Sum Of All Tears by Kim Cresswell & M.K. Chester Book Tour and Giveaway :)


Icehaven
Sum of All Tears Book 1
by Kim Cresswell & M.K. Chester
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian, Paranormal 

They said it wouldn't happen.


Everything would be better.

They were wrong.

After a climate change experiment goes terribly wrong, August Madison, finds herself resurrected in a frozen wasteland.

With most of the world's population and food sources annihilated, depraved nomadic gangs patrol the lawless landscape as outlasters claw for survival.

Amid the chaos, Graysen Marx, iron-fisted leader of the domed settlement Liberty, emerges from the catastrophic event with his own agenda.

When August crosses his path, he sees an opportunity he must exploit.

She sees an evil she must destroy.

Fans of The Day after Tomorrow, The Handmaid's Tale, Mad Max, and The Hunger Games are sure to enjoy this enthralling post apocalyptic dystopian adventure with a paranormal twist.




CHAPTER ONE
In the near future...

August Madison glanced at her watch, then back at her father, her shoulders tight with anxiety. “Minus seven minutes.” Anticipation flickered in his blue eyes as he smiled and watched the images of the dozens of military aircraft taking off from various airports throughout the United States and around the world on the mammoth digital screen inside the university’s largest auditorium. As chief climatologist of the International Climate Change Initiative, he believed he’d finally discovered the answer to the world’s most pressing issue. With the oceans growing more acidic, dozens of animal and plant species becoming extinct, and the atmosphere ten degrees higher than a decade ago, widespread catastrophic weather events, each more violent and deadly than the one before had increased. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, droughts, and horrific flooding due to rising sea levels had caused the destruction of some nations and continued to kill millions around the globe. All of that was about to change. Can you check on Luke and Chloe?” her father asked under the increasing commotion surrounding them. “They should be here by now.”  August frowned at the cause of her stress. She wasn’t surprised by her brother’s tardiness. He was always late, an eighteen-year-old who had an excuse for everything. All he had to do was pick up their younger sister from school and show up on time for their father’s shining moment. Just be on time for once. Do what was expected. One time. I’ll call him.” August snatched her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and hit speed dial. He finally answered on the fourth ring, right before voicemail kicked in. “Where are you? You’re late.” Chloe was poky leaving class.” August rolled her eyes, knowing her brother had been up all night playing video games with his friends. She’d bet her Yale tuition he’d been sleeping and hadn’t gotten up in time. “Hurry up, Dad’s asking for you.” I’m pulling into the university parking lot. Wow, there’s a ton of people here. I didn’t know this was such a big deal.” She checked her watch again. Five minutes. “You’ve known your whole life how important this is to him.” I’ll be there in two minutes.” August ended the call and forced a smile for her father. “They’ll be here soon.” He nodded and put his arm around her shoulder. “I don’t want them to miss it. This will be a story you’ll tell your own children one day.” She smiled, imagining a future where the climate wasn’t the dominant issue of the day. Her father hadn’t been this happy in a long time. Five years almost to the day her mother had passed away, he deserved some happiness. While the auditorium filled to standing room only with faculty, students and media, excitement buzzed in the air. Her father really was about to make history, his experiment, his hard work, bringing them to this moment. She took a seat in the front row beside him and looked up at the screen. A low hum caught her attention. Unsure where the sound came from, she glanced over her shoulder, searching for her brother and sister, disappointed that Luke would probably be too late. The humming grew louder. August covered her ears, the high-pitched deafening sound too much. An earth-shattering boom savagely rocked the auditorium. The tile floor cracked and shifted under her feet. The seismic force catapulted her out of the seat, slamming her left shoulder and the side of her head into the floor with a hollow whump. Dazed, August staggered to her knees, then to her feet and reached for her father’s hand, mere inches away through the smoke and dust. She couldn’t get to him. Phantom outlines of people bumped into her, scurrying by, searching for an exit. Screams, sobs, and moans filled her head. Blistering heat ripped through the room, as if the atmosphere was being sucked out by a high-powered vacuum. Her heart thrashed in her chest. Where were Luke and Chloe? She fought back tears as panic drove deep into her bones. Stretching out her arm, she reached for her father again and struggled against the growing clatters and groans. A gale-force wind rumbled like a freight train, and the building blew apart. Daddy!” Chunks of debris pelted down around her. August tripped on something, maybe someone, and landed flat on her back. While she gasped for each painful, labored breath, electrical wires popped and sizzled around her and shot fiery particles everywhereOverhead, a metal beam swung wildly in her direction, like a giant pendulum. A pungent, suffocating odor, similar to lighting a million matches, filled her nostrils. An acidic taste touched the tip of her tongue and burned the back of her throat. Muffled quiet descended over her. The world blurred. Then came the cold.

Liberty
Sum of All Tears Book 2

A new enemy rises.

Surviving the cold is only the beginning.

In the second installment of the exciting Sum of all Tears series, a core group of survivors from Liberty travel to Boston, endangering themselves and those they left behind in a winner-takes-all showdown that will leave readers breathless.
Fans of The Day after Tomorrow, The Handmaid's Tale, Mad Max, and The Hunger Games are sure to enjoy this enthralling post apocalyptic dystopian adventure with a paranormal twist.




Kim Cresswell resides in Ontario, Canada and is the bestselling and award-winning author of the action-packed WHITNEY STEEL series.
Her romantic thriller, Reflection (A Whitney Steel Novel – Book One), has won numerous awards including RomCon®’s 2014 Readers’ Crown Finalist (Romantic Suspense), InD’tale Magazine 2014 Rone Award Finalist (Suspense/Thriller), UP Authors Fiction Challenge Winner, Silicon Valley’s Romance Writers of America (RWA) “Gotcha” contest. Kim also signed a 3-book German translation deal with LUZIFER Verlag for the first three books in the series: Reflection, Retribution and Resurrect. Lethal Journey won RomCon®’s 2014 Readers’ Crown (Thriller).
The Assassin Chronicles TV series was in development with Council Tree Productions. The TV series is based on Kim’s upcoming 4-book paranormal/supernatural thriller series: Deadly Shadow (May 2018), Invisible Truth, Assassin’s Prophecy, and Vision of Fire.




M.K. Chester is an RWA award-winning author of historical and contemporary romance. Her first novel, Surrender to the Roman, is currently published with Carina Press. Her three-book historical series, Bryeton Books, focuses on love, loss and redemption in small town America at the turn of the 20th century, while her latest release, Crashed, is the first book in the contemporary New South Series. 
M.K. is a native Buckeye who lives in Tennessee. She’s married to a veteran, recently became a MoM (Mother of Marine), and will soon become a grandmother. She adores her Scottish Terriers and is fighting MS.


3 Reasons Dystopian Fiction is So Popular

I remember learning in school that when the economy is bad, or the country goes to war, the horror genre typically makes a huge comeback. Reason being, people need an escape from the dreariness of their everyday lives (something fantastic, like aliens), or in the case of war, something even worse so they feel better.

All that made me wonder: why is dystopian fiction so popular? From YA faves The Hunger Games and Divergent to the more grown-up The Handmaid’s Tale, the genre has taken over popular culture and doesn’t seem ready to leave center stage just yet. Why does everyone love these stories? Sure, they’re often adventure stories, romances, or coming of age tales wrapped in a fictionalized but possible world, but here are three deep and concrete reasons dystopian fiction is still hotter than hot.
  1. It could always be worse. Along the same lines as horror, when people become uncomfortable in their own world, they often seek fictional escapes. With horror and the horrific elements of dystopian fiction, readers can see that their reality isn’t as bad as it could be. Part of the dystopian flair is to create a world where readers can understand how they got to their new world. A cautionary tale, of sorts, will help soothe some fears and perhaps provide answers to underlying questions.
  2. The element of hope. In stories like The Hunger Games, our heroes and heroines rise to the challenge of overcoming oppression. Despite the layer of grit, grime, corruption and violence, there is hope that one person, a few people, or a movement can make valuable change in an otherwise desperate and cold world. Whether readers realize they crave this taste of hope or not, it draws them in because there is nothing better than the good guys finding a way to set things right or start anew.
  3. The reader can be the hero. You read that right—and what I mean is that the characters you love and cheer for are relatable. As a reader, you ask yourself what you might do if you found yourself in the maze or oppressed inside Margaret Atwood’s fictional Gilead. You, the reader, know right from wrong, you know what must be done and you, too, can find the courage within yourself to overcome the obstacles in your life.
Knowing this, when Kim and I wrote Icehaven, we wanted to give readers a unique dystopian experience inside a world where you never knew what might come at you next. We wanted to draw characters you can both cheer for and identify with as you hope they can be a force for good when life takes a turn for the worst. In an action-packed adventure, we wanted you to cheer when they make the decisions you would make and hold on for dear life when they don’t. We hope, when you come up for air, you realize this realistic, possible future could be coming for you—what would you do in Icehaven

Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!


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