mignon mykel { reviews }: review + interview || THE FINE ART OF DECEPTION: UNDOING TIME { blog tour }

Thursday, June 11, 2015

review + interview || THE FINE ART OF DECEPTION: UNDOING TIME { blog tour }

The Fine Art of Deception: Undoing Time by Alyssa Richards

Publisher: Self-Published (1/18/2015)
Series: Book 1
Genre: Paranormal, Mystery Romance
Source: Barclay Publicity
Purchase links || amazon || add to goodreads

Rating: ★★★★

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Art appraiser Addison Montgomery just wants a normal life. One where she can ignore the vicious ghosts who follow her. One where she’s free from her “gift” of touching an object and seeing the owner’s deepest secrets. And one where she can fall in love without having all of the above get in the way. attraction. There’s something between them that’s older than time, and if she can learn to give him her trust, it may just save her life.

But when tall, dark, and dangerous gallery owner Blake Greenwood enters her life, normal is the last thing she’s feeling. The man has more secrets than the priceless art he sells, giving Addison’s quest for normal no chance. That, and he may just hold the key to uncovering the truth behind her father’s unexplained disappearance.

Despite her paranormal gifts warning her to stay away, she feels an inexplicable, captivating fascination for him, something that goes deeper than attraction. There’s something between them that’s older than time, and if she can learn to give him her trust, it may just save her life.

about Alyssa || Alyssa Richards is new to the fiction genre and has just finished her first provocative fiction novel. She's passionate about reading, writing, meditating, magnolias, and nurturing her herb and rose garden. She loves to travel, whenever she gets the rare and precious opportunity. She also loves animals and holds the world record for taking two adorable pups from homeless to pampered. She lives in the South with her husband, two great kids and the three very spoiled, rescue dogs who run the house.

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{ in alyssa's words } .

Typical Writing Day

Usually I get up around 4 or 5 a.m. and write while my house is quiet. Morning is my most creative time and I love that space where the distractions are few and the creativity is loud and strong.

I have two young and very active boys, so my writing world is built into the margins of their life. My laptop goes with me everywhere and I write wherever I happen to be at the moment — soccer practices, baseball practices, summer sports clinics. My car is my writing den.

I’ll also write in the evenings, and to the endless frustration of my husband and boys, while we’re supposed to be watching a movie or a baseball game together!

Writing Tips

Most useful writing tip I’ve ever received is that you can’t write and edit at the same time. It’s sort of like putting one foot on the gas and one on the brake - hard to make progress that way!

Good books are typically written in layers, so you have to give yourself permission to write first, then rewrite later, it really opens up your creativity!

{ character interview } .

What is your biggest desire in life?

Addie: I’ve always dreamed of a blissfully normal life. One where I can enjoy the simple joys that others seem to. One where ghosts aren’t a haunting part of my day and night, where I can be in the presence of someone else and not be privy to the secrets they think they’ve buried safely away. As I’ve learned the hard way, people don’t like it when you see their secrets.

Though there is also Jack...

This amazing perfection of a man who drops in on my dreams from some other life we’ve shared together. Yes, he was real to me at one time. Now he was only real to me in my dreams.

Maybe one day we could meet. Past life reconnections happen all the time. I find the idea of meeting him in this life rather terrifying. And potentially exciting!

What is the other's greatest attribute?

Addie: Blake has a way of seeing the real me, which I find both frightening and hopeful. Most people I meet aren’t too keen on my showing up in their lives with such uninvited intimacy. It will be interesting to see how Blake feels about it…

If you could do your relationship over again, what would you change?

Blake: Life works out the way it does for a reason, it’s often hard to determine why at the time. But hindsight being 20/20, there does seem to be a reason for everything. That said, I’d always take the opportunity to meet Addie sooner.

{ review } .

I have to be honest... Sometimes when I start books that aren't in a series I'm already invested in, I forget what that particular book is about. When I was organizing my books for June 11th reviews, I saw that the cover of this one stated "Paranormal Romance" so I filed it away in my head as well... A paranormal romance.

I suppose psychics and ghosts and past lives, oh my, can and should be classified as paranormal but the thing is... I've had too many psychic readings that were scarily accurate; I believe in auras; I believe in ghosts and haunted things; I believe in past lives...

So therefore it wasn't truly paranormal in my sense of the genre. And that is truly my only negative takeaway from this book.

Our players here are Addie and Blake. Addie is psychic and sees ghosts. All she wants is a normal life where she doesn't bump into a person and get a front row seat to their thinking, or touch a person's wallet and find out his secrets. What she wants is a job at the prestigious art museum where she can surround herself with paintings and stories of the past.

Addie has lived her entire life knowing she had a great, once in a lifetime love in a past life. She feels it and knows it in her soul. When she stumbles across a sapphire ring at an antique shop and sees the inscription, she knows without a doubt that it was hers once upon a time, and now she wears it as a reminder that love does exist -- because quite frankly, she doesn't believe in it anymore.

Then we have Blake. Blake is working for a man named Otto, who wants to take Addie on in his quest to find the missing Gardner pieces because of her talents. Blake is drawn to Addie and while he agrees to Otto's plan, it turns quickly into him wanting to protect her.

I enjoyed this story -- some parts were a little drawn out for my liking, but I enjoyed the relationship and the mystery, as well as the suspenseful aspects. I loved that while their relationship was formed on a note of deception, it quickly became something else... besides, you can't easily lie to a psychic.

There is plenty more to be told in Addie and Blake's story. This one does end nicely, there's not a huge cliff that you're hanging off of, but you will be left with plenty of questions that need answers still.

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a quick note from { mignon } ...

I AM NO LONGER ACTIVE IN REVIEWING

The last two years has been incredibly rewarding, giving me the opportunity to pick up new-to-me authors, as well as new-to-the-world authors. I have enjoyed supporting publishing houses as well as the indie author, and in doing so, I learned a lot about the marketing aspect of writing a book and selling it as a self-published author.

I have re-focused my journey to more writing-minded. I still read and review! But not nearly at the rate I was; three books a day has turned to three books a month.

I will no longer be accepting individual review requests (unless it's specifically author-to-author, then it will be highly considered).

I will definitely be posting reviews for commitments I have already made, though.

Thank you for understanding, & thank you to all those I have worked with over the last year plus!

~ Mignon

http://mignonmykel.com

GOODREADS updates

Dirty Saint: A Secret Baby Sports Romance by Vesper Vaughn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book almost failed to get my attention. Why?

The hero.

He is the exact public person I despise. You know the type -- all biblical with publicized praying and verses all over his public persona. Great. Good for you. Bet you're not like that behind closed doors...

Which is exactly what Esther thinks of him.

Saint and Esther attend the same super religious college. Esther is on the fast track to becoming a nun, and no I do not kid, and Saint, given name Francis, can do just about whatever he wants, because he is the star athlete and the school knows he has connections. What in the world can these two have in common? The actions of their parents.

But where Saint does what his father says, usually, because his father is pushing him toward a pro-football careers, Esther follows her parents (father) because if she didn't... Her life would literally be a living hell.

I really enjoyed these two, once we started to get to know Saint a little bit better. My only drawback with the book would be the last half goes by in super-fast time. While it helped to keep the story moving, I would have liked to see more of that time drawn out so the feelings and emotions of our two characters felt more genuine and real -- rather than simply a two month courting that their lives demanded.

I'm giving the book the full 5 stars because it came out of left-field for me. It was a book that I didn't expect to like, but the author wove it in a way that I fell hard for our characters both as individuals and as a couple. I liked watching Esther grow and find her voice in life, just as I liked watching playboy, always for the chase Saint, settle down and find a person to be terribly protective over. I loved him most in the last two chapters.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review

Everything by Erin Noelle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Here's something you may know about me if you've followed my reviews -- I'm an epilogue reader. I will almost always read the epilogue first. Call me a spoilsport or no fun, or whatever but that's how I've been reading books for years. It's no wonder that when I write books, I tend to have the epilogue all figured out before I even start with "Once upon a time...".

That said... I read this epilogue and while I liked it, I just couldn't get past the ages of our characters. Couldn't do it. So I read the beginning. Still... If anything, the age of our characters was even more pronounced. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read this. You see, I have an issue with "Happily ever after" and the hardly-twenty crowd, let alone an eighteen year old.

But that's my hang-up.

Another thing you may know about me? I will sometimes read a book in what I call a inside-out fashion. I jump all over the place until I find a snippet of story that absolutely grips me. And people -- there are a few of those parts in Everything. So because I found those gripping parts, I put my faith in Erin Noelle, and I started from page one -- and I gave Everett and Belle a chance.

And I'm so glad I did.

Everett and his twin sister have been making music forever -- literally. They're the children of a rockstar; music has always been their life. When their father's group decides to get back together (dad always said he'd go back when the twins were done with school), Mason tells the label -- if you take me, you're taking my kids: thus, giving Everett and Ashlynn the opportunity to take their music to a larger level than they have before.

Along the way, with a local gig, Everett meets Belle -- and so begins their story.

This is a story about growing up. This is a story about following your heart -- be it for a person or a career, or even both. It is about learning to trust the person you are giving your heart to, and about taking the ever-looming jump into unknown feelings. When you put your life, your wants, your desires in someone else's hands, the world opens up -- and it certainly does for Everett and Belle.

The part I most appreciated was that the author made Everett true to his age and situation. Belle was too, yes, but it was Everett and his new lifestyle that had me wanting to see true characterization for. He's a guy; he's a musician; he's new to love. He makes mistakes. And for those mistakes, I truly got on board with this story.

Everett and his Tinker Bell were incredibly cute. I liked that there's a decent time jump at the end, further allowing -- you guessed it -- growth of our characters. I'm excited to watch more of them when (if?) Ashlynn's story comes out.

*ARC received in exchange for an honest review

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Thursday, June 11, 2015

review + interview || THE FINE ART OF DECEPTION: UNDOING TIME { blog tour }

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