Tuesday, July 22, 2014

FEAR ME NOT Blog Tour: Guest Post by Sara Wolf + Giveaway!


Hi everyone! Today is my stop for Fear Me Not blog tour hosted by Stephanie of Romance Book Blog. As a fan of Sara Wolf's Lovely Vicious, I'm excited to share with you a fun guest post written by the awesome author herself, and an excerpt and giveaway to whet your appetite for Fear Me Not. 






The first HUGE thing I learned about romance was that it was fun to write! I wanted to write romance was after I finished the awesome book Beautiful Disaster. Before then I thought romance would be too hard, but Jamie McGuire made it look so easy and fun! I began writing ARRANGED almost the day after I finished the book!

Another huge romance series for me was the Black Jewels series, by Anne Bishop. It's fantasy, so it's a little different, but I learned so much about making stories from that series! I loved the tension between the main leads - if I can ever write a book half as good as that, I can die happy!

I was also a huge serial dater in high school - guilty as charged! Boys were just too cute. But when I hit college I started to settle. I had one serious fling in college - with a hot-as-hell transfer TA from Brazil. He taught me tons, and probably inspired a lot of Lee Montenegro's character from the ARRANGED series! ;)







“I’m sorry,” Shadus’ voice says.

My eyes slide over – Shadus is standing right next to me, leaning on the bookshelf. I close my eyes and sigh.

“Don’t be. It’s me. Something’s wrong with me. I don’t know how to react like a normal person. Jeers, whispers, sneers, those are fine. I ignore them, punch something to make them hurt less. Compliments? I don’t know what to do with those.”

“You’re different. That’s not necessarily bad,” He offers. His long fingers skim over a row of books and he picks one out, flipping through the pages. “More literature in which the protagonist kisses his interest. Is it all your human writers are interested in? It hardly seems worthy enough to devote entire books to.”

“It’s not so bad,” I defend. “Kissing.”

“You speak from experience?” He asks.

“Second grade during the school play. Arnold Grady. We were backstage, behind the curtain. I thought it was a good time to go for it.”

“It was enjoyable, then?”

“Too wet.” I laugh, the memory burning like an old tattoo of embarrassment. “He was shorter than me - all the boys were. They’ve only started catching up this year, really.”

“I’m jealous.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What? Of the short boys?”

“Of your kiss. You speak of it fondly. Even if it was lacking technique, you still remember it. It must have been an important experience. I assume I will never know that sort of feeling - ”

I step into him. He jolts back, hitting the bookshelf. It shakes, and settles. I point up at him.

“Be thankful. You guys have the ceremony of flame. You don’t waste time with petty shit and he-likes-her-she-likes-him crap. Your future is arranged by your family. But us? Humans? We fish around blindly in a pool of seven billion people, hoping one of them isn’t too crazy or too incompatible with us, and we get so desperate that when we find someone we can stand for two minutes we decide to marry them for life, when in reality they’re all wrong for us. But we keep pretending they’re right, until we can’t anymore, and then we divorce them or break up and we get up and try again, and again, and it chips away at our tiny human hearts.”

He stares at me intently, as if I’m lecturing him and he’s trying his hardest to learn something from it. I snort.

“You’re lucky, Creeps. All you Gutters are lucky.”

“What you call ‘lucky’, I call ‘boring’,” Shadus says. “The human way of things may be more painful, but it sounds much more fun.”

I stride up to him, get in his face. His chest is rising and falling, his fists balled up. His ruby eyes stare down at me.

“Don’t do it,” He murmurs.

“Do what?” I singsong.

He struggles with something inside himself, a pained look coming over his expression.

“Victoria -”

I press my head into the cradle where his neck meets his shoulder.


Fear Me Not (The EVE Chronicles, #1)
Release Date: June 20th 2014
Blurb:
The aliens crash-landed on Earth eleven years ago. And now, sixteen-year-old Victoria Hale feeds them. With her emotions. 

Victoria is an EVE - an Emotion Vesicle Engraft - and one of few humans who are genetically capable of producing emotions for the Gutters to feed on. She's doing it for the money - her sister Alisa needs a good doctor, and fast. But what she didn't count on was being sent to the world's first desegregated high school for Gutters and humans. She didn't count on the paparazzi, the protestors, or the insane Gutter politics and government secrets. She didn't count on the crimson-eyed Gutter prince with an intriguing heart of cold iron, either. 

She especially didn't count on murder. 

But it's counting on her.

You can purchase Fear Me Not at the following Retailers:
    


  


About the Author 
Sara Wolf is the author of the LOVELY VICIOUS series and FEAR ME NOT, the first book in The EVE Chronicles, a YA/Sci-Fi series. She’s currently working on the final book in the LOVELY VICIOUS series. She’s addicted to the Vampire Diaries, The Walking Dead, True Detective, pink Starbursts, pizza, and damaged heroes. For additional books, news, teasers, and giveaways, visit her at sarawolfbooks.blogspot.com or facebook.com/sara.wolf.3304.

Follow her on these sites
WEBSITE




Monday, July 21, 2014

The Superpowers of ILLUSIVE: A Guest Post by Emily Lloyd-Jones + Giveaway!



For this week's July Debut feature, we're excited to welcome Emily Lloyd-Jones whose debut novel, Illusive, releases on July 15th! Illusive is a Sci-Fi adventure story about people who developed "adverse effects" or superpowers upon taking vaccines to stop a widespread epidemic. I thought it would be fun and interesting to know more about these powers so I'm thrilled when Emily Lloyd-Jones provided us with this cool guest post. Learn more about Emily Lloyd-Jones and the superpowers featured in Illusive, and enter for a SIGNED Hardcover copy of her debut below!




I have a confession: I'm addicted to world-building. 

To write a novel, I have a compulsive need to know everything about it. For everything I write, there's about 10,000 words of essays, character backgrounds, and timelines that never make it into the actual text. Even in the world of Illusive, which strongly resembles our current society, I spent weeks going over everything from technological advances to character aliases. 

One of the aspects of the world I spent the most time on were the superpowers. Or "adverse effects", as everyone in-world refers to them. Because these powers are side effects of a vaccine gone wrong, they're viewed as physical glitches instead of real powers. 

Photo credit: http://giphy.com/gifs/UVQQrjRpUnUvS

My aim in writing Illusive was to create a realistic superhero story. To ground the powers in reality, I didn't want anything too out there--no laser vision or straight-up flight for my characters. 

Then it occurred to me: what if the powers weren't new or exciting? What if they were things people could see today… in a Vegas show, perhaps? 

Which is how all of the powers ended up being loosely based in stage magic. They are as follows: 

Eludere - increased intuition

Eidos - perfect recall 

Levitas - levitation 

Dauthus - body manipulation 

Mentalist - telepathy 

Illusionist - projecting life-like illusions 

Dominus - hypnotism 

Every power has limits - for example, illusions cannot work on technological devices and mentalism is limited to skin-to-skin contact. As I created those limits, they began to inform the plot. For example, what if my main character was faced with security cameras? How would a mentalist dig into the mind of someone he has no real reason to touch? 

These questions fed back into the plot of the novel, informing the conflicts that my characters had to face. And that, I think, is the fun of world-building.



Illusive
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: July 15th 2014
Blurb:
The X-Men meets Ocean's Eleven in this edge-of-your-seat sci-fi adventure about a band of "super" criminals.

When the MK virus swept across the planet, a vaccine was created to stop the epidemic, but it came with some unexpected side effects. A small percentage of the population developed superhero-like powers. Seventeen-year-old Ciere Giba has the handy ability to change her appearance at will. She's what's known as an illusionist...She's also a thief.

After a robbery goes awry, Ciere must team up with a group of fellow super-powered criminals on another job that most would consider too reckless. The formula for the vaccine that gave them their abilities was supposedly destroyed years ago. But what if it wasn't?

The lines between good and bad, us and them, and freedom and entrapment are blurred as Ciere and the rest of her crew become embroiled in a deadly race against the government that could cost them their lives.

You can purchase Illusive at the following Retailers:
    


  



About the Author 
Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in evergreen forests and learned to fear sheep. After graduating from Western Oregon University with an English degree, she enrolled in the publishing program at Rosemont College just outside of Philadelphia. She currently resides in Northern California, working in a bookstore by day and writing by night. Illusive is her debut novel.

Follow her on these sites

WEBSITE//TUMBLR




A SIGNED hardcover copy of Illusive by Emily Lloyd-Jones
US Only

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Blog Tour: Strange and Ever After by Susan Dennard + Giveaway



The conclusion to this talk about trilogy has finally come. We're very happy to take part on this tour by FFBC. Scroll down to read an excerpt, an extra scene to the book (Darkness Strange and lovely) and enter the giveaway below!


Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: July 22nd 2014

In the conclusion to the trilogy that Publishers Weekly called “a roaring—and addictive—gothic world,” Eleanor Fitt must control her growing power, face her feelings for Daniel, and confront the evil necromancer Marcus...all before it’s too late.

He took her brother, he took her mother, and now, Marcus has taken her good friend Jie. With more determination than ever to bring this sinister man to justice, Eleanor heads to the hot desert streets of nineteenth-century Egypt in hopes of ending this nightmare. But in addition to her increasingly tense relationships with Daniel, Joseph, and her demon, Oliver, Eleanor must also deal with her former friend, Allison, who has curiously entangled herself in Eleanor’s mission.

With the rising dead chomping at her every move and Jie’s life hanging in the balance, Eleanor is convinced that her black magic will see her through to the bitter end. But there will be a price. Though she and the Spirit Hunters have weathered every battle thus far, there will be consequences to suffer this time—the effects of which will be irreversible. And when it’s over, only some will be able to live a strange and ever after.

Susan Dennard will leave readers breathless and forever changed in the concluding pages of this riveting ride.













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Follow the FFBC Strange And Ever After Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.







About the Author 
I am a writer, reader, lover of animals, and eater of cookies. I used to be a marine biologist, but now I write novels. And not novels about fish either, but novels about kick-butt heroines and swoon-worthy rogues (I reallylike swoon-worthy rogues).

I live in the Midwest with my husband and two dogs (Asimov and Princess Leia), and you can learn more about my crazy thoughts and crippling cookie-addiction on my blog or twitter.

My debut, SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY is now available from HarperTeen along with the prequel, A DAWN MOST WICKED, and the sequel A DARKNESS STRANGE & LOVELY.

Look for STRANGE & EVER AFTER in summer 2014 and TRUTHWITCH in fall 2015!

Note: I am on Goodreads to READ. So, if you want to discuss books and the joys of literature, add me as a friend!
Follow her on these sites:



Win (1) hardback copy of Strange and Ever After (US Only)
Win (1) E-book of Strange and Ever After (INT)





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