Sleeping Roses by RaShelle Workman

Sleeping Roses 
by RaShelle Workman

Sophie married into a lie.

Sick of her dangerous marriage, Sophie leaves her husband, determined to start a new life.

But her husband isn't going to let her go that easily. If he can't have her, no one can.

It's hunter versus hunted.

Genre: Romantic thriller/mystery 

Add on Goodreads, or buy on Amazon.

Praise for Sleeping Roses:

 "It's strange, mysterious, and down right cool! It made me wonder if this really happened." Jek Jamison

"A suspense/thriller where nothing is as it seems." Heartsong Reviews 

"From the first page to the last I was captivated by Sophie's journey as told by Ms Workman. Well crafted twists and turns kept me completely enthralled and unwilling to put it down. I found myself empathizing with the characters I closely identified with and feeling compassion, as Sophie did, for those less likable. The author's ability to express the feelings and emotions of the characters transcended the words on the pages." D. Olson

A Reader or a Writer... Which would you rather be?

By RaShelle Workman

If I had to choose between being a reader or a writer, I would choose reader. I love reading way too much to give it up. If I only wrote, I'd miss all my favorite books, like: 

 The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich 

I love these mainly for the dialogue. A lot of times, I'll be reading and just laugh out loud. Stephanie's grandmother is a hoot. 

The Sookie Sackhouse series by Charlaine Harris

Again, super funny. 

Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Unearthly, How to Build a Man, Open Minds, Untraceable, How to Date an Alien, and on, and on.

Nope, I couldn't give up reading. 

What about you? If you had to choose, which would you pick? Reading or writing?

About the author: 

Lover of books, baking, and toffee-making. The author of Aligned: An Immortal Essence Short Story, Exiled, Sleeping Roses, and Blood and Snow. Honorary nerd with attitude. 

You can find out more about RaShelle at rashelleworkman.com.

Starters by Lissa Price - Review

Starters by Lissa Price

Published: March 13, 2012

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER
Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. 

My Review:

Callie is an orphan who is taking care of her younger brother, who is sick. Her parents, as well as most adults, died during the spore wars. The only ones who didn't die were the very young and the very old because they were the ones seen as being the most vulnerable so they received immunizations. Callie isn't old enough to work because of a law that says anyone under 19 cannot do so, and they have no other family to "claim" them, so they end up surviving on the streets to avoid being placed in one of the terrible institutions where most unclaimed minors end up. The very old are referred to as Enders, and they have all the money and power. Enders go to Prime Destinations (or the "body bank") to rent the body of a teenager so they can experience a day, a week, a month as if they are young again. Callie goes to the body bank as a last resort to try to make things better for her younger brother. She thinks that after she does three rentals, she will be able to walk away and will have enough money to get them a house. On her third rental, something goes wrong with the chip that has been implanted inside her. She is inside her body, not the Ender that has rented her, but she is living the Ender's life. As she unravels what went wrong, she realizes that the body bank's plans are more sinister than she realized, and she must fight to save herself, her brother, and the other young orphans like her.

The cover of Starters is what initially caught my attention, but I was also intrigued by the plot. Unfortunately, it seemed that the plot details were just riddled with problems. If you can get over that and allow yourself to be pulled into the story, it does keep you engaged and moves along rather smoothly with big events happening at appropriate intervals to keep it from dragging. The suspense is the best part, and you will want to keep reading to find out what happens to Callie and what is really going on with the body bank. I was not overly thrilled that Callie so quickly falls in love with a boy she meets in a bar while she is still maintaining the facade of her rental going smoothly, especially since she is obviously in love with her friend, Michael, who helps them survive on the streets. I also was somewhat disappointed by the ending. I felt that everything just wrapped up too quickly and too conveniently with regards to the body bank and the people who ran it. However, the last couple of pages pulled me back in enough to want to read the next one in the series to find out what is going to happen. Ultimately, for me, what I was expecting from this book based on the blurb and tagline just wasn't pulled off; however, if you enjoy dystopian thrillers and can easily lose yourself in the fantasy and suspense, then you may enjoy Starters.

A copy was provided by the publisher for review.

About the author:

LISSA PRICE has studied photography and writing, but the world has turned out to be her greatest teacher.

She has walked with elephants in Botswana, swum with penguins in the Galapagos, and stood in a field at sunset amid a thousand nomads in Gujarat, India. She has been surrounded by hundreds of snorting Cape buffalo in South Africa and held an almost silent chorus with a hundred wild porpoises off the coast of Oahu. She has danced in mud huts at weddings in India and had tea with the most famous living socialite in Kyoto.

When she sat down to write, she found that the most surprising journeys were still inside her mind.

She lives in the foothills of California with her husband and the occasional deer. 

You can find Lissa on her website, Twitter, and Facebook.

Interview with Chris Redding

Chris Redding is the author of several books, including two new books, Blonde Demolition and A View to a Kilt.

About the Author:
Chris Redding lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, one dog and three rabbits. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism with an English Minor. When she isn't writing she works part time for her local hospital teaching CPR and running the CPR training center.

How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since I was ten, but writing for publication about 13 years.

How did you pick the genre you write in?
The genre picked me. I started out as a romance writer, but I always seemed to end up with a crime in it. I also tend to like stories with more than one plot so thriller and suspense lends itself to that.

What was the best writing advice someone gave you?
This applies to any dream. Every day do at least one thing to work towards your goal.

What was the worst?
An early critique partner told me to write for Harlequin. Nothing wrong with Harlequin, my stories wouldn’t fit there.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Do one thing every single day to get closer to your goal.

What was your favorite book when you were a child?
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. That may seem an odd choice, as it is middle grade, but I was reading 3 grades ahead of my age.

What’s your favorite quote?
From a John Lennon song called Beautiful Boy. Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

What is your favorite word?
Potential

Tell me one thing about yourself that very few people know?
I’m not fearless.

What are your other interests and hobbies?
I wish I had more time for other things, but writing is very time-consuming. What I used to like to do was cross stitch. The rhythm of it is very relaxing. I also like to hike.

Blonde Demolition
(Available soon in print at Amazon.)

Mallory Sage lives in a small, idyllic town where nothing ever happens. Just the kind of life she has always wanted. No one, not even her fellow volunteer firefighters, knows about her past life as an agent for Homeland Security.

Former partner and lover, Trey McCrane, comes back into Mallory's life. He believes they made a great team once, and that they can do so again. Besides, they don't have much choice. Paul Stanley, a twisted killer and their old nemesis, is back.

Framed for a bombing and drawn together by necessity, Mallory and Trey go on the run and must learn to trust each other again―if they hope to survive. But Mallory has been hiding another secret, one that could destroy their relationship. And time is running out.

A View to a Kilt
(Now available in print at Amazon.)

Waking up next to a dead guy can ruin your whole day.

When a wise-cracking interior decorator wants to put her past behind her, the dead body of the mayor’s son makes it pretty clear that won’t happen too easily.

A conservative former computer geek for the FBI is holding on too tightly to his past. His wife died under suspicious circumstances and he believes the decorator has the information to solve the case. Unfortunately for him, she isn’t talking… until a series of events convinces her she needs protection especially when her biggest secret threatens to destroy both their lives.

You can find out more about Chris Redding at her website and her blog.