Blue Sky Days by Marie Landry: Relaunch Blitz!

Welcome to the Blue Sky Days Relaunch Blitz!

Blue Sky Days by Marie Landry
A Contemporary New Adult novel

A year after graduating from high school, nineteen-year-old Emma Ward feels lost. She has spent most of her life trying to please her frigid, miserable mother - studying hard, getting good grades, avoiding the whole teenage rebellion thing - and now she feels she has no identity beyond that. Because she spent so many years working hard and planning every moment of her life, she doesn't have any friends, has never had a boyfriend, and basically doesn't know who she is or what she really wants from life. Working two part-time jobs to save money for college hasn't helped her make decisions about her future, so she decides it's time for a change. She leaves home to live with her free-spirited, slightly eccentric Aunt Daisy in a small town that makes Emma feel like she's stepped back in time.

When Emma meets Nicholas Shaw, everything changes - he's unlike anyone she's ever met before, the kind of man she didn't even know existed in the 21st century. Carefree and spirited like Daisy, Nicholas teaches Emma to appreciate life, the beauty around her, and to just let go and live. Between Daisy and Nicholas, Emma feels like she belongs somewhere for the first time in her life, and realizes that you don't always need a plan - sometimes life steers you where you're meant to be.

Life is wonderful, an endless string of blue sky days, until Nicholas is diagnosed with cancer, and life changes once again for Emma in ways she never thought possible. Now it's time for her to help Nicholas the way he's helped her. Emma will have to use her new-found strength, and discover along the way if love really is enough to get you through.

June 27th is the 20th anniversary of my dad’s death from leukemia. For a long time I’ve wanted to honour him in some way, and I thought having the relaunch of Blue Sky Days, a book that was partly inspired by him, would be the perfect tribute. My dad was a wonderful man—smart, funny, kind, and loyal. He was an amazing father, husband, brother, and friend. Even before he died, I knew I wanted to be a writer, and he would listen to my crazy made-up stories with the patience of a saint.

From the 27th-30th of June, half the proceeds from all sales of Blue Sky Days will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. If you already own a copy, maybe you’d consider buying the book for a friend or family member? Or buying another copy from a different retailer (like Smashwords, which offers the book in every format)?

I greatly appreciate the support of the online reading/writing community for helping me honour my dad.

Amazon US || Amazon CAN || Amazon UK || Barnes & Noble || Smashwords || Kobo || iBooks

Thanks to eight incredible sponsors, there's a huge blitz-wide giveaway! There will be three (3) $20 PayPal cash prizes. Three chances to win - not too shabby, huh? This giveaway is open internationally to people aged 18+ who can accept PayPal cash.

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Marie has always been a daydreamer; since early childhood she's had a passion for words and a desire to create imaginary worlds, so it only seemed natural for her to become a writer. She resides in Ontario, Canada, and most days you can find her writing, reading, blogging about writing and reading, listening to U2, watching copious amounts of TV on DVD, or having grand adventures with her nephews and niece. She's a hopeless romantic, an unapologetic eavesdropper (occupational hazard), an equally unapologetic squeeing fangirl, and a lover of swoonworthy book and TV characters. For more on Marie and her books please visit http://sweetmarie-83.blogspot.ca. She also loves to chat with fellow book lovers, so feel free to tweet her @SweetMarie83 any time.

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Tour Review: Rusty Nailed by Alice Clayton

Rusty Nailed by Alice Clayton
Release Date: June 24, 2014
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pages: 320
Series: Cocktail #2
Review Source: Netgalley

Synopsis: (from Goodreads)

In this sequel to Wallbanger, the second book in the Cocktail series, fan favorites Caroline and Simon negotiate the rollercoaster of their new relationship while house-sitting in San Francisco.

Playing house was never so much fun—or so confusing. With her boss on her honeymoon, Caroline’s working crazy long hours to keep the interior design company running—especially since she’s also the lead designer for the renovation of a gorgeous old hotel on Sausalito. So with her hotshot photographer boyfriend gallivanting all over the world for his job, she and Simon are heavy-duty into “absence makes the heart grow fonder” mode. Neither has any complaints about the great reunion sex, though! Then Simon decides he’s tired of so much travelling, and he’s suddenly home more. A lot more. And wanting Caroline home more, too. Though their friends’ romantic lives provide plenty of welcome distraction, eventually Caroline and Simon have to sort their relationship out. Neither wants “out of sight, out of mind,” but can they create their own happy mid-ground cliché?

USA TODAY bestselling author Alice Clayton delivers another delicious, frothy cocktail of a book, shaking up her characters, stirring in laugh-out-loud humor, and serving sizzling romance straight up!

My Thoughts:
First of all I must say that I love how this book is a continuation of Caroline and Simon’s story from Wallbanger. Alice Clayton has done that before in a romance series (the Redhead books), but most authors don't. Rusty Nailed is exactly what you would expect from a sequel to Wallbanger: charming, swoony, and, of course, hilarious.

A great thing about this book is that it’s very much about the romance and about Caroline and Simon growing and changing as a couple, but it’s also about their personal journeys. It’s about Simon facing his past, and about Caroline working towards her future with her job. On the romance side of things, I enjoyed so much that it’s a book about the “next stage” of a romance. In most romances we don’t get to see a committed (and very much in love) couple, so it was really awesome to see these characters trying to figure out what life together means: to see them figure out who they are as an “us”.

I also appreciated how Alice Clayton managed to write a couple going through things without completely tearing them apart or bringing cheating into the mix (at least in the case of the main couple). It would have been so easy to create unnecessary drama and tear Caroline and Simon apart, but that's not what happened here at all. Of course there are issues and some drama, because it wouldn’t be interesting without it, but I thought the book was a fair representation of both a couple's growing pains and their successes.

Overall, this was an amazing second chapter in Simon and Caroline’s story. I highly recommend this book to fans of Wallbanger, and I recommend both titles to adult romance fans who appreciate character depth and wit in their sexy books. I would also be remiss not to mention Clive, who is an absolutely amazing cat character. Seriously, this cat is epic, and his interactions with his humans? Priceless.

The Cover:
Not sure about the pastel, but overall it's okay.

Rating:
[4/5]

Purchase Links:
Kobo | Amazon.ca | Amazon.com | Chapters-Indigo | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler

Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler
Release Date: June 24, 2014
Publisher: Spencer Hill
Pages: 328
Series: Daylight Falls #1
Review Source: Edelweiss

Synopsis: (from Goodreads)

High school senior Ally Duncan's best friend may be the Vanessa Park - star of TV's hottest new teen drama - but Ally's not interested in following in her BFF's Hollywood footsteps. In fact, the only thing Ally's ever really wanted is to go to Columbia and study abroad in Paris. But when her father's mounting medical bills threaten to stop her dream in its tracks, Ally nabs a position as Van's on-set assistant to get the cash she needs.

Spending the extra time with Van turns out to be fun, and getting to know her sexy co-star Liam is an added bonus. But when the actors' publicist arranges for Van and Liam to "date" for the tabloids just after he and Ally share their first kiss, Ally will have to decide exactly what role she's capable of playing in their world of make believe. If she can't play by Hollywood's rules, she may lose her best friend, her dream future, and her first shot at love.

My Thoughts:
This may date back to my early teen years of reading fanfic, but I am a sucker for stories involving famous people, especially when they mix famous and non-famous people. Based on this, Behind the Scenes already seems like the perfect book for me. Thankfully this book lives up to its awesome concept. Behind the Scenes is so cute, charming, and swoony. It features moments of angst and major feels of all kinds. It’s basically a perfect Young Adult/New Adult hybrid. You have the friends, family, romance, and drama that make up great contemporary YA title, with the independent characters and the "what's next?" feel of a great NA read.

Maybe it shows how much of a mess I am, but I could totally relate to our main character, Ally, even when (or especially when?) she was a jealous, insecure mess. I just felt her pain and empathized with her situation. I also really appreciated how all the characters were culpable in the book’s drama. Each of them said or did stupid things: it wasn't just one person. The situation presented is a very complicated one, not something that could be solved with one simple conversation (which is one of my biggest pet peeves in books).

Behind the Scenes has so many great aspects to it, but the romance part was definitely my favourite. I loved how Liam and Ally bonded as friends with things in common before they got together. They had the connection with their parents, along with other things. Both of the characters were well developed. Ally had a lot of different layers to her, and many things she was dealing with in the book, and Liam was this super hot, popular celebrity, but his personality was so much different than what you might expect. The two of them had major chemistry, and I loved all their scenes together.

I highly recommend Behind the Scenes to all fans of contemp YA, but especially to those who enjoyed Open Road Summer. The two are very different stories, but they make perfect readalikes, with a plotline in common (working alongside famous best friend, falling for a famous person in said friend's orbit). Overall, this was a fabulous book that I very much enjoyed.

The Cover:
Not my fave.

Rating:
[5/5]

Purchase Links:
Amazon.ca | Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository