10.31.2011

Grand Prize Giveaway for #YASpooktacular




It's been a fun week. The YA Spooktacular has been all over twitter and we thank all of you for following along, entering, and reading! It's a lot of work so it's good that people enjoy it.

Click on the banners below to start a story from the beginning! You can find a full listing of each piece of the story and all the tricks and treats along the way, go here. All story prize packs and the grand prize pack ends on November 3.




Now, it's time to enter the grand prize pack. There are two---one for international participants and one for US only.  And if you tweet a link to this, then you can get one more entry into the prize pack! Just leave a link to your tweet in the comments!!

US ONLY!! Giveaway ends November 3 at midnight!!






International Prize Pack!!! Giveaway ends November 3 at midnight.




Did you see the international giveaways? There's one for each story. These close on Oct 31 at midnight!



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

10.30.2011

Cover Reveal: Betrayed by Ednah Walters

Spencer Hill Press has a new book coming out in June of 2012. And I get to reveal the cover for BETRAYED!




summary:

Lil isn't just an average teenager. She's one of the Nephilim--the descendants of humans and angels--which gives her some serious psi skills and a mission for redemption. Just when Lil thinks she's found a balance between her normal life with human friends and her training to become a Guardian, she's warned that someone close to her will betray her. When the boy she loves starts acting strangely and one of her human friends acquires a supernatural ability, Lil begins to realize that someone is manipulating the people she loves... and won't stop until she's been lured to the dark side.



Sounds like it could be interesting. Make sure you add it to your TBR pile!!


Title: Betrayed
Series: Guardian Legacy
Author: Ednah Walters
Publisher:  Spencer Hill Press
ISBN: 978-1-937053-18-5 (Trade Paper), 978-1-937053-19-2 (e-book)
Release Date: June, 2012





10.28.2011

YA Spooktacular - Story 3

Welcome to my stop for the second annual #YASpooktacular, which I get to co-host with my friend Nikki from Wicked Awesome Books.


This year, there are THREE stories written by some of your favorite authors that will be posted throughout the week. Each story is a choose your adventure, where you get to decide what happens to the character.

There are also some TRICKS or TREATS scattered throughout the story, where you can enter to win prizes and get bonus points toward the prize packs. The prize pack for this story (#1!) will be up tomorrow! On Halloween day, the grand prize pack will be posted. You can click the banner above to see a full list of the YASpooktacular prize packs--all the bloggers, authors and goodies that you can win.

 I really hope you enjoy this piece, written by the lovely Elizabeth Miles!
Elizabeth Miles grew up in Chappaqua, New York, not far from New York City. She graduated from Boston University in 2004, and has worked ever since as a journalist for an alternative newsweekly. She has been honored by the New England Press Association and the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. Elizabeth is a former trustee of the Portland Players, a community theater and second home. She loves pizza; she can often be found running around on stage while scantily clad; and a cold winter night in Maine is one of the creepiest and most beautiful things she can think of. Fury is Elizabeth’s first novel.

You can find Elizabeth on her website, Twitter, on Goodreads, and you can order Fury on Amazon, B&N, The Book Depository, and Indiebound.
To start the story from the beginning, click on this image!
Elizabeth Miles

“Kara? I’m here,” I hissed. “I’m coming for you.” I thought I heard a whimpered reply, but I couldn’t be sure. With one last longing look toward the gate, which seemed to glow with promise, I wheeled around to face the maze. In this dark labyrinth lay danger and death, but also Kara. The girl I loved. 

I decided that my safest option was to leave the mown paths and step into the reedy mess of cornstalks that lined the pathways. In there, I had a better chance of staying hidden. I would let the other maze-goers act as bait; I was going to save Kara, and get us the hell out of here.


Stepping as lightly as I could to minimize the crackling beneath my feet, I pushed through the stalks toward where I thought I’d heard Kara’s plea for help. Every few seconds I stopped and held my breath, just to listen. I heard sporadic sounds of panic—a scream in the distance, an unidentifiable crash. Someone ran by me; I could hear them mumbling to themselves, saying a person’s name over and over and over again.  

Just as I was about to risk calling out to Kara, throwing out the next round in this sick game of Marco Polo, something caught my eye. I froze. There, through the leaves, I’d seen orange. I stayed perfectly still until I saw it again. Yes, there it was. The dreaded blaze of orange, a warning for me to run. In the silence now, I heard a ghoulish panting, the animalistic sound of a hunter about to devour its prey. 

And then, even worse: I heard Kara’s soft cries. “Please don’t hurt me,” I heard her say. “Please.”  So he had her. The Corn Stalker had my girlfriend.


I wanted to bolt, believe me. Every nerve in my body was screaming that I should flee from this madman. But I couldn’t leave Kara behind. Escaping without her would be no escape at all.


I took a moment to assess the situation. I had no weapons, so I would have to overpower him by brute force. Perhaps a surprise attack would throw him off enough to get me one good punch and one hard kick. And in the meantime, Kara could grab his sickle. Yes. It was the only way.


I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath, balling my fists and knowing that I would get just one chance to do this right. And then I charged forward, out of hiding and into jeopardy.  


My terror was so consuming that it practically blinded me; I felt like a hood had been pulled down over my face and I could barely see through the blackness. I was being led by adrenaline alone. I tackled the first spot of orange I saw, throwing my full weight against a body that fell easily—too easily—to the ground.


“Josh! Stop!” Kara screamed as we tumbled to the ground. It was her. In my panic, I’d mistaken her orange hoodie for a piece of the Stalker’s trademark costume. Now I’d lost my window of surprise. We heard a sickening snorting snicker come from behind us. I rolled over just in time to see a beastly man lumbering in our direction.


“You can’t trick the Corn Stalker,” he garbled in a sing-song voice that made my stomach turn. My vision tunneled and I thought I heard Kara sobbing, as if from behind a curtain.


The fiend stepped into view: hunched and huge, with biceps the size of bowling balls and legs that looked like tree trunks. His face was a horror to behold, pale and blood-splattered, with a trickle of drool coming from the left corner of his mouth. If our ancestors were pigs, not monkeys, this is what we would have looked like.


“Kara?! Where are you? Run!” I would try to distract him so she could get away. “Do you hear me? I’m serious. Get away. I’ll be okay.” I knew I wouldn’t be, but it was a sacrifice I had to make.


And then, just as the Corn Stalker heaved his sickle above his head, readying it to come down and slice into my flesh, I heard a bloodcurdling yell, the sound of a warrior going to battle. There was a thud of impact. With a surprised oof, the Corn Stalker fell to the ground, face first—I had to scramble to get out of his path. His sickle went flying off to the side.


As I attempted to piece together what was happening, I saw a small figure dart over to the sickle, pick it up, and in one motion, swing it forcefully into the Corn Stalker’s wide back. It pierced the skin between his shoulders, and I felt a soft rain of blood mist around me. The body issued a brief convulsion, then nothing more.


She had saved me. I had come back to rescue my girl, but in the end, Kara was my savior. I leaned back on my elbows, trying to catch my breath, almost laughing with the release of this terrifyingly close call with death.


But when Kara stepped closer, my eyes widened and my blood went cold. This wasn’t Kara, my Kara. This was someone…something else. Her eyes looked white and filmy, her smile was jarringly wide.


“Wha—Kara?” I took in the smears of blood on her clothes—the Stalker’s, as well as that of his victims.


“I told you that coming to the corn maze was a bad idea, Josh,” she said. Her voice was raspy.


“Kara, what’s the matter with you?” I asked as she leaned over to grab the Stalker’s sickle.


“A new Corn Stalker is chosen every year,” she said with an icy grin, twirling the weapon like a baton. “Happy Halloween!”


THE END


Try the story again from the beginning and see what happens. Maybe next time things will be different.
And tomorrow, you can enter to win the prize pack for story 3 at Christina's Books.

My story is up!!

Hey lovelies!!

So the YA Spooktacular continues! Today's the last day and story 3 has been released into the wild!

My piece is right here---http://abeautifulmadness.blogspot.com/2011/10/yaspooktacular-corn-stalker.html

And I am so excited. The formatting is a little weird, but the story was so much fun to add to. I hope you all like it. You should follow along today because there are a LOT of great prizes up for grabs.

The story starts at Page Turners Blog. And there are like, 7 optional endings. See what happens. :)

Tomorrow, the Story Three Prize Pack goes up at Escape from Reality. 

And then on Monday, come back here--because I will have the grand prize giveaway!!






10.26.2011

#YASpooktacular Story 2 is up!!!

Check out Story 2 of the #YASpooktacular!!!


It starts at Reading Teen with Tessa Gratton. Then you can move in other directions and get more of the story from authors like:

Gretchen McNeil
Ariane Mandell
Leigh Fallon
Leanna Renee Hieber
Heidi Kling
Amy Garvey
Cindy Thomas
Ilsa Bick
Jennifer Armentrout
Isla Black
Lani Woodland

Make sure you check it out because there are also LOTS of Tricks and Treats and Prizes, ike a signed copy of Blood Magic.

10.24.2011

YA Spooktacular: Story 1

Welcome to my stop for the second annual #YASpooktacular, which I get to co-host with my friend Nikki from Wicked Awesome Books.


This year, there are THREE stories written by some of your favorite authors that will be posted throughout the week. Each story is a choose your adventure, where you get to decide what happens to the character.

There are also some TRICKS or TREATS scattered throughout the story, where you can enter to win prizes and get bonus points toward the prize packs. The prize pack for this story (#1!) will be up tomorrow! On Halloween day, the grand prize pack will be posted. You can click the banner above to see a full list of the YASpooktacular prize packs--all the bloggers, authors and goodies that you can win.

 I really hope you enjoy this piece, written by the fantastic Nova Ren Suma!




 Nova Ren Suma has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and a BA in writing & photography from Antioch College. 
She has published short stories for adults in literary journals including Gulf Coast, LIT, Small Spiral Notebook, and more, and is the author of the middle-grade novel Dani Noir. Imaginary Girls, which marks her YA debut, garnered four starred reviews, including Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and praise from The Los Angeles Times. 

Nova grew up in small towns across the Hudson Valley and can currently be found in New York City and online. She is at work on a new YA novel. 

You can find Nova on Twitter, on her blog, on Goodreads and you can order her books here.

To start the story from the beginning, click on this image!
Laura blinked, and a drop of blood dangled from her eyelashes, streaking her vision in red. As it landed on her cheek, dribbling down to the corner of her mouth so she could taste it, she turned to Raven.

Raven sensed the question on her tongue and was ready to tell her about her mother if she asked. How her mother had been a part of this, too. How even when you escape, you’re drawn back—as Laura was. As she always would be.

But Laura didn’t want to hear it. Everyone was trying to fool her, and use her, and make her do horrible things she didn’t know she had in her. Now she did one last horrible thing, and after—after she took care of Raven—she dropped the sword. When it hit ground, she saw it wasn’t a sword at all but a sharp, ragged piece of metal, mangled and bent as if rescued from a car wreck. Raven himself was a man, a dead one, as was Brian, who’d unknowingly brought her here.

Only, Brian wasn’t dead, not just yet. His mouth let out a faint, keening whimper. Then a gurgle that sounded a lot like her name.

As she crouched over him, trying to separate what was real and what wasn’t, she heard a clumsy rustling in the woods. It was coming through the trees, in the distance, near the more civilized section of the park. The part of the park where most people stayed, because they—without knowing why—were afraid to go any farther into the forest.

They should be afraid.

The noise became louder as the two got close. A girl and a boy, so careless the way they laughed, so stupid the way they crunched loudly through the leaves. Laura knew they’d step through the trees any moment now. Then they’d be hers.

* * *

Marly felt Alex take her hand and her heart leaped from his touch. She heard herself giggle at something stupid he said, she couldn’t help it. She needed to remember that he hadn’t held her hand when they were in the main part of the park, where other people could see. He made sure never to touch her at school, never ever in front of his friends. He’d deny they were together to the grave.

But weren’t they? Together?

Because now that they’d found their way off the path and into this forest thick with trees and away from any people, he was all over her.

The night seemed heavier outside the reach of their flashlights. His light was brighter than hers; hers was only a pinprick of faint light from the little blue flashlight that hung off her ring of keys. What Marly wanted was to tell Alex how she felt about him. To tell him and make him tell her back. But now, just the two of them, she couldn’t find the words. Besides, she was noticing how the trees had grown more spindly the deeper they’d gone into the forest, how the leaves had fallen as if it were winter already, though it wasn’t.

How it was too quiet. The sky too dark overhead.

And there was a smell in the air now. Something wet. Something rotting.

She stopped short, and his hand dropped from hers. When their feet ceased shuffling through the leaves, when they were utterly quiet for the first time since entering this part of the woods, that’s when they heard it.

“Is that . . . somebody . . . crying?” Alex asked. He gripped her shoulder now in the dark, like he’d throw her in front of him, using her as a human shield if he had reason to.

Marly thought it sounded more like whimpering than crying, but it was too dark to see, and the weak beam of her flashlight couldn’t find where the noises were coming from.

Alex’s flashlight beam jittered and jumped, betraying his nerves. It circled, showing skeletal tree branches and her sneakers and more tree branches and now the night sky itself, the stars, and then the ground again. He couldn’t find where the sound was coming from either.

“Hello?” he called. “Who’s out there?”

“Shh,” she said, trying to get him to be quiet. “Listen.”

A gurgling, choking sound came from the darkness, down at level with the ground.

Alex’s light flashed on a pool of red. And the next thing she knew he was running—abandoning her, and taking his light with him.

With her little flashlight, barely bright enough to illuminate her own arm, she found the shallow pond at her feet, the water glistening with movement. Her sneakers were wet, she realized, because she was standing in it.

“It’s just a pond!” she called back to Alex. “A pond with goldfish in it,” she said that last part in a lower voice, and only to herself, because Alex was long gone. What was a goldfish pond doing in the middle of the forest?

What Marly didn’t know—because she couldn’t see the bodies in the dark, because she couldn’t see the blood, because she didn’t know Laura Lester was out there, the new Laura Lester, the Laura of the forest who now could never leave—was that she should have followed Alex.

She should have run.

She shouldn’t have made it so easy for someone to push her in.

THE END 

If you're brave enough, you should start again from the beginning

And tomorrow, you can enter the Story One Prize Pack by going to Tangled Up in Words
 

Complete this TRICK to win:

-finished copy of Fury by Elizabeth Miles
-SIGNED copy of Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann
-1 extra entry into the Story 1 prize pack 





10.21.2011

YA Spooktacular Starts Monday! Spread the word AND WIN!

So there's this HUGE event happening on October 24. You may have heard it.

Can I just tell you HOW AWESOME all this is going to be? Because it's going to be wicked awesome. So awesome that I'm hosting the event with Nikki at Wicked Awesome Books.


This is a labor of love for me and I'm pumped that's it here! This year we have THREE Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories, with a prize pack for each one that posts the day after the story. Three stories, LOTS of prizes and some of your favorite authors participating. You can click here to see the full run-down of the authors, the bloggers and even some of the prizes. You won't want to miss it!


Story One starts on October 24 at Pure Imagination.
Story 1 Authors:
Beth Revis
Lia Habel
Kate Kaynak
Shannon Delany
Ty Drago
Jen Nadol
Kim Welchons
Caroline Richmond
Christina Ferko
Zoraida Cordova
Nova Ren Suma
Story Two starts on October 26 at Reading Teen.
Story 2 Authors:
Tessa Gratton
Gretchen McNeil
Ariane Mandell
Leigh Fallon
Leanna Renee Hieber
Heidi R. Kling
Amy Garvey
Cindy Thomas
Ilsa J. Bick
Jennifer L. Armentrout
Lani Woodland
Story Three starts on October 28 at Page Turners Blog.

Nick James
Jessica Spotswood
Scott Tracey
Patricia Osei
Jennifer Rush
Elizabeth Miles
Kimberly Derting
Kristi Cook
Victoria Schwab
Danielle Bunner
Adele Griffin




Now, you can help us spread the word--and win!!

Tweet! Use the #YASpooktacular hash tag on twitter. We'll be there all week!

Or post something on your blog/faceboook. Feel free to grab our YA Spooktacular button, header, or write another post telling all your followers about the event. The more people that know about it, the better!

If you leave a comment on this post or the one at Wicked Awesome Books with a link to where you posted/tweeted/etc about the #YASpooktacular, then you can be entered to win a mini-prize pack before the event even starts! It runs from now until Sunday, October 23 at 10pm.
  • ARC of In Darkness by Nick Lake
  • ARC of The Radleys by Matt Haig
  • ARC of Enthralled anthology
  • ARC of Going Underground by Susan Vaught
  • ARC of A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
  • Welcome To Bordertown anthology
  • ARC of The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann
  • Generation Dead & Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters
Happy Tweeting! Get ready for the #YASpooktacular!

10.20.2011

*Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey



Publisher: Harper Teen
Date:
September 20, 2011
Series or Standalone:
standalone
ISBN:
006199622X
Format:
Hardcover 336, pages
Source:
ARC
Cover thoughts:
Pretty


Rating: A
First line:
I wasn't thinking about falling in love the day I met Danny Greer.

Image by FlamingText.com

The first thing that drew me to this book was the cover. I mean look at it, it's kind of creepy, but gorgeous! I also heard the book was very sad, and I hate crying, so I put it off. Then I finally read it and I was so glad! It was an amazing read!

When Wren's boyfriend Danny is killed in a car accident, she is so devastated she uses her inherited powers to bring him back to life. What Wren doesn't know is that the Danny that comes back is not the boy she knew. Wren has spent the past 4 month hiding Daniel in a neighbors garage loft and Wren becomes more distant from her friends and family. When Gabriel transfers to her school he can sense what she is hiding, what she has done. She is attracted to Gabriel who is much more alive than Danny. Wren soon realizes that she must take responsibility for what she has done and make it right, even if letting Danny go will break her heart.

Wren is pretty messed up and it is completely understandable. I feel like I didn't get to know Wren very well, but I wanted her to be happy and I was pulling for her to do the right thing.

Gabriel was interesting from the moment her entered the the story with the way he could sense what Wren could do. He was caring and he wanted to help Wren because he knew what she was going through was horrible. He wasn't judgmental, he just helped her.

Since Wren has these incredible inherited powers, I was excited to see more of them. I was hoping she would do something cool like make the door open without touching it, but sadly it didn't happen. The story really didn't focus on the powers except when talking about Danny and Wren's mother.

Cold Kiss was a heartbreaking and beautiful read that will make you cry into the final pages.




Get more info:
Goodreads ||| Amazon ||| IndieBound ||| Book Depository |||| Barnes & Noble
The author on the web:

Blog /Website ||| Twitter

10.18.2011

Waiting on Wednesday (9): Clockwork Prince



Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. Anyone can play along just tell us which book you are waiting to read.
 

Summary: (from goodreads)
 
 In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa's powers for his own dark ends. 

With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move and that one of their own has betrayed them.
Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will; the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?

As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.
Release date: December 6, 2011
Publisher: McElderly
Add it to Goodreads


I'm not the only one waiting for this one. But as the days get closer and closer, I'm so excited!! I can't even take it anymore. I love, love this series. Eeeep.

What are you waiting for??

Teaser Tueday (2)



Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to rui n the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT partici pants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!




Lila Cardoza is dead and wearing my earrings. Not mine, exactly, but the same ones B's girlfriend, Gwen, got for me three months ago at Christmas. Silver zigzags with little balls at the tips. I realize I was never this close to Lila when she was alive.

page 3 (ARC version)





10.17.2011

Cover Reveal: Revived by Cat Patrick


On Friday, I went to this event with Nikki at Wicked Awesome Books where we got ARCs of the new book by Cat Patrick called REVIVED.
As a little girl, Daisy Appleby was killed in a school bus crash. Moments after the accident, she was brought back to life.
A secret government agency has developed a drug called Revive that can bring people back from the dead, and Daisy Appleby, a test subject, has been Revived five times in fifteen years. Daisy takes extraordinary risks, knowing that she can beat death, but each new death also means a new name, a new city, and a new life. When she meets Matt McKean, Daisy begins to question the moral implications of Revive, and as she discovers the agency’s true goals, she realizes she’s at the center of something much larger — and more sinister — than she ever imagined.
After some tweeting with Cat, we learned that the cover hasn't been revealed yet--and since our copies have the cover, she said we could take a picture and reveal the cover with her!

So without further adieu, here's the cover for REVIVED by Cat Patrick!!



And, just because I really like the spine, I took a shot of that too on the shelf with some of my favorite books! A good place for it, I'm sure.



What do you think of the cover?


10.16.2011

In My Mailbox (3)


In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren! It's a way to share the books you received each week, whether for purchase, borrow or review or from the library.

Today, I'm sharing some books I got at NEIBA, some things I got at signings and for review over the last couple weeks AND some secret titles that you will see again in the YA Spooktacular! Yes, I'm sneaky. Check it out!!!




Books mentioned: (not in order)
Dear Bully
Daughter of Smoke & Bone//Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Legend by Marie Lu
The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
Pandemonium///Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
The Catastrophic History of You and Me by Jess Rothenberg
The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell
Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler
Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams
Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood
A Million Suns by Beth Revis
Embrace by Jessica Shirvington
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
Envy by Gregg Olsen

What's in your mailbox??

10.14.2011

The Apocalypse Gene Blog Tour


The Apocalypse Gene tour is hosted by Unputdownable Books. We have an interview with the authors, Suki Michelle and Carlyle Clark. But before we jump into that, here's a little about the book!


Summary:

With Pandemic ravaging the globe, Olivya's psychic Sight compels her to see auras riddled with the colors of despair and now her mother is infected. Olivya’s only hope is the mysterious Mikah, a powerful Empath who claims the Pandemic is linked to his clan, the Kindred, and their brooding, monstrous, Immortal Lord.  

But how can she trust a boy who can manipulate her very emotions?

With Mikah's aid, Olivya races to unearth Kindred secrets, desperate to find a cure, only to discover the Pandemic is far, far more than a mere disease.




About the authors:

Suki Michelle is a life-long Chicagoan with one daughter, a German Shephard, a calico and a turtle. 
Carlyle Clark is a burly dude from San Diego. He can look menacing at a glance, but as soon as he opens his mouth – pure GEEK! 

On the outside...Suki and Carlyle are totally disparate. On the inside...they are the REAL Neo-Twins. You’ll have to read The Apocalypse Gene to find out who the Neo-Twins are, but here’s a hint: They are twisted devils with mirror-melded auras.


If you could be an item on a Mexican restaurant menu, what would the other person be and why? Suki: Carlyle would be a plate of refried beans, rice, and some meat-cheese thing all mashed together into a single gray indefinable blob (hold the lettuce).

Carlyle: Suki would be neatly stacked nachos with the toppings evenly distributed on every chip with the perfect mathematical ratio of cheese to salsa to sour cream.

What are four words that describe the other person?
Suki: Carlyle is brilliant, quirky, kind, and insane.

Carlyle: Suki is enigmatic, obvious, genius, and gentle.


Tell us about your novel in six words or less!
Psychic kids, dying world, unique immortals.

Where did the inspiration for The Apocalypse Gene come from?
Suki: It came from a long boring day typing medical reports (day job - medical transcriptionist) and playing the what-if game. What if there was a pandemic and the cure was far beyond the reach of science and in the hands of mystics? How did the two of you start writing together?

Carlyle: We met at an online writing workshop where w critiqued each other’s work. Mutual respect for each other’s skills developed into a cyber-friendship and escalated to cyber-love. Suki: Yeah, and then I got divorced after a long and tedious marriage. Carlyle drove, sight unseen, from San Diego to Chicago. We’ve been together ever since, going on five years.


Your blog says the two of you have complementary skill sets in writing. How do you make this work?
Carlyle: When Suki came up with the idea for The Apocalypse Gene, she asked me for help with plotting, and we decided to write it together.

Suki: He’s great at laying down story lines choreographing battles.

Carlyle: Suki uses her poetic roots to craft the prose.

Suki: Carlyle is a complex thinker and I’m simple-minded.   

Carlyle: The result is a story with many twists and turns (my influence) laid out in an easily understood fashion (Suki’s influence).


Thanks so much Suki and Carlyle!!


You can follow the tour from the very beginning by going here. Make sure you check out all the stops on the tour for chances to win copies of Apocalypse Gene and to win the Launch Party Grand Prize Giveaway---a Kindle!! (Plus some other goodies!)


The next stop on the tour is at Bittersweet Enchantment




Get more info:
Goodreads ||| Website ||| Trailer |||Facebook
 

The authors on the web:
Twitter 

Read an excerpt here!