Loralee Evans's Blog: Loralee Evans, page 48

Kanab Elementary School

Kanab ElementaryToday, I got to go down to Kanab Elementary for a school visit, and drive through some gorgeous country doing it. I left early in the morning, and got to watch the almost-new moon rise, and then the sun rise as I was driving. Very pretty!
I had a great time visiting with the Buckaroos of Kanab Elementary School. Their school song is so great, and I enjoyed listening to it. I got to give two presentations, one to the younger grades, and one to the older, and both times it was really fun! The kids who volunteered to help with the little play we put on were great sports, and did fantastic jobs! I'm so glad I was able to visit their school. The students, faculty, and staff were all great, and I loved the visit! I hope they learned some good ideas about writing their own stories!

(Almost!) A Best Seller! (For Like 5 Whole Minutes!)

The other day, Lindzee Armstrong did a St. Patrick's Day book giveaway for quite a lot of books, including one of mine (Felicity~ A Sparrow's Tale). At the same time, this same book was on a subscriber magnet sale with Mybookcave, and additionally, Ebookdaily decided to featured Felicity~ A Sparrow's Tale, something which I had not expected. (But which I liked, a lot!) As a result, downloads for that particular book shot quite high. Which was great. But I also like the fact that the sales of my other books also went up. Felicity and the Fire Stoppers got up to #4 in its category, which I was pretty excited about. I did some giveaways hoping that would get it up to #1 at least for a short time, but it didn't get there. Still, it was, for a very brief time, at #4 in its category of Children's Bird Books, and I thought it was pretty sweet!

Feature on Ebookdaily.com

ebookdaily.com is featuring my book, Felicity~ A Sparrow's Tale today!
It came as a pleasant and very welcome surprise!

ebookdaily.com is a website that features free books each day in several different genres including Children's.
The other books featured in Children's are Stolen Luck by Jaclyn Weist, a friend of mine, and Jenny's Amazing Wig by Betty Smith.

From Julia's Kitchen by Marsha Ward

From Julia's Kitchen Owen Family Cookery
(c) 2017 by Marsha WardThis isn't a book review, because I haven't read the book yet, but I'm excited, because one of my favorite authors, Marsha Ward, has just released a new book.

From Julia's Kitchen is both a recipe book and a story, and if it's anything like Marsha's other books, it's a great one!

Author Marsha WardMarsha is the author of several books, including Spinster's Folly, a finalist in the 2012 Whitney Awards, and The Man From Shenandoah.

Whitney Awards-Middle Grade Finalists

Middle Grade is a genre that is very close to my heart. My last few books have been middle grade, and as a result, I have had the great privilege, several times, of going to elementary schools and talking to kids about literacy, and the importance of telling their own stories. I love middle grade books, and so I wanted to highlight the books and authors of Middle Grade who were nominated for the Whitney Awards this year.

Summerlost (c)2016 Ally CondieAlly Condie wrote Summerlost, a book that sounds absolutely amazing, and one that will emotionally connect with its readers. I love getting absorbed completely by books like this!

On Amazon, the product description says "A tender and compelling contemporary novel for young readers about facing loss and finding friendship..."



Wrong Side of Magic, The
(c) 2016 Janette Rallison







Janette Rallison, a lady whom I know is a great writer because I've read many other her other books, branched into Middle Grade, to my delight, and wrote The Wrong Side of Magic. James Dashner had this to say about her book: "Whimsical, exciting, funny, adventurous--all the things I loved about books growing up."



Mysteries of Cove: Gears of Revolution
(c) 2016 J. Scott SavageJ. Scott Savage, one of my favorite authors of all time, has added book #2 to his fantastic steampunk series, Mysteries of Cove, with Mysteries of Cove: Gears of Revolution. Trenton and Kallista continue their adventure, searching for Kallista's father, Leo Babbage but they get more than they bargained for when they run into the Whipjacks on one side of a civil war and The Order of the Beast on the other side! But the Whipjacks and the Order of the Beast may be the least of their worries as dragons start to gather.
Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood
(c) 2016 Leisl Shurtleff



Leisl Shurtleff's book Red, The True Story of Red Riding Hood is a New York Times Bestseller, and sounds like a book Middle Grade readers would eat up as greedily as Red's pal Goldie eats up porridge!





Ghostsitter (c) 2016 Shelly BrownBrand new author, Shelly Brown, author of Ghostsitter, has produced a novel that sounds exciting, thrilling, and scary! Protagonists Tiffany Hart and Justin Henderson team up to fight against ghoulish demons to save their lives, and the afterlives of a few ghostly friends!










I'm really looking forward to reading these five books as a member of the Whitney Academy to vote on the winner. I'm not looking forward to deciding a winner though, because I already know that picking my favorite is going to be pretty tough!

Whitney Award Finalists!

Yesterday, the finalists for the Whitney Awards were announced. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that my book, Felicity and the Fire Stoppers, though it was a nominee, was not one of the five finalists in its category. But I am happy for my friends and other authors who are! Check out the categories for the Whitney Awards here! I also would like to mention a few friends by name.







Heather B. MooreHeather Moore has three books that are finalists, Slave Queen, Deliverance, and Exodus.












Janette Rallison
Janette Rallison also has three books that are finalists, How I Met Your Brother, The Wrong Side of Magic, and The Girl Who Heard Demons.











Jennifer Moore
Jennifer Moore has two books that are finalists, A Place for Miss Snow, and Lady Helen Finds Her Song.











Julie Daines


Julie Daines' book Willowkeep is a finalist in Historical Romance .









J. Scott SavageJ Scott Savage's book Mysteries of Cove: Gears of Revolution is a finalist in Middle Grade.











Julie Wright


Julie Wright's book Death Thieves is a finalist in Speculative Young Adult.











All the above mentioned authors, and so many others, are great writers, and I am very happy that their works are finalists in the Whitney Awards!

Condemn Me Not by Heather B. Moore

Condemn Me Not by Heather B. Moore is coming out March 14, and like all of Ms. Moore's books that I have read, I really enjoyed this one. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy, and have left a review on Goodreads.  Here is the review again: Condemn Me Not (c) 2017 Heather B. MooreThis was a sobering and personalized look into the life of one of the people executed during the Salem Witch Trials. That the woman was an ancestor of Heather Moore made the story especially meaningful to me. Ms. Moore's writing, as always, was fantastic. She is one of my favorite authors because of her skill at crafting words. I liked that the story went back and forth between her time in jail to her younger years, meeting her husband, having conflict in the community, giving birth to children. I like that it was told in first person. All I know of the Salem Witch Trials I have learned at a distance. But for a little while, in this book, I became one of the innocent accused. I have often tettered back and forth between despising the wretched girls who started it all, and feeling sorry for them, wondering what led them to start their fits of hysteria, of lashing out at innocent people in the first place; innocent people who ended up dead because of them. I don't know everything, and all I can say is that the fate of these girls, who are murderers though they didn't pull the trap door open under these innocent people, is in the hands of God, not me.
That this book could evoke such an emotional response from me, again shows what a fantastic writer Heather Moore is. This was a beautiful, painful, wonderfully-written book!

Michael Young's Paladin: Pawn

I recently finished reading Michael D. Young's MG book, Paladin: Pawn. This was a fun book that I enjoyed reading! 

Rich is the main character, a young kid with regular kid dreams and problems. All he wants is to get his package on time, thinking that's all he's got to worry about, then... BAM! All sorts of problems happening at once, and he alone can fix them! He finds himself a white knight in training, up against a black knight. Who will win? It's a good thing that there are more books in this series! 

This beginning book sets things up nicely. More of the story is coming, but still, I would have preferred to see some sort of resolution instead of things left basically unresolved. Evenso, I still think the book is very well written, and exciting. 

J. Scott Savage's Far World Series

I have enjoyed reading J. Scott Savage's books for years, especially his Far World Series.
In Far World, Kyja, a young girl, has grown up without the ability to do magic, thinking of herself "cripple" despite the encouragement of her friends, including Master Therapass, a wise, elderly wizard, and Riph Raph, a skyte. (Skytes are like tiny flying dragons, about the size of a chihuahua.)
Meanwhile on Earth, Marcus, the same age as Kyja has grown up needing a wheelchair to get around, but at the same time having the strange ability to turn himself slightly invisible, which has always puzzled him. Once they meet, via Kyja seeing him through an "Aptura Discerna" and pulling him to Far World in time to save his life, things start falling into place. They come to realize they need the help of the Elementals of (Water, Land, Air, and Fire) in order to save both their worlds, and the adventure begins!

I've enjoyed this series, and recommend it to readers young and old, who love fast moving, clean fantasy!

My Book Cave Group Promotion: Warm Up Your Winter

The website, My Book Cave is doing a group promotion for several of my friends' books, and I was lucky enough to get my book, Felicity~ A Sparrow's Tale,included in the group! All the ebooks are free for a limited time, so hurry and check them out, and get a free copy! I haven't read them all, but I have read Loyalty's Web by Joyce DiPastena, Lay Me Down by Tamara Hart Heiner, and House Without Lies by Rachel Branton, and those three books are pretty good! Loyalty's Web takes place in medieval times, Lay Me Town is a sad/happy YA, and House Without Lies is a contemporary story about a young woman trying to help teen girls escape abuse.  Here is a link to these books, and others: https://mybookcave.com/g/c40b3f90/  Happy Reading!