The Reader Diaries #15: Book Slumps and Missing Posts


Lately I have benn finding it harder and harder to read. Do not get me wrong, I love reading, my problem starts with finding the time and the place to read. In the last month only I have camped for one wee straight (without a time or a place to read, or even a book) and I have been on vacation with my family out of my country.
I read a lot on the plane and read every morning on the subway but I am finding it increasingly harder to have the energy to read. Even when I have the "moment" I find myself awefully tired. Right now I have been discovering everything I can in London. I spend my days in galleries, museums and exploring the endless maze that these beautiful English streets comprise and I spend my nights sleeping soundly in order to regain my strenghts (so I can face the next day without face-planting on the floor).
When you are out travelling it is always hard to keep up with your usual routine and that is what's been having the most impact in my reading (and blogging). Still, I have been reading a book! I have been reading "The Book of Whispers" by Kimberley Starr.
At first glance I didn't like the book very much still I had commited myself to reading it so I went on. By the second chapter I had completely changed my mind! Since then I have been reading it every day on the subway!
I know this is not a very long (or fun) post but it is only to tell you that I am alive and well. I hope that by next week my posting will be regular again. I still remember you and have been thinking about new things for the blog.
Love, Ana

Book Blitz: Crescent Calling by Axelle Chandler


Crescent Calling
Axelle Chandler
(The Crescent Witch Chronicles #1)
Publication date: August 9th 2017
Genres: Adult, Urban Fantasy

Skye Williams is an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life.
Or so she thought.
When she receives news of her estranged mother’s death, she must go to Ireland to claim her inheritance, but when she arrives in the tiny village of Derrydun, she isn’t prepared for what she finds nestled amongst the rolling hills of the Emerald Isle.
Lumped with a funeral, her mother’s crystal shop, a moody goth girl for an employee, and a crumbling cottage with horrible floral curtains, selling up and getting out sounds like a great plan, but everything and everyone seems determined to keep her from going home.
Skye doesn’t want any part of her mother’s life or the people of Derrydun until she sees the hot Irishman she’s been crushing on turn into a fox.
More absurdly, he tells her her dead mother was a witch who battled evil fairies, there’s magical trees growing in the centre of the village, there’s a parallel universe where the fair folk live, and she’s meant to be the last defense of the magical peoples of Ireland.
Turns out Skye Williams was never an ordinary woman. Not by a long shot.
She’s the last Crescent Witch and has a destiny to fulfil.
Whether she likes it or not.

The Crescent Witch Chronicles is a series stuffed full of Irish charm, myth and mayhem. Come on an adventure fraught with danger and forbidden romance…and the ultimate battle to save magic before it’s gone forever.
EXCERPT:
That night, as Buddy kept me company, I fell asleep to the sound of wind howling through the trees outside. Plagued with dreams of wolves, I tossed and turned until I slipped into a deep slumber.
When dawn finally broke, I was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and my head was stuffed with cotton wool. I’d slept but not really. A heavy burden was over my heart, and my body had become twisted in the quilt, my feet trapped.
Ugh, I was all hot and sticky. I kicked, trying to shift the uncomfortable weight and turned over, but it didn’t budge. Lifting my head, my eyes cracked open, sleep still clogging my head. That was when I saw a lump at the end of the bed. A very large, man-shaped lump.
Now completely awake, I screamed, scrambling up the bed. It was Boone. A very naked Boone.
He started, his head shooting up, and when he saw me, he rolled and fell off the end of the bed, hitting the floor with a thud. Scrambling to his feet, his face turned a deep shade of crimson.
“Oh, shit,” he cursed, covering his junk with his hands. “Oh, cac.”
Cac?” I yelled. “I’ll give you bloody Irish cac!
Grabbing the lamp on the bedside table, I pushed up onto my knees and swung it with all my might. The plug popped out of the wall, and the shade barely missed Boone’s face, but the cord came around and whipped him directly on his bare ass.
He howled in pain and retreated across the room.
Pervert!” I shrieked.
“Let me explain,” he said, holding up his hands and leaving nothing to the imagination.
“Explain? What’s there to explain?” I shouted, trying not to look at his you-know-what. “You were asleep on the end of my bed…naked!” I swung the lamp at him again, barely missing his head. “You’re still standing there. I can see your meat and two veg!
“Oh, cac,” he said again. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way…”
“Find out what? That you’re a pervert, who sneaks into women’s homes butt naked?”

Author Bio:
Axelle Chandler is an Australian Urban Fantasy author. She lives in the western suburbs of Melbourne dreaming up nail biting stories featuring bad-ass witches, hunky shape shifters and devious monsters. She likes chocolate, cat memes and video games. When she’s not writing, she likes to think of what she’s writing next.

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The Reader Diaries #14: Camping and Smiling


Hi guys! It feels like I have not talked to you in a long long time. I like to write these little and personal posts about a bit of my life, struggles and successes. Maybe lately I am not writing as much of these posts as I should.
I hate to tell you this but this is a pre-written post - as I am writing this it is the 30th of June, in the early hours of the morning. Today I am going away for a week and I won't have access to internet, computers and hardly my phone. As you may know, if you have been following me for some time, I am a scout. This year is the year of the "23rd CNE’S NATIONAL SCOUT JAMBOREE" - CNE stands for "Corpo Nacional de Escutas" (roughly translates to "National Scouts Body") - and I am going. I am really happy to go and I know that the experiences I am going to live will be unique and amazing.
Resultado de imagem para acanac 2017 logo
ACANAC is the Portuguese name for the event.

This week has been a rollercoaster of getting things ready, buying supplies, loading trucks and packing bags. This is the kind of week when I am most thankful for audiobooks and positivity. Besides all of this craziness this week I have passed my theoric driving test and I have received my final grade on a subject that I took an exam on in order to raise my grade and I went from a 10 to a 16 (the span is from 0 to 20). So it has been kind of a happy week.
Right this minute I have finally put everything away and I am in my pyjamas in bed. I cannot sleep. I am anxious, excited, thrilled and scared at the same time. I already know that I will be spending three days on a walk only with my other three scouts friends that are going with me. I really miss being out, enjoying nature. What I do not miss is sweating and having muscle pains.
I am sneakily taking a book with me to read on the bus ride (I really should not since my bag is already filled to the brink and very very heavy). I am also hopeful that I'll be able to read when I have some down time (if I have some down time). Well, I have to think happy thoughts, this will be a very good week in terms of the path to achieve my fitness goals.
In other news, I have created an Instagram account for this blog. It doesn't have a lot of content but I believe that with time I'll get there. You can also get a glimpse of my life in the Stories! I'll leave you two photos I have taken below (I know they're not centered but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that).


Uma publicação partilhada por The Bewitched Reader (@thebewitchedreader) a



Please follow and leave some feedback! For an added bonus here are some snippets of this week:

Translation: "My bed was invaded"
This is my cat "Fofa" (which literally means "soft") she is very cute and fluffy.

Here is the mess I made and my packed bags.
Thank you for going along with me on this journey that is life!
Love, Ana☼

Release Blitz: A Beautiful Kind of Hope by Cathy Johns

´*•.¸(*•.¸(´*•.¸(*•.¸NEW RELEASE¸.•*´)¸.•*´)¸.•*)¸.•*´

TITLE: A Beautiful Kind Of Hope
SERIES: A Beautiful Kind Of Series #1
AUTHOR: Cathy Johns
RELEASE DATE: August 1st
COVER DESIGN: JC Clarke



PURCHASE LINKS:
Amazon 🦋 http://amzn.to/2srZCgK
Kobo 🦋 http://bit.ly/2uMP10y 
B & N 🦋 http://bit.ly/2us9AAj 
iTunes 🦋 http://apple.co/2tTQGp1

BLURB: 
I have lived my life without distraction, building a name and an empire in this competitive world, becoming a billionaire as I stayed true to my late mother’s wishes. But all that changed the moment I laid my eyes on her…
Butterfly; that’s what they called her. The woman I couldn’t tear my eyes from as she captivated the crowd, swaying her curvy hips, her nude lingerie leaving nothing to the imagination. The one woman who made me want to break a few wrists when they tried to touch her beautiful mocha skin.
I didn’t know her, and all it took was one taste of her intoxicating scent and I knew I’d never get enough of her.
I needed her in my life to be that ray of sunshine.
To be my beautiful kind of hope.

AUTHOR LINKS:


Blog Tour | Guest Post: Blight by Alexandra Duncan


Title: BLIGHT
Author: Alexandra Duncan
Pub. Date: August 1, 2017
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Pages: 400
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Find it:  AmazonBarnes&NobleiBooksTBDGoodreads

When an agribusiness facility producing genetically engineered food releases a deadly toxin into the environment, seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres races to deliver the cure before time runs out.
From the author of the acclaimed American Booksellers Association’s Indies Introduce pick Salvage, which was called “Brilliant, feminist science fiction” by Stephanie Perkins, the internationally bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss. This stand-alone action-adventure story is perfect for fans of Oryx and Crake and The House of the Scorpion.Seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres has lived on the AgraStar farm north of Atlanta, Georgia, since she was found outside its gates at the age of five. Now she’s part of the security force guarding the fence and watching for scavengers—people who would rather steal genetically engineered food from the Company than work for it. When a group of such rebels accidentally sets off an explosion in the research compound, it releases into the air a blight that kills every living thing in its path—including humans. With blight-resistant seeds in her pocket, Tempest teams up with a scavenger boy named Alder and runs for help. But when they finally arrive at AgraStar headquarters, they discover that there’s an even bigger plot behind the blight—and it’s up to them to stop it from happening again.Inspired by current environmental issues, specifically the genetic adjustment of seeds to resist blight and the risks of not allowing natural seed diversity, this is an action-adventure story that is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake meets Nancy Farmer’s House of the Scorpion.
Guest Post
Blight exists because of a dare. In 2011, two writer friends and I challenged each other to write a novel over the course of the summer. Two of us lived in the same town, and the third would be visiting near the middle of August, so we made her arrival our deadline. All of us had sold short stories before, but none of us had sold a novel. It was our very own mini-NaNoWriMo but spread over two and a half months.
I was nervous, because my two co-conspirators were more accomplished and experienced than I was. Did I even belong in the same “writer” category as the two of them? My first novel, Salvage, was in the hands of an agent who had requested a full manuscript read, and I was both incredibly excited and full of anxiety about this turn of events. I might have an agent soon! And having an agent would mean being one step closer to my book being published, i.e achieving one of my lifelong goals. I needed a distraction.
Writing something that isn’t under contract and has no expectations attached is a special pleasure. The book is entirely yours at that point - a playground for your brain. That summer, I put anything I wanted down on the page. I could tweak it, align it, and improve it later. Throughout the summer, we checked in regularly with each other, but we also blogged about the challenge. It would be one thing to let down two friends at the end of the project, but for the whole internet to know your shame was far, far worse, and therefore far, far more motivating.
In mid-August, we met at one friend’s apartment to critique each other’s work, talk about our envy of Neil Gaiman, and eat ice cream. None of us had quite finished a novel, but we each had significant chunks of one. I had the first 20,000 words of Blight, and because I tend to discover my character and the nuances of my plot during the writing process (a nicer way of saying I’m a pantser), I had a much better idea of what I was writing. My friends gave encouragement and suggestions, which ultimately changed the trajectory of the book and made it more focused on the Southeastern US as a setting. I did the same, and discovered that I didn’t need to be worried about whether or not I was a “real writer.” Writers are defined by what they do - write - not how many books or stories they’ve sold. I was fully engaged in that process - writing, applying criticism, and trying to improve my craft. That alone meant I was a real writer.
Six years later, I have three published novels, including Blight. I have a fourth in the works. One of my friends who took part in that summer’s challenge also had the book she began come out this year. It’s The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, by Theodora Goss. It joins her novella, The Thorn and the Blossom, her collection of short stories, In the Forest of Forgetting, and dozens of poems and short stories. The third in our trio, Nathan Ballingrud, won the Shirley Jackson Award for his 2013 short story collection, North American Lake Monsters, and is working on his second collection.

The challenge that ended with Blight is one of the most helpful, productive exercises I’ve engaged in as a writer. Writing sometimes seems like an individual endeavour, but I’ve found I wouldn’t be anywhere without friends and colleagues like these.

About Alexandra Duncan

Alexandra Duncan is a writer and librarian. Her first novel, Salvage, was published April 1, 2014, by Greenwillow Books. Her short fiction has appeared in several Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy anthologies and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She loves anything that gets her hands dirty – pie-baking, leatherworking, gardening, drawing, and rolling sushi. She lives with her husband and two monstrous, furry cats in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
You can visit her online at http://alexandra-duncan.com/

Giveaway Details:
1 winner will receive a signed hardcover of BLIGHT, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Tour Schedule:
Week One:
7/24/2017- Savings in SecondsReview
7/25/2017- The Autumn BookshelfInterview
7/26/2017- Wandering Bark BooksExcerpt
7/27/2017- A Dream Within A DreamReview
7/28/2017- Two Chicks on Books- Interview

Week Two:
7/31/2017- Buried Under BooksReview
8/1/2017- The Bewitched ReaderGuest Post
8/2/2017- Here's to Happy EndingsReview
8/4/2017- YABooksCentralReview