Kelly Hashway's Blog, page 90

Friday Feature: The Binding Stone by Lisa Gail Green

Summary:
Tricked into slavery by the man she loved, the Djinni Leela has an eternity to regret her choices.

Awakened in the prison of her adolescent body, she finds a new master in possession of the opal that binds her. But seventeen-year-old Jered is unlike any she’s seen. His kindness makes Leela yearn to trust again, to allow herself a glimmer of hope.

Could Jered be strong enough to free her from the curse of the Binding Stone?

My thoughts:
What I really enjoyed about this book was the way the past (showing the events that led up to Leela being bound to the binding stone) and the present were merged. The chapters showing Leela's past were short and placed throughout the book where the reader needs to see them. It was perfect because there was no info dumping at all. The readers see everything happen and instead of two separate tales, one of the past and one of the present, the two became one. I really loved how Green accomplished that.

Leela is a great character. She's full emotion even if the binding stone doesn't permit her to act on those emotions. She has no choice but to follow the orders given to her by her master. Jered isn't like other masters Leela has had. He thinks of others and doesn't ask to be rich or even for things for selfish gain. Leela can't help caring about him, even if falling in love was what led to her curse to begin with.

There are some great twists in this story, and it's a very fast read. If you enjoy stories of magic and love (There are some really swoon-worthy scenes in this book!) then be sure to check this out. The Kindle edition is only $.99!

Just for fun: If you had a Djinni, what would you wish for?

Writer Wednesday: The Line Between Horror and Urban Fantasy

Today, I'm turning my blog over to Gail Martin, a fellow Broad Universe member, and she's got a great post about the line between horror and urban fantasy. So, take it away, Gail!


Where's the line between horror and urban fantasy?

by Gail Z. Martin


I read a lot of urban fantasy, and I'll have my own urban fantasy series coming out from Solaris Books in 2014, and I've been wondering: Where's the line between horror and urban fantasy?
I suspect it's been shifting around.  (And I'd love to hear your opinions, so please comment!)  After all, Laurell K. Hamilton started out shelved in horror, then became her own brand of urban fantasy, took a detour into erotica, and seems to have come back to something in between urban fantasy and suspense.  And yet, most of the usual tropes in urban fantasy were standard horror themes not too very long ago.
Remember when vampires were the bad guys?  They've made such a thorough transition to becoming the sexy love interest that I suspect they hired a Madison Avenue PR firm to do some reputation management.  Ditto werewolves and demons.  We've even seen the softer side of zombies and the soulful side (pun intended) of ghosts. 
I’m only partly kidding when I say that horror now seems to be focused on people as monsters, and urban fantasy seems to be focused on monsters as people.  I suspect there's some deep commentary on society today hidden in there, but I don't know what it is.
Here's where I see the divide between horror and urban fantasy--feel free to disagree.  In horror, whether the "monster" is human or some kind of creature, the monster has the upper hand for nearly the entire story.  There's a sense of helplessness that seems to be essential to horror, a creeping sense of inevitable death. Even though the main character in horror might find a way to survive and vanquish the big bad at the very end, he or she is less a hero than a survivor. 
In urban fantasy, whether you’re human, non-human, mortal or undead, it's the thought that counts.  In other words, do you intend to be the hero or the villain?  Urban fantasy looks beyond the stereotypes to create characters that retain their volition and morality regardless of whether they're alive, dead or something in between.  As I'm fond of saying, being dead doesn't automatically make you a bad person.  Urban fantasy also has a clear hero who emerges, and while things may get grim, the lack of control and helplessness that helps to create the atmosphere of a horror story is either absent or brief.  The main character is a hero, not just a survivor.
Everything's gotten grittier, but I'd also say that while urban fantasy can certainly have its share of blood and gore, it's less over-the-top than horror and exists to make a point instead of being its own point.  And finally, in urban fantasy, when the book ends there's the feeling of "we won!" as opposed to "we made it out alive."
That's my 2-cents, and I'd love to know your thoughts.  Thanks for reading.
Come check out all the free excerpts, book giveaways and other goodies that are part of my Days of the Dead blog tour!   Trick-or-Treat you way through more than 30 partner sites where you'll find brand new interviews, freebies and more--details at www.AscendantKingdoms.com.
Ice Forged will be a Kindle Daily Deal with a special one-day price of just $1.99 only on October 31!  Get it here: http://amzn.com/B008AS86QY
Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books.  My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.
About the author: Gail Z. Martin is the author of Ice Forged in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga and the upcoming Reign of Ash(Orbit Books, 2014), plus The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven & Dark Lady’s Chosen ) from Solaris Books and The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn  and The Dread) from Orbit Books.  In 2014, Gail launches a new urban fantasy novel, Deadly Curiosities, from Solaris Books. She is also the author of two series of ebook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.  Find her at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com.

Monday Mishmash 11/11/13

Happy Monday! Here's my mishmash of thoughts:
Back Up Your Files!!!  At the end of last week, I lost my new WIP that I was halfway through. The file corrupted and now a bunch of others are too. Apparently "Track Changes" can easily corrupt files, so BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!! Take it from me.Did You See #1? BACK UP YOUR FILES. I'm still crying when I think about having to rewrite that book.I Am Ashelyn Drake  If you missed my big announcement last week, it was that I'm writing NA and YA contemporary romance under the pen name Ashelyn Drake. You can "see" my confession here.Free Monthly Newsletter  My free monthly newsletter goes out later today. If you aren't signed up but would like to receive one, you can sign up here.Stolen Cover Reveal  I'm so excited to share the cover of Keren Hughes debut YA, Stolen. Check it out!
Roshanna O'Dare wakes up in her own home in shock when she discovers part of her memory is missing and her parents are dead…

With no clues of any kind as to what happened to her parents, and no other close family, Roshanna must move to Texas, Austin, to live with her last living relative, Uncle Joe after the funeral. But this means leaving her best friend, Marissa Mason behind.
That’s when she meets Bodhi Vincent, her uncle’s chauffeur, who seems to understand Roshanna in a way no one else has…
Bodhi is her rock after the death of her parents and the longer she stays with her uncle, the closer they become.
But before moving away, Roshanna was confronted with a shocking secret that Marissa had kept from her, a secret that changes how she sees life and the people in it—Marissa is a pure soul and her foster parents are soul drainers who need her pure energy to survive.
More shockingly, her parents’ souls were stolen by their murderer.
When Roshanna and Bodhi try and track down Marissa’s father, Leith Mason, in order to retrieve her parents’ souls back, they find themselves held hostage at gunpoint.
Will Roshanna and Bodhi survive? Will she ever find her parents souls? Or will their souls be the next ones to be taken?
Add it on Goodreads. And since Keren is awesome, she has a giveaway for you.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


That's it for me. What's on your mind today?

Monday Mishmash

Happy Monday! Here's my mishmash of thoughts:
Back Up Your Files!!!  At the end of last week, I lost my new WIP that I was halfway through. The file corrupted and now a bunch of others are too. Apparently "Track Changes" can easily corrupt files, so BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!! Take it from me.Did You See #1? BACK UP YOUR FILES. I'm still crying when I think about having to rewrite that book.I Am Ashelyn Drake  If you missed my big announcement last week, it was that I'm writing NA and YA contemporary romance under the pen name Ashelyn Drake. You can "see" my confession here.Free Monthly Newsletter  My free monthly newsletter goes out later today. If you aren't signed up but would like to receive one, you can sign up here.Stolen Cover Reveal  I'm so excited to share the cover of Keren Hughes debut YA, Stolen. Check it out!
Roshanna O'Dare wakes up in her own home in shock when she discovers part of her memory is missing and her parents are dead…

With no clues of any kind as to what happened to her parents, and no other close family, Roshanna must move to Texas, Austin, to live with her last living relative, Uncle Joe after the funeral. But this means leaving her best friend, Marissa Mason behind.
That’s when she meets Bodhi Vincent, her uncle’s chauffeur, who seems to understand Roshanna in a way no one else has…
Bodhi is her rock after the death of her parents and the longer she stays with her uncle, the closer they become.
But before moving away, Roshanna was confronted with a shocking secret that Marissa had kept from her, a secret that changes how she sees life and the people in it—Marissa is a pure soul and her foster parents are soul drainers who need her pure energy to survive.
More shockingly, her parents’ souls were stolen by their murderer.
When Roshanna and Bodhi try and track down Marissa’s father, Leith Mason, in order to retrieve her parents’ souls back, they find themselves held hostage at gunpoint.
Will Roshanna and Bodhi survive? Will she ever find her parents souls? Or will their souls be the next ones to be taken?
Add it on Goodreads. And since Keren is awesome, she has a giveaway for you.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


That's it for me. What's on your mind today?

Friday Feature: The Vanquished Knight by Misha Gericke

Since the death of her parents, Callan Blair has been shunted from one foster family to another, her dangerous secret forcing the move each time. Her latest foster family quickly ships her off to an exclusive boarding school in the Cumbrian countryside. While her foster-brother James makes it his mission to get Callan expelled, a nearby ancient castle holds the secret doorway to another land...
When Callan is forced through the doorway, she finds herself in the magical continent of Tardith, where she’s shocked to learn her schoolmates Gawain and Darrion are respected soldiers in service to the king of Nordaine, one of Tardith's realms. More than that, the two are potential heirs to the Black Knight—Nordaine's crown prince.
But when the Black Knight fails to return from a mysterious trip, the realm teeters on the brink of war. Darrion and Gawain set out to find him, while Callan discovers there is more to her family history than she thought. The elves are claiming she is their princess.
Now with Darrion growing ever more antagonistic and her friendship with Gawain blossoming, Callan must decide whether to stay in Nordaine—where her secret grows ever more threatening—or go to the elves and uncover the truth about her family before war sets the realms afire.
Today I have the very awesome Misha Gericke talking about: When is a good time to give up on a story? Take it away, Misha!
Is it when the story doesn’t live up to your expectations? Or when you just don’t feel your characters anymore? How about, if you have a newer, better idea? Or if you lost 90% of what you wrote in a computer crash and just don’t have the heart to start again?
Honestly, I think any of these can be valid reasons to stop working on a project. Writing is a deeply personal thing, so every writer has his/her reason why an idea can’t be taken to the end.
I don’t however, recommend that you throw your work away. Don’t give up on an idea. Just give it a rest. Even if the rest is indefinite, there’s still a difference from giving up. A small one, but vital.
Giving up is demoralizing. It says: “I can’t do this.” Resting a manuscript says: “I can’t do this right now.”
Often, problem stories aren’t bad. We just don’t have the skills to take them where they need to go. But those skills can and will be learned as you work on other projects.
If there’s a newer, better idea that makes your current one look like a pre-school project, rest it until you know how to make it better. I’m not saying you should flit from project to project willy nilly without getting anything done, though. But especially in the beginning of your writing journey, you’ll learn things that’ll help you create better, more solid ideas. If it feels like the first idea is seriously inferior to the second, distance from the first might actually be a good idea.
The same with emotional reasons. Some books take too much out of us. Or we’ve moved on before we could finish the story. Anything like that. It’s not wrong to put the book aside.
Just don’t ever throw a story away. Maybe you’ll get back to it. Or maybe there’s a core idea in there that you’ll need for another story. It happens!
Mark Twain wanted to write a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. After working on it for some time, he realized the story simply wasn’t coming together right. He shelved it. For years. One day, though, he realized that Huck Finn had something important to say, so he started again. The result was The Adventurs of Huckleberry Finn, a book that’s widely regarded as the great American Novel.
Maybe your shelved book is next.
Have you ever shelved a book, only to come back to it once you figured out how to make it better? Or when you realized you wanted to write it after all?

BioM. Gerrick (AKA Misha Gericke) has basically created stories since before she could write. Many of those stories grew up with her and can be seen in her current projects.She lives close to Cape Town, with a view over False Bay and Table Mountain.
If you’d like to contact her, feel free to mail her at warofsixcrowns(AT)gmail(DOT)com, Circle her on Google Plus or follow her on Twitter. If you'd like to see her writer-side (beware, it's pretty insane), please feel free to check out her blog. You can also add The Vanished Knight on Goodreads.
Links: AmazonAmazon UKBarnes & NobleKoboAll Romance ReadsAmazon FranceAmazon Germany

Writer Wednesday: A Big Announcement

I've been talking about this announcement for a little while now, and I honestly feel the only way to make it is "in person". I understand anyone viewing this at work (I'm smiling at those of you who I know read my blog at work.) won't be able to see this until you go home, and I apologize for that. But I have to do this as close to in person as I can get.

So here's my big announcement, which is actually a confession.

Monday Mishmash 11/4/13

Happy Monday! Here's my mishmash of thoughts:
Big Announcement Coming Wednesday!  I have an announcement I've been dying to make, and I will in two days! Check back on Wednesday.Editing  Fall has been a busy editing season for me, and I couldn't be happier about it. I have such amazing writers for clients.Reading Three Books at Once  I'm trying to keep up with the books I need to review, so I'm reading three books right now. lol Laffy Taffy  Why is this stuff so good? I can't stop eating the leftover Laffy Taffy from Halloween.Touch of Death Series Trailer  The Touch of Death series now has a trailer! It was revealed on Friday, but for anyone who missed it, here it is!
That's it for me. What's on your mind today?

Friday Feature: Extracted Blog Tour

I couldn't be happier to be part of the Extracted blog tour because I can tell you that Tyler Jolley and Sherry Ficklin are truly awesome people. And to prove their awesomeness, they have put together a video for you today of all the outtakes from their blog tour vlogs.

So, here it is:





Welcome to the war. The Tesla Institute is a premier academy that trains young time travelers called Rifters. Created by Nicola Tesla, the Institute seeks special individuals who can help preserve the time stream against those who try to alter it. The Hollows is a rogue band of Rifters who tear through time with little care for the consequences. Armed with their own group of lost teens--their only desire to find Tesla and put an end to his corruption of the time stream. Torn between them are Lex and Ember, two Rifters with no memories of their life before joining the time war. When Lex's girlfriend dies during a mission, the only way he can save her is to retrieve the Dox, a piece of tech which allows Rifters to re-enter their own timeline without collapsing the time stream. But the Dox is hidden deep within the Telsa Institute, which means Lex must go into the enemy camp. It's there he meets Ember, and the past that was stolen from them both comes flooding back. Now armed with the truth of who they are, Lex and Ember must work together to save the future before the battle for time destroys them both again.

Tyler H. Jolley is a sci-fi/fantasy author and full-time orthodontist, periodontist (see: Overachiever). He divides his spare time between writing, reading, mountain biking, and camping with his family. Sherry D. Ficklin is a full-time writer and internet radio show host with more mouth then good sense. She has a serious book addiction, but continually refuses treatment, much to her husband’s chagrin. Tyler and Sherry met one fateful day and bonded over their love for books, science fiction, and donuts. Their first co-written novel came shortly after. Now, they still do all those other things, but also go to various steampunk conventions and events under the guise of ‘research’. They can often be found lurking on the Lost Imperials Facebook page or over on the official website, www.thelostimperials.com.

And because Tyler and Sherry are so amazing, they have a giveaway for you too!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Writer Wednesday: Zombie Blogfest

Here's how it works:Post about your favorite zombie movie, zombie book, zombie TV series, or share some cool zombie pics. As long as it's zombies, you're good. 
What's in it for you?
How about a FREE story. Plus, US residents can also be entered for a chance to win some zombie limb candy and a signed copy of Touch of Death. (Sorry but international mailing is expensive and mailing candy internationally isn't always allowed.)

Everyone will get a copy of my FREE short story prequel to the Touch of Death series, Curse of Death.


In fact, go grab it now by clicking here.
And if you want a chance to win a signed copy of Touch of Death and some zombie candy to satisfy your after Halloween sugar craving, simply fill out the rafflecopter form below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

And now here's a zombie scene from Stalked by Death:

Monday Mishmash 10/28/13

Happy Monday! Here's my mishmash of thoughts:

1. Cover Reveal for Nothing To Tell by Ashelyn Drake  Ashelyn Drake's final installment of the Campus Crush series releases October 29. This is actually a FREE prequel to the series. Here's the cover and blurb:

Some guys have the art of hooking up down to a science.

They know all the right words to say and all the right games to play.

Except...for guys like Mike Hannigan.

The dude has got no game, his pick-up lines never work, and to make matters worse, his wing-man is his female best friend, Mindy.

Until one day, a mysterious raven-haired beauty catches Mike's eye and he's determined to have her. He doesn't care what lengths he has to go to. He'll do whatever it takes to perfect his game and figure out what to say without sounding like a sleaze.

But...

There's always something strange about mysterious girls.They're usually mysterious for a reason and this girl in particular might be more than Mike bargained for.
Add it on Goodreads. And here's the trailer for the Campus Crush series: 
2. Editing October is always a busy editing month for me. Last week I got four client edits, two of which are full novels. Guess how I've been spending my days. ;) Have I mentioned I love my jobs?

3. Touch of Death Series SWAG  Spencer Hill Press sent me some amazing bookmarks for Curse of Death, my FREE Touch of Death companion short story. The back has all the covers for the series and a QR code to download Curse of Death.


4.  The Monster Within  The Monster Within is up for pre-order on Amazon. I'm so excited because I fell hard for Sam and Ethan when I wrote this book. If you want to pre-order it, you can do it here.

5. Zombie Blogfest  Beth Fred and I are hosting a zombie blogfest. Post about your favorite zombie movie, zombie book, zombie TV series, or share some cool zombie pics. As long as it's zombies, you're good. What's in it for you? How about a FREE story. Plus, US residents can also be entered for a chance to win some zombie limb candy and a signed copy of Touch of Death. (Sorry but international mailing is expensive and mailing candy internationally isn't always allowed.) Want to join us? Sign up in the Linky below.


That's it for me. What's on your mind today?