.

Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads | Blog | Website

Released From Darkness

Released From Darkness

Two young seeksmen are dead, and Sydney blames herself. The only way to get her sister back from the county’s clutches, while also preventing more death, was to offer her own life in exchange for Evvie’s freedom.

She expected a dreadful end, but nothing like the prison in which she wakes. Agonizing county life is redefined in Neo-Necropolis, new city of the dead, which lies beneath the earth. Worse than being allegedly deceased, is the false identity Sydney is forced to assume where Evvie, Sheridan’s captain, and Crewe never existed.

Sydney alone knows the magnitude of the county’s evildoings inside, outside, and now below. At only eighteen, the responsibility to defend freedom falls solely on her tried and tested shoulders—a burden that requires desperate action when a catastrophic revelation upends the world as she knew it.

The people Sydney cares for are more vulnerable than ever. Though she’s buried underground and monitored by county agents, she must escape this new captivity. Maybe it’s time to fight fire with fire. Sydney has proven her courage in facing their weapons, but can she trigger her own?

Excerpt

 

I address the leader again. “Don’t tell me you’re not the bad guys; you killed two innocent men! They were practically kids,” I charge.

“I know!” an agent yells with all his might. I hear a scuffle between him and the other man in the room. Something small, maybe a tablet, hits the floor just before a body does. Something is very wrong here, but it’s still unclear whether it’s to my advantage.

“I know everything those boys were.” His words are coated in pain. “But, innocent wasn’t one of them. They knew seeking was a crime,” he snaps.

“It wasn’t a crime they had to die for!” I shout back, my fury now being directed at this man rather than the inaccessible leader.

“I know it!” he yells back. “I tried to protect all of them, even you, but you’re impossible to reason with. Look where it got everyone, Sydney.”

The air is sucked from my lungs when I hear this agent speak my name. My heart drops to try to fill the void. I know who I’m speaking with.

“You killed them, you traitor!” I scream, flailing within my chains. “You killed Cy and-” My mouth is re-covered, but my rage continues internally. Jerus could be the one smothering me, so I jerk and kick at him as much as I can. I might be hurting myself against the restraints, but I can’t feel it. All I can feel is the burning need to make Jerus pay for betraying his fellow seeksmen and his captain, my father.

“I know,” Jerus says quietly from the other side of the room. He takes two more steps away, and then I distinctly hear the elevator sink to take him deeper inside the earth.

Amazon | GoodReads