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NEW FIND | Rachel AARON: Nice Dragons Finish Last

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Scoperta l’altro giorno, Rachel Aaron (anche conosciuta come Rachel Bach) si è dimostrata forse più interessante come personaggio online che come scrittrice in sè.
E’ mio uso solitamente, scoperto un nuovo autore, fare una mini ricerca sulle critiche ricevute da altri lettori, sulle altre opere scritte, sul sito internet ed eventualmente blog personale. Rachel Aaron, che inizialmente mi ha attirato con questo romanzo urban fantasy… ok, come sempre grazie alla cover ma poi anche per la trama, si è dimostrata un soggetto interessante anche sotto molti altri aspetti che sono sicura a molti di voi potranno fare comodo. Questa autrice infatti, oltre ad avere pubblicato con Orbit un paio di serie dal discreto successo –The Legend of Eli Monpress e Paradox– si è poi lanciata a piedi pari nella carriera di scrittrice autopubblicata e l’anno scorso è uscito negli store online Nice Dragons Finish Last, da poco seguito da One Good Dragon Deserves Another. Ma ha anche pubblicato, e qui viene l’interesse per molti di voi, una guida che aiuta gli scrittori a scrivere di più – 2k to 10k– che accompagna post sulla scrittura veramente interessanti sul blog http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.it/ che quindi vi invito a visitare e leggere… ovviamente se sapete leggere correntemente l’inglese.

Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron
Read an excerpt
Editore SelfPublish
ISBN 9781500506339
Prezzo $ 5.00 ebook
$ 13.99 paperback
Pagine 287
Uscita 13 july 2014
Acquista Amazon
Recensioni Anobii | Goodreads

Nice Dragons Finish Last
Rachel AAron

The Heartstrikers, book1

As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.

Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ–a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit–Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test.

He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons…

Rachel Aaron is the author of six fantasy novels, including the completed Legend of Eli Monpress series about a charming wizard thief and the poor bastards who have to try and catch him, publish by Orbit Books. She also writes action packed, feminist Science Fiction under the name Rachel Bach, starting with fan favorite powered armor romance, Fortune’s Pawn. Her bestselling nonfiction writing book, 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, has helped thousands of authors double their daily word counts. When she’s not holed up in her writing cave, Rachel lives a nerdy, bookish life in Athens, GA, with her perpetual motion son, long suffering husband, and obese wiener dog. You can find out more about Rachel and read samples of all her books at rachelaaron.net.

PREVIEW | Amy HARMON: The Song of David

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Come chi mi segue ormai sa, Amy Harmon è un’autrice tra le mie preferite perchè sa sempre scrivere storie fuori dagli schemi. Con veri sentimenti, veri personaggi. Non storielle leggere, niente di semplice o scontato.
Qualche mese fa vi ho parlato dell’ultimo romanzo che al tempo stava per uscire, The Law of Moses (per ora inedito in Italia), che insieme ad A different Blue (I cento colori del blu, qui la mia review) sono tra i miei preferiti. Oggi vi invito invece a segnarvi la nuova fatica, The Song of David, in uscita il 15 giungo 2015. Questo romanzo vede David “Tag” Taggert, amico di Moses e quindi personaggio che si conosce per la prima volta in The Law of Moses.

The Song of David by Amy Harmon
www.authorAmyHarmon.com
Editore selfpublish
ISBN
Pagine 261
Prezzo $ 4.03 ebook kindle
$ 3.99 ebook epub
Uscita 15 june 2015
Acquista LaFeltrinelli.it | Amazon |
inMondadori | Barnes&Noble
Recensioni Anobii | Goodreads

The Song of David
Amy Harmon

She said I was like a song. Her favorite song. A song isn’t something you can see. It’s something you feel, something you move to, something that disappears after the last note is played.

I won my first fight when I was eleven years old, and I’ve been throwing punches ever since. Fighting is the purest, truest, most elemental thing there is. Some people describe heaven as a sea of unending white. Where choirs sing and loved ones await. But for me, heaven was something else. It sounded like the bell at the beginning of a round, it tasted like adrenaline, it burned like sweat in my eyes and fire in my belly. It looked like the blur of screaming crowds and an opponent who wanted my blood.

For me, heaven was the octagon.

Until I met Millie, and heaven became something different. I became something different. I knew I loved her when I watched her stand perfectly still in the middle of a crowded room, people swarming, buzzing, slipping around her, her straight dancer’s posture unyielding, her chin high, her hands loose at her sides. No one seemed to see her at all, except for the few who squeezed past her, tossing exasperated looks at her unsmiling face. When they realized she wasn’t normal, they hurried away. Why was it that no one saw her, yet she was the first thing I saw?

If heaven was the octagon, then she was my angel at the center of it all, the girl with the power to take me down and lift me up again. The girl I wanted to fight for, the girl I wanted to claim. The girl who taught me that sometimes the biggest heroes go unsung and the most important battles are the ones we don’t think we can win.

**This is David ‘Tag” Taggert’s book, a supporting character introduced in The Law of Moses. This is a stand-alone story.

ELIZABETH BRIGGS: More Than Music (Chasing the Dream, 1)

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Ultima lettura, fresca fresca di questi giorni, è questo carinissimo romanzo -More Than Music– dell’autrice americana esordiente Elizabeth Briggs. More Than Music è un romanzo New Adult il cui elemento distintivo è la musica. E’ il primo di una tetralogia (o almeno l’autrice ne ha indicati quattro) chiamata Chasing the Dream che fa chiaramente capire che ogni romanzo è incentrato sull’idea del “rincorrere i propri sogni” e, infine, realizzarli. fast-review-upComethe-sound nel passato abbiamo visto NA ambientati in college vari, con protagonisti tattoo artist o fighters in incontri clandestini, MTM ha quindi come personaggi dei musicisti. Fortunatamente non è ambientato in un college (idea che ha un po stufato, non so voi) bensì segue questo gruppo di ragazzi durante il music reality show The Sound (praticamente The Voice, ma con alcune varianti). Quindi More Tha Music è il romanzo adatto a chi ama storie romantiche, leggere, con tanta musica, riferimenti geek.. ma sopratutto per tutti coloro che amano reality come The Voice o X-Factor
La storia non ha grossi sbalzi umorali da melodramma (e questo può essere sia una nota positiva che negativa), viaggia infatti su una nota piuttosto lineare e piacevole…questo non vuol dire comunque che non ci sono conflitti, incomprensioni e rappacificamenti. Perché ci sono eccome. Sia Maddy che Jared sono, famiglia(rmente) parlando, abbastanza comuni del genere NA…ma riescono in media a tenere il passo. Sono poi molto interessanti anche i personaggi secondari, che hanno e avranno tutti un posto nella serie Chasing the Dream, ognuno con la propria storia. Se foste curiosi di leggere un estratto del romanzo, potete trovarne un pezzetto sul sito dell’autrice.

Below, review in english.

More Than Music (Chasing the Dream #1) by Elizabeth Briggs
Rating: ★★★★☆
Editore Elizabeth Briggs
ISBN 9781499607994
9780991569601
Prezzo $ 10.70 paperback
$ 2.95 ebook kindle
Pagine 311
Uscita 10 giugno 2014
Acquista LaFeltrinelli.it | Amazon.it |
inMondadori | Barnes&Noble
Recensioni Anobii | Goodreads

BLURB

Music major Maddie Taylor just finished her junior year of college and has a summer internship lined up with the LA Philharmonic, yet every night she practices guitar and secretly dreams of a louder life. But geeky girls like her don’t get to be rock stars. That is, until tattooed singer Jared Cross catches her playing guitar and invites her to join his band on The Sound, a reality TV show competition.

Once on the show, Maddie discovers there’s more to Jared than his flirty smile and bad boy reputation – and that he’s just as big a geek as she is. With each performance their attraction becomes impossible to ignore, but when the show pressures them to stay single they’re forced to keep their relationship secret.

As the competition heats up, Jared will do whatever it takes for his band to win, and Maddie must decide if following her dream is worth losing her heart.

TRAMA

villain-complex-logoMaddie Taylor, specializzanda in musica, ha appena finito il suo primo anno di college e sta per partecipare ad uno stage estivo alla Filarmonica di Los Angeles. Ma ogni notte si esercita con la sua chitarra e segretamente sogna una vita più…intensa. Ma le ragazze geek come lei non diventano rock star. O almeno… non fino a quando il cantante dei Villain Complex, Jared Cross, la sorprende a suonare la chitarra e la invita a unirsi alla sua band in The Sound, un reality show televisivo.
Una volta nello show, Maddie scopre che c’è molto più in Jared del sorriso accattivante e la reputazione da bad boy – e che è un altrettanto grande geek quanto lei. Con ogni esibizione la loro attrazione diventa impossibile da ignorare, ma quando quelli dello show fanno loro pressioni per rimanere single, sono costretti a tenere segreta la loro relazione.
Man mano che la competizione si fa intensa, Jared farà di tutto perché la sua band vinca… e Maddie dovrà decidere se per inseguire il suo sogno vale la pena perdere il proprio cuore.

 

Teaser1

Review:

More Than Music is the last New Adult romance novel I’ve discovered…a book that I decided to read straight away after netgalley and the publisher gave it to me (and I can assure you it’s not a common occurrence for me). Hovewer that cover was calling me and who am I to not answer it?
Written by Elizabeth Briggs, it is the first book in a tetralogy (or at the moment goodreads is showing four books…plus some short novellas) called Chasing the Dream.
In the past we have seen NA set in colleges, starring tattoo artist or fighters. MTM is nothing of the sort. It is not set in a college (fortunately, I’m just a bit sick of reading constantly the same things) and, even though some of the characters have tattoos (you know, a tattoo is always cool so a character without one is not…I don’t know…right XD), they are …drumroll…. part of a rock band! And what with their name, Villain Complex? Chapeau to Elizabeth for this. 😉
Anyway, music was the reason that drew me to read this book in the first place and I was hoping for a good change for once. The author didn’t make me regret my choice. In fact, what I didn’t expect was to be so intrigued by the setting, the music reality competition The Sound (practically The Voice, but with some variations).
However the book is not about The Sound but it’s about the birth of a new love, the discovery of yourself and fighting for your dreams.
Jared is the lead singer of Villain Complex and brother of Kyle (keyboardist for the group and main character in More Than Exes, short novella that is set just before MTM) who is also friend to Maddie, a classic musician who, at night, dreams of becoming a rock guitarist.
When Jared and Maddie finally meet in a sort of embarassing Maddie-guitar-revelation/obsession-to-Jared-music something intriguing sparks between the two. Moreover, when the bassist of the group leave the Villain Complex, Jared decides that Maddie can definitely take her place…and join the band in The Sound competition.
But the real show has just begun because when dreams are becoming true you’ll do anything to reach them even if doing so will destroy something more precious.

Teaser2

AMY HARMON: The Law of Moses

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Dall’autrice di quel bellissimo romanzo che è I cento colori del blu (A Different Blue) (pubblicato da Newton Compton agli inizi del 2014), di cui trovate la mia recensione QUI, è uscito a novembre l’ultimo romanzo intitolato The Law of Moses che già dalle premesse sembra essere un altro toccante racconto di vita vera, difficoltà, rivincite e amore.

The Law of Moses May Harmon
primo_cap
Rating: ★★★★☆
Editore selfpublish
ISBN 9781311562586
Pagine 298
Prezzo € 3.30 ebook kindle
€3.96 ebook epub
Uscita 27 novembre 2014
Acquista LaFeltrinelli.it | Amazon.it |
inMondadori | IBS.it
Recensioni Anobii | Goodreads

If I tell you right up front, right in the beginning that I lost him, it will be easier for you to bear. You will know it’s coming, and it will hurt. But you’ll be able to prepare.

Someone found him in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few hours old and fast-review-upclose to death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his story on the ten o’clock news – the little baby left in a basket at a dingy Laundromat, born to a crack addict and expected to have all sorts of problems. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that ran down his body, like he’d been broken at birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant, but the image stuck in my mind. Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to him from the start.

It all happened before I was born, and by the time I met Moses and my mom told me all about him, the story was old news and nobody wanted anything to do with him. People love babies, even sick babies. Even crack babies. But babies grow up to be kids, and kids grow up to be teenagers. Nobody wants a messed up teenager.

And Moses was messed up. Moses was a law unto himself. But he was also strange and exotic and beautiful. To be with him would change my life in ways I could never have imagined. Maybe I should have stayed away. Maybe I should have listened. My mother warned me. Even Moses warned me. But I didn’t stay away.

And so begins a story of pain and promise, of heartache and healing, of life and death. A story of before and after, of new beginnings and never-endings. But most of all…a love story.