Book Blitz: Safe in Sound by Ania Ray

 

Safe in Sound
Ania Ray
(A Blue Spruce Hills Novella)
Publication date: October 29th 2026
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Holiday, Romance

She’s “happy,” but someone might say she’s “settled.” What happens when the life that makes you feel safe is also the one keeping you small?

Thirty-four-year-old piano teacher Riley O’Connor believes her chance to become a world-class musician has sailed. She’s content-ish with her life in Blue Spruce Hills, a quaint mountain town that is safe, quiet, and predictable. Instead of performing on stages, she teaches the neighborhood kids, hangs out with her best friend Clara, reads books surrounded by her houseplants, and rehearses like she’s about to be called to join the London Philharmonic.

Though she’d be too scared to go. Grammy called her ’Fraidy Cat, after all.

When what Riley thinks is a break-in turns out to be a dog who won’t leave, she’s thrust into a series of events that challenge her to confront her anxiety. First, the social kind: the veterinarian is incredibly handsome. And kind. And grieving his wife. And looking for someone to give his son piano lessons.

She agrees.

Suddenly, Riley is on a winter hike with a man where bears, snakes, and fatal injury are possibilities. And when an opportunity arises to accompany renowned violist Albi Drechsler, the dream she’d long ago decided was out of reach is suddenly within it. To get what she wants, she must prove that fear doesn’t have the final word. But could she actually leave the safety of Blue Spruce Hills?

Safe in Sound is a story about overcoming fears, leaning into friendship, and trusting that even when the night feels darkest, love can hold you through. If you miss your loved ones a little extra during the holidays, you’ll love this redemptive story that proves those we miss most can still find a way to make us courageous.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

I exhale, the breath in front of me a wisp reminiscent of the steamed milk Clara’s grandmother would mix into the hot chocolate we’d share after school. While I waited for Grammy and Pappy to come home from the Mom and Pop store they owned and ran together, Clara was my safe place.

I stuff my gloved hands in my pockets. This morning I am hanging an angel on a doorknob with someone who risked social status by befriending me. The school playground was too giant a target for a skinny eight-year-old with fiery hair. Grammy always said I’d grow into my hair one day, but I’m pretty sure the “big-tempered redhead” myth fell apart with me. Maybe because Clara has always been my fire. I’m more like old embers buried under kindling.

So way back when… gosh, has it really already been over two decades? Way back when Clara asked if I wanted to skip on the sidewalk with her—and my answer was a genuine yes—we began our friendship.

Basically, I’ll do whatever Clara asks. She knew I was the new kid and approached me anyway. Anyone who does that—when kids seem to feel most powerful when they’re being mean and exclusive—deserves to have their best friend wake up early.

And even though I’d love to still be sleeping right now, three blissful hours remaining in my regular schedule, I feel a thrilling anticipation at seeing my best friend. Sure, I see her in passing every weekday, and we catch each other up in text messages all the time, but to sit down and really connect usually only happens when she comes over once a month. And we’ve missed a lot of those lately because she’s doing big baker things.

And I do little piano teacher things.

It’s fine. I’m happy.

Author Bio:

Hi, I’m Ania Ray, an author of women’s fiction that dives into the raw, transformative journeys of complex female characters. My books force each protagonist to confront the worst of herself before she evolves into the hero of her own story.

The Cromwell Rules trilogy features interconnected standalones, so you can enjoy each book individually or follow Lily Cromwell's entire arc from start to finish. In The Cromwell Rules and Breaking the Rules, I explore how boundaries can feel stifling or nonexistent, and how we each must find our sweet spot of self-respect.

When I’m not writing, I lead Quill & Cup, a writing community that helps authors finish the stories that matter to them. Outside of writing, I’m a wife, a mom to a toddler who’d live outdoors if she could, and a tea lover (Cinnamon Apple Spice is my favorite).

If you love reading novels with relatable, complex characters and emotionally gripping stories, you’re in the right place.

Goodreads / Newsletter / Instagram

GIVEAWAY!
Safe in Sound Blitz

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Halloween Book Blast

 

 

WELCOME TO THE HALLOWEEN BOOK BLAST!

 

Click on any of the below book covers to be taken to the page that has more information on the novel as well as the Buy Links!

 

Visit the Host Site to learn more about each book in the BLAST

Don't forget to enter the Giveaway!!!

Book Blitz: Made, Laid and Betrayed in Hong Kong

 

Non-fiction, Memoir

Need cheering up? How about a nostalgic trip back to the 1970s with a different perspective?

Follow the true story of two young yet disparate Brits as they venture east to Hong Kong to join the colonial police out there. Initially bought-in to the adventure, bright lights and the hedonistic pleasures of the Exotic East, Alan and Bob are thrown into a world somewhat divergent to the picture painted whilst under training. They begin to butt heads with corruption, colonial excess, privilege and protectionism and run into connivers, skivers and survivors.

The story follows the two young, relatively naive men along their journey from their eight-month police training to their posts as policemen. It is filled with colourful incidents and exotic tales, with liberal doses of tongue in cheek humour and literary licence thrown in, you'll scarcely believe what they encountered.

 

 

About the Author

 

 Victor Blair is a well-travelled, humorous, rather overly-free spirited ‘baby booming’ Brit, who is luckily still imbued with an energy belying his years, so hence the slightly provocative gesture above, showing him probably disagreeing with something or someone, yet again… our apologies! He has worn ‘many different hats’ in UK banking, and in a host of overseas appointments, including ten years in the colonial Hong Kong Police Force, the tourism sector in Asia, and subsequently in worldwide oil and gas exploration and logistics, and finally, engineering consultancy. An as yet unappreciated comedic wit and poet, with a bright, if latent, creative spark, and with early roots in Gloucestershire and Africa. He is now semi-retired in north Thailand, where he busies himself with his sugar cane plantation, scripting away at night time, and as the patriarch of his local wife’s ever-increasing, extended family.

 

Contact Links

Website

BookBuzz

 

Purchase Link

Amazon

Book Blitz: At the Corner of Eden and Darkness by R.J. Garcia

 

The Shadowless
R.J. Garcia
(At the Corner of Eden and Darkness, #1)
Publication date: November 26th 2025
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult

Modern Faerie Tale Meets Murder

Mae Dawson returns to her family’s cabin in a mysterious forest to search for her missing sister. One night, she goes to sleep in her bed only to awaken in the depths of the woods surrounded by eerie and indiscernible voices that lead her to her sister’s grave.

A year has passed. Mae has pieced her life back together. She has a supportive boyfriend and is completing her first semester in college. However, everything begins to unravel when strange late-night calls come from the beyond, and a malevolent force begins to invade her friends.

Adding to her unease is the presence of a mysterious stranger, Brandon Sills, who seems to lurk in the shadows, watching her every move. Despite the warning bells ringing in her mind, Mae feels an inexplicable attraction to him.

As mortal and magical forces conspire against them, Mae must trust Brandon to uncover the secrets of the fae. Secrets that will change her life forever, if she even survives.

The Spellbound
R.J. Garcia
(At the Corner of Eden and Darkness, #2)
Publication date: December 2nd 2026
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult

Magic Meets Mayhem

Back in Willows End, Mae and Brandon find themselves in the thick of things after kidnapping her ex. As they attempt to banish a changeling, Mae begins to question her sanity, and the threat of a serial killer draws ever closer.

Even sleep offers no reprieve. Mae can no longer find Emmie in the Garden—her dreams of wonder have become nightmares. Before long, she discovers her sister is lost in Limbo.

One night, Mae is alone in the cabin when she hears someone breaking in. Her only hope is her possessed ex—chained in the spare room. Mae is forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Once Mae makes her choice, the changeling assumes human form, an ancient prophecy stirs, and nothing is as it seems.

Haunted by fear and doubt, Mae clings to her love for Brandon, the last sure thing in her life, and her greatest hope of saving her sister. But are things really as certain as they seem?

Goodreads / Amazon

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SNEAK PEEK QUOTES:

The Shadowless:

“I pulled myself out of a dream and glared with a pirate eye at my buzzing phone. Then I caught sight of Emmie’s name flashing on the screen. There would be nothing unusual about it except, of course, it’s the middle of the night and my sister’s dead.”

The Spellbound:

“It was more than the way his blue eyes twinkled, and how his mouth moved like honey. It was more than him being handsome, kind, and magical. It was the feeling I had, a connection I can’t quite explain.”

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Author Bio:

R.J. Garcia is a wife, and proud mom of two smart kids. She earned her MSW and worked with foster children and as a school social worker. Writing has been her other great love. She has been writing short stories for as long as she can remember. To her amazement, those short stories became novels!

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram

GIVEAWAY!

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Author Interview: Alice Wendover Talking about her New Book, A Line Struck Through

Author Interview: Alice Wendover

Alice Wendover joins me today to talk to us about her writing and her new book, A Line Struck Through. Happy Release Day, Alice! I'm so happy that you are here with me.

About Alice: 

Alice Wendover writes mysteries for people who read with a pencil. She is interested in paper: ledgers, receipts, sign-in books, the margins where someone wrote what they really thought. The Wrong Ambrose Hearne, her first novel, began with a question — what would a second-hand bookshop’s records prove, if anyone ever read them properly? — and ended with a body on the stockroom floor the night before an auction. It is the first of the Marrow & Vine Mysteries.

Her Links:

Website

  Amazon

       Goodreads

Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?

I write mysteries for people who read with a pencil. I'm interested in paper: ledgers, receipts, sign-in books, and the margins where somebody wrote down what they really thought. My series, the Marrow & Vine Mysteries, is set around a second-hand bookshop in an English village, and its detective, Bridie Quell, is a former proofreader who solves murders by reading every line. As for where I'm from, I keep that side of things private and let Wychcombe, the village in the books, do the welcoming instead. It has a pub called the Bell, a church, a care home down the lane, and a village Trust busy with its centenary.

What genre do you read? Who's an author you read? Name your top 5 authors.

Mystery, and specifically the fair-play kind: every clue on the page, an amateur detective who has to think rather than wave a warrant card, and an ending where some small detail you skimmed past turns out to have been holding the whole thing up. That last moment is the one I read for. It's also why I write the way I do: if I love being beaten fair and square by a detective, I owe my readers a real chance to get there first. I'll spare everyone a top five; I'd only spend a week regretting the names I'd left off.

How long have you been writing?

Not long at all. The Wrong Ambrose Hearne is my first novel; it came out this autumn, and the second, A Line Struck Through, is out on 30 October. Being new, I'm still learning from readers. When one of my first reviewers said the jumps in time had slowed her down, and that she'd have liked more of the village around her, both books went back for another pass: every chapter now opens with its date, and there is more of Wychcombe itself on the page. That is exactly what early readers are for.

What is your writing process like? Are you more of a plotter or a pantser?

A plotter, without question. Before a word of chapter one exists, the whole mystery is planned: who did it, how, where everyone was and when, and where each clue sits. Each clue is written down once, with the suspect it rules out, and goes into the book word for word. Then the part I want to be up front about: I work with an AI model. The AI and I make those planning decisions together, the AI writes the first draft of each chapter from the plan, and then the AI and I check and revise every chapter over several rounds for fair play, the timeline and the prose. So yes, much of the finished wording is AI-drafted text that has been edited, not prose I wrote from scratch myself.

How did you come up with the ideas for your series?

The first book began with a question: what would a second-hand bookshop's records prove, if anyone ever read them properly? I wanted a mystery where the reader has everything the detective has, and paper is the fairest evidence there is, because I can show it to you exactly as Bridie sees it. A bookshop and not a library, because a shop's buying ledgers, order slips and till rolls belong to its owner, while a library's lending records are other people's private business. And a proofreader for a detective, because she has spent twenty years noticing the thing that doesn't agree with what was said three lines up.

What would you tell a writer who is just starting? What program do you use for writing? What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book? What's your writing software of choice?

Software first, since it's the honest place to start: the first drafts come from an AI model working from a detailed plan, and everything lives in plain text files. The covers are AI-generated too, as are the images, animation and music in my trailers. The decisions about the puzzle and all the checking are work the AI and I do together. My advice to anyone on a first mystery: decide the ending before the beginning, write down every clue and exactly what it proves, then check the finished book against that list, line by line. And if you use AI, say so plainly. Some reviewers will say no, and that is their right. I would rather be told no than have anyone feel misled.

How do you organize everything and find the time to sit down and write?

Organising is most of the job. Each book has a small library of its own: a calendar of the story's days, a table of where every character was and when, a ledger of clues, a chapter-by-chapter map, and a running list of what each finished chapter has settled. Once a chapter is finished it is frozen: every chapter after it has to live with what it says. As for finding the time: since the first drafts come from the AI, the hours go into the plan and the checking instead, which the AI and I do together. A mystery stands or falls on that part.

As an author, what would you choose as your spirit animal?

The cat in my books. He chose a bookshop over a person, sits on the counter, watches everybody who comes through the door and never explains himself. Bridie maintains that he is not her cat; he has heard her say so, and sits on the stock regardless. That seems to me exactly the temperament a mystery writer needs: sit still, watch the door, notice everything, and keep your conclusions to yourself until you are quite sure.

How do you name your characters?

With care, and with a rule: each new surname is checked against all the names already in the series, not only for exact matches but for names that begin the same way. The rule came from a near miss. While the second book was still being planned, a check turned up a minor character in the first book whose surname began just like a new family's, so the family was renamed. A reader holding a houseful of suspects in their head shouldn't have to wonder whether two of them are related. Beyond the rule, I want names you can tell apart at a glance.

Tell us about your current release.

A Line Struck Through is the second Marrow & Vine Mystery, out on 30 October on Kindle and in paperback, and a fine place to start. Every fifth of November, Wychcombe wheels a stuffed guy to the bonfire in the village Trust's hand-cart. This year the guy in the chair is Roland Askew, who chaired the Trust for fifteen years. He has not been stuffed. Bridie Quell is proofing the Trust's centenary history, so when Sergeant Ankerdine brings her a torn scrap of those proofs, with Askew's name struck through in a proofreader's mark, the sergeant wants to know whose mark it is. Expect fair play, a very English November, and a cat that is still not the shop's.

Happy Reading!

Melissa

Cover Reveal: Owen's Promise by Lindi Mae

 

OWEN’S PROMISE

Lindi Mae

Release Date: December 11 

Meet Lindie Mae:

Lindi Mae is a contemporary romance author dedicated to delivering unforgettable characters, a full range of emotional, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after. She is the author of the small-town Rose Valley series, with a few dark thrillers and a mystery book in the works.

When she isn’t writing, Lindi lives in Arizona with her mom and son. She is a passionate animal lover and loves true crime shows and documentaries on haunted places. She enjoys all kinds of crafting and practically lives on iced-coffee. She reads all kinds romances- from the sweetest to the darkest-as long as there is a HEA!

Connect with Lindie Mae:

https://www.instagram.com/authorlindimae/ 

Blurb:

We were best friends before anything else.

Until one miscommunication changed everything.

Years of hurt, resentment, and words neither of us could ever take back.

Then, the unimaginable happens.

Hit by a devastating loss, I watch as Abi spirals completely out of control. As she hits rock bottom and burns every bridge, she pushes everyone away until there’s nothing left to lose.

I have spent years loving Abi. But even the strongest love has a breaking point. I know I need to step back. I’ve tried. But how do you let go of the girl who was your best friend before she was ever anything else? How do you walk away from the girl who holds every memory you’ve ever made?

No matter how hard she pushes me away, I can’t stop loving the one person I was never supposed to lose.

Pre-Order Link:

https://a.co/d/0bJk0YwU

Cover: Whisper My Name by Giulia Lagomarsino

 

Title: Whisper My Name

Series: The Last Best Place for Love Book #8
Author: Giulia Lagomarsino

Genre: Small Town Romance

Tropes: Opposites Attract; Alpha Hero; Emotional Scars; A Doozy of a Secret; Willing to Risk Everything for Her

Release Date: November 9, 2026

Cover Design: Artscandare

Photographer: Wander Aguiar

I’d risked a lot in my life because of my job.

Pedos? Eliminated.

Cheating spouses? They always seemed to have an accident.

People who couldn’t pay their dues? Well, they needed to be taught a lesson.

The list went on and on, and I’d never once cared about the sacrifice I was making.

Until her.

Feisty, funny as hell, cute as a button…

But that all changed the night of the fire.

The night I ran in and nearly died for her.

Hell, she nearly died.

It was sheer luck that she survived that night. By all accounts, she should have died.

And that should have been my wakeup call, my chance to turn it all around.

But my life was not my own, and if she ever found out, it would be the end of whatever this was between us.

I’m no good for her, but I never wanted to change my life as much as the night I heard her Whisper My Name.

 

I'm a stay at home mom that loves to read. Some of my favorite titles are Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Horatio Hornblower. I started writing when I was trying to come up with suggestions on ways I could help bring in some extra money. I came up with the idea that I could donate plasma because you could earn an extra $500/month. My husband responded with, "No. Find something else. Write a blog. Write a book." I didn't think I had anything to share on blog that a thousand other mothers hadn't already thought of. I decided to take his challenge seriously and sat down to write my first book, Jack. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed writing. From there, the stories continued to flow and I haven't been able to stop. I hope my readers enjoy my books as much as I enjoy writing them. Between reading, writing, and taking care of three small kids, my days are quite full.

 

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