L.S. Murphy's Blog, page 16

Reaper Playlist: Basket Case by Green Day

Green Day is right up there with Linkin Park on the favorite band list. And “Basket Case” is a classic song that may or may not reflect a character’s issues in Reaper…

Tagged: 2012, Basket Case, Books, Fiction, Fun, Green Day, Just for Fun, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, Paranormal Romance, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Rockin' Thursdays, Romance, Teens, Videos, Writers, Writing, YA, YA books, YA Paranormal Romance, Young Adult, Young Adult Books

Waiting on Wednesday: Deity

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, showcasing books that we are waiting to read hosted by Breaking the Spine.

 

I will admit that I’m waiting on Deity because I’m hoping the series turns away from the plotline of the Vampire Academy books. I love Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series so I hope the Covenant series turns away from Richelle Mead’s fantastic books soon or I may have to give up on them.

About Deity:

“History is on repeat, and things didn’t go so well the last time. “

Alexandria isn’t sure she’s going to make it to her eighteenth birthday–to her Awakening. A long-forgotten, fanatical order is out to kill her, and if the Council ever discovers what she did in the Catskills, she’s a goner… and so is Aiden.

If that’s not freaky enough, whenever Alex and Seth spend time “training”–which really is just Seth’s code word for some up-close and personal one-on-one time–she ends up with another mark of the Apollyon, which brings her one step closer to Awakening ahead of schedule. Awesome.

But as her birthday draws near, her entire world shatters with a startling revelation and she’s caught between love and Fate. One will do anything to protect her. One has been lying to her since the beginning. Once the gods have revealed themselves, unleashing their wrath, lives will be irrevocably changed… and destroyed.

Those left standing will discover if love is truly greater than Fate…

Tagged: 2012, Books, Fiction, Fun, Just for Fun, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, Paranormal Romance, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Teens, Waiting on Wednesday, Writers, Writing, YA, YA books, YA Paranormal Romance, Young Adult, Young Adult Books

GIVEAWAY ALERT! Who wants to read #Reaper?

Guys! I really, really, really want you all to read Reaper right NOW! However, and there’s always a however, most of you will still have to wait until January 7th, BUT one lucky winner will get to read it EARLY. Yes, EARLY. I’m giving away an Advanced Reader E-Copy of REAPER!

That’s TWO WHOLE MONTHS EARLY!

Description

There’s no way sixteen year old Quincy Amarante will become the fifth grim reaper. None. Not over her shiny blue Mustang. Her Jimmy Choos. Or her dead body.

She’s supposed to enjoy her sophomore year, not learn about some freaky future Destiny says she has no choice but to fulfill.

It doesn’t take long for Quincy to realize the only way out of the game is to play along especially since Death can find her anyway, anywhere, anytime. And does.

Like when she’s reassuring her friends she wants nothing to do with former best friend Ben Moorland, who’s returned from god-knows-where, and fails. Miserably.

Instead of maintaining her coveted popularity status, Quincy’s goes down like the Titanic.

Maybe … just maybe … that’s okay.

It seems, perhaps, becoming a grim reaper isn’t just about the dead but more about a much needed shift in Quincy’s priorities—from who she thinks she wants to be to who she really is.

So what do you have to do to win? Just leave a comment below and tell me WHO is your favorite book boyfriend or girlfriend and WHY.

BONUS: I will also give away a SURPRISE. I love surprises, don’t you? 

Don’t forget to leave your email addy so I can contact you.

Contest runs through November 7th. I’ll notify and post the winners on the 8th.

Tagged: 2012, Authors, Books, Fiction, Fun, High School, Just for Fun, Memories, Novels, Paranormal Romance, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Romance, Teens, Urban Fantasy, Writers, Writing, YA, YA books, YA Paranormal Romance, YA urban fantasy, Young Adult, Young Adult Books

5 Questions with Cordelia Dinsmore

Cordelia Dinsmore lives in a century-old farmhouse surrounded by fields of corn, wheat, sunflowers, etc., depending on the whims of the farmers. A dog, five cats, a horse, and several humans share the small farm where she works and plays.

Cordelia writes strictly for children and has a fondness for creating rhyming picture books. When she’s not writing, she loves to grow flowers, blackberries, tomatoes, and the occasional herb. She also loves bird watching and scouring the Flint Hills for artifacts and prehistoric shark teeth.

Now on to the FIVE QUESTIONS

1. What was the spark of inspiration for Michaela’s Gift?

The biggest spark was my memories of summer visits to my grandparents’ home in middle Tennessee. Their house fascinated me! Many people would argue about it, but there actually were ghosts in one of the bedrooms, and I saw them one night after my brother filled my head with many details of what could happen if they came to me in the night.

The house itself seemed huge to me as a young girl, and I loved everything about it – except for the closet where the ghosts hid during the daylight hours. There was a room at the top of the stairs that my siblings and I weren’t allowed to explore. But my brother and I often snuck up there and spent stolen moments looking through boxes and dresser drawers. It was a fun time, and the fact that we weren’t supposed to be there heightened our enjoyment of it.

My grandparents also had a large black dog, aptly named Blackie. I am a dog lover, and so I spent many long hours coaxing her into a forbidden friendship with me. My mother feared the dog and had told us not to mess with her. I guess I was a pretty unruly child by the way this answer is going, but I was always naturally curious and loved exploring and making new friends. I’ve never outgrown that tendency.

2. How much of yourself did you put into Michaela?

Ha! I guess after reading the above answer, I should say she’s an exact duplicate. But that’s not quite true. I do have an older brother and a younger sister, just as Michaela’s does. And I guess my own mother did sometimes seem a bit on the grumpy side, but she was nothing like Michaela’s mom. And I absolutely adored all of my aunts – all twelve of them! But we never had the type of relationship Michaela shares with her Aunt Sharon. That’s all I can say about that without giving away too much of the story. Oh, and I’m not artistic in the least. Michaela has this amazing talent, and that’s totally not me.

3. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

They’ve all heard it before, but the best advice I can give is to read voraciously, and pay attention to what draws you into a story and what pulls you out. Then make note of that and strive to use what you’ve learned in your own writing. Also, even though a writer’s life can be solitary in some aspects, reach out to the writing community for advice and encouragement. There’s an amazing world of talented people who are more than willing to share what they’ve learned.

4. If you could go back in time, where would you go?

I would go back to the days of my childhood, if I could go with much of the life experiences I’ve acquired over the years. I would make the most of every special moment with my family and friends, and I would let the little things that are of no importance fly by without the least amount of attention.

5. Finally, Star Wars or Star Trek?

Ack! I am a trekkie, through and through.

About Michaela’s Gift

Michaela Cochran still believes in enchanted mountains and fairytale castles, but her happily-ever-after will never happen if she can’t convince her mother to accept the magical gift Michaela has inherited.

Michaela Cochran and her family make the trip to her father’s ancestral home every year, but this year is special. Michaela is now twelve, the age when every girl in the family receives a special gift. When Aunt Sharon explains that Michaela’s gift is a magical ability to bring one of her drawings to life, Michaela begins making plans. What she wants most is a castle high on the mountain, where her family can live together. But if she can’t figure out how to resolve the growing hostility between herself and her mother, her gift is meaningless.

Read an excerpt here!

 

Tagged: 2012, Authors, Books, Fiction, Fun, Interviews, Just for Fun, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Writers, Writing

5 Questions with Jocelyn Adams

Jocelyn Adams grew up on a cattle farm in Lakefield and has remained a resident of Southern Ontario her entire life, most recently in Muskoka. She has worked as a computer geek, a stable hand, a secretary, and spent most of her childhood buried up to the waist in an old car or tractor engine with her mechanically inclined dad. But mostly, she’s a dreamer with a vivid imagination and a love for fantasy (and a closet romantic — shhh!). When she isn’t shooting her compound bow in competition or writing, she hangs out with her husband and young daughter at their little house in the woods.

Facebook     Goodreads     Twitter     Website     Blog

Now on to the FIVE QUESTIONS

1. What was the spark of inspiration for the Lila Gray series?

Often I don’t know what sparks an idea, but I’ve got this one.  J  The Glass Man himself was the root of Lila Gray’s world.  I had a dream of a gorgeous man with ice blue eyes who was stalking my dreams for reasons unknown.  He was a little insane.  More than human.  And he got my juices flowing.  My crazy head took him and twisted a story around his yumminess.  Voila, Lila Gray was born, the perfect weapon to pit against the perfect villain.

2. Which character most resembles you in your story?

Honestly, I am Lila Gray in all her flawed glory.  Or she is me, however that works.   The reason it was so easy for me to write this series is because her voice is mine.  A mix of back woods Canadian and a few Britishisms that have become a part of my language.  She’s blunt, outspoken and often tastes her size eight when she speaks without thinking, just like me.

3. Is it your goal to make your readers cry? (The Glass Man, Shadowborn, Tidal Whispers were not read without me shedding a tear. She almost got me on Touch of Frost too. J)

Hehe.  My goal isn’t to make readers cry, per se, but to bring them so far into my make believe world that they can’t help but feel something. I’ve been a study of human behavior since I was a kid—I’m a total people watcher—so if I can write a situation well enough for it to touch your emotions, then that’s the summit of the mountain for me. I hope there were a few laughs and curses along with the tears, though. 

4. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

It’s probably been said a million times over the years, but it’s none-the-less true.  Write what you love.  Write what gets your heart pumping, your soul singing, and your mind reeling with excitement, sorrow, love and joy.  If you don’t feel it in your heart first, it won’t matter what words you slap down on the page, your story won’t touch your readers because it will be missing you in it.  What you think.  What you feel.  Your insights about the world.  That’s what takes a story from meh to oh, yeah!

5. Finally, Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Um, hmm … neither?    *ducks the glare cast in my direction*  The Beatles was before my time and not really my thing.  The Rolling Stones would be closer.  I’m more into groups like Maroon 5, Pink and Adele.  My high school favorites were AC/DC and Def Lepard.  J

  About Shadowborn:

Why me?

That’s the question Lila Gray asks every time yet another bad guy tries to destroy the earth, and she learns she’s the only one who can stop it. Once again, something’s on the prowl, leaving hundreds of comatose, soulless victims in its wake.

Couldn’t the deadliest assassins of the Otherworld go after someone else instead of the brand new Queen of the Seelie? One who still hasn’t adapted to her new role.

Lila would ask Liam Kane, King of the Unseelie, for advice, but something’s off with him, too. He’s holding back. In some way. About some thing. In fact, he refuses to tell her what’s going on.

The truth holds Lila back from the greatness of her role—the people she was born to lead—the man who she desperately loves—and the solution to the latest war raging around her.

To find the answers, she’ll need to fight through her own darkness and embark on a journey through her psyche.

If she doesn’t succeed, the Shadowborn will claim not only her world, but her soul.

I highly recommend this book! I couldn’t put it down. It’s that good!

Buy Shadowborn at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Don’t forget to check out the first Lila Gray novel The Glass Man, also available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Tagged: 2012, Authors, Books, fae, Fantasy, Fiction, Fun, Interviews, Just for Fun, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, Paranormal Romance, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Romance, seelie, unseelie, Urban Fantasy, Writers, Writing

{Blog Tour} 5 Questions with author Jeffe Kennedy

Jeffe Kennedy took the crooked road to writing, stopping off at neurobiology, religious studies and environmental consulting before her creative writing began appearing in places like Redbook, Puerto del Sol, Wyoming Wildlife, Under the Sun and Aeon. An erotic novella, Petals and Thorns, came out under her pen name of Jennifer Paris in 2010, heralding yet another branch of her path, into erotica and romantic fantasy fiction. Since then, an erotic short, Feeding the Vampire, and another erotic novella, Sapphire, have hit the shelves.

Her contemporary fantasy novel, Rogue’s Pawn, book one in A Covenant of Thorns, will be published in July 2012. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, plentiful free-range lizards and frequently serves as a guinea pig for an acupuncturist-in-training. Find her on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Author.Jeffe.Kennedy) and Twitter (@jeffekennedy) or visit her at her website http://jeffekennedy.com/.

 Now on to the FIVE QUESTIONS

1.      What was the spark of inspiration for Rogue’s Pawn?

A series of dreams. But there were two dreams in particular. One is the same as Gwynn’s dream of being in the bathing chamber with the Black Dog. And the one with Liam, between the tents is the other.

2.      Which character trait to you share with Gwynn?

People are forever telling Gwynn how stubborn she is. I may or may not have heard that *ahem* more than once in my life!

3.      If you could go back in time, what era would you visit?

I would love to visit the library at Alexandria before it burned. Maybe I would even rescue a few strategic documents…

4.      What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Yes. Be persistent and write every day. I know that’s not the advice people want to hear – I didn’t, at first – but it’s the best advice I know.

5.      Finally, Vampire or Werewolf?

Oh, Vampire, for sure!

Rogue’s Pawn Excerpt

“Enough,” a male voice said.

As if I’d ceased to exist, Tinker Bell blinked her eyes and regained her lovely self, face smoothing, shining once again in sunny elegance. Reboot and resume program. She gracefully stood and glided to the tray, set the bowl precisely in the center, lifted the tray and left the room without hesitation.

Booted footsteps crossed the room toward me. Act II, scene ii. Exit Nasty Tinker Bell, Enter God-Only-Knows-What-Now. My face was sticky with whatever the brothy stuff had been, my hair wet and fouled. I stank. I hurt. I was chained to a bed in a place so completely unknown I couldn’t begin to understand it. I tried to squeeze my legs closer together, but the chains seemed at the limit of their reach. The energy of my brief triumph evaporated, allowing tears to well up again.

Oh, please, please, please, do not cry. The threatening sting worsened. I closed my eyes and one tear leaked out. He stopped next to me, surveying me.

“You’re certainly a mess.” His wry voice was rich and smooth.

My eyes snapped open to glare at him through the blur. Fifty different smart remarks flew across my tongue, most along the lines that any failures of appearance on my part could be laid on the doorstep of someone besides myself. But even the buzz of the first word on my vocal chords brought searing agony. Relieved to have a legitimate reason for the tears, I almost welcomed the searing sensation.

“No, don’t try to talk—no one needs to hear what you have to say, anyway. Not that we can help it, since you think so loudly. And you have a decision to make. We have a quandary.” He began pacing, boots echoing against stone. “No one can heal you while you’re bound in silver and we can’t release you from the silver until you have yourself under control. Which will take a considerably long time—perhaps years of training—if you’re even able to accomplish it at all.”

I thought of the birds crashing in increasing cacophony with a small shudder.

“Exactly,” he confirmed. “And yes,” he said from the window behind my head where he seemed to be gazing out, “I can hear most of your thoughts—another reason to save trying to speak aloud.”

My stomach congealed in panic. Had he heard my secret thoughts? Don’t think of them, bury them deep, deep. Think of other things…like what? Think of home, think of Isabel. Isabel, my cat—Clive hated her. What would happen to her now? How could I not have thought of her until this moment? Abandoned, wondering why I never came home for her… And my mother—she’d be frantic. How long had I been gone? They could be all dead and buried, lost to me forever. The anguish racked me.

“Shh.” The man sat on the side of my bed now, heavier than Nasty Tinker Bell. He brushed the hair back from my forehead, then placed his long fingers over my brow and, with his thumbs, rhythmically smoothed along my cheekbones, wiping away the tears that now flowed freely.

I stifled a sob. I had cried more in the past day than I had in years. The sweeping along my cheekbones soothed me, melting warmth through my skull. The rhythm became part of my breathing. Deep breaths. Smooth, easy. The awful tightness in my chest gave a little sigh and released.

“Let’s try again, shall we?” The man pulled his hands away. I could hear him brush them against his thighs. Soup, tears and blood. Yuck.

My eyes cleared enough for me to see him. Ebony-blue climbed over half his face. The winding pattern of angular spirals and toothy spikes swirled out of his black hair on the left side of his face, placing sharp fingers along his cheekbone, jaw and brow. For a moment, the tattoo-like pattern dominated everything about him. Ferocious and alien.

Once I adjusted, I could see past the lines. His face echoed Tinker Bell’s golden coloring. He could be her fraternal twin, with those same arched cheekbones. But where she was golden dawn, he was darkest night. Midnight-blue eyes, that deep blue just before all light was gone from the sky, when the stars have emerged, but you could see the black shadows of trees against the night. He shared Tinker Bell’s rose-petal mouth, but with a curious edge to it. I suppose a man’s mouth shouldn’t remind one of a flower, and there was nothing feminine about this man. Where she wore the pink sugar roses of debutantes and bridal showers, his lips made me think of the blooms of late summer, the sharp-ruffled dianthus, edges darkening to blood in the heat. His bone structure was broader than hers but still seemed somehow differently proportioned, his arms hanging a bit too long from shoulders not quite balanced to his height. Inky hair pulled back from his face fell in a tail down his back. One strand had escaped to fall over his shoulder and I could see a blue shimmer in its silk sheen.

He arched his left eyebrow, blueness in the elegant arch, repeating the deep shades of the fanged lines around it.

“Shall we?” he repeated.

I stared at him. What was the question?

Tagged: 2012, Authors, Books, Fiction, Fun, Interviews, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, Paranormal Romance, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Romance, Writers, Writing

Reaper Playlist: Leave Out All the Rest by Linkin Park

This may or may not be the only time you see Linkin Park on the playlist. After all, LP is one of my favorite bands. I could listen to them all day.

Tagged: 2012, Authors, Books, Fiction, Fun, Just for Fun, Leave Out All the Rest, Linkin Park, Music, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, Paranormal Romance, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Rockin' Thursdays, Romance, Teens, Videos, Writers, Writing, YA, YA books, YA Paranormal Romance, Young Adult, Young Adult Books

Waiting on Wednesday: The Nightmare Affair

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, showcasing books that we are waiting to read hosted by Breaking the Spine.

Mindee Arnett stopped by my blog back in March to answer 5 Questions and I knew I just had to get her book when it comes out. Too bad I’m still waiting…

About The Nightmare Affair: 

16-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare. Literally. Dusty is a magical being who feeds on human dreams.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder. The setting is Arkwell.

And then it comes true.

Now the Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

Tagged: 2012, Books, Fiction, Fun, Just for Fun, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Teens, Waiting on Wednesday, Writing, YA, YA books, Young Adult, Young Adult Books

Spooktacular GIVEAWAY Hop

Welcome to my stop of the Spooktacular Giveaway Hop! hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer.

I’m giving away a copy of The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy 

Blurb:

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for nearly ninety years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.

So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphan and assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late night callers and dangerous business. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was eating her, Will’s world is about to change forever. The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagus�a headless monster that feeds through a mouth in its chest�and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. Now, Will and the doctor must face the horror threatening to overtake and consume our world before it is too late.

To Enter: Leave a comment telling us about your favorite monster. 

One winner will be chosen at random from the comments and I’ll also

toss in a SIGNED bookmark for my upcoming novel REAPER.

US only please.

Tagged: 2012, Books, Fiction, Fun, Giveaway, Giveaways, Just for Fun, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Teens, Writing, YA, YA books, Young Adult, Young Adult Books

5 Questions with Jennifer Stevenson

 Jennifer Stevenson lives in Chicago and spends her days exercising to unseemly degrees and finding new uses for old sex demons.

Now on to the FIVE QUESTIONS

1. What was the spark of inspiration for It’s Raining Angels and Demons?

The previous book, which is book one of my new series Slacker Demons, is called It’s Raining Men, and I’m not giving anything away when I say that I figured out how to have it really rain men in the final scene.  Believe you me, that took some thinking.

But then I thought, “Hm, I wonder what happens to some of those couples?  And what if it goes wrong?”  And then I thought, “What a great opportunity for a sexy romance novella!”

At that point, Mutt and Jeff (Mutmumtazarak and Jioffriel) were born.  One’s a demon, one’s an angel.  They yell Geronimo! and jump out of aircraft into the slacker demons’ neighborhood … and something goes wrong.  Like every other angel and demon on their task force they’re destined to meet the women of their dreams and settle down with them … and something goes wrong.  I had a ball messing with their minds until they get caught.

2. Which character most resembles you in your story?

Oh, brother.  You do know, don’t you, that I made them all up?  I would have to say that the character whose role most resembles mine is Baz, a.k.a. Ashurbanipal, a retired Mesopotamian warrior-priest-poet-king who has found work as a sex demon.  Baz adopts our stray angel and demon and offers to teach them the tricks of his trade, but he’s not playing fair, and he’s not telling them everything, and he teases them a lot.  Which is what the author does.  It’s my job to make these people miserable before they get their happy ending. Oh, and to get them laid.

3. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Persist.  Find your inner arrogance and don’t let go of it.  You have something to offer that people will pay for, even if you’re not sure what it is yet.  If you don’t know yet, make something up until you do know. Never quit, keep writing, hang onto your belief in yourself.

4. What are you working on now?

Right now I’m finishing This Kiss, which is a title that will no doubt have to change, about how the third slacker demon, a defrocked Hindu god of sensual love named Kamadeva, finds and woos his virgin amnesiac runaway bride.  It’s incredibly sweet.  Slacker Demons book one, It’s Raining Men, is full of snark and banter and people being too cool for school.  It’s Raining Angels and Demons is very, very sexy.  Kama’s story is just so sweet, I spend half my time going “Awwww,” and the other half trying to figure out how to make the next moment even cuter.

5. Finally, Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Beatles. They have a stronger sense of humor.  I’m all about the humor.

About It’s Raining Angels and Demons

The man drought is over!  Angels and demons fall into the arms of the sex-deprived women of a sleepy Chicago neighborhood.  Only two women get gypped.

An angel and a demon escape capture and find temporary refuge with a team of renegade sex demons…but they’re not safe yet.

Heaven doesn’t remember them, Hell doesn’t want them, and two horny mortal women are hunting them.

It’s raining angels and demons!

Click to Buy It’s Raining Angels and Demons

Tagged: 2012, Authors, Books, Fiction, Fun, Interviews, Just for Fun, Memories, Musings, Novels, Opinion, Opinions, ramblings, Random, Random Thoughts, Reading, Writers, Writing