Book Blitz: Life Lived Twice

IFB is hosting the promo event for Sherrie Wouters' debut fantasy novel. Continue below for an excerpt & giveaway.

Release date: June 6th 2014
Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Some promises are made to last forever ... What if you fell in love with a stranger ... but that stranger had come from your past, a past you never knew existed until the moment your eyes met? 

When Tess Winters locks eyes with a stranger at an airport bookstore, it ignites a feeling of passion somewhere deep inside her that she can't explain. Although the encounter is innocent and brief, the intensity of it lingers, leaving her overwhelmed by a yearning for the mystery man now consuming her every thought. 

Struggling to break the powerful hold he has over her heart, Tess starts to experience strange but familiar dreams...dreams from the turn of the twentieth century of the charming Mr Addison Taylor. 

As her dreams start to materialize into reality, and past and present begin to blur, Tess is forced to put the pieces of a forgotten time together, and soon discovers that love isn't the only thing that can find you after an eternity. Captivating, mysterious, and romantic, Life Lived Twice will leave you wondering whether love is so powerful it could last more than a lifetime.

EXCERPT

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By the time I’d examined his tanned calves, the masculinity of his skin was lingering in the air between us. He smelt sensational, and I found myself uncontrollably breathing in as I rose.

Now curious to see more, I kept going. But as I began to move, an odd sensation of warmth radiating from him came over me; it was almost like an invisible hand caressing my skin. My heart fluttered at the idea of it, and suddenly blood was rushing to all the wrong places as I felt an unexpected thrill of anticipation.

After tracing his body all the way up to his chest, my wandering eyes didn’t seem to want to stop, and they were soon up to his neck and following the stubble along his jaw, right up to his light brown hair. And then he spoke. The sound of his voice jolted me from my daydream and pulled my gaze to his.

“Addison!” I gasped as our eyes collided. From the moment the name left my lips, my eyes widened ... stared ... and became lost in his. As a rush of airy weightlessness floated me from the floor, suddenly everything felt more enhanced, more real, like something inside me had suddenly woken up. It was an intoxicating feeling and the longer I stood entranced, the further his beautiful blue eyes reached into mine. Somehow they were knocking on the door to my heart, stirring something so powerful it made me want to cry and laugh at the same time and, for a brief second, there was something in his eyes that made me feel complete.

Suddenly his brows squeezed then softened. “Ah ... um ... sorry about the electric shock.” He smiled. “But who’s Addison?”

My throat tightened as warmth flushed my cheeks. Who the hell was Addison?

Embarrassment pulled my eyes from his. “Oh,” I said, choking on my words, “Um ... ah ... no ... I don’t know anyone called Addison ... I mean, um ... ”

“Oh!” He smiled cheekily as he leaned towards me and whispered. “You sounded so convinced I was him ... I thought for a second I could be. I mean, if you wanted me to be.”

My face shot back to his, words jamming in my throat as I stared. Who was this guy, this stranger? In just a few seconds he’d turned my soul inside out, and now he was charming me with his words as well.

As his lips rose into a smile, I couldn’t help but smile back. But panic quickly returned to my constricted throat as that name re-entered my head. 

Suddenly aware of the warmth still creeping across my face, I managed to pull my eyes from his again and divert my gaze. Addison, Addison, who the hell was Addison? I couldn’t budge the name from my thoughts.

As I stood fidgeting, I could feel him staring, waiting for me to say something, anything. After taking a breath, I shifted my gaze and we locked eyes again as I spoke. “Um,” I said, swallowing hard, “I must be mistaken ... sorry.”

About the Author

Sherrie Wouters is a thirty something flame haired chick who accidentally wrote a book and is now an author. A qualified Homeoeopath and Kinesiologist, Sherrie lives in country Victoria, Australia with her husband, and two daughters. She is currently working on the sequel to Life Lived Twice.

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Tour Post: Extraction

EXTRACTION

Stephanie Diaz

Series: Extraction #1

Release date: July 22nd 2014

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Purchase: Amazon

Summary 

"Welcome to Extraction testing."
Clementine has spent her whole life preparing for her sixteenth birthday, when she’ll be tested for Extraction in the hopes of being sent from the planet Kiel’s toxic Surface to the much safer Core, where people live without fear or starvation. When she proves promising enough to be “Extracted,” she must leave without Logan, the boy she loves. Torn apart from her only sense of family, Clem promises to come back and save him from brutal Surface life.
What she finds initially in the Core is a utopia compared to the Surface—it’s free of hard labor, gun-wielding officials, and the moon's lethal acid. But life is anything but safe, and Clementine learns that the planet's leaders are planning to exterminate Surface dwellers—and that means Logan, too. 
Trapped by the steel walls of the underground and the lies that keep her safe, Clementine must find a way to escape and rescue Logan and the rest of the planet. But the planet leaders don't want her running—they want her subdued.
With intense action scenes and a cast of unforgettable characters,Extraction is a page-turning, gripping read, sure to entertain lovers of Hunger Games and Ender's Game and leave them breathless for more.

About The Author

Twenty-one-year-old Stephanie Diaz wrote her debut novel, Extraction, when she should've been making short films and listening to college lectures at San Diego State University. When she isn't lost in books, she can be found singing, marveling at the night sky, or fan-girling over TV shows.

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Blog Tour Review: Forever Layla

Hello you lovely lot! Today I'm taking part in Itching For Books blog tour for FOREVER LAYLA by Melissa Turner Lee. It's a really quick and unique read so I hope you enjoy my review and as always, you know the drill - leave me a comment and tell me what you think! I love hearing from you :)

FOREVER LAYLA

by Melissa Turner Lee

Release Date: May 27th 2014

Publisher: AltWit Press

ISBN: 0615984452

Summary

What if the woman you envied most is the person you are destined to become?
In 1994, high school senior David Foster was the lackey and soundboard geek for his best friend's grunge band. During spring break, the band lands a dream gig playing at a motel in Myrtle Beach, SC. David expected all the girls to ogle the guys on stage, but when a beautiful blond "Bond Girl" approaches him and calls him by name, he's shocked to find out she knows more about him than a stranger should.
She even knows about his notebooks and his visions of time travel.
What she thought was a quick time-travel-sightseeing trip takes a surprising turn when she meets the young adult version of the man she'd heard stories about as a child. His fairy-tale romance with the woman he'd loved, Layla, inspired her to accept nothing less than a love just as strong...but hopefully not as tragic. When she won't tell the younger version of him her name, he calls her Layla--and the world as she knows it changes forever.

Review

Forever Layla is a sweet, unique and fast paced read that is like nothing I've ever come across before. It's complex in it's plot lines and every little detail cleverly knits together as the book progresses. It is a story that will have you holding you breath as you wait for the last piece of the puzzle to slot into place.

Now this is where I would usually try and go into the plot a little bit but for a short book it has a rather complicated story, so I'll try my best, although I think only Doctor Who himself could explain it without giving too much away!
It's the story of Layla and David. It's the story of how they fell in love and how knowing what's around the corner can affect the way you see things. Layla is from the future, it wasn't her choice to come back but now she's here - here being 1994 - she's got to figure out how to live in a time she doesn't belong. Although, as time passes and David becomes an important part of her life, Layla starts to question whether she was always meant to be living in the past. What time does she really belong in? And can she be in the past without screwing up the future?

Yeah, a lot of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff!
I did worn you!

Okay, so there were only two things I struggled with when reading Forever Layla. One being the words 'time travel' and two being Layla. So the time travel thing isn't that big a deal and a completely personal issue! I just found that whenever those words were used it felt kind of corny. Although at the same time you can't write a time travel book without them so...
Then there was the Layla thing, which was a little more of a issue. It's not that I didn't like her, in fact I really kind of felt for her. I just found her a little annoying at times. Especially in the beginning. She's very stubborn and isn't used to having to rely on people, which did - at times - come across as a little snobby.

Forever Layla is another dual narrative that at the beginning seemed a little one sided but the Layla chapters started to become more frequent and you were able to really submerge yourself into the story. Their story. Both character's also had very distinct voices, making it easy to tell who's point of view you were reading.

As I've said this book is unique and compelling and very well written. I actually would have liked another 50 pages or so as I felt there was more to Layla and David's story that could have been told. Some of the in between moments. Which yes, would have slowed the pace down but also I think it could have given the reader more time to feel for the characters. 

The last 20% of the book had me holding my breath. I had a feeling I knew where it was going but no idea how it was going to get there. It's the kind of book that has you wishing for that all important happily ever after. Overall the way the whole story twists back on itself is ridiculously cleaver and I think Melissa Turner Lee deserves a medal for keeping it all straight in her head as she wrote it! 

Forever Layla didn't disappoint. It's quirky and fresh and I think you're going to really enjoy it! 

**I received this book as an ARC from Itching For Books as part of a tour to read & review. This is a 100% honest review.**

**EXCERPT**

“David?” a soft feminine voice spoke my name.I glanced up to see the biggest brownest eyes framed by the longest blackest lashed I’d ever seen. I glanced down to focus on the rest of her. The form fitting black dress she wore hugged every curve down to her toned and tanned legs. My gaze trailed on down
to her fancy black heels and then back up at her face. She was hot...like model hot. I couldn’t blink or think as I stared at her beautiful face framed by large amounts of blonde hair and a pair of large hoop earrings. She didn’t look like the other girls with her eye makeup, glossy pink lips and the way her hair was puffed up and styled. She looked like she had just stepped out of one of the JamesBond movies Dad and I liked to watch on TV.I glanced around the crowd of girls in cutoffs, t-shirts, Keds and stringy hair. Her look wasn’t in style at the moment. Most girlswere doing the grunge and hippie thing, but Bond girls never went out of style with guys. I tried to say something, but I think I just stared and possibly stuttered before a wheeze came out. She reached for the inhaler in my shirt pocket and handed it to me. I took a puff as she shook her head smiling.“It is you.” A look of pure wonder and amazement lit her face.She blinked, making her thick and extremely long lashes flutter like butterfly wings. “I can’t believe it. You wear glasses now.”I pushed them back on my nose self-consciously as I put away my inhaler. “Yeah, like since the third grade.” I eyed her up and down once more and worked hard to remember to breathe.
“Do I know you?”“Kind of...Well not really. I’m...” she shifted her eyes to the side without moving her head and bit her lips like she needed to remember something and stopped for a moment before she continued.
“Ugh! I suck at this. You’ll never let me do this again if I mess this up.” She shook her head and then turned her attention back to me.“No, you don’t know me, but I know all about you. Let’s just put it that way.”

About Melissa

Melissa Turner Lee holds a BA in Communications with a concentration in Journalism from the University of South Carolina. She has studied fiction writing since 2008, attending various writing conferences and workshops, along with guidance from professional writing coaches. She resides in Spartanburg, SC with her husband and 3 sons.

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