Serenity Valle's Blog, page 2

Hey Girl, where ya been?

Yeah, I know… I’ve been quiet lately. Sorry about that! I’ve been super busy doing a number of things.

I’m still working on Bail, the second book in my Revenant Series, and lately, I’ve also been getting ready for attendance at a local event, Beltaine in the Forest.

Honestly, I’ve been -ing. In other words… making soap.

If you’ve read Acquittal, you may remember this little shop called Selkies, Ships & Sirens Eclectic Emporium. Well, we actually run that shop online in real life! Check it out! Selkies, Ships & Sirens Eclectic Emporium

…you can’t take the books from me…

~Serenity

A Rip… in the Space-Time Continuum…

Ok, not really! Don’t worry!

However, it is a rip, of sorts…

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of author interviews suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly moved to another blog.

Yes, I’ve moved all of my interviews with other authors (and others) to a separate blog. THIS blog will continue to showcase my own endeavours #SerenityValleBooks as well as feature my own geekiness. The new blog will contain interviews, cover reveals, release posts and the like. You can find Interview With a Geek Girl here.

…You Can’t Take the Books from Me…

~Serenity

Happy 3rd Imz!

Just a little shout out to my baby boy! Imz turns THREE today! Go Imz!

…you can’t take the books from me,

~Serenity

The Stars Are Infinite- Amber Skye Forbes

Amber: Here is the what I think is the gorgeous cover of The Stars Are Infinite!

It is the sequel to When Stars Die. There will be a third book that I plan to call All Stars Align, which will be the final one in The Stars Trilogy. Here is the blurb for this novel:

Alice Sheraton is slated to be executed as a witch; however, her father spares her. He sends her to Finight Hill, a safe house for witches. Here a Shadowman begins to pursue her, and from this Shadowman she learns she has been bound with a terrible fate since birth: either be a martyr to free witches from their misery, or choose to live knowing her existence will bring on more chaos.

This novel has a December release , and you will know more information later, especially when you sign up for the newsletter.

Now here is an interview with Alice Sheraton so that way you get to know a little bit about her before you begin to read this sequel. There are no spoilers. However, make sure you read the first book before buying this one, or else you will get confused:

Hello, Alice. It must be strange being in an interview for you, especially because you’ve spent much of your life never having any attention drawn to you.

Alice: It’s true. Much of my life has been spent preparing me to find a suitable husband. I did go to a finishing school before coming to Finight, so I do have a great deal of education. At the same time, when I was in the other school, I was taught to never draw any attention to myself. So I am nervous about this. What will my mother think? I used to love painting, until my mother took that away from me. I am well-read, and I had my own collection of books in my room. I loved being with Sara, who liked to get into all sorts of trouble I never agreed with, but did so anyway. These things are memorable, but if my mother ever found out about them, she would beat me with a wooden board.

What are your parents like?

Alice: My father has been nothing but supportive, and I’d like to think that if I had said something about wanting to own my own life, he would have been supportive. My mother, on the other hand, is an alcoholic, which is why I was born as a witch. The Seven Deadly Sins give birth to witches, and I suppose my mother’s continual sin is gluttony.

How has being a witch impacted your life?

Alice: Dreadful. I don’t even want to think or talk about what led up to my discovery. I was imprisoned in a small, dirty room in Governor Branch’s home. He is a horrid, perverted man married to my best friend Sara, who is around my age: I am fifteen. I was slated to be executed, but my father saved me by paying a handsome sum of gold to Governor Branch. He couldn’t refuse the money, so he and Father decided to send me off to a safe house called Finight Hill. It looks like any other finishing school, and it is in a secluded area.

What were your reactions to Finight Hill?

Alice: I was paranoid at first. It’s lovely on the exterior, but it’s rather bland on the inside. My other finishing school was richly furnished, with original paintings, marble sculptures, fresh flowers. It was, I suppose, like the inside of a rich man’s home. Finight had no such decorations. So I was scared. I thought I was sent there to be executed, that my father truly had no idea where he was sending me. Governor Branch wanted me dead, but when I met Pastor Brandon and a boy named Nathaniel, their presence and kindness swept away any paranoia I had.

Tell us about Pastor Brandon and Nathaniel.

Alice: Pastor Brandon is nice but strange. He falls into these fits where he cries out, “Curse is everyone who hangs on a tree!” This is a sentence commonly used right before witch executions. He also coughs up some substance from time to time. I don’t know what it is, but it’s black. Even so, he has made me feel welcomed.

Nathaniel, on the other hand, is beautiful, and I saw that right from the start, though I couldn’t admit it to myself. He’s also troubled. He smokes a lot, he scratches himself, and he’s reckless, but he has made me feel welcomed at Finight, and I accepted his friendship. Master Akilah isn’t too fond of him because of his reckless behavior.

How do you feel about Master Akilah?

Alice: I can’t stand him. Neither can Pastor Brandon nor Nathaniel. He was rude to me my first day there when he introduced me, complaining that I was late, not even welcoming me. He is the one who created the unnecessarily strict rules rules for Finight, where we are watched at all times, as though we are in an asylum. We do have certain activities that we have to do throughout the day, like studying. We can go outside once a week–under strict supervision. Nathaniel is smart enough to evade some of these rules, but it eventually becomes our downfall. After a certain event takes place, the rules become worse. At that point, we can’t even have doors to our rooms.

You hear voices?

Alice: I’m unsure if the voice is real or not. It sounds real. She at first told me Pastor Brandon killed her. Then she told me I should kill him. She said he knew who I was, and I couldn’t make any sense of that. He apparently knows the future. When I fainted and woke up in my room, her final words to me were, “You will be mine.” We all thought it was stress and nerves. I thought I was insane, but I was so certain the voice was real. And it is. It truly is.

Can you tell us who the voice belongs to?

Alice: Her name is Annarelius, a Shadowman, a dead witch. She wants me because I can set the world free from sin, allowing everyone, even witches, into Paradise.

Tell us about this Shadowman.

Alice: I would rather not.

Are there any final words?

Alice: My story…it is mine and mine alone, rife with the darkness that is innate in the life of a witch. It was a very hard story to tell. If witches are not freed, at least my account will make them feel less alone, if my account will even be allowed to exist. Witches are insignificant. We are nothing. Those who used to love us betray us and automatically hate us when they find out we are witches. This was the case with my best friend, Sara. The Vulgate, our bible, indoctrinates people into hating us, which is why they can hate so easily. I am not sure if this hatred will ever be erased. I have never known any allies to stop the hatred. I have never known any witches to start a rebellion. But our world is filled with nothing but cruelty. The ugliness of our world surpasses its beauty. Love is the only beauty that exists, but there isn’t enough of it.

Those are some very harrowing words, Alice, but I know you will be the one to make that change. Thank you for letting me interview you.

Alice: …

I hope you enjoyed Alice’s interview and will pick up the already available When Stars Die and the not-yet-released The Stars Are Infinite when you are able to pre-order it or buy it on its release day. Remember it will have a December release date and will be mentioned in a future newsletter.

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About the Author

Amber Skye Forbes is a dancing writer who prefers pointe shoes over street shoes, leotards over skirts, and ballet buns over hairstyles. She loves striped tights and bows and will edit your face with a Sharpie if she doesn’t like your attitude. She lives in Augusta, Georgia where she writes dark fiction that will one day put her in a psychiatric ward…again. But she doesn’t care because her cat is a super hero who will break her out.

Thanks for stopping by Amber! Check out Amber’s books and remember…

You Can’t Take the Books from Me…

~Serenity

As November Looms…

Yes, November! I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone! Last year at this time I was finishing up final touches on The Fantastical Life of Serenity: Epilogue in preparation for its release on November 19, my middle child’s birthday. I was in the middle of packing and readying myself and my toddler to travel to my mum’s home to assist her after kidney removal, in an attempt to remove the cancer that sadly took her from us on September 11 of this year. So many things have changed since last year this time…

Fidget will turn 3 in 9 days, we will celebrate Diwali the day before that, Halloween (of course!) and then we will zoom into November, National Novel Writing Month!

NaNoWriMo kicks off November 1 and my goal is to write 50,000 words of Bail. The Revenant Series: Book Two by November 30. Look me up if you’re doing it too! Serenity Valle-NaNoWriMo

This year’s NaNoWriMo is dedicated to you, Mum (10/14/46-09/11/14) and you Dad, (12/22/45-06/24/12). You both remain in our hearts always.

You Can’t Take the Books from Me,

~Serenity

Pirates. Arrr, or rather, Grrr

I love the old stories of Pirates as much as the next pirate-y geek girl… what I don’t like are those who pirate books.

This morning, I found my latest book, Acquittal. The Revenant Series: Book One in PDF format on a file-sharing pirate site. I did not authorise this particular distribution. My books are available legally only on Amazon and Createspace, or from me.

At first, I had a brief moment of  “ah, I have arrived… I’ve been pirated.”… then I got angry. Between writing my first two books (I was working on Acquittal the whole time) and being a mum and wife, it took me over a year to finish that book and now someone is offering it for free? Not cool.

On a side note, I don’t like calling the people who steal and upload books like this “pirates”… why? Well, because as cutthroat as the Pirates of old were, there was a basic level of honour among them. (Consequently, I don’t like referring to modern day “pirates” as Pirates, either, hence the difference of capitalisation when referring to Pirates of old). I’d rather just call them cowardly thieves, amoral thieftains or something.

Back to the point… I don’t work for free (except in my Mum form) and I don’t know anyone that would. The number of downloads of my book changed every time I refreshed, but taking the biggest number of downloads shown multiplied by my current royalty level, I could maintain my household for 2 months without my husband’s mundane job paycheck. Furthermore, what little I could find about this site during an online search claimed that the people who run it embed malware into the downloads… so not only are they STEALING my intellectual property, but they are also attempting to put who knows what on the computers of those who download it!

Think about this: They could be embedding child p*rn in these downloads, if not simply viruses and trackers. Scary thought.

Here it is in a nutshell. This site (and other sites that do this) are STEALING from me and others. It is not cool, it is not right, and I don’t plan on letting it go.

I have arrived, and now I shall lay seige.

You Can’t Take the Books from Me,

~Serenity

Interview with Josh de Lioncourt

I had a great time communicating with Josh for this interview! Check out his links at the bottom of the interview. :)

Q: So, tell the readers a bit about you.

I was born and raised in California, but these days I call Pennsylvania home, as it’s where my other half, Molly, hails from.

At age six, I became very ill and lost my vision. Up until that time, I could see perfectly well, so I have plenty of memories of what things look like, colors, and so forth—not to mention Masters of the Universe, a comic, cartoon, and action figure sword and sorcery property for which I still harbor a, possibly unhealthy, passion. :)

Throughout my life, I’ve explored a variety of creative endeavors. I write and perform music, develop software, host a few podcasts, and do a bit of blogging as well. I’ve always loved pulling things out of my imagination and bringing them to life. I drew a great deal before losing my vision, and afterward, my creativity branched out in a number of different directions.

I love music, especially artists from the UK, and am an avid reader. Oh, and I enjoy way too much hockey. Go Kings go!

Q: How did you come up with the idea for your book, Haven Lost? How did you come up with the name of it?

Haven Lost is the first volume in a series called The Dragon’s Brood Cycle. The story arc for the entire series has been sloshing around in my brain for over twenty years. Over that time, while I was writing other stories or working on other projects, flashes of new details, specifics, characters, locations, what have you, would come to me for Dragon’s Brood. Every couple of years or so I’d set other projects aside and start out on a fresh attempt at the story, but it never entirely worked out to my satisfaction.

The story’s primary protagonist, Emily Haven, came to me completely disconnected from the Dragon’s Brood concept in the summer of 2007. I wrote a few short pieces about her, and gradually came to realize that she was really the character that the Dragon’s Brood Cycle was intended to circle around.

Last fall, while taking in some heartbreaking losses of the Penn State Women’s Hockey team, I realized the time was right to tell Emily’s story, and the story of the Dragon’s Brood. (Emily plays on the girls’ hockey team at her high school). Once I started this time, there was no stopping it. I found the entry point for the story, which was far earlier than where the older drafts had begun. There’s a full ten chapters now before the point where I had been starting the story previously, and it worked so much better that way.

Everything seemed to just fall into place at last, and I loved every minute of finally creating the strange world I’d been daydreaming about for two decades.

As for the title, it went through several changes during the writing of the first draft. For a long time the working title was Haven 21, which was Emily’s surname and the number on her jersey. In the end, I went with Haven Lost, because it had multiple layers of meaning in the story, and I’m a sucker for layers in my stories.

Q: What is your favourite colour? (This must be read in a British accent a-la Monty Python)

Oh, how I love Monty Python … oh, wait, wait! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

Red has always been a favorite of mine, though black and silver hang around in my top three as well.

Q: Do you have any special rituals or quirks when writing? Special foods or drinks? Troll doll on the desk/Etc.

I drink a ton of tea and coffee. Molly, my other half, made gallons of both for me during the writing of Haven Lost. I love spearmint tea in particular, and my coffee comes from an AeroPress. You haven’t had coffee until you’ve had it made with an AeroPress. It’s true. Try it.

I don’t have any troll dolls, but my Masters of the Universe action figures oversaw most, if not all, of the writing of Haven Lost.

Q: What was the easiest part about writing Haven Lost?

The story itself was probably the easiest part of writing Haven Lost. It had been, in the most basic sense at least, clattering around inside my skull for so long that it was easy to keep the story moving forward. When I did hit a snag, the characters, strange as it may sound, were always there to tell me just what the hell was going on. Probably that sounds crazy to most people, but perfectly rational to anyone who has ever written a piece of fiction.

Q: What was the hardest part?

Without a doubt, editing was the most difficult part of the process. Going through the first and second drafts is an absolute joy, but when it comes down to the hack-and-slash of preparing your book for publication, its a maddening ordeal. In some ways, I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and I agonized over a lot of the details.

Q: Do you like bacon?

I do, but mostly just on breakfast burritos or hamburgers.

Q: How long have you been writing, or wanting to write and when did you actually write your first story?

I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. I recall putting together an Inspector Clouzot comic book of my own at around age four or five. In the fourth grade, I wrote a science-fiction story that won a writing competition at the school district level. Writing has always been something I’ve done in one form or another.

Q: Do you have a favourite character from your book/books? If so, who and why?

It has to be Emily, the heroine of Haven Lost. She’s a strong, if flawed, female character, and, in both my own writing or when reading, I’ve always been drawn to compelling female characters. Celine, the first friend Emily makes on her adventure, is also a favorite of mine, partly because she’s such a contrast to Emily in a lot of ways, despite the fact that they both come from very troubled backgrounds.

Q: Are you working on anything else right now? If so, can you tell us anything about it?

I’m currently well underway on the second volume of the Dragon’s Brood Cycle.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the readers of this interview?

I love Twitter, and I tweet about all kinds of things from the latest Stephen King book to Apple tech or the LA Kings. I have a wide range of interests.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Lioncourt

Blog: http://lioncourt.com

The Dragon’s Brood Cycle: http://dragonsbrood.net

Thanks so much for the opportunity to talk to you and your readers.

Thank YOU, Josh! It was shiny!

Until next time…

…you can’t take the Books from me…

~Serenity

#Hashtag Photo Contest you say? Prizes you say?

Yes! I do say! Here are the details!

#SerenityValleBooks HASHTAG PHOTO CONTEST

Take a photo of yourself:

- Creatively reading one of my books (paperback or Kindle version, make sure I can tell it is mine). When I say creatively reading… I mean… skydiving (don’t forget to let out your chute though!)… under your desk at work when you should be filing those reports… while hula-hooping… at the top of Tree 9… etc. Please do NOT read while driving or operating heavy machinery! (In other words, keep it creative but SAFE!) AND/OR

- Recreating (to the best of your ability) the pose of one of my book covers (get friends in on it!)- but put a funny twist on it or something AND/OR

- Doing something from the book (Keep it PG and as obvious as possible what you’re doing please!)

Place your non-retouched photo on Instagram, Twitter and/or Facebook, type in what you’re doing and MAKE SURE TO LABEL IT #SerenityValleBooks so I can find it! (ie: “The boss thinks I’m in the board meeting, but I’m really reading Acquittal! #SerenityValleBooks” or “My fave scene from the fifth story, Serenity & Captain Jack! #SerenityValleBooks”)You may enter as many photos as you like as long as they adhere to one the three photo entry choices.

Contest runs for 3 weeks. Start posting entries at 12:01 am August 19 through 11:59 pm Sept 9. Entries posted before or after the stated times will not be counted. Entries that do not include the hashtag #SerenityValleBooks will not be counted. Like my FB page (http://www.facebook.com/author.serenityvalle), follow me on Twitter (@SerenityValle), follow me on Instagram (serenityvalle_author). Share this contest because you support Indie authors and because you’re wild and crazy and have friends who would totally bungee jump while reading my book!

Dazzle me! Make me laugh, make me cry… My favourite photo wins! Winner will get a $3 Amazon gift card, a mystery swag item, a character modelled off of them in my current WIP (Book two of The Revenant Series), a shout out in the acknowledgements in the front of the book, and your photo immortalised on Pinterest. I also promise not to kill off the character. :) (I swear! At least not in Book 2!) Winners to be announced in mid-September (within a week of the 9th) on FB/Twitter/Instagram.

You can’t take the Books from me…

~Serenity

My first video interview (link)

http://youtu.be/FEW3S5KjsdQ

Head on over to my YouTube channel for a taste of Dracula, the Audio Drama!

A very good friend of mine, Lawrence Burgess, directed it and I wanted to help him spread the word, so I invited him and Joshua (the voice of Dr. Seward) to my home for a video interview!

I was *almost* in this production but… next time!

There was goofing off (I’m not actually telling Josh to hurry, and yes, I’m signing ASL at him part of the time) and we giggled a LOT (which of course was cut for brevity lol).

Take a look and check out the description to see how YOU can help support Indie Arts!

Love & Books,

~Serenity

Here is my interview with Serenity Valle

Serenity:

My latest interview!

Originally posted on authorsinterviews:

Name: Serenity Valle

Age: If I told you, I’d have to kill you ;)

Where are you from: Originally from the St. Louis area (just over the border in Illinois), but have lived many years also in California and West Virginia

A little about your self `ie your education Family life etc: I am an extremely happy wife to Arleigh Bison Westunlied, author/truck driver/former Navy and intensely proud mum to David, Jaime and Imz, my awesome boys. I graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz and have degrees in Psychology, Social Sciences, Humanities and a minor in Latin American/Latino Studies. We live in a “tiny house” in a quaint little town in West Virginia where I spend time gardening, walking with the toddler and making soaps and other body products (when I’m not writing of course!)

Fiona: Tell us your latest news?

Serenity: Well, the most recent news was…

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