Blog Tour & Giveaway: The Real Thing by Cassie Mae



Welcome to the official blog tour for THE REAL THING by Cassie Mae


THE REAL THING Written by Cassie Mae
Published by Flirt
August 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-553-39253-1

In this electrifying novel from Cassie Mae, two close friends surprise themselves by shifting from platonic love to sexual attraction.

Eric Matua has one friend—his best friend and childhood sweetheart, who needs a place to stay for the summer. Mia Johnson has thousands of friends—who live in her computer. Along with her email chats and Facebook notifications, Mia also devours romance novels, spending countless hours with fictional characters, dreaming of her own Romeo to sweep her off her feet. When she starts receiving supersweet messages from a stranger who thinks she’s someone else, Mia begins to believe that real love is possible outside her virtual world.

When the two friends become roommates, Mia finds herself falling harder than she ever thought she could. But Eric keeps his desires locked away, unsure of himself and his ability to give his best friend what she deserves in a boyfriend. As her advances are continually spurned, Mia splits her time between Eric and her computer. But she soon realizes she’s about to lose the only real thing she’s ever had. 


Get your copy of THE REAL THING


SNEAK PEEK
THE REAL THING EXCERPT 
(from Chapter Two)

It’s been three hours since I’ve turned our sauna into an icebox. I keep waiting for Em to crawl out of her room to congratulate me on my newly formed handyman skills, or follow through on that threat she made, but it’s been pretty quiet. She closed the door and I don’t know if she’s taking a nap or what, but that little ego boost she gave me earlier has sort of faded into oblivion. Maybe she wasn’t as thrilled to spend time with me as I was with her. Or maybe she thinks I’m boring. Maybe it’s still weird, and we’re adjusting to seeing each other after so long.
     Or maybe I’m just being a damn pussy.
     I hoist myself off the couch, tossing the remote behind me. The sweat from earlier left my clothes damp, and now that it’s about twenty degrees cooler, it causes a chill to run up my spine. I check over my shoulder before lifting my arm up to sniff my pit. Shit, no wonder . . . she could probably smell my hard work the second I came back inside.
     Grabbing the bottom of my cold, sweat-riddled shirt, I pull it off on my way to the bathroom. Hopefully she’ll hear the shower and know I’m doing something about the stink, and that it’ll be safe to venture out as soon as I get my sweaty ass washed.
     Her door opens with a bang, and I bolt into the bathroom so she doesn’t see me. I know it’s stupid, but give me ten pounds more muscle and twenty pounds less fat, and maybe I’ll be okay with her catching me without a shirt on.
     “Hey Eric!” she calls from her room.
     “Uh, yeah?”
     “Could you come here for a second?”
     My hands fumble over my counter for cologne, deodorant . . . something, just let me find something. “Give me a minute . . .” I dive for the counter under the sink and praise the heavens when I spot the air freshener. I know I told her I’d be living like I normally do, but as I spray the air freshener out in front of me and walk through it, then do it three more times, I’m pretty sure I lied. After a few sprays on my shirt, I tug it back on, rolling it down my torso.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassie Mae is a full-time writer and mother from Utah. She loves being glued to the computer, thinking up new stories, and writing the day away while the kids run wild at her feet. When she finished her first novel, she started a blog that now gets more than five thousand hits a month. Her group blog is also dedicated to reaching out to aspiring authors by providing critiques and other marketing tools to help them succeed in the industry. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with the youth in her community as a volleyball and basketball coach, or searching the house desperately for chocolate.

Connect with Cassie
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  | Pinterest 

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Review: One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington

Title: One Past Midnight
Author: 
Publication:  July 22, 2014 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Reviewed by: Isalys
Rating:  5 Stars
Reason for Reviewing:  ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.
Above all else, though I try not to think about it, I know which life I prefer. And every night when I Cinderella myself from one life to the next a very small, but definite, piece of me dies. The hardest part is that nothing about my situation has ever changed. There is no loophole.

Until now, that is...


For as long as she can remember, Sabine has lived two lives. Every 24 hours she Shifts to her ′other′ life - a life where she is exactly the same, but absolutely everything else is different: different family, different friends, different social expectations. In one life she has a sister, in the other she does not. In one life she′s a straight-A student with the perfect boyfriend, in the other she′s considered a reckless delinquent. Nothing about her situation has ever changed, until the day when she discovers a glitch: the arm she breaks in one life is perfectly fine in the other.

With this new knowledge, Sabine begins a series of increasingly risky experiments which bring her dangerously close to the life she′s always wanted... But just what - and who - is she really risking?

Sabine is unlike anyone she's ever known.  Every night, at precisely midnight, she is transported to a parallel world where she lives an entirely different life for 24 hours.  Her name and physical appearance remain the same, but she has different families, different friends, different lifestyles. In her Roxbury life, she's a bit of a punk/delinquent who has a strained relationship with her family but a little sister she adores.  In her Wellesley life, she's a rich socialite who despite her parent's divorce, maintains a good relationship with both of them, although her big brothers are jerks to her. She, along with her two best friends, rule the school and is of course dating the most popular boy!  She's spent 18 years of her life bouncing from one life to another and she hates it.

Sabine wants nothing more than to be normal.  To have one life, no matter how imperfect it may be that she can focus all her attention on; one life where the people in it know who she really, truly is (not this person with the world's biggest secret).  She's accepted the duality of her life if only because she can't do anything about it, until one little glitch changes everything.

One day while hanging out with a friend in her Roxbury life, she trips and breaks her arm.  That night, at midnight, she "quantum leaps" into her Wellesley life fully expecting her injury to carry over as it always does except that this time, it didn't.  She hatches a dangerous plan to begin testing her theory that if she can eliminate one version of herself, she can carry on as the other.

What really got my attention when I decided to read this book was the notion of one person living parallel lives.  I'd never read a book set in parallel worlds before and I'm so glad I started with this one.  I really admired Sabine's ability to be so strong and composed while managing her two vastly different lives without confusing her memories or blowing her cover.  It would be a lot for anyone to keep up with!  I loved that Jessica Shirvington managed to write the same person in two entirely different lights and still make her wholly likable in both.

The plot is seemingly simple. To try to find a way to rid herself of one life so she can live the other...but how do you decide which life is the one worth living?  Do you go with the obvious choice if it means losing people you love but gaining uncertainties?  She thinks she knows which one she wants to live out, but in trying to determine if this is even possible for her, things begin to shift and the life that she thought she no longer wanted is now far more appealing when a guy named Ethan walks into it....and most importantly, tells her he believes her and he believes in her!

There are two guys in Sabine's lives; one in each respectively.  But it's Ethan in her Roxbury life that steals the show and her heart (and mine too!).  What started as a friendship not only evolved into love, but into something so meaningful and profound that it changes her entire view on the meaning of life!  Toward the end of the book, Jessica Shirvington wrote one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful scenes I had ever read, and I relived those moments in my memory long past my bedtime.
By the end, I think I had more questions than answers, like why did Sabine have two lives? Was she the only one or did other people also have multiple lives and just didn't know it?  You know what though, I was okay with that because these are some pretty heavy questions and if our first-person narrator doesn't know the answer than I can't expect to know it either.  I guess there are some mysteries that life prefers to keep a secret!

One Past Midnight is a wonderfully written, riveting, and unquestionably clever story filled with unexpected twists that will have YOU thinking about the depth of life and love.

 WHERE YOU CAN PURCHASE

Author Friend In Need!

Hi friends!

I'm going to go off script for a moment here because I'd like to let the book community know about an author friend in need.

I recently learned that romance author, Kristine Cheney has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of invasive ductal carcinoma, a common but malignant form of breast cancer.  Sadly, she does NOT have any health insurance and to qualify for any medical assistance through her hospital, she is required to quit her job. 

Just last year, her young granddaughter (2 years old) also fought a battle against Leukemia and thankfully she is now in remission.

As you can imagine, she and her family have faced some very serious personal challenges and the long road continues, not only with regard to her own health but her finances as well.

I was not asked to write this.  I was not asked to share her story.  I was not asked to donate anything.  I wanted to write this post because I know her to be a really sweet lady who needs help but doesn't ask for it.  Another friend of hers started a fundraiser to help raise money to help cover the MANY daunting medical expenses that she'll have coming up and I made a small donation.

Please do not feel any obligation to donate money!  A kind word on her page or a share on Facebook or Twitter would be equally great!
If you are interesting in donating though, you can find her fundraising page HERE


Get to know Kristine a little better by find her on own site or on her Facebook Fan Page.


Thank you!

Blast: Witch Hunter Olivia by T.A. Kunz

Witch Hunter Olivia
by T.A. Kunz

In the town of Piedmont Pointe, where paranormal is the norm, a girl can easily get herself in over her head with a single wrong move. Unfortunately for Olivia Adams, she’s about to make several.

Starting over is never easy, but it seemed like the only option to Olivia. The decision to turn her back on the Guild of Witch Hunters, the very group she devoted her entire life to, was one of the hardest things she ever did. It meant leaving her family, her friends, and her old identity behind forever. Coming to terms with what caused her to abandon her duties in the first place was even harder.

While trying to lay low and stay off the Guild’s radar, Olivia finds herself thrust back into her old ways after unknowingly interrupting an assassination hit on a powerful witch. What follows is the last thing she ever thought she’d agree to do—protect the very thing she was groomed to hunt.

To complicate things even further, Olivia begins to develop feelings for a tattoo artist who also happens to be half warlock, and no matter how hard she tries to fight it, she can’t resist her inescapable draw to him. Olivia’s forbidden relationship isn’t her only issue though, because once the mystery behind the assassination attempt starts to unravel, she’s forced to choose sides when the loyalties still tied to her past life are tested again.

So much for the idea of a fresh start.

 Here's what New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors are saying about Witch Hunter Olivia by T.A. Kunz:
"Witch hunters and sexy tattoo artists? This New Adult Paranormal is EVERYTHING fans of romance and action are looking for."
- #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout

"A fun, action-packed, enjoyable read!"
- New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cora Carmack

"The perfect blend of New Adult and Paranormal. It's absolutely fantastic!" - New York Times bestselling author Nichole Chase
WHERE TO BUY

AmazonAmazon UKAmazon AUSB&NiBooksKobo


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author T.A. Kunz has always had a fondness for reading thrilling mysteries and action-packed urban fantasies. So, it was no surprise when T.A. decided to write stories that they’d fall into one of those two genres. T.A. lives in Central Florida with two fur babies and a mechanical engineer who also happens to be quite the culinary badass, which there are no complaints about. Being a self-diagnosed caffeine addict, many joke that T.A.’s addiction to Starbucks coffee will likely be their downfall later in life.


 
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