Guardian Release Day Launch + SALE!

 

We are absolutely over the moon excited about the Release Day Launch for Courtney Cole’s GUARDIAN!!! GUARDIAN is a YA Paranormal Romance, and a book close to Courtney’s heart. Not only is this fabulous book back in a big way, it’s Courtney’s birthday! To celebrate all of the awesome she is making a few select titles only .99 TODAY ONLY! Grab them all and thank us later.

Barnes and Noble ** Amazon ** iBooks

GUARDIAN Synopsis:

Sometimes, things that go bump in the night are real. 

My name is Whitney Lane.  I’m sixteen years old and at first, I thought I was crazy.

I kept seeing shadows move along walls, and hearing whispers around corners, but whenever I looked, there was never anything there.

Until one day, there was.

Our world isn’t what we think.  There are things around us, good things, bad things, scary things.

Things that we tell ourselves aren’t real, but they are.

They’re very real, and they’re terrifying.

I’ve been swept up now, in a battle of good and evil, confused about love and what is supposed to be love, but isn’t.  I don’t know what to think anymore.  I can’t trust my emotions and I don’t know what is true.

There’s only one thing I know for sure.

Nothing is what it seems.

 

 

Excerpt:

Sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real. 

Happy birthday to me. 

I close my eyes and burrow into my pillow as I try to sleep, as I try to escape this life.

It’s a life I never thought I’d have, a life I most certainly don’t want.

I’m still feeling sorry for myself as the blackness of sleep finally overtakes me.

I don’t know what time it is when I shoot straight upward like a rocket.  Something had yanked me from the oblivion of sleep, something loud and shrill scraping my window.

My room is completely dark and I glanceat my clock in confusion.

3:00 a.m.

As my heart pounds hard against my ribcage, I quickly scan every corner of the room.

In the last few hours, dark shadows had migrated onto my pink walls, but they’re familiar, nothing out of the ordinary, although in the night, they seem twisted and scary.

I remain motionless as I allow the sleep-induced fog to clear from my brain.

As I sit, I feel common sense and logic slowly returning.

Of course nothing had touched my window because my bedroom is on the second floor. Nothing can reach it.  And there are no trees near enough to brush against it.  It was just a dream.

It was only a dream.

I chant it silently to myself like a mantra as I consciously slow my breathing down, hoping that my racing pulse will soon follow. It was only a dream.

But just as I’m calming down, I hear it again.

A high-pitched shrill shriek, reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard, scraping down my window. I gasp and pull my feet up to my chest, which is when I notice the temperature.

I notice because I can see my breath.

Timidly, I blow a puff out again, watching the way my breath turns white in the air.

Holy crap.  Oh my God. 

What the hell?

The sound stops and stillness surrounds me once again, the silence so loud that it echoes in my ear.

Nothing moves around me, the shadows are perfectly still as they twist across my wall.  They look like mangled fingers and arms and legs, but they don’t move.

My legs are weak and shaking, but I know I have to move.   I have to move off my bed because it feels like something is under it.  Something terrifying.

With a leap, I bound across the room, my feet hitting the floor several feet away from the edge of my bed.

The floor is ice cold, as though it had been covered in a blanket of snow.

I’m trembling as I race to the far wall and check the thermostat.  Because that’s the only explanation.  I must’ve bumped it earlier, I must’ve turned the AC way down.

But the luminous numbers stare at me in contradiction.

74 degrees.

It must be broken.  It has to be broken.

My breath is coming in pants now, terrified, anxious pants.

My fear isn’t logical.  I know there’s nothing here.  I’m the only one in this room.

Or am I?

The air seems to push at me from all around, something dark, something heavy, something real.  Something unseen.

My fingers shake, my legs tremble, and then all of a sudden, they can no longer support my weight.  I go down like a pile of bricks, collapsing onto the floor.  I lie still because I can’t move, because something seems to sit on my chest, holding me down.

The shadows start to move, to slither across the walls, to reach and pull and dance.

I struggle to focus, to see what it is.

But all I can see are the numbers on the thermostat suddenly moving, rapidly counting down from 74 to 20.

Twenty degrees?

The air is frigid as I suck it in, as I try to pull the ice crystals into my mouth so I can breathe.

All of a sudden, there’s a blackness in front of me.  It hovers over me, a shapeless mass, sucking in the cells of the air, the atoms and the molecules.  It’s darker than the blackness of my room, blacker than the blackest black.

Something is here.

With me. 

“Dad?” I whisper in a white puff.  Because what else could it be?

I reach out a finger to touch it, and then I can’t see anything else, because the darkness of it surrounds me, bleeding into everything else, even my vision.   The shriek is back, screaming into my ears, bleeding into my brain.

Then there’s nothing.

 To celebrate the release of GUARDIAN and Courtney’s birthday the following books are on sale for .99, today only!

GUARDIAN
Confessions of an Alli Cat
Dante’s Girl
Mia’s Heart
The Minaldi Legacy
Soul Kissed
Soul Bound

ABOUT COURTNEY COLE:

Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.

Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.

 

 

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My Copy of Wait for You is Here!! (& IT’S SIGNED!!)

GUYS. Guys. I have exciting news!!

You all know I’m totally obsessed with the book Wait for You I read in the summer. And I pre-ordered it. Apparently, all pre-ordered books got signed! (A few got a special signature from the author that got them some kind of prize, but I wasn’t one of them. I just had mine signed. BUT OMG! IT WAS SIGNED!)

Look at it! It’s beautiful!:

AHHH!!!! And it has a Be With Me book teaser inside!! I think I’ve died and gone to book heaven. Seriously.

Okay. I’m cool.

I’m calm.

……

NOPE! *does cartwheels*

The Boy Who Sneaks In My Bedroom Window Review

The Boy Who Sneaks In My Bedroom Window

Click the cover to see this book on goodreads!

Amber Walker and her older brother Jake have an abusive father. One night her brother’s best friend, Liam, sees her crying and climbs through her bedroom window to comfort her. That one action sparks a love/hate relationship that spans over the next eight years. Liam grows up to be a confident, flirty player who has never had a girlfriend before. Amber is still emotionally scarred from the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Together they make an unlikely pair, even though it’s clear that they’re meant to be.

I read this book about a month ago, and I’ve finally decided to write a review. The reason I had to leave this book for a little while was this: I just was not sure how to rate it, or what I thought.

Let’s be clear right off: I have decided that I love the book and that it is one of my favorites. But as far as the quality of the writing goes, I am not a fan. The writing was inconsistent both in plot and character, some situations are overly cheesy or cringe-worthy. Also, the author’s attempts at writing teenager-y behavior are a far cry from reality.

I felt like Liam had some type of multiple-personality disorder in the beginning, and I thought that Amber was overly quick to jump-start their relationship after making a big deal of her scarred past. I also feel like it took Amber an unrealistically long time to realize that Liam’s been in love with her his whole life. As well, some of their teasing and flirting just made me roll my eyes.

Now, if you can ignore those aspects of the book, here is what you’re in for:

1) The sweetest romance you’ve ever laid eyes on.

2) The sweetest, most romantic boyfriend to ever live.

3) Lots of teenage tomfoolery.

4) Drama, jealous girlfriends, awesome skating dates.

I’m in love with Liam. It’s like Kristy Moseley took a magical wand and molded the perfect boyfriend. He was hot, sweet, thoughtful, perfect…

I’m sorry. My mind just went into a haze. I should focus.

What made me love him most is that he didn’t run away from much of anything. Tough relationship? Worth it. Tough crowd? Deal with it. Tough circumstances? They’ll end. Although he has a past of being a bad-boy player, along with Amber’s brother, that part of him completely straightens up once he gets the girl. He was protective of her and just knew what she needed when even she didn’t. After always being there for her, it’s like he knew her inside out and outside in, and loved every aspect of her – even her broken parts. *Cue swoon here* It is impossible not to fall in love with Liam. If you have even an ounce of a romantic-girl-waiting-for-her-knight inside you, past or present, you’ll fall deep and never be able to come back up. He’s the guy that’ll stamp on a spider with a serious face and hold you in his arms until you’re sure the thing is dead. He’s the guy that can’t sleep without the love of his life wrapped tightly in his arms. He’s the guy that makes you breakfast before you even wake up, and then pretends to eat it just to annoy the heck out of you. He’s the guy who’d climb up through your window every night for eight years to make your bad dreams go away, holding you and whispering you’re beautiful, even when you look like that thing from the blue lagoon.

And then there’s Amber. Her, I can’t say I hated or loved. There’s a reason for that. If you think Liam’s got some kind of two-way personality, wait till you get a load of her. At least Liam was only acting like he had an alter-ego. At first she’s just some scarred, broken, abused girl with bad dreams. Sweet and sad. Then she grows up and she’s never had a boyfriend and she’s uncomfortable with the aspect of it. Again, sweet and sad. She realizes she’s in love with Liam and all of a sudden she’s some kind of sex vixen out to get her prey. Not so sweet or sad… a little… scarring, maybe? Yeah. I mean… how realistic is it that she’s making a big deal out of being uncomfortable with relationships, but at the same time she’s practically raping Liam in the cafeteria?

Besides that, and a few other small things, it could be perfect.

This is the type of romance you read when you want something perfect that fits into the box all nice and neat, with moments that you expect to happen and situations that work out too conveniently. It’s a light summer read for those who just want to sprawl on the beach and make their brain turn off into a fog of happy, toe-curling, heart-beats-fast romance.  I’d say that if the author ever considered rewriting the book, and if she worked on some of these things I mentioned above, it could be great. Not just good, like it is now.

Because it has potential, it deserves 3.5 stars. It’s not for everyone. It’s for the people who have a little patience and are able to look past all the bad and realize that there is also a lot of good. If you’re up for it, go ahead and read it. I ended up loving it despite all it’s imperfections. And even though I’m aware that some people would disagree with this review, I think the book is worth it’s chance.