Wordsmith Wednesday #1

Welcome one and all to the next greatest meme on the face of the planet! Well, at least to us! :-) It started as the brain child of the great Hope Collier. Thanks, Izzie, for such a great idea!

The objective:

Show us a scene from your current project. It can be creepy, adventurous, romantic, etc. Just a snippet to let readers see what they're in for!

The guidelines:

* Must be from a current work-in-progress (WIP). Nothing already published.
* You may choose from any section of the manuscript, but be mindful not to include spoilers.
* Keep it clean and YA audience friendly, please. No erotica.
* Stay under 300 words or about one page. It can be as little as a few lines if you prefer. We just want to give readers a chance to see everyone's selection.
* Link back to Chirenjenzie so we can enjoy others' work as well!
* Include the guidelines in your post.

WIP: Fallenmore (Feathermore Trilogy, #2)

PUBLICATION DATE: June 2012

" The sheets felt soft and silky against my skin and I pressed them against my body. The sound of someone unlatching a window reached my ears, and a breeze swooped over the thin layer of sweat that seemed to be covering me completely. I closed my eyes again and gave in to the tickling feeling the wind licking my skin created, cooling me off.

            “How are you feeling?” Blake’s voice rang on the other side of the bed.

            Oh, god! Am I in his bed again? Was this an omen for something?! I shuffled under the sheets uncomfortably and with my eyes still closed, afraid the spinning and the headache would come back, I sat up. As I rested my back rested against the cool headboard, goosebumps erupted all over my arms and I pulled the covers tightly over me.

            “What happened?” I asked and my voice was gruff. I took a chance and opened my eyes. Luckily the haziness was gone and I could see him clearly. “You look terrible.” I muttered, exerting myself by speaking. I felt drained of energy, my life force completely empty, and if it wasn't because I had a million questions in my head, I may have just turned and gone back to sleep.

His hair, which had always been cropped and nicely trimmed was now sticking up uncontrollably in all directions and there was a five o’clock shadow that made him look older and weary.

      “I hate to break it to you, but you don’t look that hot either.” He said with a smile."

Fallenmore's Cover

This is one of the best parts about the whole book making process (after finishing said book), the cover. And thanks to Naj, it is perfect! I love it, what do you think??

TITLE: Fallenmore (Feathermore Trilogy, #2)

PUBLISHER: Sel-published

RELEASE DATE: June 2012

EXCERPT

Silence.

Darkness.

Stillness all around me, there was only the endless blackness that stretched out into infinity and swallowed me whole. I floated, weightless, suspended in a starless universe.

I had fallen, hadn’t I?

I’ve gone to hell.

I didn’t understand when, or how, but I must’ve had become a fallen angel. I would forever live and succumb to the darkness I felt inside of me. I would roam the mortal realm with a heart filled with hate and destruction.

I moved my arms but I couldn’t see them. It was as if I didn’t exist. I was only mind in this world. Wherever this was. The air around me was thick and I took long, deep breaths, but it only caused the feeling of suffocation to enclose me even more.

I thought of what had happened before I had come here, as an attempt at trying to piece it together. How and why I had been the one to end up in this place. My memories were hazy, distant, but they were there. I maneuvered around the fog that kept them hidden but I couldn’t tap into them. They were blocked off.

I allowed myself to wander through my life before any of this happened. My parents. Memories flashed through and I gripped on to each one, holding on to the past. Holding on to the love once filled my heart, yet there was nothing there now. No love, no happiness. It seemed like a distant memory, but why? Why had I fallen? There was a faint noise that sent vibrations all around me. I extended my arms, trying to feel for something. Nothing.

            “Hello!” Although I couldn’t see myself, I was able to hear. My voice echoed fiercely but no one responded. It was silent for what felt like forever.

            “What are you doing here?” Claire. She sounded distant and muffled. I wanted to call back to her, to ask her to help me, but something stopped me. Something deep inside me made me doubt her, almost hate her.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t really tell if I was moving at all. I just floated.

“I can protect her. She will be safe with me, and most importantly, she will feel no pain.” Blake? Why was Blake here? Or, there? Wherever it was that they were. Did they know each other? Questions gathered in my head, but there was no one around to ask them to. I still screamed them out.

“What is going on? Where are you?!”

There was a warm feeling on my hand and then it spread along my arm, as if the darkness was caressing me softly. I twitched away from it, scared by the feeling it brought. The fear was instantly gone. Left behind was emptiness, I just was; the darkness no longer scared me. I wanted to go where he was. Blake. He would know what to do.

 “Michael, you can’t think for one second life will go back to what it once was, can you?” Claire’s voice rippled though my body, awakening a monster.

Michael? Who the hell was Michael?

“Of course it won’t, but it’s not because of me, is it?” He spat out. “It was your hand that killed him.”

Killed him.

Who?

A set of blue eyes flashed before me.

And something inside of me broke. Again.

I saw his face and that was all it took for the pain to come crashing down like a tidal wave. I tried to hold on to his face, to the emotions that were coming across in his eyes, but he was gone, and the glimpse of my own emotions was gone with him. I stared down at my own arms, they way they had been wrapped around his body as he took his last breath. The way his bright eyes had lost their intensity; not even the moon that washed the forest with light could brighten them up. His eyes had moved through my face as if searching for something that would save him. But I couldn’t save him, and his eyes soon stared, lifelessly at the star filled sky above us. He had died in my arms and I had done nothing to stop it. I had nothing to prevent it from happening.

Could I had saved him from the doom that loving me had brought upon him?

I screamed, or at least I thought I was screaming. There was no more sounds coming out from me.

I dug deeper through the memory. I could still feel the weight of his body in my arms. There had been a tear deep inside of me the moment I felt his soul vanish, when he had become just another useless death in Lilith’s game.

Lilith. Who had left him there to die. Who just stood by as Shemer’s sword took the one person I lived for. Who stood by when Claire, my best friend, killed him. Lilith, whom I would have sacrificed it all to, if only to see his face one more time. If me dying meant I would be with him again, that’s what I wanted to do. Where I wanted to be. But I was trapped here.

 Alone.



Why I write YA

WHY I WRITE YA

As an avid reader, I will pretty much read any genre that comes my way. I don't discriminate against genres.

When I started reading as a child, I was obsessed with R.L. Stine. My parents had a clothing store at the mall and I would spend hours at the bookstore, sprawled all over the floor reading Goosebumps. Whenever I came across any kind of money at all, it would go toward a book, which at that age felt like such a mature thing to do. As I started growing up, and although I kept reading Stine’s books, my taste became a little bit broader. Now, however, whenever I had money I spent it on clothes or going out with my friends, and that is why I began reading my Mom’s books. She, like I, has to go to sleep with a book in hand. And so there were plenty for me to choose from, however her genre was a little different that mine, she loved romance novels. Think Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele. And so I began daydreaming of handsome and romantic men that would come sweep me off my feet; that's when the romantic in me was born. I went on, for years reading anything my mom purchased. The DaVinci code drove me wild!

But it wasn’t until I was told about Twilight that I became a DIE HARD reader. I was working at the hospital at the time. I had taken a very lunch break and so I was completely alone in our break room. On the table was a paperback of Twilight. The TV wasn’t working and so I picked it up, after all, I had half an hour to kill. OH MY GOD, the half an hour disappeared. I don’t know how it is possible, but time fast forwarded! I had gotten so into the story that by the time I came up for air it had been an hour! I was so busted. Reluctantly I put it down and headed back to work. I couldn’t concentrate, I had Meyer’s story engraved in my mind. 7pm came around and I bolted to my car. I didn’t go home, I told my Mom I would pick up the kids a little bit later and drove like a maniac to the bookstore. By then, the first three were already out, so I bought them all. It might have taken me a week before I had read them all. I was ADDICTED. Since then I have read all four about 10 times each, and every time, it’s like the very first.

It was because of the Twilight saga that I decided to become a writer. I wanted readers to feel the way Meyers had made me feel. To become the character and have a break from our everyday lives. I wanted to create an escape that readers would want to escape to.
And so my genre of choice was easy, Young Adult. It is the genre I like reading most.
How many of you were told by a parent, aunt, grandmother how we would one day miss our teenage years? How we would one day want to turn back time and be in high school again? Everything my Mom has ever said to me and was brushed off as “Yeah, right. Whatever” has come true. And so, what better way to re-live those days than by creating my own?

The Young Adult genre is not just for teenagers, it is for everybody that misses those days and wants to, even if for a few hours a day, go back and reminisce. YA is also for the teenagers dealing with the realistic issues sometimes mingled in the stories, in the case of Feathermore, bullying. I was bullied when I was younger and I completely stand against it. It breaks people and scars them for life in one way or another. For adults, as I said before, YA is a getaway to times already passed.

What is your genre and why?

2 eBook Giveaway

Hi All!

I am giving away 2 eBook copies of Feathermore. If you would like to enter the giveaway, all you have to do is comment below with your name and e-mail address. Winners will be picked on March 31st after 5pm EST.

Xoxo and Good luck!

Book Review and Giveaway- "Bound" by Kira Saito

"Sixteen year old Arelia LaRue lives in New Orleans where the music is loud, voodoo queens inhabit every street corner, and the ghosts are alive and well. Despite her surroundings, all she wants is to help her Grand-mere Bea pay the rent and save up for college.

When her best friend Sabrina convinces her to take a well-paying summer job at the infamous Darkwood plantation, owned by the wealthy LaPlante family, Arelia agrees.

However, at Darkwood strange things start to happen, and gorgeous Lucus LaPlante insists that he needs her help. Soon, the powers that Arelia has been denying all her life, come out to play and she discovers mysteries about herself that she could have never imagined."

When I saw the cover of Bound I was completely intrigued by it. It consists of everything I love in a cover. It is dark, eerie and you can see certain sadness exude from the woman. Then, I proceeded to read the blurb and I was in. I wanted to know what it was all about.
Mind you, I have absolutely no idea of anything voodoo and was a little scared of being put off by any of it. After all, voodoo to me was making weird looking dolls and stabbing them with needles. But what I came to learn was far more magical than I had expected.
It took me a little bit to get into it, and mostly I think it was because of Arelia's obnoxious best friend, Sabrina. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, some of my favorite books it took me a few tries until I really got into them. Eg: "The Unquiet" by John Connolly and "Marked" (book #1 from House of Night) and was so hooked  once i got into it I read the first six books in a span of a week. True Story.
Sabrina, you will come to see is a rich princess and what I get most from her is that she honestly feels she is entitled to things and people. She just struck a nerve with me.


Anyway, the story follows Arelia, a sixteen year old that lives with her grand-mere Bea and struggles to get by, money wise. During summer, Sabrina tells her about tan invitation she has gotten for a job at the Darkwood Plantation. Although Sabrina is rich, she finds this could be the perfect place to meet a rich LePlante man and eventually marry. Sort of like a stepford wife. For Arelia the pay is great, more than she could have ever hoped for and so, against her Grand-mere Bea's pleads, she sets off to her new job.
Here she meets some obnoxcious guests and a handsome boy named Lucus. He is mysterious and a total gentleman. Not the type of boy she has grown accustomed to.
Spirits have always talked to Arelia but she never paid them any attention, but now, here at the Darkwood Plantation she is faced with the truth about her past and her destiny. But will she stick around to see it fullfill or will she ran away, like her parents did?


Ah! See that is the question.. And you will need to read Bound to find out. I have laughed, I have cried and most than anything, have wanted to punch Sabrina square in the face multiple times. Kira has done an amazing job with this story, not only is it greatly entertaining but also, very educational! I have learnt a lot about voodoo and voodoo queens and I cannot wait to read more. It is all so interesting!


Now come on Kira, get going with book #2 of the Arelia LaRue Stories! I am dying to know what happens next!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Kira is a Canadian who currently resides in Brazil, with her Husband. She is also a magic junkie and loves writing YA paranormal romances. Some of her heroes include: Jack the Pumpkin King, Willy Wonka, Larry David, Princess Jasmine, the vampire Lestat, Andy and her Maltese Costanza. Hopes one day her books will be made into movies.


** That is my dream too Kira! For yours and mines to be made into movies!**

"Here" Review and Giveaway!

Hello there and happy Sunday Funday to everyone.

This past week I began reading a new book from my good Twitter friend @deniseMSwank called "Here." When she sent me the blurb a few weeks ago I instantly told her I just had to read it! I was so hooked by only the blurb it was no surprise when I couldn't put the book down.

BLURB:

Here – YA Science Fiction On the Otherside series Book One

"Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before.

Classmate Evan Whittaker paid Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he’s volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can’t ignore that his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he wears a pendant she’s been drawing for months. When the police show up one night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he’s really from."

Now tell me you're not completely hooked! She's good at that.. I know your secret Miss Swank!

It should however, be conisdered a Mystery as well, as until close to the end you are still biting your nails wondering what the heck is going on (in a good way.) It truly had me on edge the whole time I read, thinking I knew what was going on and then BAM! You didn't see that one coming!

The Sci-fy side of the story (my reviews give nothing away and i barely write about the story per se, so you will have to read it to see what's up) is great and makes you wonder how much truth could there really be behind it all.

The Romance... oh God, do not get me started! I still do not know who I am rooting for. I fell in love with both male characters and they are both equaly amazing and HOT! At least that is what I see in my head *blushes* She had me longing for both boys, wanting to throw my arms around who ever was feeling left aside. However, something deep in me cried for Reece. I don't know what it was, maybe because she was somewhat expected to be with Evan..? Anywho, she can keep Evan and you can mail me Reece.. I make the same comment all the time, dont I? haha, i just love these guys! I am making my own little army of YA hunks ;)

"Here" had me laughing, crying my butt off to the point I had to put it down and on the edge of my seat wanting to finish it right then and there.

Denise Grover Swank has really done it with this one! It is an excellent read and will not disappoint.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Denise is a single mom who lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri raising five of her six kids. (The oldest has gone off to live on his own.) She loves to embarrass her children whether it be spontaneous dance parties in the kitchen or making her teens’ friends think she’s funny/cool. *gasp* (Even if its in her own mind.) On rare occasions, she is known to post stories about her crazy life on her family blog There’s Always Room for One More.
She keeps her sanity by creating worlds to escape to and characters to hang out with.
 


To Purchase "Here" or any of her other sure to be amazing books go here.

 

 

"The Forest of Adventures" Review and Giveaway

I am so excited! I finally finished reading Katie M. John's "The Forest of Adventures." This is book #1 from the Knight Trilogy. Now, not because it has taken me a few weeks to read it, does this say anything bad about the book itself. As said on my blog I usually eat books up in a day or two, but unfortunately many things happened in my life from the moment I picked up said book for review. I have also been working on an Anthology for "Death by Chocolate" which I recently finished. I have to be completely honest and say, when I wasn't reading it, I was THINKING about it. The need for more constantly nagging at me.

Blurb:
"When seventeen year old Mina Singer falls in love with the devestatingy handsome new boy at college, she finds herself catapulted into a fairytale realm.
But Fairytales aren't for children and magic can be deadly - especially in the hands of a jealous Morgan Le Fay. At the heart of an ancient prophecy, Mina risks destroying those she loves the most.
Caught between two worlds ... Torn between two hearts."

Katie created an amazing Arthurian Realm and wonderful characters that is very unlikely not to fall in love with. Especially Blake *swoons*. It seems to be that I absolutely love a good ol' fashion boy/man. The fact that he would always be courteous to her, giving her her time and always waiting for her. As Edward Cullen did it for me a few years back, Blake Beldevier has done it for me now. So my only question to Katie is.. where can I order me some Blake????

"The Forest of Adventures" writing is exquisite and utterly believable, nearly impossible not to picture it all in your head down to the smallest detail. It flows easily and in my case at least, there was always that longing for more. That said, I cannot wait to read book #2!! When I finished reading it was as if it were impossible the book could be over. I am sure if I had a paperback copy in my hands I would have looked at empty pages wondering where the writing had gone.
Now, I have a few inklings as to the way it ended and who a certain someone is.. and I cannot wait to see how wrong or right I am!

I give it a whopping 5 STARS!!!

Book #2: "Immortal Beloved"

A little bit about Katie M. John:

Katie lives in London with her husband and three year old daughter. She was born in Yorkshire, raised in Lincolnshire and has spent her adult life living in the London suburbs.
Writing has always been a part of her life She started writing poetry from the age of fifteen and worked on a collection 'Mythologies' as part of her English University degree.
Katie started writing 'The Knight Trilogy' in 2008. 'The Forest of Adventures' is her debut novel.




GIVEAWAY!!
2 lucky winners will receive a set of both the "Forest of Adventures" & "Immortal Beloved" in e-book form  and 1 winner will receive a "Forest of Adventure" bookmark!

Enter your e-mail address and Twitter to be considered in the giveaway!