Announcing my Next Book: Cruise Ship

Right now, I think everyone could use a bit of escapism, which is why I’m particularly excited to announce my next book, Puzzling Escapes: Return to the Cruise Ship from a Deserted Island. I know I’m excited about every book I release, but I’m super pumped about this one. I’ve been wanting to do a vacation-themed puzzle book for a while that had a laid back feel, yet still contained interesting and challenging puzzles. So, let me introduce you to Cruise Ship, the perfect mix of laid back fun and edge-of-your-seat problem-solving!

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Is there anything more relaxing than a cruise to the Caribbean? Wanting to add some excitement to your tropical vacation, you book a shore excursion that promises adventure. Instead, only one other person shows up, a fellow cruiser named Amala, your guide decides to cancel the planned activity and takes you both to an exclusive, private island. However, when you decide to return to the cruise ship, you learn that your boat has run out of gas. You must search for a way to escape, learning the secrets of the deserted island along the way.

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Puzzling Escapes: Return to the Cruise Ship from a Deserted Island is scheduled to release on July 1st.

Book Review: Evalene's Number by Bethany Atazadeh

I was browsing books on my phone when Amazon showed Evalene’s Number as a title I might enjoy. I thought the cover was so cool, I had to find out who the cover designer was. Using the look inside feature, I flipped to the copyright page to find more info on the cover image.

I smirked at the title. A character has a number? I immediately knew what the book was going to be: A dystopian society is highly stratified using some sort of numbering system to rank the citizens. The protagonist would likely be from a highly ranked family, but for some reason, she would get a terrible ranking on the day she gets a number. Then she would need to fight against the injustice that is the overbearing government.

Of course, in order to confirm my suspicions, I would need to read the first few paragraphs, err pages. Maybe the entire first chapter.

And now that I’ve read the whole thing, I’d like to share my thoughts.

Evalene’s Number by Bethany Atazadeh
My Rating: ★★★★☆

Everyone in Eden is given a number on their thirteenth birthday which marks their place in society for the rest of their lives. On Evalene’s numbering day, everyone is shocked when she receives the worst number possible. Her life is turned completely upside-down as she adjusts to a completely different lifestyle.

Before her spirit is completely broken, she and a friend decide to run away and start over in the free lands. As she runs away from the country that wronged her, she learns more about the depth of corruption and must decide whether or not she will fight back.

Although I knew exactly what to expect going into this novel, Bethany’s writing immediately pulled me in. Her wonderful descriptions made me feel like I was dropped straight into Evalene’s world, and I could feel Evalene’s pain when she was ostracized by her friends and family, going from beloved daughter to lowly servant in the span of a day.

Going into this book, I knew it was the first of a series, so I knew there might not be total closure at the end. The story ended with a nice amount of resolution. However, one of the characters makes a big decision at the end which is totally against their character.

My favorite part of this novel is Evalene’s character arc. Her transition from innocent and hopeful to reserved and meek is heartbreakingly believable and seeing her slowly discover her self-worth felt just as real.

Anyone who’s ever enjoyed a dystopian or young adult will absolutely love Evalene’s Number.

Virtual Book Signing

I was updating my events page recently to move around comic cons that were postponed and deleting those that were canceled. Comic cons are one of my favorite parts of being an indie author, and I'm sad that there won't be any in the foreseeable future.

However, there have been a number of virtual comic cons popping up, and that gave me an idea: I could host a virtual book signing. I've included a lot of topics I talk about when meeting people at events along with special deals on signed books.

If you put together a virtual event, I'd love to check it out! Just send a link to my email (BethMartinBooks@gmail.com)

Quality DNA Now Available as Audiobook

It feels like I got the ball rolling on this project just the other day, but in reality, I started seriously looking into creating an audiobook for one of my novels in January. Instead of starting with my debut book, I decided to do my favorite novel, Quality DNA. Fortunately, the process went really smoothly: I quickly found the perfect narrator, she did an amazing job recording and producing the audio, and now it's available on Amazon! If you'd like to grab a copy, it's available here:

I can't fully express how excited I am about this endeavor. I've spoken to so many people who have much more time to listen to audiobooks and podcasts than to read a physical book, so I hope this helps some new people discover my work. If Quality DNA does well in audiobook, I'll look into doing this for some of my other books as well.