Alison DeLuca's Blog, page 21

Heart Search, by Carlie Cullen

My dear friend Carlie Cullen has published her first book, Heart Search.

I'm featuring an excerpt from it today:


I pulled onto the drive and glanced at the clock on the dashboard before switching off the engine. It was only 5:25pm – I’d made good time getting home for once. I grabbed my bag, climbed out of the car, locking it remotely as I walked to the front door and let myself into the house. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I knew something was not quite right, but couldn’t think what it could be. I walked into the kitchen, but it was exactly as I’d left it that morning – a mess. I wandered into the lounge and let my eyes drift slowly around the room, searching for anything amiss. I didn’t spot anything at first, but then I noticed the coffee table was out of place. I moved towards it meaning to put it back when I saw a letter addressed to me lying on the surface. I recognised Josh’s writing on the envelope and a chill shivered down my spine. I reached for it, my hand trembling. I picked it up and managed to extract the contents on the third attempt; I unfolded the sheets and began to read.
            My darling Remy,It’s hard for me to put into words how disgusted I am with myself right now. When I saw what I’d done to you, I felt so sick inside and I hate myself for it. I really don’t remember doing it, which makes it really weird and scary. I’m obviously not safe to be around, I’m a monster and I can’t risk hurting you like that again, so I have to go away. I don’t want to leave you, but there’s something wrong with me and I couldn’t bear it if I injured you again.
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Twitter Party - Millicent Marie Tour

Today is the day - the official launch of Millicent Marie is NOT my Name by Karen Pokras Toz! To kick things off you are invited to a Twitter Party. Join award winning children's author Karen Pokras Toz at 10 am, 11, am, and Noon EST and then again at 10 pm, 11 pm, and Midnight EST for 30 minutes of chatting, fun, and prizes.

The easiest way to join the conversation is with tweetchat.com Login with your Twitter account, then enter #MillicentMarie to join the room.

The Twitter Party is just the beginning of the fun. Karen will be on tour for the next 21 days. Check out the full schedule here.

Summary:
Twelve-year-old Millicent Marie does not like her name. After all, she was named for a woman who died more than fifty years ago and was not the most loveable member of the Harris family. Her friends call her Millie, but when she writes in her diary she refers to herself as Amanda – the name she always wished she had.

When Millie’s younger brother finds her diary on her computer, he decides to publish it as a blog for the entire world to see, including the boy Millie has a crush on. In the midst of all the mayhem, Millie/Amanda discovers she is suddenly Springside Elementary’s most sought after sixth-grade mystery gossip and advice columnist.

But not all is fun and games, as Millie quickly learns, once she realizes feelings are at stake. Nobody, least of all Millie, expects things to turn out as they do in this tale of friendship and respect.

Learn more & get your own copy (ebook and paperback):    
About Karen Pokras Toz:
Karen Pokras Toz is a writer, wife and mom. Karen grew up in Connecticut and currently lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband and three children. In June 2011, Karen published her first middle grade children’s novel for 7-12 year olds called Nate Rocks the World, which won First Place for Children’s Chapter Books and the Grand Prize Overall in the 2012 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards, as well as placing first for a Global E-Book Award for Pre-Teen Literature. In 2012, Karen published the second in the Nate Rocks series, Nate Rocks the Boat, followed by middle grade novel, Millicent Marie Is Not My Name. Karen is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI).

Follow the tour on Pinterestand don't forget to check out Millie's blog.

A Guilty Pleasure

It's been a bit dreary here, weatherwise, for the past few days. The sound of the wind and rain made me long for a mashed potato book, a book that would comfort my soul and whisk me away.

And so I started in on Friday's Child, a book by Georgette Heyer. I've written about her before, here. 

This was a doubly guilty pleasure because 1) the book is a frilly romance and 2) I was rereading it. Personally, I consider Georgette's books much more than frilly romance, since she had a complete grasp of the Napoleonic wars, 19th century farming, London society, smuggling, and Georgian fashion.

Be that as it may, I was tucked up in bed, giggling away at Hero Wantage and her escapades with Sherry, Gil, and Ferdy. After a particularly loud snort, my husband wandered in. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Reading," I replied.

"You already read that book," he pointed out.

"Rereading," I amended.

He shook his head. "I don't get how you can do that."

He's always on me about reading books more than once. We were at the beach, and he asked me, "Are you really reading that Janet Eerie again?" (Reader, it was Jane Eyre.)

Honestly, each time I've read Jane, I find something new. I loved this passage, which I had somehow missed before:
My favorite onscreen adaption.
"I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him. The present--the passing second of time--was all I had in which to control and restrain him: a movement of repulsion, flight, fear, would have sealed my doom,-- and his. But I was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe."

Now, Friday's Child is no Jane Eyre, but the novel was perfect for my mood. So I indulged in that guilty pleasure, a total time waste, a moment of zen, when I slipped away from the world of 2012, hand in hand with some every old companions.

Apples

My fruit eating habits are very seasonal. Oranges in the winter, cherries and peaches all summer, and now that  it's fall - it's apple time.

My favorite apples are Honey Crisps. I tried them for the first time last year and cursed all the years I had spent NOT eating these beauties. If I peel one and serve it with sliced cheese - a nice, sharp cheddar, for example - my husband will eat the entire plateful.

My least favorite apple is the Red Delicious variety. It is a beautiful apple to look at. The color is gorgeous, and I love the ones that have tiny "stars" all over them. There's one problem - someone forgot to put in any taste. Plus I always eat the skin on my apples, and the peel on Red Delicious tastes like exploded balloon to me. Except thicker and harder to chow down.
[image error] Gorgeous to look at, but - no thanks.
For pies, I prefer the hard types that aren't as sweet. Granny Smiths are an easy choice. I hear Pippins are good too, although I've never had one. (I dream of trying a Cox's Orange Pippin, which I hear are spectacular.)

I'm not above having a caramel apple if it's homemade, although I'm on a diet now so I suppose I can't do that. They are delicious in salads as well, green and chicken, and a pork roast isn't complete without some apples on the side, IMO.

My daughter has been bugging me to go apple picking for a while now, so today we are  going to venture out and give it a try. I see that it is cold and cloudy - a perfect fall day for picking apples. Afterwards some of us can have mulled cider and apple donuts. (Not  me - diet, etc.)

Did I mention that I love Bulmer's hard cider to wash down a hearty meal of roast chicken? Because I do.
Or with brown bread? Yup, that works too.
But my favorite way to have apples is the time-honored way - held in the hand, unpeeled, as I take a big, crunchy, juicy bite. There's nothing better than that.

Heart Search giveaway

Just in time for the release of Heart Search in the US and the UK,


a Rafflecopter giveawayCan't wait!

Spider!

Every year, around this time, the spiders come out of the woodwork or the webs, whatever it is. The babies hatch and scuttle around the steps and hidden corners. Momma arrives too, and as for Dad - I suppose he has already been eaten.

During my lifetime I have cultivated a tolerance of spiders. I know on some commonsense level that spiders are good things to have around. They destroy the bugs I seriously hate, such as mosquitos and ticks. 

Although, I did find a butterfly and a ladybug in one web the other day - not cool.

Still, last night, when the LARGEST, FASTEST SPIDER IN THE WORLD emerged from some dark spot and ran across my kitchen floor ... well, let's just say there may have been shrieks, and leaps, and bashings of brooms. 

I don't like it when they have what my mother used to describe as "muscles," see. A Daddy Long Legs is tolerable, but a tarantula? There are glutes involved there. No thank you oh so very much.

It all makes me think of an October morning, one year ago. I was out on the front lawn with the neighbors and my daughter, waiting for the bus. One of the kids pointed up and said, "Hey, cool Halloween decoration!"

I looked up and saw - now, I live in a tall house, and the thing was just under the roof - the living grandmother of all spiders ever born. This thing was huge. And it had a huge home. I'm talking handspan here.

Shall I bump it up another level? Brace yourselves - it also had and egg sac. Nay, TWO egg sacs.
You're still awesome, though, Charlotte.
Suddenly I received a vision: of hundreds of spiders just like that one, crawling all over the grounds. And in the house. 

Did I say crawling? Allow me to self-edit. They would have been pounding around. There would have been audible footsteps involved. 

So just maybe I cried, and perhaps I forced my husband up the long ladder to get Mrs. Arachnid and her young and fling them far, far away.

Yes, I can put up with spiders. I will capture most with a cup and a flat sheet of paper and release them out into the wild. However, I won't do that with the muscular ones that took steroids. No, sirree.

(BTW, I just read a fantastic blogpost from my friend, Johanna Garth, here. If you are a writer you can't miss this one.

Snow

Recently I did my first flash fiction for Lascaux Flash. It was a lot of fun, and I got to read some amazing stories. 

The cool thing with flash fiction is the constraints - you are given a tiny time period and, in this case, only 250 words to create a story. That is really hard to do. If you have an extra hour, why not give it a try? It is a great writing exercise, and you'll find that it is very challenging to create something that is so short and yet still tells a story.

We were given a visual prompt, which you can see here. I immediately thought of mirrors, and I had an idea knocking about in the back of my mind already. Once I saw the prompt, I couldn't wait to get started.

Here is my attempt, for what it is worth,and I must caution you that it is for the 18+ age group.


Snow

I felt Snow’s breath on my neck after class. “Prince is mine,” she breathed. “Watch your ass.” I turned to say something, but she was already in motion, followed by her fangirls. Or boys - it was hard to tell.
Apples. I had to research apples for a science project. Besides, the library would be a safe place. AC splintered on my cheeks as I sat at a table and opened a book.
Apple trees take five years to produce their first fruit.
Another breath on my neck, but it was warm and male. “Hey,” Prince said. I concentrated on the page in front of me as he sat in the chair across from me.
The science of apple-growing is called pomology.
His foot nudged mine. I closed my notebook. Prince looked up and started to say something. I ignored him.
There was a bathroom in the far corner of the library. The air was even colder in there. I entered the last stall, opened my purse, and took it out. The mirror.
Apples belong to the rose family.
The baggie was small and half-filled with a white powder. I cut out two lines, rolled up a twenty, and snorted.
My own face looked back at me, dusted with snow. “Get rid of her,” the girl in the mirror whispered.
The rush hit me, and I dropped the mirror on the floor. Dark blood streaked down my skin when the silver glass shattered. Red on white. Snow.

The Age of Miracles

I read Karen Thompson Walker's book, The Age of Miracles, while I was away on vacation last week. Once I started reading, it was really hard to stop. I love apocalyptic books, and this one is so grounded in reality - sixth grade reality - that it makes the horror of what is happening much more compelling. 

Julia is eleven, an age that is puts her between two worlds - childhood and adolescence. She worries about her friendships, longs after Seth, a boy at the bustop, and is tortured by a bully. These very real fears and longings are played against the backdrop of a world that has started to unwind. For some reason, Earth's rotation begins to slow down, so that nights gain thirty minutes and days last for forty hours. 

There are many reactions: some people are convinced that it is the end of the world and gather in religious sects, such as Julia's best friend, Hanna. Others insist on following "clock time" - getting up in the dark, sticking to a 24 hour schedule. Another sect wants to follow new time - staying in during the dark, waking at the strange new dawn. The two groups clash, as humans always seem to do, and one is driven off to the desert to live their new schedule.

The birds begin to die. Crops fail. The sun burns with a new intensity.

And Julia is changed by all of this, but her changing relationships matter more. Her parents begin to grow distant to each other. Hanna moves away with her family. And her proximity to Seth becomes more intense - in many different ways.
Image courtesy of Housatonic Museum of Art
Walker writes with a slow style that mirrors the new revolutions of the planet. Don't think that means that there is any lack of excitement, however. I was sucked in from the start, wanting to find out more about Seth and what would happen to Julia. 

She also continually surprised me, with new concepts and ways of describing unimaginable events. For example:

Later, I would come to think of those first days as the time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things; the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, West Nile and the swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different - unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

And, on the micro scale of the revolutions within Julia's emotions, Walker is just as powerful:

"It's not fair to your mom," he aid. "I hate things that aren't fair."
I nodded. "Me, too."
We said nothing else, but the secret buzzed between us. It felt good to have told. It felt good to be known by this boy. 

I loved the story on both levels: the story of a young girl, and the sci fi nature of the background. I highly recommend this book.

The Blah Cycle

Here's what happens: you are moving along, doing things the way they should be done (like blogging) when all of a sudden life demands that you not blog (or other stuff) for a while.

So, fine. Except, when you have to get back to it (or, as in this case, when I have to get back to it) you discover that you're in the Blah Cycle. 

Because, how do you come crawling back? How do you admit, "Yeah, I'm a loser. It's just as I thought - and all my past accomplishments have been washed away by a week of sins."

So you put it off for another day. Which only makes the Blah Cycle stronger and more vicious, do you see.

As I come crawling back to my blog, covered in sin and abject shame for not posting for over a week, I am trying to come up with ways to break the Blah Cycle:

1. I could remind myself that I owe my readers something much better and that I have to - HAVE TO - get out of the doldrums. That seems to make the Blah Cycle stronger, though.

2. I can hide all my other stuff to do, like laundry and dishes and reading one last post on Facebook.

3. I can promise myself wine or chocolate if I post today.

Hey! That one worked!

I'll be back tomorrow with a review of The Age of Miracles, a book I finished at 2 AM during Blah Cycle week. And do stick around - I have a HUGE giveaway planned for October and November. We're talking signed print copies and bling and Kindles.  Yupper!

Free steampunk bling will break the Blahs anyday.

A Hero’s Quest – THE LEGEND OF ANAISELooks closely… are y...

A Hero’s Quest – THE LEGEND OF ANAISE Looks closely… are you paying attention?  You usually hear these words at a magic show but, this isn’t a magic show… it’s a CONTEST! Yes that’s right, we have a contest to see how closely you pay attention when you read** The Legend of Anaise (below) from the recently released novel “She Wulf” by Sheryl Steines.


Enter at the rafflecopter link on the left of the blog.

Don’t forget to take a touraround the participating blogs to answer the all the questions – there are 5 questions so you will have numerous chances to participate and win! There are several prizes to be had – 1 random correct answer will win a signed copy of She Wulf; don’t worry if you don’t get it right. You still have a chance to win one of several other prizes just for trying!Prizes: ·       1 signed copy; winner selected amongst all correct entries·       3 eBooks; winners randomly selected from amongst ALL entries (correct or not)·       Gift Card $15; winners randomly selected from amongst ALL entries (correct or not)·       Annie and Cham Swag; winners randomly selected from amongst ALL
About the Author

Sheryl Steines is equal parts driven, passionate and inspired.  With a degree in English from Wright State University, Steines dedicates time everyday to her art.  Her love of books and a quality story drives her to share her talent with her readers as well as make the time to talk to book clubs and students about her process.
Sheryl has eclectic tastes and enjoys character driven novels.  In her own writing, the Annie Loves Cham series is driven by her love of the characters and her desire to place them in totally new situations. She enjoys testing their mettle.
Behind the wheel of her ’66 Mustang Convertible, Sheryl is a constant surprise. Her sense of humor and relatable style make her books something everyone can enjoy.
Sheryl can be found on Twitter, Facebook, or her blog. She also encourages her readers to email her and let her know what you think of Annie and Cham!