Category: Reading

I’m so happy to be able to host my good friend and critique partner, S.K. Falls. You may remember her as Adriana Ryan, the author of the awesome New Adult dystopian, World of Shell and Bone. She has a new pen name (which happens to be her real name) and an amazing New Adult contemporary release, Secret for a Song. The premise is dark, but brilliant: lonely Munchhausen patient meets and joins support group for terminally ill young adults. Wow.

I had the pleasure to read and critique the manuscript a few months ago, and I can assure you that it’s incredible. Don’t take my word for it, check out the glowing reviews pouring in on Amazon and Goodreads (links below). Don’t miss the excerpt after the cover and blurb. S.K. is a very talented writer; her prose is one of the things I love best about her novels. Please read and enjoy!

Saylor Grayson makes herself sick. Literally.

She ate her first needle when she was seven. Now, at nineteen, she’s been kicked out of college for poisoning herself with laxatives. The shrinks call it Munchausen Syndrome. All Saylor knows is that when she’s ill, her normally distant mother pays attention and the doctors and nurses make her feel special.

Then she meets Drew Dean, the leader of a local support group for those with terminal diseases. When he mistakes her for a new member, Saylor knows she should correct him. But she can’t bring herself to, not after she’s welcomed into a new circle of friends. Friends who, like Drew, all have illnesses ready to claim their independence or their lives

For the first time, Saylor finds out what it feels like to be in love, to have friends who genuinely care about her. But secrets have a way of revealing themselves. What will happen when Saylor’s is out?

Buy links:

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Goodreads

Excerpt:

Drew waited with me as I stood on the sidewalk outside, letting the snow dust my head and shoulders.

“You look good in snow,” he said.

I laughed, my cheeks heating up as I tipped my head back to look at him. “Are you drunk?”

He stepped in closer, blocking out the streetlight that glowed orange in my eyes. “Maybe just a little tipsy.” He smiled. “I really meant what I sang in there.”

“Which part?” My words were just a breath, curling into the air.

He brought his head down to mine, so our noses were almost touching. “I’ll tell you a secret, I’ll sell you a secret for a song,” he sang softly; the same song from the bar. “Someday I’ll tell you, and take you back home where you belong.”

I wasn’t one of those girls who cried at every emotional thing they saw or heard; I’d never been that way. That might’ve explained why, when the tears cascaded down onto my cheeks, I felt with my fingers to see what the hell was going on with my eyes.

“Hey,” Drew said, catching one of the tears with a fingertip. “Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth to say I was, but all that came out was a sort of sob-whine, and more tears. Drew responded by putting his free hand around my waist and covering my mouth with his.

I’d like to say that in that moment, I kept my head. That I remembered that I was lying to him, that my entire existence in his life was only because of a huge untruth, and that I intended to extricate myself from him and the rest of the group. I’d like to say that I stopped the kiss.

But in that instance, the only thing I felt, the only thing that mattered, was how hard I was falling for Andrew Dean.

I was falling for this scared, lonely, broken, brave man who sang songs about secrets, who lulled me into a whole new universe using nothing but his voice. I wanted him, all of him, and I pretended that I belonged. It was the biggest lie I’d told up to that point, and for someone whose entire life was carved out of lies of different colors and shades and shapes, that was saying a lot.

Bio:

A huge fan of spooky stuff and shoes, I enjoy alternately hitting up the outlet malls and historic graveyards in Charleston, SC where I live and imbibe coffee. My husband and two small children seem not to mind when I hastily scribble novel lines on stray limbs in the absence of notepads.

Since no writer’s biography is complete without mention of her menagerie of animals, you should know I have one dog that doubles as a footstool, a second that functions as a vacuum cleaner, and a cat that ensures I never forget that my hands are, first and foremost, for pouring cat food.

Visit S.K. Falls:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Does anyone else out there have a Godbrother? Well, I do, and his name is Ben. Ben’s parents are my godparents, and my parents are his godparents. He’s a charming, wonderful guy with a sweet wife and super family.

I mention all this because my Godbrother has published a short nonfiction book that I think would make a great Father’s Day gift for any Dad interested in fly fishing and business. (Hint, hint, Father’s Day is next Sunday June 16th . . . )

Ben’s book is called Selling the Fly – A fly fisherman’s guide to sales, customers and how to catch a fish. As the title accurately suggests, it compares fly fishing – something Ben knows a lot about living in the Pacific Northwest – to sales – something else Ben knows a lot about as it’s his career. He offers a series of sage fly fishing “rules” that apply well to attracting and keeping customers. My favorite: “Don’t expect the fish to bite just because you’re hungry.”

Here is the cover and the blurb from Amazon. Ben even illustrated the flies throughout the book – he’s multi-talented. I hope you’ll pick up a copy for yourself, your Dad, or any fly-fisherman/salesperson in your life. Congrats, Godbrother!

In the world of sales, some people are “Hunters” and other are “Farmers”. Both types have strong, positive characteristics and can lead a person to a successful career. However, I believe the best analogy for a successful salesperson is that of a fly fisherman presenting and “selling the fly” to a hungry and discerning trout.

There are many parallels between success on the river and success in sales. This short guide outlines several lessons on how to win more, happy customers and some helpful hints on how to catch and release a fish.

Fish on!

My writing buddy Katie French, author of The Breeders series that I heartily recommended a while back, is launching a new book on Monday! It’s a sci-fi paranormal romance called Eyes Ever to the Sky, and I can’t wait to read it. She’s here today to talk about whether paranormal romance as a genre is dead, or if it’s merely undead, always ready to transform from sparkly vampire to something new and fresh. But first, here’s more about Eyes Ever to the Sky:

When Hugh wakes up in a smoldering crater–no memory, no clothes–a single thought echoes in his head…trust no one. Frightened and alone, with no memory of who he is, he stumbles upon a grisly murder scene and is shot by police. He wakes, only to find he can heal himself. He has superpowers and he’s going to need them.

Desperate and bleeding, Hugh stumbles upon fifteen-year-old Cece, who’s got enough troubles of her own. Between caring for her bipolar, out-of-work mother and trying not to get evicted from her run-down trailer, Cece may be the only person struggling as much as Hugh. Drawn to Hugh, Cece finds herself falling for him. But when the real killer–a man-hunting beast–chooses another victim, Hugh and Cece realize they must unlock the clues to their past if they have any chance at a future.

Is Paranormal Romance Dead?

by Katie French

I don’t know about you, but if I read one more story about a sexy but aloof vampire/werewolf/merman/garden gnome I might drive the stake straight into my own heart. To say that paranormal romance has been done is like saying that Lady Gaga’s outfits are different: the understatement of the century. As a reviewer for the indie book review site, Underground Book Reviews, I get inundated with requests to review paranormal books. The tropes have been beaten to death with sexy, yet tortured super beings and the innocent damsels who love them. Readers are fed up with it. I’ll wage a coffin full of money that if you pitched a vampire paranormal romance to an agent right now, they’d laugh you out the door.

And yet, there’s some reason why Stephenie Meyer can now buy an African country from writing four books.

I’ll be the first to go on record to say that I LOVED the Twilight books when they first came out. I read the first book before anyone was talking about it (I think that puts me in some elite nerd group where the perks are atomic wedgies, but I digress). That book rocked my world. There was something so…addicting about being loved by a creature strong enough to crush you. To be special enough to attract the attention of a super human, now that was sexy. No amount of sour grapes on the part of reviewers can take away what those books did for fantasy writers and reader everywhere.

So, where does that leave us? With stories that are derivative, characters that are more cardboard than a cereal box and plots completely overdone. Do we kill this genre and bury it with a sparkling tomb stone? “Here Lies Vampire Love Stories. RIP.” Like its undead characters, would it rise, moaning, clawing for scraps of life?

Science fiction and romance are my two favorite genres, so I refuse to believe their pairing has been killed. No matter how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches people eat, they still come back for more because the pairing is just so good. So it should be with paranormal romance. The genre doesn’t have to die, but it must be refashioned, reborn. And, that is exactly what I attempted to do with Eyes Ever to the Sky, my new YA sci fi romance. Did I go far enough from the derivative? Did I hug close enough to the tropes that matter? Only my readers may judge. I will tell you that not a single scene is set inside a high school and not a single character sparkles. That has to count for something.

My conclusion. Paranormal romance is not dead. Derivative stories and fan fic may be on its last straggling breath, but like any genre, authors can remake, reshape and reform. That’s the beauty of story–it can always be made new.

Katie French is the author of The Breeders, a Young Adult dystopian adventure, and Nessa: A Breeders Story, a prequel novelette both available on Amazon. Her sci fi romance, Eyes Ever to the Sky, released May 13th.You can find her on her website, or like her on Facebook or Twitter.

Susan Kaye Quinn’s first three installments of the Debt Collector serial are now available for purchase as a bundle! This future-noir series is fascinating – check out the cool-as-vodka/rocks cover art, and the excerpt below. Be sure to enter to win Susan’s Grand Prize Giveaway of a Kindle pre-loaded with all three episodes by clicking right here: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Excerpt from Delirium (Debt Collector 1) by Susan Kaye Quinn:

My jackboots are new, the latest ultra-light material out of Hong Kong’s synthetics district, and they make a strange squeaking sound against the hospital floor. It’s the kind of sound that might gather snickers or a raised eyebrow, but no one looks at me, at least not on purpose. I stroll past the ICU desk, taking my time, breathing in the antiseptic smell that masks the odor of death held back by machines and drugs and round-the-clock care. The nurses duck their heads and study their charts, ignoring me. As if catching my eye might mean I’m coming to collect their debt, rather than Mr. Henry’s in Room 301.

The floor is so highly polished that I see the reflection of my trenchcoat running ahead of me, black as a midnight grave, a spook that lives on the surface of the oft-scrubbed tiles. It reaches the door to 301 before me and disappears in the dim, flickering light coming from the room. The spook has gone back where he belongs, into the dark recesses of my soul, assuming I still have one. If I was a betting man, I would say the odds of having a soul keep getting longer with every transfer I do. The older debt collectors, the ones who are still alive, don’t have anything shining out of their dull-glass eyes, even when they’re hyped up on a transfer. There’s no telling what my eyes look like.

I stopped looking in the mirror a long time ago.

Mr. Henry’s hooked up in all the usual places—tubes in his arms and monitor patches hovering over his temples and the blue-veined skin of his chest. His knobbed knees and shriveled legs stick out the end of the blanket. I don’t know if he’s tossed the blanket aside or the nurses just forgot to cover him up again after his sponge bath or whatever they do to prepare patients for a debt transfer. Goosebumps raise the hair on what’s left of his legs into a small forest of gray fur. I tug the thin, white-weave blanket over his exposed legs, and Mr. Henry opens his eyes.

They’re pale green and watery—washed out and used up like the rest of him.

“You’ve come for me,” he says.