BLOG TOUR # 18 - EXCERPT & REVIEW & GIVEAWAY - CLOCKWISE by ELLE STRAUSS - CLOCKWISE # 1

 Hello one and all,

On my stop today I have a book review and excerpt from Clockwise and a lovely ebook giveaway down below. I hope you enjoy this stop and I can highly recommend Clockwise. Next week I am reading Clockwiser. So look out for my review. Drop by the other stops some great digital books to win and check out their postings. Link is below. 

By: Elle Strauss

Published By : ESB Publishing

Released : Available Now

Details : Digital, 175 Pages

RATING : 4.5 WONDERFUL TRAVELLING STARS WITH A SIDE ORDER OF GORGEOUS NATE!!!

Book Blurb : Taken From Goodreads

Casey Donovan has issues: hair, height and uncontrollable trips to the 19th century! And now this --she’s accidentally taken Nate Mackenzie, the cutest boy in the school, back in time. Awkward.

Protocol pressures her to tell their 1860 hosts that he is her brother and when Casey finds she has a handsome, wealthy (and unwanted) suitor, something changes in Nate. Are those romantic sparks or is it just “brotherly” protectiveness?

When they return to the present, things go back to the way they were before: Casey parked on the bottom of the rung of the social ladder and Nate perched high on the very the top. Except this time her heart is broken. Plus, her best friend is mad, her parents are split up, and her younger brother gets escorted home by the police. The only thing that could make life worse is if, by some strange twist of fate, she took Nate back to the past again.

Which of course, she does. 

BOOK REVIEW by Michelle:

This was such a great YA read. I loved it. The pages turned themselves. Sometimes a story doesn’t need bells and whistles to carry it.

Twilight is an example of a book that sold squillions, yet if you really think of the story, it’s quite a simple story. It’s the way it was told that won its readership.

Cassandra Clare juggles lots of characters and her stories are filled with mystery and runes and they are very colourful books with such colourful characters, you fall in love with them.

Elle Strauss has written a little gem of a book here. The love isn’t  forced, nor is it insta love. The characters are believable. The story flows and you love the characters. There is mystery surrounding the , why? of some of her story. Casey doesn’t yet know the why, so why should we? We are discovering along side Casey as the story unfolds.

Casey Donovan is very smart, inventive and thinks ahead. She is a traveller. We do not know why she is a traveller. Her destination is 1860, always 1860.

Until.......

Casey befriends Sara and Willie and their family. They become her go to point when she is whisked away from the 21st Century. Sara and her family do not question Casey. They are good people who keep her safe when she shows up.

It all started with a dare.

I love Nate MacKenzie’s character. He has a girlfriend, he is a jock, but then he is forced to see Casey in a new ...errrr.....light. Casey is crushing badly on Nate, but she keeps her crush to herself.

Nate does not drop everything for Casey. He has a life of his own, he has a future he has mapped out. Casey currently does not understand what her future will be. She takes a few steps forward and then a whole lot of years backwards.

Elle gives us stories in both 1860 and the present. Casey can’t help what happens to her and she just has to make the best of her life. She doesn’t understand it. Her family doesn’t know because time does not change or move forward for her in the time she has travelled back in time. 1860 time moves forward, but , the present time does not move for Casey. If she is 4 days , 2 months, 5 minutes in the past, the present has not moved, so nobody notices. Her secret is safe. Tired and a little disorientated, Casey just resumes doing what she was doing when she comes back to the 21st Century.

There was a character that needed a bit of a 21st Century ‘stinky dead fish’ slap from me. Hmmm....not very gentlemanly.

There was a great twist I did not see coming, I should have, but I simply didn’t. I love when I get a surprise in a book. * whispers* I actually did a bit of a happy/sad, bit of both really, ugly sob/cry in one bit. It just burst out of me.

Elle keeps weaving new storyline into her book, setting us up for book 2, Clockwiser. I really enjoyed this book and I thought Elle wrote with originality and fun. No vampires, werewolves or faeries in sight, just the magic of time travel.

And a boy and a girl who try to find even ground amongst the inconvenience and spontaneity of time travel. 

Michelle

For the duration of the tour, Elle is lowering the price of Clockwise to .99c

Feel free to like  Elle’s Facebook page and/or sign up for her newsletter at  ELLE STRAUSS PAGE

EXCERPT

Casey and Sara stroll the Common with Robert Willingsworth.

  Sara lifted her chin. “If I could vote, I would vote Abraham Lincoln president of the United States of America.”

 “Voting is very serious business, Miss Watson.”

 “As is freedom.” Even though I knew the best policy for me as a ‘visitor’ was to just keep my mouth shut, I couldn’t help myself. Robert and his ‘I’m a man and therefore I’m better than you, a mere woman’ attitude got on my nerves. 

 “Certainly, Miss Donovan,” Robert conceded. “Freedom is a serious business as well. As are economics and rights of owners to their purchases.” 

 “Even when the purchase refers to human beings?” I said with a tight smile. 

 “I meant no offense, Miss Donovan. I’m not necessarily stating my personal opinion.” 

 “Blacks are persons and should be treated as such,” Sara said. 

 I tried to keep it in, but it just popped out. “One day we may have a black president.”Chew on that, Robert. He and Sara stopped, starring at me wide eyed. 

 Robert cracked a smile and then laughed. “Or we might have a woman for president! Miss Donovan, you are the most intriguing individual I have met in a long while.”

GIVEAWAY TIME 

Something a bit different , each blog on the tour is giving away a different digital Ebook.  

Elle is a member of a large writing group and thanks to the generosity of Elle and that group, each and every tour stop will be hosting a giveaway. Each stop will be giving away one title from a member of the writing group and the grand prize will be a collection of all the titles plus Elle’s sequel to Clockwise, Clockwiser.

FULL TOUR SCHEDULE - SHOWS ALL EBOOK GIVEAWAYS AND BLOG STOPS

 My ebook to giveaway is called:

Land of Corn Chips by Angela Carlie 

 Goodreads

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Leave a comment with your email address

If you were to win this ebook, what format would you like it in?

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Maximum entries obtainable is 3 =

 1 for comment + 1 tweet + 1 GFC

Please note last tour stop, click on link up above, to see who it is, they will have ALL ebooks to be won, worth entering!!

GIVEAWAY STARTS NOW!!!

ENDS 2ND MAY 2012
AUSSIE TIME MIDNIGHT

GOOD LUCK!!

Michelle