Sara Hantz's Blog, page 6

GCC Presents….. Laurie Faria Stolarz

 

I’m thrilled to be touring Laurie Faria Stolarz and her latest book in the Touch series Deadly Little Lessons:

Camelia Hammond’s trying junior year of high school is finally over…but her troubles aren’t. After she discovers a painful truth about her family, she escapes to a summer arts program in Rhode Island. Determined to put family – and boyfriend – drama behind her, she throws herself into her artwork.

At the arts school, she gets caught up in the case of Sasha Beckerman, a local girl who is missing. Even though all signs suggest that the teen ran away, Camelia senses otherwise. Eager to help the girl, she launches her own investigation. Meanwhile, Camelia realizes how much she misses Ben, despite being committed to Adam.

But time is running out for Sasha, and Camelia will have to trust her powers if she’s to save her. Will the lessons Camelia has learned in the past give her the strength to do so?

Wanna sneak peek? Go here: http://www.lauriestolarz.com/dllessons.pdf

Check out the book trailers:

DEADLY LITTLE SECRET: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fzMpVMy2fQ

DEADLY LITTLE LIES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Qk0VG2Nz0

DEADLY LITTLE GAMES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc8N4Q0YDuM

Praise for the TOUCH series:

Texas Tayshas List, 2010 (DLS)

Children’s Book Council’s 2010 & 2011 Teen Choice Book of the Year Nominee

Reluctant Reader Quick Pick Nominees, 2010 & 2011, American Library Association

Teens@Random, Favorite Book of 2009 (DLS)

Gold Star Award, TeensReadToo.com, 2009 (DLL)

“…lively first-person narrative…. CW-worthy dialogue, quirky secondary characters, romance and suspense: a winning combination” – Kirkus Reviews

“An engaging, eerie tale about the darker side of relationships – when it becomes a matter of life and death to know who your friends are.” – KLIATT

“The book was full of shocking surprises and revelations, earning the book five stars. This is a must-read for fans of romance, suspense, and mystery because it won’t disappoint.” – Teens Read Too (DLL)

“Laurie Faria Stolarz is a master creator of suspense and romance. Her words cause the heart to pound, the palms to sweat, the spine to shiver, and the stomach to flutter. The trepidation born from the anonymous threats will make the pages fly, and the palpable tension between Camelia and Ben as they attempt to ignore their hearts causes the fire to burn hotter.” – TeenReads.com

Karma Chameleon Contest

In celebration of the release of DEADLY LITTLE LESSONS, Laurie is excited to announce the launch of a brand new contest. She’s calling it Karma Chameleon – yes, after the Boy George song from the ’80′s (in case any of you have heard of it; if not, you can YouTube it for fun). She’s naming it that, not because of Boy George or his song, but because the contest is all about karma – good karma that is, and the spreading of it, and because, five books later, she thought it’d be the perfect time to celebrate Camelia from the Touch series (recall that Camelia’s real name is Chameleon).

The contest is all about giving and getting – hence the karma part. As many of you know, the law of karma, in its simplest definition, is that whatever you put out to the world – energy or otherwise, good or bad – comes back to you. And so, in the spirit of good karma, let’s spread some goodness. Laurie wants to encourage readers to do a good deed, i.e. organize a fundraiser or food drive, volunteer to tutor or teach something, visit the elderly or a children’s hospital. All good-karma submissions will be entered into a drawing to win autographed copies of some of my Touch series books. She’ll be sharing the most inspiring stories on my website and Facebook, and She’ll Tweet about them as well (with your permission, of course). For more information, see the official guidelines and rules on Laurie’s web site: http://www.lauriestolarz.com/news.html

 

Bio: Laurie Faria Stolarz is the author of Deadly Little Secret, Deadly Little Lies, Deadly Little Games, Deadly Little Voices, Project 17, and Bleed, as well as the bestselling Blue is for Nightmares series. Born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, Stolarz attended Merrimack College and received an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College in Boston. For more information, please visit her Web site at www.lauriestolarz.com.

Follow Laurie:

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/laurie.stolarz

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauriestolarz

Sign up for her e-Newsletter for updates on contest, book, and appearance info: http://www.lauriestolarz.com/newsletter.html.

GCC Presents….. Eileen Cook!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m thrilled to be touring the amazing, and very funny, author Eileen Cook with her latest book The Almost Truth.

Sadie can’t wait to get away from her backwards small town, her delusional mom, her jailbird dad, and the tiny trailer where she was raised…even though leaving those things behind also means leaving Brendan. Sadie wants a better life, and she has been working steadily toward it, one con at a time.

But when Sadie’s mother wipes out Sadie’s savings, her escape plan is suddenly gone. She needs to come up with a lot of cash—and fast—or she’ll be stuck in this town forever.

With Brendan’s help, she devises a plan—the ultimate con—to get the money. But the more lies Sadie spins, the more she starts falling for her own hoax…and perhaps for the wrong boy. Sadie wanted to change her life, but she wasn’t prepared to have it flipped upside down by her own deception. With her future at stake and her heart on the line, suddenly it seems like she has a lot more than just money to lose….

And now for the usual questions:

What inspired the plot for your book?

Most often book ideas come to me as a collection of unrelated things. A bit of an idea here, another piece there, until it sticks together as one idea. This process can take months or years. This is one of the few books where I can remember the exact second I had the idea. I was on the ferry and saw a missing child poster. At the bottom there was an age-enhanced photo so you could see what the person might look like now. I had the thought “How weird would it be if I looked like the age enhanced photo?” In that instant the idea of the book dropped into my head. I ran back to my seat and wrote it down as fast as I could. I spent another week thinking over some different details, but I started writing almost right away.

Why did you decide to write in this genre?

I love reading contemporary YA so I knew it was a genre I wanted to write.

What is your writing process like?

I start with the seed of an idea. An idea that I decide is brilliant. So brilliant, that I have no idea how to write the actual book to make it live up to the idea. I tend to write the first half of the book very quickly and then get bogged down as it moves forward. I almost always need to stop and figure out where I went wrong and how to move forward. There is also a period when I decide the book is horrid and should be burned before people read it and throw rocks at me. I’d like to skip this last step, but for some reason it seems to be part of the process for me.

What are you working on now?

I am working on a new YA which is currently being called LOST TO BE FOUND, but stay tuned the title may change. It’s about a girl named Avery who decides to search for her birth mom as part of her senior project, but ends up finding out more about herself than she expected.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I love movies, walking my dogs (also napping with them on the sofa), reading, knitting and in the summer, kayaking.

Who do you like to read?

So many great books- not enough time. Some authors you may not know include Joelle Anthony, Cat Patrick, and Denise Jaden.

Praise for Eileen Cook’s books:

“.. enormously appealing and great company throughout this breezy read…..the highest quality—like a gourmet truffle. Cook has whipped up a real treat.” – Kirkus Starred Review

“Thrilling and creepy, super sexy, and so very hilarious.” – Lisa McMann, bestselling author of the Wake trilogy

“Sassy and sly and sweet all at the same time, this book made me laugh out loud.” – Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries and Airhead

Bio:

Eileen Cook is a multi-published author with her novels appearing in eight different languages. She spent most of her teen years wishing she were someone else or somewhere else, which is great training for a writer. Her latest release, Unraveling Isobel came out in Jan 2012

You can read more about Eileen, her books, and the things that strike her as funny at www.eileencook.com. Eileen lives in Vancouver with her husband and two dogs and no longer wishes to be anyone or anywhere else.

Help rebuild the shore!!

Best-selling author Caridad Pineiro is helping to rebuild the shore by donating proceeds of her latest romantic suspense release, THE PRINCE’S GAMBLE, from now until March 1, 2013. Proceeds from the sales of the book will be donated to the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief fund. THE PRINCE’S GAMBLE is available for download at Amazon via this link: http://amzn.to/UFCKRO. THE PRINCE’S GAMBLE will be available shortly at BN.com.