William L. Stuart

author of The Gemstone Chronicles Series

Book Reviews, Thoughts, and Random Interesting Ideas

The Crimson League by Victoria Grefer – My Review

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The Crimson League!

The Crimson League – My Review!!

I have learned to like doing book reviews here at the home of The Gemstone Chronicles. Not only do I get to read books and voice my opinion, but I also get to help and encourage writers (especially Indie writers like me) by getting the word out about their work. Such is the case this time as I get to review Victoria Grefer’s The Crimson League.

The Crimson League by Victoria Grefer cover

The Review:

The book opens in a rather grim world where a sorcerer has killed the members of the ruling family and taken control. He uses his magic to exact revenge on the population for opposing magic and those who wield it. The citizens, taxed to poverty, begin to rebel with the aid of The Crimson League. Kora, the main protagonist, discovers she is The Marked One during a journey to a village to trade on the black market. Rescued from capture – or worse – by members of The Crimson League from soldiers of the sorcerer King, Kora joins the resistance movement.

The book follows Kora’s adventures as she grows into her own power as a sorceress and details the lives and relationships that affect her and her world’s very existence. Interspersed throughout are surprises and twists that will keep the reader wondering what will happen next. As usual, I will not give away the story or be a spoiler, but I really enjoyed this one. It is a bit long, especially as the first book of a series, but well worth it.

The writing, plot, and character development were topnotch. I loved the way Victoria Grefer created a world that I could relate to and yet still wondered if such a place could truly exist. She also wove some contemporary vocabulary into the story, which further allowed me to connect with the story.

I really liked this book. I enjoy the way Victoria Grefer set up the second book of the series in the epilogue. Again, I won’t give it away, but read this one!! Well Done Victoria Grefer!! My rating: 4.5 Stars!!!

St. Patrick’s Day Gem Hunting

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St. Patrick’s Day Gem Hunting!

St. Patrick’s Day gem hunting! I have a wee bit (okay a lot) of the Irish in me and decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a trip to my favorite gem hunting spot in the north Georgia mountains. This time, though, I tried to do a better job of taking some pictures of what we do when we rock hunt.

Now, I know there are easier ways of doing this. Many people prefer looking through the buckets you can purchase and then wash in the flume. I prefer to do it down at the creek. Maybe it is the restful nature of sitting there with your feet in the stream (although we did wear boots so that our feet didn’t get cold and wet), or maybe it is the idea that the pile isn’t seeded like the buckets, but whatever the reason, I like to sift through the dirt pile down by the water.

Pictures!

St. Patrick's Day Dirt pile

This is the dirt pile from which we fill our buckets. We bring our own shovels, buckets, and screens, but you can borrow equipment at the store. Below are buckets of dirt ready to be sifted in our screens!

St. Patrick's Day buckets at the creek

Here we have a picture of the way we set up to screen the dirt into the creek looking for shiny rocks! See all the screens we have loaded up with dirt and ready to be searched?

Setup In the creek

What we found!

At the end of the day, we gather up our finds and head home. It was kind of unusual for us in that we didn’t find any really large stones. I found a lot of garnets and quite a few topaz, but we didn’t find any smoky or lemon quartz. One of my favorite stone I found was a smallish moonstone. Although the colors don’t show up very well, it is a brownish red stone and looks really cool!

small brown moonstone

If you have read The Gemstone Chronicles Book Two: The Amethyst, you will remember that Laura uses her moonstone to cloak her family and friends with invisibility – supposedly one of the magical properties of moonstone. I will have to give it a try and let you know how it works!

As I mentioned above, I found a lot of garnets during the day. The garnets we usually find up there are bigger, but very fractured. Garnets aren’t easy to work with as they are very brittle. They don’t tumble particularly well, even with other garnets, and generally break into smaller pieces. I will have to take some of these out to my gem cutter friend and see if he can do anything with them.

St. Patrick's Day garnets

I tried to show the reddish color of the garnet in the picture below, but it is hard to get the light shining through!

Another garnet

As usual, we did find a fair number of amethysts, but none of the large ones (like the 415 carat stone I found a while back), and most of what we found had a lot of other stone mixed in with it. Nonetheless, I have included a close up of one of the amethysts I found so you can get an idea of what it looks like. The purple in this stone is cool, although it isn’t the dark purple like I have found in other stones.

St. Patrick's Day Gem Hunting Amethyst

I will be tumbling some of these stones in the not too distant future. I have to wait until my current lot finishes. My next trip will probably be a gold prospecting trip. I recently joined the Weekend Gold Miners. I will try to take some pictures of what I find (assuming that I find anything)!

Have you gone gem hunting (either in a stream or in the buckets)? What did you find?

Fade To Silver by Catherine Converse – My Review

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Fade To Silver!

Fade To Silver – My Review!!

Fade To Silver by Catherine Converse Cover

I read the first book of The In Between series a while back and immediately had to get the second book of the series Fade To Silver. I was not disappointed!

The Review:

The premise of the series is there is a shadowy group that has a cadre of visionaries who foresee murders and report the events in the dreams. The group then sends in a team to intercede and prevent the murders. The first book introduced us to Adie, who has been having dreams of murders for a number of years. She was recruited into the IPA by Jeff(who she falls for) and meets Dannika, another visionary with a troubled past (and present).

Now, let’s fast forward past The In Between and into the second book Fade To Silver.  Adie has left IPA for a time to attend college and pursue a soccer scholarship. Leaving soccer one day, she sights Rens, one of her antagonists from the first book. Jeff tries to chase Rens down, but Rens escapes. That event leads Adie away from school and back to IPA. Dannika, however, is now in research and Adie is operating on her own. She steps into another girl’s dream, where she and the unknown girl witness a murder that IPA cannot stop. It leads IPA to Montana to investigate the events.

I haven’t forgotten Dannika. Rens captures her, hits her with a memory scan, and convinces her to come with him to Montana to visit Raile (the girl whose dreams Adie had entered) to help her interpret her dreams. IPA discovers that Dannika is missing. With their resources split between finding Dannika and trying to discover the meaning of Raile’s and Adie’s  dreams, IPA is stretched to the breaking point.

Will Dannika remember who Rens is? Will Adie find Raile and get to the bottom of the dreams and stop more murders? For that, you will just have to read Fade To Silver!

My Rating:

I wasn’t sure that Catherine Converse could top The In Between. While I am not sure she did, her second book is every bit as good as the first!! I gave The In Between 4.5 stars and will be giving Fade To Silver the same 4.5 Stars! As before, Bravo Catherine Converse!!

Author Spotlight – Sonia Taylor Brock and The Inheritance of a Swamp Witch

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I have turned on the author spotlight for this week and today’s featured author is Sonia Taylor Brock! Sonia is an Atlanta-area author, so it is my pleasure to highlight another Georgia writer!!

Sonia Taylor Brock photo

Sonia’s urban fantasy book that I am highlighting today is The Inheritance of a Swamp Witch.

Sonia Taylor Brock The Inheritance of A Swamp Witch cover

The first in the Swamp Witch series, this story takes place in the Swamps of Southern Louisiana. Told in the Cajun dialect, it is about the adventures of a young man into the surprising world of the supernatural. He is shocked to learn that the world he has been accustomed to is not what it seems. In fact, nothing is what it seems. He discovers Witches, Dragons, Trolls, Fairies and Angels are only the tip of the iceberg.

Author Bio:

Sonia Taylor Brock, Author currently self published, has written two books, THE INHERITANCE OF A SWAMP WITCH and A WITCH’S WELCOME. Both of THE SWAMP WITCH series, the books are the result of a wonderful conglomeration of Cajun Creole culture and bringing legends of old into a modern focus in this urban fantasy. New twists on the creation of Vampires, Were creatures, Angels, Trolls, Titans and magic and how they mesh with today’s world where humans understand The One God and the power of prayer. These books use humor and adventure to tell the story.

She has also written a series of short stories that revolve around the main character of THE SWAMP WITCH series and how she affects changes in the destiny of the people she meets. Sonia has worked with several publications throughout her career such as The Cullman Times, Creative Loafing Magazine, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Facility Safety Management Magazine, Galz Magazine and published articles in Trade Publications as a Marketing Professional throughout career.  Sonia is a colorful person and characterizes her life development as constantly evolving and never ending. She refuses to be old and professes to have a young mind even it does seem to forget more things now. She loves to Live, Love, Laugh, Dream and dance in the rain. Sonia currently lives in the Atlanta, Georgia area with her Husband James and her daughters and grandson.

Connect with Sonia:

Book Links:

Sonia has written and published the second book of the Swamp Witch series. Entitled A Witch’s Welcome, I have included the cover photo below.

Sonia Taylor Brock A Witch's Welcome Cover

Book Links:

Visit Sonia’s links, check out her books, buy them, read them, and leave a review! I know she would appreciate it!

Seven Seven Blog Challenge

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Seven Seven Blog Challenge!

Among the many new things I’ve learned (mostly the hard way) since beginning The Gemstone Chronicles is there are many people out there who want to help you succeed. They offer writing advice, formatting help, publishing tips, and, perhaps most importantly, marketing help! I have some skills in certain areas, but marketing is not one of them. This is where the Seven Seven Blog Challenge comes into play!

So, I get to try new things in my efforts to publicize my books. This week is my first blog challenge. I want to say thanks to B.B Shepherd, author of The Glister Journals for putting this together!! You can visit B.B.’s website at http://www.theglisterjournals.com/ to find out more about her books!!

The Challenge!

The neat thing about this blog challenge is that I have to post seven lines from page seven (hence the Seven Seven Blog Challenge) of The Gemstone Chronicles Book Three: The Emerald for everyone to read. I think it is a cool idea to give out a teaser like that! I plan on releasing The Emerald in June 2013. Now for that teaser…

Seven Seven Blog The Gemstone Chronicles Book Three: The Emerald by William L Stuart Cover

“I have been meaning to ask you what people use for money in Celahir,” Nana said to Findecano.

“We usually trade for goods more than use coin. However, since I have no goods to barter with, I used one of my few coins to reward this young man for his help.”

“How did you pay for our passage on the ship and our rooms at The Bloated Toad and at Peter’s inn?” Maggie asked.

“Keeper paid for those. How, I do not know. Keeper is a mystery to us, even though he is on our side in this struggle,” Findecano shrugged his shoulders at the thought of Keeper.

There are my chosen seven lines from The Gemstone Chronicles Book Three: The Emerald. I hope they entice you to take a look at the first two books of the series, Book One: The Carnelian and Book Two: The Amethyst, and read and review them!

Author Spotlight – Jessica Kong

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It is time for the author spotlight here at the home of The Gemstone Chronicles. Tonight we turn the floodlights on author Jessica Kong and her paranormal romance novel A Lost Kitten.

Jessica Kong

Jessica Kong A Lost Kitten Cover

John McCall labels the attack on the Sea-anan Empire as a nightmare.  He escapes the enemy’s invasion.  Stranded on a distant planet called Surreal, he quickly learns the true meaning of nightmare when he discovers his soulmate is of “the mist.”  With a tyrant destroying his empire, and his family missing in action, John must decide whether to remain on the ghost planet with his soulmate or return to the land of the living to locate his family.

Jasira Eversole is drawn to the powerfully built outlander.  John’srugged good looks and chiseled body compel Jasira to reach out and touch him. Being of the mist, Jasira knows she will not be able to feel John, but she cannot resist his pull. The richness of John’s hair, the firmness of his muscles, and the clean scent of his skin all take Jasira off guard. She swiftly realizes John is her intended mate. Now, Jasira must somehow convince the young warrior that they are two halves of one soul without chasing him off Surreal, leaving her to a lonely existence as mist.

Book Links:

Amazon link:

Barnes and Noble:

Author Bio:

Jessica A. Kong lives in Somerset, New Jersey with her loving husband of twenty years and teenage triplets.  She is an avid reader of fantasy, futuristic, and paranormals. When she is not reading she enjoys arts and craft, puzzles, and crocheting.

Connect with Jessica Kong:

Visit Jessica’s website and blog. Find her book at Amazon or Barnes and Noble, read it, write a review, and recommend it to your friends! I know Jessica would appreciate it!!

Connect with me:

Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads! Let’s talk about books, reviews, gemstones, or just about anything else.