Blog Tour with Giveaway: Dream Me by Kathryn Berla

Book info:
Title:  Dream Me
Author:  Kathryn Berla
Published by: Amberjack Publishing
Publication date: July 11th, 2017
Genres: Romance, Time-Travel, Young Adult

Zat is a dreamer from the distant future—a time when humans no longer dream and Earth is a desolate wasteland. He dreams of the beautiful Earth of the past, and a fiery-haired beauty named Babe. Against the wisdom of his peers, Zat decides to risk everything to travel back in time and live in Babe’s dreams…

Babe is the perpetual new girl in town. Her father’s job frequently moves the family around the country, and Babe just longs for a place to call home. As she settles into the sleepy town of Sugar Dunes, Florida, Babe begins to have strange dreams of a green-eyed boy named Zat. Night after night, Babe shows Zat her world. But the dreams come at the cost of nearly crippling migraines every morning. Babe’s life outside of her dreams pales in comparison to her growing love for Zat and their time spent together.

But the more time Babe and Zat spend together in her dreams, the more Babe’s pain increases, and Zat begins to question the reality of his existence. How can he live a life with Babe, when all they have is her dreams?

Can a dream become a reality?

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Excerpt:
     I finally found Nguyen’s Fish Market and at the same time confirmed once again that a bit could really mean a bit around here or it could mean a lot. In this case it was a lot. A lot of miles away, that is. Turns out it was completely on the other side of the Bay from where we lived, in an area which could best be described as humble. Small, gray buildings that had been beaten up by the moist, salty air for so many years were separated by wide gravel parking lots—one sad building looking just like the other. I was struck by the open space out here. Nobody was fighting for parking places in Sugar Dunes. Parking places were fighting for cars. 

     Nguyen’s, on the other hand, was jammed. I squeezed the truck into a narrow spot between two other trucks and went in to have a look. I didn’t know one type of fish from another but I suspected everything here was fresh off the boats.

     The customers inside waited in two lines. In the first line you gave your order to a guy (an Asian man about my dad’s age) and he wrapped it in white paper, weighed it, wrote a price on it and handed it to you over the counter. After that you went to the second line where an Asian woman with a thick accent (probably the wife) rang up your purchase. There were so many people in the close space that in spite of the fans blowing back and forth, the humidity and sight of all the dead fish made me queasy.

     I walked back and forth staring at beds of ice chips where shrimp, flounder, grouper, snapper, catfish, and blue crabs competed for your attention like puppies in a pet store. How was a fish novice like me supposed to decide? I noticed a girl behind the counter sitting at a small card table sketching on a sheet of the white paper used for wrapping fish—an ink drawing of an exotic-looking bird, tail feathers draped over the branch of a small tree. It was beautifully drawn; I could tell even from that distance.

     When I caught her eye, she put down the black ink pen she was holding and came to the front to help me. She was around my age but smaller, far more delicate, and beautiful without the aid of makeup. Her black hair was pulled straight off her face into a ponytail. I figured she must be the daughter.

     “Can I help you find something?” she asked in a soft southern accent.

     “Can you suggest something my mom could make for dinner?”

     “The snapper’s always good.”

     I glanced at the carnation pink fillets and decided that being a pescatarian was almost as good as being a vegetarian. Anyway, it was either that or starve to death. 

     “Could you give me enough to feed three hungry people please, or . . . I guess I should go stand in that other line.”

     In a flash she’d wrapped and weighed the fillets, and placed them in my hand. 

     What happened next can only be described as an out-of-body experience. I heard someone call out my name just as a mind-blowing pain started in my left foot and ripped all the way up the back of my leg. It seemed to happen in a split second but it must have been longer because when I came out of it, the girl was staring at me.

     “Are you alright?” she asked.

     I raised my ankle and rubbed away the memory of pain. Probably a leftover from an old tennis injury of mine—an Achilles tendon tear. 

     “I’m fine. I guess the heat got to me.”

     “Do you wanna come in the back and sit down for a minute?”

     “No, really, I’m fine. Thanks.”

     Back in the truck, I blasted the AC right at my face. 
 

Author Bio:

Kathryn Berla graduated from the University of California at Berkeley as an English major. She has lived in many different countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Review: My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris

Book info:
Title:  My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century
Author:  Rachel Harris
Series:  My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century #1
Genre:  YA time travel romance
Published:  September 11th, 2012
Source:  E-book received free from Entangled Teen for honest review
My rating:  5 stars

I had wanted to read this book since I first saw it on display at the bookstore where I worked the year it was published.  So when Entangled Teen was asking people to do some reviews on it, I volunteered to read and review it.  I am very glad that I did, because I ended up enjoying it as much as I'd hoped. 

The main character is a girl named Cat. She is the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress and a famous Hollywood movie director.  Her mother, the actress, however isn't around.  Having always been very self-centered and more concerned about her own career and falling in love with every guy that came along.  So Cat lives with her father and her soon-to-be stepmother.  Cat likes how happy her stepmother makes her father, but isn't really excited for the big sweet sixteen birthday party that she wants to throw Cat.   One thing Cat had requested for her birthday had to do with a trip to Florence, Italy.  Her request on their first day there is to be able to go out and do some exploring on her own. And what she chooses is a guided tour where she gets to see Michelangelo's David.  At the end of the tour she notices a gypsy tent.  She decides for the fun of it to go check it out.  When she gets her reading, the gypsy has a strange reading, and for some reason tells Cat to make sure to learn whatever lessons she is given in the near future.  Cat is confused by all this, but she heads on out of the tent.

Only when she heads out of the tent, now she seems to be in a different time, no longer present day Florence, but now  Renaissance Florence.  A man is calling her name, and when she next looks down, she is no longer in her jeans and normal clothes, but in the appropriate dress for the time period.  She follows the man to a carriage, realizing that she is speaking and understanding Italian somehow.  It seems as if she has been transported into the body of a girl who had been orphaned.  And this girl actually turns out to be a member of Cat's own ancestors.  

She is taken to live with her aunt and uncle, and two cousins, a boy and a girl, both near her age.  She becomes good friends with the girl, Alessandra, and soon falls for the boy, Cipriano's, best friend Lorenzo.  There are mean girls in this time period as well.  One that even asks Cat to get up and sing in front of the rest of a party, something that Cat does NOT do well with, singing.  Cat's new family is wonderful, but she must realize what time period she is.  She tends to use the same kind of slang we use in modern day, often having to explain what things mean, or blame it on coming from her life in London where they do things differently.  She is lucky enough to still have her backpack with her phone and some magazines and cosmetics.  Of course her phone doesn't work, other than she is able to listen to some music.  

At one point Alessandra figures out that something is really off about Cat, and Cat gives in and explains to Alessandra that she is from the future.  Even so, being in this time, it is important to find Cat a husband, something that her uncle does, meaning well, although who he sets her up with is an older man that something feels off about to Cat.  

Now Cat must decide whether she wants to run away with Lorenzo, but in doing so, will he have to give up his dreams of being an artist?  And is it fair to the girl who Cat has taken over her life for now.  Cat also wants to get back home before anything like actually getting married to this guy takes place.  She soon learns that what she was so worried and upset about at home might not be as bad as she thought, that maybe her father's fiance is someone who really does have her best interests at heart, and maybe she can get past how her mother has treated her.

I really liked the story.  The characters seemed very realistic.  Even the mean girl, while yes, definitely a mean girl, was not necessarily doing anything that didn't make sense for a girl of that time period to expect.  I liked the love story, and I liked that Cat didn't expect things to just happen how she wanted and possibly ruin the way things were meant to go.  I like the way the author wrapped up everything at the end as well.  I look forward to reading more books in this series, and seeing what else could happen in another story.