Blog Tour: Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini

Today, I am very excited to have the Touching the Surface by Kimberly Sabatini blog tour stop here at the blog.  This tour is brought to you by Rockstar Book Tours and I will be featuring a book spotlight along with some quotes from the novel and a chance to win in a great giveaway.  First, here is a little more about the book:

Touching the Surface

by Kimberly Sabatini

published October 30th 2012 by Simon Pulse

Experience the afterlife in this lyrical, paranormal debut novel that will send your heart soaring.When Elliot finds herself dead for the third time, she knows she must have messed up, big-time. She doesn’t remember how she landed in the afterlife again, but she knows this is her last chance to get things right.

Elliot just wants to move on, but first she will be forced to face her past and delve into the painful memories she’d rather keep buried. Memories of people she’s hurt, people she’s betrayed…and people she’s killed.

As she pieces together the secrets and mistakes of her past, Elliot must find a way to earn the forgiveness of the person she’s hurt most, and reveal the truth about herself to the two boys she loves…even if it means losing them both forever.

Quotes 

“Maybe heaven was innocence, limbo was ignorance, and hell was fiery illumination.”

“Look on the bright side... " David said.
I waited. Then he roared with laughter. 
"What?" 
"I can't think of anything."
"Asshole.” 

“That's when I saw you, really saw you for the first time. I didn't intend to look at you, it just happened. It was like those pictures, you know, those optical illusions. You can gaze at them forever and see only one thing. Then when you relax your eyes for just a moment, another picture magically appears. The funny thing with that kind of visual trick it that it's really hard to go back to seeing the original picture once you've seen the new one.”

A good friend of mine, Christina of A Reader of Fictions loved this novel and wrote a lovely review for it so here is a link to that review if you want to read it

Click Here To Read Her Review

Kimberly's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Kimberly Sabatini is a former Special Education Teacher who is now a stay-at-home mom and a part-time dance instructor for three and four year olds. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband and three boys.
Kimberly writes Young Adult fiction and is represented by Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary Agency. TOUCHING THE SURFACE is her debut novel. (Simon Pulse – Simon & Schuster, October 30, 2012)

Giveaway

#1: Signed hardcover copies of Touching the Surface for 4 lucky winners - US ONLY
#2: Signed hardcover copy of Touching the Surface for 1 lucky winner - INTL ONLY
Last day to enter is July 21, 2013
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This post is a part of the blog tour brought to you by Rockstar Book Tours

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Giveaway: Undercurrent

I've got something exciting for you today! I figured it would be fun to kick off the weekend with a giveaway so here goes! Thanks to the wonderful people at Random House of Canada I am able to give away one pretty finished copy of Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell. I am super excited for this one because I am always on the lookout for novels with a male MC. Here's a bit more about the book:

Undercurrent

by Paul Blackwell

to be published July 23rd 2013 by HarperTeen

In this suspenseful teen thriller with a touch of the otherworldly, perfect for fans of Neal Shusterman, a boy goes over a waterfall and wakes up to find himself in a twisted version of the life he knew.

A shadowy figure. An intense roar. The sensation of falling—fast.

That’s all Callum Harris remembers from his tumble over the waterfall. But when he wakes up in a hospital bed and finds his best friend trying to kill him, Callum knows something is seriously wrong. Unfortunately for him, the mysteries are just getting started.

Why are his parents acting like he’s some big sports star all of a sudden? And why are all the buildings in town more run-down than Callum remembers? Worst of all...what happened to Callum’s brother? Either Callum has gone seriously crazy or something happened when he went over the falls. Something impossible. Callum needs answers, and now. Because in this twisted new version of the life Callum knew, his former best friend isn’t the only one who wants to see him dead.

Filled with mind-bending suspense and unsettling thrills, Undercurrent is a grippingly paced teen debut that will pull you under and never let go.

This sounds like a really cool alternate reality type book and I can't wait to unravel the mystery myself!  

Giveaway

Up for grabs is one finished copy of Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell

Giveaway is open to Canadian addresses only

Last day to enter is July 5, 2013

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Giveaway: The Well's End

I'm excited to be taking part in a Putnam launch event for The Well's End by Seth Fishman.  This one sounds good you guys, I can't wait to get my hands on it. Below is a bit more about the book, an interview with the author and a chance to win yourself an Advanced Copy!

TITLE The Well's End
AUTHOR Seth Fishman
PUBLICATION February 25th 2014 by Putnam Juvenile

Mia Kish is afraid of the dark. And for good reason. When she was a toddler she fell deep into her backyard well only to be rescued to great fanfare and celebrity. In fact, she is small-town Fenton,Colorado’s walking claim to fame. Not like that helps her status at Westbrook Academy, the nearby uber-ritzy boarding school she attends. A townie is a townie. Being nationally ranked as a swimmer doesn’t matter a lick. But even the rarefied world of Westbrook is threated when emergency sirens start blaring and the school is put on lockdown, quarantined and surrounded by soldiers who seem to shoot first and ask questions later. Only when confronted by a frightening virus that ages its victims to death in a manner of hours does Mia realize she may only just be beginning to discover what makes Fenton special.

The answer is behind the walls of the Cave, aka Fenton Electronics. Mia’s dad, the director of Fenton Electronics, has always been secretive about his work. But unless Mia is willing to let her classmates succumb to the strange illness, she and her friends have got to break quarantine, escape the school grounds, and outsmart armed soldiers to uncover the truth about where the virus comes from and what happened down that well. The answers they find just might be more impossible than the virus they are fleeing.

Interview with Seth Fishman

I see that The Well's End was inspired by a pretty dramatic story that happened in your hometown. Can you tell us a bit about that and why you had it in your mind while crafting this novel?
Yeah, Baby Jessica was a big deal everywhere, but especially in my home-town. I remember when they freed her, we were listening to the radio in the car and we honked to celebrate. And everyone else honked too. Nothing like that has ever happened to me since. So, I used that scenario as a base for my character, Mia. Something to craft her with. Then, I figured out an entirely different story to put this crafted character into. The thing is, the well keeps coming back to me, and so does the fall, and now as I write book two, it's creeping up as a more than an 'influence'... that's all I can say, for now. But I'm really enjoying exploring it.

I always wonder if it's difficult for a male author to write about a female main character. Did you find this challenging at all? If so, what steps did you take to bridge any gender gaps you may have come across?
Ha, I found this very challenging. My editor, the wonderful Stacey Barney, was instrumental in helping me sort out some of the technicalities. The funniest thing, though, was writing about the romance budding between main characters. I wrote the boy as I KNEW boys acted, but from Mia's perspective, what they were doing seemed weird, uninterested, which is both very real-life, but also not as helpful for the book. An odd balance to strike.

Do you have a writing room? If so, what does it look like?
I don't really, sadly. That's the future. Right now I'm in the living room in the morning, or the bedroom at night, depending on when. But my wife DID get me an awesome glass desk to write on for my birthday last year. I envision a leather chair and a library and a cat purring nearby.

What books are currently on your to-read shelf?
Good question. My clients' books, of course - can't wait for new ones to come in. But, otherwise, my to-read (and not my currently reading) shelf has Patrick Ness, recommended by the great writer Alexander London. And also, finally, some Alice McDermott.

What were some of your early influences that may have helped shaped your writing style? (books, movies, music, etc.)
My first love was Tolkien, but I wouldn't say that influenced my style. I love books that bend the grammar rules, that feel like the words are actually from a person's mind, and not the author's, and I tried to do that with mine. A modern example would be John Green. When I was younger, everything from Falkner to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card to ANYTHING by David Mitchell. Movie: Dead Poet Society (I am a crier, even at emotional commercials, ha). This book is sort of a Toy Soldiers meets Red Dawn (the old one), so we can toss those in too, but I love the odd and imaginative. And I try to do the same in my writing. Straightforward different.

Thanks for taking the time to let us get to know a bit more about you and The Well's End, Seth!

Seth's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Seth Fishman (me) was born and raised in Midland, Texas (think Friday Night Lights) and received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England (think cold and rainy and millions of castles). His YA thriller, The Well's End, is the first in a series and the protagonist, Mia Kish, is roughly inspired by a hometown drama that (when I was young) really blew him away: Click Here To Read The Article

Giveaway

Putnam has graciously offered up an advanced copy of The Well's End along with an original piece of artwork from Canadian artist Kate Beaton (to see some of her work for The Well's End Click Here.)

Open to US and Canadian addresses only

Giveaway runs until July 4, 2013

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Tour Stop: Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia

TITLE Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia
AUTHOR Jenny Torres Sanchez
PUBLICATION May 28th 2013 by Running Press Kids
READ June 03 to 04, 2013
SOURCE Running Press Kids for review

Frenchie Garcia can’t come to grips with the death of Andy Cooper. Her friends didn’t know she had a crush him. And they don’t know she was the last person with him before he committed suicide. But Frenchie’s biggest concern is how she blindly helped him die that night.

Frenchie’s already insane obsession with death and Emily Dickinson won’t help her understand the role she played during Andy’s “one night of adventure.” But when she meets Colin, she may have found the perfect opportunity to recreate that night. While exploring the emotional depth of loss and transition to adulthood, Sanchez’s sharp humor and clever observations bring forth a richly developed voice.

"I close my eyes and try to focus only on the buzz and the pain, but all I can see is Andy. Andy in his room, alone, swallowing pills, lying down and convulsing to death. Is that how it went? Did he maybe change his mind halfway through it, but it was too late? He couldn't even get up to get help? Or was every agonizing second better than what he was leaving behind?"

-Quoted from an unfinished ARC

I was nervous going into this one. Having not read anything by Emily Dickinson nor knowing much about her life I worried that I would miss out on a lot of the meaning of the story. I worried that I wouldn’t get some of the references in the text but that was completely unwarranted. While Dickinson’s work does make the odd appearance it is merely a stanza here and there or a mention of how she lived her life secluded. I was happy to see that she wasn’t a main focal point in the novel, instead her essence was merely a friend to our main character Frenchie.

Frenchie Garcia is a very dark character when we meet her. It’s clear right from the get go that she is dealing with some heavy stuff and attempting to come to terms with something very dark. I was surprised at how drab the novel felt to me in the beginning. Frenchie was depressed, she was in a bad place and began pushing everyone away from her because of it. What was beautiful in the story is how she begins to dig herself out. We get to watch her come to terms with the sudden death of Andy Cooper and we get to watch her realize that the world isn’t as bad as she may think.

The person helping her most along the way is Colin. He’s a guy who has had a crush on her in the club scene for a while and he finds himself tagging along with Frenchie on a one night adventure. I really came to like him. He saw a beauty in Frenchie and dug in deep to get to her core and open her up. Watching these two as their relationship progressed was great. In a single night they open up to one another in ways that people in long term relationships don’t even do. There was a brutal honesty to their adventure and it was funny, sweet and at times brought me to tears.

I think what worked so well for this novel is the way it was told. We are Frenchie months after Andy’s death and their one night together and we get to follow her as she recreates the night with Colin. As she visits all the sites of that night we also get interspersed chapters that tells of the original night with Andy. I loved watching the parallels between the two nights. The excitement of the night with Andy was palpable and I could really sense how it affected Frenchie deeply. Upon recreating the night I felt like I was searching along with her. I found myself dissecting absolutely everything that Andy said to try to find out why he took his life.

A rather depressing novel that does find the light in the end, Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia is one that I highly recommend. It’s full of interesting outlooks and features a wonderful budding romance. If you’re looking for a darker contemporary read that is full of honesty then this could be a good place to start.

Jenny's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Jenny Torres Sanchez lives in Florida with her husband and children where she currently writes full time. Before her debut novel The Downside of Being Charlie she taught high school for several years, where she credits her eclectic students for inspiring her to write young adult novels.

This post is a part of the blog tour brought to you by Book Nerd Tours

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Blog Tour: Bitter Angel by Megan Hand

TITLE Bitter Angel
AUTHOR Megan Hand
PUBLICATION April 1, 2013
READ May 18, 2013
SOURCE From AToMR Tours for the blog tour

Torn between two realities.
A choice that will mean life or death.
But she won’t know anything… until she wakes up.

College sophomore, Lila Spencer lived Friday night twice. She doesn’t know how or why, just that she did. As if she split in half and went in two different directions.

Out clubbing with her friends, Heather and Nilah, the girls rock it out and party hard. What begins as an innocent night will lead to a deadly fight for their lives, and Lila might be their only chance for survival.

In bed with her boyfriend, Jay, Lila is safe and warm as she drifts to sleep in the arms of the man she loves. Until she is sucked into a horrifying nightmare of her friends' deaths.

As the sunlight warms her face on Saturday morning, the two scenarios collide. But there can be only one outcome. Will she wake up in her warm bed with Jay by her side, devastated and grieving for her friends? Or was she there to save them?

The answer is just the beginning.

This book and me definitely had out ups and downs. It started off with and bang and was really interesting. I liked how we got to live the same night in two parallel ways and I liked how those two nights essentially wove together in a really good way. After we were initiated into the story and the actual plot got rolling I found that I had to stretch my imagination a bit and power through some definite lulls as I went.

Lila lives this particular Friday night twice. In one scenario she goes out clubbing with her friends and ends up getting abducted by a group of college guys who want to use them as play things. In the other she stays home with her boyfriend and has to deal with the things from the first scenario happening to her two best friends who still decided to go. I had expected that Lila would wake up and see how the night could play out and have to make the decision of what she was going to do and attempt to change the outcomes either way but instead I got more of a vigilante justice story as she heads off and attempts to cut everything off before it happens. This is where I had to stretch my imagination a bit and for the most part I could but there were numerous instances where I was definitely rolling my eyes. The most interesting was when she was on a stake out and had gone what could have been maybe 24-36 hours without eating and proceeds to hop into a garbage can and go through the bags until she finds some ok looking Chinese and then eats it. That was pretty darn far fetched to me, no matter the situation.

As for the characters I have to say that, for the most part, I liked Lila. She was incredibly head strong and determined (and she also proved to be pretty resourceful I guess: See above.) Her inner dialogue did grate on me a bit. She was constantly thinking about how her friends needed to stay in the dorm and her intense love for cuddling with her boyfriend Jay and it did detach me from the story and jar me out of scenes quite a bit. I also came to really like Jay. In the beginning I was annoyed at how perfect he was, he seemed to be the perfect looking, perfect acting guy but as the story wore on we saw that he did make some bad decisions and have his share of flaws. The relationship between Lila and her two friends Nilah and Heather was what really stood out to me. I loved how these girls had grown up together and felt that we really got a sense of how close they were, everyone needs some sisters to put before their misters.

While this wasn’t a perfect novel I was sucked into the story and had a good time watching everything unfold. I enjoyed some of the characterizations but did struggle going along with some of the plot points. I think the story could have been much stronger had Lila went about the evening one way or the other and tried to stop stuff while it was happening but taking it at face value it was still a good ride.

Megan's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

At twelve, Megan decided to write a novel. A month later, she quit. A reading junkie by nature, she started writing again in her twenties as a way to get the voices out, because who wouldn't want to create a Real Living Person out of thin air? Megan also plays the piano and sings. She teaches little kids and takes pictures of pretty butterflies. She eats way too much chocolate, is sort of a mad scientist with her blender, and spends an unhealthy amount of time LOLing on Facebook and Twitter. She lives in Ohio with her husband and very smiley son. Bitter Angel is her first published novel.

Giveaway
As part of the blog tour for Bitter Angel Megan has 10 eBook copies of the novel as well as a $50 gift card to Amazon or Barnes & Noble up for grabs
This giveaway is open internationally
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This post is a part of the Bitter Angel blog tour

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Blog Tour Stop: The Kings of Charleston

Today I'm excited to share with you an excerpt from The Kings of Charleston by Kat H. Clayton as part of the blog tour.  This tour is brought to you by Xpresso Book Tours. First, here is some information about the book:


The Kings of Charleston
(The Kings of Charleston #1)
by Kat H. Clayton
Published July 10th 2012 by Kat H Clayton

Casper Whitley is forced to move to Charleston, South Carolina where she’ll be the new kid her senior year of high school. Casper’s upset about the move until she meets the Roman family’s gorgeous son, Cal, but there’s a problem. A mystery surrounds him which can be summed up in one word…Kythera. Never heard of it? Neither has Casper until she finds the word tattooed on cars, paintings and all her new friends.

After Casper’s life is threatened, someone is forced to tell the truth about her parents, the Romans and Kythera’s motives for her being in Charleston. Once the truth is revealed, she must decide whether to protect her family and Kythera’s secrets or walk away from everything she has ever known.

 Excerpt

     Cal swore under his breath and pulled to the side.
     I was a mess. I had never been pulled over, not even as a passenger.
     Cal pushed a button and the window slid down slowly with a whoosh. I turned to look at the approaching officer. He had a flashlight in his hand that he swept across the side of the car. Once he reached the front of the car, he paused at the front wheel and stood motionless for several seconds. I leaned over the console to see what the holdup was. The officer’s face had drained of all its color.
     “Can I help you, Officer?” Cal said.
     I hit Cal on the shoulder and mouthed, What are you doing? He shrugged his shoulders.
     “Oh, well, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize who you were,” the officer said with an uneasy laugh. Why would he be sorry for pulling over a seventeen-year-old in a Mercedes?
     “No problem, you new to the force?” Cal said in a conversational tone. My mouth dropped open.
     “Yes, I am. I didn’t get a good look at your vehicle till now. Hope you have a good night,” he said. The officer walked back to his vehicle and drove off. Cal turned on his blinker and merged back into the flow of traffic.
     “What just happened?” I asked. I was shocked and confused by how the officer had treated Cal. You would have thought he was a movie star or a diplomat with immunity to the law.
     “Ah, nothing, I just know the police pretty well,” he responded, smiling to himself. There was obviously more to the story and it had to do with whatever the officer had seen on the front wheel of his car. What could he have seen? I was dying to find out.
     “You have a lot of run-ins with the law?”
     He leaned his head over to me with a playful expression on his face. I felt tiny butterflies develop in the pit of my stomach. “Me? Nah, they have run-ins with me from time to time. I have to straighten them out, you know?”
     He turned the blinker on and we entered a residential neighborhood. A few minutes later, we pulled up to a restaurant at the end of a secluded street. Cal pulled the car into a parallel parking space across the street and got out of the car. I began to open my door, but he waved his finger at me. He opened the door for me and gestured for me to take his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I stepped out of the car, my hand in his strong grip.

Kat's Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Kat has been a writer her entire life, but never pursued a writing career until the characters from a short story she wrote in high school refused to go away. Finally, she sat down and wrote their story which would became The Kings of Charleston series.



Kat has been an avid reader her entire life. She enjoys all genres, but particularly Mystery and Young Adult. Mary Higgins Clark is one of her favorite authors who inspired her love of mysteries. 



When she isn't writing, Kat loves to travel, try out new recipes and hang out with her husband. She is originally from Kentucky, but currently resides in South Georgia with her husband, a cat named Frank and a dog named Lil.

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a signed copy of The Kings of Charleston and Kindle Paperwhite!

Giveaway is open to US/Canada/UK addresses only

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Blog Tour Stop: If You Find Me

Today I am beyond excited to be taking part in the blog tour for If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch which is brought to you by The Midnight Garden.  This is by far my favorite read of 2013 so far and is a novel that I still think about to this day.  My stop features my review of the novel, an interview with Emily and a chance for US & CAN readers to win a beautiful finished copy of the novel.


TITLE If You Find Me
AUTHOR Emily Murdoch
PUBLICATION March 26th 2013 by St. Martin's Griffin
READ February 17, 2013
SOURCE St. Martin's Griffin via Netagalley for review

There are some things you can’t leave behind…

A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.

Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

This review is probably going to be an incoherent jumble of feelings that I can’t translate eloquently into words so there are some things I want to just throw at you in the beginning to make sure that I get my point across. This book. This book is everything that I want in a book; this book is about love and it is so full of heart that I found myself teary eyed pretty much once in every chapter. This book is full of amazing characters and amazing relationships; it is bleak, it is honest, and it is a novel that will definitely stick with me for a long time to come.

Carey and Janessa are girls who have grown up living in a camper in a national forest most of their lives. There they live with their mother, but not really because she is a meth addict who disappears for weeks (sometimes months) at a time leaving Carey in charge of feeding her younger sister & herself and in charge of bringing Janessa up. The way that these girls lived is terrible. They freeze in the winters and often find themselves eating nothing but beans for days, it was shocking to see all the things that they went through growing up. Not only do they live under harsh conditions but the people that their meth addict mother brought into their life and the things she made them do to feed her meth addiction are disgusting and had me so angry that addictions like this exist. The desperation of users to get their next fix is frightening and it puts everyone around them in danger as they are used as pawns. We get most of this part of the story through memories that Carey has throughout the novel, the real story here is when they are found and taken to live with Carey’s father on his farm.

The transition to living in civilization is what really brings these characters to life for me. The bond that Carey and Janessa formed in their years of living in the wild and Carey essentially raising her younger sister is beautiful. Once they are found that bond remains and Nessa really looks to Carey for how to react and deal with everything that is going on. I loved Carey, my heart broke for her situation but she had such a big heart & her undying devotion to her younger sister made everything OK. Even in their dismal situation in the forest their relationship brought light to their life and really got them through it. Nessa was an adorable character and through her mutism we learn that something pretty bad happened that made her lose her voice. What really blew me away here was how Nessa felt like such a developed and well rounded character and for much of the novel the girl didn’t even talk. I loved her and I wanted to cuddle her. We see through Carey how she can read everything about her younger sister without words and it’s really beautiful. I also really liked Carey’s father and his wife Melissa, the effort that they put into helping the girls is so great and you really just felt the love they had for them so much in every page of this novel.

There is no way that this review will ever do this book justice and I don’t even want to think about how many times I used the word love in it but everything I think about this book is love. The characters, the relationships, just everything. There are some pretty shocking scenes, ones that are so hard to read but looking back on it love just conquers all and is what I took away from it. Read this book people, and have some tissues at the ready.

Interview with Emily Murdoch

I had the pleasure of inviting Emily over for a bit of a tea party and before we got going we had a chat about herself and the novel:

Tell us about your book Twitter style, so in 140 characters or less.

That’d be the tagline I came up with for the UK edition:

“What happens in the woods, stays in the woods ... “

If You Find Me is a very poignant and touching story, what was your inspiration behind the novel?

I’m learning as we go along that there are so many answers to this question; some I didn’t even know of consciously at the time of writing If You Find Me.

Such as how easy it was to write a portrait of an abused child, having been one, myself. The psychology of fooling myself in order to write dark and deep, and, as I’m seeing, something so necessary to the world as it stands today …

I’m honored if my darkness can shed some light. This is me paying forward all those books that saved me, as a child.

What character in If You Find Me do you identify with most?

Carey. Most definitely, Carey.

But that’s not to say that Carey is me in disguise. She isn’t. I’d call her an archetype of abused children. Her longing for love and a place to belong. Her uncertainty. Her resourcefulness. Her hero’s journey.

We have a lot in common.

What drew you to the YA genre? Why did you decide that it was the place for you?

Interesting questions! I’m not the color-within-the-lines kind of gal; I’m the by-the-seat-of-my-pants, on-a-wing-and-a-prayer type. I wrote the story I wrote, and ended up with offers from both young adult and adult Big Six publishers.

I guess fate wanted me here. I’ve met the most amazing people, here, too.

Do you have a writing room? If so, what does it look like?

One day I will have a writing room; I describe it in a recent interview on Imaginary Girls author Nova Ren Suma’s blog (Nova’s amazing new novel, 17 and Gone, releases March 21st!).

In the meantime, I write at the kitchen bar, quite happily. When I write, I enter a state of flow so complete, I have no idea what’s around me, anyway.

Who are your favorite authors?

Ooooo, love this question! I’m very old fashioned:

Frances Hodgson Burnett
Louisa May Alcott
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Charlotte Bronte
Madeleine L'Engle
Charles Dickens
Judy Blume
Madeleine Brent
Anne Frank
Rumer Godden
Carlo Collodi
J. M. Barrie
Roald Dahl
Rudyard Kipling

If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only have one book with you, what book would it be?

Merlin’s Keep by Madeleine Brent

What are some of your early influences that shaped your writing style? (novels, movies, music, etc)

Besides the authors mentioned above, I’d have to blame it on my ferocious diary and journal keeping. There’s just a place you learn to go inside, and when you write from there, your arrow flies true.

Thank you so much, Jenni, for inviting me over! It was such a pleasure chatting with you! Now for that tea party. How many lumps in your tea? Cream? I sure hope you like cupcakes!

The tea & cupcakes were great, but the company was even better. Thanks for stopping by, Emily!

Giveaway

St. Martin's Griffin has been kind enough to offer up one finished hardcover copy of If You Find me for one lucky reader.

This giveaway is open to US and Canadian addresses only.

Fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter

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Be sure to check out all the other great stops on this tour:

3/18 The Midnight Garden
3/19 Alluring Reads
3/20 Live to Read
3/21 YA Romantics
3/22 Winterhaven Books
3/23 Once Upon a Prologue
3/24 Hobbitses
3/25 ExLibris Kate
3/26 Xpresso Reads
3/27 Bookish
3/28 Great Imaginations
3/29 Good Books and Good Wine

Strength Blog Tour Stop (Excerpt/Giveaway)

Today I have an excerpt and giveaway to share with you for the Strength by Carrie Butler blog tour, which is brought to you by Xpresso Book Tours. First here is a little about the book:

Strength
(Mark of Nexus #1)
by Carrie Butler
Published March 7th 2013 by Sapphire Star Publishing

When college student Rena Collins finds herself nose-to-chest with the campus outcast, her rumor-laced notions are shattered. Handsome, considerate, and seemingly sane, Wallace Blake doesn’t look like he spends his nights alone, screaming and banging on the walls of his dorm room. Hell, he doesn’t look like he spends his nights alone, period.

Too curious for her own good, Rena vows to uncover the truth behind Wallace’s madman reputation--and how two seconds of contact had left her with bruises. Of course, there are a few setbacks along the way: guilt, admiration, feelings of the warm and fuzzy variety…

Not to mention the unwanted attention of Wallace's powerful, supernaturally-gifted family.

They’re a bloodline divided by opposing ideals, two soon-to-be warring factions that live in secret among us. When Rena ends up caught in their crossfire, Wallace has no choice but to save her by using his powers. Now they’re really in trouble. With war on the horizon and Rena’s life in the balance, he needs to put some distance between them. But Rena won’t let go. If fighting is what it takes to prove her own strength and keep Wallace in her life, then that’s what she’ll do--even if it means risking a whole lot more than her heart.

(Upper YA/New Adult)

Excerpt from Chapter 6

After the screaming subsided and the noises stopped, I took a deep breath and pounded on the door again—mentally preparing myself for another bout of waiting. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go. Gabby was still occupying the room downstairs. I had all the time in the world.

Not that he’d ever answer the freakin’ door.

I was about to retreat to my spot on the sofa, when the door jerked open with a barely-perceptible whoosh of air. My hair fanned at the abrupt vacuum, and I swallowed, feeling everything I’d planned to say disappear with a single glance. “Wallace…”

It looked like he’d just escaped a brutal assault, leaving half of his face swollen, red, and glistening with sweat—his left eyelid lowered at half-mast. “What?” he snapped, swiping the back of his wrist under his nose.

“I…I…” My voice jumped an octave. “Are you okay?”

His narrowed, unfocused gaze met mine. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t look fine. He looked dead.

“I just thought I heard something and wanted to check on you.” My adrenaline fed off of his fearsome exterior, burning my legs with the desire to run. It was like meeting the manifestation of our fears for the first time. He seemed so different from last night. “I-Is there someone with you?”

His austere features darkened, and he shifted from one side to the other. “Sure you wanna ask the crazy guy?”

Ouch. Okay, I deserved that.

He gripped the doorknob and tilted his chin, looking past me. “How about you?”

I turned as Aiden paled and backed away. “N-No,” he sputtered. “I-I mean you’re not crazy. You’re just…” He rubbed his hands on his pants. “Sorry, she just gets worried about…stuff.” Swallowing hard, he jerked his head toward his own door in a gesture for us to go. “We’ll leave you alone now.”

My heart raced. I was petrified, but my mind was reeling with possibilities. If I left, I’d have to forego what little ground I had already gained. Was it worth it? I couldn’t just spout idealistic lectures and then punk out when it came down to it, could I?

“Look, I just wanted to see if you were okay.” Also, please don’t hurt us.

“Well, you’ve done your good deed for the day.” Wallace stepped back and started to close the door. “You’ll sleep well tonight.”

“Wait! That’s not what I—”

“Goodnight.” He shut the door with a soft click.

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