Archive for the ‘Xpresso Tours’ Category

Drawn to Murder Blitz

Posted: February 7, 2024 in Blog Tour Hosting, Crowdfunding, FREE eBook, giveaway, Now Available in Paperback, Polls, Press Release, Promo, rafflecopter, Recommended Reading, Showcase, Spotlight, Xpresso Tours
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Drawn to Murder
Sarah Vernon
Publication date: January 31st 2024
Genres: Adult, Cozy Mystery

Sam Green is a newly minted art school graduate, excited to attend her first artist residency. But the pretty, serene Vermont surroundings soon turn sinister.

After a few months spent looking for the right project, Sam has landed a dream opportunity: three blissful weeks of working at a beautiful artist residency program in remote northern Vermont. But almost as soon as the residency begins, strange things start happening. Eager to settle into her work and make new friends, Sam tries to ignore the vaguely sinister feelings trying to warn her that something is afoot. But when a body is discovered, Sam can’t ignore what’s going on any longer.

If she has any chance of getting out of here – alive – Sam will have to figure out who the killer is.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

“Sam, it’s your turn.”

I jolted out of my daydreaming, looking up at the dark-eyed, even darker-haired man across from me at the table. From the intensity of his expectant stare, you’d think we were plotting world domination, not playing a simple getting-to-know-you game. If you could call revealing unexpected or odd facts about yourself a game. Everyone was just trying to one up each other in achievements, fame or outright weirdness – because this was a group of artists, after all.

“Uh, sure. I’m Sam. Samantha, but everyone calls me Sam,” I said, stumbling over my words and sure that my cheeks were as bright red as they felt. Whatever I had been planning to say was instantly forgotten. Was there anyone who actually enjoyed these kinds of introductions?

“I’m here from Boston,” I continued. “I just graduated from school in the spring and I’m…taking a kind of gap year at the moment. I primarily work in ceramics and sculpture, especially miniatures.” I paused, willing anyone else to make a comment or ask a question, anything to save me from having to think of an interesting fact to share. What was there to say that was appropriate for this group? I grew up in New York? I have a cat named Paul? I once tripped over the body of a dead famous sculptor who’d been poisoned?

There were polite smiles around the table, which I returned, slightly nodding my head, signaling that I was done with my intro. I was saved from further humiliation-by-spotlight by the woman on my right, who moved her wheelchair closer to the table so everyone could see her.

“I’m Tony. Tonya, but everyone calls me Tony,” she said, throwing a small smile my way. “I’m here from LA, where I make immersive installations that challenge viewers ’perceptions of their interactions with, and limitations within, the physical world.” Tony waited a beat, tilting her chin as if daring any of us to ask the obvious question. There were more polite smiles, although I noticed about half of our group were studiously avoiding eye contact.

Unfortunately, only Eliot took the bait. “What inspired you towards that kind of work?” he asked with a kind of forced obliviousness. I didn’t think any of us needed more of an introduction to Eliot: over the course of the previous twenty-four hours since we’d gotten to the Winterbrook Artist Residency, he’d made himself known as the type of pompous, arrogant artist that gives the rest of us a bad name.

“Well, Eliot,” Tony said, returning his tone. “I’ve used a wheelchair since I was a kid, after a spinal injury. So after all these years experiencing a very different side of the physical world, I thought I’d give other people the chance to have a similar view.” The pair politely smiled at each other (although, one did have to admit – and admire – that Tony’s smile had more than a hint of crocodile to it) while the rest of us avoided engaging. “But if you’ll forgive me, I think I’ll actually head up to bed now,” Tony said, wheeling away from the table. “It was great to meet all

of you!” she called cheerily as she turned towards the door, her wheelchair making an unmistakable bumping motion over Eliot’s foot as she left. I couldn’t help but grin.

Author Bio:

Sarah Vernon is an author and artist based in Massachusetts, where she writes the Triple-Decker Mystery Series.

Website / Goodreads / Instagram


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The Penance of Valentine Cash Blitz

Posted: January 17, 2024 in Blog Tour Hosting, cover reveal, Crowdfunding, excerpt, giveaway, Now Available in Paperback, Polls, Press Release, Promo, rafflecopter, Recommended Reading, Showcase, Spotlight, Xpresso Tours
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The Penance of Valentine Cash
Rebecca Rook
Publication date: January 16th 2024
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods meets Jennifer Mason-Black’s Devil and the Bluebird in this modern adaptation of the Greek legend The Twelve Labors of Hercules for young adult fantasy readers.

Valentine Cash is dead.

When she dies in an accidental collision she caused on the cusp of musical fame, Valentine is offered a deal: Complete a series of difficult tasks to get her life back. Fail, and she dies a final, everlasting death. Guided by Route 66 the Mother Road of America on her quest, she tackles one herculean task after another, giving up a piece of herself with each trial.

Valentine begins to understand that the fame she once sought won’t bring her happiness or belonging – and if she fulfills the penance, she must decide what’s more important: Her old life or restoring the lives of the strangers who died alongside her.

The young and the ancient, the tangible and the mythical, collide as Valentine learns the true meaning of redemption, connection, and the enduring power of the human spirit.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

The Huntsmen had arrived.

They were all large, dressed in furs, leathers, and thick boots. The men had thick beards and braids; the women either wore braids or had shorn hair. All of them wore armor of some kind, with runic designs upon their crests. Ghost green flames danced and kissed across their skin. As Valentine watched, she saw that their skin flickered and faded in the moonlight, alternately translucent and opaque. During the translucent phases, she saw their skeletons underneath.

She shivered.

Then, beyond the Huntsmen, she saw the mounts.

They were stunning.

Each horse shimmered, dressed in golds and silvers, blues and violets, coppers and moonlight. They were enormous, with hooves the size of dinner plates and lush manes that draped across the starlit skin. Valentine watched as they huffed, stamped their feet, and half-reared. They were ready, she could tell. They wanted to hunt, to chase.

She heard Malcolm’s prosaic voice in her head. Choose the smallest mount.

Valentine scanned the herd. There.

The smallest mount glowed like a golden fire in the moonlight, with a silver mane. Compared to the others, this one was dainty, almost delicate. Valentine cast a quick glance at the Huntsmen, then started forward, crouching low to avoid notice. As she moved forward, she draped the bridle over her shoulder, then pulled out the packet of frankincense and myrrh. She poured it into her hands, then crept forward. She stopped before the golden creature, a good six feet away. Though this mount was smaller than the others, it was by no means tiny.

When Valentine stilled, the horse raised her head.

What do you want, mortal? The voice sounded like a crack of lightning in her head. The eyes glowed with violet flame.


Author Bio:

Rebecca Rook designs tabletop games, manages a little free library dedicated to sequential art and comics, and lives in the Pacific Northwest with two wonderful dogs. She writes young adult fiction in the fantasy, thriller, and horror genres.

A 2021-2022 Hugo House Fellow in
Seattle, WA, she also attended the 2021 Tin House YA Fiction Workshop in
Portland, OR. Rebecca was selected as one of the 100 invited writers to participate in the Write Team Mentorship Program’s curated Pitch-a-Thon event before being chosen as a Mentee for the 2021 Program. Prior to this, she completed the wonderful Yearlong Workshop for Young Adult and Middle Grade Fiction at Hugo House.

Website / Goodreads / TikTok / Instagram


GIVEAWAY!
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The Buffalo Butcher Blitz

Posted: January 10, 2024 in Blog Tour Hosting, Crowdfunding, giveaway, Now Available in Paperback, Polls, Press Release, Promo, rafflecopter, Recommended Reading, Showcase, Spotlight, Xpresso Tours
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The Buffalo Butcher: Jack the Ripper in the Electric City
Robert Brighton
Publication date: October 8th 2023
Genres: Adult, Historical

Has Jack the Ripper returned?

Summer 1901, and the great Pan-American Exposition welcomes the world to Buffalo, New York—Queen of the Lakes . . . the Electric City. Eight million visitors throng the bustling boomtown—all of them looking for a good time.

While the Pan-American blazes bright, in its shadow lies a zone of darker pleasures: the Tenderloin District, a rabbit’s warren of saloons, brothels, and ask-no-questions hotels. In this sprawling vice quarter, fully as large as the Exposition itself, fairgoers can indulge their less innocent appetites.

As heat and swarming crowds choke the city, the bodies of prostitutes begin turning up, slashed and mutilated by a pitiless hand—their flesh carved with strange symbols. Their gruesome murders are a final indignity worked on once-hopeful young women.

Some say the killings are the work of the Devil himself. Others hint that the Whitechapel Murderer, Jack the Ripper, has crossed the Atlantic to resume his bloody career. Yet the city’s power brokers—afraid of any publicity that would harm the Exposition—turn a blind eye to the victims.

As the bloody summer wears on, only one thing is clear: it’ll be up to the working girls themselves to stop the carnage. And in The Buffalo Butcher, five of them will stand together to confront the killer . . . and to reclaim their humanity.

An important new novel by Robert Brighton, acclaimed author of the Avenging Angel Detective Agency™ Mysteries.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

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A NOTE TO THE READER:

From The Author…

Those of you who have read some, or all, of my Avenging Angel Detective Agency Mysteries will find this book both a departure and a return.

As a departure, the Avenging Angel Detective Agency doesn’t figure in this book. But as a return, we travel back to 1901, and again (as we did all too briefly in The Unsealing) make a visit to Buffalo’s historical high point—the Pan-American Exposition.

Since The Buffalo Butcher is an off-series book—distinct from the Avenging Angel Detective Agency™ Mysteries—so you’ll find in it all new characters and the horrifying notion that in 1901, thirteen years after concluding his bloody career in London—Jack the Ripper comes to the Pan-American Exposition and begins killing prostitutes. But there’s a lot more to the story.

Eight million people—about one in nine Americans—came to Buffalo, New York, to see the “Pan.” The cynics thought it was nothing more than yet another bloated world’s fair. But most found the Electric City to be an expression of all that was good and hopeful: the unity of North and South American nations, the triumph of Man over Nature, and the advent of the modern scientific and engineering marvels that would herald a new century of peace and prosperity.

We can debate which camp won out, but one thing is certain. The assassination of President William McKinley in the Pan-American’s Temple of Music drew a curtain forever over the promise of the Pan— and left Buffalo with a bitter legacy that is remembered even today.

The Buffalo Butcher also takes us into a darker side of bright, up-and-coming Buffalo, then the nation’s fastest-growing city. We visit the back alleys of the Tenderloin District, a large red-light zone in the heart of downtown, where most anything was tolerated by city officials and police, so long as it stayed put. Hundreds of brothels and low-end dives huddled together in the Tenderloin and existed—for the most part—on the exploitation of young women who often had no other good option.

It’s an unflinching and sometimes hard-to-bear story of the real evil that walks among us, the warped and wicked who prey on the vulnerable, and how they work their black magic. I could not turn away from that part: If you’re looking for a ‘cozy mystery’, this ain’t it—I had to tell the story in a way that would do honor to the victims, and without any sympathy for the devil.

Yet, I think, Butcher it is also a story of friendship and love, decency and honor, and perhaps most of all courage, among a group of outcast women confronting loneliness, condemnation, shame, and loss. The masks come off in The Buffalo Butcher, and while as always I hope you’ll find it a good read, I hope too that you’ll find the story as touching as I did—even if a little spooky.


Author Bio:

Award-winning author Robert Brighton is an authority on the Gilded Age, and a great believer that the Victorian era was anything but stuffy. In his Avenging Angel Detective Agency Mysteries, Brighton exposes the turbulence of the era – its passions, dreams, and disasters – against a backdrop of careful research on the places, sights, sounds, and smells of the time.

When he is not walking the streets in the footsteps of the Avenging Angels, sniffing out unsolved mysteries, Brighton is an adventurer. He has traveled in more than 50 countries around the world, personally throwing himself into every situation his characters will face – from underground ruins to opium dens – and (so far) living to tell about it.

A graduate of the Sorbonne, Paris, Brighton is an avid student of early 20th Century history and literature, an ardent and relentless investigator, and an admirer of Emily Dickinson and Jim Morrison. He lives in Virginia with his wife and their two cats.

Website / Goodreads / Instagram / Pinterest


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