Xpresso Book Tours is hosting a review tour this week for LORE: TALES OF MYTH AND LEGEND RETOLD. If you haven’t heard about this fantastic YA/NA anthology of myth retellings, check out this awesome tour. Be sure to click the link every day this week to see who’s reviewing LORE and what their impressions are.
THERE’S A GIVEAWAY TOO!!!!!! (You could win 1 of 2 B&N gift cards and swag from some of the authors.) 😉
I’d also like to give a huge THANKS to all the folks who took the time to read and review LORE. *hugs*
My novella, SUNSET MOON is about a snarky delinquent, Eloise, and how she gets reacquainted with her Native American roots.
Description: Eloise doesn’t believe in Native American magic–until the dreamcatcher spiders spin her down an unknown path.
Here’s an excerpt:
Eloise doesn’t bother sneaking in. Her mom’s probably passed out from drinking anyway.
She pads to her room, flicks on the light, drags the duffle from her bed and lets it slam to the floor. The next nine months of her life are in there, reduced to a few bits of clothing. She kicks off her shoes and wanders to her desk, gaze locked on the photo of Micah and her. Her vision blurs with fresh tears. This was their last night together, and he’s being such an ass. He should be thanking her for what she is doing. So should Jimmy.
She picks up the frame and removes the picture, then carries it to the bathroom. The sour odor of beer clings to her like a heavy reminder of her fight with Micah. She tucks the photo into the wooden mirror frame on the medicine cabinet and turns on the tub faucet.
While the tub fills, she peels off her damp shirt and throws it in the hamper. She tugs off her jeans, then her underwear. Naked, she shivers, though the house is warm, stuffy even, from the mid-summer night’s air.
Her tremors aren’t from being cold. They are from a vacuous emptiness that hollows out her insides, turns her heart to ice, and chips away at her soul with each ragged breath.
She grips the sink with both hands and steadies herself. The gush of water echoes in her ears, sloshes in her skull, and drowns her mind. Her head pounds from the surge of blood coursing through her brain with the rapid beating of her heart. The row of bulbs blazing above the medicine cabinet stabs her in the eyes, coring out her orbits.
It’s too much. She needs something to take the edge off.
Now.
Here’s a couple reviews of SUNSET MOON:
“Sunset Moon:Â This was my favorite in the bunch. I really liked Eloise – and, of course, her sarcasm – and I was glad her character grew in the end and she strayed from such a destructive path.” ~Goodreads reviewer
“Sunset Moon by Laura Diamond is based off a Blackfeet Indian myth. I really wanted this story to be longer. Eloise, the main character, is a totally stupid twit who is putting up this fake attitude of indifference. She’s in an abusive relationship, just like her mother was years ago. Her mother is a drunk and doesn’t mother Eloise at all. Micah is a useless piece of trash as is Jimmy and here is Eloise taking the fall for two losers. She gets the choice: jail or group home. Her lawyer chose group home for her and she’s shipped off to Montana to her uncle’s house. There she recognizes little symbols from her grandmother who always tried to give her a piece of Blackfeet history/mythology with every present, every lesson. As Eloise begins her group home work of sitting with an elderly patient, she learns that her weird dream with the spiders cocooning her is actually a legend, a living legend. Again, this is one story I would LOVE to read more of and see the story fleshed out in more detail with what happens with Eloise, her mother, her loser of a boyfriend, etc. Sure, I disliked Eloise, but that intensity of dislike shows how well written she is!” ~Barnes and Noble review
Author Laura Diamond--Lucid Dreamer 