Review, Excerpt & Giveaway: Shadow of Doubt by Linda Poitevin

Publisher: Hachette Audio
Source: the author in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: September 26th, 2017 
Buying Links: Amazon* | Audible | Audiobook Store | Bandcamp |
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

SHADOW OF DOUBT is a new release from Hachette Audiobooks: Powered by Wattpad - an innovative collaboration between Hachette Book Group, a leading publisher, and Wattpad, a passionate storytelling community of over 45 million people. Your favorite online stories, now available in your headphones!

Helping him could end her career...
And her life.

Sworn to uphold the law, police officer Kate Dexter believes in doing the right thing. But when she meets an injured, altogether too sexy ATF agent, her entire world is turned upside down.

Jonas Burke is a wanted man. Framed for murder, he needs sanctuary--now. Finding it in the arms of a beautiful, feisty fellow cop isn't exactly his best plan, but he's desperate and wounded, and time is running out for him to prove his innocence. Armed with a little more than a conspiracy theory, Jonas has no choice but to ask for Kate's help.

Kate is torn between her duty to "serve and protect" and her growing desire for this man on the run. With her colleagues in pursuit and Jonas's enemies closing in, she and Jonas will have to work together if they want to survive. But can she really trust him beyond a shadow of doubt?

COYER Blackout Sign Up

I'm cutting back on challenges this year, since I did so poorly last year with them. I'm doing the Goodreads Reading challenge; I'm co-hosting the Library Love Challenge with Angela from Angel's Guilty Pleasures; and now I'm joining in the newest COYER challenge. It actually started a few weeks ago but I just now decided to join. I think that this year I will do more short-term challenges and fewer of the year long challenges. They just work better for me.

COYER Blackout will run from December 17, 2016 – March 3, 2017. The linky will remain open one extra day so we can get our reviews in, but they need to be posted by the end of the day March 3rd. There will be winners of (3) $10 gift cards to Amazon or Barnes and Noble on March 4th.

This time COYER is going to be a 12 week Blackout, where you have to dedicate yourself to reading the books you've acquired for less than $1.00. No problem for me since the majority of my ebooks these days are freebies from Amazon or InstaFreebies or are review copies. Library books and borrowed books don't count this time around.

For all the details, or to sign up, go here - http://coyerchallenge.com/2016/11/17/coyer-blackout-sign-ups/

Clean out your E-reader Challenge November 2013

Yep, I've signed up for another challenge. :D Apparently I'm a glutton for punishment. However, my Kindle is obese so maybe this well help whittle it down a bit. The challenge runs the entire month of November. The Clean Out Your E-reader Challenge is hosted by Fantasy is More Fun & Because Reading is better than real life.

The idea is to read some of those freebies that have been collecting dust on your e-reader, whether you legally downloaded them for free, received them for review, or purchased them for less than $5. Yep, ebooks you bought on sale count as long as they were less than $5. Books over that price or that were illegally downloaded don't count and you will be removed from the challenge. 

There will be challenges and giveaways, maybe a Twitter chat. During the month-long challenge you can share your progress on Twitter using the hashtag #COYER.

Want to join? Go here and sign up; you can sign up through 11:9PM PST tonight.  

These are the e-books I'm aiming to read this month. I'll track my success here as well as post a wrap up in my monthly challenge wrap up post.

1) Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club by  Liz Stauffer
2) Maddie's Choice by Joyce Zeller
3) If You Were Mine by Bella Andre
4) Echo Prophecy by Lindsey Fairleigh
5) Happily Ever Afterlife, anthology
6) Kissing Under the Mistletoe: A Sullivan Christmas by Bella Andre
7) All I Want for Christmas Is A Duke by Delilah Marvelle & Maire Claremont 
8) One Foot In the Grave by Steven J. York
9) A Cajun Werewolf Christmas by Selena Blake
10) The Lola Cruz Christmas Story by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

Wish me luck!

Related articles

• Clean Out Your E-Reader Challenge - Day 1 (unconventionalbookviews.com)
• Clean out your E-reader Challenge (aussiebookworm.wordpress.com)

2013 Ebook Challenge

I decided to do this challenge since much of my reading is done on my kindle these days. I did it a few years ago but was rotten at keeping track. I will do better this year. 

The 2013 Ebook Challenge. Encouraging readers to expand past just physical books to embrace ebooks in all forms, whether on Kindle, Kobo, computer, or any other reader. It's being hosted by Workaday Reads.

Challenge Guidelines:

1. This challenge will run from Jan 1, 2013 – Dec 31, 2013.
2. Anyone can join, you don’t need to be a blogger. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to sign-up in the comments. You can post reviews to any book site (i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Goodreads, etc).
3. Any genre or length of book counts, as long as it is in ebook format.
4. You can plan your books in advance or as you read them.
5. When you sign up in the linky, put the direct link to your post about joining the E-Book Reading Challenge.
6. You can move up levels, but no moving down.
7. Sign-ups will be open until Dec. 15, 2013, so feel free to join at any time throughout the year.

Levels:

1. Floppy disk – 5 ebooks
2. CD – 10 ebooks
3. DVD – 25 ebooks This is my goal
4. Memory stick – 50 ebooks
5. Hard drive – 75 ebooks
6. Server – 100 ebooks
7. Human brain – 150 ebooks

At the beginning of each month there will be a roundup post for you to add your reviews for that month. The linky will remain open for the remainder of the year, so if you forget, feel free go back and add them when you remember.

There will be a giveaway at the end of the year for everyone who achieves their goal level (or higher).

Sign up for the 2013 Ebook Challenge here.

Ebook Rant

Those of you who follow me on twitter may have seen me tweet over the weekend about ebooks being too short. I was not happy.

I recently downloaded some freebies from Amazon for my Kindle. It's a damn good thing both were freebies or I'd have been demanding a refund from Amazon. Both books were new releases, and both were clearly indicated as being short stories. Neither book blurb mentioned that there were excerpts. One was from a Big Six publisher and one was self-pubbed.

So, I'm reading the first one, not loving it but enjoying. It was part of a series I stopped reading a few years ago and picked it up to see if I should give the series another try. As I said, I enjoyed it but didn't love it, I doubt I'll go back to the series. The story concluded (and it was REALLY short) and I looked at the percentage; it was only at 48%. Yes, the story was less than half the book! The remainder of the book was two excerpts, and some info about the author. W. T. F? The book blurb made no mention of excerpts so I was completely unprepared. And annoyed. And pissed. And upset. I ranted on both twitter and facebook.

Yesterday I decided to read the self-pubbed short story. This one was longer at 74% but again, it ended without warning and there were excerpts from two books by the author. Again, the book blurb failed to indicate that there would be excerpts.

I don't mind excerpts; often I enjoy them. I know some folks consider them advertising. Normally I don't but these two books, especially the 48% one? Yeah, I feel gypped. If the blurbs had said "contains excerpts from other books" I wouldn't be so upset. I'd have known, I'd have been prepared and neither story would have felt like it ended so abruptly. Okay, I'd probably still have been annoyed at the 48% because that's just wrong. That "book" was basically one extended advertisement. I really hope this isn't a new trend, super short stories and surprise excerpts, cuz it absolutely sucks. Basically, we the readers are being cheated. The only good thing is that they were free.

Contrast these ebooks with ones from Samhain and Loveswept. Their books contain excerpts but the blurbs say that so you're forewarned. My complaint with those books is that you don't know when or where they end so sometimes when the story ends it feels abrupt. I've learned to anticipate one of those books ending somewhere between 70 and 80%; sometimes they're a little longer.

So, authors and publishers, please, PLEASE, if you have any respect, or heck, love, for your readers, always note when an ebook contains excerpts. Also, if a short story is particularly short, note that too.

What do you think? Should blurbs mentions that the book contains excerpts? Has this happened with full length books? Have you ever bought an ebook where the story, the reason you bought the book, was less than half of the material in the book? Am I just freaking nuts?

ETA: Author Krista D Ball, whom I often chat with on twitter and whose books often appear on here, sent me a link on twitter and asked how I felt about that book blurb. It's freaking perfect, is what it is!

Also contains a sneak preview of Ball's new novel, Road to Hell.

*Spirits Rising is a novella approximately 80 pages long, or about 25,000 words. The chapter sample at the end is approximately an additional 8 pages.

Here's the link, if you want to see for yourself - http://www.amazon.com/Spirits-Rising-Spirit-Caller-ebook/dp/B006T88RNE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349216801&sr=8-1&keywords=spirits+rising Now, that wasn't difficult, why can't all authors and publishers do this? 

Kindlegraph - Doing it right

Recently, I saw authors tweeting about Kindlegaph. I didn't know what it was but assumed it was an Amazon service for authors. Then one author mentioned that she got her first request from a reader for a Kindlegraph and the light bulb in my head went off. It's a signed book cover for your Kindle ebooks. Very cool.

If you have a Kindle, you can go to Kindlegraph's site, look to see if your favorite author or book is listed and if they are, you send a request. You need to give them your Kindle email, they give you an email address to add to your Kindle account's approved email list and when the author sends their autograph, Amazon sends you an email letting you know that your Kindle document has arrived. Then you download the document to your Kindle and voila, you have a signed book cover.

I went to their site and looked around. You have to have a Twitter account to sign in and that's where I ran into a problem. Now obviously, based on the first paragraph, I do have a Twitter account. But when I read the TOS (Terms of Service), I said "Hell no". Why? By signing in with Twitter, you agreed that Kindlegraph could see who you follow, follow new people for you, tweet for you, and update your profile. WTF? Why do you need to do that? 

I tweeted that while the idea of Kindlegraph was good, the TOS were unacceptable. I didn't use a hashtag nor did I @reply, but when I got home from work, I had a reply from @kindlegraph, responding to my concerns. We exchanged several more tweets and then I got this tweet: 

kindlegraph Kindlegraph

@

@BeasBookNook Hi again! Can you try the "sign-in with Twitter" link again? I wasn't aware of less permissive options and I've selected them.

So I did and sure enough, they'd changed the TOS. They now read thusly:

This application will be able to:

• Read Tweets from your timeline.
• See who you follow.

This application will not be able to:

• Follow new people.
• Update your profile.
• Post Tweets for you.
• Access your direct messages.
• See your Twitter password.

MUCH better. I signed up, looked for authors, and sent off several requests for signatures. So far, I've only gotten one, though I sent the requests several days ago. Thanks to PJ Schnyder for being so prompt! ETA 8/7/11: I've since gotten more autographs from one of the authors that I had requested.

I am very impressed with Kindlegraph's customer service, their attention to detail and their prompt response to my concerns. If you have a Kindle, if you like having signed books, GO SIGN UP!!! Yes, you need a Twitter account, but if you only ever use it for this, it's well worth it.

The Kindlegraph site has a video that shows how the process works, but here's a photo of what I got from author PJ Schynder. Note that your actual ebook is not autographed; you get a cover of your chosen book with the author's signature. My apologies for the photo quality, I used my cell phone camera.

ebooks and free books

Changes To The E-Book Buying Landscape | RT Book Reviews

If you read ebooks and/or are a fan of Samhain ebooks, check out this article at RT Book Reviews about upcoming changes. I haven't bought much from Samhain but I am sorry to see the loss of other publishers from their online book store. IMO, losing access to the books they sell can only be bad for the readers.

ACE ROC Fall Preview and Giveaway

Over at the Dear Author blog, Jane has teamed up with ACE to giveaway books from their fall line. Some of the awesome choices include the new On the Edge book, Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews, and the much anticipated release of the revised "Masques" by Patricia Briggs, whom I've had the pleasure of meeting. Go here to check it out.