Thursday, June 27, 2013

YA Debut: Ghosts in the Mirror by Joyce Mangola!

Welcome to my guest blogger Joyce Mangola! She's just released her debut novel, Ghosts in the Mirror from Lycaon Press. Here to tell you a little more about her book is Joyce herself:
***
When I was in middle school, we had to read a lot of books. While I loved to read, I didn't always want to go with the choices the teachers thrust down our throat. Still, if it wasn't for this painful part of English class, I wouldn't have been introduced to my favorite young adult book- The Pigman.

What I liked about it was the grittiness of the characters. They didn't live perfect lives by any means and got into things they would eventually regret. So when I decided Ghosts in the Mirror really fit the 13+ crowd, I had to change up a few things about it. Like take out a lot of 'boring' adult conversation. I cut out quite a bit of the original slightly over 50k novel. In the end, I like the final product. Jeremy, for me, is an endearing character. Having a unique son (and being a bit of an 'oddball' myself) helped me created Jeremy into who he is--A person comfortable in his skin, even if he has to share it with is latest ghostly passenger.

Blurb:

Sixteen-year-old Jeremy Riggs has lived his life in and out of the hospital. While the doctors are clueless as to why he lapses into comas, he is well aware of his unique ability to merge with a wandering spirit. With his own soul too weak to sustain life, it's the only thing keeping him alive.
Waking up from a coma a year after being found at the county dump—next to the remains of the last spirit to inhabit him—Jeremy finds the newest spirit is nothing like the previous ones. It's bent on revenge and has the will to take control over his body. With the police lining him up as a murder suspect and an ancient evil pursuing him, Jeremy must help the ghost hitching a ride in his body find eternal rest without seeing his own soul snuffed out.

And how about an excerpt too:

To Jeremy's elation, a couple days later, he sat in a wheel chair ready for his trip home. He steeled himself for the media frenzy waiting outside the entrance of the hospital. With his grandmother behind him, he'd find the courage not to ask for a jet pack to plow through it. Since the first coma, he'd become somewhat of a local human interest story. As he grew, and his talents of being a renowned artist blossomed, the media loved to pry into his life even more.
Attention of any kind never sat well with him. It reminded him how much of a freak he was.
He always wished some colossal discovery of a Tyrannasaurusmegacreepyalodon would be unearthed from the Susquehanna River so that the local news media would have something more exciting to cover than "The Coma Kid's Release From Captivity."
Yes, the newspapers even came up with the clever name moniker as well.
He blew out a big breath, spying the masses just outside the main doors. He saw the blonde with the caked on makeup adjusting her skirt suit, and the man brushing off the remains of the cat hair from his Men's Warehouse two-for-one special. Jeremy remembered him from the last time. His breath smelled like he had the same diet as his cats.
Some of them he didn't recognize at all, but they formed up, giving him a glimpse of the car waiting to whisk him home. As soon as he passed the automatic door, the wide corridor to freedom would close as they swarmed in. They never impeded him from reaching the car, but being rude and trying to bowl past them all wouldn't happen either. His grandmother rubbed his shoulders to give him courage.
"Can't I pretend I'm sleeping this time, Meema?" He whined.
"They'll just come to the house for the interview, Jeremy." She kissed the top of his head.
"I know." He shivered. His condition made him a celebrity in the area, and it came with the territory.
As the microphone convention converged, millions of ideas rolled through his head of what to tell them. One, in particular, stayed at the forefront. 
Hello, and welcome to the freak show! Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant, Igor, have taken tissue samples to clone me so that they can build a bigger facility for their human lab rat experiments! They promise truckloads of instant potatoes and hamster wheels for exercise in their concrete laboratory! Free admission to the first fifty people! Ghosts get a free ride in my body! Special edition ectoplasmic vomit bags for everyone to enjoy!

Purchase Links:

·       AllRomance eBooks
·       Amazon
·       Bookstrand
·       Lycaon Press

 

About Joyce:

Joyce Mangola has been writing for most of her life, spinning outlandish tales since she was twelve. She is a multi-published author over several genres and Joyce is her pen name for the young adult side. Writing will always be the one dream she pursued relentlessly until she succeeded with her first short story publication. She hasn’t looked back since. Besides bringing to life the different characters in her head, she enjoys drawing and playing the flute. Though a Pittsburgh native, she calls Carlisle, Pennsylvania her home for over twenty years now and has no plans of moving—unless it’s back to Pittsburgh, of course. She’s a proud mother of two sister rescue cats, Brine and Ariel. She encourages anyone who has the heart to adopt a furry companion. Give them love and receive it back tenfold.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Evernight Teen’s Summer Kick-off Blog Hop!

WINNER:  Karin!!

Welcome to Evernight Teen’s Summer Kick-off Blog Hop!



It’s a great opportunity to get to know Evernight Teen: Gritty Fiction for Today’s Young Adult. Our stories include fresh teen fiction that’s raw, gritty and real.

My spotlight is on S.X. Bradley’s UNRAVELED:


Blurb:

Sixteen year old math whiz, Autumn, spends her days reading about serial killers and dreaming of becoming an FBI Profiler. She never dreams her first case will be so personal. Her world is shattered when she comes home from school and discovers her murdered sister’s body on the living room floor. When the initial evidence points to a burglary gone wrong, Autumn challenges the police’s theory because of the personal nature of the crime. Thinking that finding the killer will bring her family back together, she conducts her own investigation using her affinity for math and forensics, but her plan backfires and her obsession with the case further splinters her family.
When her investigation reveals the killer is someone she knows, Autumn offers herself up as bait and sets a dangerous trap to unmask his true nature and to obtain a confession for her sister’s murder.
14+ for brief violence
UNRAVELED is an Evernight Teen EDITOR’S PICK!
Exclusive excerpt:
            He lifted the folder up and produced some papers that were protected in a plastic bag. He placed them in front of me. “Are these the questions you were referring to?”
                I looked at my parents, and both of them had their eyes glued to the plastic bag in front of me.
Without touching the bag, I looked at the front page and saw the first question. It was the Bernoulli equation question that Celeste had asked me that morning over breakfast.
                “Yes, those are the ones.”
                “Care to know where we found them?” What did he mean? I’d left them on the kitchen table when I went to brush my teeth after breakfast.
                “On the kitchen table?” I asked, trying not to sound sarcastic.
                “No. In your backpack. The backpack we found at the scene yesterday.” He looked over at my parents this time. My eyes grew wide, and my mouth fell open.
                “Mr. or Mrs. Covarrubias, did either of you put these math papers back into Autumn’s backpack after breakfast?” Papi left for the bakery every morning at 5:30 a.m. so he wasn’t even home. Mami had left right after Celeste and I had eaten because she had a dentist appointment. Maybe Mami’d seen the papers and stuck them in my backpack. Celeste had left about ten minutes before me. Her boyfriend Voss had swung by to pick her up. He did that every day. 
                “Mami, did you put the papers in my backpack?” Her eyes were swollen, and I swear she was two seconds away from passing out. Her gaze wandered around the room until it fell on me. She shook her head. My heart sank.
                “Then it had to be Celeste. She must have put them in there.”
                “Her fingerprints weren’t found on the papers.” How was that possible? The oils from her hands would have been transferred onto the paper if she’d stuck them in my backpack. It couldn’t have been her then. That left no one, and I had no answer. That wasn’t good.
                “Autumn, look, I’m going to be honest with you. There are some things that just don’t add up here. We have witnesses that say you and your sister were arguing at school that morning and that she looked very upset. Care to explain what that was all about?”
I could feel the cell doors closing in around me. This was a witch hunt, and I was about to be burned at the stake.
                My parents were staring at me, begging me with their eyes to explain what was going on. The question mark stabbed my heart. They knew that Celeste and I hardly ever fought. The last time had to have been when I’d accidentally given her a black eye when I was five and was trying to learn to hit a baseball.
                I looked at the detective and said the only thing I knew to say. “Detective Kasanoff, I want a lawyer.”

Unraveled is available here!

What’s up for grabs?

          One lucky hopper will win a KINDLE PAPERWHITE eREADER sponsored by Evernight Teen.
          Every book blogger/reviewer site is giving away one free eBook from Evernight Teen (winner’s choice of any eBook from Evernight Teen’s website).
          Plus, each author offers their own unique prize! So visit each blog hop stop for a host of fabulous prizes to win.

How to enter? Add your comment and email address in the comments section below to be eligible to win a prize.

Continue hopping to the next stop!


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Monday, June 17, 2013

Cover Reveal: Darkest Day by Emi Gayle (Book #3 of The 19th Year)

Darkest Day

Release Date: January 6, 2014
Target Reader: Young Adult

Back of the Book
 
Mac Thorne’s time as a Changeling is coming to an end.
 
It may have taken eighteen years, but Mac did finally manage to do what the Council wanted: she chose a teacher and renounced the in-between. 
 
There’s just one last step. She must say goodbye to her human. Forever.
 
After being challenged in every way possible, Mac leaves what she thought would be the easiest task for the last possible moment. As midnight on July fourth draws near, though, she hasn’t found a way to give up Winn Thomas.
 
Nor does she want to.
 
With time running out, Mac stands at a literal crossroads. 
 
Choose Winn, and she’ll be stripped of the only family she’s ever known—vampires, dragons, and her favorite demon. Even her own mother. Accept her position on the Council and rule as an equal to her twelve peers, and she’ll forget Winn ever existed. 
 
Independence and freedom have never before been so limiting.
 
In this final chapter of the 19th Year Trilogy, it’s time for Mac to decide. 
 
Responsibility? Or Love?
 

Monday, June 10, 2013

I'm back! (on Blogger platform, off Wordpress)

...and online again, finally.

If you're wondering why my blog keeps looking different, I got kicked off my server host permanently late last week and had to go elsewhere. Rather than try to reset up my Wordpress blog again, I decided to re-fire up my original Blogger blog and give it a facelift at the same time (cutting the winter theme and going more collegiate.) I prefer Wordpress software, but I'm going to hedge my bets and keep one of my me's on a different platform. Just in case.

So...if you're wondering where the blog with Ellen and Rex's picture show on the Autumn Vancouver background went, that was my Wordpress blog. If you're wondering where the snowy fence and bird blog went, that's this one with a new theme and my domain name pointed to it.

Any comments made on my Wordpress blog, specifically on the Writer's Voice contest, sadly, are probably lost in the bowels of my ex-host's crappy server.

I'll see about importing my last backup of the Wordpress site here when I get a chance, not that there was all that much since I had only migrated to Wordpress and my own hosted server a few months ago. But I had a few fellow authors' promo posts I'd like to restore.

Whew! Writing is a lot easier than all this stuff!

Ellen and Rex say "hey"!  :)

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Doors and Windows and Never, Ever Giving Up

On Tuesday when my chances in The Writer’s Voice contest looked grim, one of my writer friends who also participated emailed me:
Sorry. It appears we are out. Maybe contests are not my bag?
To which I responded:
…yeah…depression is sinking in and getting comfy, ordering pizza and refusing to shower or shed the flannel PJ bottoms. Reminder to self:  contest results aren’t proof of worth.
Tuesday was not a good day. No book sales or reviews for my other me, my family was disappointed in me and my work situation was pretty bleak as well. I went to bed feeling like a failure in almost every nook and cranny of my life. I prayed to God for some relief from my burdens.

Fast forward two days. That same friend I commiserated with on Tuesday was picked to be on a team for The Writer’s Voice. Honestly, I was so happy for her that my joy pierced the pall enough for a glimmer of hope to burst through. That little glimmer said, “Hey, chica!” (because it’s from my former home of New Mexico where it’s always sunny), “chin up and remember how far you’ve come! And some people would kill to swap devils with you.”  Truer words were never spoken by an imaginary friend.

Fast forward one additional day. A blog running a contest I’d almost written off, because it was way past when results had been promised, posted early this AM. I’d peeked at my smart phone during a circuit training break and saw it in my Google reader. The post’s subject stated the contest results were in. OK that’s grand but seeing as how I’d received no email, I pretty much concluded I wouldn’t be seeing my name amongst the winners.

Wrong! I won! The prize? A full manuscript request! Now that’s right up there with The Writer’s Voice given who’s gonna be reading my story!!

God didn’t just open a window. He added a freakin’ solarium with a massive sliding screen door!

So while contests still aren’t proof of worth, the moral of the story remains the same:

Never, ever give up.


image from The Office, NBC

According to a text analyzer of Don't Ask, Don't Tell...

I write like
J. D. Salinger

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

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