Emily Stone's Blog

Grave expectations will be available as a free download on Amazon from 4/7 to 4/11. Hope everyone is safe and healthy. Stay home a read a free book! My love and prayers to you all.

Claire Dessalines is a single mom in a small coastal Delaware town. She’s taking a second chance at life, starting a career in the world of wildlife biology. When widower Brian Melodus moves to town and tries to connect with her, it looks like she’ll have a second chance at love, too, not that she wants it. She’s cynical about romance, and sure she can’t trust him. Just because he’s running some of the State’s most important wildlife rehabilitation programs doesn’t mean he’s relationship material. But when tragedy strikes and Brian is the only person available to help her, Claire has no choice but to rely on him. Circumstances and their shared passion for environmental issues keep bringing them together, and if Claire truly wants to heal, she’ll have to try letting someone into her heart.

I took a chance on this book after reading the description. I usually lean towards historical romance but I am glad I decided to dive in. It perfectly describes a coastal Delaware town where Clair and her five-year-old son live. She is a recent graduate in wildlife biology and begins to look for work while teaching her young son ways to conserve the ecosystem. She meets a new professor and the attraction while mutual was met with reluctance and distrust. The professor, Brian, was also a wildlife conversationalist and widower. They end up working together to help the local endangered bird population and horseshoe crabs while skirting their attraction. Clair ends up having to learn to trust Brian in a scary and tragic time when her son becomes very ill. I liked that the book had real-life issues, like single parenting, domestic violence, death and having to overcome trauma. It was a good read and I would recommend it.

[image error]Chasing through Bluebell Woods after a strange green-furred rabbit, twelve year old Bryony and Bethany, her eight year old sister, inexplicably end up in the ‘olden times’.Life in the village where they find themselves is hard under the wicked lord of the manor. The two girls are thrown into a desperate struggle in which the evil lord will stop at nothing to hold onto his power over the village.Soon everyone’s hopes are pinned on Bryony and her new companions, Toby, who is under a ‘severe warning’ for humiliating the disliked village pastor, and Tommy, who mysteriously arrived in the village one day and can’t or won’t speak.Together they set out on a mission to bring help from a higher authority, but their journey is beset with difficulties. Will they be in time to save their friends from the hangman’s noose?A thrilling story for readers aged 10 and above, and for anyone who enjoys losing themselves in a fantastical adventure!

I am sorry that it’s been so long since my last book review. I was singularly focused on trying to finish my latest book and then took a much-needed break. Anyway, I continued to read when I had the chance so I will have a few reviews up for you shortly. Today, I wanted to tell you about a great adventure story for all ages. The book is titled Following the Green Rabbit; a fantastical adventure by Chris Hall. The story is a wonderful tale of two sisters and their tutor who accidentally find themselves transported back in time to a small village that is being ruled by a tyrannical lord. The world in which the characters live takes place during the height of the second British Empire at the turn of the twentieth century and is so richly detailed, it was almost tangible. The characters in the book are very vivid and easily relatable. The author captured the curious nature of the children perfectly and it was refreshing to be able to experience their innocence. I won’t go into any more details, because I would not want to spoil your chance to experience the adventure through the eyes of a child. Instead of following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, I would follow the green rabbit into the dense forest and lose myself in this adventure for a while. 

Greetings and Salutations! I am excited to share with you that my new book Grave Expectations will be available on Amazon starting January 29th. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks so much for your patience and sorry for the delay.

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     Have you ever witnessed the failure of the justice system firsthand? Watching a criminal walk away on a technicality can invoke feelings of anger and despair.  The book I am about to tell you about will certainly give you a taste of sweet revenge. It’s a book by William Coleman titled Payback and it will not disappoint. I had difficulty putting it down and had it completed in just a couple of days.       The book begins by following a cop turned assassin Alex Dunn through the termination of his most recent target, a known criminal and someone that the FBI had assigned surveillance. 
While the FBI struggles to identify the vagrant assassin, Alex is assigned a new target by the organization that he works for. Alex and his team receive dossiers on their intended hits from an unknown person working for a shadow organization of the government. They are sworn to secrecy and if any of the team are caught, they are left to their own devices. All of the targets are individuals who have committed crimes and have avoided being charged or sentenced. After years of dolling out vigilante justice, the organization was hacked and information that could implicate the team was stolen as well as information on Alex’s last mark who he later learns was innocent.  Alex survives an attempt on his life and begins to track down the person who wants him dead. As he tries to find the person responsible everyone in his organization ends up dead except the receptionist. With her help, he tries to avoid not only the person gunning for him but also the FBI. The story had plenty of twists and turns and keeps you guessing until the end. I loved the detail that he put into Alex’s character and the imaginative paranoia of his ex-partner.

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I am at 42973 words and have just a few more chapters to be done. I will still need to work on the editing but it’s coming along nicely. More to come!

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Just an update for those that are interested! I am now at 36417 words! I am getting closer to having it completed although, I expected to have it off for editing by now. I am still hoping to have the book done by the end of October. I will continue to keep you updated.

Thank you for your support!

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Fail the tests and become a slave. Display defectiveness and be put to death. 

Monroe Academy was built to separate the weak from the strong. Pass the biyearly leveling and be released into society upon graduation. Fail to be promoted and be stripped of rank and forced into servitude. 

That was a rule that applied to all but Rayah Bardeau. A student of Monroe Academy, branded as a Null because of her absence of Lighter energy. With her mother standing as a slave in her place, Rayah was given until the age of twenty to make level six, but at nineteen-years-old and with only eight months until her twentieth birthday, she was only a mere level one. The same level she’s been since she was ten. 

With the stress of her upcoming test, the loss of a friend, and the constant wrongdoings towards her, Rayah could only dream of escaping from Lytonia, and escape she did. Only, when she awakened in her dorm, she couldn’t distinguish if she had only dreamt of meeting Soren, a wild and adventurous defect in the Wild Lands, or if she had somehow used her Lighter Form to get there. 

But only the elite ― the most powerful of Lighters ― could tap into their Lighter Forms. Right?

And what was the dark energy she used when she and Soren were attacked by Depleters? Was Rayah really as powerless as she thought? Was she a defect? And if she used dark energy, could she call herself a Lighter at all? 

Welcome back! I am so glad you have stayed with me. I hope to be able to provide you with a great read on a rainy Sunday. As I an writing, I pause occasionally to watch the rain dripping from my porch and to listen to the soft patter as the rain drops hit the roof. It’s a day for relaxation and reflection with a strong cup of joe and a good book to cozy up with.

Today’s review is for The Descendants by Destiny Hawkins. Its from the dystopian science fiction genre and its action packed and fast paced. It begins with Rayah who is a null or someone who has no light powers at all. Everyone in the town have some form of powers to learn to use for the greater good. Her powers never manifested so she was ranked as the lowest level in the academy. The instructors tried to force her to develop any latent powers she had through torture and pain but her time to shine was running out. Her own mother had bought her time to reach her potential by offering herself up as a slave until her twentieth birthday. We meet Rayah at nineteen years and four months and witness her struggles from being beaten by top ranked students and extreme torture by an instructor with a particular interest in her. As she struggles to over come these situations she also morns the loss of her best friend and crush. He failed to make it to the final level of training and was enslaved as a consequence. She learned about the evil Children of God and the wild lands beyond the walls of their city. She began having vivid dreams of escaping the town and encountering one of the Children of God. However she learned that he was not evil and finally understood that her dreams of him were no dreams. She was showing evidence of some of the traits of the Children of God. The book was exciting and her description of Rayah and her quiet dignity and strength made me root for her from the beginning. I found it an enjoyable read and will be reading the second book to see what happens to Rayah.

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So I am currently at 24529 words. I’ve made a couple of corrections but otherwise I am still just pounding away at it. I am excited to get it finished. I will post a couple of more book reviews in the next few days but I am going to really try to get this book finished in the next two months. I will keep you updated. Thanks for being so patient.

[image error] Loving husband, father to twin boys, successful tech executive…target for revenge.

Three years ago, Kevin Voss boarded a flight to Tokyo…and he would come back a different man.

He is kidnapped and blackmailed through a string of bizarre sexual encounters–all part of a meticulous plan.

He receives a very specific set of instructions.
TO CREATE THE VOSS COIN. All the details were there, except one…

This technology in the wrong hands would be equivalent to a financial atomic bomb. Millions, if not billions of people, would feel the ripple effect and he would be the perfect scapegoat.

Facing an enemy of the worst kind, Kevin clings to survival through a mind-altering journey of sex, greed, power, and self-discovery. The chickens weren’t coming home to roost; they were going to roost everywhere.

I have been on a roll lately with my choices in reading material. The Voss Coin by A.B. Alexander was my latest reading conquest. I saw that it was a psychological thriller and was instantly intrigued so I downloaded it from Kindle. This book is a mental roller coaster! I absolutely loved it. I was annoyed that I had to put the book down in order to sleep so I wasn’t part of the walking dead the next morning for work. If you know me, I don’t get annoyed by having to sleep.

The book begins with Kevin Voss and his guilt over the soon to be collapse of his family and his life that he had worked so hard to build. It flashes back to three years prior when he went on an emergency trip to Tokyo to investigate a security breach for the company he worked for. Kevin was top in his field and was making a name for himself as a tech guru. He had several strange unwilling sexual encounters and was blackmailed with pictures of the sessions. He was forced to cooperate with an unknown organization that wanted him to create a new type of cryptocurrency with a back door for them to have access to funnel millions from unsuspecting victims. He was kidnapped and held for days while forced to embrace some unorthodox mental training. Eventually he escaped and made his way home only to discover he wasn’t free of them. His family’s lives were on the line if he didn’t write the code for the new currency within six months. He was able to complete it but the situation began to spiral out of control when people around him started to die. The blackmailers had cleared the way for the currency to be approved by the corporation that he worked for. Kevin worked diligently to figure out a fail-safe to stop what the blackmailers had planned and to keep some leverage for the lives of his family.

The story was fast moving with plenty of action and suspense. I enjoyed the transformation that Kevin was forced to go through and the desperate decisions that he made. It was very well written and at times I could feel the adrenaline rush and panic of the hunted through the author’s words. It was like riding a roller coaster in pitch dark, no way of knowing when there would be a drop or a turn. I encourage anyone to pick this book up and devour it like I did.