Friday Five for January 10, 2014

1. A bit of a rough week. School was canceled all week due to the weather and the after-effects of the frigid temperatures. I was stuck in the house for three days straight with a 3.5 year old. Cabin fever and I became reacquainted. One night, I watched a documentary about the Donner Party and wondered what if that happened in a modern city. Story idea?

2. I managed to do a little bit of writing work, but not as much as I planned. I wanted to be finished the 2nd draft of my WIP, but I still have about 10k to go. I keep telling myself I have no deadline except for what I set, but I'm still working with being flexible with myself.

3. Speaking of flexibility, I wrote about setting writing goals on the Untethered Realms blog this week. I'll be posting my 2014 writing goals on Monday.

4. I had a great review for The 13th Floor Complete Collection on BigAl's Books & Pals. The reviewer said the bonus short story, "The Shadow" was a 5 star addition to the series. Woot!

5. I baked a lot, cleaned some more, and played Uno Moo dozens of times. It always evolves into a story about a farmer and a family of skunks who like to sit on the roof of the barn. I do love it that my son is really big into imaginative play.

Have a terrific weekend!

IWSG for January 2013 and an interview with me

The Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) is the brilliant idea of Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the group is to share doubts and insecurities and to encourage one another. Please visit the other participants and share your support. A kind word goes a long way.

I was ready to write an inspirational post and cheer you all on as the year begins. Start off 2014 with positive thoughts and a good plan.

Then I fell into a mud puddle. I haven't had time to write yet. A week into the new year, and I haven't written anything new. School was canceled due to the horrible weather. My child has found a new super-duper clingy stage. Not a single moment allowed alone for me. The main time I get for myself to write is when the boy is at school. I haven't had any time in nearly three weeks!

To rub it in, I got a rejection to a story I forgot I sent out last year. I thought I'd received all my rejections last month, but I guess I forgot to write this one down. I can taste the grit of the mud now.

I'll stand, splash a few times in the puddle, and then carry on. It wasn't the start to the new year I'd planned, but I'll keep pushing forward on my journey.

How was the start to your new year?

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Please pop over to Ellie Garratt's blog for an interview with me.

Find out what my favorite cheesy movies are and tell us yours!

Teaser Tuesday with Doctor Sleep

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is one worth reading just for the journey alone. DOCTOR SLEEP is the sequel to THE SHINING. Have you ever wondered what happened to Dan Torrance? Find out. So far, it's classic Stephen King.

Here's your teaser:
Abra thought she might be the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. Also, she realized at once, and without a shadow of a doubt, she was insane. (page 220)

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Join me over at the Untethered Realms blog

for a post about setting your writing goals for 2014.

Do you have any tips about how to stick with your goals that you want to share?

Review for The Vanished Knight

Blurb:  

Since the death of her parents, Callan Blair has been shunted from one foster family to another, her dangerous secret forcing the move each time. Her latest foster family quickly ships her off to an exclusive boarding school in the Cumbrian countryside. While her foster-brother James makes it his mission to get Callan expelled, a nearby ancient castle holds the secret doorway to another land...

When Callan is forced through the doorway, she finds herself in the magical continent of Tardith, where she’s shocked to learn her schoolmates Gawain and Darrion are respected soldiers in service to the king of Nordaine, one of Tardith's realms. More than that, the two are potential heirs to the Black Knight—Nordaine's crown prince.

But when the Black Knight fails to return from a mysterious trip, the realm teeters on the brink of war. Darrion and Gawain set out to find him, while Callan discovers there is more to her family history than she thought. The elves are claiming she is their princess.

Now with Darrion growing ever more antagonistic and her friendship with Gawain blossoming, Callan must decide whether to stay in Nordaine—where her secret grows ever more threatening—or go to the elves and uncover the truth about her family before war sets the realms afire.

My review: 

Callan Blair's dark secret keeps her bouncing around from one foster home to another. When her newest foster parents send her to a rich boarding school, Callan finds things she didn't think possible: a friend, a link to her past, and a doorway to another world. She's dragged into this strange and beautiful medieval world. Though she makes friends and might find some answers about her parents, she knows she can never stay. The darkness in her would never make it safe. But what's more frightening: what's inside of her or the war erupting around her?

A marvelous tale that takes us from our modern world into a wonderful fantasy realm, one forgotten by the people of Earth. The world building is incredible. There's a rich history filled with unusual customs and folklore, and none of it is dumped on the reader. It's perfectly spread out through the book. This is the first book in a series, and I cannot wait to learn more about the land and its peoples.

What makes this book stand out from other YA fantasy tales is the cast of characters. Callan is a strong female protagonist. She has my sympathy as well as my admiration. And the mystery behind her dark secret is intriguing. Kaela is another great female character. She's a soldier with a powerful sense of duty and loyalty. Then there are all the charming males: Gawain, Quin, Darrion, and Ward. Not James. He wasn't charming at all!

THE VANISHED KNIGHT is a fantastic beginning to Misha Gerrick's series. I can't wait until the next one is released!

You can buy the book here: 
Amazon 

Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble 
Kobo
All Romance Reads 
Amazon France 
Amazon Germany

You can find Misha here:

Blog * Twitter * Goodreads

Alliance cover reveal

BLURB:

“Saving him meant saving her colony…”

Lyra Bryan has been saving people her whole life from a chick in the ventilation pipes to her mentally ill brother when his mind drifts back to Old Earth. She meets her match when she finds a gorgeous alien man aboard the arachnid ship. Captured after a failed attempt to save his people, his spirit is broken, craving only vengeance. To save her colony, Lyra must save his body and soul.

Lyra’s lifemate, Tauren, is jealous of her obsession with the alien man and will do anything in his power to break them apart. While they travel to the arachnid’s home world to defeat the mother brain once and for all, they must set aside their differences and work as a team. But, can Tauren be trusted?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Aubrie Dionne is an author and flutist in New England. Her books have received the highest ratings from Romance Times Magazine, as well as Night Owl Reviews and Two Lips Reviews. She has guest blogged on the USA Today Happily Ever After Blog and the Dear Teen Me blog and signed books at the Boston Book Festival, Barnes and Noble, and the Romance Writers of America conference. Her writings have appeared in numerous publications including Mindflights, Niteblade, Silver Blade, Emerald Tales, Hazard Cat, Moon Drenched Fables, A Fly in Amber, and Aurora Wolf. Her books are published by Inkspell Publishing, Astraea Press, Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Publishing, Lyrical Press, and Gypsy Shadow Publishing. When she's not writing, Aubrie teaches flute and plays in orchestras.

COVER REVEAL CONTEST!

Winner gets this awesome crystal paperweight from Paradise 21 series!

 

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Friday Five for January 3, 2014

1. Hello, and in case you didn't hear my cheer, Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Now it's back into the groove. I'm setting a schedule for myself for blogging and networking. I need a better balance between writing and everything else I need to do as a writer. I'm sticking to the blogging schedule I created last year which worked very well.

   Mondays - Reviews, guest posts, and other author promotions. (If any of my writer friends would like to do a guest post on my blog, please email me.)

   Tuesdays - Teaser Tuesday

   Wednesdays - IWSG and Wicked Wednesday

   Fridays - Friday Five

2. I managed to get myself on Feedly earlier last week. Yes, that's how long it's taken me to get a new reader since Google Reader went away. I'm slowly adding everyone on to my feeds. It's taking a while since I can't figure out how to import my Blogger list to it. My hope is this will make visiting blogs much easier for me. I do return comment when someone comments on my blog, but I need something to help me keep all my blogs organized.

3. I've also been organizing the people I follow on Twitter into lists. I've started this about four weeks ago, and it's helped greatly with keeping up with people that get lost in the main feed. I like it, too, because I can retweet more efficiently. Tip: retweeting helps those authors and you too. Sometimes they'll retweet you in turn. I've gained more followers in December than I have since the beginning of 2013.

4. I've been making excellent progress revising my current WIP. I'm excited about how it's starting to really shine. I'll be querying the manuscript this year to publishers. I already have a few in mind. I'm reminding myself to take a deep breath and not rush it. Sometimes it's difficult to do so when I really want to share it with the world.

5. I had a lovely and relaxing holiday. My husband stayed home for a week, and we made no plans whatsoever. Family visits were done in November. We went on family hikes, lazed around some days in our pajamas, and ate way too much junk food. My son was spoiled. He got the rocket he wanted from Santa. It was awesome! A great way to end a terrific year.

Happy 2014!

May this be one of the best years for all of us!

I did great with last year's goals.

I'll be posting my writing goals for this year very soon.

I didn't manage to read as many books in 2013 (112) as I did in 2012 (128), but I wrote a lot more! I still hope to read 100 books in 2014.

Cheers!