Excellent Reads

Aine, thanks for having me on your blog to blather on about the Tex, the Witch Boy series. It’s a trilogy of YA, paranormal, thriller, mystery, comedic romance books. More importantly, the books tackle tough topical issues teens face daily. I want teens to know they’re not alone in their trauma, let them know there’s hope and better things on the horizon. Tex is an ordinary teen. Awkward in his own skin. Bullied, unsure of his future, no idea what he’s doing. Worse, he’s inherited his late mother’s witchcraft powers, definitely not his choice. He’s aided by his mother’s mentor, a blue-haired, old woman. She’s fast with a head-slap, faster with her cigarette lighter. The girl he likes, Olivia, is a warrior. She takes down the high school’s scariest bully with a fire extinguisher. Then there’s Elspeth, the mysterious punker girl who’s introduced in Tex and the Gangs of Suburbia . I can’t tell you about her because she’s shrouded in mystery and then I might have to kill you. You’ll have ...

Today I am excited to be a part of the "Sidelined" tour as part of Rockstar Book Tours. For those of you who don't know, "Sidelined" is about the struggles that main character Genna Pierce faces after a freak accident ends her high school basketball career and the only thing to ease her pain is Vicodin.  Why Write about Addiction? When I was thinking through Sidelined , I knew I wanted to take an honest look at a phenomenon occurring more and more frequently with teens: prescription drug abuse. Right now, more teens illegally obtain and abuse prescription drugs—painkillers in particular—than marijuana, cocaine and heroin combined. No longer do friends pool their money, drive to the shady side of town and buy illicit substances. Nope, they raid their parents’ drug cabinet. It’s quick, it’s free, and who would miss a few pills? The problem is, Vicodin—along with other scheduled narcotics—is highly addictive. I’ve had a few surgeries and have taken prescription pai...

Today on the blog I have Seleste deLaney, a fabulous author and fantastic friend. I absolutely loved Badlands and was thrilled when I heard CLockwork Mafia was coming out soon. Next Tuesday, to be exact. If you haven't read Badands , now is the time! Why Men Don’t Rule All authors get questions about the worlds they create, and we often try to answer those either directly or in future installments in a series. One of the biggest questions I get about the Badlands is how the prison system works and how that feeds into the political situation. It was a question I answered in Clockwork Mafia (at least a little), but the scene slowed down the pacing too much and was cut from a page and a half to two paragraphs. (Please bear in mind that since this was cut, it has not been edited.) However, since people want to know…I want to share. (WARNING: the snippet has a teeny-tiny spoiler in it, but nothing that will hamper your enjoyment of Clockwork Mafia when you read it later. Because yo...

Today I am excited to have author Kellie Sheridan (and fellow Ontarian book blogger) to tell us a bit about her debut novel "Mortality"! As a Canuck who reads a lot of books, I have a tendency to award Canadian books with bonus points. They’re Whose Line is it Anyways style points since they don’t really count for much, but if a story is written by a Canadian or set in Canada, I take notice. I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way about novels set in their hometown/state/country. A book set in a place you already know has the ability to suck you that much farther into the story. If something amazing can happen there, then something amazing can happen to you. So why didn’t I set my own debut novel in the Great White North? Believe me, I wanted to. I’d always intended to. But I didn’t, and despite making my decisions for all the right reasons, I still feel a little bad about it. Canada can get pretty cold. We don’t actually live in igloos, but there is sometimes a desire to...

Today on the blog, I have Marie Brennan, author of A Natural History of Dragons which you may have seen hit the shelves about a month ago. Sometimes you have to fiddle around with a book before it starts working, before you find the right approach to the story, the right voice for the narrator. In this instance, it took all of about three sentences. I knew, when I started writing A Natural History of Dragons that it was going to be a Victorian-style memoir. When I started writing, I immediately discovered the delights of that approach. My protagonist is, especially in this first book, a headstrong and slightly naive young woman -- but the woman who is telling the story is decades older. The result is the best of both worlds: I get to play with her youthful enthusiasm and foolishness, but also the perspective and bulletproof audacity that comes with age. Older women in many times and places have been allowed leeway not given to their younger selves, and Isabella is exploiting that to ...

Today I am excited to have Juliana Haygert, author of "Her Heart's Secret Wish", stop by the blog to tell us a bit about her writing process!  Like most writers, I started writing at an early age. But then it was just a hobby. During college, I stopped writing. Not sure why, though. Too busy? Even though I wasn’t writing anymore, my mind never stopped creating stories and making observations “ah, this would be an awesome detail for a story” and things like that. Around 2008, the urge to write again was overwhelming. I started writing again, and I started thinking about it as more than a hobby. For the first time, I thought about trying to get published. While I wasn’t writing my first real manuscript, as I call it, I researched about the process, the agents, the editors, the wants and wishes, all of that dance. Early into 2010, I finish my first real manuscript and submitted to agents. I’m serious. Man, I hope they don’t remember me. The writing was horrible. Horrible! Ye...

Today I am excited to have Evelyn Ink, author of "Ill-Fated" and "Sticks, Stones, and Dragon Bones" stop by the blog to tell us a bit about her writing process!  On Writing Fantasy and the Invention of Words One of the most fun things about writing Ill-fated was inventing words and place names. I have always loved writers who immerse you in their world with language (think of Tolkien’s use of Norse mythology and Rowling’s use of Latin). Whether they’ve invented new words, or brought back old, rare words with a twist, it definitely sets up the whole feel of a fantasy world; making it more vivid and real, or strange and surreal. While writing Ill-fated, I tried to invent words that sound like what they are, but with a poetic touch. For a long time, I kept a journal of words I just liked the sound of, and then paired them up with other words to create names for things like types of trees, flowers, potions, or places. A few of my favorite invented words were: Idlerile f...

Today I am honored to have author Hanna Peach stop by the blog to tell us the heartwarming story about how she became a published author! A sunflower & how I came to be published…  I wrestled with whether this story was too personal to tell, too soon to tell... I’ve been told, as writers, that we must ‘tell the truth’. So… …this is what happened. I had wanted to be a writer since I was seven, but for the lack of confidence in me, I was never serious about my writing. Instead, I dabbled, I hobbied, I busied myself with a ‘real job’. But always there was this sense that it wasn’t enough for me. In early 2012 I was accepted into a week-long writing Masterclass, where I met my writing mentor, the man who would change me as a writer forever. He was one of Australia’s most popular writers, having published (to date) 21 bestselling novels. For some reason he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. I left that Masterclass with these words in my ear, “Keep writing, Ha...

Today I am excited to have author Adrienne Kress stop by the blog to tell us a bit about her writing process- Adrienne is the author of "The Friday Society", a book which I recently read and adored!  Comedy Why do I like comedy so much, and why do I make it an important element of my writing?  For these five reasons: 1. I love to laugh.  2. I love to make other people laugh. 3.  The fact that something is funny doesn’t mean it can’t also speak to human truths and have serious moments.  In fact, I tend to find comedies can pack even more of an emotional wallop than pure drama.  Life, in general, is absurd.  And to deny that absurdity is to take something honest and real away from the moment.  Yes, there are purely serious moments, and, in fact, I have such moments in all my books.  But those are rare.  Usually we feel a mix of feelings, life isn’t all black and white.  I remember when I was delivering the eulogy at my grandmother’s f...

Today I am excited to be a part of M.R. Merrick's "Release" blog tour! Matt has been kind enough to stop by and tell us a bit about his writing process.  My Writing Style Everybody has their own style and method to writing, but I’m still trying to nail mine down. I’ve found something different that has worked for each book I’ve written, but doesn’t necessarily apply when I start the next one. With Exiled, I had an idea in my head and I wrote until I’d gotten it out. As the series progressed however, that same method wouldn’t work. I put Chase, Rayna, and company on a big journey in Exiled, and I couldn’t expect myself to flounder through it for the entire series. For Shift I used a full outline. It veered off the path from time to time, but for the most part, it stayed committed to my original ideas. Release is where things really started to change. I had a full outline written for the book, but I struggled a lot while writing it. The outline was there, the story was read...

Aine, Thank you for having me here today! People always ask me where I get my ideas from. The vague shrug of… um… no idea, doesn’t usually satisfy them so I’ve tried to come up with a better answer over the years. The real answer is no book is the same. The first Clanless novel, Senior Year Bites came from a dream. A really short dream about a girl who got turned into a vampire her senior year of high school. A friend of mine and I both decided to write a page based on that story prompt to see how different they came out. The answer is quite different. Mine ended up turning into a novel, and then a series. The idea for the second novel came from lots of brainstorming with my writing buddy about what could happen next. I’d been reading myths and said hey, this will be fun. I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler but there are shape shifters and vampires and sidhe in this one. I didn’t plan the first novel out when I wrote it. At the time I was simply writing for fun. I did have to pl...

Three Things In Fantasy Books That Drive Me Crazy @_@ The beauty of true fantasy is that there are about three rules. You need magic, you need a magical world, and you need a bad guy. Beyond that, there really isn’t a whole lot to restrict the story. But...(yes, the dreaded “but”)...there are three things that are the equivalent of talons on the chalkboard for me. Okay, okay, so I admit that technically I can’t take off points if a fantasy book isn’t historically accurate, but these are things to do with the weaponry and lifestyle. So they count, right? 1. Knights being hoisted onto horse’s back via a pulley system I haven’t seen this one in awhile (I think the last time I saw it was in The Once and Future King), but I will mention it anyway. In reality, a knight’s armor was heavy and uncomfortable, but it wasn’t so heavy that they couldn’t mount their horses. If it had been that heavy, ground combat for knights would have been a death-sentence, particularly if they were going up again...

The Starting Line Thanks so much for hosting me today! Before I forget, I have a contest running for my blog tour—all commenter’s are entered into a drawing for two copies of my book, and one person will win a $25 giftcard to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. There are more details on my home blog, if you want to check it out! Today I thought I’d talk a little about opening lines and paragraphs in books. For writers, they are so vitally important, and some say they can make or break your book. As someone who regularly browses books by reading the first page, I know this is the case! If I don’t really like the opening, it takes a lot to get me through the rest of the chapters, let alone spending money on it. Now, a first line doesn’t have to be magical and captivating, but it does have to draw me in. Some of my favorites include: “It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.” The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (so telling and so bleak. I am in love with Steifvater’s ...

If you're a writer, and even if you're not, you've probably heard the phrase, 'write what you know.' Some people will tell you it's good advice. Some people will look at it as a rule and argue ways to break it. I find it useful and yet sometimes I also find it difficult advice to follow. It's impossible, especially if you write fantasy or science fiction to always write what you know. And yet, even then it's good advice for writing believable characters, compelling details, and for walking that narrow line between sense of wonder and suspension of belief. Wide Open is contemporary fantasy set in the present day US. There are ghosts. There's magic. Hallie, the main character is a soldier who is returning home from Afghanistan. Those are not things I know. Though some of them are things I can know, that I can research. But there are also things in Wide Open that I know or have known or almost know. A friend once told me that the better piece of...

The Diary Of Willow Krimble First Entry Dear Diary, Wow, this feels so weird. I’ve never written that before, which is really odd, since Grandma Trisha gave me this Diary two years ago. She knows how much I love to write. I’ve written a few short stories and a ton of poems, but I’ve never written in a diary before. With the strange events that have been happening to me lately, I just feel like I need to express certain things that I can’t share with anyone else, including my best friend, Razzel. ​So, where to begin, Diary? Since I’m new at this, I’d feel a lot better if I gave you little bit of background info on myself – even though you are just a leather-bound notebook – no offense. ​ My name is Willow Krimble. I’m 13-years-old, I have freckles, bushy, almond-colored hair, and I have to wear a retainer for the next six months, even though I finally got my braces off. Sounds like your typical tween, right? Oh, I promise you, it gets more interesting, Diary. I wouldn’t exactly call my ...