Posted Tuesday, 21 July, 2015 by jorielov Beneath Creek Waters, Jason L. Bradshaw, Smooth Sailing Press 0 Comments

Acquired Book By:
An interesting story about how this novel came into my life: I originally found out about the book via Kate Tilton’s Book Bloggers wherein I received a complimentary copy of “Beneath Creek Waters” direct from the publisher Smooth Sailing Press, in exchange for an honest review. Between life and circumstances that arose since I received the novel itself, I was hoping to post my thoughts on behalf of this novel sooner rather than later. When I saw the blog tour upcoming from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours I requested to be placed on the tour, as I felt it would be a nice gesture to not only find more readers who might be as curious to read this novel as I was originally but also, to have the chance to host a guest author feature. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why historical adventures interest me:
Adventure fiction is a bit of a departure of my normal bookish tendencies to soak inside a Romance novel or to pick up a traditional historical fiction novel. Although I love most branches of literature, there is one curious branch that has held my attention with a bit of trepidation (moreso than Mystery & Suspense) due to never knowing how far the writer would take the elements inside the narratives and if the action involved were on a level I could not only appreciate but handle reading about! Adventure fiction is the full gambit of being an exciting story rooted on the thirst for uncovering something quite extraordinary and the opposite end where it’s such a narrowing gutting emotional ride towards an ending that may or may not break your spirit by the time you reach it! Therein, of course, lies my interest – to see how an adventure can be knitted together where it’s equally enjoyable to ride on the coattails of the characters as they take their journey and to feel fully satisfied in the concluding chapters to know that everything happened as it should have whilst giving you a measure of closure.
I picked up my first adventure novels when I was younger, even though it was the spin-off Indiana Jones novelisations that truly whet my thirst for a bit more intense drama than what I had traditional picked up to read! I liked the archaeological approach to rooting a suspense plot out of the historical past where artifacts and quests for treasure were key driving forces behind the intensity of the plot! Who doesn’t like a wicked good mystery surrounding artifacts? This was in part due to my curious attachment to the fields of archaeology and anthropology whilst I was growing up as originally I had felt they would have been a good niche for me to take-on professionally. I resolved that I prefer to read the stories left behind than to navigate the murky waters of academia and research.
When I discovered Gigi Pandian’s series involving Jaya Jones, I knew I was starting to take a full step out of my childhood wanderings and finding new series as a book blogger I might have missed otherwise! Finding out that another Indie Publisher was on the brink of encouraging another new series to step forward was quite encouraging! As you will find the author’s (Jason L. Bradshaw) tweet s/o about what comes next past Beneath Creek Waters at the bottom of this post!

Beneath Creek Waters
by Jason L. Bradshaw
Source: Direct from Publisher
In 1845 200 gold coins were minted to commemorate Texas’ entry into the United States. Slated to be given to all major players that helped Texas into the Union, the coins were loaded onto a wagon on a rainy night, near Dallas, Texas and never seen again. Over a century later, traces of the coins resurface, after a couple of kids stumble upon what appeared to be one, in a Southeast Texas creek.
News of the find reach Parks Leslie and Stan Atcher, treasure hunters and historians, always looking for their next big find, and long-time seekers of these coins. Parks and Stan’s interest proves to be an unexpected journey, tangled with blood history ties, new friendships and near-death experiences, calling for sacrifices no one could have predicted.
Places to find the book:
Add to LibraryThing
Series: Beneath Creek Waters, No.1
Also in this series: Intangible
Published by Smooth Sailing Press
on September 2014
Format: Paperback Edition
Pages: 245
Published By: Mystic Harbor Press
{an imprint of} Smooth Sailing Press (@SmoothSailingP)
Available Formats: Paperback & Ebook
Converse via: #BeneathCreekWaters, #Western + #BeneathCreekWatersBlogTour
About Jason L. Bradshaw

Jason Bradshaw has had a passion for adventure, history and writing for most of his life; culminating in the writing of his first novel, Beneath Creek Waters. Besides writing numerous articles for various newsletters and publications, Bradshaw is currently completing his second installment to his novel series, titled Beneath Gulf Waters, after which he will begin work for a new series, The Hobbyist, to be completed in 2015. Bradshaw has also co-written two screenplays in conjunction with Todd Rodgers, titled Red Eye and Shadow Ops.
Bradshaw is an avid diver, enjoys flying, hiking, surfing and has a general love for the outdoors. He currently resides in Texas with his wife and two young sons.
Website | Facebook | Goodreads
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Posted Tuesday, 21 July, 2015 by jorielov in Action & Adventure Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Book Trailer, Bookish Films, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Fly in the Ointment, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Historical Mystery, Indie Author, New Adult Fiction, Small Towne USA, Treasure Hunt, Vulgarity in Literature
Posted Thursday, 30 October, 2014 by jorielov C.A. Gray, Intangible, Piercing the Veil series, Wanderlust Publishing 0 Comments

Intangible by C.A. Gray
Published By: Wanderlust Publishing
Official Author Websites: Site | Blog | @AuthorCAGray | Facebook | GoodReads
Available Formats: Trade Paperback, E-book
Converse on Twitter via: #PiercingTheVeilSeries

Acquired Book By: I worked with Ms. Bauer (of Royal Social Media) whilst hosting Ms. Krupa (author of the debut novel “Safe & Sound”) and I always left the door open to work with her again as hosting T.S. Krupa was quite lovely and I considered myself blessed to be able to cross paths with both Ms. Bauer and Ms. Krupa at the same time. A writer I am highlighting in November Glynis Astie also shares a connection to Ms. Bauer (as she is her publicist) but this time around, Ms. Bauer approached me to host Ms. Gray and her Young Adult Fantasy series Piercing the Veil. I immediately fell in love with the series premise and the layering effect of the story overall out of the vision Ms. Gray had for her series. Therefore I received a complimentary copy of “Intangible” direct from the author C.A. Gray in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Inspired to Read:
To be honest, I couldn’t even put into words how excited I was to read this particular book series, as I simply had a hitching of excitement inside me that I might have stumbled across a writer who gave us such a fully realised world to devour that being able to read it for review was not just a blessing but an honour! I soaked inside all the materials the Press Kit afforded me the option of absorbing; which happily the author provides on her website (one of the few recently that have taken me at ‘hallo’ and made me feel grateful some writers go the extra mile!) to the brink that I simply felt this telling sense of ‘yes!’ I need to read this book series! I just had a sense that I would not only become happily entombed inside the series as a whole but that it would be a collection of novels I would not want to put down anytime soon!
The elemental grounding of science intersecting with the legend and lore of King Arthur with a firm rooting of quantum physics as a back-story and underlay of the context overall? Who wouldn’t want to read this book series!? No, seriously! Who?! I responded with such haste, I think Ms. Bauer might have wondered if I had borrowed a TARDIS or a transporter device to query back my intent! Laughs with mirth.
Intangible
Peter Stewart grew up on a unique version of the Arthurian legends taught him by his father, a harebrained quantum physicist who asserts that anything is possible. But Peter disbelieves anything which cannot be scientifically explained, despite a nagging sense that there is more to the world than meets the eye.
Lily Portman is an orphan with a secret: she can see creatures that are invisible to everyone else. These creatures control every human being she has ever met to varying degrees... until she meets Peter and his father.
When a mysterious stranger stages an accident which nearly costs Peter and Lily their lives, suddenly Lily learns that she is not crazy after all, and Peter discovers the truth of his father’s stories… including the existence of Arthur’s ancient nemesis, one who calls himself the Shadow Lord, and a prophecy with implications so profound that it will alter not only the course of their lives, but potentially the fate of the world.
Places to find the book:
Series: Piercing the Veil,
Also in this series: Invincible
on 20th November, 2013
Format: Paperback
Pages: 482

Author Biography:
C.A. Gray is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor (NMD), with a primary care practice in Tucson, AZ. She has always been captivated by the power of a good story, fictional or otherwise, which is probably why she loves holistic medicine: a patient’s physical health is invariably intertwined with his or her life story, and she believes that the one can only be understood in context with the other.
She still wants to be everything when she grows up. She moonlights as a college chemistry teacher (she has a degree in biochemistry, with minors in Spanish and Creative Writing), does theater when she gets the chance, sings, plays piano, was once a personal trainer and in coffee shop management. She is blessed with exceptionally supportive family and friends, and thanks God for them every single day!
Introducing Peter and Lily:
Characters who transcend their sixth sense sensibility
Peter is living a path outside the realm of his peers because his father took a keen interest in his education at a young age, and endowed him with the ability to learn at a rate that was highly fused to his son’s interests rather than limited to what his level of education would be dictated at a scale of his accent in age. Peter became aware of things that others were not clued into simply because his sense of reality and the sense of his environment as a whole, was altered out of the scope of where his classmates put their perceptional lens. Where they wanted to focus on the routine of the hours within the structure of where they were attending school, Peter was looking at the world from different angles and from a perspective of science bent back into the folds of reality itself. His mind was electrically charged and fundamentally curious about the process of things and the more he was curious about how things worked, the more he wanted to experiment to drive the hypothetical theories out of thought and into a foundation of evidence, for which his mind could lay a baseline of support against what is purported and what is true. The tricky part for Peter is accepting that not everything can be explained by science because he forgot the greatest key we’re all given is our imagination.
Lily finds the patience to live within the spectrum of ordinary hours a bit of a daunting tug of will against what she already knows as truth; her sensibility of awareness is locked within the unseen and yet she is altogether fascinating at how she purports what she understands back into the everyday fold of a regular day. She likes to be a bit organised in her being, even if who she is has never truly been accepted by anyone who has known her as she tends to stand out a bit from her peers. She has a quiet confidence that has not fully blossomed into acceptance but she’s been struggling to overcome not only the loss of her parents but the manner in which she was saved the night they died. Lily believes with an innocent heart and a mind willing to suspend the laws of reported science.
Both Peter and Lily are two extraordinary characters who take you on this journey, giving you the pleasure of tagging along on this adventure that you did not realise you even wanted to become a part of. Their story is on the verge of being known and understood, but along the way, they each start to learn more about each other, their place in the universe, and how all the interlocking pieces of time, reality, and our living hours collide into each other in a mosaic of ordered harmony. They each have a sixth sense sensibility but it is the process of how they develop their intuitive confidence in that vein of sensitivity that leads to an absorbing read!
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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Posted Thursday, 30 October, 2014 by jorielov in Arthurian Legend, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book | Novel Extract, Book Spotlight, Book Trailer, Bookish Films, Bullies and the Bullied, Coming-Of Age, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Domestic Violence, Earthen Magic, England, Equality In Literature, Fantasy Fiction, Folklore and Mythology, Foster Care, Genre-bender, Good vs. Evil, Indie Author, Light vs Dark, Mental Health, Modern Day, Mythological Societies, Naturopathic Medicine, Orphans & Guardians, Parapsychological Gifts, Parapsychological Suspense, Passionate Researcher, Quantum Physics, Retrospective Memories of a Series, Royal Social Media, School Life & Situations, Sci-Fi & Fantasy Fridays, Sci-Fi November, Science Fantasy, Seers, Social Services, Speculative Fiction, Spin-Off Authors, Supernatural Creatures & Beings, Superstrings, Teenage Relationships & Friendships, Time Shift, Transfer Student at School, Writing Style & Voice, YA Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction