Friday, September 24, 2021

Mind Sieve 9/24/21

 

Table of Contents

News/MusingsStoryOrigin Swaps 1& 2
Mini Movie ReviewsMovie Previews
StoryOrigin Swap 3Audiobooks & Books for Reviews
Just for Fun!Strong Women – Strange Worlds

Greetings!

I hope September has been good to you.  😁

News/Musings

My sinuses have been misbehaving a ton the last few weeks. 😖 I would be more than happy for them to start being nice! Maybe now that fall has started, they will become more cooperative. Right…  😋

 

The final headshot has arrived for the Daiyu Wu Mysteries crew. Last but never least is Prince Razor. Isn’t he cute? Art is by orenjilemonade at Fiverr.

 

Prince Razor

Prince Razor

Bodyguard, playmate, and ladies’ man. 😋

Extra stuff I’ve shoved in here:
1) Three info swaps from StoryOrigin. One of the three is a reader magnet – so no cost to you.

2) Two opportunities for you to get books 📚 or audiobooks if you leave reviews of them in exchange.

3) Latest set of authors that will be doing readings for Strong Women – Strange Worlds.

More deets on all of these in their sections. 😊

 

Story Origin Swap 1

Story Origin Swap 1

Woman of the Stone by S.V. Farnsworth

Emerald Stone broke her word only once.

As the consequences catch up with her, it may cost her life, has already taken her virtue, and for certain will exact a toll on her freedom. Tasked by the Creator with a quest to reunite the ancient Modutan Empire, she escapes in search of a peace that can only be found on the other side of a war. If she survives the politics and peril of the journey, she will discover that oaths of the heart are not so easily broken.

(In Print Only)

Story Origin Swap 2

Story Origin Swap 2

The Jack Hansard Series: Season 1 by Georgina Jeffery

Jack Hansard is the man who can sell you anything. Luck in a bottle, fame in a box, dreams on a leash… anything is possible when you’re a trader on the occult Black Market.

Jack is used to a life of handling dangerous goods, dodging disgruntled customers, and sometimes running away very fast. But when Ang (a two-and-a-half-foot tall coblyn right out of Welsh folklore) buys his help to find her missing kin, Jack suddenly finds the goods are riskier, the customers more treacherous, and escape is anything but guaranteed.

The Jack Hansard Series is an episodic modern fantasy with a wide streak of humour and a lot of British folklore. Season One contains the first fifteen episodes in the series.

Mini Movie Reviews 🎥

★ – Why did I go see this? Why?!

★★ – Showed promise but on execution, crashed

★★★ – Enjoyable, just don’t look under the hood too closely

★★★★ – A great film, totally worth seeing!

★★★★★ – 🤯 Too fabulous for words!




Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings


This film has a little bit of everything in it. Tons of action, comedy, magic, drama, and more. The relationship between Shaun (Shang-Chi) and Katy was refreshing as it shows that men and women can just be friends. The two are like a mischievous pair of siblings! I also loved how they incorporated the Mandarin character debacle in Iron Man 3 and played with it. So fun! There are two extra scenes at the end (the first one slew me!). Definitely worth seeing!

Rating: ★★★★.25 out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Full Price of Admission to See Again!)



The Suicide Squad

The Suicide Squad


I somehow missed doing a review on this one. DOH! I liked this one a lot better than the 2016 Suicide Squad with Will Smith. The plot was a little more solid and had more layers. It is as crazy and demented as ever, too! I had seen King Shark in one of the animated DC films before, so I was totally looking forward to seeing him in CGI. What a riot! Voila Davis is still creepy good as Amanda Waller. Not for KIDS!  

Rating: ★★★★ out of 5 (Hubby’s Rating: Worth Price of Admission)




Movie Previews 🎥

Matrix Resurrections – This should be wild! Though I wish Keanu had shaved or cut his hair. In the last John Wick film and this one he looks too scraggly. 😋

Spider Man No Way Home Trailer – I’m not sure Dr. Strange would do this? But it could be fun. 😋

Hawkeye – I thought it was a movie, but it’s actually a TV show! Sweet! Trick arrows for the win!!!!!

Story Origin Swap 3

Story Origin Swap 3

The Neighbor You Don’t Know by Shane Shepherd

After countless years of preparation Mission Terra Firme One is finally ready to commence and give Earth the answers it has long waited for, about the planet Neighbor.

The TSS Cartographer is about to arrive and its First Officer Baldwin “call me Win” Tavares believes that he might just be able to touch his hand to that rocky ground and that’d be enough for him to learn everything there is to know about their old Neighbors, the things they’d done and what they’d left behind.

But not everyone is as kind-hearted or has such noble intentions, and Neighbor holds more mysteries than anyone could have imagined. Exploring it might open the gates for a flood that threatens to drown everything, and Win must make decisions that hold his life, and that of all around him, at stake.

(Reader Magnet)

Audiobooks for Reviews Exchange!

HMT Audiobook Reviews

HMT Audiobook Reviews! For the month of Sep 2021, these audiobooks will be available in exchange for reviews.

 

Books for Reviews Exchange!

Paranormal Romance And Urban Fantasy Books for Reviews

Back to School! Paranormal romance and urban fantasy books for reviews for the month of Sep 2021.

 

Just for Fun!

This month over at the Animal Rescue Site they had another super cute story – this time about a bookstore that serves coffee and has kittens for adoption! They roam the store! The story is here.

Speaking of the Matrix – watch the latest music video from World Order called Censorship. If you’ve never seen them before, they are a blast! Their synchronized movements are amazing!

A new video from Simon’s Cat called Pupsitting. This one is in color and 10 minutes long! Dang!

Strong Women – Strange Worlds

The next Strong Women – Strange Worlds virtual readings are set for Friday 10/01/21 at Noon EST. Check out the graphic below for the participants. Here’s the info link. Make your free reservation early!

Strong Women - Strange Worlds 10/1/21 Virtual Readings

Have an awesome weekend! 😁

 

Gloria

Friday, September 10, 2021

Virtual Tourist 9/10/21

 

Table of Contents

News/MusingsStoryOrigin Swaps
ControlAudiobooks for Reviews
Books for ReviewsStrong Women – Strange Worlds

Greetings!

I hope you had a fun and safe Labor Day.

We stayed home and I goofed off in the afternoon, which was sweet! 😊

 

News/Musings

Not much to report. The Amazon AMS experiment is still showing mixed results. I’ve tweaked what I am using on the book page for the Excerpt, but the first time it messed up and the Amazon peeps have not fixed it yet. 😭

One thing I did do, is use Fiverr to contract an artist to do headshots of Dai, Jacques, and Prince Razor to use on the Amazon A+ Content past of the page. I’ve gotten Dai’s and Jacques, and added them to the page already. You can see them at Amazon’s Black Jade page. I will be adding them to the website when I have all three. (I also need to add reviews there, too. But not all reviewers want their reviews reposted.)

I’ll add the headshots here so you don’t have to go looking for them. 🤩

 

 

Headshots

Artwork by orenjilemonade at Fiverr

Miss Daiyu Wu

Miss Daiyu Wu (AKA Dai)

Jacques Haskin

Jacques Haskin

 

 

Extra stuff I’ve shoved in here:
1) Two book info swaps from StoryOrigin.

2) One opportunity for you to get books 📚 for reviews.

3) One opportunity for audiobooks for reviews

4) Info on the next Strong Women – Strange Worlds virtual readings!

Scroll on down to get all the deets. 😉

 

Story Origin Swap

Story Origin Swap

Skald’s Hollow by J.A. Brooklyn

Everyone handles their soap operas differently. The Lausch family does it with blood and magic.

A fantasy story that will hit you like a thunderbolt.

Set in a magical kingdom, Skald’s Hollow shows Stefan Lausch purchasing a mountain. Stefan tells Gustav he wants to spend quality time by going on a hunt to find dragon bones, wolves, and nightshades. He doesn’t tell him that the safari is really an excuse to kidnap mountain soldiers and execute Nazi-like experiments on them.

To distance himself from his father’s crime empire, Gustav built a million-dollar car company and got married to an exiled princess to start a new family with less blood on its hands. Now, Gustav must struggle to prove he can protect himself from his Goliath-like father and the evil he exhibits.

Skald’s Hollow is the prequel to the Chronicles of Alder’s urban contemporary fantasy series.

 

 

Story Origin Swap

Story Origin Swap

​Blood and Loyalty – The Dracomancer Book 1 by Lona Fox and F. Lowberry

“The world needs to change. That much is obvious. But what kind of change does Parthenis need, I wonder?”
“A drastic one, no doubt. Let it be born over and better. Or is that too much?”

At ten years old, Kalindra Therin, throne-princess of Lundell, is tested to discover whether she has the potential to become a Dracomancer. When she’s proven worth it, despite her father’s protests, she chooses to travel with her mentor Yenderen to the Iclindir Dracomancy Academy to learn the arts of combat and spellcasting as well as to commune with her new dragon companion Rina.

But after 5 years of training as a keeper of balance, is she still willing to obey her father, the King, and secure a political alliance with a nearby kingdom out of duty? What would become of her if she dares to take a stand for herself and her dragon?

Control

Control is a mind-bending science fiction third-person shooter. I’d had it on my wishlist for a while and grabbed it when it went on special. 😎

The story follows Jesse Fadden, a young woman who has been looking for the Federal Bureau of Control for years in order to find out what happened to her younger brother thirteen years before.

It’s a very atmospheric game with twisted visuals as reality is malleable. Unlike a lot of games, it doesn’t come with preset levels of difficulty you can choose, but rather, down in the guts of the options menu, you can choose assist mode and then choose which aspect you want to increase. I like that a lot as if one area is way too difficult, I can tweak the damage I take and this give me a chance to get through it! Lol. Combat is harsh here. 😁

It has been super trippy so far, which is awesome! Like when the Board (Astral conglomeration of aliens?) give Jesse the job of Director since the last one shot himself, all the picture frames in the building showing Director Trench all switched to photos of Jesse! Time is fluid!

More pics here.

 

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Street view of the entrance to the Federal Bureau of Control. Jesse has been to New York several times and this is the first time she has seen it. Most people are not aware it is even there.

 

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This is the lobby of the Federal Bureau of Control. As you pick up random documents, you’ll find one stating the protocols for anyone who actually sees it and walks in. Depending on the answers to some simple questions, visitors are either asked to leave or detained.

 

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​Director Trench. He will be dead by the time Jesse meets him. She does the one thing one should NEVER do when they come upon the crime scene—grab the weapon.

In Control, grabbing the bio-gun has a different consequence than being accused of murder though. 😁

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I thought it funny that for a bureau no one can find, they still want to show off the logo! Heh heh

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​This is Ahti, the bureau’s head janitor. Except, I am sure he’s way more than that. He’s the one who sends me to the Director’s office. I also have a feeling he’s aware of the entity who came in with Jesse. She talks to him/her/it on occasion.

 

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A giant file room in the midst of its reality being changed. Red is the signature color of Hiss (Jesse finds paperwork calling it Hiss, but the first time she meets a live person after Ahti, Jesse calls it that and they act as if she’s named it for the first time. Yes, lots of reality is being bent!)

 

 

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The Board. Jesse first meets them after picking up the bio-gun in the Director’s office. Bwahahaha!

 

 

 

Audiobooks for Reviews Exchange!

HMT Audiobook Reviews

HMT Audiobook Reviews! For the month of Sep 2021, these audiobooks will be available in exchange for reviews.

 

Books for Reviews Exchange!

Paranormal Romance And Urban Fantasy Books for Reviews

Back to School! Paranormal romance and urban fantasy books for reviews for the month of Sep 2021.

 

Strong Women – Strange Worlds

The next Strong Women – Strange Worlds virtual readings are set for Thursday 9/16/21 at 5 pm EST. Check out the graphic below for the participants. Here’s the pre-registration link. They’ve now added a little time for those who don’t need to rush off to do a Q&A with the participating authors. Nice!

Strong Women - Strange Worlds Virtual Reading 9/16/21

That’s it for this round. I hope you have a fabulous weekend. 😁

 

Gloria

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