Kelly Cain's Blog, page 9
January 5, 2016
Bloggers for Altered Book Blitz
The following blogs/websites have signed up for the book blitz for ALTERED. Please make sure and head over to their sites and have a look around.
Thanks so much to everyone who is participating! (If you haven’t signed up yet, head over here and fill out the form).
Book Blitz for Altered
Calling all bloggers or anyone with a website who would like to participate in my Book Blitz for the launch of of my novel, ALTERED, on February 2, 2016. Your website doesn’t have to be book-related to participate.
If you sign up, I will email you the information you need to add to your site to schedule for 2/2/16, including HTML if you want to use it.
In exchange for your participation, I will promote you as a participant from my website and other social media.
For more about ALTERED, click here.
To see the book trailer for ALTERED, click here.
Thanks in advance for your help! Let’s get #ALTERED0202 trending!
PLEASE FILL IN THE SIGN-UP FORM BELOW
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Thank you for participating. I really appreciate it! Here’s the widget I’ll send you to post on your sidebar. I’ll have it on mine to connect to your site.
Altered by Kelly Cain (Book Review)
Wonderful and well thought out 4-star review for Altered!
4 of 5
I was given an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.
Liv is a very smart woman who realizes that her currently relationship is crumbling. She has to decide what she will do next In her life and if she needs to move forward in a new direction. She is very intriguing and yet slightly off putting (at first). Although she is older than Nicholas and very smart she sometimes shows her immaturity but that’s because she is just learning about herself. She is starting to realize what she wants and needs in her life. Nicholas is a young man who is very mysterious and intelligent. He is way ahead of his peers because he has past that drives him to succeed and strive to better himself. The main characters, Liv and Nicholas, are very realistic and believable. Their individual stories really add to the main plot…
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January 4, 2016
Interview with author Catherine Haustein
Cathy and I are published by the same press, Penner Publishing, although I do not know her as well as I do some of the other authors. I have read her debut historical fiction science novel, Natural Attraction (see my review), and I have had some interaction with her. I think she’s incredible. I follow her Twitter closely to keep up with all the quirky and interesting science stuff she posts as well as listened to a radio interview detailing the process of how Natural Attraction came about – it was fascinating. I’ll post links at the end so you can follow into her wondrously experimental world.
Background Info
Author name: Catherine Haustein
Book title: Natural Attraction
Tell us a little about yourself and your background: I’ve always enjoyed traveling through life in several directions as a mom, scientist, teacher, and author. I’m married and have two dogs, three kids, and seven grandkids. I like live theater, music, and walking. ( I don’t like to drive. ) I’m from Michigan but call the small Dutch town of Pella, Iowa home.
Tell us a little about your novel: Set in 1871, it’s about a young woman who wants to be a scientist so she takes a tonic that allows her to resemble a man. She goes on a prospecting expedition as their naturalist and falls in love with a preacher.
Have you written anything else (including novels, short stories, novellas, etc.): I’ve written numerous short stories. My most recent is in an anthology called The Female Complaint. I’m working on another novel and a novella right now. When my kids were teenagers and I felt really poor I wrote non-fiction for encyclopedias and companies. I’ve also written two lab manuals.
Q&A
How long did it take you to write your book: Two years.
Is there a specific time of day that you enjoy writing the most: I’m a morning person and fortunately my dog is too so I have someone to share it with. I like to write when I first wake up and then before bed.
Is there a supporting character in your book you’d love to write a story for: Yes, the Madame’s daughter Mae Peacock.
What’s an aspect of being a writer that you didn’t know about going in: How isolating it can be. I have an MFA so you think I’d know but working shopping stories and drinking with your writer friends isn’t the same as working alone on a novel.
Science based novels are usually set in the future. Why did you place yours in the past: I chose to set Natural Attraction in 1871 because it was a time of great social change. The theory of evolution and the discovery of sperm and egg cells were quietly ushering in ideas of social equality. I wanted to compare the past with today to show what has changed and what hasn’t for women.
What challenges do you see facing you as a writer: Getting romance readers to see science as something accessible to them and getting scientists to appreciate the craftsmanship found in a romance and the importance of fiction.
Do you have any pointers or advice for aspiring writers: I like duotrope.com for finding new markets.
Favorite song: Silver Lining by First Aid Kit
Favorite movie/tv show: The Lego Movie
Chosen superpower: Shape shifter
Toilet paper: over or under: Random
Real book or tablet: Real
Star Trek or Star Wars: Trek
Excerpt
During the six-day train ride, as the transforming hand of science moved over me, Oudwijf Gesternte, a retired teacher of classics on a trip to visit her sister in San Francisco, patted my hand and called me “sonderling,” which sounded close to the Dutch term for “odd.” On occasion, she whispered clove-scented advice on how to be a man.
“Don’t cross your ankles. Sit with your knees apart.”
“Keep your hands off your face unless it is to scratch something.”
“When thinking, put your hand to your chin, or place your elbow on your knee and rest your chin in your palm.”
“Look straight at a person when you address them. Casting your eyes down is for women.”
“Shake the hand of a man firmly. Kiss the hand of a woman.”
I wrote her advice in my sketchbook and studied it as the train rode on. Spookstad’s roll of water on sand and fog horn’s moan were superseded by the rhythmic strain of pistons in cylinders and the startling shriek of steam whistle. Until this time, I’d gone nowhere but Chicago by boat. The train didn’t reach Spookstad yet and our only visitors were lumberjacks rolling logs down the Zwart River. We were a place few could find and even fewer left.
I re-read The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection and studied my Field Guide to Order Rodentia, pouring over drawings, descriptions, and observations of connection and struggle between living things. When my ardor and choleric ambitions exhausted me, I slept in the steamy sway of the Pullman, traveling the path forged by General Dodge and his crew with nitroglycerin.
In a coal-fired haze, I questioned why I wanted to be a scientist at all. It began, I decided, when Granny and I turned over a pine log and found a salamander – simultaneously aquatic and earthy, a product of water and forest. I knew then the enticement of discovering hidden things and that every species has a story to tell filled with intimacy of different ilks. Among the salamander, the male will court but leave his spermatophore on the ground, letting the untouched female retrieve it. Some animals knew how to make things better for the females of the species.
I had good hands for sketching and a mind for numbers, both traits valuable to scientists. Science drew me towards it as a well-adapted mate. I didn’t take after my mother, a beautiful woman with a tiny waist, love of French fashion, a perfect passionless disposition, and a life that was pleasant, settled, but done. I feared such an early resolution to my own brief existence. A man such as Darwin, by example, wrote his incendiary book at age fifty and rumors are that he has more to come – a tome on sexual selection and human origin. A man over sixty barely getting his start! A scientific mind won’t fade as beauty does. The passing of time sharpens it and leads to greater boldness.
When the trip stretched across the prairie, I recalled the giddy feeling of getting my letter of selection informing me that I’d been chosen as the naturalist for the expedition. I craved the recognition that was withheld from women. If I stayed in Spookstad, my parents expected me to marry someone agreeable, my father’s bat-eared banker friend. That wasn’t happening, even though I had given my family false hope by sharing one dry kiss with him. After that, there was a wet kiss tasting of coffee with Lars the lumberjack at Lumberjack Days in the nearby town of Singapore. I’d spent just a moment in those strong arms and we whispered our names to each other before being spotted by my brother Todd, who pulled me away. For many months following he called me Swamper Sally, a swamper being a lumberjack who cuts branches off the felled trees. Having kissed two men, I had a reputation. I would be a scientist now and if I kissed at all, it would be with someone intelligent, bursting with vitality, a native, mysterious and deep. It would be kept secret from the town of Spookstad. Perhaps I wouldn’t go back at all to a place so small that family and Oudwijfs watched all. I’d be a man with status, a famous naturalist.
Author Bio
After a year of pursuing her graduate degree in chemistry at The University of Iowa, Catherine Haustein couldn’t get fiction writing out of her system. She was accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and enrolled in the MFA program there without telling her chemistry adviser. Thus her career as a writer of scientist characters was launched.
Most of her life has centered around science and raising a family. She barely wrote a word of fiction when her kids were teenagers. Her scientific research focuses on analytical chemistry and biologically active chemicals in plants. She’s written a lab manual where the toxic chemicals in classic labs have been replaced with non-toxic ones. (Yes, she also hugs trees.) She hopes to release a series of novels with scientific women as protagonists. She’s a professor at Central College where she teaches chemistry and short story writing.
Links
January 2, 2016
Giveaway on Goodreads
I’m giving away 5 signed copied of ALTERED through a Goodreads giveaway. It ends on January 16th, so head over there to enter. It’s quick and easy (and free) to enter – click below on Enter Giveaway.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Altered
by Kelly Cain
Giveaway ends January 16, 2016.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
A New Adult romance drawing on the author’s own experience studying law, the novel follows Liv, a young woman in her a first semester of law school. When her fiancé abruptly breaks things off, Liv is heart-broken.
Enter Nicholas, a classmate who is so withdrawn that he is an enigma to everyone around him. Nicholas is unusually young and unusually quiet, and keeps his past a tightly guarded secret.
While Liv is still reeling from her break up, Nicholas begins appearing in her life and coming to her rescue. Intrigued and grateful to this quiet young man, Liv becomes determined to unravel the mystery of who Nicholas is.
January 1, 2016
Author Hosting Requirements
If you’re an author and would like to be showcased on my site, there are a couple of options. I conduct author interviews, and participate in cover reveals and book blitzes.
Please fill in your request below.
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December 31, 2015
Altered is on the NetGalley review site
If you’re a blogger or reviewer, head over to #NetGalley at https://t.co/c6dWQPRc4u and add ALTERED to your shelf. Time is limited, so hurry over.
At first, I saw him as everyone else did.
But then, I saw him for who he really was.
Recognized the beauty beneath the pain.
Loved the quirks disguising the insecurity.
Embraced the man who hid behind the boy.
But there was so much more…
More I didn’t know.
And once I did, I couldn’t let
go…
Of the boy.
The man.
The lover…
…even if his past is threatening
our future.
Nothing will alter what we’ve built.
December 28, 2015
Giveaway – $25 gift ecard
Sign up for my newsletter and enter for a chance to win a $25 gift eCard from either Amazon or iTunes (your choice).
Sign up by Saturday, January 9, 2016. Click below to enter.
Giveaway on Goodreads
Beginning Saturday, 1/2/16, I’ll be starting a giveaway on Goodreads to win one of five signed copies of my debut New Adult novel, Altered. Check back Saturday for more details on how to enter.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Altered
by Kelly Cain
Giveaway ends January 16, 2016.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Interview with author Amanda Linsmeier
I’m excited to host another good author friend, Amanda Linsmeier. During her interview, I discovered we have way more in common than I originally thought. I’ve been guilty of calling her a girly girl (which she is), but we do share a love of cooking and apparently the same types of movies of television shows.
If you haven’t read her debut novel, Ditch Flowers, I highly recommend you picking it up immediately. See my review here – an enthusiastic 5-stars.
Background
Author name: Amanda Linsmeier
Book title: Ditch Flowers
Tell us a little about yourself and your background: I have always loved reading, but didn’t know I wanted to be a writer until I was about 22. I am a part-time stay-at-home mom, and also work part-time at my local library. I write in several genres, and hope to get a literary agent for my MG fairy tale next.
Tell us a little about your novel: Ditch Flowers tells the story of one woman’s quest to find out the truth about her husband’s fidelity, while at the same time struggling with the very raw experience of infertility.
Have you written anything else (including novels, short stories, novellas, etc.): Yes, I have written, and had published online, a few short stories, as well as a creative non-fiction piece, and a poem. But I have lots more things that haven’t been published (yet)! I am querying a MG fairy tale, as mentioned above, and editing a witchy women’s fiction. I also have a short story collection that is in need of polishing, but soon will be ready to query or self-publish. I haven’t quite decided yet.
Q&A
Do you have any writing rituals: I have so little free time at the moment that I am less picky about that than I used to be. Honestly, if I get thirty minutes to write I will do it anywhere, any way. But if I have a chunk of time carved out, I like to write with a (semi) clean house so there’s no distraction, music on low, a big iced coffee, and that’s when I really get my writing groove on.
If you were abandoned on a desert island, which character from your book would you want to be trapped with: Probably Megan. She is sweet, and fun, and she wouldn’t worry too much. We could chat about our kids to make the time go faster.
I tend to put a lot of cooking in my books because I love to cook, do you have a hobby that made it into yours: Decorating, for sure. But I also snuck some foodie stuff in. I LOVE food writing (and you do a great job in Altered!) so I hope to write a baking-themed novel someday.
If you were writing a book about yourself, what would the title be: Oh, that’s a tough one. I would need a lot more time to think of that, haha.
What are the big themes in your book: I think resilience, communication, forgiveness are all big themes. I also think acceptance is a key theme.
Favorite book: Beauty by Robin McKinley
Favorite author: J.K. Rowling, or Carolyn Turgeon
Do you have any pointers or advice for aspiring writers: Keep going. Discover who you are as a writer, and push yourself even harder. Never stop growing.
Favorite song: Right now, I am in love with Alessia Cara’s song Overdose. Actually, I adore her whole album.
Favorite movie/tv show: Too many! Somethings Gotta Give, Lost in Austen, and Easy A are all favs. TV show, I will forever and always love Friends.
Chosen superpower: Teleportation?
Toilet paper: over or under: Under
Real book or tablet: Both
Star Trek or Star Wars: Star Wars
Excerpt
By the middle of July, Wisconsin brings a kind of quick heat I wasn’t expecting since moving from the south. Temperatures soar into the mid-nineties and the close of each day brings hot, heavy rain and thunder and heat lightning. Mosquitoes swarm in the moist areas of shadows. But the sky is still blue every day and the grass is green, green, like Kermit the Frog. Greg leaves for his standard three-mile run and I use the time to flip through a paint sample deck sitting in front of a fan. The old house doesn’t have central air, something I am somehow surprised to learn is needed in Wisconsin.
I have cold water waiting when Greg returns. Sweat has gathered on my upper lip and I’m not surprised to see him bathed in perspiration.
“You sure you should be out there in this weather?” I frown. I always hated when he ran in the Louisiana burning heat. But at least there he came home to air-conditioning. It somehow seems more civilized that way.
“Love it.” He smiles, his hair damp along the hairline. “The run is a beast but after, I feel damn good. And when I don’t do it, you know I feel shitty.”
He guzzles the glass of water and then points to the entry table.
“I picked you some flowers.”
“Oh?” I get up and walk past him. On the table, I see a large bundle of wild flowers, even weeds and grasses, large and bountiful enough to fill my arms.
“Oh, Greg,” I say. “Where’d they come from?”
“The ditches along the far road I run are filled with them. I know they’re not roses or anything real pretty but I thought you’d like them.”
“They’re better than roses,” I defend his gift and the weeds’ existence. “They couldn’t be any better. Thank you.”
I kiss his salty lips and gather the flowers in my arms. The scents reach my nose: tangy, grassy, sweet, and spicy. I carry them to the kitchen and using a kitchen shears, I cut down each straggly stem and arrange them just so. I recognize Queen Anne’s Lace in its dainty patterns. I see many others I don’t recognize: some kind of spiky, light purple flower, a deeper purple, a mustard-yellow with a brown center, maybe some kind of daisy? There’s even a delicate grass with a light greenish brown top, almost like a feather. I put one vase on the living room coffee table and carry one up to our room, so we can fall asleep with the scent of summer in the air.
Author Bio
Amanda Linsmeier’s work has appeared on Brain, Child Magazine, WOW! Women on Writing, and Portage Magazine. She works part-time at her local library and brings home more books than she has time to read. Amanda lives in the countryside with her husband and children, two dogs, and half-wild cat. Ditch Flowers is her first novel.
Links
