On Writing A Series… With Karen Saunders (Suzy P Blog Tour)

I love Suzy P so was super excited to host a stop on the Suzy P Blog tour! If you haven't read this series by Karen Saunders yet I recommend you get reading soon - they are ace!

I'll hand you over to Karen, who has stopped by to talk about writing a series...
---

Photo Credit: Neil Griffithsweb

On Writing A Series… With Karen Saunders


Hiya, I’m Karen Saunders, the author of the Suzy P series. Thanks for having me here today!

Suzy P, Forever Me is the third book in the Suzy series, following on from Me, Suzy P and Suzy P and the Trouble With Three. They all feature fourteen-year-old Suzy Puttock, a girl with an embarrassing name, embarrassing family, and altogether embarrassing life. Poor Suzy’s always landing herself in scrapes and saying things she shouldn’t – this time around she’s promised her entire school she can get super-famous band The Drifting to play at their fundraiser, and she’s having to help Mum plan Dad’s surprise birthday party. To make things even worse, both events are happening on the same day… how’s Suzy going to sort out the mess she’s made this time?!

I sat down to write the third Suzy P at the end of 2013. I’m not going to lie, my deadline was pretty tight and I was feeling apprehensive about whether or not I was going to get the book written in time.

I also knew this was likely to be the last Suzy book, so I wanted to make it really good, and finish the series on a high. One of the hardest things was figuring out what the ‘theme’ of the book was going to be, the first one focuses on relationships, the second on friendships, and the third was eventually decided to be about growing up and finding yourself.

The plot took a bit of thrashing out between myself and my editor, but eventually we’d got the outline of how we wanted the story to be. It’s changed since then, although not drastically, this quite often happens when I start to write and realise that things I’ve included in the synopsis aren’t going to work in the book itself. For example, in the original synopsis, Suzy and her best friends all fell out towards the end of the story, but as I got towards writing this part I realised I didn’t want this to happen. I wanted all the friends to be pulling together and working as best they could to sort out the mess they’ve found themselves in.

It was also a bit tricky thinking of new and funny situations for Suzy to find herself in – luckily for me, not all my friends have cottoned on to the fact that if they tell me embarrassing stuff about themselves they may well find I’ve borrowed snippets of their life to put into the books! I was wondering about how to start the book when I had a conversation with a friend about something mortifying that had happened to her, and I adapted it so it could happen to Suzy – which became the basis for what happens in chapter one.

The nicest thing about writing a third book in a series like this is that all the characters feel like mates. It’s like having a catch up with old friends – you know exactly how they talk, their likes/dislikes, what they eat, wear, etc. So you can get straight on with the writing. I also really enjoy the process of deciding where to take their lives and thinking about what might have happened to them since the last book, it’s a lot of fun. This character arc has been particularly obvious with Amber, Suzy’s older sister – in the first book she was getting married, in the second she was pregnant, and in the third she’s trying to figure out how to juggle life with newborn twins.

Although the books are chronological, they can all be read as standalones too. I hope if you read one, you’ll like it enough to go and hunt out the other two! I’ve had such fun creating Suzy, her friendships and her life, I hope you enjoy reading the books as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog!

--- Thanks Karen!

You can read my review for the first book, Me, Suzy P here. You can also read Suzy P's advice on Minimising Cringe aka How not to embarrass yourself ... which she kindly wrote after laughing for about an hour... here.

Suzy P, Forever Me; Suzy P and the Trouble With Three and Me, Suzy P by Karen Saunders are available to buy online and from all good bookshops. If you’d like to find out more about the books or the author, do visit Karen online at www.karensaunders.co.uk, ‘like’ her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/karensaunderswriter or follow Karen on Twitter @writingkaren. Suzy tweets too, @suzyputtock, so don’t forget to follow her, too!

Next stop on the tour is tomorrow over on  Nayu's Reading Corner 

Hard Time by Cara Mckenna (Blog Tour)

Source: For review from publisher

From Goodreads: In this all-new novel from the author of Unbound, a woman with a rocky past finds romance in the last place she’d ever expect...

Annie Goodhouse doesn’t need to be warned about bad boys; good sense and an abusive ex have given her plenty of reasons to play it safe. But when she steps into her new role as outreach librarian for Cousins Correctional Facility, no amount of good sense can keep her mind—or eyes—off inmate Eric Collier.

Eric doesn’t claim to be innocent of the crime that landed him in prison. In fact, he’d do it again if that’s what it took to keep his family safe. Loyalty and force are what he knows. But meeting Annie makes him want to know more.

When Eric begins courting Annie through letters, they embark on a reckless, secret romance—a forbidden fantasy that neither imagines could ever be real…until early parole for Eric changes everything, and forces them both to face a past they can’t forget, and a desire they can’t deny.


I really enjoyed Hard Time!  I was in the mood for an adult romance (with some sexy times!) so this proved perfect.

I really liked the characters and how they met - it was something a bit different for me.  Annie is really sweet and I found her very easy to relate to - I liked that she is a librarian!  And Eric is awesome.  Yes their relationship is a bit insta-love - in a roll my eyes but secretly love it kind of way- so that's not a bad thing.  And really liked those letters!  I REALLY liked those letters! Usually I find there a thin line between a book being a great romance with some of those sexy times I was talking about or simple erotic fiction and I found Cara Mckenna did a great job of balancing it all - giving me just the right amount of each.

As I said,  I really liked Eric and I enjoyed having his story unfold - the way you know he did something that he was in prison for - that he admits he deserved to go to prison for - but the reason behind it?  Kind of made me like him even more...  Plus him and Annie have seriously good chemistry!

I can't wait to read more of Mckenna's books - I've already bought myself a copy of Unbound!

Make sure you check out the rest of the blog tour - information is below:-)

Guest Post: The Most Important Qualities in a BFF (Since You've Been Gone Blog Tour)

I'm really excited to launch the blog tour for Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson.  I love her books so am so pleased to have her stop by today to talk about friendship and what it means to her...
----
In my new book, Since You’ve Been Gone, there is a big focus on friendship. Friendship is hugely important to me, and I’m lucky to be friends with some of the most awesome, funny and kind people in the known universe. In thinking about what friendship means to me, and why friendship is important, I thought I would make a list of the most important qualities in a BFF (to possess yourself AND to find in others!)

1. Sense of humour
This is HUGE for me. I think my BFF is hysterically funny, and even if she doesn’t think the same about me, she laughs at my jokes, which is very kind. But we can always make each other laugh, and we get a kick out of the same shows and movies. I think this is CRUCIAL in a friendship. You don’t want to always be explaining to someone why something is funny.

2. Snack compatibility
Again, VERY important for me. My BFF is a vegetarian, so we get a lot of veggie food, but she also doesn’t care if I scarf down a burger in front of her. And we like the same movie snacks, which is crucial. We also know each other’s snack preferences, and so she knows what to bring me (and what I need to bring her) if we’re taking a trip together. The one thing she likes that I can’t get on board with is black licorice (EW) but I figure that nobody’s perfect.

3. Kindness
This is such a simple thing, but it seems to be missing from so many friendships, especially those horrible toxic drama-filled ones. It doesn’t have to be that way! You need a BFF who is going to be rooting for you, who’s on your team, who’s happy when good things happen to you and wants to celebrate with dance parties or ice cream or both.

4. Hangout time
This also seems simple, but it’s really a huge bonus if you and your BFF like to do the same stuff. My best friend and I spent more time than I can calculate wandering around New York City, getting Starbucks, and ducking into stores. Sometimes we wouldn’t even try anything on, and sometimes we spent money we REALLY didn’t have. But the actual shopping didn’t matter – it was just a way to keep talking, to keep the endless conversation going. We could have done any number of things. But liking to do the same stuff just makes hanging out for hours (crucial in any BFF-ship) so much simpler.

5. Nothing is too trivial
One of the best things about having a BFF is being able to call someone up because you’re just having too many feelings about the episode of TV you’re watching. Or because your haircut turned out horribly. Or just because you read a tabloid story about Jennifer Lawrence and are concerned. I think one of the best things about BFF-dom is having them there for the big, important stuff, but also the little trivial stuff.
---

Thanks Morgan. I concur with all of these!

Since You've Been Gone is published 3 July.

Make sure you check out the rest of the tour - details are below:

Out of Control Blog Tour: Characters (Guest Post)

I am really please to be part of the blog tour for Sarah Alderson's new book, Out of Control.  I love Sarah's stories and Out of Control is no exception!  I loved it!!

Sarah has stopped by to talk about the main characters in the story...
---

CHARACTERS

Out of Control is set over 36 hours in New York. Think 24 crossed with Taken. The main characters are 17 year old Liva and 19 year old Jay, who are complete opposites but who are thrown together and forced on the run when the police station they are in comes under attack by two men who are hunting Liva. The story is told through Liva’s point of view and while there are other characters it’s really about Jay and Liva and how over the course of 36 hours their lives are turned upside down and they are both forced to confront who they are.

JAY (Jaime)
19 years old, half Cuban and half American, Jay has grown up in Queens, New York. He’s street smart but also smart. The youngest of three brothers he’s the only one who has a chance of making it. His oldest brother is in jail and his middle brother is in a gang. But Jay’s dream of going to college is turned on its head the night he does his brother a favour and ends up getting arrested. Jay’s quick witted, charming and committed to his single mum and to trying to make things right.

Nathan Owens :
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/818/l1180338.jpg (there are some rather lush shots of him sans clothing if you google!)

LIVA
Liva by contrast has grown up overseas, surrounded by the trappings of wealth. The daughter of a man who owns a global security company, Liva has lived her life behind high walls, protected by bodyguards. She’s tough, uncompromising, and committed to living by the rules (whereas Jay thinks rules are made to be broken). After being expelled from school Liva moves to New York to live with her father and to study dance. She’s guarded, untrusting and filled with secret guilt about a tragedy that happened years before.

Bella Thorne :
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsPwy0gDulsPAeOfb1tjTxDpbVYioIvjJ6gxxojJVb9ikVEmp13umezZcnzawY4wTtjH1hiNThj5WVujeN1vJSqOo7EnkQNheaiVN1Ic824FseACA7FvADsh1_hlxVQ-8AamHHDa7wPva/s1600/bella%20thorne%20brasil%207.jpeg 

 ---

Thanks Sarah!  I love Nathan and Bella as Jay and Liva - they are just how I pictured them!

Out of Control is availiable to buy now. And make sure you check out the rest of the tour - details are below:

Blinded by the Light Blog Tour (Cover Discussion)

I'm really please to have Joe Kipling, author of Blinded by the Light, stop by to talk about her book cover.  I love all things to do with book covers - it amazes me what a difference they can make and I absolutely love to hear what authors think of their own covers!
---

Book covers – ‘when the vision becomes reality’

I titled this blog ‘when the vision becomes reality’ because I feel that as a writer you create a vision of the world that you want to share with your readers and an important part of sharing this vision is the cover art. The cover is the reader’s first introduction to your story and it can communicate so much. It is often the book cover that is the deciding factor in whether the reader picks your book up off the shelf - or as we’re in the 21st century, press ‘click to buy’ online.

As a debut author I found the whole process of cover design really interesting. Watching the transformation from the initial pencil drawings to the finished piece was fascinating. At the start of the process I had a very definite idea about the ‘look and feel’ that I wanted for the book cover. Well, needless to say the finished product looks nothing like I envisaged it. It taught me an important lesson . . .to stick to writing and leave the artwork to the professionals.

Having a cover artist who really understands your story and fully embraces the world you’ve created is, for me incredibly important. While working on Blinded by the Light I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with a really talented artist called Billie-Jade McNeil. At our first meeting I was impressed that Billie-Jade had clearly read the book and had carefully thought through each of the 4 concepts she’d developed.

The cover design we eventually selected was inspired by a scene that takes place in Chapter 2. MaryAnn has arrived at school after arguing with her best friends and starts to feel unwell. In the Neighbourhood where MaryAnn lives, people have an almost phobic reaction to sickness and disease. This means that when MaryAnn starts to feel ill she’s placed in isolation so that she can’t contaminate anyone else. As MaryAnn is escorted from the school by a team of Welfare officers there is a line which reads:

‘the tiles of the corridor gleamed brightly in the harsh strip lighting and the glare hurt my eyes.’

This quote was the inspiration behind the book cover. I can understand why Billie-Jade felt that this scene stood out. I’d designed it to create a sense of sterility but at the same time to be slightly claustrophobic. It really represents life in the Neighbourhood where people are closeted away behind a boundary fence living a very restrictive and slightly oppressive existence.

The title ‘Blinded by the Light’ also plays an important part in the cover. The Light are the governing body within the Neighbourhood. This government evolved from a pharmaceutical organization that discovered the cure for the Sandman Virus. Instead of sharing the cure with the general population they decided to make it available only to the people who could afford to pay. At the beginning of the book MaryAnn is literally blind to what is happening around her, as are many other people living in the Neighbourhood. During the course of the book MaryAnn’s eyes are opened and for the first time she’s exposed to the truth about the society she lives in. The placement of the flare behind the word ‘Blinded, is a deliberate attempt to make the title slightly uncomfortable to read, creating a brief illusion of blindness to the reader.
---

Thanks Joe!  I loved the placement of the flare - it's so pretty as well as doing what you wanted it to do!

Blinded by the Light by Joe Kipling was published Oct 2013 by Cillian Press Limited and is available to buy on Amazon at the following links:

Link to eBook
Link to Paperback

Joe also has a book giveaway on total teen fiction. Click here for more details.

Make sure you check out the rest of the blog tour - the information on all the stops is below.

Daughters of Time Blog Tour

I'm really happy to be part of the Daughters of Time Blog tour. Daughters of Time is a collection of short stories about different women in history. Today I have Anne Rooney on why she chose to write about Amy Johnson...

Daughters of Time_AnneRooney by I Want To Read That

Thanks Amy!

Daughters of Time is a good collection of short stories - very quick to read and one of the benefits of a collection of short stories is that you can dip in and out of it. The stories are ordered in chronological order and after each story the author gives an insight into why they chose to write about that particular person as well as some historical facts. I found the stories worked better when read together with these facts (unless of course you are already familiar with them and then I guess you wouldn't need it!)

A few of the stories stood out more than others. I like Anne Rooney's story on Amy Johnson and the way it ties in to the testimony that there were two people on the plane. Plus I thought it was fun watching her try to interact with a very inquisitive child! I also loved Katherine Roberts story on Queen Boudica - I loved that Tasca was depicted as strong and fought back! And I also really enjoyed Leslie Wilson's story - more modern than the others I liked that it had an emotional journey for the character as well as depicting a moment in history.

Daughters of Time by The History Girls, edited by Mary Hoffman. Out now, £7.99, Templar Publishing.

Character Profile (Oksa Pollock Blog Tour)

As part of the blog tour for the release of the second Oksa Pollock novel, The Forest of Lost Souls,  I have a character profile for the main character...

Name: Oksa Pollock

Age: 13 years old (at the beginning of the series), 17 years old at the end

Favourite film: The Dark Knight

Favourite dish: her grandmother’s pirojkis (small meatpies – it’s a Russian recipe), spiced tea and raspberries. Note: she hates leeks.

Favourite TV series: Heroes, Being Human, The Misfits (only stories where people have to hide who they are...)

Favourite subject at school: History

Favourite place in Paris: Montmartre, Sacré-Cœur

Favourite places in London since she moved: St James’s Park and Leicester Square

If she could have another magical power, what would it be? The ultimate one: bring dead people back to life.

If she was on a desert island with only one thing, what would it be? She’s very practical, so she would certainly choose something useful: a knife or a warm piece of clothing…

---
Like to hear more about the books?  Check out the summary below:

From Amazon: A New Heroine. An Old Evil. An Unforgettable Adventure.

A thrilling new supernatural adventure series. Fuses the excitement, action and extraordinary worlds of Harry Potter, I Am Number Four and Buffy the Vampire Slayer with an inspirational new teen heroine.

Oksa Pollock is a normal thirteen-year-old girl, starting a new life in London. New lives, new friends, a new school and new adventures. But bizarre things start happening around Oksa she finds she can produce fire from her hands, move objects with her mind, and even fly.

Finally the truth emerges... her family fled Edefia, their magical, hidden homeland years ago. And more than that: Oksa is their queen... Oksa will be thrown into a wilder adventure than she could ever have imagined. She must triumph over her enemies. The whole of Edefia is counting on her.

Both are published today - The Last Hope in paperback and The Forest of Lost Souls in hardback.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the blog tour!  Details are below:

Guest Post: Top 5 Favourite Hackers & Detectives (Find Me Blog Tour)

Photo Credit: Heart is Found

As part of the blog tour for her new novel - Find Me - Romily Bernard has stopped by to talk about her favourite hackers and detectives...

---

My Favorite Television Hackers and Detectives

1. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock in BBC’s SHERLOCK series.

He’s such an amazing Sherlock Holmes. The new adaptation is stylish, slick, and I am completely hooked. I also love how when Sherlock goes to his “mind palace” it looks like some sort of gorgeous, techie screen. Wick would be all over a computer system where you just wave your hands to go from file to file. All while wearing the perfect trench coat, of course.

2. Sonja Sohm as Kima Greggs in THE WIRE.

This series was a mic drop for me. It’s just so astonishingly good. Kima is my favorite kind of heroine. She’s cold, takes no prisoners, and is really good at her job. But it’s the softer moments, when you see Kima off the job, that make her strength so much more than bad-assery. She chooses to shut down her humanity to get the job done. She knows what she’s doing and the cost it’s going to take on her. It’s truly heroic.

3. Lisbeth Salander from THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

You had to be expecting this one, right? Lisbeth is violent, does not play well with others, and is one of the most honorable characters you’ll meet in Stieg Larrson’s universe. Don’t believe me? Take a closer look. Lisbeth only goes after people who have wronged her and, frequently, these people are far, far worse than she ever was. It’s a chilling code. You do not want to mess with this girl.

4. Chloe O’Brien from 24.

She’s a computer science whiz and, though she rarely gets out of the office, she can still wield weapons when needed. I love her loyalty even though, sometimes, it comes at a very high personal price. She believes in people even when they don’t believe in her.

5. Rachel Gibson from ALIAS.

Like Lisbeth, Rachel is no stranger to violence. She was recruited into an organization she thought was a black ops CIA branch. It wasn’t. And her life was never the same again. I love how she didn’t know if she could do the job at hand, but she did it anyway because the thought of not trying, not knowing if she had what it took was way worse than failure.
---

Thanks Romily! I loved Rachel in Alias too, and Benedict Cumberbatch is AWESOME as Sherlock!!!

You can find Romily online on her Website, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Find Me was published 16 January.
 

The Over It Review Tour

Synopsis: Warning: Sexual References, occasional coarse language.

Teen Youtube song writing sensation Poppy Douglas's lead singer boyfriend Ty's been criss-crossing the country and living it up on tour for months while Poppy has been stuck in the boring suburbs, finishing out the school year.

But it's Summer now, and the best thing just happened: Poppy's royalties for writing the hit song The Kiss Off just came in. She's minted, and she knows just what she's going to blow it on.

Ty's band Academy of Lies are headlining a summer music festival, and Poppy is taking her girlfriends along for the best weekend of their lives. It's all organized: the weekend is going to be full of camping under the stars, backstage passes, VIP rooms and partying like rock stars, not to mention some long awaited one-on-one time with America's favorite front man.

Except, when someone drops out of the trip and Poppy takes the opportunity to mend a broken friendship, it doesn't quite go according to plan. And when she meets her boyfriend's BFF from another band, the paparazzi form their own totally wrong conclusions. There's also the matter of Ty's 'super fan' stalker, but the less said about her the better.

The biggest test of all comes in the form of an opportunity too good to pass up. But will insecurities and jealousy stand in Poppy's way? Can Poppy and Ty's relationship even survive it?

Life is about to get much more complicated for Poppy Douglas, but what can you expect when your boyfriend is a rock star?

I've really been looking forward to reading this since I finished The Kiss Off and it didn't disappoint - I really enjoyed it.

I love the character of Poppy - she's that perfect mixture of sweet and quirky - she does things that gets her into all kinds of situations but she always does them with the best intentions! And she makes me laugh.

This instalment sees Poppy going to a musical festival for the weekend to see Ty. But things really don't go as planned. I liked the whole Nikki and Mads situation - and Hamish was an interesting character. Plus I thought the storyline concerning Poppy and Ty's relationship was good - I liked the fact that it wasn't made out to be easy given the fact he is becoming more and more famous. And there were so many laugh out loud moments!

While I would have preferred a different outcome in the end I did like it as I felt it was realistic - and I'm am hoping that it will be resolved in the next book. Please, pretty please? And I like that Poppy has her own independence and dreams and isn't solely defined by her relationships.

Roll on 2015! I need the next instalment!!!

---
As part of the Blog Tour there is a giveaway for US peeps!  Check out the details below:

1 winner of The Kiss Off & Over It paperbacks
1 winner of $10 itunes voucher
10 winners of signed postcard + magnet
10 winners of signed postcard
(US ONLY)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About the Author:

Sarah Billington is an Australian writer and editor who likes to write stories with love, laughs, suspense and zombies. Sometimes all in the same story. Her favouritest thing to write about are those horrendously awkward moments that come with being a teenager. Or a human being. Sarah was extremely accident-prone and klutzy as a kid and teen, so her cup runneth over with experiences of horrendously awkward moments to draw from in her writing. Thankfully, she has grown out of her klutziness. Mostly. She is, however, still an embarrassment.

She loves a variety of random things, which include Swing Dancing, Ice Hockey, Fly ball and she is a bit obsessive about paranormal investigation shows and channel E!.

Sarah Billington has experience in both editorial and writing, having been on editorial committees and section managed for Cursive Scripts literary journal, Darebin City Council's INSCRIBE Literary Newspaper and The Box Magazine.

She holds a Diploma of Arts (Professional Writing & Editing) and Bachelor of Writing & Publishing, so she is chock-full of writing and editing goodness. She has completed editorial for companies such as Open Humanities Press and Fast Profits as well as query letter and manuscript appraisals for authors, mostly of Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction.

Currently she works as a Digital Editor at Lonely Planet and as a freelance editor for Month9Books.

But wait, there's more! She has written and had published fiction, feature articles, reviews and interviews, and had her international adventures documented in a local newspaper. Currently, she writes movie reviews for Blockbuster Magazine and Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/SarahBillington
Facebook Fan Page: www.Facebook.com/SarahBillingtonBooks
Blog: www.SarahBillington.weebly.com/blog
Website: www.SarahBillington.weebly.com
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/SarahBillington

Over It links:

Goodreads

Smashwords

Amazon US

Amazon UK:

You can read my review for the first book in the series - The Kiss Off - here.  And make sure you check out the rest of the tour.  More information on all the stops can be found here

* A copy of the book was provided for review by the blog tour host YA Reads Blog Tours

Embrace the Mayham Blog Tour

I'm really pleased to be part of the Embrace the Mayham Blog Tour to help promote the release of AJ Myres wonderful Mystics & Mayham series -  Something Witchy, Something Wicked and the new novella Eternally.  The books are so much fun - I loved them!  And for the blog tour, AJ has stopped by to talk about how to be different...
----

“Not Another YA Paranormal Romance!”

Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot—usually said with a groan. YA paranormal romances, despite being some of the hottest sellers in books today, get this response all the time. So, how do you make yours stand out in a crowd? It’s easy. Be Different.

When I started writing the Mystics & Mayhem series, that was the goal I had in mind. I wanted something different than what I was reading—over and over again. Seriously, it was like every book I read was the same book, the only difference being that the characters’ names had changed. I’m not saying they weren’t good books, they were just way too similar.

The one thing I kept thinking again and again was that there was plenty of tension, more than enough drama, and absolutely no humor. Also, having a teenage daughter myself, I couldn’t help but see how wimpy and whiny the female protagonists were. Young women today are not waiting on Prince Charming to come save them, nor should they be. They’re perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. I thought it was about time for those strong, capable, independent young ladies to be represented.

Which is how Ember Blaylock came into existence.

Of course, like most authors trying to write a different kind of novel, my first draft went a little overboard. My mentor and editor, Sara King’s, favorite thing to tell me in her comments, all in caps no less, was “SPIDERMAN VS SUPERMAN”. Sure, we all love Superman, but Spiderman—who gets his butt kicked more often than any superhero in history—is more accessible. He’s more…human. In trying to make Ember different, I had turned her into a demigod. All-powerful in 2.5 seconds—or chapters, anyway.

But as we painstakingly fleshed her character out, Ember’s flaws became the funniest aspects of the book. Is she powerful? Sure. Is she good at being powerful? Absolutely not. Is she whiny? Yep, just like every teenage girl. Is she wimpy? Hell no! I don’t think Em even knows how to be a wimp. She’s the jump in first, ask questions later kind of girl. Just like most of the teenage girls I’m privileged to know.

The point is, if you want to make it writing YA paranormal romances, you have to find a way to stand out. In most of the reviews of the first book in the series, Something Witchy, got on Amazon, the fact that it was different was commented on the most. Yeah, it had the drama and tension and romance fans of the genre were looking for, but it was also hilarious. That’s what made it different. That’s what you have to look at when you’re writing for the YA genre—or for any genre, really.

Therefore, my advice is this: Don’t be afraid to be different. You never know what kind of trend you might start by not following the crowd!
---
Thanks AJ!

You can purchased the novels via Amazon - all the sales links are below: And make sure you check back later for my reviews:)

Kindle editions:

US:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked
Eternally

UK:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked
Eternally

also available in softcover:

US:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked

UK:
Something Witchy
Something Wicked

And if you want to know more about AJ Myers and her books, you can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and on her website. Links are below:

https://www.facebook.com/ajmyersnovel

https://twitter.com/AJMyersNovel

http://ajmyersnovel.wix.com/mysticsandmayhem

http://www.goodreads.com/ajmyersnovel

Sneak Peek: Undeniable by Liz Banks (Blog Tour)

As part of the blog tour for the release of Liz Bankes new book - Undeniable - I have an extract for you...

Undeniable Chapter Sampler by I Want To Read That

Undeniable is available to buy now.

Arclight Blog Tour

As part of the Blog Tour for the release of Arclight, Josin L. McQuein has stopped by to talk about how she came to write Arclight...
---

I’m going to let you in on a secret - Arclight was not the book I intended to write.

The book I intended to write was about vampires, which have been a favorite subject of mine since I was a kid and read Bunnicula. (<-- Feel free to laugh at this; I don’t mind.) Unfortunately, I finished my vampire novel around the time that the wave caused by Twilight was cresting, and while the book did get some interest, I didn’t want to be “just another” vampire story in a sea of them. So the vampires went back in the coffin.

ZOMBIES! I thought. I’ve not seen a big zombie book in a while. I decided to turn my vampires into zombies and retool the rest of the book to fit, but I finished that version about the time that an awesome novel called The Forest of Hands and Teeth was becoming popular. I didn’t even bother to send mine out.

At this point, finishing a book that wasn’t “on-trend” had become a matter of principle.

I dragged out old notes, half-finished books that had never seen the light of day, scraps of former fanfictions, things I’d saved to floppy disk, scribbles, doodles, anything and everything I could find that I’d ever written on or about. (At this point, I had to pause and go buy a floppy drive, because really… floppy disks. Surprisingly, they still worked.) I started cutting and pasting all of these old things into a Franken-novel.

Most of what became Arclight came from my file of screenplays that I wrote in high school. I grabbed some characters from the vampire novel, and some scenes from the zombie one, and did the worst cut-and-paste job you could ever imagine. The Fade underwent a *major* change from their original appearance, which was closer to a manic swarm of space-fireflies than what you’ll see in the novel. Almost the entire cast of characters turned into teenagers.

It was a strange experience. Once things started clicking into place, the changes got easier. All of those bits and pieces that hadn’t worked in their original stories, suddenly did when they were put together. There was nothing wrong with them; they simply hadn’t been in the right place, and that’s my point. Just because something isn’t planned, that doesn’t mean it can’t turn out better than you ever imagined.

No, Arclight wasn’t the book I intended to write, but if not for the ones I thought I wanted to write, I never would have had the source material for the book that worked. It’s easy to look at the things that don’t achieve the results we want and call them failures or wastes of time, but each one was a step in the right direction. The discarded novels and unfinished stories weren’t mistakes, and my timing with the vampire novel and the zombies wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Things were just misplaced and out of order.

If you’re working toward something, don’t assume you should give up because your route takes an unconventional turn or requires a few more steps than someone else’s did. So what if you travel a different road? You get to see more of the scenery, and at some point, you’ll be happy you did.
---

Thanks Josin!

Arclight was published 12 August. And you can check out the rest of the tour at these stops:

Night School: Fracture Blog Tour

I am super excited to be taking part in the Blog Tour for Night School: Fracture, the third book in CJ Daughtery's brilliant series. To say I'm a fan is a bit of an understatement - I love this series! And CJ has written a short story especially for the tour!

The story is set during the Winter Ball, so time wise it fits in with book two in the series, and is written from Carter’s point of view of what happens that night.

The first part of the story is below:

‘Where the bloody hell is that shoe? Waste of sodding time …’

Grumbling to himself, Carter crouched down to search the back of his wardrobe, throwing out trainers, boots and a scarf he didn’t recognise before finally emerging a minute later, black dress shoes firmly in one hand.

His tuxedo jacket hung from the back of the wardrobe door, black as his mood.

The idea of going to the winter ball right now, given all that was happening, seemed patently absurd. Isabelle should have cancelled it.

The possibility of some sort of an attack was too high. And after what happened at the summer ball …

He sighed. The party was happening and there was no getting out of it.

He dressed quickly, clipping the cuffs of his crisp, white shirt with the cufflinks Bob Ellison had given to him on his sixteenth birthday – or rather, passed on. Made of silver with a faceted garnet stone at the centre, they’d once belonged to his father. But Carter had long since given up examining the cold metal for any connection to his dead parents. There was nothing there.

They were just cufflinks.

He stood in front of the mirror, knotting his black tie with the expert ease of familiarity. For a moment he studied himself, seeing the irritation in his dark eyes. The tight set of his full mouth.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, trying to force himself to relax.

It was nearly nine o’clock. He’d put this off for as long as he could.

##

The sound of the party hit him at the top of the stairs. In the great hall, a string orchestra played a lively waltz. The roar of conversation rose above the music like a wave cresting over a beach.

Squaring his shoulders, Carter walked into the crowds.

He would show his face, hang out with Jules for a bit then leave when no one was looking. That was enough.

To carry on reading this exclusive story you need to pop over to the Atom Blog tomorrow. And you can see where to find the rest of the stops on the banner below:
 
And if you haven't already checked out the trailer - you can do here - and make sure you follow the link at the end. There is a secret treat...