Majanka Verstraete's Blog, page 15
August 22, 2019
Release Blitz Highway to Hell
About the Book
Title: Highway to Hell
Author: Lydia Anne Stevens
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Death. Reapers. Atonement.
Catriona Clarke is a mercenary demon leading a gang of reapers and working with Lucifer to atone for her sins. The Hellcats’ mission is to collect the marked souls of the damned and bring them to Hell once they perish. When Catriona returns from collecting a soul, she discovers the rival gang of demons, the Hellhounds, have marked her ex-boyfriend.
Conflicted about going to reap Zeke’s soul, she reluctantly goes to collect. In a whirlwind of chaos, Catriona discovers that the son of Satan, Damien, has mistakenly marked the innocent and pure soul of Zeke’s twin brother, Lowell. Her gut instinct tells her to stand up against Lucifer and the demons of Hell, but in doing so, she will lose everything she’s worked hard for.
Is her ex-boyfriend’s brother worth the trouble?
Readers of Patricia Briggs, Darynda Jones, and Kevin Hearne will devour this Hellishly fantastic series.
Author Bio
Lydia Stevens is a full-time author and freelance writer having written over 75 novels for clients – with two series having become Amazon Bestsellers. She is an active member of the Maine Romance Writers Association, The Horror Writers of Maine, The Fantasy Writers of Maine, The Maine Women Authors, The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Sigma Alpha Pi’s, National Society of Leadership and Success, and Sigma Tau Delta’s, International English Honor Society. Lydia graduated from the University of Southern New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English on May 12th, of 2018 and she graduated with a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and English on May 11th, 2019.
She’s the author of a paranormal/humor trilogy, The Ginger Davenport Escapades and is contracted with a second trilogy, The Fire Series with LM Vintage Publishers. The first book, Phoenix Fire, is slated to be released in 2019. Lydia currently works as an internist in the second semester within a literary agency and plans to pursue future endeavors within this line of work, as well as a PhD in Creative Writing. Her creative writing research proposal is under review at Lancaster University in Lancaster, England.
Lydia lives in Maine where she enjoys living life with an active eight-year-old and a black cat, Sirius Black, who is equally competitive for her attention. In her spare time, Lydia loves knitting, reading, coaching soccer, completing fantasy-themed jigsaw puzzles for inspiration, traveling and having a laugh with her best friends.
Links
Buy Highway to Hell
Author Links:
August 13, 2019
Cover Reveal: The Wolf of the Baskervilles
Today is the big day… The cover reveal for The Wolf of the Baskervilles, the third book in The Adventures of Marisol Holmes series!
Without further ado…
I hope you like it! I for one LOVE it.
And here’s the blurb in case you haven’t read it yet:
Who is Marisol Holmes?
She’s a teenager.
Detective.
Jaguar shifter.
And don’t forget, she’s also the descendant of the great Sherlock Holmes.
Our heroine had been in some pretty tight spots before, but now? She’s about to face her biggest challenge yet: a powerful shifter with a taste for blood. No one has faced down the deadly wolf of the Baskervilles and lived to tell the tale.
Even so, Marisol Holmes plans to do just that.
Purchase Links:
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play
August 6, 2019
Author Interview The Fire God Tour
I’m interviewing Michele Sims today, author of contemporary romance “The Fire God Tour”. Welcome to my blog!
Author Interview
1) What inspired you to start a writing career?
I have always been a reader and having a little more time after I retired prompted me to start writing
2) Is your book a stand-alone, or is it part of a series?
The book The Fire God Tour is a part of the Moore Family Saga but, it can be read as a stand-alone novel
3) How does your book stand out from others?
The Fire God tour is book three in the Moore Family Saga that stands out because it’s about a multigenerational, multicultural family that celebrates unconditional love and self-acceptance when life is always about dealing with the conditions of joy, grief and pain. It’s steamy, a great romantic suspense and it has elements of fantasy
4) Are any of your characters based on real people?
No one in particular but a mosaic of different folks
5) Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Know the genre you want to write, read it and connect with other authors in the genre.
About the Book
Title: The Fire God Tour
Author: Michele Sims
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Suspense
Miles Moore is obsessed with fire. He can’t help it—it’s in his genes. He’s also the famous performer Ari, an international hip-hop sensation. There are some negatives that come with fame—death threats and life on the road among them—but there’s also a lot of good: fast cars, fast women, international travel, and more money than he can handle. When Bella Wahlberg joins his team as the chief of marketing, she seems like the antithesis of what he’s looking for, so much so that Miles dubs her Belsa the Ice Queen. It would be unprofessional for them to get together, but more than that, she’s unavailable—and deathly afraid of fire. But as they prepare for The Fire God Tour, Miles can tell something is changing. Is he ready to commit himself to one woman? Can fire and ice come together?
Author Bio
Michele Sims is the creator of the Moore Family Saga and the Fire God Series. She loves writing hot love stories and women’s fiction with multidimensional characters in multigenerational families. She is the recipient of the 2018 RSJ Aspiring Author Award and first runner up in the Introvert Press Poetry Contest for February 2018. She is a member of the LRWA, in Charleston, SC and the From The Heart Romance Writers’ online group.
She lives in South Carolina with her husband who has been her soulmate and greatest cheerleader. She is the proud mother of two adult sons and the auntie to many loved ones. When she’s not writing, she’s trying to remember the importance of exercise, travelling, listening to different genres of music, and observing the wonders of life on this marvelous planet.
Links
Email: michelesims2122@gmail.com
Purchase Act I. Seed on Fire and Act II. Playing with Fire.
August 3, 2019
Upcoming Releases Schedule
To keep track of my upcoming releases (since there are so many!), below is a list of my recent and upcoming releases.
July 19, 2019 – Release of Murder in Mind
YA Mystery, YA Dystopian
August 1, 2019 – Release of Kingdom of Mirrors & Roses box set
Includes my story A Monstrous Beauty (Part One)
YA Fantasy, YA Fairytale Retelling
September 30, 2019 – Release of Alchemy Academy box set
Includes my story – still to be titled.
YA Reverse Harem, YA Fantasy, YA Paranormal Romance, YA Academy
October 8, 2019 – Release of Playing with Fire box set
Includes my story Wicked Blood (Blood Witch Series #1)
YA Paranormal Romance, YA Fantasy
October 15, 2019 – Release of Kingdom of Thorns and Dreams box set
Includes my story – still to be titled (Sleeping Beauty retelling)
YA Fantasy, YA Fairytale Retelling
October 28, 2019 – Release of Symphony of the Departed (Allegro Academy Book One)
The first book in my Allegro Academy series
YA Fantasy, YA Paranormal Mystery, YA Paranormal
November 12, 2019 – Release of The Wolf of the Baskervilles (The Adventures of Marisol Holmes #3)
The third book in my The Adventures of Marisol Holmes series
YA Paranormal Mystery, YA Paranormal, YA Shifters, YA Fantasy
November 12, 2019 – Release of Magic Academy box set
Includes my RH academy story – still to be titled.
YA Reverse Harem, YA Fantasy, YA Paranormal Romance, YA Academy
December, 2019 – Release of Kingdom of Villains and Vengeance box set
Includes my fairytale retelling for the Queen of Hearts (Dark Set)
YA Fantasy, YA Fairytale Retelling
December, 2019 – Release of Kingdom of Crowns and Glory box set
Includes my fairytale retelling for Alice in Wonderland (Light Set)
YA Fantasy, YA Fairytale Retelling
May 20, 2020 – Release of Princess for a Day anthology
Includes my story – still to be titled.
Monthly Goals August 2019
I forgot to write down my monthly goals for July, but I did actually manage to do quite a bit in July and finish some of my larger goals. For August, I want to stick to a rather strict writing regime and tackle some projects that have been on the backburner for a while.
Here are my goals for August:
Promote the Kingdom of Mirrors and Roses box set that I’m part of with my Beauty and the Beast retelling, A Monstrous Beauty – Part One.
Finish writing Part Two of A Monstrous Beauty (since I only signed up for the box set beginning of July, and release date was August 1, I only managed to include Part One of the story in the box set. Part Two will be released seperately but I don’t want to let readers wait too long.
Finalize cover for A Monstrous Beauty .
Set up a page on my website for my fairytale retellings (since more are coming!).
Send out my monthly newsletter.
Format and prepare paperback version of A Monstrous Beauty .
Finish writing the manuscript for The Wolf of the Baskervilles (The Adventures of Marisol Holmes #3) .
Work on a schedule for upcoming releases (since I have a lot of releases coming up, and most of these I still have to write and/or edit).
First round of editing for The Wolf of the Baskervilles (The Adventures of Marisol Holmes #3).
Write at least two blog posts per week on my blog.
Review five books for I Heart Reading (total: 0/5).
Review three books for Ind’Tale Magazine (total: 0/3).
Update information about my books on forums I’m participating in, on my website and on Goodreads.
Set up a page on my website for Murder in Mind series.
Work on an outline for the first book in my RH academy series.
Finish first draft for the first book in my RH academy series (still untitled).
Finish outlining the Sleeping Beauty retelling I’m working on for the Kingdom of Thorns and Dreams box set.
Write an outline for Wonderland Wars .
Finalize outline for Wicked Blood , the first book in the Blood Witch series.
Work on the non-fiction paper I’m planning (writing stage).
Work on the non-fiction paper I’m planning (editing stage).
I know, it’s a lot! But I’ll happy if I manage to tackle over half of this goals, and progress is progress. Having hard deadlines helps me out a lot, though, as it means I have to focus.
What are your goals for this month?
July 31, 2019
New Box Set Release: Kingdom of Mirrors and Roses
I’m participating in the box set for Kingdom of Mirrors and Roses, a collection of Beauty and the Beast retellings, which releases today!
You can buy the box set here and we have a launch party going on over on Facebook. Come join in the fun!
Plus, the box set is only $4.44 at the moment, and this for more than 1600 pages of reading fun and a story by yours truly!
My story is called A Monstrous Beauty, and it’s Beauty and the Beast like you never even dared to imagine it: a steampunk Belle with a mechanical arm fighting off zombies using her skills with a self-invented crossbow and her magic as a Sorceress to do so.
Here is the book blurb for the box set:
Beauty and the Beast, but not how you remember it…
Deep in the forest, a castle hides. No one knows who lives there, but rumors of a beast keep people away.
Cloaked in shadows, hidden from view, a prince destroyed by a curse shuts himself away from the world, ashamed of the beast he’s become.
And in the village, a beautiful girl with her nose in a book yearns for something more.
True love is the only thing that can break his curse. True love is the one thing she’s looking for, but how can they find true love when neither knows the other exists?
Find out if love really can defy all odds in this set of thirteen captivating retellings of the classic fairytale, filled with love, hope and the strength of two people willing to do whatever it takes…
One click now for your happily ever after.
Other books in the Kingdom of series…
Kingdom of Glass and Ashes (Cinderella retellings)
Kingdom of Salt and Sirens (Little Mermaid retellings)
Kingdom of Sand and Wishes (Aladdin retellings)
Kingdom of Mirrors and Roses (Beauty and the Beast retellings)
Kingdom of Thorns and Dreams (Sleeping Beauty retellings) coming soon
July 22, 2019
Wicked Blood is up on Wattpad
The first two chapters of my upcoming book Wicked Blood, exclusively available in the Playing with Fire boxed set, are now available on Wattpad! If you enjoy witches, vampires and forbidden romance, then this book is for you.
As I haven’t shared the cover yet, this also counts as the cover reveal. So tada, here is the cover, hope you like it! I certainly LOVE it.
You can read the first chapters of Wicked Blood for free on Wattpad.
And if you want to read more, preorder the boxed set on Amazon.
July 21, 2019
Author Interview with Clemency Crow
Today I’m interviewing Clemency Crow, author of middle grade adventure “Taking Wing”. Thanks for visiting!
1) What inspired you to start a writing career?
I’ve always loved writing, but I never considered putting my work out there until two years ago. My sister, Virginia, published her first book. It was a HUGE event, filled with fun, and I started thinking “hmmm, I wonder if my stories have anything to offer.”
Two years later and Taking Wing has been received by its target audience with heart-warming praise and enthusiasm, so I am very grateful to everyone who encouraged my along the way.
My writing has progressed from a 7 year old’s tale about mammoths into a 26 year old’s adventure story about birds. Still keeping along the animal-y theme, I think it’s fair to say that I find nature an inspiration too!
2) Is your book a stand-alone, or is it part of a series?
“Taking Wing” is the first book in a trilogy which follows the same main characters – the goodies and the baddies! Although the overarching storyline follows through the series, all three books have their individual plot. This gives each book a satisfactory ending, while encouraging you to read more. In “Taking Wing”, the characters are desperately trying to win peace after a centuries-long war. They achieve this in the end, but at an unfortunate cost.
3) How does your book stand out from others?
My aim for this book was to get children thinking in grey, instead of black and white. It’s aimed towards 10-13 year olds and is a transition from middle grade to young adult literature.
Taking Wing challenges people’s perceptions of birds and nature. Ravens, instead of being ruthless pets of evil witches, are highly intelligent and sensitive creatures. Owls, rather than being cute sidekicks for goodies, are cat-like killers. This approach was inspired by Cressida Cowell’s ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ series, which also encourages children not to tar everything with the same brush.
Taking Wing also has a darker side to it – a gritty get-your-teeth-into adventure that has you holding your breath when you don’t even realise. Kids love this, and adults will also enjoy the twisty-turny plot.
4) Are any of your characters based on real people?
In the year 617 AD, Raedwald killed Aethelfrith. At least, so it says in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. I’ve no idea what either of these Anglo-Saxon kings were like but they are the only two in my story who were real people. Of course, it’s so long ago, I hope they don’t mind what I’ve turned them into!
The other characters are a mixture of my imagination and people I’ve met before. Freya, for example, is a mixture between myself, my sisters and the children in my first class. This method of character planning creates a multi-faceted, wonderfully complicated individual that seems so real. On the surface, she is the least complicated of them all, but it soon becomes apparent that this is not the case.
5) Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Seriously consider going the Indie way, if you have enough time and funds to promote yourself.
While I have occasionally entered writing competitions, I have never submitted my work to a publisher or agent. The only reason for this is because I wanted most of the creative freedom. I didn’t want to conform to what the publisher wanted, although I was happy to accept advice from my editor, which leads me onto my next point…
Find a really…I mean, really… mean editor.
“What?” I hear you say.
The meaner your editor, the better. They are going to be one of the first people to read your book. Whatever they say will probably be echoed in the public’s opinion of your work. You really want your editor to give their honest feedback and opinion on everything. The alternative is to leave yourself open to heaps of abuse from book reviewers.
Lastly, keep writing, and always remember why you want to be an author.
About the Book
Title: Taking Wings
Author: Clemency Crow
Genre: Middle Grade Adventure
12-year-old Freya enjoys karate and is the only one in her class who’s trusted with a part-time job. But everything changes when she meets a boy with yellow eyes. She learns about the guardians, and how an age-old fight has stopped them from fulfilling their purpose. Freya finds new friends in the crow tribe but not everything in the castle is blissful. A destructive shadow lies within her and all she needs to do to summon it is close her eyes. But as the guardian’s war rages on, Freya realises that, although the shadow’s power can be useful, it can’t create peace. Freya and her friends must solve the crime that began the war, but can they bring the guardians together before they destroy each other?
Author Bio
I can’t remember when I wrote my first story. We had a word processor when I was very little. It was an archaic piece of technology with no mouse, which meant you had to know the codes for it to work. My sister, Judith, and I wrote several stories using this. I think one of my stories was about a mammoth, probably during my I-want-to-be-a-mammoth-when-I-grow-up stage.
When I was a bit older, during Year 3 at Primary School, another sister brought home several A5 grey jotters and gave one to Ginny and Judith to plan and write their stories in. Naturally, I wanted a notebook too, so I said I was writing a story called “The Rule of the Unicorns”. I never finished that rather peculiar tale, but it meant I got one of those A5 grey jotters!
A good few years down the line and I’m a Primary Teacher in the tip-top north of Scotland. To encourage a love of reading in my pupils, I write a story with them in for their Christmas present. The first thing they do is flick through and try and find their name – but I hope they enjoy the story too!
When I’m not teaching, I love writing, working on my allotment and I’m crazy enough to be doing a Science degree at the same time.
Links
July 13, 2019
Pre-order Murder in Mind
Only six more days until the release of my newest book, “Murder in Mind”, the first book in a new YA Dystopian series.
Preorder your copy now from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ShUZDJ
Since witnessing the grisly murder of her parents in 2096, sixteen-year-old Rey has been locked up in a psych ward. Society measures psychological markers to predict violent criminal behavior, and with psych-levels well over 100, she is a danger to the public. In a world with cameras and drones around every corner, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to get away with murder, but the person who slaughtered her parents did.
Rey has spent the last ten years immersed in the self-study of criminology, obsessed with finding the monster who changed her life forever. She’s learned to live with the fact her psych-levels will most likely never go down, and her chances of seeing daylight again are slim.
But then her sister Leiah shows up with news that another couple has been murdered in the same way as their parents, leaving behind another young victim. Leiah and her team of police request Rey’s help to solve the murder, catch the predator, and bring justice to this family and their own.
The answers are buried inside Rey’s mind, but to find the truth, she’ll be forced to remember the night that changed her life forever. And if she believes what society wants her to, then she’s only a small step away from becoming a monster herself.
June 20, 2019
Book Tours: Author Interview After Gardens
1) What inspired you to start a writing career?
I’ve always been convinced that I had something to say. Maybe a little too convinced! That’s what’s led me to write about all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. A lot of people say that they started writing after reading a book that made them sure they could do better. That’s almost never happened to me. Instead, I feel like I want to be part of the conversation all those books are having with each other.
Even though I’ve been writing stories since I was seven years old, I didn’t really understand that writing was a career, properly, until my late twenties. It took several more years for me to build up enough knowledge and experience to leap into doing it full-time.
2) Is your book a stand-alone, or is it part of a series?
It’s a stand-alone, just a single story. It comes from a time when I was much more devoted to fiction stories than I am now, and particularly to fiction stories longer than the standard 5,000 words but shorter than novellas. About the same time as I wrote “After Gardens,” I wrote another story of the same length with a very different topic: a woman who fakes having a sick daughter to drum up sympathy from the internet. Kind of like The Act, except in my story the daughter doesn’t even exist.
But for “After Gardens,” I wanted to tell a really quiet story, something where the characters’ changes were internal and not terribly dramatic.
3) How does your book stand out from others?
I found out in trying to place this story that most women’s fiction is in novel form. Because I’d only written 8,000 words, instead of 80,000, and because the story’s language was more approachable than in the usual literary short story, I had a really tough time finding a home for it. (Thank you, Wild Rose Press!) So I think it stands out for being as short as it is in a genre that’s typically much longer.
Also, I don’t think there’s a lot of fiction out there that talks about how women feel about their bodies after they get divorced. I think I’d have a hard time showing my body to someone else after only one other person had seen it for years, but that person was never going to see it again. Having a husband doesn’t mean my body belongs to him and not me, but it would still be weird to think about how my privacy about my body would change if he didn’t see it anymore.
4) Are any of your characters based on real people?
Not really. I have a couple of friends who, like Maya, don’t interact much if they’re not saying proper and normal things, but I wasn’t thinking of anyone in particular when I created her. I was mainly thinking about how to build strong but realistic opposite characteristics between Maya and Rhondey. The brassier I made Rhondey, the more Maya withdrew into propriety.
5) Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Oh, golly. Get used to rejection is the main one, even though it’s pretty common advice. Most of what happens to a writer is rejection, and you can’t succeed without really understanding this. Learn how to let go of something once it’s finished—at some point you have to write the next project instead of dwelling on the last one. And don’t listen to just one source of advice. No one doling out advice will have the exact same situation as you, so you have to read a whole lot of it and then decide what works for you.
About the Book
Title: After Gardens
Author: Katharine Coldiron
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Maya, a weekend at a hot springs with her boisterous friend Rhondey is just what she needs to move forward after her divorce. For Rhondey, it’s an opportunity to help Maya cut loose a little, shed some of her inhibitions. Maya doesn’t see the need to shed anything, and she’s not looking for a teacher. But the more Maya clings to her privacy, the more difficult it is for her to recognize her true teachers…and the right moment to step free.
Author Bio
Katharine Coldiron’s work has appeared in Ms., the Times Literary Supplement, the Rumpus, the Manifest-Station, horoscope.com, and many other places.
Find Katharine at kcoldiron.com or on Twitter @ferrifrigida.
Links
