Eva Pohler's Blog, page 27
June 9, 2016
The Hypnos Cover Gets a Makeover!
The Hypnos cover gets a makeover!
I’m pleased to announce that the cover for Hypnos: A Gatekeeper’s Saga Spin-Off , the continuation of the Amazon bestselling Gatekeeper’s Saga, has been redesigned by Benjaminoftomes at Crisp Quartz Design. The ebook is already available for pre-order at many retailers and will release on August 8th.
What do you think of the new look of the Hypnos cover?
Hypnos and Jen aren’t married long when they realize something’s missing: they both want to have a child, especially when they see how happy Therese and Than are with their twins. But the creation of new gods is against the rules, and they aren’t willing to give up their immortality. So Hypnos goes to Mount Olympus to offer Zeus a deal. He’ll make it his mission to find out the source of the recent attacks on Gaia–horrible earthquakes that have already released one monster from the Titan Pit–if Zeus will agree to let him and Jen have one immortal child.
Because the attacks are getting humans killed and none of the other gods have been able to discover a lead, Zeus, in his desperation, agrees. But this new quest just might get Hypnos swallowed and trapped for all eternity.
Available NOW for pre-order. Releases August 8th.
Amazon US iBooks Nook Kobo
Amazon UK Amazon CA Amazon AU Amazon IN
And that leads me to another announcement! The Hypnos cover is only the beginning!
Benjaminoftomes will also be redesigning the covers for the entire Gatekeeper’s Saga! I’m very excited about his preliminary concepts, and I can’t wait to share them with you! I hope you’ll love them as much as I do!
The post The Hypnos Cover Gets a Makeover! appeared first on Eva Pohler.
May 9, 2016
Hypnos Cover Reveal
Title: Hypnos
Series: A Gatekeeper’s Saga Spin-Off,
Book One
Author: Eva Pohler
Release Date: August 9th, 2016
Genre: Teen Fantasy
PRE-ORDER LINKS
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Hypnos-Gatekeepers-Saga-Spin-Off-Book-ebook/dp/B01FDTKFKW?tag=evapohboo0b-20
iBooks: http://apple.co/1OjxKiE
BN: http://bit.ly/21MySmQ
Kobo: http://bit.ly/24EVn2e
Amazon UK
Amazon CA
Amazon AU
Amazon IN
ABOUT THE BOOK
From the Amazon bestselling teen fantasy based on Greek mythology–The Gatekeeper’s Saga–comes the first in a spin-off series. Readers asked for more, and here it is.
Hypnos and Jen aren’t married long when they realize something’s missing: they both want to have a child, especially when they see how happy Therese and Than are with their twins. But the creation of new gods is against the rules, and they aren’t willing to give up their immortality. So Hypnos goes to Mount Olympus to offer Zeus a deal. He’ll make it his mission to find out the source of the recent attacks on Gaia–horrible earthquakes that have already released one monster from the Titan Pit–if Zeus will agree to let him and Jen have one immortal child.
Because the attacks are getting humans killed and none of the other gods have been able to discover a lead, Zeus, in his desperation, agrees. But this new quest just might get Hypnos swallowed and trapped for all eternity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FACEBOOK, TWITTER, WEBSITE
Eva Pohler recently retired from a twenty-year position teaching writing and literature at a university in San Antonio, where she lives with her husband and three kids. Now a full-time writer, she’s the author of The Mystery Book Collection and three series for young adults: The Gatekeeper’s Saga, The Purgatorium Series, and The Vampires of Athens. Her books have been described as “thrilling” and “addictive.” A Kirkus reviewer said of The Gatekeeper’s Sons that it was “sure to thrill Hunger Games fans.”
A reader herself, Eva writes in multiple genres, but all of her stories blur the line between reality and fantasy, truth and delusion, and draw from Eva’s personal philosophy that a reader must be lured and abducted into complete captivity in order to enjoy the reading experience.
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May 1, 2016
May Read-Along with Ben of Tomes
Follow @readwithben and @benjaminoftomes on Instagram to join Ben in his May read-along! And guess what we’re reading? The Vampires of Athens Series–all three books!
For those of you who don’t know Ben, he’s a very well-known booktuber based in the UK who also recently started his own publishing company. He’s brilliant, fun, and amazing. If you haven’t yet seen his videos, you will love them. You can follow him on youtube here.
If you haven’t seen The Vampires of Athens Series book trailer, you can watch it here.
To add even more fun to this May read-along, I’m inviting all who participate to enter a giveaway. The prize? The Mortal Instruments and The Gatekeeper’s Saga–that’s twelve paperbacks to one lucky winner. You can enter the giveaway here.
To join Ben’s read-along, chime in at his Instagram @readwithben and let us know!
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April 4, 2016
The Walking Dead Season Finale: There Be Spoilers Here
My Twitter feed is full of hate from fans of The Walking Dead over last night’s season finale. The complaint? A cliffhanger that leaves in question which of our beloved characters is beaten to death by Negan and his barbed-wire wrapped bat named Lucille.
Seriously? Cliffhangers have always been an important part of serial storytelling. Why should fans expect otherwise? Remember “Who shot J.R.?” from the TV drama Dallas? It’s important for the show to leave the fans with something to talk about and to analyze as we wait six months for the new season.
And boy oh boy do we have stuff to talk about!
Here’s a video where I explain my theory, or you can keep reading below: https://youtu.be/3GJXx1MRSDY
After careful analysis, I have concluded that the most likely answer to the question posed by Talking Dead host Chris Hardwick, “#WhoIsIt?” is Aaron. Let me explain how I came up with this conclusion:
The first thing I did was map out the positions of all the characters in relation to Negan. From Negan’s left to right, they appear on their knees in this order: Glenn, Rosita, Daryl, Michonne, Abraham, Maggie, Rick, Sasha, Aaron, Carl, and Eugene.
I tried to follow the “eenie, meenie, miny, mo” but found that Negan and the camera skipped around, making it impossible to use that as a guide.
So then I watched Negan’s body language. After he says, “You are it,” and stops before the victim, he says, “If anybody moans, anybody says anything, cut the boy’s other eye out and feed it to his father.”
This leads me to believe that the victim cannot be either Carl or Rick, even though Negan adds, “and then we’ll get started,” because he immediately raises the bat and “gets started.”
Negan’s body language also reveals that Carl is to the right of the victim. When he says, “cut the boy’s other eye out,” Negan sways slightly to his right, as though indicating that Carl is on his right. This tells me that the victim cannot be Eugene, because Eugene is to Carl’s left.
Negan’s eye movements, as he’s talking, indicates that there are characters on both his left and right. If he were standing in front of Glenn, who is on his far left, Negan would not look further to his left. Since he does, this tells me that the victim cannot be Glenn.
When Negan lifts both arms up just before he brings Lucille down on his victim, there is a shadow of Carl’s hat across Negan’s upper body (another fan captured the image, and I went and rewatched and paused my TV to confirm it). The fan that originally tweeted the photo meant the victim must be Carl. I think the light is to Negan’s right. If you look at everyone’s shadows, they are all to Negan’s left.
So this shadow, along with Negan’s eye and body movements, leads me to believe that the victim must be Aaron.
We are set up with some red herrings to believe other characters will be sacrificed. First, Abraham, with his speech to Sasha about being ready to have a child, hints that he may be the one to be killed off. We’ve seen other characters who transform just in time to die (like Denise). Plus, Abraham rises to the occasion when Negan stands before him, suggesting that Abraham is prepared to die bravely. Eugene is another. We even saw him basically saying goodbyes. I expected him to be sacrificed as he nobly drove off in the RV to distract the saviors so Maggie could be saved. Maggie is another. Negan threatens to put her out of her misery, leading us to believe that, since she’s too weak to work for him, he’d make an example out of her. And then there’s Glenn, who meets his end by Negan in the comics.
Despite all of these false leads, Aaron is the most likely character to meet his death by Negan, in my opinion. What do you think?
The post The Walking Dead Season Finale: There Be Spoilers Here appeared first on Eva Pohler.
March 21, 2016
A Goodreads Giveaway
Enter my Goodreads giveaway for a chance to win one of three paperback copies of The Gatekeeper’s Bride: A Prequel to The Gatekeeper’s Saga. Unfortunately, it’s only open to the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Gatekeeper’s Bride
by Eva Pohler
Giveaway ends March 30, 2016.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
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March 14, 2016
In Defense of Therese in The Gatekeeper’s Saga
I’ve been fortunate that the majority of the readers of The Gatekeeper’s Sons have left positive reviews, and many of these readers have gone on to read the entire six-book saga, making it an Amazon bestseller multiple times. But occasionally I read reviews expressing a reader’s mixed feelings about the main character, Therese. In this post, I will briefly defend the choices I made in developing her character:
Why is Therese only 15 years old in the first book? Isn’t that a bit young?
This question usually comes from adult readers–not teens. As a mother of teens, I’m confident that 15 is the right age for Therese. One of the pleasures of reading young adult fiction is capturing all the “firsts”: first kiss, first love, first heart break, first time away from home, etc. If a character is going to be an older teen in a contemporary story, there will need to be a major reason why she hasn’t experienced any of these things.
Having teens of my own, I know firsthand that fifteen is that age when a person’s actions and feelings oscillate between childlike and adult-like. That was the age I wanted, and I wrote Therese so that she still has little girl aspects while managing to make some pretty mature decisions.
I also wanted Therese to age and mature in the series. If I’d started her at seventeen, I would have had less time to play with.
Finally, I was writing for the younger end of the market–for thirteen and fourteen-year-old readers. It made sense to make Therese closer in age to the target audience.
2. The idea of a plain girl being desired by so many is unrealistic and overdone. Why do you write Therese this way?
Therese is not a plain girl. She is a pretty girl who thinks she’s plain. Some readers have been unable to distinguish between Therese’s false perception of herself (common among teens) and reality.
3. How can Therese be so perfect? Isn’t she too much of a Mary-Sue?
Therese is not perfect. On the heels of her parents’ murders, all she wants is to die. After she discovers who Than is, her first thought is to use him to get to the Underworld, so she can be with her parents. She lies to people in her life to hide what she’s up to. She uses a drug that gets her friend killed. But, yes, in spite of those mistakes, Therese is a very good person. She’s based on my daughter, who is also a very good person. Very good people do exist, and they have exciting and interesting stories, too. A character doesn’t have to be an emo, foul-mouthed brat to be interesting.
4. Why do you choose insta-love for your characters? Isn’t that unrealistic?
My characters do not experience insta-love. They experience insta-attraction. There’s a difference. In the second, they are drawn to each other, but it takes time for the love to catch up with the attraction.
5. Why does Therese want to get married so soon in the story? You have her irritated with Than one minute and wanting to marry him the next.
Therese wants to use Than to get to the Underworld, so she can be with her parents. She eventually falls in love with him, but her initial desire to marry him comes from her desperation to do whatever it takes to find her parents.
I realize that it’s impossible to please all readers, and that’s okay. Some people will love Therese, and some won’t. But I hope readers will understand that we can’t create the same kind of character in every story we write. In my opinion, Therese is the perfect character for this particular story.
The post In Defense of Therese in The Gatekeeper’s Saga appeared first on Eva Pohler Books.
March 11, 2016
A New Release from Amy Hale: Shadows of Deception
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1SB5HRv
iBooks: http://apple.co/1Tur4oH
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1LdGrPH
BN: http://bit.ly/1LdGnj8
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1SB5PR6
With the head of The Curators removed from power, a new leader has stepped in and relocated those imprisoned within its grasp. They will stop at nothing to get what they want, and they still want Jane and the power her gifts can bring them.
Jane and Colt’s next mission is to free the gifted, but this may be their toughest challenge yet. To win this war, they will put everything on the line. Even with the help of friends, what lies ahead will be difficult. Can Jane and Colt salvage their relationship while making personal sacrifices at the same time?
Book two in The Shadows Trilogy continues the story of Jane and Colt as they embark on a wild ride of raw emotions, danger, and determination in the face of overwhelming adversity.
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Amy Hale is an author, mother, and wife living in Illinois. She started her writing career in 2003 with non-fiction and educational pieces, but decided to take the leap to fiction in 2014. She’s always plotting new projects and writing down crazy ideas. She’s a hopeless romantic and adores all the various ways a love story can be told. Amy also loves mystery, humor, suspense, and other action filled stories, so her goal is to blend the action with romance and keep you on your toes.
Her husband and kids are the center of her universe, although her cat believes otherwise. She also loves reading, music, and photography. When she’s not writing or reading, Amy can be found watching MST3K movies with her kids, or enjoying the scenery fly by from the back of her husband’s motorcycle.
Catch up on The Shadows Triligoy with Book 1,
Shadows of Jane.
Amazon: http://amzn.to/19LBlIb
iBooks: http://apple.co/1UGQ4ID
BN: http://bit.ly/1TVVekA
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March 8, 2016
Enter My Amazon Giveaway of The Mortal Instruments Box Set, by Cassandra Clare
To celebrate the success of my Gatekeeper’s Saga and the upcoming release of its prequel, The Gatekeeper’s Bride, I’m giving away one of my favorite teen fantasy series, The Mortal Instruments, the Complete Collection: City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels; City of Lost Souls; City of Heavenly Fire, by Cassandra Clare.
Just click on the image above to enter and see if you win! Good luck!
(This giveaway is for U.S. residents only–that’s Amazon’s rule, not mine.)
The post Enter My Amazon Giveaway of The Mortal Instruments Box Set, by Cassandra Clare appeared first on Eva Pohler Books.
February 26, 2016
Who Is Zoom? My Favorite Theories about The Flash
WARNING! SPOILERS!
My favorite show on television right now is The Flash. Apart from the amazing writing and acting, the mysteries surrounding the identities of key characters have provided me with hours of entertainment. Last season, I obsessed over the identity of the Reverse Flash, and this season, I’ve been trying to figure out the identity of Zoom, of the prisoner in the iron mask, and of the man who claims to be Jay Garrick.
Initially, I thought Zoom might be the E-2 Wally West given the E-1 Wally’s obsession with speed and the jealousy developing between him and E-1 Barry, but the latest episode showed Zoom’s face to be one we associate with Jay Garrick.
So then I thought maybe each earth has a set of twins separated at birth–Jay Garrick and Hunter Zolomon. But neither Barry nor Caitlyn could find evidence on E-1 that a Jay Garrick ever existed. It’s possible that the E-1 Jay Garrick died in childbirth. So maybe E-2 Hunter Zolomon is Zoom, and he coerced E-2 Harrison Wells to steal his E-2 twin’s speed force (if Zoom could steal it on his own, why does he need Wells to help him steal Barry’s?). Wells may have secretly tried to restore the speed force to E-2 Jay Garrick with his Velocity formulas, which had the unforeseen consequences of destroying Jay Garrick’s cells. Jay Garrick then may have gone to E-1 hoping to find a way to restore his speed and defeat Zoom. The man in the iron mask could then be either the E-1 Hunter Solomon or the E-1 Jay Garrick (if that twin didn’t die in childbirth). However, this doesn’t provide me with a satisfying explanation for the reaction the prisoner has when E-1 Barry says that Jay Garrick from E-2 is alive on E-1.
The most satisfying explanation for the prisoner’s reaction is that he is, indeed, the E-2 Jay Garrick. It seems reasonable that the first thing a prisoner would try to spell out is his own name.
However, the tension between Wells and the man who calls himself Jay Garrick is so real and intense. I think Wells is too smart to have been fooled by an impostor of Jay. And even when the two characters are alone after “Jay” saves Wells’s life, Wells calls him Jay. If he knew he wasn’t Jay, he’d call him by his real name–unless he was E-1 Jay (but if that were the case, Caitlyn and Barry should have discovered some evidence of his existence).
Other people have suggested that Zoom, his prisoner, and the Jay that works with Team Flash are future, past, and present Jay. Future Jay travels back to the past and makes a prisoner of his past self as life insurance as he attempts to take speed force and healthy cells from his present self. The present Jay works with Team Flash to overcome the side effects caused to him by his future self (when he tells Caitlyn that he’s done some bad things, he may be referring to his future self). But he can’t give his own future self away for fear of bringing harm to his present self. This sounds like a great theory to me, and if it’s true, I think Wells would be aware of it all, and this would further explain the strange tension between Wells and Jay.
Others have also put forth a clone theory—that the three Jay Garricks are clones, possibly created by experimentation done by Harrison Wells. However, clones usually aren’t made as fully grown adults. Genetic material is cloned and fertilized in vitro. I don’t see how all three clones could be relatively the same age, but I suppose some strange new science could have caused it.
One other possibility I’ve thought of is that an E-2 Eobard Thawne came back in time to destroy the E-2 Flash (Jay Garrick) and failed and got stuck (like our E-1 Eobard) and then, instead of taking over Wells’s identity, he takes over the identity of either Jay Garrick or E-2 Hunter Zolomon. The prisoner could either be Jay Garrick, E-2 Hunter Zolomon, or E-2 Eddie Thawne (as E-2 Eobard’s life insurance). But I’ve had less faith in this theory lately, because I can’t shake the feeling that the Jay that works with Team Flash is the real Jay, in spite of the prisoner’s reaction to E-1 Barry’s statement that Jay Garrick is alive on E-1.
Other people have said that maybe Henry Allen is either Zoom or the prisoner behind the mask, but the E-1 Barry Allen discovers that his E-2 mom and dad are alive and well during his visit to E-2.
So, for now, I think I’m going with the Jay Garrick time-travel theory–which was not my own. It explains why Zoom looks like Jay, why the first thing the prisoner spells is the name Jay, and why Harrison Wells seems to believe that the guy helping Team Flash is Jay.
What are your theories? I’d love to hear them!
The post Who Is Zoom? My Favorite Theories about The Flash appeared first on Eva Pohler Books.
February 11, 2016
The Gatekeeper’s Bride Preorder Links
The Gatekeeper’s Bride: A Prequel to The Gatekeeper’s Saga
by: Eva Pohler
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1S6sMvG
iBooks: http://apple.co/1nO0Gsj
B&N: http://bit.ly/1mjkO4z
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1nO14qx
Unrest brews among gods and mortals alike when Hades makes a deal with the Fates to end his loneliness in the Underworld. But when Persephone proposes to conspire with him in a plot against Demeter, things get out of hand. Soon, the war among the gods is as critical as the one playing out among the Achaeans and Trojans on Earth.
Find out the truth of how Hades and Persephone met and fell in love and the impact it had on the rest of the pantheon during these tumultuous times. Learn how their children–Hypnos, Thanatos, Megaera, Tisiphone, Alecto, and Melinoe–came into being. Discover why they were assigned their respective duties as Sleep, Death, the Furies, and the goddess of ghosts. Find out the real reason why the Olympians possessed such profound disdain for these Underworld gods.
This prequel to The Gatekeeper’s Saga is more than a retelling of the Persephone myth. Many more of the ancient myths are woven together to reveal the conflict, tension, and relationships among the gods in one of the most beloved pantheons in human history. The Gatekeeper’s Bride can be read before or after The Gatekeeper’s Saga, but readers might find more enjoyment from it after having met the characters by reading the saga first.
Eva is a wife and mother of three living in San Antonio, Texas. She earned her B.A. in English from Trinity University, her M.A. in English from St. Mary’s University, and her Ph.D. in English from Texas Tech University. She wrote her dissertation on narrative strategies, in which she analyzed the use of voice, point of view, character, plot, and other narrative devices used in twentieth-century British and American literature, informed by narratologists such as Tsvetan Todorov, Gerard Genette, Vladimir Propp, Seymour Chatman, Wayne Booth, and James Phelan. She also took as many classes in creative writing as was allowed at every university she attended and had the honor of studying under Robert Flynn, Nan Cuba, and Walt McDonald.
She currently writes fiction for teens and adults and teaches writing and literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio. For years she was a den leader and cub master for her sons in Boy Scouts and a troop leader for her daughter in Girl Scouts. She loved those years, but they are behind her, leaving her with more time to read and write.
She’s also an avid reader. Her favorite authors are Tracy Chevalier, Ann Patchett, J.K. Rowling, J. R.R. Tolkien, Suzanne Collins, and Stephanie Meyer. She’s also read everything by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and other literary giants whom she also loves. She’s read single books she adores by authors like Elizabeth Wein, Diane Setterfield, Philippa Gregory, and Katherine Stockett. And her favorite book of all time, though she never read anything else by her, is Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver.
Her books include The Gatekeeper’s Saga, The Purgatorium Series, The Vampires of Athens Series, and The Mystery Book Collection.
You can keep in touch with Eva on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,Linked In, and by email at eva@evapohler.com.
She’s also part of an amazing hub for authors and readers calledIndie-Visible: Defending Literary Justice for All.
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