Promo and Giveaway: Children of Lightning by Annie K. Wong

Book and Author Details:

Children of Lightning by Annie K. Wong
Publication date: September 27th 2014
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

Synopsis:
Secrets beget secrets. The curse that befell the Hollows clan has left them incapable of producing male offspring. To extend their bloodline, they have formed a covenant with the serpentine Ophidians, who give them children. In return, the Hollows must keep these monstrous creatures well fed, though the details of the procurement are so abominable that the truth is never revealed to the other clans. In their homeland of Matikki, they live like outcasts.

Through a series of chance discoveries, the secrets of the ancient curse unfold before a warrior named Writhren Hollow. Is her purely female clan the result of a lapse of divine providence, or are the Hollows themselves victims of an enslavement scheme?

If Writhren frees her clan from the covenant, she risks the wrath of the Ophidians and the future of her bloodline. If she keeps the truth of the curse to herself, she is a traitor to her own kind. Either way, she will suffer for what she must do.

This is not a story of redemption, but regret. This is Writhren’s story.


Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23294183-children-of-lightning?ac=1

Purchase:
Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00NZPR320
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-of-lightning-annie-k-wong/1120426896?ean=2940046202953

AUTHOR BIO:

Annie K. Wong was born in Hong Kong and lives in Canada, in the west coast city of Vancouver, BC. She has a BA in Business Administration and Creative Writing from Houghton College as well as a Diploma in Film Studies from the University of British Columbia. Although she explored careers in advertising, television and office administration, the desire to write overtook her at the turn of the new millennium. In 2003 she earned a Post-Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College and has been crafting stories ever since.

Her current project is a fantasy series, the prequel of which is Children of Lightning.

Connect with her and receive freebies and updates about her book and other upcoming projects.

Author links:
Website:  http://www.anniekwong.com/
Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8640429.Annie_K_Wong

Excerpt:

-->

He grew pale and heaved as if about to retch, then grimaced and sank his iron fangs into the back of her hand, delivering a rush of burning heat through her.  Her hair-snakes trembled, their fangs dripping with venom.  Her heart stopped, then pumped again with deeper, more purposeful pulses.  Her eyes, heavy with bliss, blinked wide with new clarity.

As he retracted his fangs and loosened his throttling grip around her, she inhaled and bent over, hands on her belly, the heat ricocheting and writhing in her womb like a thousand serpents.

“Ophidian…”  She gasped and grinned with excitement.

“Wriven,” The Cunning One said.  “The child’s name is Wriven.”

“Meaning ‘fierce’.  Why?”

“For being the fruit of our feisty encounter,” he explained.  “Had you been more… pliant, she might have been a… Tamerie. ”  He smirked.

“Wriven she shall be called then, and I’m ever grateful for your gift.”  She kneeled before him and kissed the bite marks on her hand.

Carefully, she stepped out of his tangled trunk and slipped away, his scent protecting her.  As soon as his scent dissipated, she would once again be prey to the Ophidians, including The Cunning One.

*     *     *

Experience should have eased the birthing process, or so Mother thought when she was in labour with her third child.  But regardless of how hard she pushed, her womb seemed unwilling to release the baby into the world, resulting in four candle-hours’ worth of moans and pain.  Eight more candle-hours would have completed the day.

Before the fifth candle-hour ended, the baby finally slid out, fat and smeared in amniotic fluid, ringlets of baby hair-snakes glistening on her head.  Sweat-soaked and exhausted, Mother received the newborn from her elder cousin and wrapped her in a blanket.

Outside, the fluorescent blooms of the pearl trees softly illuminated the snowflakes drifting into Snake River.  It was the darkest day of the year.

“Deeton, what’s her name?” asked the elder cousin.

Mother looked lovingly at her infant, whose bright violet eyes never strayed from her gaze.  She ran her fingers past the child’s lips, her pink torso, and the tiny hands eager to seize the world around her.  Stroking her chubby chest, she echoed the baby’s giggle.

“Tithren,” Mother said.  “Her name is Tithren.  Tithren Hollow.”

“‘Tithren’, meaning ‘victory’,” said her elder cousin in delight.  “The Cunning One has chosen well.”

         --> Mother grinned.   

Giveaway:
Tour-wide giveaway (INTL) - Ends November 26th

• Children of Lightning is the origin story of Writhen Hollow, the villain in an upcoming book series.  In celebration of great villains in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, Annie K. Wong is offering for the tour giveaway gift, The Hyperion Cantos (ebook or print - winner's choice). 
• 1x $50 Amazon.ca gift card
• 1x $100 Amazon.ca gift card

    a Rafflecopter giveaway

More on the giveaway:
An award-winning series from Dan Simmons, The Hyperion Cantos features one of the greatest villains ever written and a storyline spanning hundreds of years across distant galaxies. In this epic space opera, humans are threatened by their own creations, including biologically engineered post-humans, artificial intelligence supercomputers, and their constant internal wars.  Amidst the violence and chaos, the protagonists search for life’s meaning through religion, poetry, romance, not to mention strife and battle.

As of June 2015, Syfy Channel is developing the first book, Hyperion, into a TV series, with one of executive producers being Bradley Cooper.

Review: Insanity by Susan Vaught

First, thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA Children's Books for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  As you have to notice from just one look, the cover is what first drew me in to see what the book was about. When I read the synopsis, it sounded even better. While I've given it a rating of 3 stars on Goodreads, I actually would do more of a 3.5.  I almost gave it a 4, but had some issues that I just had to back myself down a bit.  But even with the issues I had, it is still a very scary book, and one I will definitely look into purchasing for the high school library where I work.  I will also highly recommend it to people who enjoy a good ghost story. 

As I read one person's short review of the book on Goodreads, they mentioned about how it had multiple person point of view for the story.  And it does.  This reader had to set it aside on the 3rd person that it went to.  I can see how that could be a problem, although honestly, the characters did pretty much sound different as we read from their point of view.  And actually, we get the story from 4 different characters' points of view, going back to one of the first ones at the very end actually.

It starts with Levi.  Levi is out walking on a kind of scary night, and the bells of the local psychiatric hospital begin ringing.  According to his grandmother, you should never be outside on a night when the bells ring, because that means death is nearby.  And it is true, as Levi even runs into the killer that night after meeting a stray dog that he sees out following him.

The second point of view is Forest, a girl who has just reached the age where she is no longer being a foster child. She has just started a job at the Lincoln Psychiatric Hospital that we learned about in the Levi's part.  While she is there, she does get a bit spooked as she sees some pretty scary things.  In fact at one point, she learns she can help people passing on to the other side, quite helpful in the elderly portion of the hospital.  And when she goes to help a spirit, she ends up going to the other side herself.  And when she comes back, she finds that a lot of time has passed. So much that the woman who had really helped her at the hospital when she first started is now an elderly woman living in the hospital.  And so Forest is able to help her over.  She has met Levi now, and they are an interesting couple.  You see his grandmother that he mentioned in his part is a woman named Imogene who has been at the hospital for a long time, helping out with spirits, both good ones crossing over, and trying to keep the bad ones from coming out. 

The third point of view is a boy named Darius.  Darius has just lost his 2nd grandmother, both of them had died at the hospital.  And as this last one passes away, she tells him something that will lead to some scary things happening as he starts his job at Lincoln.  She tells him that she tried to stop him, but he is still hungry and Darius will need to finish it.  Darius soon learns that his grandfather was a serial killer, killing little kids.  And his grandmother had killed him, or so she thought.  It seems his grandfather has somehow broken through and with the help of an evil spirit is trying to begin his work again.  Darius meets Forest and Levi, and they help him to try to finish his grandfather off for good.  Now here is what helped me keep going with all of the different points of view, all of these people were really connected more than any obvious way of being around or working at the hospital. One of Darius' grandmothers was Forest's friend that she'd helped pass on to the other side.  So now we see the connection.  We also meet Trina, Darius' girlfriend during his portion of the story.

The fourth point of view is Trina.  Yeah, obvious connection as the girlfriend, who also gets sucked in when Darius is trying to send his grandfather back to hell or wherever.  But, there is another connection even farther back, to the other two in the story, or at least back to Levi.  There is a connection between Trina's father, who is a pastor, and Levi.  A connection I'll let you read the book and find out for yourself.  And once again there is something going on in the hospital. Something even more ancient than what has been going on in the past parts of the story.

This book has so much action, so many good ghosts and back stories.  I loved how all the people ended up being connected in some way to each other, and even to the town and hospital itself.  Very creative and I'm sure took lots of figuring and planning on the author's part.  Now the issues I had, while there were so many back stories that ended up being connected in really great ways, there was something about having Madoc blood.  And I don't know if I missed that part in my reading, or just don't remember it, but while I knew it was something important, it was stressed throughout the story, I'm not sure exactly what it means.  Okay maybe that's my only issue, and actually, it could be my own fault that maybe I skipped over that part or just don't remember it, so I may have to go back to Goodreads and go ahead and bump my review up to 4 stars.  Don't you love how I talked myself into that through writing the review?

Again, great story, the cover is perfect and totally sets the mood of the book.  Yes, it is a scary haunted metal hospital, but it is more than that.  A unique storyline about witches and people who just have some sort of abilities to help the dead cross over, or try to stop the dead that have bad intentions when possible. I could totally see this as a tv series actually.  Someone call the SyFy channel and let them know!

Review: Pandemic (Infected #3) by Scott Sigler (Prequel/Sequel Challenge)

First, thanks to Crown Publishing and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  And extra thanks to whatever kept it from expiring on the date I had written, January 21st, since I wasn't able to get all the way through it until the 24th.  I was a little daunted at first because it was over 400 pages, and it had been awhile, since 2009, that I'd read the 2nd book in the series.  I am pleased to say that the way they did the kind of "review" mixed in at the beginning of the story was perfect for reminding me pretty much of all of it.  Not only that, the author's writing once again captured and pulled me right into the story.  And that many pages?  You might think it would be a ton of description and character building, boring stuff, and you'd be wrong.  Yes, all that description and character building is there, it is just done in such a way that it happens during exciting, edge of the seat action scenes.  I feel like this series is one that could make a few good movies, or even better, a tv series on the SyFy channel.

I'll try not to give too many spoilers out, but there are a few of course since this is the final book in a trilogy.  In the first two books, there was an alien virus/organism that was causing people to die, or even to change in ways that they would cause others to catch the same thing and then change to pass it on, or again, die.  The alien organism was sent by a society that sent them out to get rid of other life forms that might one day come back and kill them or cause them harm.  It sent several different parts, and each one could learn from the losses of the one before if something happened, as had happened in the last two books.  It got so bad in the last one that the government nuked Detroit to end it.  Which did mostly end it, other than one last part from the original machine which sunk to the bottom of Lake Michigan.  The government is searching for any last bits that may have made it out of the blast.  And they've found one.  They take all the precautions they think are necessary to try to safely get it into a submarine, and then back to a lab to test it/destroy it if needed.  Unfortunately, something goes wrong on the sub, it is obvious somehow the people get infected.  Clarence Otto, and Margaret Montoya, experts and heroes from last books, are called back in to try to stop it, and determine what is going on.  What they find is a much evolved organism, some of the ways it has changed they won't even notice, until it may be too late, and someone very important is infected.

And it's not just the alien organism they must deal with now, it seems another country has their eyes on getting ahold of this alien technology and using it for themselves.  Not realizing just how bad it can be for them if they don't follow all the protocols that even our heroes are using, at times unsuccessfully.

Such a great way that it all plays out, to the point that I was just figuring there was no way left to save the human race.  But the scientists must determine if there is any way to use the aliens' own technology against them in order to save ourselves.

Again, a great conclusion to the story, so glad I got to read it!  For my 2014 Prequel and Sequel Challenge, I will be able to count this as 2 points.  Unfortunately, since I didn't review the first two anywhere that I can find at the moment, I can't get the 10 points for completing the series.  Hopefully I will soon get my MySpace blogs sent to me from the past, and it will be there I hope.

Crashed by Robin Wasserman

I was so excited when this came out and I actually ordered it in to the bookstore because we didn't have it in. But, something else came up, can't remember what it was at this time, and I just now got around to reading it. And it was good, just like I knew it would be.

This is the sequel to Skinned by Robin Wasserman. Our main character is Lia Kahn. In Skinned, Lia died in a car crash and her father had her brain scanned and put into a robotic body. A skinner as the people call them. Well, people aren't really accepting of these robots. Including Lia's own family members. Even though she has all her memories and feels like herself, people won't give her a chance. There was one guy, Auden, who did believe in her, and at the end of Skinned he got hurt from trying to save her, and then he sent her away. So she's gone and lived with the other mechs, as they call themselves. Jude, Riley, Quinn, and Ani. Among others who come to live with them in Quinn's huge family home.

There is the religous group trying to stop this practice of putting people's memories into these robots. And Auden has joined in against Lia. It has become a big deal, mechs against orgs(living people). And after several attacks, the government has started to consider taking away any "rights" that the mechs have, turning them back into machines or property.

I'm told that the shortlived SyFy show called Caprica is a lot like the theme in this book, so I'll have to find it on DVD and watch it. Now I'm just looking forward to reading Wired, the third in the series.