Monday, May 22, 2017

Music Review & Giveaway: MANDISA: OUT OF THE DARK (Deluxe Edition)



Purchase Link
Now available from Sparrow Records (a CMG Label Group) is the fifth album from the Christian artist Mandisa, titled Out Of The Dark.

It's been four years since Mandisa's last album, Overcomer, was released. One of the songs from the album, also titled Overcomer, was written to encourage her close friend Kisha, who was fighting breast cancer. Sadly, Kisha passed away in 2014.

Due to her friend's death, Mandisa fell into a deep depression for close to 3 years. During this time, she shut out her friends, family, and the rest of the world. With God's help, she was able to overcome her depression. The songs on Out Of The Dark were written, so Mandisa can sure her story with her fans.

Out Of The Dark is available to buy in a standard or deluxe edition. The deluxe edition contains 3 additional songs.

The tracks on the album are:


1. Voicemail Intro
2. I'm Still Here
3. Out Of The Dark
4. Unfinished
5. Bleed The Same Intro (featuring Kirk Franklin)
6. Bleed The Same (featuring TobyMac and Kirk Franklin)
7. Comeback Kid
8. What You're Worth (featuring Britt Nicole)
9. Dear John Praise Report
10. Good News
11. Prove Me Wrong
12. Mothdisa Interlude
13. The One He Speaks Through
14. Shine
15. My First Love (featuring Jeremy Camp)

Bonus Content:
16. Shame Off
17. Keep Getting Up
18. Back To Life


Friday, May 19, 2017

Book Blogger Hop: May 19th - 25th




Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML


Welcome to the new Book Blogger Hop!

If you want schedule next week's post, click here to find the next prompt question. To submit a question, fill out this form.

What to do:

1. Post on your blog answering this question:

  This week's question is submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver's Reviews!

What do you do with books you no longer want? Do you donate them? Do you take them to a half-price bookstore? Does a friend or family member benefit?

2. Enter the link to your post in the linky list below (enter your Blog Name and the direct link to your post answering this week’s question. Failure to do so will result in removal of your link).


3. Visit other blogs in the list and comment on their posts. Try to spend some time on the blogs reading other posts and possible become a new follower.  The purpose of the hop is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.
  

My Answer: 

 Typically, I give away the Christian romance titles (that I don't want to keep) to an elderly friend. Any other books I don't want to put into my book collection, I will donate to Salvation Army.


Linky List:

Q&A with Adom Sample, author of Courting Moon: Vampyres Desire



Now available to purchase is the paranormal romance Courting Moon: Vampyres Desire, book one in the Bloods Passion Saga, by Adom Sample.



The author has taken a few minutes out of his busy schedule for a Q&A about his new novel. 



When did you become interested in storytelling?

I’ve been writing since I was a child actually. As I child I loved reading stories. It was an escape from my hectic childhood. With that, I started writing plays, poetry, shorty stories and the like. I didn’t start writing seriously until I finished graduate school. I put off completing my Doctorates to write. I felt like doing something I was passionate about as opposed to continuing my studies. Writing makes me feel good.

What was your first book/story published?
My first book is a horror novel derived from a collection of stories that I wrote when I was a teenager. Since that book I’ve transitioned to romance/paranormal as I feel this genre suits me better.

What inspired you to write Courting Moon: Vampyres Desire?

One night at 3:30am I was sleeping in my bed dreaming about a story of a human woman and a male vampire who were not allow to be together. I woke up immediately and created a note to myself via email of the idea. The next morning I developed the plot to the story from what I could remember from my dream and it just took off from there. The more I wrote, the more ideas for other stories in the series came to me. Therefore, I guess you can say Courting Moon came to me in a dream.

What character in Courting Moon: Vampyres Desire is the most/least like you, and in what ways?

I don’t believe any of the characters are like me. I wrote them in the realm of people who I have interacted with. I guess Sebastian would be an outward projection of what I would like to be. He’s passionate in what he wants and is willing to give up everything to have it just the same as his love interest Kyra. I believe they both mirror what people in general would like to become.

What is your favorite part in Courting Moon: Vampyres Desire?

The Friday 56: The Broken Road



Rules:
Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it)
Post it.
 Add your (url) post below in the Linky at www.fredasvoice.com
Add the post url, not your blog url.


Thursday, May 18, 2017

Big Little Lies Digital HD Review & Giveaway




Big Little Lies is available now on Digital Download!

Based on the novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty, the seven-part limited-series debuted on HBO earlier this year to ratings success, as well as receiving wide acclaim from television critics. Written by David E. Kelley and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, the series featured the first-rate cast of Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott, Zoë Kravitz, James Tupper, Jeffrey Nordling, and Laura Dern.
 
The first episode begins at a crime scene were neither the victim or murderer are revealed, and then it quickly flips back to several weeks to where us viewers are introduced to three women who are all dropping off their kids for their first day of first-grade. Jane (played by Shailene Woodley) is a young single mother. Madeline (played by Reese Witherspoon) is a funny, sweet person, but she can also have a grudge against anyone who upsets her. Celeste (played by Nicole Kidman) is a beautiful ex-lawyer who is now a full-time mother to twin boys. 

image courtesy of HBO

These women's world's collide at the at the end of the first day of school when a little girl, Amabella, accuses Ziggy, Jane's son, of attempting to choke her. While Ziggy denies the accusation, Ambaella's mother, Renata (played by Laura Dern), goes on a warpath over the situation, and she's determined to make sure Jane's life is a living nightmare.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Review - You'll Think Of Me by Robin Lee Hatcher


Thomas Nelson; 308 pages; $12.99; Amazon
You'll Think Of Me by Robin Lee Hatcher has been sitting on desk for over month now, and I've finally taken the time out to read it. As you can probably tell by the cover with a man embracing a beautiful woman near an apple tree, this is a romance novel. Well, to be more precise, it's a Christian romance novel.

The novel centers on a woman named Brooklyn Myers who's raising her young daughter, Alycia, in Reno, Nevada by herself. She had married Chad Hallston when she was just seventeen-years-old, but the marriage didn't last long and Chad later left shortly after Alycia was born. Out of the blue, Brooklyn receives word that Chad has died of a rare heart condition and has left his family's house & land in Thunder Creek, Idaho to his daughter.

Every romance story needs a male lead in it, which happens to be Derek Johnson in this novel, the best friend of Chad Hallston. While Derek isn't working for the sheriff department, he's working on his 3-acre orchard farm. His dream is to run a successful organic fruit farm, but to do so he would have to expand his land. He almost has enough money for a down-payment on the neighboring land. All ten-acres belongs to Chad Hallston, well, that is until his best friend died. While Derek is upset that Chad didn't leave the property to him in the will, he's even more shocked to learn about Chad's last wish - he wants Derek to be a father-figure to Alycia.

Q&A with Skyla Murphy, author of Hell Will Rise





Now available is the romantic thriller Hell Will Rise, book in the Bloodthirsty Mafia series, by Skyla Murphy.



The author has taken a few minutes out of her busy schedule for a Q&A about her newest novel.


When did you become interested in storytelling?

I’m sure my parents would tell you that I’ve always been a storyteller, but I had never seriously considered writing as a profession up until two years ago. When I was in high school, we were made to undergo career assessments. Numerous questions were asked to decipher which career path would be best for us on an individual basis. In a fate I couldn’t understand, my results came back for creative writing. Ignoring the assessment, I studied social work, power engineering, and medical transcription instead. I’ve always written along the way, completing multiple novels that I didn’t ever take the leap to publish.

What was your first book/story published?

When I had just hit junior high, I wrote a story about a penguin that played baseball. (It was cool back then, I swear - ha!) It won first place and was published for a local festival, but that was just something I did for fun. I’ve written a handful of novels over the past few years, but Hell Will Rise will be the first one I officially publish.

What inspired you to write Hell Will Rise?

One night around a campfire, me and a few buddies were discussing which superpower would be the coolest to have. A little bit of an odd conversation for a group of twenty-five year olds to be hung up on, but we were.

The most common answer was the cliché of invisibility. Someone said X-ray vision. Another said the art of flying. I chose teleportation. I would take myself wherever I wanted to go with a snap of my fingers. Could you imagine the uncomfortable conversations a girl could avoid with that superpower?! But I would want myself to be so skilled that I could bring anything I was touching with me. I would show my friends the world!

While considering it, someone suggested seeing numbers in people’s eyes (their bank pins, driver’s license numbers, stock holdings etc.) so they could steal identities for fun. The friend who gave that answer had eaten one too many Bailey’s centered marshmallows that night, but it got me thinking. It was then that I told everyone I was going to write my next book about exactly that.

What character in Hell Will Rise is the most/least like you, and in what ways?