Happy 4th of July!

Have a safe and sane holiday!

Debut Book: Fairy Tale

Another debut book I can't wait to sink my teeth in!

Title: Fairy Tale (click to Buy at Amazon.com)
Author: Cyn Balog
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: June 23, 2009
Format: Hardcover

A captivating and witty dark fantasy that will have girls lusting after it.

Morgan Sparks has always known that she and her boyfriend, Cam, are made for each other. But when Cam’s cousin Pip comes to stay with the family, Cam seems depressed. Finally Cam confesses to Morgan what’s going on: Cam is a fairy. The night he was born, fairies came down and switched him with a healthy human boy. Nobody expected Cam to live, and nobody expected his biological brother, heir to the fairy throne, to die. But both things happened, and now the fairies want Cam back to take his rightful place as Fairy King.

Even as Cam physically changes, becoming more miserable each day, he and Morgan pledge to fool the fairies and stay together forever. But by the time Cam has to decide once and for all what to do, Morgan’s no longer sure what’s best for everyone, or whether her and Cam’s love can weather an uncertain future.

I've Gone to the Darkside...again

... the darkside of writing a brand spanking new book for the young adult market, that is!! Yes, it's a very popular age bracket to write for now, thanks to Twilight and others. However, I'm not trend chasing per se.

The very first book I wrote at 18 (trunked) was a young adult book. While I was writing Chasing Shadows and afterwards, I wanted to write a young adult book. I've had several YA ideas floundering in my head, ideas that were over 10+ years old. But I've been reading a lot of awesome YA books lately, studying them and the market, and BOOM. The new idea for my current WIP flowered. It's loosely based on the trunked novel I wrote at 18. The best and most challending thing about it, is that it's written from a 16 year-old boy's point of view. Now, I've written from a male POV before, i.e. Chasing Shadows and Demon Lust have a male POV in 3rd person, so I have some experience there.

Of course, since everything I write has a paranormal or fantasy slant, I had to add a paranormal element to it. That's just me! But it's one point of magic realism, not heavy paranormal or fantasy. It's absolutely refreshing to write contemporary again without the heavy influence of fantasy like my last 2 books. And I'm having a blast doing it! So cheer me on...

Debut Book: Wings

Here's another awesome debut book release I can't wait to sink into! Support my AbsoluteWrite fellow writers and pick up your copy today!

Title: Wings (click to Buy at Amazon.com)
Author: Aprilynne Pike
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: May 5, 2009
Format: Hardcover



Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.


Publishers Weekly

Pike's debut novel-a faerie story with a touch of Arthurian legend-offers a botanical twist on the genre. Laurel Sewell, the new girl in town, discovers a strange "zit" on her back, which blooms into a flower. With the help of her friend and growing love interest, David, with whom she entrusts this information, Laurel finds out that she is a faerie, and that faeries are really highly evolved plants (Pike gives readers hints: Laurel prefers to have lunch outside and eats little besides vegetables and Sprite). Tamani, her sexy faerie guardian, completes the love triangle, as he protects Laurel from encroaching dark forces and fills in the blanks about her past. As Laurel and David never muster much chemistry, her rocky journey of self-discovery is the main draw ("It makes me want to go home and go to sleep and wake up to find that all of this is a dream. That the flower, the bump, even public school never happened"). Pike's novel mythology should win fans for this book, billed as the first in a series. Ages 12-up.

Brenda Novak's Auction for Diabetes

Suspense author, Brenda Novak, is having her yearly auction to raise money for Diabetes Research. There are a ton of amazing things to bid on from art, jewelry, books, writing classes, to writing critiques from top editors and agents. The auction ends next weekend, so don't miss out on your chance to bid and help raise funds for diabetes awareness and research.

http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/

Here We Go Again: Mercury in Retrograde!

For those who believe in astrology, beware that Mercury went into its crazy retrograde cycle May 7 and can affect you until it straightens out on June 1. I've been affected by oddities during these times, which happens 3 - 4 times a year. It usually affects things like contracts and electronics, billings, etc. For more info, check out:http://www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html http://www.cafeastrology.com/mercuryretrograde.htmlhttp://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/mercury.html

Here's a little bit more about it: Mercury rules thinking and perception, processing and disseminating information and all means of communication, commerce, education and transportation. By extension, Mercury rules people who work in these areas, especially people who work with their minds or their wits: writers and orators, commentators and critics, gossips and spin doctors, teachers, travelers, tricksters and thieves.

Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray, or awry.

It is therefore not wise to make important decisions while Mercury is retrograde, since it is very likely that these decisions will be clouded by misinformation, poor communication and careless thinking. Mercury is all about mental clarity and the power of the mind, so when Mercury is retrograde, these intellectual characteristics tend to be less acute than usual, as the critical faculties are dimmed. Make sure you pay attention to the small print.(Source: http://www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html)

Teaser Tuesday #1

My first “teaser” excerpt. This is a snippet of a new beginning I’m contemplating for my paranormal romance. Let me know if you think this works as a beginning or not! Any other comments are appreciated! [Updated 5/1/09]

Ice-cold seawater sprayed Ryan’s face, jerking him awake, dampening the natural fire burning inside him. Fuzzyheaded, he felt disconnected from his body as if he’d been portal hopping, chasing a demon. Or chasing another senseless dream. His bleary-eyed gaze landed on an endless cauldron of seething whitecaps. Ryan bolted upright on the lounge chair. A shower of sparks erupted from his fingers and fizzled onto the soaked deck. Fire magic flared weakly inside him when it should be all guns blazing. Raising his palm face up, he invoked a fireball, but it sputtered and died. A cold shiver raced up Ryan’s back, prickled across his scalp.

The sailboat bucked and dipped into swells that now dominated the Pacific Ocean. Thick clouds had rolled in, completely painting over the blue sky in brushstrokes of gunmetal gray and wet cement.

A sense of deja vu washed over him. “What the hell happened to the sun and calm sea,” he muttered, shaking his head as if he could fling his mind out of a nightmare.

He jumped up, knocked his thigh on the tiller, barely missing his groin. “Shit.” He massaged the spot with one hand, while checking his coordinates. He’d never fallen asleep while sailing alone, and according to his watch, he’d passed out for an hour.

The compass arms spun wildly as if he was in a magnetic field. Ryan knocked his finger against the glass to no effect. The GPS spit an array of snow across the screen and he fruitlessly flicked it on and off. “What the hell?”

The sails flapped and rigging snapped in the wind. Choppy water smacked against the hull, and the boat groaned and creaked. The sloop heaved up and slammed down hard on another surge, knocking Ryan to his knees. As he staggered to his feet, a rope of fear tightened around his heart. Slowly, Ryan spun in a circle, taking in the rapidly increasing storm. Not another vessel or land in sight. A fast moving fog rolled in from his left, a solid mass of rain headed toward him from the right, and straight ahead was a mishmash of wind, rain, and lightning.

Something wasn’t right. He’d never seen a squall like this, and he’d sailed through plenty of them. Where the hell was he? An hour wasn’t enough time to sail into stormy weather a week off the radar.

On rubbery legs, fighting the pitching sloop, Ryan jumped below deck and flicked on the radio. Static grated on his jagged nerves. He checked all the channels, gave his identification on each one, waited for a response before moving to the next. In the end, the only answer he received was a dead radio, dead engine, dead generator. Dead fucking everything.

Ryan slicked his wet hair back and rummaged for his satellite phone in his backpack, hoping for one last stroke of luck. The screen was blank, battery shot. He slammed the phone on the bunk, catching his balance against the desk as the boat canted toward port side. The Bermuda triangle’s looking tame compared to this BS. He gained a fragile balance on the steps, grabbed his rain slicker, and shrugged it on over his T-shirt and shorts. For some gut-wrenching reason, he felt compelled to strap on his backpack even though the load hampered his movements.

Holding the handrails, he took the three steps to the deck in one leap. Gale force wind whipped his long hair about his face, rain slashed down in torrents. Sputtering, he spat out a mouthful of water. Shock wrenched on his gut hard. Now he couldn’t see anything beyond an eerie blanket of fog settling in despite the whipping wind and driving rain. Mist so thick he could hack through it with a cleaver turned morning into midnight. Ryan stumbled across the deck and lowered the two sails before the wind shredded them. The masts and lines swayed with every lurch of the boat against the roiling sea. As quickly as he could maneuver on the unsteady, slick deck, Ryan tied down what he could to wait out the weather.

Watching the world spin around him, he wondered if fate hadn’t tossed him a life preserver. He’d hit the lowest point of his life last night when he dutifully kissed his equally unenthused fiancée goodbye after their wedding rehearsal dinner. But when he awoke that morning, adrenaline pumped through his veins and he couldn’t wait to get out on the water. Puffy white clouds had scuttled across clear sky as far as the weatherman could predict. A perfect forecast for a long day of sailing. As the sun rose over Los Angeles, Ryan sailed out of the bay, wishing the price of freedom was as cheap as cruising into the sunset. Steering course for the wide-open sheet of aquamarine, he’d saluted the pier and didn’t look back. His last trip of freedom before his life turned into a living hell.