Category Archives: Authors We Love Series

Here are all the posts included in the Authors We Love series

Authors We Love, Part 33: Short, Sweet, And To The Point

Posted on by Robert Zimmermann

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I decided to change things up for this week. As it stands now, there hasn’t been very much in the way of guest posts for my Authors We Love series. So first I’d like to say: If you would like to write a guest post for AWL, please do. Email it to me whenever you can, preferably before any Sunday evening so I can put the post together for Monday at Midnight. All I ask is that you read a few AWL posts from the past to see what I’m looking for. It’s not much that’s required, and remember to have fun writing it.

This week’s post is going to be different than the rest. I didn’t have a guest for this week so I put a call in on Twitter and Facebook to anyone interesting in doing a quick AWL post. I asked that all the guest does is tell me which author he or she loves, why the author is loved, and a book they should be read from the author. I had a good amount of input for this post. I think it’s good to get to the point some times. Here are a few of my friends and followers who felt like sharing an author they loved. Please enjoy and check out the book recommendations :)

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Adriane Tait-Boyd - Definitely Amy Bartol. Her books are amazing and truly well thought out. Both the character and plot development are flawless, and each book leaves you longing for more. You absolutely cannot go wrong reading the first three books of her Premonition series.

Cinta Garcia de la Rosa - One of the authors that I love is Isabel Allende, mainly because I love magical realism. Don’t miss the beauty of her words. Read The House of Spirits and check by yourself.

Sandra Gluschankoff - Kate Morton. Beautiful writing, incredible characters. The House At Riverton, her first novel

Rob Kristofferson -  Karl Pfeiffer is an author I love. A new, young, fantastic talent with great prose and plot. #Hallowtide is highly recommended.

Noree Cosper - Tim Powers: The symbolism and world building he puts into his work is amazing. I would recommend Last Call.

S.M. Boyce –  Nikki Jefford because she is both talented and supportive. Her stories are fun and sexy, and she’s always a riot when I talk to her. I suggest her debut, Entangled.

Dionne Lister - Ok, I’d like to say Donna Cavanagh who writes hilarious humour that I love. She is down to earth, gets her books edited and never disappoints. This is a link to one of her books Try and Avoid the Speed Bumps.
Holly Maglieri – Colleen Hoover. She has an amazing way of bringing her characters and story to life, her book Slammed changed my world w/just one sentence.
Stephenie Risner Thomas - Read Insanity by Lauren Hammond I was completely floored by the mind trip of the book. Her writing style is beautiful and the twists and turns you just will not expect. You will definitely not be disappointed.

Rachel Walter - Shannon Dermott, the author of the Cambion Series. Beg For Mercy, Waiting For Mercy and soon to come Angel Of Mercy. These books are fantastic, they have action, drama, sarcasm, hot guys and danger. What more can you ask for? The books follow Mercy in figuring out just who she really is and the gorgeous hunks that surround her. Team Flynn, just saying.

Ben Ditmars - Amber Norrgard, poet and author of one of my favorite short story collections, Allegory of Dusk. I love the intensity and truth in her words.

Brittni Guillen - Okay I just discovered this author and her first books was amazing it’s Baptism of Fire by Stephanie Constante and it has dragons in it and I dont want to say much cause of spoilers so just check it out!!

Tess Watson - For me this changes about everyday because I love so many authors, but today I LOVE Chelsea Cameron! If you’ve ever talked to her on twitter (@chel_c_cam), you’d see that she is SUPER sweet! Also she just released My Favorite Mistake which is one of my favorite books EVER!

Authors We Love, Part 32: Brittni Guillen On M. Leighton

Posted on by Robert Zimmermann

Okay so when I got the opportunity to write a guest post about an author I love I immediately thought of M. Leighton  Not only is she an awesome writer, she is a great person too. who is M. Leighton you ask??

I was born and raised in the United States, and I’ve lived in several of the fabulous fifty. Though I currently live in the deep South, I spent much of my childhood up North and hope to return there one day. A few other things about me: I believe that sometimes you have to look really, REALLY hard to find the good in people, but it’s there. I believe that I’m shrinking (I swear five years ago I was two inches taller). I believe my husband is quite possibly one of the most amazing men in the entire world (I can’t be sure because I haven’t met all of them). I believe coffee and chocolate, when combined, could be the basis for world peace. I believe that Jesus rocks and communism doesn’t  I believe that white makes me look fat and black collects lint. I believe summer’s too hot, winter’s too cold and fall was made for football. I like dogs better than cats and the first movie in a trilogy is invariably the best. But most of all, I believe that love conquers all.

M. Leighton has also recently become a New York Times Bestseller for her book The Wild Ones and has signed a contract with a publisher for 2 more books for that series (I was not shocked at all when this happened). She has written both paranormal and contemp, her paranormal works include, Wiccan, The Reaping & The Reckoning, Gravity, Caterpillar, The Blood Like Poison Series, The Madly Series, and her contemp works include The Wild Ones, Down To You and Fragile. I’m always amazed at how M. Leighton is able to just suck me right in to the world she has created, the way she describes the characters and their settings allow you to watch it in your mind like movie. If I had to describe how her writing style feels it would have to be like velvet, the words just run so smoothly together and I’m never finding myself lost and going back to figure out what happened. I was so excited when she became a NYT Bestselling author and thought that no one better could have earned it and then when she signed the contract for Down To You I knew her time to shine had come. M.Leighton is an all around author she has written about vampires, mermaids, cowboys and sexy twins and everything else in-between. M. Leighton also has how to write a very hot and steamy scene down to a tee! Some of her newest books should come with a bottle of water and a fan, they are definitely blush worthy. I consider M. Leighton my go to author whenever im in a reading rut I have never been disappointed with her writing and highly recommend her to everyone who enjoys getting lost in a book. And the one thing I love most about this author is that she is so humble and down to earth and replies to every single fan post she receives, that to me says a lot about an author.

You can stalk her at:

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About Brittni

Who am I? My name is Brittni Guillen, I am a wife and mother to 3 crazy kids who I love with all my being.  I live in the dirty south and believe you should eat dessert before dinner incase you choke on your food and never make it to the good stuff.  And if you can’t find me chasing my kids look for me in the closet with my nose in a book.  You can keep tabs on me by checking out:

 

Authors We Love, Part 31: Fred LeBaron Talks About Molly Ringle

Posted on by Robert Zimmermann

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Meet Molly Ringle

Molly Ringle is an author I love, and I’m delighted to introduce you to her and her oeuvre, an eclectic mix of romance and YA, some with a more contemporary feel, and some with a mild paranormal element. Her books are thoughtful and irrepressibly funny, literate and sweetly silly, sexy and all around full of awesome. The first Molly book I read was “Summer Term,” published in 2010, and I found it an irresistibly charming gateway drug to MollyWorld. It’s a campus romance story, with MC Paige, a clever if somewhat emotionally naive grad student who is fighting two forbidden attractions: to her unhappily married PhD adviser, one the one hand, and to her summer student, a movie star who’s returned incognito to his home town college to finish up a few classes. In my review I compared Summer Term to “a lovely German wine – light, sweet but not cloying, with many classic, familiar elements, but still fresh and original … and intoxicating. It’s definitely a Qualitatswein mit Pradikat – a superior wine with special qualities.” Like many Molly novels it has suspenseful and twisty plot elements as well as charming characters and witty sparkling dialog. “What Scotland Taught Me,” is a bit of a coming of age story, about four friends who head to Edinburgh for a “gap” year after graduating high school. It is a masterful showcase for one of Molly’s major gifts, the ability to bring a scene, a city, a campus, even a house, to life with evocative imagery and description. I loved this bit of description of Seattle, Molly’s home town, from “The Ghost Downstairs,” for example: “A fresh September dawn bathed the eastern sky. Lina stumbled along the sidewalk, blinking at buildings and citizens and seagulls. Salmon-colored sunlight gleamed on the cars; roasting coffee filled the salty air with its scent; a beeping bread truck backed up into an alley.” For some reason that just put me totally into the scene – it felt poetic but also real. Which incidentally is actually a pretty good way to describe Molly Ringle’s style in general. Maybe my favorite of Molly’s works, “Relatively Honest,” is the tale of a self-styled love ‘em and leave ‘em lothario, now reduced to stuttering incompetence when he becomes infatuated with the one girl who not only eclipses his attraction to all others, but is beyond the boundaries of those considered relationally appropriate. Funny, tender, and emotional, a lovely reading experience.

Molly’s been writing fiction for over twenty years (yes, she started young!), and in addition to her charming novels, she’s written several hilarious parodies (available at her website), including send ups of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Les Mis. Similarly reflecting her intense devotion to silly humor, she was especially proud to win the grand prize in the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest with one (intentionally) terrible sentence, which you can read here: www.bulwer-lytton.com/2010win.html. Her current project is a fresh attempt at the Persephone/Hades situation, which seems fraught with dramatic and smexy potential. Her academic studies include a bachelor of arts in anthropology (University of Oregon, Clark Honors College) and a master of arts in linguistics (University of California, Davis). Molly lives in Seattle with her husband and kids, and worships fragrances and chocolate.

Find more about Molly Ringle here:

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About Fred LeBaron

About Fred LeBaron: I’m a librarian, a reader, a guitar player and trivia nut. Find out more about me by following me on Twitter or at my blog, Still Seeking Allies! Don’t be shy, I’m certainly not! And yes, that is an official Forks HS Spartans t-shirt I am sporting!

Authors We Love, Part 30: Jeffrey Bolden On Kevin “Kevo” Agregbe

Posted on by Robert Zimmermann

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There’s an unmistakable line between what is real and what is not, but that line often times seems to blur because at times something so real to you can be fantasy to someone else and so forth. I’ve been reading this book, “Reality Is Wrong,” by Kevin Agregbe, and I’ve been learning about myself in the process. Born in 1987 like me, he has witnessed and been through tragedy like myself, so I found myself relating to this author, but that isn’t the reason I love this author.

“Reality Is Wrong” is empowering on so many different levels because the book itself teaches to think for yourself and in some ways teaches you to love and find yourself. You see, reality as he describes is not really real at all. Reality as he sees it is how the world sees itself and not necessarily how an individual may see it. In this book, Kevin, excuse me for my informal usage of his first name, teaches you to really examine the way you think, the way you love, and the way you dream. His philosophy is also mine, enhancing my vision just as I feel it could enhance many other individual’s individual visions.

In this book, he gives his views on religion, life, and love, not in an effort to show you how, but to discover for yourself, how, or at least put you on the path. So instead of talking about the contents of the book, I’ll simply tell you how it changed me. First of all, I’ve never even heard of Vedic mathematics until I read this book, and upon applying some basic rules, I discovered my hatred for math was not because it was too difficult for me, but the teaching itself was made difficult for me. This is the essence of “Reality Is Wrong,” and this is why I love this book and I love this author. Up and coming but I can already feel him changing lives just as he had changed mine. You see I used to think the bad thoughts that plagued my mind were simply my curse that I could never send away, until he made me realize through this book that these were my thoughts. In a quote, he said, “The only in your mind is you”. There is so much to learn about life in general just by reading this book from a person who is living and breathing the words he has written. Kevin “Kevo” Agregbe may not be known by the masses and may never be known simply because he tells the full honest truth, and I can honestly see people being afraid of that truth. But like the storyline in Fahrenheit 491, isn’t more interesting to rebel against the status quo, think for yourself, decide for yourself what is appropriate to read? Doesn’t reading what is dangerous knowledge make life more fruitful feeling as though you know something others don’t? Had you been in the Garden Of Eden, would you have tasted the Forbidden Fruit? Maybe you should get taste of “Reality Is Wrong” and see what exactly reality doesn’t want you to see. You can find this book on Amazon.com and believe me, you will find not only this story but the author’s story more than interesting.

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About Jeffrey Bolden:

Jeffrey Bolden in so many words is a quintessential artist. Having been drawing for nearly twenty years and writing for a little over a decade, the development of his artistic talents has allowed him to rapidly advance in his skills. Almost publishing his first book at eighteen in which he started writing at sixteen, Jeffrey already has two published books, Smokin’ Hydrophonic and Book Of Soul, won countless awards for his writings, and acknowledged by peers as the most determined young author they have ever known (not to say they’ve known many.) But the thing about Jeffrey Bolden is that he’d rather let his skills speak for themselves. You can check out his latest book, Book Of Soul, as well as some new stuff he posts daily on his personal Tumblr page, so you can guage for yourself the skill set of this remarkable twenty-four year old man.

Find more on Jeffrey:

Authors We Love, Part 29: The Reason I Love Indies….S.M. Boyce

Posted on by Robert Zimmermann

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Today’s Authors We Love post is long overdue. It’s not overdue in the sense that I’m posting this a day late or anything. It’s overdue because the author I’ll be discussing deserves to have had a post many months ago.

S.M. Boyce, or The S.M. Boyce as I like to think of her because of her Twitter handle and importance the importance the “The” gives, is one of the reasons I let myself get caught up in the Indie publishing scene. Back in the beginning of the year was when I took my first step into the Indie waters. It’s also when I found S.M. Boyce on Twitter, where I started finding other authors, as well. One of the things that made me take notice of her was how down to Earth and interactive she was with fans. I hadn’t read her book, Lichgates, at the time, but what I saw being said about it made me want to read it.  Then I found out that she offers the first chapter to read for FREE on her website. Even before I finished that chapter, I knew I NEEDED to read Lichgates.

Through her Twitter hangman games (a game I’m a God at…no lie, ask anyone ;) ) I won a copy of her book. I devoured the book. I reviewed the book. And even after that I couldn’t stop talking about the book. The Grimoire: Lichgates is one of the best books I’ve read ever, by any author Indie or non-Indie. Don’t let the YA label fool you. Lichgates is great for young adults and adults. Don’t let the fantasy aspect make you shy away either. I feel it is a great book to ease any reader into the fantasy genre.

The world of Ourea that Boyce has created is one of the most beautiful places I’ve traveled to in a book. It’s both beautiful and deadly all at once, but I can’t help but want to go back there in the second and third book of the trilogy. Luckily for me, and all her other fans, the wait in almost over. Treason, book 2 of the trilogy, is set to release to the masses a day after my birthday, October 27th. I can’t think of any better day to get my hands on a copy. The continuing journey of the new Vagabond, Kara Magari , has been one of the few things I’ve been wanting since February of this year.

But back to the author herself. I can praise her writing all day and then some. She’s more than the writing though. As I mentioned above, she interacts with her fans. This is one of the best qualities an author can have. It’s inviting to know that after you read a book, you can actually discuss it with the author. Aside from discussing her book, I’ve been able to discuss other books that we’ve both read or want to read. She’s also most than willing to set up some great giveaways for her fans. Have I mentioned the swag she’s come up with for the trilogy? It’s some of the best swag I’ve seen so far. I’ve gotten wristbands, bookmarks (that are more works of art, hanging on my wall), tattoos. But I think the best piece of the Grimoire that Boyce has created is The Grimoire Pendant. It’s a replica of the pendant that Kara, and Boyce herself, wears around her neck to contain the Grimoire for safe keeping.

Another thing to mention about this great author is something not mentioned enough in my opinion about many authors. S.M. Boyce takes a lot of pride in her work. As you can see it’s been quite a few many months since the release of Lichgates. Almost a year to be exact. Boyce takes her time to make a book as perfect as it can be before releasing it to the world. Nothing is rushed. Details are thoroughly gone over. Editing is done again and again until the product is ready to be read. In the indie publishing world I’ve seen that they are many authors publishing book after book, month after month. I’m not saying that it’s not possible to write a perfect book in a few month’s time. But more often than not, I’ve seen many errors in books that could have been avoided if more time were given to detail. I’m a fan as a reader of quality over quantity. I’m pleased with the lengths and effort that goes into this author’s book, and future books.

Are you tired of my rant about S.M. Boyce? I’m not, but I’ll spare you your sanity. What I’d like my readers to get out of this, is that Boyce is an author that I don’t only love as an author, but I also admire her for inspiring me to jump into Indie publishing as a reader AND soon to be poet. If I hadn’t come across Lichgates (and a few other great books from authors) I might still be reading traditionally published books only, and I’d have missed out on a large amount of great books and great new friends as well. (No offense to traditionally published authors, I love you all as well.)

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Find more on this author I love at the following: