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by Jarod
Kintz
Showing posts with label love story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love story. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Thursday, August 22, 2013
"Malena's Kiss" by Paul DiPersio
REVIEW
Malena's Kiss
by Paul DiPersio
I came across Malena's Kiss as a member of the Paranormal and Horror Lovers group on Goodreads. You can read my review below.
Description
James Francis just inherited a house from his crazy Aunt Margaret; a
towering, dilapidated, 18th century New England Colonial … in some creepy
backwoods town called Cutler Hollow.
Deep in the belly of an old backyard leach pit he uncovers a rusty iron
chest, sealed with a lock, bound in chains, and inscribed with bizarre Celtic
symbols.
He raises the chest with dreams of gold coins, precious jewels, and
sterling silverware.
And unleashes Cutler Hollow's darkest secret ... Malena.
Excerpt
I thought I heard her bare feet pat across the
floor, thought I caught her sweet scent in the darkness.
I thought it was just a pleasant dream.
And then she climbed right on top of me,
straddled me naked, and bent down to taste my lips. I couldn’t see her face in the
darkness. Her hot breath caressed my cheek. Her nipples brushed my chest. She
ran her tongue over my chin, sucked on it lightly.
Her fingernails dug into my shoulders. Her
warm thighs gripped my hips. I inhaled her sweet scent, tried to reach up and
touch her, but she stopped me, pinned my hand to the couch. She settled onto my
lap, her fingertips lightly crawling up my neck.
I looked up and saw her violet eyes glowing in
the darkness. Hovering above me, boiling hot, changing color. They smoldered to
richer shades of violet, becoming deeper and darker until the irises went black.
Then she hunched forward, took my face in her
hands, and pressed her lips to my mouth.
She breathed into me - one, deep, scorching,
breath ... and then slowly sucked all the air from my lungs.
My chest tightened. My fingers and toes
tingled. I felt the warmth leaving my body, felt the cold spreading through my
veins.
Her warm saliva was thick, syrupy, honey-sweet.
I tried to sit up, and her hands pushed me
back into the cushions. Locking her lips tightly over mine, she dug her nails
into my chest, held me down, and scorched my throat with another deep breath.
And sucked the air from my lungs, much deeper
this time; so deep, so long, I felt it pull on my belly, tug on my crotch.
I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs. I was
floating up off the couch, drifting away, weightless.
Just when my vision tunneled, when my hearing
started to fade, when I felt myself drifting off into oblivion, she released my
mouth.
I gasped for breath.
Her smoldering violet eyes searched my face.
They moved close, the tip of her nose touching mine. She blinked once, her eyes
cooled to a shade of blue, then slowly faded into the darkness.
I felt her fingers caress my cheek. Her thumb
traced my eyebrow. Her lips placed a burning kiss on my forehead.
And she was gone.
I thought I heard her bare feet patter up the
stairway.
Was it a dream?
I tried to sit up. I couldn’t lift my head. I
was frozen. Paralyzed. As helpless as a shell-shocked rabbit.
I tried to speak. It came out a strained
whisper, “What the fu...?”
Review
By Lynda Dickson
Jim Francis inherits an old house from his aunt. He later discovers this
house has a checkered history and has been built on an old Indian burial ground.
During renovations designed to prepare the house for sale, Jim finds a ancient
chest in the septic tank. Upon opening it, Jim discovers a mysterious young
woman with violet eyes, and a Celtic cross bearing the inscription, "To my
Malena, with love." But what happens when this beautiful woman kisses you?
The author has a great writing style which flows easily and keeps you
reading. This story is spooky, atmospheric, and humorous. However, at times I
wasn't sure if it was meant to be funny, and some of the scenes are quite
absurd, drawing on references from West
Side Story. In addition, I didn't find the conclusion to be very
satisfying.
There were numerous editing errors, mainly involving the incorrect use
of words, apostrophes, capital letters, commas, and italics.
Warnings: Coarse language, sexual references, drug references, violence.
About the Author
Paul DiPersio is a Registered Nurse, and a
freelance writer with a degree in Political Science from Villanova University.
He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, stepdaughter, and a cat named Monkey.
Many of his stories take place in the mysterious fictional towns of Cutler Hollow
and its seaside neighbor Fairfield Heights.
Paul is the author of My Brother Pete and Malena's Kiss.
Links
Saturday, July 27, 2013
"Sydney's Song" by Ia Uaro
ON SALE for $0.99
Sydney's Song
by Ia Uaro
The Kindle edition of this heartwarming story is ON SALE for $0.99 to 31 July. It would make a perfect gift for someone you love.
Description
Description
Fictionalized true stories set in Sydney and Boston, where heartbreaks are juxtaposed with humor, Sydney's Song is a young girl's courageous journey to adulthood and a love story. A work of fiction based on real events, this novel with an Australian accent also shows the world that living with disabilities does not prevent a person from attaining happiness.
Olympic fever runs high in the Australian summer of 1999 and 17-year-old Sydney has caught it. Little does she know taking a holiday job in the beehive that is the Olympics' public-transport call center will be life altering. Shaken by her parents' divorce, the sheltered Aussie is further plagued by abusive callers, obnoxious government agencies, constrictive office rules, and liberated friends. She is trying to negotiate these challenges as her own personal Olympics when Pete finds her. Pete, Boston's former child prodigy whose soothing voice floats across her workstation, sees through Sydney's tough outer shell. Pete knows what it takes to present a dignified front when all you want to do is howl at the moon. Treating their friendship like an art, he invests time and creative effort to pull Sydney out of her despair.
Tragedy strikes when an accident leaves Pete with a major brain injury in a Boston hospital. When the going gets very, very tough, will you abandon the one who's promised to love you until he dies? An undefeatable heroine. A hero to live for. A love no reader will ever forget...
Book Trailer
Excerpts
Excerpts
Review
It took me time to write this review because I was too busy laughing and crying at every twist and turn of this story.
Let me tell you what the title meant to me: Sydney, who is a girl barely 18 years old at the opening of the story, is ashamed of her voice, thinking she is tone-deaf, and only when inhibitions are lifted, only in her sleep, does she dare to sing. But events in this story cause her to mature fast, so it is with great urgency that she finds her voice. This book is a love song; a song of songs to her beloved, to whom with amazing devotion she dedicates her life. What better quote for her transformation than the one at the opening: "You’ll know who I am by the song that I sing." The soul and the voice are one.
It is hard, if not impossible, to fit this work into a literary genre, because the first half reads like an adorable girl-meets-boy story, only to take a sharp turn when Pete, the man Sydney falls in love with, has a bicycle accident on his visit to Boston. At the same moment, half a world away in Australia, Sydney senses a strong, inexplicable fear in her heart, and collapses. It takes weeks for her to learn his whereabouts. Lying in a Boston hospital, arm and leg broken, he is diagnosed with brain injury, and it is unclear whether he will ever regain consciousness. This is where the real fight, the fight for his survival begins; this is where you will get completely hooked with the Sydney's character.
The author of Sydney's Song is an artist as well, and her stylized black-and-white illustrations appear at every chapter heading, looking like a little window through which you can view events. Inspired by real events in her life, this story is a tribute to her spirit, her voice, and her song.
About the Author
Ia Uaro is an Australian author. She was born in the beautiful and remote, world’s widest tea plantation by Mount Kerinci in Sumatra where her dad was the plantation’s accountant, her mum a teacher. Her dad died when Ia was 13, and Ia moved across the ocean. She proceeded to become the busiest teen ever: playing in a drum band, tutoring maths, learning languages including English as the fifth language, and, at 17, a teen magazine published Ia’s first fiction as a serial. Inundated by her fans’ letters, the publisher printed it as a book, which was subsequently bought by the Indonesian Department of Education for high-school libraries.
Ia used the proceeds to help fund her university studies, during which time she was active in aero-modelling, martial arts, mountaineering, speleology... and studied petroleum seismology among her music-playing friends. After her graduation Ia worked with French, Norwegian and American geophysical companies, besides being a volunteer translator.
In Sydney since 1995, Ia is a mum who does several kinds of volunteer work for the community, assesses manuscripts, and writes real-life socio-fiction. Her husband, who suffers permanent partial brain damage, says Ia now sleep-talks in English. Part of Sydney's Song's proceeds will be donated to the Brain Foundation.
Links
Amazon UK Paperback
Monday, October 22, 2012
Seeing Julia by Katherine Owen
ON SALE for $0.99
Seeing Julia
Seeing Julia
by
Katherine Owen
Description
"Here's what I
know: Death abducts the dying, but grief steals from those left behind."
Julia Hamilton hates
Athens, Afghanistan, and the U.S. Army; and now, Advil. She hates a lot of things
that begin with the letter A, with good reason, because she's lost everyone
she's ever loved to these very things. But it's an illicit connection to a
stranger at her husband's funeral that saves her life, leaves her battling
grief and guilt, and has her questioning everything else including the secrets
she holds onto about her past as well as her present.
Katherine's
award-winning debut novel is heartbreakingly intense, achingly romantic, and
ultimately captivating. Seeing Julia is
an intense, emotional roller coaster of a ride, so hang on and don't forget to
breathe.
If you enjoy the
tender scenes of P.S. I Love
You, the poignant story lines of Nicholas Sparks, and the twists and
turns in plot lines like those of Jodi Picoult, you are going to LOVE Katherine
Owen's novel Seeing Julia!
Please be advised
that Seeing Julia contains adult
language and adult situations and is not appropriate for young readers.
Excerpt
From Chapter One ~ In The After Again
I've been here
before. I've done this before. At sixteen, I buried my parents. At
twenty-three, my fiancé Bobby. And now, almost four years later, my husband
Evan. I’m here again in the after. Here’s what I know: death abducts the dying,
but grief steals from those left behind. There is less of myself with every
loss.
I stare at the red
glow of the cigarette for a long time and then inhale deep. A rush of nicotine
courses through me.
I don’t smoke.
Except today, I do.
The lit cigarette
provides the only light in the church stairwell. I take comfort in the cloak of
darkness and estimate having another five minutes of anonymity before Kimberley
comes looking for me. Five minutes to get it together, to let the Oxycodone and
nicotine do their thing. One to get me to an anesthetized state and the other
because breaking the rules seems like the one thing I should do for him this
day. I lie back and willingly suffer the sharp metal edge of the stair that
digs into my back. The pain is real enough, but it’s nothing compared to the
steady ache that already pulses inside of me. I close my eyes and allow this
stairwell sanctuary to envelop all of me.
Review
By JennyJennyHark
Seeing Julia is a touching yet fun read. I didn't have a day free to read the book
from cover to cover, so had to sneak a chapter here and there, or stay up way
to late (I'd tell myself I'd just read a chapter, but as each chapter ended
there was such reason to read on, I had to read more!).
Julia is one of
those people who has experienced tremendous loss for her young age. Owen does
an amazing job of showing us Julia's progression from completely broken, to,
well... no spoilers! It's a story where you know exactly how you want it to
end, but you can't imagine the means of how Julia will get there. I found
myself thinking ahead and guessing at what might transpire next for Julia, but
I was seldom on the mark, which pulls you further and further in to Julia's
life.
I believe this is
Katherine Clare Owen's first published novel, but it feels like she's been
writing fiction her entire life. I can't wait to read Not
To Us!
About the Author
Katherine Owen lives near Seattle in a suburb overlooking Lake Washington
in a very old house with her husband and two children. She has written three
novels, Seeing
Julia, Not To Us,
and When I See
You. Katherine is also featured in the
anthology, Indie
Chicks: 25 Independent Women 25 Personal Stories (Volume 1), which
features an excerpt of Seeing Julia. She is hard at work on her next novel.
Katherine's writing delves into the complexities of relationships, often
from both love and loss perspectives, because, as an author, she enjoys the
unpredictability and uniqueness she finds there. Katherine's writing is not for
the faint of heart, it’ll take readers on a proverbial emotional roller coaster
ride, before reaching resolution, and the endings are somewhat surprising. Katherine's
writing tends to be dark, moody, and sometimes funny. It can be a bit lyrical
or even literary. It’s often edgy, so be forewarned. Her stories are comprised
of broken heroines, who are often lost, and not always intent on finding their
way back, and, even the heroes in her books have a few flaws that cause trouble
or can disappoint. Many of her readers complain they can't put the novel down,
or, just when they think they've figured the story out, it changes and becomes
something else. Katherine has garnered a wonderful following of readers who
enjoy her work, but she's always looking for more.
In late July 2010, Katherine was recognized by the Pacific Northwest
Writers Association and awarded the coveted Zola Award and first place in the
romance category (women's fiction) for her novel, Seeing Julia.
Links
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