Penny’s Reviews: The Hands We’re Given by O E Tearmann
Blurb:
Aidan Headly never wanted to be the man giving orders. That’s fine with the Democratic State Force base he’s been assigned to command: they don’t like to take orders. Nicknamed the Wildcards, they used to be the most effective base against the seven Corporations owning the former United States in a war that has lasted over half a century. Now the Wildcards are known for creative insubordination, chaos, and commanders begging to be reassigned.
Aidan is their last chance. If he can pull off his assignment as Commander and yank his ragtag crew of dreamers and fighters together, maybe they can get back to doing what they came to do: fighting for a country worth living in.
So, I’m usually more of a Steampunk / Gothic / Fantasy chic but when I DO go for Sci Fi, THIS is the kind I go for – the 1984 / Banksish / Kafka-esque Distopian kind where corporate and governmental control make the lives of those who don’t or won’t ‘fit the mould’ unbearable and misfits are pushed to an almost liminal existence.
Despite this grim backdrop, the story told here is pervaded by warmth, tenderness and passion thanks to the gorgeous characters, their backstories and relationships, emotions, hopes, fears and insecurities which make them each so unique and lovable I found myself swiftly invested in their future, not only the main character, Aidan, but also the secondary characters as well.
This is the tale of a lovable, awkward little band of rogues just perfect for anyone who likes serious Sci Fi with a credible MM love story at its heart. It’s also the start of this series so if , like me, you finish this book and are dying for more you won’t be disappointed.
Penny’s Book Reviews: The Recruit by Addison Albright
Blurb:
Albert Manlii has walked this earth for more than two thousand years, but survival on his own was never easy. Now he leads a faction of highly organized vampires who carefully guard the secret of their existence. Unlike the old days, potential recruits are carefully selected and presented with an offer.
Phillip Brewer has weeks to live — if he lets his disease run its course. He doesn’t want to die, but given a choice, will his desire to live outweigh his concerns about the vampires’ ethics?
When the new recruit’s missteps are cause for concern, can Albert control the fallout, or will Phillip’s life once again be torn apart?
I have to confess I actually came to this book having read snippets from the next book in the series via the Rainbow Snippets facebook group and so I had already fallen in love with the character of Albert and seen flashes and hints of how their story plays out in the future.
I’m a sucker for vampire stories but can’t stand the ‘Twilight flavour’ so many now seem to carry, so I delighted in the fresh feel of this series and loved the combination of appealing characters and engaging plot.
I fell more in love with Philip than I thought I would – he is a beautiful character without being at all delicate or whiny or precious which I think is over-done in vampire novels.
Overall, I loved the characters and their world, especially Albert, and I would recommend the series to anyone looking for a modern vampire series with lovable characters and a fresh, unique feel.
Penny’s Book Reviews: Hangover From Hell by Zakarrie Clarke
Blurb:
A Hangover From Hell is exactly what greets rock star Callum Carter on the final morning of an ‘On the Road’ trip along Route 66, taken with his partner, artist Daniel Flynn. Theirs is a story of fame, lust, laughter and all-consuming love. They met five years ago, when the infamous ‘enfant terrible’ was commissioned to paint Callum’s portrait and have been together ever since. The latter remains a closely kept secret…until the morning they wake up in Las Vegas. Married. Dan has no memory of this miracle taking place, only one thing seems certain; he has somehow managed to pull off his masterpiece of mischief, and inveigled Cal down the aisle.
Zakarrie Clarke has an ineffable knack for infusing her stories with the perfect balance of humour and heart – Even in the first chapter of this book her writing broke my soul with pain and had me almost on the floor with peels of wicked laughter.
That first glimpse at Dan and Cal’s relationship was but a siren’s song that swiftly pulled me so deep into their beautiful / painful / hilarious / fragile / exhilarating but ultimately feel-good world, I never wanted to surface again and so I was over the moon to find there was a sequel to dive into and more of the series planned as well for the future.
This is an utterly entertaining – raw at times – thoroughly heart-warming read, filled with passion and mischief and that kind of Bohemian love that risks all and rises, on broken wings, victorious (and perhaps with a wicked two-fingered salute to those who said it couldn’t survive)
Halfway To Someday Blog Tour: Guest Post By Layla Dorine

Greeting’s, and thank you for having me on your blog today. I’m Layla Dorine, a midwestern author originally from the East Coast. I love traveling and am officially down to one state remaining that I haven’t seen yet, Alaska, after the road trip to GRL this past October. In fact, traveling has been an amazing way to generate ideas, meet new people and just get inspired through new experiences, exploration and simply having fun and relaxing. There are still days when I wake up and look around my office and think to myself, hell yeah, because the only thing I ever wanted to do in life was become a writer.
I’m 43, and my mother still has some of the poetry that I wrote when I was nine, ten, eleven years old. Words were fun, words, not spelling, I never could spell well, thank you dyslexia, but I love to read and I love the way words come together and over the years I have penned everything from song lyrics to one act plays.
My favorite part of the process, though, is the moments of inspiration and pulling the scenes together that will eventually formulate the storyline. Over the years, it’s led me to dirt bike trails, long horseback rides, and romps through the woods that run from sunup to sundown. Of course, being that this is Iowa, we have at least four months out of the year that none of those things are possible, but that just means I retreat to bookstores, coffee shops, libraries and museums, to people watch and think.
Halfway to Someday is my 14th full length novel, and one of the angstiest of them all, which is saying something, considering the tearjerkers Guitars and Cages and Gypsy’s Rogue turned out to be. I hope readers will agree. It was a joy and a pleasure to tell Jesse and Ryker’s story.
Halfway to Someday Author Interview #2
What was your favorite childhood book?
Oh man, just one? I can’t even. I’ve got so many from when I was a little kid that I have hung onto and still have in my library to this day. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is timeless in my opinion. It never gets old and I reread it a few times during the holiday season. Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree, which turned out to be my youngest son’s favorite too. I love the disgruntled look on the tree at the end, when it’s branches have been stripped bare and a bloated cookie monster lay sunning himself beneath it. I still love all of the Winnie the Pooh stories too, and read, re-read, and read until it fell apart S.E. Hinton’s the outsides. Those four books sum up the things I loved in my childhood, and I am glad I got to share them with my children when they were little.
Explain the title of your book.
Well, the original title was going to be Rockin’ Ryker’s World, but as Jesse revealed himself to be anything but a fun, flirty, party going rock star, I came to realize that the title simply wouldn’t fit. Still, I had no clue what would, until a conversation between two characters ended with the line: I’m Halfway to Someday. It struck me in that moment that it was the perfect title for the book, and I couldn’t help but play with it a few more times over the course of the story too. I like the rhythm and flow of it when it’s spoken and could just imagine it as a rock ballad. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll pen the lyrics for it.
What was your hardest scene to write? Oh man, ever? Or in this book? If you mean the hardest scene to write over the course of all fourteen books and numerous short stories, then it has to be the moment when Alexia in Guitars and Cages, is banging on her brother’s apartment door after he’d slammed it in her face. I cried right along with Alexia as I was writing it and I still cry whenever I read it. If you mean in Halfway to Someday, well, let’s just say that there is a moment when Jesse is in his truck, reflecting on the past, that was particularly difficult.
Which character was your favorite to write? As much as I hate picking favorites and in no way want to upset Ryker, considering I have plans to have them pop up here and there in other stories, I have to say that Jesse was my favorite character in Halfway to Someday. I think that was because he reminded me of an old friend and the songs we’d write and play together. I could picture several moments in the cabin clearly and vividly, and in my mind’s eye, the visual equivalent of Jesse is my old friend, Tommy.
What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk? Aside from the fact that I still hand write my rough drafts, I prefer to write from places that aren’t my home. The desk is great for typing and editing and working out plans for projects, but for actually writing, I prefer to be in public places, even if it’s just a sidewalk bench that happened to be close by when inspiration hit. I love heading out to the woods to work on a story too. Listening to nature and the bubbling of a creek helps me put aside things that might be stressing me out in order to zone in on my characters and tap into the story they want me to tell.
Which of your books was the most enjoyable to write? So hard to choose just one. Each had some amazing components and experiences associated with them. Working on Burning Luck and Midnight Musicals inspired me to make several trips out to Seattle, some on a bus, others on a plane, which offered plenty of opportunity to observe people and create some interesting characters along the way. I loved writing Tripping Over the Edge of Night. It was how I spent the very frozen winter here in Iowa last year. Simply getting to remain in my easy chair wrapped in blankets was awesome, especially when there were copious amounts of Buttershots and Hot Cocoa involved.
Halfway To Someday by Layla Dorine: Release Day!
Warnings: Flashbacks of domestic abuse, and combat situations, suicide ideations
Heat level: Nonexplicit (though there is frottage at the end)
Rocker Jesse Winters just wants to be left alone. If he could melt into oblivion he would and bid farewell to the wild child of rock n’ roll so many have dubbed him in recent months. Truth is, there was never anything reckless, wild or even deliberate about most of the things that had happened on Wild Child’s last tour, but had anyone cared to listen? No! Which was precisely why he was sitting in a cabin high up in the Colorado mountains, hoping the incoming blizzard would bury him forever.
Ryker Jorgensen left the VA hospital with a bunch of prescriptions and pamphlets on how to deal with reentering the civilian world, not that he’s in any hurry to do so. His nightmares still keep him up at night, and every new limitation he discovers gives him more reason to believe that he’s hopelessly useless now. Better to drive up to his cousin’s cabin and lick his wounds. Come spring, maybe, he’d look into being around people, if only for long enough to make the kind of money he’d need to buy his own secluded place.
The last thing he ever expected to see was the man whose face had been plastered in his footlocker and his dreams for the better part of the past six years, but Jesse Winters is nothing like he imagined. When trying to leave Ryker out in the storm doesn’t work, Jesse resorts to ignoring him. But two wounded souls trapped in a snowed in cabin have little choice but to reach out for one another when emotions get frayed. His only hope is that Jesse will trust him enough to let him drag him back from the edge before he’s just another burned out star in the legacy that is rock n’ roll.
Buy Links:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083YW8DLW
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Halfway-Someday-Wild-Child-Book-ebook/dp/B083YW8DLW
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Halfway-Someday-Wild-Child-Book-ebook/dp/B083YW8DLW
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Halfway-Someday-Wild-Child-Book-ebook/dp/B083YW8DLW
Author Bio:
LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places. Currently she has seen forty-nine of the fifty states, with plans to visit her final one, Alaska, in the upcoming year. Every journey is an inspiration and every shred of inspiration gets sprinkled into her tales.
Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes it’s aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book, a kitty on her lap, and her dog, Jinxx, by her side.
Email (public address): layladorine13@outlook.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005197938547
Twitter: https://twitter.com/layladorine
Website: http://layladorine13.wixsite.com/layladorineauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9814124.Layla_Dorine
Other novels by author:
Guitars and Cages
Guitars and Choices
Roadhouse Reds
Gypsy’s Rogue
Desolation Angel
…And All Shall Fade to Black
Serpent’s Kiss
Broken Prince, Mismatched Eyes
Midnight Musicals and Coffee Ice Cream
#IndieThursday: The Duke and the Dandy Highwayman
This #IndieThursday I’m sharing my love of…
Blurb:
The Most High, Noble and Potent Prince, His Grace Padraic, Duke of Waterford.’ After enduring the Ducal Grand Entrance, one might be forgiven for thinking that an evening could only improve. One would be wrong. Padraic was then duty bound to find an amiable miss to romance and dance attendance upon. In truth, the Duke was rather more partial to establishments that promised charms he would ne’er find in the arms of a Lady. Such dalliances did add a dash of decadence to his life of ducal drudgery, but time was tick-tocking, and a blue-stocking bride must be wooed and wed…
Raff of the Rookeries. The most afeared rake-hell to have haunted the highways since Darkin denied them the pleasure at the gallows by stepping off the ladder before they could whip it from beneath his feet. Raff had fought his way up to rule the roost with instincts as razor-sharp as his dirk. His sword skills, fists, and wily wits had stood him in good stead, but none had proved as invaluable as the weapon he’d ne’er had need to tend. His fury. A rage every bit as lethal as arsenic—deadlier than brawn, brains, or bravado—Raphael had carried it like a toxic plague. Until, he became Raff of the Rookeries. Unleashed upon the underworld, it was the most formidable foe in London.
Two men from two different worlds…a mere few miles apart. That is, until the fateful night when The Duke was stopped in his tracks by a very Dandy Highwayman…
To compensate for my lack of time to do long reviews just now, I’m using the #indiethursday hashtag to share the indie love and point at some fabulous indie / small press books I’ve enjoyed reading 😀
So, what fab indie fiction are you reading / writing this month? Blessings on your brew and best of luck with all your indie endeavours, lets keep flying the flag for indie writing!
February Review: Of Rats And Cats
Greetings! Well our Lancastrian Frost Fair has come to an end, I really hope you enjoyed meeting all our lovely authors and discovered some fantastic new things to read 🙂
Here in Lancaster now the snow has melted, the sun is blazing, spring is in the air and so here is my February book review…
OF RATS AND CATS BY ADDISON ALBRIGHT
I met Addison Albright through the #RainbowSnippets facebook group and quickly fell in love with her Vampire series which I’m reading at the moment and will be reviewing in a few months time. Extracts from Of Rats And Cats were posted as snippets on her website and I found them heart warming and hilarious so when she asked if anyone would like a PDF in exchange for an honest review I immediately volunteered 🙂