Celebrating the release of Because I Love You!

Blaze Publishing is happy to announce the release of the YA Contemporary Romance BECAUSE I LOVE YOU by Tori Rigby! You can get your copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or you can order a signed copy from our website

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Sometimes, love is sacrifice.

Eight weeks after sixteen-year-old Andie Hamilton gives her virginity to her best friend, “the stick” says she’s pregnant.

Her friends treat her like she’s carrying the plague, her classmates torture and ridicule her, and the boy she thought loved her doesn’t even care. Afraid to experience the next seven months alone, she turns to her ex-boyfriend, Neil Donaghue, a dark-haired, blue-eyed player. With him, she finds comfort and the support she desperately needs to make the hardest decision of her life: whether or not to keep the baby.

Then a tragic accident leads Andie to discover Neil’s keeping a secret that could dramatically alter their lives, and she's forced to make a choice. But after hearing her son’s heartbeat for the first time, she doesn’t know how she’ll ever be able to let go.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Adopted at three-days-old by a construction worker and a stay at home mom, Tori Rigby grew up with her nose in a book and her fingers on piano keys, always awaiting the day she’d take her own adventure. Now, she goes on multiple journeys through her contemporary and historical romances. She longs to live in the Scottish Highlands, and her favorite place in history is Medieval England—she’d even give up her Internet and running water to go back in time! Tori also writes high-concept genre fiction as Vicki Leigh, and when she isn’t writing, she’s kicking butt in krav maga or attending classes to learn how to catch bad guys.

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Book Review: The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids

Amra is a thief, and a very talented one at that. She has a small pool of acquaintances, and an even smaller collection of friends. When one of those friends winds up dead, after giving Amra something for safekeeping, she takes it personally. Armed with an expansive wit and an admirable armory of knives, Amra begins a quest for revenge that will lead her into temples, brothels, pawn shops, and manors, with a little bit of prison thrown in to keep things interesting. She finds that her friend got himself into something dark and dangerous, and that if she sin't careful, she will likely end up just as dead as he is.

There are so many wonderful things about this book that I'm angry with myself for letting it sit on my to-be-read shelf for so long. Let's start with the characters. First of all, Amra is female, and a bad ass. More amazingly, there is no lovey-dovey subplot to mire down her badassery. It was refreshing and very welcome to read such a strong female character. Kudos to you, McClung, for making Amra so incredible. However, the supporting characters are all just as well-written. Holgren is a mage with a million secrets and a soft spot for slobbery dogs. Bosch is steampunk cyborg warlock necromancer that oozes villainy. The list of memorable characters could go on to include them all. Seriously, they're all amazing.

Lucernis. The place where everything goes down. The world building is so subtle it's hard to even notice that the details are there. McClung doesn't give a single info-dump paragraph to give readers a sense of setting. It's all done as the story moves forward. He creates an utterly believable, gritty world where magic exists, though the world doesn't revolve around it. There's even a handy appendix in the back for any details you might miss as you read through.

I always feel like I'm taking a huge gamble when I buy something that has been self-published, but this story blew me away. I was left feeling unfulfilled because I wasn't ready to leave that world, where the gods are not as dead as they are supposed to be and trouble is looming beneath the surface, ready to emerge at any moment. I've already bought the second book, and will most likely be rearranging my reading list to make sure it rockets to the top. Do yourself a favor, and buy this book. Absolutely five out of five stars.

National Poetry Month

April has come and gone, and with it has passed another successful Poem-a-day challenge. Since April is National Poetry Month, I try to write a poem a day. So, I've got 30 new poems. Some of them show a lot of promise. Some of them will never see the light of day again because they are beyond saving.


Daily poem writing is amazing for stirring up the creative juices in my brain. It's a huge shift from fiction, which is what I had been focusing on, but it's a fresh way to explore words.


A lot of people in my life are currently expecting babies, so motherhood and fertility were a very common theme in my poems. As a wonderful bonus, one of those poems about fertility will be published this month in the Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review.


I'm hoping to submit some more pieces to various literary magazines this month. Fingers crossed that a few get accepted. I'd like to hope that this is a trend and not a fluke.


My monthly writing group focused on sonnets, so I've penned a few of those in the past weeks. Here's one of my NaNoPoMo sonnets. It's a twist on a story you're probably all familiar with.



The Real Story


You met me at a ball and it was fun
to dress up and play at something that I'm not,
but midnight comes for everyone,
and all that fun comes screeching to a stop.

Beneath the gown and glitter, I am plain,
and dirty, and unloved, and overworked.
You make promises of love, and joy, and games,
and a castle full of other little perks.

But I'm not buying what you're trying to sell.
I know some things are too good to be true.
You can deck me out in silks, and jewels as well;
remove all that, and who am I to you?

Just a kitchen maid in a pretty dress,

too tired to be your damsel in distress.