Helen Rena's Blog: Books and Their Discontents, page 5

Revenge by Paula Rose: Release Blitz

Revenge by Paula Rose

Anaiah Romance

Blurb:

As a job coach, it’s up to Olivia Foster to ensure her clients work in a safe environment, understand their positions, and serve their employer’s mission. The death of her brother drives her career choice, and she loves her job. It remains her only focus until one of her autistic clients goes missing. Then Olivia’s employer ends her position and adds her to the suspect list, but she makes plans to bring the missing young man home.

Meanwhile, Detective Lt. Phillip Landon is deep into second-guessing his career choice, but his well-honed instincts see major flaws inside this missing person’s case. Surprising contacts, mysterious happenings, and threats can turn deadly. Can he keep Olivia safe, protect his heart, remove the job coach from someone’s target list, and adopt a faith he never knew all while adjusting to the new lives of his old family?

Release Date: 

December 16, 2014

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Trailer:

Author Bio:



Paula Rose provides inspiration through Christian romantic suspense stories where “average” families come into extraordinary situations, brushed with life-size strokes of reality and a touch of humor. Born in Philadelphia, she lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband and rescue kitty but often plays amateur photographer in both states.

Author Links:




Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Pinterest | Anaiah Press | Bookfun.org |




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How to Throw Tolstoy Under the Train

Anna Karenina starts on a kind note: a loveless arranged marriage between a young woman named Anna and her much, much older husband starts crumbling because Anna falls in love with a young man. So yes, love between people of the same age, condemnation of arranged marriages, and all that. However, divorces were very tricky to obtain in Russia at that time. Basically, you could only get one under extreme circumstances like for example, your spouse has been missing for years or he’s been sent to Siberia as a criminal, etc. And while adultery indeed was one of those rare legal grounds for divorce, there was a catch: the spouse who would admit to adultery could never remarry. Them’s the rules. Anyway, after Anna leaves her husband for her lover, her husband does not want to take the blame for adultery he didn’t commit, and Anna doesn’t want it because then she wouldn’t be able to marry her lover. Dilemma at its best. All writers collectively swoon.

Now, how does Tolstoy solve this dilemma? Easily. He labels Anna a bad mother because she doesn’t know where one of her daughter’s toys is because all good mothers know the whereabouts of every single of their kids’ toys at all times. He also paints her in really dark colors. Not only she is an adulteress, but she also takes contraceptives, so we all should just stone her. Finally, he has her friends abandon her and her young lover fall out of love with her, after which he has poor Anna throw herself under a train.

And if that’s not bad enough, there is another story going parallel to Anna’s. An aristocratic woman with five or so kids discovers that her husband cheated on her, but she forgives him, never takes contraceptives even though her health is compromised by so many pregnancies, and finally allows her husband to fritter away her money because that’s what a good woman does. Well, Tolstoy lets her live. The end.

P.S. An argument can be made that Tolstoy was a realist and that’s why he showed Anna’s lover fall out of love with her and so on. And yes, it’s true—love is flitting and friends can betray you—but Tolstoy didn’t do just that. He also demonized Anna so that readers wouldn’t pity her or root for her. Which was just really low on Tolstoy’s part, especially since Tolstoy himself cheated on his wife repeatedly.

Killing Were-Pigs and Other Joys of Writing Life

Now that I’ve published my first novel, I can look back and be appalled at all the mistakes I made on my way there. Okay, okay, I probably still don’t see ALL of the mistakes, but I see some, and here is my mistake #329–which for me proved to be the most pervasive, most time-consuming, and the hardest to eradicate. You see, I liked my imaginary darlings too much.

When my novel Into the Blind went live on Amazon this summer, I described it as a young adult paranormal novel, but it did not start out this way. Long, long ago, it began as a fantasy/science fiction hybrid for middle-graders. I had a brilliant vision for this book. There would be parallel worlds, a Hogwarts-like school, kids escaping their strict teachers, mysterious cities, and even a wicked queen. There would be mind reading and flying trains, were-pigs and sentient planets, time travel and the kitchen sink. It was a disaster, of course.

Undaunted, I re-wrote the novel, but as I did, I came up with more brilliant ideas. For instance, why not endow my were-pigs with psychic abilities? And wouldn’t it rock if my protag was blind—but could still see? And perhaps I could age my characters and throw in a love interest. The novel’s plot became a maze, and its page count reached a number that, were it dollars, I would have been set for life.

Yes, looking at that number, I knew I’d have to be ruthless and throw a lot of stuff out. BUT ALL OF IT WAS GOOD.

Well, after much mental anguish, I did start tossing things overboard. For better or worse, I threw out all of the science fiction elements. I said good-bye to the mind reading, the Hogwarts-like school, and were-pigs. I bore that loss the hardest. But anything for art, right? And besides, it did improve the novel, which became shorter—only a hundred thousand or so words—and much more orderly. And yet I still couldn’t find a publisher.

That’s when I finally hired an editor.

She was good. She asked me hard questions about my plot. So my characters go on a huge quest just because they misunderstood each other? Is that really enough motivation? And what is the purpose of the wicked queen in the story? And why do I have a blind protagonist who can see? In fact, how does she actually do that? Well, let me tell you, by then I was happy the were-pigs were history.

I spent the next year rewriting the novel yet again, but this time I forced myself to look away from all the shiny possibilities and concentrate on an emotionally believable plot. And what I got was a story of two paranormally gifted teens who were deeply in love and could have been happy together if only the boy didn’t resent that his girlfriend’s gift was more powerful than his. At once I knew how my blind protagonist could see: through her boyfriend’s eyes. And as for the evil queen…well, she came in handy when the boy started pushing the girl to choose between him and her gift…

It wasn’t all roses from there. I still got carried away now and then. But in the end, Into the Blind came together, and I am so happy and proud to see it published.

P.S. Don’t tell anyone, but the were-pigs live. Because I’m still going to write something about them.

Poems by Georgy Ivanov: Kind of Depressing, But…

But some poems are amazing. I mean not all of them, no. In fact, most of them are repetitive as hell – trees, cold, something in the window. I don’t know why Ivanov never saw anything through, let’s say, a door or under his bed or in his closet. Maybe he was in some anti-door league. But I guess I get the cold part – to be Russian and not to write about snow and cold would be unnatural.

But a few poems are fantastic and truly creepy. Here’s one:

I will gradually become trained,

March with others, day out, day in.

Will not worry about the mundane.

Following regulations feel shame.

They stand – I stand. They sit – I sit.

Will remember my hundred-digit sign.

Be loyally grateful to hell for bloody

Stars in constellations above my head.

What do you think?

Cover Reveal for Time Out, Valentine

Time Out, Valentine

by Melinda Dozier

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press

Release Date: January 2015




And here’s the amazing Time Out, Valentine cover …

BLURB

Lexi’s life is one big dump. Or so she thinks. To keep her mind off her latest breakup, she stays busy with work. It’s no big deal, since writing for Time Out Portland Magazine is a blast…except for the one small snag – Grant Reeds. Grant, a shy but sexy computer geek, is new to Time Out, working as the Networking Director for the online magazine. Even though Lexi thinks he doesn’t notice her, he sure as hell does. The owners have a plan for their upcoming Valentine’s Special, pairing up the two to explore romantic date ideas around the city. Soon, Lexi and Grant learn that the old adage, “Opposites Attract,” can ring true.

EXCERPT



Grant sipped his beer and surveyed the room around them—anywhere but at the siren next to him, with her fancy drink, an umbrella hanging off the side. Overhead lights strobed the room, gleaming in all directions. The DJ announced a new song and a new crowd rushed to the dance floor, leaving them more alone in the back of the room. Thank God.

It was stifling hot. He tugged his collar from his neck and rolled the sleeves of his white button-up. His glasses slid down his nose, forcing him to take them off and put them in his shirt pocket.

Luckily in that part of the room, the music wasn’t so loud that they had to scream to converse. He only raised his voice a fraction to ask her the question he’d been wondering since they set foot in the place. “So, you think this is romantic enough for a Valentine’s date?”

She batted her long lashes in his direction and smirked. “There’s low lights.”

“Yeah and loud music, people all around.” To help prove his point, someone bumped him in the back, pushing him closer to Lexi. His hand circled her waist and rested on her hip.

She sipped the drink, moving the umbrella with her other hand, then licked her lips. “It’sthe place to be. All trendy couples find their way here.” She cocked her head. “What would make it more romantic? Kissing?”

A slow smile formed and he faced her. Not a bad idea. “Actually, yeah.” He placed his bottle on the table behind them, cracked his knuckles and stretched his neck.

She laughed nervously, putting her weight on another sexy as hell foot. “What? You’re gonna kiss me? For real?”

“We need romance.” He grabbed her cup and put it next to his bottle. His gaze dropped to her mouth.

“You kissing me won’t—”

He placed his thumb on her lips. “Shhh. Stop talking so we can be romantic.”

AUTHOR BIO








After hectic days of teaching English to middle school students, Melinda finds time to write and read in the evenings. She lives in Guatemala, Central America with her husband/ college sweetheart who brings “mucho amor” to her life. Melinda enjoys being the queen of her household and dreams of being pampered fully by her three boys once they are grown. Melinda’s guilty pleasures include reality t.v., traveling, blogging and playing Zynga games.

LINKS

Website: www.melindadozier.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/melindadozier

Facebook: http://www.twitter.com/melinda.doz

The Wild Rose Press: http://goo.gl/F3IG1W




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Melinda will be giving away a $5 Barnes and Noble or Books a Million eGift Card.

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The End of the Darkest Minds?

It’s funny but I don’t seem to be able to finish The Darkest Minds. I don’t know why. I like the book, and yet, I have trouble going back to it. Is it too much Thanksgiving turkey? Not enough bra funzies? How do you motivate yourself to keep going and finish a book?

The Darkest Minds and the Bras: Part 2

I am at 70% or so, and bras made another appearance. Ruby finds piles of them in an abandoned and looted Walmart. Which makes perfect sense to me: who needs bras when you should be getting food? But then…and that’s where I got confused…then the book tells us that Ruby digs through those piles to find a new bra for herself because…I don’t know…her boobs are falling off? I mean it’s hard to believe that a girl who has just escaped from a sadistic concentration camp would care so much about her appearance…but then again, she does shave her legs on the FIRST DAY of her escape from the camp.

Where to Get a Bra During Apocalypse

I really like The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. It’s intriguing; it’s fast-paced. I’m almost halfway through the book.

One detail threw me for a spin, though. It was when the protagonist named Ruby told us that her guards – well, it’s a concentration camp for paranormally gifted children – anyway, her guards gave bras to her and all the other girls once the girls reached the age when they needed said bras. This dumbfounded me. I mean, maybe I heard too much about Soviet concentration camps, but really, bras for thousands of inmates in a concentration camp? More so, how could they possibly find well-fitting bras for thousands of girls? Did they measure the girls? It’s hard to find a well-fitting bra even if you can shop for it yourself, in my opinion.

Anyhow, the bra thing sounded strange, but I kept on reading…

…and it turned out that the entire US in the book is in a deep-deep-deep trouble. The country defaulted on the national debt and is now broke. People are rioting. The government is barely functioning. And yet, the guards at Ruby’s concentration camp managed to scare up thousands of bras. How? Where did they get them? I don’t know. But I bet Alexandra Bracken knows. Perhaps we should ask her, in case apocalypse actually happens and we’ll need some bras…

What People Say About Into the Blind

Into the Blind got a nice review from Stephanie Hildreth of Stephanie’s Book Reviews:

“Everyone is born with a gift, some people have a gift of dance, music or color; but some people are born with the gift of nightmares, time-shifting, godliness, or heart, the ability to make everyone around you feel any emotion. These gifts are highly coveted by those who would like more power and child trafficking has grown. Ever-Jezabel, Fox, Demmi and Sinna were all stolen at birth and have been locked in an abandoned mall bookstore waiting for their gifts to achieve full potential. Ever is supposed to have the gift of heart, but being blind all she believes that she can do now is see out of the eyes of others. When the four teens try to escape into the strange streets of New York City, Ever’s gift of heart may be a the key to their way out or her demise.

This book had a really unique premise. I liked all of the different gifts and how the presence of these gifts brought out the worst in people. Ever’s situation is very intriguing, the only life that she has known has been locked in a mall with four other kids her age, all with potentially dangerous gifts. The teens have paired off and Fox has formed an almost unhealthy obsession for Ever. Ever is also dependent on the others for sight. Ever and Fox’s relationship added another layer of danger. When the group does make their escape, it is into an almost an impossible version of New York, which they must now try to find their way out of. It had a feeling of Alice in Wonderland and was ruled by a Queen with the power of heart and had buildings that shifted around every night. Through Ever’s point of view, I was able to figure out part of the twist pretty early on; however the ending still held a lot of suspense and a chance for the characters to surprise me. I really wanted to know more about this world and the gifts, there wasn’t much explanation of how the gifts came to be or how those with the potentially dangerous gifts are controlled.”

Book Trailer for Into the Blind: The BIG Reveal

Hi, everyone! Today I’m super excited to share the book trailer for my new YA urban fantasy Into the Blind. It’s been a lot of work, and I hope so much you will enjoy it.

A little about Into the Blind…

Fifteen-year-old Ever is blind. Only able to see what her boyfriend, Fox, looks at, which is most often herself. But sometimes it’s also the muscled men who kidnapped Ever and Fox, and sometimes it’s an unused mall in New York City where the two teens are locked up until they’ll come into the paranormal gifts for which they were stolen. Having spent years in this mall, Ever is ready to do anything to escape.

Not so with Fox. Yes, he longs to escape too, but there’s one thing that he values above his freedom. It’s Ever’s love. Still, when the two get a chance to escape, they take it, only to discover that this chance is so dark and twisted that it just might destroy Ever’s love for Fox.

And now for the long-awaited trailer…

Thanks for watching!!!

Into the Blind is available on Amazon.

And please do get in touch on Facebook or Tweeter or just drop me a line through the contact page on my website.