Recovery Virtual Book Tour May & June 2011

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Join Alexandrea Weis, author of the romantic suspense novel, Recovery (CreateSpace), as she virtually tours the blogosphere in May and June 2011 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

About Alexandrea Weis

Alexandrea Weis began writing at the age of eight. In college she studied nursing and went on to teach at a local university. After several years in the medical field, she decided to pick up the pen again and began her first novel To My Senses. Since that time she has writen several novels and sold two screenplays (White River and Blood Will Tell). Blood Will Tell is currently in pre-production with Buyer Group International. Her work has been critically acclaimed and is continually growing in popularity.

Her most recent book is Recovery, the second novel in the Nicci Beauvoir series which takes readers on a Big Easy thrill ride when a lover’s murder is solved and a spy with a bulletproof bravado quickens Nicci’s broken heart.

Alexandrea is also a permitted wildlife rehabber and works rescuing orphaned and injured animals. She recently has been working to aid oil soaked birds in the Gulf disaster.

You can visit Alexandrea’s website at www.alexandreaweis.com or connect with her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/alexandreaweis.com and Facebook at www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/To-My-Senses/113609858681394.

About Recovery

Recovery by Alexandrea Weis is the second novel in the wildly sexy series featuring the enigmatic Nicci Beauvoir. A thrilling read, this character-driven book boasts a whodunit mystery, sultry seductions, and an unforgettable cliffhanging twist. Once a darling of New Orleans society, Nicci pens a novel about her departed love, the artist David Alexander. While promoting her book in the Big Apple, she’s approached by David’s former boss, Simon La Roy, who has a theory about David’s death that devastates Nicci. She learns David’s murder may be linked to someone from her past. Enter Dallas August, an elite member of Simon’s organization of corporate spies prized for his ruthless ability to get the job done. Playing the part of Nicci’s lover, Dallas returns to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans with her to flush out the killer. But everything is not what is seems in the Big Easy, and soon the couple finds themselves trapped in a psychotic’s twisted game of revenge. As the danger grows, Nicci’s relationship with the handsome spy turns from adversarial to amorous. On the run for their lives, Dallas and Nicci must confront their tormentor before it is too late. It’s a deadly decision that could cost Nicci everything, but it is her only chance for finally revealing the identity of the murderer. Just as the truth behind David’s death is discovered, another more compelling mystery is unearthed. It’s an unexpected turn of events that rocks Nicci’s world.

Read the Excerpt!

Tiresome carols from department store speakers extolled the dreaded news that Christmas chaos had once again taken over the country. Newspapers would soon be filled with stories of fights breaking out among stranded air travelers at destinations where too much snow, too much wind, or too much airport security had taken its toll. Once at Grandmother’s house, loving families filled with potent eggnog concoctions would turn on each other and use dinner utensils as assault weapons, until SWAT units arrived to stop the bloodshed. Every commercial, greeting card, and holiday display was pressuring us to have the perfect holiday, which we knew did not really exist. But every year in December we once again pulled out the stale-smelling ornaments from the attic, fired up the plastic Christmas tree, and prayed that maybe this year would be better than the last.
I was suffering though my own Christmas hell, stuck in New York City, in weather far below what any decent southerner considered utterly obscene, to satisfy the expectations of my publisher.
I had originally balked at the idea of coming to New York. The only place I wanted to be during the holidays was home. But the city I called home had been erased from the modern era, wiped out by water, incompetence, and apathy. The New Orleans I had loved had been forever changed by the winds of Katrina.
Gone were the places of my past. The corner grocery that had always smelled of spicy boiled shrimp, the restaurant that had served my favorite gumbo, the home where I had gathered for the holidays, the neighborhood where I had grown up but had never left behind. How do you begin to cope with the loss of everything that has been part of you, completed you? In New Orleans it is said we are where we live, but who are we when we cannot live there anymore?
By the time I had finally gotten through to FEMA and was able to restore some semblance of order back into my life, my publisher had called with last-minute plans for a holiday book signing tour.
So there I sat in a downtown Manhattan bookstore, filled with longing for home and a line of women waiting for my signature on their copy of my book Painting Jenny.
“Was David Alexander really like that?” one round-faced woman asked as she cleaved a copy of my book to her chest. “The way you described him in the book?”
“He was as he is written,” I said. I always gave that response when asked about David. I wrote what I remembered about him, the good and the bad, making the character in the book almost as real as the man I had loved. Almost.
“You were his muse,” a hunched over, gray-haired diva draped in all her Tiffany finery exclaimed. “I saw some of his portraits of you, the ones he called his Jennys, last month on display at a gallery here in the city. He was very talented and his love for you was obvious. He painted you with such reverence, such awe.” She sighed and smiled weakly. “What a waste.”
I reached for the book the woman handed me with her spindly fingers and looked up into her beady gray eyes. I wondered if she had ever known love or if the cold diamonds that enveloped her body had somehow managed to work their way into her heart. I then gave her my best-practiced smile.
“He was very talented, and at least the world still has his paintings to remember him by,” I answered, keeping my voice free of the disgust churning inside of me.
The Madison Avenue maven smiled. “And your book. The world has that too. To remember you both by.”
A twinge of pain etched its way across my heart as a memory of David began to cloud my vision. We had been sitting on the floor of his studio after a frenzied night of painting. In an instant, I could smell the mix of paint and sweat on his skin. David had expressed his hope that one day his paintings and my stories would stand side-by-side declaring to the world what we had meant to each other. He had told me that he wanted nothing more than to be remembered for eternity with me. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the past.
“You must have been so devastated by his death,” a shrill voice said, tearing me away from my memories.
“Devastated?” I smiled up at a chubby, eager-looking woman standing before me.
Is that what you call this, I thought to myself. Perhaps heartache is a word that can only be experienced, and once experienced, it becomes devoid of description.
“Yes, of course I was devastated,” I coolly explained. “He was the love of my life.”
“Then how did you go…” Her hungry brown eyes looked down for a moment. “How did you go on after…he was murdered?”
“I wrote our story,” I quickly replied. “It was my therapy,” I added as I tried to quell my growing desire to taser this overzealous fan.

Here’s what critics are saying about Recovery

Alexandrea Weis has so many different elements and facets to this novel that you cannot hang your hat on any of them. I for one like that. Her plotline is complex; I chuckled many times, was sad at others, and yet was thoroughly satisfied at the novel’s end. Good stuff all of it. Worthy of the read and the time invested.

— Gelati’s Scoop

This was my first introduction to Alexandrea Weis and the scintillating cut-throat New Orleans society that was Nicci Beauvoir’s world. Weis’s luminous descriptions won me over immediately. Nicci seemed dignified in her grief, and New Orleans was resplendent in the ashes it was pulling out of because Alexandrea Weis’s writing made it so. I enjoyed the little descriptive details Weis inserted – from the obliteration of a lovely New Orleans home that led to the death of David’s landlady, to the vicious and familiar manner that Nicci’s family lovingly jabbed away at each other, and the intimate pains found deep in Nicci’s and Dallas’s heart – all conspired to catch at my heartstrings regardless of scale, and commit me as reader to Nicci’s hopes of finding the truth and ending her grief. The feeling of constant motion conveyed by Weis’s writing also had me reading ‘just a few pages more’ until I finished the book. Jumping from Nicci’s thoughts to the electric tension between Nicci and Dallas, to the scandalous happenings in a dinner party to actual suspense when the killer made a move kept me engaged and pretty much breathless. I invite others to meet Nicci Beauvoir and be charmed by her and her world. Pick up Alexandrea Weis’s “Recovery” and see this well-done tale through to the end.

— BookIdeas.com

Recovery Virtual Book Tour Schedule

Monday, May 2

Interviewed at Beyond the Books

“I tried the usual route of getting an agent and sending out queries until I was blue in the face. I decided to self-publish to see if I was really any good as a writer.”

Wednesday, May 4

Guest blogging at Literal Exposure

“I came to realize that happiness is not found in living some monetary-based lifestyle, but in following a path that yields to the yearnings of your heart.”

Thursday, May 5

Interviewed at Blogcritics

“My world becomes that book, and when it is finished it is as if I have to re-orient myself to the world around me.”

Friday, May 6

Book reviewed at Life in Review

“I VERY highly recommend this book! The writing is excellent and the story will grab you from the first page and keep you turning pages until the very end. It had me laughing out loud quite a bit also. It’s full of mystery, suspense, great humor, and romance. I loved this author’s writing and I will be watching for more books from Alexandrea Weis!”

Monday, May 9

Interviewed at As the Pages Turn

“I have traveled a good bit in my life, but no place has ever been more interesting to me than the Big Easy.”

Tuesday, May 10

Guest blogging at As the Pages Turn

“So the next time you think about my hometown, don’t linger on the unforgettable disasters of our past. Instead, revel in what makes our city unique, shamelessly flamboyant, and stoically unapologetic for its transgressions. New Orleanians have moved on from Katrina.”

Wednesday, May 11

Guest participant at Literarily Speaking May 2011 Book Panel

Thursday, May 12

Book reviewed at Ohio Girl Talks

Friday, May 13

Interviewed at The Book Connection

Tuesday, May 17

Guest blogging at My Love Affair with Books

Wednesday, May 18

Guest blogging at The Book Bin

Thursday, May 19

Interviewed LIVE at Blog Talk Radio’s A Book and a Chat

Monday, May 23

Book reviewed at Ashley’s Bookshelf

Tuesday, May 24

Guest blogging at Ashley’s Bookshelf

Wednesday, May 25

Interviewed at Paperback Writer

Thursday, May 26

Book reviewed at April’s Lifestyle Show

Friday, May 27

Chat & Book Giveaway at Pump Up Your Book’s Authors on Tour May 2011 Facebook Party

Monday, June 6

Interviewed at Pump Up Your Book

“Never stop writing. As long as you are writing you are growing as a writer. It is when you stop and give up on your dreams that your dreams will die. As long as you believe in yourself, you will find others who believe in you as well.”

Wednesday, June 8

Book reviewed at My Reading Table

Friday, June 10

Book reviewed at From the TBR Pile

Monday, June 13

Interviewed at The Writer’s Life

Tuesday, June 14

Book reviewed at Chrissy’s World of Books

Thursday, June 16

Book reviewed at Donna’s Blog Home

Friday, June 17

Interviewed at Examiner

Monday, June 20

Book reviewed at Broken Teepee

“This was a fast paced book with interesting characters. I felt the love lost between Nicci and David just as much as I felt the love grow between Nicci and Dallas. The New Orleans setting is a good one as it is a place full of its own mystery. The ending was dramatic and the killer came as a complete surprise to me.”

Tuesday, June 21

Interviewed at Review From Here

Thursday, June 23

Guest participant at Literarily Speaking June 2011 Book Panel

Friday, June 24

Interviewed at The Hot Author Report

Monday, June 27

Guest blogging at Love Romance Passion

Tuesday, June 28

Book reviewed at Celtic Lady’s Reviews

Wednesday, June 29

Book reviewed at Paranormal & Romantic Suspense Reviews

Thursday, June 30

Guest blogging at Romance Junkies

Chat with Alexandrea Weis at Pump Up Your Book’s June Facebook Party

Alexandrea Weis’ RECOVERY VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ‘10 will officially begin on May 2 and end on June 30 ’11. Please contact Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife@yahoo.com if you are interested in hosting and/or reviewing his book or click here to use the form. Thank you!

If you would like to book your own virtual book tour with us, click here to find out how!

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Maria Andrade, DEFIANCE AND REDEMPTION

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Irene Woodbury, HONEYMOON ROULETTE

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Aiken Brown, SON OF A SOLDIER

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Jennifer Chase, FLOWERS ON HER GRAVE

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Miri Leshem-Pelly, SCRIBBLE & AUTHOR

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Shami Stovall, KNIGHTMARE ARCANIST

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Bacon Press Books

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T.M. Wallace, WINTERGARDEN

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Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

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Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

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Lee Papa, TEMPLE OF ALL KNOWING

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Madeline Wynn, DAUGHTER OF THE FALLEN

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Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

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Karen-Anne Stewart, ASH TO STEELE

"When it comes to looking for a virtual book tour coordinator, Dorothy Thompson of Pump Up Your Book Tours is simply the best. I have tried several virtual book tour coordinators and have even set up a book tour on my own, but none of them were as successful as my tours with Pump Up Your Book Tour, which has the combination of expertise and experience needed to get the author the results they need. On this latest tour, TWELVE TO MURDER made it up to number three on Amazon! Thank you, Dorothy!"
Lauren Carr, Best-Selling Mystery Author of Mac Faraday, and Lovers in Crime, Mysteries

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Kaylin McFarren, BURIED THREADS

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The Best Life Book Club by Sheila Roberts

Question of the Day

How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

-- Sheila Roberts, Author of Winter at the Beach