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Thoughtful Thursday- Midway to New Year’s Resolution Check In 2017

Midway to New Year's Resolution Check In

Hello Lovelies, 
Anyone else out there still working on their new year’s resolutions? I haven’t reported since the first week of the new year! 

I have been really great about working on mine, but not always so great about tracking/ reporting.  As a matter of fact, it’s been so bad that I realized that I never even told you all my goals for the blog! Woops. The only thing I mentioned was my reading goal of at least 50 books for the year. That one’s not going as well as I’d like. I’m only up to 7 so far… Here are the other goals I listed and forgot to tell you about, and how they’re going. 

​​

1. Read every day

This one has been going pretty well. I may have skipped a few weeks around launches, but other than that, I have been pretty good about it. I have it set up for at least 1 chapter at bedtime. However, given how far behind I am with my reading goals, I am upping my reading frequency. I am now reading at least 3 chapters a day, reading during breakfast and lunch, and at bedtime. Hopefully this will help me get caught up on my reading goals. 

2. Increase blog community

I started the newsletter middle of the year last year, but didn’t really know how to increase our community. That was a big goal this year. It’s going pretty well. The newsletter membership has almost quadrupled this year (From about 280 to 896) and engagement has increased as well. (currently at a 26.9% open rate, and a 4.3% CTR) I’ve seen the number of visitors on the web analytics increase as well. Last year, the average view per post was in the teens, now we are in a happy several hundred! I would like to see that keep growing. Do you know anyone who you think would love our group? Invite them to join us! That would be great!

3. Figure out how to monetize the blog

For the first five years on the blog, I monetized by using Amazon associates on the book links. Unfortunately, in five years I have not made enough money in click through purchases to pay for a cup of coffee each month (let alone buy more books)! Sure, I’m not sharing all the bookish goodness with the goal of getting rich, but this blog takes up the equivalent of a part-time job. I need to do what I can to pay for more books! I am sure most of you have seen that I’ve added a Tip Jar to the blog, allowing people to leave a tip when they are grateful for the content I provide. This tip can be as much or as little as they like and can be a one-time payment or done monthly. I’ve also begun a Patreon account for monthly subscribers and combining all the bookish content I create from Instagram posts to booktubing, and posts from the blog and guest posts I do on other blogs. I’ve created several different levels for the convenience of my fans. Anything from $1 a month to $15 a month, based on your budget. The part I am most excited about with the Patreon account is that it will allow me to share the bookish wealth, by providing books to my patrons. Once I hit 100 members, I will do monthly e-book giveaways, at 500 patrons I will add paperbacks to the e-book giveaways, and when I get to 1,000 I will start doing monthly bookcrates! I will also keep doing the Amazon Associates, and have been adding ads to my booktubing account as well. These have all been set up in the last couple of months, and hopefully it will take off soon.

4. Add more books to my TBR

This has really blown up. I started the year with 50 books on my TBR.  Now I have 186 on Goodreads, and more than twice that many on my Amazon wish list. (That’s the best place to make sure that they end up purchased for me for holiday gifts.) I look forward to this list continuing to grow!! 
So there’s my check-in for my New Year’s Resolutions for An Angell’s Life. How are your resolutions going? Can I help? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, 

Keep Reading!

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Book Review- Riders by Veronica Rossi

Book Review Riders by Veronica Rossi

Genre:

Urban Fantasy

Synopsis: 

A new fantasy adventure from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Veronica Rossi. For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does. Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can’t remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse. Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemen–Conquest, Famine, and Death–are brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence. They fail. Now–bound, bloodied, and drugged–Gideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he’s fallen for–not to mention all of humankind–he needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger. But will anyone believe him?

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Heidi Angell Books (@heidiangellbooks)

My Take:

My oldest absolutely loves this book and has been pestering me since January to read it. I wanted to love it too. It’s a really cool concept! But I didn’t LOVE it. And it wasn’t until almost 2/3 of the way through that I really caught my stride and started to enjoy it. Why? Well, part of the struggle was the choice of storytelling format. The story starts in the present during a “debriefing” of sorts. Gideon pretty much tells most of the story. Not only was it a bit confusing because he kept thinking about characters we haven’t met in his story yet, but it was very scattered with a lot of “But I’ll tell you more about that later.” type scenes. 
One of the other things that drove me nuts was that Gideon constantly ended sentences with blah, blah, blah, so. The author was consistent in the format, only using it with Gideon, which I appreciated because it indicated that it was an idiosyncrasy of his, not that the author didn’t know better. Still, it was incredibly grating on my nerves, particularly because of the frequency. I kind of hated Gideon just because of this. Well, not just because of this, but A LOT because of this. Why else didn’t I like him? Well, the insta-love/bickering/ flippity-floppity relationship he and Daryn have going on was really frustrating. 18 year old me would have given Gideon the boot for being so dang annoying. Seriously, I don’t know how Daryn puts up with him. 

What did I like? I liked the concept (as I said.) I absolutely love Bas. He reminds me a lot of many of my guy friends from that time in my life. Much more chill and less obnoxious. I would’ve liked to see more of Marcus, he felt so one-dimensional and insignificant, which Death should never be. Jode also kind of got the shaft, as far as scene time. Which is a shame, because he was my son’s favorite.  The “international incident” seemed kind of lame and anticlimactic, and the twist didn’t surprise me at all, which was a bit disappointing.


Would I read this again? Nah. Would I read the next book? Only if it’s told from one of the other characters’ perspectives. Then it might be worth reading. Shhh, don’t tell my son I said this! Would you like to learn more? Check it out on Amazon

 

Have you read Riders? Share your thoughts in the comments!


Until next time, 

Keep Reading! 

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Character Spotlight of Tara From Dying Thoughts

Character Spotlight of Tara From Dying Thoughts

Hello Lovelies,
Let’s welcome Joey Paul back to the blog!  In case you missed it, I did a Meet the Author with Joey recently.  Today she is doing an interview with her main character, Tara, from Dying thoughts. Without further ado, I turn the time over to Joey! 


So I thought I’d bring along my longest-standing character with me today. Tara Leverton is the protagonist from the Dying Thoughts series, and with her fifth book due out May 15th, it seemed like the perfect time to interview her. If I can get her to forgive me for writing about her life story that is.

*Tara glares as she sits*

So, Tara, tell us a little about yourself?
Well, like you said, I’m Tara, I’m sixteen and just about to sit my GCSEs, which y’know, I *should* be revising right now! There’s really not much to say about myself except for that little matter of my gift.

And what gift is that?
*deep sigh* I touch something that belonged to a dead person and I end up getting a vision of their last moments on earth. It’s kinda silly really when you think about it. I got it when my mum was killed. It turns out that it’s been in our family for generations. Mum’s gift activated when her nan died and then when Mum died, I got it too. Of course half the time I have no idea what it means or what I’m doing with it because Dad doesn’t know much and Mum, who would know, is well, dead.

​​I’m sorry for your loss. Didn’t I hear you work for the police?*glare* You know I do! I work with Mike…sorry DI Clifford. He knew my mother and she worked with him too, but when Kaolin almost got killed, he saw that I had the same gift and so he said I could help consult. I mean, we don’t advertise what I do, nor do we really discuss it. It feels like a lot of the reasons are bad ones and after what happened…*looks down at her feet* We just don’t advertise it.

Can you tell us a little about Kaolin? Sure! She’s my best friend. I guess you’ll figure it out eventually, but my dad was, kinda still is, famous. I had a lot of friends before Mum was killed, but after that, they stopped talking to me because Dad was out of the limelight. Mum died because of Dad’s stalker, and so he focused solely on raising me. It seems it wasn’t all that cool to be friends with someone whose Dad wasn’t rubbing elbows with celebs anymore. Anyway, I was pretty happy with that, but then I met Kaolin and we kinda clicked. Now it’s just me and her. There was another friend but…she died before we could really get to know each other that well. Kaolin knows about my gift, she knows about the work I do with Mike. So it’s easier to talk to her because I don’t have to hide stuff. It’s always good to have good friends. So, can you tell us a little about what happened? You mean in the book? I’m not sure I’m really wanting to talk about it yet. It’s still a little raw for me. 

That’s fine. What are your plans once school finishes? I didn’t actually have any, to be honest, not until a few weeks ago. I was gonna get out of school and then do nothing for two years while I waited to join the police force. Except, well Mike and I talked and it made sense to go to college and get some A-levels so I’m gonna do that now. I’m doing History, Sociology, and Law. I figure life’ll be different at college. No Jody, or if she’s there then I don’t have to actually see her all the time. And it made Dad happy. He’s more concerned with my education than what I want. Though right now he won’t say anything because of…the stuff that happened. Right now he’s more concerned that I’m broken.

How do you feel about what happened? I dunno. *shrug*. I guess I feel kinda numb about it all. I feel stupid for not realising sooner and I feel sore. Not just where I got hurt but inside. After what happened it made me realise that I can’t tell anyone about my gift. I can’t even let them have the tiniest inkling. I guess that will change at some point, maybe it won’t. I don’t think I’m broken though, I think I’m just…numb. Dad keeps saying that there’s no shame in therapy and he’s right, but I can’t tell them about my gift and that’s kinda a huge chunk of the story. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I have revision to do. *Tara stands up and leaves*So there you have it! A kinda interview with Tara Leverton.

If you wanna know what happened, you can check out the fifth book in the series Dying Thoughts – Fifth Secret

 

Until next time, 

Keep Reading!

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Meet the Author with Jack Massa

Meet the Author Jack Massa

Hello Lovelies, 
 Today we are meeting the entertaining author, Jack Massa, who grew up in New Jersey and attended college in Florida and Massachusetts, earning an MFA in creative writing. His thesis was a science fantasy novel, Mooncrow, which was published by Berkley Books in 1979.J ack spent the next 30 years in Atlanta, Georgia, learning and practicing the magical skills of the digital age. Bits of his fiction and poetry also surfaced from time to time. His science fiction story, “PrayerWare,” was published in the first Bantam Books Full Spectrum Anthology in 1988, and was later selected for a British Best-of-the-Year collection. In 2013, Jack returned to Florida, where he lives with his magical wife, wonderful son, and a pet orange tree named Grover. He continues to practice technical prestidigitation while also focusing on writing stories.

Let’s get to it! Welcome, Jack, what is the current book you are promoting?

Ghosts of Bliss Bayou. It is a YA paranormal mystery set mostly in rural Florida. I’ve written fantasy and science fiction for a long time, but this is my first YA story, and one I am really proud of.

That’s awesome! What inspired this book?

Lots. I’m interested in all sorts of things, and for me bits and pieces from all over the place gradually accumulate into a story.I had an idea for an urban fantasy series featuring a psychic detective. Then I thought that making the protagonist a teenage girl would be interesting—and maybe marketable. And giving her a partner who was real pragmatic and had connections to the police would make it more plausible. Then I read about hallucinations and adolescent psychology, and shamanism in primitive cultures, and magical societies in Victorian England.But the story really came together when my wife and I visited a little town in central Florida called Micanopy, which was built in the 1800s. And I thought, “Yeah, this is where my story happens.” And the next day, we took a glass-bottom boat ride at Silver Springs State Park (which is incredibly beautiful) and I thought,  “Right! The town is built near a natural springs.”So, inspiration comes from everywhere!

I completely relate. I didn’t realize how similar our concepts started out (Clear Angel Chronicles is about a psychic who partners with a detective to solve crimes) but the end product is very different, for sure! What is your next project?

I’m working on a fantasy adventure series set in a world called Glimnodd. Glimnodd is full of magic—witches and sorcerers; sentient creatures evolved from plants, fish, and birds; and magic winds that change the seas to ice and back to water. I like to say, the high concept is “Chinese Taoist Magic meets The Wizard of Oz—with ice pirates.”The first book is called Cloak of the Two Winds. Currently, I’m working on the sequel, A Mirror Against All Mishap. It will be out later this year *fingers crossed*.

That sounds like such an awesome concept! Cannot wait to read that series! How do you write your books?

That’s a great question. Many writers say they are pantsers, which I think means they just sit down and write the story “by the seat of their pants,” without planning or outlining. I am the opposite—I have to plan ahead, in a lot of detail, to know where I’m going.But I also learned early on that if you plot and plan too much, you end up with a story that feels wooden, the characters don’t seem alive. So I like to plot my way into scenes and then let the characters take over—put them into tough situations and then sit back and see how they react. That seems to work best for me.

I like that philosophy. I always have a plan for a beginning middle and end, then let my characters grow and develop to shape the story accordingly. Gives us the best of both worlds, right? What is one great lesson you have learned as a writer?

I’ll give you two:1) Writing is a skill, like playing tennis. You can learn to understand the game by watching (that is, reading) people who are really good. But you will only learn to do it yourself by practice. Lots and lots of practice.2) If you write any kind of genre fiction, plot and suspense are important. If you write fantasy or science fiction, then setting or “world building” are very important. But I think all of these are less important than characters. Fiction is about people. If readers love your characters, they will follow you anywhere.

 

Great lessons! We don’t fall in love with stories, we fall in love with characters, for sure! Thanks so much for joining us today, Jack, it was a pleasure! Are you as excited about Jack’s stories as I am? learn more on his website triskelionbooksConnect with Jack.

Did you find Jack as fun and entertaining as I did? Follow him on Facebook and Twitter @JackMassa2 for more fun!

Until next time, 

Keep Reading! 

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Sample of Dulled Mind by Jared J. Fleming

Sample of Dulled Mind by Jared J. Fleming

Hello Lovelies, 
I have an exciting new sample story to share with you. Not one of mine, but a sample of fellow author Jared J. Fleming. He is a somewhat new writer, having been posting and published as an author for only a few months now. What he lacks in experience, he makes up for in enthusiasm and passion. He’s 17 years old, and lives in Canada, writing mainly science fiction and fantasy stories.
He was kind enough to share the first chapter of his new story Dulled Minds with us. I LOVED it. 


DULLED MIND – CHAPTER 1 

“Welcome to the greatest hive of scum and villainy in this entire damned sector,” Bulat chuckled as he landed the cruiser in the spaceport of the most aptly named Avarice Quartus. “Now, let’s get fucked up, shall we?”​​

Naomi leapt off the ship, going through the bubble of contained air after their ship had been maglocked to the port. They landed on the surface of the spaceport, and walked inside. The artificial gravity kicked in, and Naomi’s feet planted firmly on the ground. She brushed the clinging static of the containment field off her black shirt and waited for Kate to get off the ship.

Kate’s long hair stood up in messy strands from the static electricity, levitating in the air. When she straightened her hair and let it hang down again, Naomi decided to have a little fun. Kate’s hair floated back up, suspended high in the air like some sort of creature that had taken up residence on her head. Kate flattened it down again, shrugging it off as just some electricity that hadn’t quite gone away.

Naomi made it rise up again. Kate caught on, glaring at Naomi, who responded with a smug smile. The hair came to life under her influence, moving and twisting around to form a false mustache around Kate’s mouth.

“Hey, stop!” Kate pushed the hair away, trying and failing to hide an amused smirk. “That tickled.” 

Naomi blew a kiss over in her direction.

“Love you, babe,” she said. Kate linked arms with her, and they waited for the captain to get off the ship. It always took him somewhat longer, given that he had to check every one of the countless systems that kept him alive. Make sure the musculature was charged and nothing was frayed, check that his internal organs were still all where they needed to be and none of the adapters had gotten loose. Plus, he may have decided to change out his liver, save the real one from himself. They were in port after all, and that meant that any sapient being on that vessel would probably do everything that a doctor would have a conniption over.

The spaceport was full of cheap bars and brothels, the kinds you went to if you wanted to play Rashun Roulette with STDs. Of course, these were the among the most successful, given that it was rare to see anyone there who wasn’t, for lack of a better term, occupied. Bright neon signs glared over, with every one of the major languages of the Galaxy spelling out the name of the establishments. One that caught Naomi’s eye, if only for the bizarre name, was called Hecatoncheires. Naomi tapped her auglenses to make sure that they were working properly. They were. Every language translated into the exact same word.

Naomi made a mental note to figure out what the hell it meant, but she passed by the place without even considering going in. She had been to a lot of different, seedy places before, but the ones here were enough to make her skin crawl. It wasn’t just that they were dirty, or that unsavoury things happened in them. Those, she could handle. Those, she had partaken in. It couldn’t be fully described. If asked, she would chalk it up to a sort of preternatural sense of dread, a natural side-effect of being a psion.

The space elevators were always something impressive. Massive spires, nearly a kilometer around and many, many kilometers high, extending all the way up to the spaceport. Dozens of floors that all had massive structures attached to them, from the thermoelectric generators that hung in in low orbit to the city-sized aerodocks to the arms companies who advertised their zero-g-manufactured firearms as if every other company hadn’t already taken full advantage of the benefits of space when it came to making products.

The captain plodded on behind them, the whirr of mechanical parts a familiar, if not slightly disconcerting, sound. Naomi could never place it, but even after 15 years of service, she still felt a little…unnerved by him. Maybe it was because when she joined his crew, he was still relatively human. Now, she couldn’t think of a single part of him that hadn’t been touched by machines, either completely and totally replaced, or heavily modified. He was a good man, of course, and had given a brand new life to Naomi, but that feeling still persisted. She had never told him, and suspected she never would.

“Alrigh’,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’s gotta go an’ get our stocks refilled. Damn near outta gauss shells and Silakor’s been complainin’ that ‘is nutrient bath’s feelin’ a lil’ thin. Think he’d like me to get a new sensory chip fer ‘is automaton too?”

Naomi shrugged. “It’s your money. You’ve transferred our cuts to our accounts, right?”

The captain snorted. “‘Course I have! You think I’d cheat ya or somethin’?”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “Of course not, captain, I was just asking.”

The captain shooed them away. “Go on, we didn’t stop a’ port fer ya to jus’ stand around.”

Naomi shook her head, and walked to the elevator. She let Kate pick where to go first, and the two of them descended down. They stopped somewhere about four miles above the surface, where the buzz of generators was present, but faint, and where the arms manufacturers had decided to peddle their wares.

The signs here were more muted than above. Of course, that was hardly saying much. More muted, in these circumstances, meant that the lights didn’t flicker between colours project holograms, but instead they were high contrast, white and black, blue and yellow, red and green, all reflective to the point of being glossy. TDM Arms, Personal Defense Limited, Ebonspring, every single corporation who decided to sell a weapon could be found here. A few smaller booths, local gunsmiths, existed here and there, in stalls. Naomi didn’t have any interest in the local goods. Half the time they were scams, and the other half of the time they were some poor sod’s attempt at reinventing the wheel.

Naomi nudged Kate. “Hey, so…do you need to get more stingers?” Kate shrugged.

“Uh…I used…three mags in the mission to Tel-kalar, uh…two during that suppression we were a part of…and another four…yeah, I need to get a lot more. Ol’ girl’s nearly empty. Ebonspring normally carries that kinda stuff, right?”

Naomi nodded. “Yeah, Ebonspring has a lotta stuff.”

Ebonspring’s store itself was massive, at least a few acres. Robots, luckily not sentient ones, and customers interacted, exchanging weaponry ranging from the smallest palm pistol to artillery pieces you could mount on your arm. Kate went off to the back, where the larger stuff was. They even had a full gauss weapon on display, nearly fifteen meters long, shells proudly displayed alongside it. Each one was taller than Naomi.

Something, or rather, someone, picked up on her radar. An extrasensory thing that felt most akin to knowing someone is behind you, eyes fixed on your back. It got stronger as Naomi got closer, until she found some Teluric talking to a robot. A psion, she could tell. He was talking to the robot, trying to convince it to give him a lower price. The stream of consciousness, the manipulation of reality, it was more obvious than a shotgun going off beside one’s ear. Naomi just tapped him on shoulder, or rather what was most akin to a shoulder for a Teluric.

He turned around, beady eyes (all eight of them) staring up at Naomi intensely. The recognition between two psions was almost never verbal, but they both knew. A three fingered hand rubbed the thick, wrinkled jowl, carefully considering their words.

“You do know we can’t influence machines, right?” Naomi asked.

The Teluric closed four of its eyes, in what Naomi assumed to be an attempt at squinting.

“Is that so…?”

“Yes.” Naomi was blunt. “And don’t you go trying it on organics, either. That kind of shit’ll get you hung upside-down and used as target practice. Trust me, it happens.”

The Teluric shifted uncomfortably, and finally relented, skulking away as best it could. He didn’t do a very good job, after all, it’s rather hard to sneak away when your method of locomotion is scrunching up like an inchworm.

A few minutes later, as she was examining the bolt of a reproduction of some extremely old gun, made all the way back on Terra in the 20th century, she heard people coming down the aisle, stomping. They were either very large, or wearing something very heavy. Naomi turned around.

They were both. Various species, wearing heavy dragonscale armor. Overlapping plates of metal concealed their bodies. Their faces were obscured by darkened visors, and each of them held in their hands a weapon. The Teluric was behind them, trying to conceal themselves behind a rack of shotguns.

“You have been accused of breaking the Psion Code that exists on this world. You are charged with manipulation of others through psionic powers, illegal abuse of psionic powers for personal gain. Come with us.” Their tone made it absolutely clear that it was not a request. One of them tapped at the teeth on their Mutilators’ chain, as if taunting Naomi with her fate if she went.

 Naomi, instead, decided to run.

Are you loving what Jared’s laying down? Check out more on his Reddit Thread.


Until next time, 
Keep Reading!

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Book Review- Gloria and the Unicorn by Wanda Luthman

Book Review- Gloria and the Unicorn by Wanda Luthman

Genre:

Midgrade


Synopsis: 

Gloria and the Unicorn is a story that will delight you as well as pull on your heart strings as Gloria struggles with her facial disfigurement and wanting to fit in. Gloria’s mother died at birth and her father gave her to Miss Libby, the owner of a children’s home. Miss Libby loves the little girl and feels protective of her. But, it’s not until Sir Louie, the unicorn, shows up that Gloria starts to believe in herself. She has a conflict at school and never wants to go back and then she finds herself in an even worse situation; she encounters the evil Wizards of Malcadore who want to kill her. She must decide if she will face her fear of certain death to save her friend, Sir Louie, or lose him forever. Come along on Gloria’s marvelous journey with Sir Louie.


Heidi’s Hot Take: 

Some of my favorite books when I was little were The littlest Unicorn, The Last Unicorn, and The Unicorn and the Dragon, so when I was offered an advanced reader copy of Gloria and the Unicorn, it harkened back to my youth and I just couldn’t say no! This is a really cute early mid-grade story dealing with empathy, self-esteem, love, and fear. I loved it! Although it is geared more towards early readers (I would say 1st-3rd grade) my 13-year-old saw me reading it, and asked if he could read it too. (What can I say, he’s a brony! If it has a horse or unicorn, he’s bound to read it! What can I say, he comes by it honestly. Love that kiddo and his kind heart!) 
I particularly love Sir Louie’s innocence, striving to help Gloria, despite never having done anything like this before, and not really understanding sadness (because unicorns can’t feel sadness. They are all about happiness, love, and joy.) The author does a wonderful job of dealing with some pretty heavy topics (deformity, death, loss of a parent) without being too heavy-handed with the topics. I definitely recommend this a great reading to teach empathy and acceptance, as well as the power of love over fear. 
Gloria and the Unicorn is available for pre-order on Amazon, and releases May 13th
Until next time, 
Keep Reading!

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Meet the Authorwith S.W. Frontz

Author Interview S.W. Frontz

Hello Lovelies,

We have a treat, getting to meet S.W. Frontz today. She is the author of the Land’s End Series. When the Morning Comes and Don’t Look Back are books one and two in the series. Book three, Closer Than Yesterday, was published in paperback April 17, 2017 and is available for pre-order now.
Frontz has been trying to write a book since the age of twelve in 1974 when she received a manual typewriter for Christmas. Not too long ago she found that first attempt in a box in her attic and discovered that even then she wanted to write about cops and bad guys.

She loves the beach, in particular the one in Virginia Beach called Sandbridge. Sandbridge, Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, False Cape State Park in Virginia and Corolla, Knotts Island, and Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge, NC, are the basis for her fictional island of Land’s End. She has combined her fondness of this area with her love of all things involving crime-solving,  and suspense. Let’s all welcome S.W. Frontz to An Angell’s Life of Bookish Goodness! 


S.W. So glad to have you. Tell us a little bit about your books.​​ My books have a little bit of romance, mystery and crime plots that are intertwined with  personal issues that the main characters have to deal with as well. I like to make the reader think and keep’em guessing.  I like to throw some violence into the mix, but I’m not big on describing graphic sex scenes.  I prefer innuendo.


I do so enjoy mystery and crime with a dash of romance! Where do you come up with your titles?

I pick my titles from quotes that mean something to me.


Nice! And if your books were made into a movie, who would you cast? 

Since I am writing a series if a movie was made these are my choices for my characters: From When the Morning Comes:  Andy Patrick-Sam Elliott and his wife, Samantha would be Molly Hagen. Don’t Look Back-Blake Trent -Tom Selleck and girlfriend, Kellyn Grindstaff played by Kelly Giddish. Closer Than Yesterday-Grae Ramsey (Clint Eastwood when he was in his fifties) and girlfriend Sarah Cooper -Laura LinneyRecurring characters-George of George’s Diner-Donald Sutherland, Dalton Grindstaff-Jason BegheJody, Samantha and Sarah’s grandmother-Maureen O’Hara if she was still alive Jayme Ruiz-Danny PinoDelaney Patrick Richards Samantha’s daughter-Angie HarmonCort Richards- Blake’s FBI partner and Delaney’s ex-husband-Jon TenneyAvery Richards- Samantha and Andy’s grandson- a young Enrique Iglesias


Sam Elliott! *Swoons* That is a pretty amazing cast! I love that you don’t get restricted by “here and now” with your casting. I do the exact same thing! What book are you currently promoting?

I’m currently promoting Closer Than Yesterday-just released in paperback April 21, 2017 and accepting pre-orders for kindle until May 16. Interested readers can grab that here


And what are you working on next? 

Next project is tentatively titled, “Waves of Change”


If you could meet any famous person in history, who would you pick? 

I think I would like to meet Mark Twain and Margaret Mitchell.


Wow, two awesome, yet very different people. Love it! Thanks for joining us. It was a lot of fun!


Want to learn more about S.W. and her books?  Follow her on Facebook. Want to get updates on her books? Follow her on Amazon


Until next time, 


Keep Reading!