Well, I thought I was done with being missing in action, but apparently I wasn't. I apologize for not being here as often, or at all basically. But now that I have recently gotten back into writing, I will get back into blogging. I know that it may not be as cool as it was a couple years back, but I guess I was never someone who was cool.
So, stay tuned and see what I have coming up. I'm going to be doing some new stuff, rather than just reviews and book tours. I'm going to share a couple different things. Things like what I like about some book, but I don't like about some books. Might even feature some new authors, as well as some of my favorite. Or maybe I will post about books that I am looking forward to reading.
But I do promise to be posting a bit more than What I have been.
Stay true to yourself, and you will shine!
Christopher Chapman
Sunday, 7 January 2018
Monday, 27 April 2015
I have sort of been M.I.A.
There is really no excuse as to why I've been missing in action for the past little while, but I am here to fill you in on what has been happening.
I've recently moved out of the place I was in, and in with one of my best friends from back home. It wasn't a big change, just a few blocks down the road. It's a healthier way of living, now.
My laptop was destroyed. Beyond repair. Nothing was saved, but before it did break I was able to email myself what I had from my story. Then I forgot my password to my email. Just my luck. Thankfully, I was able to recovery the account, so I once again have my story on hand.
Still without a computer, I have taken back to writing some stuff long hand. I've also starting jotting down some notes for a new story, I'll follow you all in later on.
I've been reading quite a bit more, mostly traditionally published authors. Waiting for my indie authors to release more novels for me to dive into. Have not been able to post much on anywhere because my phone was broken and I was using a loaner phone that was outdated and did not have any of the apps for any of the websites.
But I am back now, and writing again.
Stay tuned for things that will be coming in in the near future.
I've recently moved out of the place I was in, and in with one of my best friends from back home. It wasn't a big change, just a few blocks down the road. It's a healthier way of living, now.
My laptop was destroyed. Beyond repair. Nothing was saved, but before it did break I was able to email myself what I had from my story. Then I forgot my password to my email. Just my luck. Thankfully, I was able to recovery the account, so I once again have my story on hand.
Still without a computer, I have taken back to writing some stuff long hand. I've also starting jotting down some notes for a new story, I'll follow you all in later on.
I've been reading quite a bit more, mostly traditionally published authors. Waiting for my indie authors to release more novels for me to dive into. Have not been able to post much on anywhere because my phone was broken and I was using a loaner phone that was outdated and did not have any of the apps for any of the websites.
But I am back now, and writing again.
Stay tuned for things that will be coming in in the near future.
Monday, 9 February 2015
Pucked Review
Pucked by Rachel Walter
Now Available, Pucked, a novel that takes you back to
your first love in high school, while gaining an education of what it's like
for people who suffer from Parental Alienation. During the first week of
release, February 10-17, all sales will be donated to paawarness.org, so please
be sure to spread the word around and help out!
Does life get in the way of love or does love get in the way of life?Riley Silk, captain of the Warrior’s Ice Hockey team at Dalesburg High, doesn’t think life can be lived if love is present. If there’s two things in life he knows to be true, it’s that love causes pain and hockey is his ticket to a better life. He’s worked hard to maintain his Frozen Silk reputation in order to stay focused on his duties and goals.Audrey Jacobs, the Warrior’s number one fan, believes life can’t be lived without love. She can find love and beauty in the muddiest of situations. Her best friend, Riley, is under a lot of stress at home, so she does her best to brighten his mood whenever she can.When lines cross and blur, they struggle to keep control of the simplicity their friendship once held. With Audrey’s outlook on life usually surrounded by light, the growing darkness of her doubts and insecurities threaten to deflect her toward the wrong path.Can she find her true self before her world burns around her? When truths become lies, can Riley find the strength to fight his way through his own personal darkness that clings to his mind and soul? Can he win this face-off that life has dropped in his zone, or will fate take him out of the game completely?Who keeps the puck?
**Warning- Several abuse topics are discussed in this story, which includes parental alienation, physical abuse, alcohol abuse, and mild drug abuse.**
Add Pucked on Goodreads HERE
When Dani Morales had asked me if I would read and review Pucked by Rachel Walter for this book blitz, I was thrilled! I love the work of Rachel Walter, so me jumping into this blitz was something that I was more than will to participate in.
If you've read any of Rachel's other work, this novel may not be up your alley. If you're like me and can read several different genre of books, I would suggest you pick up a copy of Pucked. It's not a paranormal/fantasy novel, but it is a novel that I think a lot of us can relate to.
I may not know how Rachel's brain works most of the time, but I know that when it comes to her writing style, you should always have a box of tissue within reach. Pucked was no different. Even with Rachel talking about the genre I knew that I would need at least two boxes.
Parental Alienation. Something that I didn't really think about until Rachel had mentioned that she was working on a novel that involved it. Being a writer, I wanted to know more about what it was so I went to the interwebs and did a little bit of research. And I have to say that this is some pretty serious stuff. Rachel may have only touched down on what some kids actually go through, but it was enough to open my eyes. I applaud Rachel for taking the step and writing about something that has such a huge affect on so many children and teens.
I don't know how Rachel does it, but when I start to read her words I cannot stop myself. I cannot seem to find the time to do anything else with my day because I'm either still reading her writing, or thinking about the novel. It's like she consumes my attention every time to writes something down.
When I started reading Pucked for the first time, I was not in the right frame of mind for it, and actually had to put it down. But this past week, I've read it about three times and it gets me to every time.
Tears of joy. Bubbling laughter. Snorts.
Tears of pain. Clawing at my chest, trying to breathe. So much hurt.
Pucked is a roller coaster of emotion, thrown into book form. If you're not ready for it, it will smack you upside the head and make you feel things that you never thought you would feel. You'll laugh with the characters. You'll cry when they feel pain. And you'll scream at them for being idiots. It's everything I could want in a book, and more.
About Rachel Walter
Rachel is a wife and mother from Central Pennsylvania. Her favorite season is fall, for hockey, changing leaves, pumpkin everything, and bonfires often. She’s also a coffeenista with an insomnia problem. When Rachel isn’t playing with the people inside her head, making her family believe she belongs in the loony bin, she enjoys spending time with her family, friends, species confused cat (he believes he’s part dog, love him), and finding new books and music.
Regarding writing, her first love is Young Adult Paranormal, but she’s venturing outside of her comfort zone and opening up to writing more genres. Be on the look out!
Stalk Links:
More from this Author
Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Soul Promise (The Soul Mate Series) #2
Young Adult Paranormal Romance
A Message of Flowers (A Pocono Valley Romance) #1
Adult Contemporary Romance
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Cover Reveal!!! PUCKED
Pucked Cover Reveal!
Available this February, Rachel Walter is releasing her YA Contemporary Romance, Pucked. A novel that takes you back to your first love in high school, while gaining an education of what it's like for people who suffer from Parental Alienation. Today we are revealing this amazing cover designed by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design and Photography be on the look out for this book!
Available this February, Rachel Walter is releasing her YA Contemporary Romance, Pucked. A novel that takes you back to your first love in high school, while gaining an education of what it's like for people who suffer from Parental Alienation. Today we are revealing this amazing cover designed by Regina Wamba of Mae I Design and Photography be on the look out for this book!
SynopsisDoes life get in the way of love or does love get in the way of life?Riley Silk doesn’t know the answer to this. He loves. He lives. But he can’t figure out how to merge the two together.Audrey Jacobs doesn’t believe there is an answer to the love versus life debate. She believes life can’t be lived without love. But even she has difficulties with how to access her own feelings.Riley and Audrey have been friends for years, best friends. But lines cross and blur. Their functional relationship turns into an unconventional mess, and they both want to fix it, to go back to the way things were.Stress, memories, and heartache thrash them both into different directions. Can Riley cope with everything’s that happened? Can Audrey overcome her insecurities?Who keeps the puck?**Trigger warning- abuse topics - Parental Alienation. Mild - alcohol abuse and drug abuse **
Release Date: February 2015
Add Pucked on Goodreads HERE
About Rachel Walter
Rachel is a wife and mother from Central Pennsylvania. Her favorite season is fall, for hockey, changing leaves, pumpkin everything, and bonfires often. She’s also a coffeenista with an insomnia problem. When Rachel isn’t playing with the people inside her head, making her family believe she belongs in the loony bin, she enjoys spending time with her family, friends, species confused cat (he believes he’s part dog, love him), and finding new books and music.
Regarding writing, her first love is Young Adult Paranormal, but she’s venturing outside of her comfort zone and opening up to writing more genres. Be on the look out!
Stalk Links:
More from this Author
True Connection (The Soul Mate Series) #1
Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Soul Promise (The Soul Mate Series) #2
Young Adult Paranormal Romance
A Message of Flowers (A Pocono Valley Romance) #1
Adult Contemporary Romance
Thursday, 18 December 2014
You're never alone.
I know by posting this particular blog post, I'm just repeating what has already been said in the past, by many others. But I personally believe that it is a topic that needs to be thrown in the face of society every so often, just to reopen our eyes.
Bullying. It's all around us. Even when we think it's not.
It's a topic that I, like many others, try to shy away from but ultimately it's always brought to the light. Yes, I try to shy away from the topic of bullying, because it brings back so many horrible memories. But with these memories, and experience, I can honestly say that I lived through the worst of my life.
Before I really get into this post, I want to share my story.
My name is Christopher Thomas Chapman. I am a deli clerk at a safeway/sobeys (a grocery store), and a writer. I am a son, a brother, a friend. I'm also gay.
Being gay doesn't define me. I am all of these things, and then I am gay. I'm not a gay deli clerk, a gay writer, a gay son/brother/friend. I am all of these things, and then I'm gay.
At the age of sixteen, I finally stopped lying to myself and came out as a homosexual. Now growing up in a small town, this spread like wildfire.
"Did you hear? The Chapman boy is gay."
I couldn't walk down the halls at school, without several people yelling out 'Fag' 'Homo' 'Queer'. I walked with my head held high, not showing the hurt or pain that it caused. But really, it did hurt. People I grew up with, were now turning their backs on me because they didn't want to be taunted for hanging out with the 'Queer'.
I found myself falling into a very dark place. A place that no one should ever find themselves.
I turned to writing. Poetry. And it was very dark.
I've recently taken my experience with that darkness and I've decided to write a novel. A novel that has the characters face real problems, as well as fantasy problems.
Thankfully, even though I had dropped out of school, I had friends who were always there. Even when I didn't know that they were. They went out of their way to make sure that I had some good days.
What I guess I'm trying to say is that even when you think that you're alone, your not. You're not even close to being alone. I know people say that 'It gets better' once you make it through the teen years, but how does that help us now? The only way we're going to make sure that it does get better, and that it gets better quickly is if we all take the stand. Stand up for your fellow peers. Show them that they are not alone!
I'm thankful for the friends that I did have in school, because they stood there beside me the whole time. They never left my side. If you're not the one being bullied, don't be just a bystander. Be the friend who is there. And if you are the one being bullied, talk about it.
There's no shame in talking about it. There are plenty of people who will listen. Guidance Counselors, teachers, friends, me. If you think that you have nobody who will listen to you, I will. I may not be in your shoes now, but I have been in the shoes of the bullied.
They say change doesn't happen over night, and that's true. But change does happen with just one person.
If you've managed to sit here and read through all of this, please share it. I know that the grammar is probably really bad, but that's not the point. The point is to get the message across, that we are not alone.
Let people know that you're there for them if they need someone, or that you need someone to be there for you. We can get through this. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but some day.
Tuesday, 18 November 2014
The Eternal Cover Reveal
A note from the author:
Thank you for helping me celebrate the release of the
cover to the third and final installment of the Mythology YA series! I’ve had
such an amazing publishing journey with these books, and I’m forever grateful
to fans both old and new who have supported me along the way.
Such exciting things are afoot with this series. It was
optioned out by Off the Grid Entertainment for potential movie/TV production
earlier this year, and starting in 2015, I’ll be writing the start to the
Mythology Adult series! Hopefully you’ll stay tuned to my website for future
developments!
With my ETERNAL love
and gratitude,
Helen
Boswell
And now, the cover….
BOOK TITLE: THE
ETERNAL (Mythology #3)
AUTHOR: Helen Boswell
GENRE: Young Adult, Urban
Fantasy/Paranormal
Coming: Winter 2014
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Self-preservation, above all. That’s the credo by which
guardian Jonathan Draper justifies his existence. Or at least it was until he
found Hope Gentry. Backed by the powers of his beloved Hope and his most loyal
guardian Raleigh Peyton, Jonathan should have enough influence to save his
sector from destruction. But Buffalo is plagued by guardian unrest and
increasing threats from the city’s most evil entities, and Jonathan is stripped
of all authority.
Never harm a soul. That’s the credo by which the members
of the demon alliance live. Micah Condie has trouble fitting in, and it doesn’t
help that he has enough power to set anyone he touches on fire. He can’t return
home until he cancels out the debt he owes the most powerful immortals. But
when he uncovers an eighteen-year old secret that rocks the foundation of his
existence, Micah has no choice but to go back home. Now not only must he
placate the immortals, but he must face an uncertain future with his girlfriend
Hope Gentry, reconcile with the family he abandoned, and finally settle the
score with Jonathan Draper.
Someone is masterminding a plot to destroy all of the
guardians and human souls in existence. Only if Jonathan and his most unlikely
ally, Micah, can join forces will they be able to save them.
The fate of all depends on the will of one: THE ETERNAL.
MYTHOLOGY (Mythology #1) and THE WICKED
(Mythology #2) are now available on Amazon.com. Read for free with the
KindleUnlimited Program.
About the
Author:
Helen Boswell credits her dad, an avid fiction
reader, with encouraging her to read ALL OF THE BOOKS on his shelves from the
time she was a teenager. Originally from upstate New York, Helen spent much of
her early adult life tromping around in Buffalo, NYC, Toronto, and Las Vegas,
those cities now serving as inspiration for the dark and gritty backdrops of
her stories. She is the author of YA urban fantasies MYTHOLOGY, THE WICKED,
and THE ETERNAL (coming Winter 2014), and NA contemporary romance LOSING ENOUGH
(GOING FOR BROKE; coming Spring 2015).
Monday, 13 October 2014
Between the Stars and Sky Blog Tour
NOW AVAILABLE
BETWEEN THE STARS AND SKY
is a vivid contemporary novel from Young Adult author David James.
Lyrical and romantic, BETWEEN THE STARS AND SKY is a heart-stopping,
contemporary read for fans of Maggie Stiefvater and David Levithan.
SYNOPSIS: "In the small,
lakeside town of Huntington, the Firelight Festival marks the end of summer. A
time to laugh, to live, to love. And for Jackson Grant, it is a chance to begin
again.
But there is a darker side to the
Firelight Festival, a deadly tradition known as the Firelight Fall. A secret
game. A legendary lie. A test of bravery. Those who fall risk everything, and
Jackson is on the edge. Until he meets a girl who pushes him over.
For Jackson, falling for Sarah Blake might
be as dangerous as jumping in the Firelight Fall. As summer burns away, Jackson
and Sarah ignite an unstoppable love game. For her, his heart is on fire. And
soon, Sarah shows him life, saves him from loss, and opens his heart to an
infinite and wild love found between
the stars and sky."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STALK LINKS
A novel of poetry, strung together beautifully to pull at the strings of your heart.
The moment that I finished reading this novel, I had died. Or at least it felt like I did.
I could only see the picture that David painted in my imagination,
I could only breathe the words that he had written.
It's like I was living in the world that he had created, standing there, an innocent bystander. A wallflower, watching the story unravel before my very eyes. And I couldn't look away. I wouldn't look away.
Between the Stars and Sky is a novel that everyone has to read. Everyone needs to experience the beauty of this story.
Beauty is all around us, we just need to open our eyes to see it. It seems David did just that, and then decided to put it to words. This story shows you the beauty in simple things, things that we tend to overlook.
David may write about stars, curses, and kisses. But now he also writes about star-filled eyes, losing/finding love, and underwear.
It's not often you find an author of the YA genre who is able to write well in the contemporary, David has shown us that he is a man of many talents.
For his first contemporary novel, it was, breathtaking!
This story will not only open your eyes, but your heart as well.
During Between the Stars and Sky blog tour, David has decided to book his novel on sale! Go pick up your copy today!
GIVEAWAY
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