Showing posts with label dystopian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dystopian. Show all posts

Wednesday 14 January 2015

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Cover Reveal for NO RETURN by Zoe Cannon

If you like young adult dystopian novels, you're going to love this series! I've already read Book 1 - The Torturer's Daughter - and it's a great, suspenseful, fast read that will have you itching to get your hands on Book 2 - Necessary Sacrifices.

Today, I'm happy to be hosting the cover reveal for Book 3 - No Return . . .

Every dissident knows about Becca Dalcourt.

They know about the lives she’s saved. About the prison break she carried out against impossible odds. They know she turned a dying resistance into the first real threat Internal Defense has faced in a long time.

And even now, with the resistance under attack from the inside, they know Becca can save them.

They’re wrong.

This conclusion to the series explores what happens when an ordinary person becomes a legend – and how to choose between who you are and who the world needs you to be.


No Return will be released May 21st 2014. You can add it to your Goodreads TBR list here.

Zoe Cannon writes about the things that fascinate her: outsiders, societies no sane person would want to live in, questions with no easy answers, and the inner workings of the mind. If she couldn't be a writer, she would probably be a psychologist, a penniless philosopher, or a hermit in a cave somewhere. While she'll read anything that isn't nailed down, she considers herself a YA reader and writer at heart. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and a giant teddy bear of a dog, and spends entirely too much time on the internet.

Here's where she hangs out online:

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Shattered Worlds is On Tour!!

If you love dystopian and apocalyptic fiction, then join us over the next 
few days to get your fix. You'll find exclusive excerpts from the novels, 
guest posts from the authors, and there’s also an opportunity to enter the Shattered Worlds giveaway to win 12 novels and a $60 Amazon gift card.

Check out the tour dates below!
 
26th February
Playing Jokers
Mythical Books
Read More, Sleep Less
Jess Time To Read
Donnie Darko Girl
K.F.Breene
Vanilla Moon Blog
Old Victorian Quill
Happy Indulgence Books
Sarit Yahalomi
Trina’s Tantalising Titbits
Mom with a Kindle
Primorose Musings
Becca Anne’s Book Reviews
Aria Kane
Booky Thoughts and Me
Share My Destiny
Day Dream Books
Simplistic Reviews
A Touch of Book Madness
A Dream Within a Dream
To Dream with Eyes Open
Wonderful Monster Book
Reviewing in Chaos
We Do Write
Girls with Book
Rude Mom
Living in a Book World
Marked by Books
Gin’s Book Notes

27th February
Two Ends of the Open
Purple Shadow Hunter
Books Direct
I Love Books
Sassy Book Lovers
The Book Bag
The Bookish Confections
Fantastical World of Wonders

28th February
Why I can’t Stop Reading
Shayna Varadeaux
Books by Kay
Contagious Reads
Creating Serenity
Bawakas Book Fair
Crazy Beautiful Reviews
Literary Me
Fuonlyknew
Wanted Readers
Pieces of Whimsy
Naughty Book Eden

1st March
Bibliophile Mystery
Vanya Drum
Yearning Mermaid
My Book Addiction
Reviews by Jasmine
Magic Inside Pages
Book Liaison
Cada Libro Un Mundo
Ebook Escapes
Literary Winner
Rockin’ and Reviewing
Fundinmental
Sun Mountain Reviews
Mismatched Bookends
Books to Breathe

2nd March
Once Upon a YA book
Buried Under Books
Michael Scifan
Book Lover’s Life
Live a Thousand Lives
All Things in the Cloud Sweet
The Cover Contessa
Scandalous Bookblog

3rd March
Thoughts at One in the Morning
Addicted Readers
A Book Addict’s Bookshelves
So Many Books, So Little Time
FicCentral
Deal Sharing Aunt
NaYa Books and More

Thanks a bazillion to all the amazing bloggers who signed up for the Shattered Worlds tour. We're blown away by how many of you have offered to host it.

If you'd like to get your hands on a copy of all six featured novels, Shattered Worlds is on sale for just 99c / 77p !! 

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Smashwords

Monday 3 February 2014

Win 6 Bestselling Dystopian Novels plus an Amazon Giftcard


See below to win all these incredible ebooks, 
plus an Amazon gift card!


Bestselling tales of survival against the odds,
dark worlds, dystopian regimes and heroic rebels.

Shattered Worlds features six full-length novels from bestselling authors. 
Immerse yourself in post-apocalyptic civilizations and bleak near-futures
where hope still lives.
 
1. Apocalypsis Book 1: Kahayatle from 
 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Elle Casey 

2. Outside (Outside series, Book 1) by Shalini Boland

3. The Torturer's Daughter by Zoe Cannon 

4. Night of the Purple Moon by Scott Cramer 

5. The Blemished by Sarah Dalton

6. The Breeders by Katie French


   For your chance to win all six novels, plus the sequels and a $60 Amazon Gift Card, enter the Rafflecopter below:

Friday 6 December 2013

Dystopian Sci Fi Serial THE SPIRAL ARM, Episode 2 - New Release!

Episode 2 in the brilliant new series . . .



Wren is in the most dangerous place imaginable - a training ship full of fledgling killers heading to a war-torn planet. She’s struggling to keep up, and the other cadets aren't impressed. But Wren’s not done for yet. She’s a survivor and uses the one thing she’s got to even the odds - her super-smart brain. But will that be enough?

Praise for Episode 1: 

“It had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.”

“Everything about this story is intriguing.”

“… the beginning of a great space opera.”


More about Peter Boland
After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn’t very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn’t make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games. After meeting his wife and having two boys, he was amazed when she sat and actually wrote a book. Then another and another. They were good too. So he thought, I’ll have a go at that. He soon realised there’s no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, Taekwondo, playing Lego with the boys and drinking beer in front of the TV.  

Links: 
Facebook Page

Tuesday 3 December 2013

My Post-Apocalyptic Obsession

A while ago, I wrote a post about my love of all things post-apocalyptic, over on Jera's Jamboree. And now, with the release of THE PERIMETER, my final book in the Outside Series, I thought I'd resurrect the post again, over here. 

I’ve always been quite an eclectic kind of reader. Never sticking to one genre and devouring just about anything and everything from romance to thrillers to supernatural to contemporary fiction. But I do have phases. There was my ‘pony’ phase when I was ten – anything with a gymkhana and a fanciable stable boy and I was hooked. Later, came my Anne Rice phase – vampires and witches in the Deep South.  I still dip in and out of her series. But right now, I’m head-over-heels in love with dystopia and the apocalypse.

Artist - Matthew Coglianese
The British TV series The Last Train got me hooked on near-future fiction. It came out at the end of the nineties and after watching it, I trawled around looking for more movies and books to satisfy my craving, but alas, pickings were very thin. A few years later, I decided to write my own – The Outside Series. I’m happy to say that since then the genre has been flourishing.

Here are a few of my personal faves:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is set in a dystopian society where children from different ‘districts’ fight to the death in an arena. Sounds brutal and it is, but it’s written for teens, so isn’t quite as bloodthirsty as it sounds. Fast-paced action with a hint of romance. 

Survivors, a British TV series about a small group who survive a flu pandemic. I loved the gritty realism of it, the ‘what-would-you-do-in-this-situation?’ scenario. 

The Passage by Justin Cronin: Vampires + Dystopia = what’s not to love? This is a rich and highly detailed novel set before and after the end of society as we know it. 

The Blemished by Sarah Dalton. I recently discovered this indie writer and found an unputdownable story about a dystopian society where people are genetically modified to be beautiful. Everyone else is ‘blemished’. We follow Mina’s story as a ‘blem’ where Dalton skilfully combines action, romance and drama. 

The Walking Dead is hands-down my favourite of the genre. Based on the graphic novel, it’s a TV series about a zombie apocalypse. The characters are brilliant, the setting is terrifying and the tension is so ramped up that I feel like I’ve run a marathon after each episode. I do watch most of it from behind a cushion, but the bits I get to see are fantastic. 

I am Legend by Richard Matheson is a fabulously scary end-of-the-world novel. I was excited when the movie came out, but really annoyed when they gave it the obligatory Hollywood ending. 

Divergent by Veronica Roth. This first book in the series was very enjoyable. It’s about a dystopian society where people are split into factions according to their personalities. The story follows Tris as she comes of age and must choose where she belongs.

Recently, I've been reading the gripping Yesterday's Gone serial, and I've just started Breakers, which is shaping up to be a great read.

There are plenty more in my ‘to-be-read/watched’ pile and I think this phase in my life is set to last for a good while longer. I do, however,  tend to alternate each novel with a more contemporary read, otherwise I can end up confusing my ‘factions’ with my ‘districts’ which is not a good idea.

Monday 25 November 2013

Seed Savers: Heirloom Blog Tour

Today, I'm happy to be part of the Seed Savers Blog Tour. It's a YA Series that sounds intriguing - a dystopian society where gardening is illegal as the government controls the food supply. Here's a bit about each book in the series. Plus, a short excerpt from the third book Heirloom.



Book 1 - Treasure:  
In a future where processed food is king and gardening is illegal, three friends secretly study about seeds and growing food. Afraid of being caught by GRIM, siblings Clare and Dante run away one night leaving behind their friend Lily and mentor, Ana. 

Book 2 - Lily: 
After Clare and Dante leave, Lily sets out to discover why. Along the way she makes new friends and struggles inwardly when a family secret is revealed. Lily must decide what to do and whom she can trust. 

Book 3 - Heirloom
In a futuristic U.S.A. where gardening is illegal, siblings Clare and Dante have escaped to Canada and are living with a host family, enjoying farm life and learning to grow their own food. Attending Garden Guardian class, they meet other refugees and unearth the  history of how they lost their choices about food. 

Their friend Lily, who was left behind when they escaped, searches for a father she grew up believing was dead, but whom she recently discovered is alive. To succeed in her quest, Lily must elude GRIM, look for the secret Seed Savers symbols, and find the friends who can help in the search.  
 

Excerpt from Chapter 29 of Heirloom (book 3)
Clare looked at her chair and then at the door. Jason was already outside. She knew she couldn’t wait for the next politics class. She wasn’t even sure if there would be another one, as now all inside lectures were dependent on the weather. And besides, Stan had acted as if everyone knew what happened in 2064. She left her chair for someone else to put away and rushed toward the door.

“Jason, wait up.” He didn’t hear her. She ran to catch up with his quick gait. “Jason!”

He turned. Clare thought how he looked older. His stern face caused her courage to briefly falter.

“Wait up. Where ya goin’?”

“Walking,” he said. “Thinking.”

“I don’t know,” Clare began, “what happened in 2064. I don’t know who James Gardener is.”

He shook his head slightly, made a little puff sound through his nostrils. “I swear, Clare, sometimes I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

She opened her mouth to respond.

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . this has been my whole life. My family has always been a part of Seed Savers. The Movement and the crackdown were stories I grew up on. I cannot wait to get back again—when the time is right. I lose my patience with people here who don’t have the urgency I feel.”

Clare felt a little guilty; her only sense of urgency was in learning to garden. She got the feeling Jason meant something more. He always seemed so—so restless. Discontented.

“So,” she said quietly, “will you please tell me about 2064?”



AUTHOR BIO

S. Smith grew up on a farm with a tremendously large garden. She maintains that if you can’t taste the soil on a carrot, it’s not fresh enough. Although she now lives with her husband and three cats in the city, she still manages to grow fruits and vegetables in their backyard garden.
A licensed ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, Ms. Smith has enjoyed teaching students from around the world. 
Ms. Smith is a member of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and an OSU Master Gardener. She gardens and writes at her home in the beautiful and green Pacific Northwest. 
 Author Links:

Monday 7 October 2013

THE PERIMETER (Outside Series #3) - COVER REVEAL . . .

 

In this fractured world, a sinister force is coming for Riley, and the only things keeping her safe are a perimeter fence and the people she loves. As her life is threatened, she must make impossible choices. But help comes from the most unlikely of places, and all Riley needs to know is: who can she really trust?

Meanwhile, a repentant killer searches for salvation, but what he gets is the exact opposite. Now he'll have to make the hardest decision of his life.

The Perimeter is a darkly captivating dystopian tale of adventure, danger, love and redemption that will have you on the edge of your seat and up at night turning the pages to find out what happens next . . .

THE PERIMETER
(Outside Series #3)

Coming November 18th 2013 



About the Outside Series:
Set in the near future, the Outside Series follows Riley as she overcomes the murder of her younger sister by tracking the killer across a post-apocalyptic Britain. At the same time, she is forced to take on the might of a twisted regime intent on conquering the nation.
Book 1 - OUTSIDE
Book 2 - THE CLEARING
Book 3 - THE PERIMETER


Links to all books:
Shalini's US Amazon page
Shalini's UK Amazon page
Barnes & Noble page
Smashwords page
itunes page

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Dystopian Thriller, OUTSIDE, is Free for Two Days Only


OUTSIDE
A post-apocalyptic romance thriller

The world of the future is divided by Perimeters: high-security gated communities where life goes on as normal. If you’re inside you’re lucky, if you’re outside life expectancy takes a nose dive.

Riley is fortunate to have been born on the right side of the fence. But her life of privilege comes crashing down when someone breaks through the Perimeter and murders her sister. She forsakes her own safety to go in search of the killer. Luc decides to go with her otherwise she’ll be dead before she’s past the security gate. But what awaits her outside is more unbelievable than she ever expected.

Cut to the present day where Eleanor's world is falling apart. This time next year, civilisation won't be quite so civilised . . .


Praise For OUTSIDE:

I was completely shocked at how all the events unfolded at the end. I really did not see it coming ... If you like post-apocalyptic books, this story is for you. Cynthia Shepp Book Reviews.

Outside is written in a way that kept me flipping through the pages, biting my fingernails and that good old 'one more chapter' feeling was ever-present.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

New Sci Fi Dystopian Released Today

So episode 1 of the hubby's new book is out on Amazon today . . .

THE SPIRAL ARM (Episode 1, Season 1)
Wren Harper lives on an overcrowded Earth on the brink of apocalypse. There are just too many people. The answer lies 600 light-years away on Kepler; a planet more than double the size of Earth. For decades humans have been fighting another race for its control. Earth’s armies are depleted, so now 15-year-old cadets are sent to fight, trained along the way in vast combat ships. But why has Wren been chosen? She's small and geeky and not a fighter. Will she survive Kepler? Or will the training kill her first?


The Spiral Arm on Kindle US
The Spiral Arm on Kindle UK



Thursday 16 May 2013

YA Dystopian Sci-Fi Series - The Spiral Arm

I'm extremely excited and proud to announce a special cover reveal for a brand new YA dystopian sci-fi series called The Spiral Arm. And the reason I'm so excited is because it was written by Peter Boland my gorgeous and lovely husband!

Now I know I'm biased, but the story is A-Maz-Ing. Written in novella-length episodes, each one ends with a cliffhanger, kind of like your favourite TV series. Think Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones etc. Each mini season has three episodes and the first episode will be out this month.

Can't freaking wait!!

So here's the oh-so-stunning cover and book description:


Wren Harper lives on an overcrowded Earth on the brink of apocalypse. There are just too many people. The answer lies 600 light-years away on Kepler; a planet more than double the size of Earth. For decades humans have been fighting another race for its control. Earth’s armies are depleted. So now 15-year-old cadets are sent to fight, trained along the way in vast combat ships. But why has Wren been chosen? She's small and geeky and not a fighter. Will she survive Kepler? Or will the training kill her first?

If you'd like to be the first to know when The Spiral Arm will be released, sign up here:




And here's Pete's Facebook Page and Blog. He's new to it all so has no likes or followers yet (except me). If the series looks like your sort of thing, hop over to Facebook and say hello.
 
Hope you all love it. If any bloggers/reviewers would like a pre-release review copy, feel free to use the 'contact me' form above.


Monday 18 February 2013

Blog Tour for THE CLEARING with Fiction Addiction

My blog tour starts today!!


 
I've hosted other books on their blog tours, but I've never had one of my own,
so I'm very excited to announce that my blog tour for THE CLEARING starts today.
I'd love it if you could join me over the next couple of weeks at the following virtual venues where there'll be interviews, blog posts, giveaways and reviews.
 
 
18th February 2013
19th February 2013
Victoria’s Pages of Romance - Interview & Excerpt
20th February 2013
Reading a Little Bit of Everything - Excerpt & Giveaway
21st February 2013
A Novel Review - Review
22nd February 2013
Story Addict Guest Post
25th February 2013
26th February 2013
Rhoda Baxter - Guest post
27th February 2013
Miss Bookworm Reviews Review & Giveaway
28th February 2013
Book-Marks the Spot - Review & Giveaway
1st March 3013
 
 
Thanks so much to Shaz Goodwin at Fiction Addiction Books on Tour
for her super-special ninja powers of organisation and co-ordination!