, by Miriam Meza

In Amazon, Ascenders Saga

#BlogTour ASCENDERS SAGA by CL Gaber

Title: Ascenders Saga

Author: CL Gaber | @CLGaber

Ascenders: High School for the Recently Departed (Ascenders #1)

http://bit.ly/2lWpjFu

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2mI4Him

Paperback: http://amzn.to/2mw8V02

Is this Hell or is this High School?

THE ASCENDERS Book Saga Takes You to the In-between Where Teens Who Died Young Go On the Epic Adventure of an After-Lifetime

Walker Callaghan doesn't know what happened to her. One minute she was living her teenage life in suburban Chicago...and the next minute, she was in a strange place and in a brand new school with absolutely no homework, no rules, and no consequences.

Walker Callaghan, 17, is dead.

She doesn't go to heaven or hell. She lands at The Academy, a middle realm where teenagers have one thing in common: They were the morning announcement at their high schools because they died young.

These high school kids are now caught in a strange “in-between” zone where life hasn’t changed very much. In fact, this special teen limbo looks a lot like life in a quaint Michigan town complete with jocks, popular girls and cliques. "There are even cheerleaders in death," Walker observes. It's not a coincidence that the music teacher is a guy named Kurt who "used to have this band." The drama teacher, Heath, is crush worthy because back in his life, he starred in some superhero movie.

Principal King explains the rules -- there are none. Why? You can't die twice.

There is no homework.

No tests.

No SATS.

You're just there to learn because the human brain isn't fully formed until you're 24.

By the way, you can't get hurt physically, so race your Harley off that hillside. But falling in love is the most dangerous thing you can do ...because no one knows how long you'll stay in this realm or what's next.

"Losing someone you love would be like dying twice," Walker says.

Walker Callaghan has just arrived at the Academy after a tragic car accident. “Is this hell or is this high school?” she asks.

She finds out her new life is a bit of both as she falls in love with tat-covered, bad boy Daniel Reid who is about to break the only sacred rule of this place. He's looking for a portal to return back to the living realm.

He needs just one hour to retrieve his younger brother who strangely never arrived at The Academy. Bobby is an Earth Bound Spirit, stuck at a plane crash site that took both of their lives as their rich father piloted his private jet nose-first into a cornfield on Christmas Eve.

Walker loves Daniel and risks it all to go with him.

Have they learned enough to outsmart dangerous forces while transporting a young child with them? Can their love survive the fragmented evil parts of themselves that are now hunting them down as they try to find a way back to the middle?

At the Academy, you learn the lessons of an after-lifetime.

Ascenders: Skypunch (Book Two)

http://bit.ly/2kGDW0F

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lBIamG

Paperback: http://amzn.to/2mh68Hf

In the Midst—a place for those who die young—there are no rules except one.

And Walker Callaghan, dead at seventeen, just broke it. She briefly revisited her earthly life

and the punishment is eternal. Longing for her rebel love interest, Daniel Reid, Walker finds an ally in Cass, whose attraction to her is as alive as he is. “Life is short,” he tells her. “I’m banking on eternity. With you.”

In the second book of the Ascenders Saga, a realm-jumping journey takes Walker and Daniel back to life again when they search for something buried in history. They team with students from several other schools in the middle realm including a place for teens born with oddities. It’s home to the Claires . . . beautiful, ruthless, and quite dead seventeen-year-old quads who each have a different clairvoyant gift.

Can Walker survive another adventure of an afterlife-time—or will she find herself on the downside of eternity?

Ascenders

Now that it was absolutely dark, I felt like the world had faded to inky black. I

didn’t have any idea where we were walking, but knew I had to get home before my

mother became frantic and called the cops, which would be mortifying in a new town.

“So, how long have your parents been gone?” I asked, sliding along and breathing

not-so-heavily, while thinking that maybe his mother and father had a time-share in

Miami or Palm Springs during this time of the year and had just snuck away for the

weekend or even dumped the kids on him for a week.

“How long have they been gone?” Daniel pondered out loud. His laugh was

beyond sarcastic; it was vicious. “They’ve been gone years, months, and days. Who cares

about them? I certainly don’t.”

Of course, he was kidding. Parents didn’t take vacations from their four children

for years. It was called child abandonment and there were laws. Wait, maybe his parents

were in jail for breaking the law. Embezzlers? Ponzi scheme? My journalistic mind was

in overdrive. “So, it’s just the four of you kids in the house? For years. Home alone.” I

said with a little laugh. “Obviously, that was a bad joke.”

“No joke. It’s just us four—we’re a family. Intact. For the most part,” said the

David Beckham look-a-like with the short dark hair and steel gray eyes, quickly walking

ahead again. He really didn’t want to get into it now.

Intact? I thought. Now this was really getting interesting. I knew he was the

exacting type, and his choice of words was deliberate.

My next question would have to wait.

In what seemed like an instant, my back foot caught on a large fallen tree branch

and I fell forward with all my body weight. Crashing hard onto my hands and knees, I

cried out, but I wasn’t in any real pain. Before I could stand up, I slipped again until my

stomach slammed against the surface of the thickly iced-over pond. The cracking sound

was like thunder. Then, in what felt like a sickening surge of broken glass and rushing

water, the ground suddenly ceased to exist. I didn’t have time to scream as I dropped into

the dark, lifeless, icy chill of wintery water.

I braced for the first slap of bitter freeze, instantly calling up some stupid fact

from science class at Kennedy High where we learned that Titanic survivors described

hitting the freezing ocean water as thousands of tiny knives stabbing every inch of their

bodies.

I expected excruciating pain, but there was none. There was just numbness as I

entered the earliest stages of being converted to ice.

Resistance was only natural and I fought hard as my hands flailed through the

water trying to keep my head above the murky freeze, but it was pointless. The water was

hungry that night and my thrashing almost made a game out of its impending conquest. It

only took a second or two of my desperate survival dance for the lake to swallow me

whole.

Daniel must have heard the crack and he stopped in place. Slowly, he turned

around as I struggled to pop up again, but by putting up a fight I only succeeded in

making it worse. As my body was being carried under the heavy sheet of ice in an

involuntary dance, I could see Daniel above, the soles of his black boots carefully

following my route as he calmly watched me drown.

In a way, it was fascinating to watch him ever so gradually shuffle along as my

hands desperately reached from under my new icy roof for the bottom of his boots. The

only thing that separated us was about five solid inches of deadly winter soup. By the

time he found me in an even darker spot where the lake mingled with several dead,

embalmed trees, all he could see from under the thick coating was my face looking up at

him, frozen in horror. He saw my pouty mouth almost kissing the ice and frantically

trying to say one word to him.

“Help!” I mouthed.

I gulped down murky green water, ingesting long tentacles of lifeless leaves and

thick clumps of sludge-dirt, and it all slid easily into my lungs while he just stood there.

He. Stood. There.

Frantically, I maneuvered away from the spot by the trees, which made it worse

because now I was pinned under even thicker ice, my milky-white face pressed up

against eight to ten inches of immovable crystals.

Casually, Daniel walked to where I was wildly waving my arms underneath the

water. When I looked up now, he was a hazy dark blur that made me suddenly dizzy.

That’s when I shut my eyes to wait for the inevitable.

But I didn’t black out. Long minutes passed, my eyes sprung open, and I

continued to push upward again as the water became midnight black. For some reason I

was still alive, but I still couldn’t free myself from this wintry prison.

My mind raced. How much time had passed? How much time could pass before I

would be brain-dead? How much time before I died?

Daniel still stood above the ground and calmly watched me struggle. “To hell

with this,” he finally said, loud enough for me to hear him under the ice. Was he telling

me to stop struggling and just accept that I lost?

After another endless minute passed, he shook his head and, though apparently

talking to himself, said even louder, “Okay, enough . . . but you need to know.”

Kicking through a thinner spot of ice, he made a small hole and then pummeled it

into a bigger passage with those clomping boots. Reaching down into the crack, he

offered me a strong hand and a tat-covered, muscular arm. Somehow through the dark

water, I saw human fingers moving and grabbed them like they were my only lifelines,

which is exactly what they were to me.

All it took was one big hoist and I was in his arms, pressed body-to-body up

against him, soaking wet, freezing cold, and mad as hell.

With my right hand, that had absolutely no feeling in it, I slapped him squarely

across the jaw as hard as possible. When he didn’t budge much, I slapped him again,

which made my hand tired, but it didn’t hurt. When I attempted to punch his face, he

grabbed my hand in a firm way that signaled we weren’t going another nine rounds.

“Easy there, tiger,” he said with a smirk that made those soft eyes twinkle. “I

guess you’re a fan of the Rocky movies.”

“Why . . . you bastard . . . why . . . you didn’t even try to save me,” I sputtered,

but I wasn’t really coughing and certainly my brain was perfectly fine. For a split second,

I counted to five backward. Again, it was amazing that my mind was still functioning.

Maybe the water was cold enough to save me. Is that how it worked?

“I saw you. You were just standing there! Watching! Watching me die!” I

screamed, shoving him again. This time, I took him by surprise and he landed butt-first in

a pile of snow.

Calmly, he stood up, lurched forward, and grabbed both of my arms, holding me

against his rock-hard chest until I stopped struggling and gave up the idea of trying to

knock his block off. He held me tightly like he was protecting me from some danger

worse than what just happened. Tears formed in my eyes and I began to touch my arms

and then tested my breathing, which was perfectly normal. He still refused to let go. Big

white puffs of my breath filled the dark sky and I watched them evaporate slowly like

little clouds. Then I looked up.

“Why aren’t I dead?” I said in an anguished voice.

Daniel took a deep breath, carefully released me, and then answered slowly.

“Because, baby, you can’t die twice,” he said.

C.L. Gaber is the author of the ASCENDERS SAGA including "ASCENDERS: High School of the Recently Departed" (Book One) and a ASCENDER: SKYPUNCH (Book Two). C.L. is also the co-author of JEX MALONE.

She is an entertainment journalist who interviews Hollywood's A-listers for the New York Times wire and several other publications. Daniel Day-Lewis and Bruce Springsteen are two of her favorites! C.L. lives in Nevada with her husband Ron, daughter Sabrina and two unruly dogs.

Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mh5LMM

Twitter: http://bit.ly/2mgTok2

Website: http://ascenderssaga.com/about/

Youtube: http://bit.ly/2mHVaYK

Google+: http://bit.ly/2mwcyTn

B&B Promotions | @banbpromotions

0Comments

, by Miriam Meza

In Blog Tour, goodreads

#BlogTour HADES by Elda Lore

Title: Hades: Modern Descendants

Author: Elda Lore

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Release Date: October 24

“Welcome to Hell.”

Persephone Fields is just an average girl: beloved daughter and loyal friend. One night decides her Fate, when the prince of The Underworld becomes her savior and her kidnapper.

Hades has lived centuries in darkness and sin. When he decides to save the blonde goddess, he doesn’t consider the ramifications of his decision to bring her into his realm.

Two worlds divided struggle to find friendship in a history of family discord beyond their control. When attraction blurs the line, questions result in choices of love or loyalty.

A modern twist of the classic myth: Hades and Persephone, this version incorporates the sensual tension of opposites divided by contemporary humanity and mythical underworlds. Also reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, this is a love story ripe with desire.

+++++++++++++++++

Author’s note: This book contains scenes of sexual intimacy.

Welcome to the alter ego world of L.B. Dunbar.

Was this a dream?

What was this strange beast we rode?

Who was this strange man behind me?

Could this be happening? Was I destined for a fate worse than the creep at the river?

The only thing keeping me from full-blown panic was when I recalled he had saved me, and the fact that his fingers were woven through my hair, as if trying to protect me from the rain. Suddenly bone tired, my eyes drifted shut in despair. My hands ached. My feet cut. My heart raced while the bike below me vibrated between my thighs. My stomach dipped as the bike catapulted toward the river. The front wheeled up and my captor yelled: “MORPH!” Metal tore apart as the head of the stallion reappeared. We hit the riverbed with a hardly thump, pitching us both forward as the rear of the horse returned. The result rose us up several feet. I lurched forward then sprang upward like a bobblehead toy. My head knocked his shoulder and an arm encircled my waist to steady my body. I was pressed back against a firm chest.

“Where in hell are we going?” I yelled over the splashing hooves and thudding rain.

“Exactly,” he shouted next to my ear.

“What?”

“Hell,” he barked. My neck twisted and it caught his nose. He sniffed my hair above my ear. I spun further, my brows pinching, my eyes questioning. Those cobalt gems remained forward, focused. His face was a mask, stone-looking and bluish. Glancing down at the hand flat against my stomach, his nails were black and pointed, almost like talons or claws. Sensing my appraisal, he clenched his fingers into a fist, but it caught my thin tank and scratched against my belly. I cried out. Instantly, his hand removed from me and I noted the now shredded appearance of my shirt. I quivered again in fear, convinced death awaited me. My shoulders hunched forward in reaction to the sharp scrape.

“My apologies.” His formality sounded ancient and strange. My first glance would have placed him roughly the age of Tripper, but the cadence of his voice sounded years older. Thoughts of Tripper shifted to Swanson and Veva.

“My friends are waiting for me.” The statement seemed weak. “They’ll call the police, but I won’t tell anyone what happened, if you just take me back. No one would believe all this anyway.” Doubt for my own sanity crept through my brain.

“I cannot.” This man was clearly on a mission, and it was taking me in the opposite direction of home. While he’d been my savior in one instance, I suddenly realized he was a captor in another.

Ready to protest, or plea for my life, my voice faltered as a large building loomed before us. The entire structure stood black, metallic and foreboding. Not a single light shown from its glassy windows. The rain subsiding, water trickled down its sleek sides, like snakes writhing in escape. We headed for a tunnel ahead arched in limestone block. What should have been white brick was dark and dank looking, wet from the sudden storm and encased in crushed mud. We slipped under the arch, my captor ducking his head. Chilly air surrounded us. His breath brushed over my cool skin, enhancing the sudden cold. It was as if he’d eaten ice cream, his mouth frozen and exhaling to tease me. His grim face and clenched jaw proved he wasn’t kidding. Our faces were so close we nearly rubbed cheeks. If he turned his head, he’d kiss my jaw. My mouth watered at the disturbing thought.

The horse slowed, prancing wildly as his nostrils flared and his flanks spread from the excursion of a hard run.

“Whoa, Killer,” my captor soothed. “Home, boy.” Home? “What is he?” I asked instead, staring down at the mane of the creature that evidently was more than a horse.

“Up,” The horse’s master called out, ignoring my question. The gate rose, methodically slow, into the heavy stone above it. Sharp points on the ends accentuated the frightening structure that screamed stay away, danger lives behind here. I gripped the horse’s mane harder in my fists, finding no comfort in the coarse hair as I typically would in my own horse, Greece.

What was this place? One moment I faced a modern skyscraper, but in this tunnel a heavy gate stood guard like you’d see as the barrier to a castle dungeon or a hidden lair. My eyes scanned the moist cement walls, dripping with condensation. Gate barely risen, we ducked under the iron structure. It fell instantly with a clanking thud behind us. Echoing off the stone corridor, the sound solidified my imprisonment. I was trapped. Once the noise settled, a new one arose. We cantered up an incline, exiting the river enough that only a thin layer of water trickled over the stone flooring. A second sound echoed down the walls: a moan, a whimper, a sharp cry. What was that noise? I tilted my head as if I could distinguish it better. Its intensity grew as we pressed forward.

A moan, a whimper, a sharp cry.
“What is that?” I questioned. My voice, barely a whisper, trailed off. The sounds increased.

A moan, a whimper, a sharp cry. Then a wail.

I spun into the rider behind me and ducked my head. Pressing my cheek firmly against my savior-captor, my fists rose and clenched his open hoodie, soaked through like me.

A moan, a whimper, a sharp cry, a deepening wail.

My eyes pinched shut and I pressed harder into his chest. The hand that had scraped me released the reins, then rubbed hesitantly up my back. I peeked up at him as his tender touch surprised me. His hair was swept back in our haste through the rain. His face illuminated in the darkness of this cavernous space, that bluish tint reflected from intermittent torches. A scar curled from his forehead to his jaw near his hairline. Another scar crossed his strangely dark blue lips: a perfect line from nose to chin cut both curves. His jaw clenched in concentration. The moan, whimper, and sharp cry murmured throughout the cavern, calling and responding from all sections in a dull volley, and pulled me away from my observation. The elongated sound of each vibrated almost sensually throughout the tunnel. A sharp cry caught my breath as we drew near the end of the tunnel. I sat up straighter and inhaled. The stench was a mix of saltwater, fish, and rot. The irony—this was Nebraska. I shifted to question my fellow rider and without a word escaping my lips, he answered.

“Welcome to Hell.”