Book Review: Blog Tour: The Host by Stephanie Meyers

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.

Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn’t expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves-Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body’s desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she’s never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.

The Host is an amazing sci-fi novel. Set in the note to distant future Stephanie Meyer has outdone herself again in an amazing genre.

The Host is an amazing work of art where the main Character Melanie Stryder has been taken by an alien race set to take over the human race and annihilate it and make it a perfect sibilant planet, to stop all wrong, make everything peaceful, and run smooth. Medical care is far improved and so far out of human understanding that most anything can be fixed except Melanie Stryder who is a host for one of the life forms taking over the earth, but Melanie is not giving up her body without a fight and leads her host on an adventure that shows it that not everything they have found is bad in a world that does not seem to really need a lot of fixing. Swirled into the adventure is Jared, Melanie’s love who is one of the people managing to dodge becoming a carrier of a host himself as he helps lead a group of people living deep in the Arizona desert between Tucson and Phoenix. While Melanie pushes the creature inside her with her strong emotional draw and care of her little brother and Jared she learns to work with and help teach these hidden people and learns how to help them survive, in the meantime the question always looms through out the book…. What to do with the creature buried deep in her neural net, how to possibly separate it from Melanie and allow her to reunite fully with Jared.

It’s a page turning, PG novel that is certainly a good read for anyone wanting a good novel without the need for the sex sells industry. I picked it up by chance seeing it on a shelf at a bookstore and thinking I’dd give it a go since its by the same author that brought us the Twilight Sage, and if you check the publish date it was published in the middle of the Twilight Saga. Pick it up give it a read and pass it on to a friend.

Author Interview Blog Tour: Jeffrey B Allen

And in our final blog tour installment post, we have an inteview with Jeffrey B Allen

AJ: Why did you choose abuse and overcoming it as the journey for this particular hero in his need to grow up?

JA: I always thought there could be nothing worse than growing up as a boy without a father. I knew many who had. Perhaps they lost there father to divorce or maybe to an unfortunate premature death. But when I really thought about it, an even worse scenario would be to have a father whose tyrannical abusive behavior trapped a family within a prison of fear and oppression. What went on behind the closed doors of a house that was filled with such fear and loathing was beyond all my comprehension. Most of the time the neighbors, teachers, even fellow church goers failed to recognize the subtle cries for help, because those signs were so well hidden by fear.

John is twelve year old boy who lives with the fear everyday of his life. He wonders why. He sometimes thinks it is his fault. John has feeling he cannot explain; feeling of emptiness and loss that grinds away at him and causes him to be a sort of recluse.
Although his mother seems strong she is not. John senses that and forms a protective bond with his mother. He asks her why his father hates them, but she will not tell him. When the violent explosion takes place it is the perfect stepping off point for John. The story is free to explore how a twelve year old boy would deal with his horrible situation if only he could take it into his own realm and steer the events.

The strange thing about GoneAway is that John is not steering the events quite as much as the reader believes he is in the beginning. The appearance of some of the strange characters and the revelations that take place in the story make that fact very clear. The last chapter also clears up any doubt the reader may have over the medium in which John is traveling.

AJ: What made you decide writing was for you?

JA: I tried to be a painter. I was good, but I knew no matter how much practice I forced upon the years ahead of me, I would never be great. I played music, and the same thing occurred to me; I could become good, but never great. I was always good at writing; therefore, I felt with enough practice I could become great. I am still practicing, but with every word, sentence and paragraph, I find myself in concert with art and music. Words paint pictures in reader’s minds, and words well placed end to end up[on a piece of paper are like a perfectly composed score when done correctly. I am striving to get it right, and I am having fun while trying. I may never be great, but if I keep practicing, I feel I have a bit of chance.

AJ: What did you have to go through, evolution wise, to create such a strong path that moves along in the growth and survival of the characters in GoneAway Into the Land?

JA: That is a very difficult question. To answer the question properly I would have to give away quite a bit of the story. In its basic form, the story is filled with several things John must overcome and find out about himself before he will be able to return to the Great Office of the Purveyor. Candy is but a symbol for something greater. The Purveyor is much more than the one to bequeath sweet things into the world. John’s quest to kill his father is much more than just a mission to end his father’s life. All of the main characters have a purpose. For instance Mellica. He is John’s alter ego, and Sara, well everyone who has read GoneAway knows who she is. When horrible things happen in our life we naturally search for answers. I believe there is a spiritual nature to our search, and I believe our answers may not come in this life, but they will come.

AJ: Where do you find your inspiration?

JA: Inspiration is as much a mystery of the human spirit as imagination and ingenuity. I believe one of the strongest driving forces behind the rapid evolution of mankind, and now our freefall into technological advancement is nothing less that our knowledge of our own mortality. If it were not for that uniquely human quality there would be no reason to be any more creative in our techniques of survival and territorial defense than was had by all previous generations.

The simple answer to your question is that I am aware I am going to die, and I know approximately, if all goes as planned, that my heart will stop beating between the ages of seventy five and one hundred – closer to seventy five statistically, but my grandmother lived to be one hundred and two, so I have decided to write until I am one hundred years old, and then I will take two years off — retired at last, but I will have left a legacy, a book or two on the shelves and that is enough for me.

AJ: What is your favorite writing environment?

JA: Late at night, or early in the morning. Somewhere between ten o’clock at night and three in the morning. I am in front of my computer and I am sipping a glass of red wine.

AJ: Any advice for Young writers out there?

JA: Read as much as you can get your hands on. Keep reading and eventually you will be able to write better than you thought. If you want to write as a writer, then you must learn the rules. Once you learn the rules, read more and see how the best writers who ever lived bent the rules, but notice how they seldom, if ever, broke them.

Thank you,

Jeffrey B. Allen

Lost In Austen

Colin Firth in clingy pants…that is the line I just heard from my TV. Made me laugh. I am watching a show I caught on PBS but wasn’t able to see all of it so I netflixed it. Lost in Austen. And so far this show is a positive riot. What woman has not felt like that? Screw real men and give me somebody like Mr. Darcy. I think in some way I have found my own Mr. Darcy with his way anyways. But, this show is rather funny.

Has anyone else seen it?

Flea Control

It is summer time. And summer time also means that it is time to do flea and tick control on your animals. As someone who has cats, and dogs myself I know how important this issue is. I have been lucky that I have never had fleas in my house. KNOCK ON WOOD! But I know people who have had fleas, and I know what a pain in the rear end they can be. So much sure you’re checking out some sites they have great tips. You want to be careful with the products you use and always fully research them. But mostly take care of the problem. Don’t just sit back and assume it won’t happen to you.


Wicked Wednesday #10


Wicked Wednesday a place to be wicked to other book readers and make them get those TBR piles growing. The concept is simple. Pick a book or two and tell s about them. If its one you read tell us what you liked. If its one you found tell us about that to. Than leave a comment to let us know where to find your Wicked Wednesday titles. Make sure to link back in your posts for other people to follow Wicked Wednesday.

Guest Post: Jeffrey B Allen Author of Gone Away Into the Land


Continuing on with our posts this week from the wonderful blog tour with Goneaway into the land is a fantastic guest post by Jeffrey B. Allen.

And My Question for our wonderful guest post:

What does one go through when dealing with writing such emotional stories?

Emotions buried beneath the thin skin of the writer; emotions unknown
to the writer, and emotions aching for a way to express themselves, to
be felt and heard. I believe writing is a form of self evaluation.
It is a therapy of sorts, but so are all forms of artistic expression.
There is a need for artists to expose themselves through their
medium. You may wonder why, but to me it is simple. Authors, like
painters, sculptures, or actors, want to stir the emotions in others.
An author who writes romance or an author who writes horror both wish
upon their audience the same thing, to invoke a reaction.

GoneAway is a complex tale of reconciliation told from the point of
view of a twelve year old boy. Dark thoughts are common in boys of
that age, especially if they are traumatized. On the other hand, a
journey into a place where a young boy would fantasize about killing
his father would have to be taken from the context of what the boy is
familiar with, and what he loves most. In John’s case, he loved
powerful machines such as locomotives, and he loved candy, as most
children his age do. And he adored his mother and his sister Marny.
Most of all, he hated his father, and rightly so. His father was a
nasty beast, abusive, self absorbed, and embittered by having been
excommunicated from his community of religious zealots.

I was forced to confront many of my demons while writing GoneAway. I
found places inside myself where I did not want to go, and I wrote
upon the pages descriptions that I was not sure would be understood by
my family. In the final analysis, GoneAway is a story for everyone.
Let it be known that I was not abused as John was, and I did not name
my father a beast. What I did do was to draw upon pleasant and
unpleasant periods of my childhood and my adult life to develop the
threads within the story. I drew on philosophical and historical
knowledge, and I also spent many hours researching mythology and
biblical facts and fables, as well as ancient history to bring life’s
diversity into the story. Then I used my ability as a writer to cause
the many threads of GoneAway to be cohesive for my reader.

There are some who say I succeeded in evoking emotion. I hope they
are correct. Time will only tell.
Thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed.


Jeffrey B. Allen

GM and other companies

What do you think of the way some businesses are making their way in the economy today? With the Generational Equity, and the selling of bits and pieces of companies? I myself I am on the fence if I am perfectly honest. Part of me says it is a bad thing that a company should stay together and finds a way to make it work as a whole. And yet the other part of me says you do what you have to do. Is the selling of bits of a company really any different than when a family has to tighten their belt? And they liquidate some of their own assets? I don’t suspect it’s really too much different. So perhaps this is just a case of a necessary evil.

Teaser Tuesday #18

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to: Grab your current read.Let the book fall open to a random page.Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!Please avoid spoilers!

“You were so keen to help the order.” said Mrs. Weasley “you can do you bit by making headquarters fit to live in.”
“I feel like a house elf.” grumbled Ron. ~ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.k Rowlings

Book Review: Blog Tour Gone away into the Land by Jeffrey B Allen


John, a twelve-year-old boy, travels into a place where he will battle his father (the beast) and rescue Marney, his younger sister, and in the process save the Land from its own demise. John’s journey to find his sister and seek ultimate revenge on his abusive father will lead you into a wonderland that happens to also be experiencing the abuses of greed and tyranny, yet on a much grander scale. He and his mother find themselves embroiled in a civil war that threatens both the Land and the World. John’s harrowing struggle will embrace the child within you, while challenging the philosophical and spiritual unknowns of those who have GoneAway. Yet, for all of its upheaval, GoneAway ¿ into the Land, will leave you with a feeling of hope, and a yearning for more.


Gone away into the land came up to me as a book to read for a blog tour. And I am so glad it did. This book was fantastic, and in a month where I have read some bla books it was nice to have a stand out among them. Not saying all of my books this month have been bla, they haven’t but Goneaway is one of the best.

Jeffrey Allen spins a fantastic story about John and Marney. The pacing in this book is positively wonderful; it is slower than a lot of books but just right for the tone of this novel. He reveals a little bit of the story at every turn. There are some things I personally didn’t see coming, but I wont give them away I don’t want to spoil it for you.

Honestly if you enjoy a good yarn pick up Goneaway into the land. You will not regret it at all. It is wonderful read. And it is perfect for summer reading.

Musing Monday #17



Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about library borrowing…

Do you restrict yourself on how many books you take out from the library at a time? Do you borrow books if you already have some out? Do you always reborrow books you don’t get to?

Well when I used to take books out of the library (I do not anymore) I took a ton. And I would usually either get them all read before the due date or renew the ones that I didn’t finish. So I always made sure I got through them one way or another. But I never did limit myself.





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