BLOG TOUR + GUEST POST Seed by Shelly Campbell

 

Hi friends! Welcome to my stop on the tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions for Seed by Shelly Campbell. Check out my post to learn more about the book and the author. Make sure you also enter the giveaway at the end of the post, and show some love to the other tour hosts as well. The author will be awarding a $ 20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card to a randomly drawn winner at the end of the tour. The more you comment, the more chances you have to win! 

Seed by Shelly Campbell Blog Tour Schedule (Goddess Fish Promotions)

About the Book

Glitching between dimensions wasn't supposed to be my life, but sometimes you have to dance with the darkness.

I should be dead. Shot twice through the chest. But the Embassy saved me because I’m a one-of-a-kind freak who blips to worlds they can’t reach. Now I’m their personal mule, raiding collapsing planets to fatten their coffers. Lucky me.

And things have gone from bad to worse. My old team is being held hostage, my family’s in danger, and the darkness hunts me across realities. My one shot to end this living hell? Take down the Embassy, save Charlie, and torch the whole rotten system. Simple, right? One misstep though, and we’re toast. Alien breach. Apocalypse. End scene.

If I fail, the darkness won’t stop until it swallows us whole.

Excerpt from the Book

Heaviness blankets me. A childish part of me wanted to hang onto the idea that I was an instrumental part of saving the universe. More than that though, I’d hoped that Cory slipped me his wedding ring so he could save me. For a single stupid moment, I thought this was about me. Why do I keep doing this? Falling for the idea that people care about me for who I am and not what I can do for them? The only people who loved me like that are my family, and I can’t ever reach them again without inadvertently siccing the darkness on them. I take a deep, hollow breath before asking, “What do you want, Cory?”

Guest Post from the Author

Music Playlist for the Dark Walker Series

Thanks so much for having me on the blog! I really appreciate the chance to reach new readers. When I saw that one of your post subject ideas was a playlist for the books, I latched right on. I live in a noisy household full of boys who like to listen to sports at full volume and birds who sing at the top of their lungs so I spend most of my writing time with a set of headphones on bobbing my head as I write. My generic playlist mostly consists of instrumental music that sounds like the epic soundtrack for some movie trailer. There’s some though, that really resonated for me while I was writing Seed, book 3 in the Dark Walker series. So I’ve plunked them into a Dark Walker Series Playlist. Feel free to click and listen away. What are your go-to songs or playlists, people? I’d love to hear all about them. Thanks for letting me share a bit about the soundtrack that’s playing in my head while I write! Really appreciate the support. Keep feeding your imagination!

Cheers,

Shelly

About the Author

At a young age, Shelly Campbell wanted to be an air show pilot or a pirate, possibly a dragon and definitely a writer and artist. She’s piloted a Cessna 172 through spins and stalls, and sailed up the east coast on a tall ship barque—mostly without projectile vomiting. In the end, Shelly found writing and drawing dragons to be so much easier on the stomach. Shelly writes speculative fiction ranging from grimdark fantasy, to sci-fi and horror. She’d love to hear from you.

http://www.shellycampbellauthorandart.com

https://twitter.com/ShellyCFineArt 

https://www.instagram.com/shellycampbellfineart 

https://www.facebook.com/shellycampbellauthorandart

https://www.tiktok.com/@shellycampbellauthor

https://www.amazon.com/Seed-interdimensional-Science-Fiction-Horror-ebook/dp/B0F79Q1GML/ref=sr_1_1

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REVIEW The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar

The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar
Rating: 4 Stars
Release Date: June 6,  2023
Format: eBook (Personal Library) + Audiobook (Borrowed from Library)
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Adiba Jaigirdar’s The Dos and Donuts of Love is a very sweet young adult contemporary sapphic romance, that captures both the unpredictable fun nature of reality TV shows and the realities of being a teenager growing up in a world of social media.  Shireen, the main character, is a Bengali teen living in Ireland and working at her parent’s donut shop. When the chance comes up to enter a baking competition and win some money to support her future, she jumps at the opportunity. However, things become very complicated when you throw in her ex also competing in the competition (cue love triangle). 

Shireen is a very relatable teenage character. She’s very flawed, and makes mistakes (which she later owns up to). I really appreciated how she had such a strong support system around her, and how they were very supportive of her identity. As someone who’s guilty of not always being aware of smaller regions/cultures in the world, I also want to acknowledge how Shireen very respectfully corrected people who assumed she was from India and took the opportunity to educate on the Bangladeshi culture.  

“You’re supposed to be the ‘bigger person’, and for some reason that means bearing it in silence.”

Social media can be a cruel place, and keyboard warriors are just jerks. The author did not shy away from difficult but relevant topics in this book (see the content warnings below for more specific details). After the first episode of the baking show airs, Shireen takes a lot of heat online (especially from racists and those who are fatphobicr). And when one of the judges of the show (Padma, who is also a woman of color and Shireen’s hero) tries to be a resource for her in dealing with that, it also makes things get worse. In her own words, “The thing is I don’t know what felt worse. The abusive tweets coming from strangers or the fact that nobody seemed to care about them. That even Niamh didn’t seem to care about them.”

Last but certainly not least, all of the food references in this show made me hungry. I loved how descriptive the author got with all of the flavors in each dish. I also appreciated the acknowledgement that different cultures can have their own way of making something. Shireen using her Ammu’s recipe was another way of acknowledging her culture and heritage, and I was so excited as a reader to see that. It was reminiscent of my own grandmother passing down her recipes to the family, or how my own family came together to gift my older sister various family recipes ahead of her wedding.  

Overall, this was a great read. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy The Great British Bake Off, young adult contemporary stories, and sapphic romances. While this is my first book by Adiba, I’m definitely hoping to read more in the future. 

Thank you to @guccinary97, @Tearexanne, and @24hryabookblog for making this such a fun buddy read for me. Looking forward to reading The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker with you next!

Content Warnings:  Fatphobia, colorism, anti-Asian social media post directly discussed on page, racism