My daughter turns four today! Isn’t she cute 😀

Krizia!

I don’t know if you guys have heard about the awesome read-a-thon that is being hosted by Colorimetry, but I have *desperately* needed to catch up on my TBR pile. Between studying for the GRE: Lit exam, and grad school, and writing and life in general I got super behind and only JUST caught up on my wish list.

Reading is really important to me, so I volunteered to post a guest blog about reading for the Read-A-Thon. Enjoy 🙂

When I was five or six, my mother began to worry that my older brother’s “reading is lame” stance would have a negative affect on my reading enthusiasm. To counter my brother’s influence, she offered to pay me a dollar for every book I read. A dollar is a lot of money. So when she took me to the library that afternoon, I loaded up on books.

The first series I saw was The Boxcar Children. It was sitting on a display shelf in a cool box that looked like a train. A beautiful display that I promptly destroyed by shoving the first ten books into my library bag and checking out. At home I dived into reading. If I read enough books, I’d be rich! Maybe even more rich than my brother!

I read every book our little library had to offer in the series, and moved on to the next display, The Babysitters Club: Little Sisters Club. Then I read Sweet Valley Twins, the Full House books, and every other book I could get my hands on that looked relatively new.

I get obsessive when I find a writer I like. I have to read every book by that author. With some authors, that’s not a huge deal. With Francine Pascal it breaks the bank. By now my mom owed me over a hundred dollars. I never saw a penny of the money after I hit the twenty dollar mark.
When I finished the Sweet Valley Twins series (I’m sure I only read a fraction of them, but they were all I could find. Thank goodness amazon.com had not yet been invented), I moved on to Sweet Valley Twins and Friends. Then I read Sweet Valley High, and then I tried to read Sweet Valley University.

Here I met my match. At seven I couldn’t read Sweet Valley University. The print was too small. There were too many words. I got headaches when I read them. When I complained to my mom she read a few pages, declared the content too mature for me, and started paying more attention to what I checked out at the library.

As I grew, I read more. I developed a problem distinguishing fiction with reality, compounded by a macabre streak of creativity. I read a book about twins with telepathic powers. I decided my best friend and I were telepathic. My third grade teacher (oddly enough in one of my few experiences in public school) told me the only way you could be telepathic was if you lost your soul to the devil. I told my friend that unfortunately we’d lost our souls to the devil and explained in vivid detail how he would probably drag us to hell that night.

She wasn’t allowed to talk to me again.

In sixth grade I ran into a similar problem with witchcraft. I’d begun reading books by L.J Smith, Christopher Pike and R.L Stine. After reading so much about witches my friends and I decided we were witches. We’d get together and read the spells out of the books and watch movies like “The Craft.” Then one night we were “casting” a spell in my yard, and suddenly my neighbors starting screaming. Shots were fired, and a car peeled out of the drive way. They were never seen again.
I discovered much later that they’d been going through a messy divorce, and had a particularly bad argument when they discovered their son shooting a bee bee gun into the siding of their house to drown out their arguing. The wife packed up the kids and left, and the husband moved away. I’m glad no one was hurt, because my friends and I were too scared to call 911 to confess that we might have killed our neighbors.

After that, my friends and I got very religious. We joined a local youth group and began to read Christian Fiction. I read books by Bill Myers, Frank Peretti, and Francine Rivers. This Present Darkness is still one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read.

Unfortunately my imagination got the best of me, because now instead of casting spells, my friends and I were studying how to cast out demons. The difference between that and casting pretend spells and thinking we could talk telepathically, is that in the Bible belt there are few adults who will tell you demons are just your imagination.

By the time High School started, my friends and I had moved on to bigger and better things. Somehow we got over the fact that fantasy books were satanic, and starting reading Dragonlance, and Terry Goodkind novels. I devoured books, often finishing a book a day so I could catch up to my friends in whatever series they’d recommended. I also discovered a new way to act out what I read in books. A socially acceptable way. Writing my own.

I started with fan fiction and eventually branched into writing my own stories. For years I babbled to anyone who would listen about the book I was working on. Looking back, it was a terrible work of fiction that too closely resembled everything I’d ever read thrown in a blender.

After I started college, one of my favorite authors (Kelley Armstrong) came out with a young adult counterpart to her book series. Since my obsession with reading every single book a writer has ever written still holds, I preordered it. That is when I rediscovered the young adult genre.

These books were good. I’d loved my L.J Smith books, but there really wasn’t any comparison. The standards of young adult literature had improved sometime while I was working my way through the Dragonlance series. From there I caught up on all the popular YA fiction I’d turned my nose up at during high school. I read Harry Potter, I read Twilight, Uglies, and just about every book I could get my hands on. I enjoy YA books more than any other genre right now. Writers have to concentrate more on the story because they don’t have sex scenes or gory battles to fall back on to fill space. The books are quickly catching up in length, but there isn’t room for the unnecessary story telling just to up the word count that you see in a lot of adult fiction.

I’ve always loved reading, and writing always came in a close second. My dream job in high school was to be a slush reader for a big publishing house.

Then I learned publishing houses don’t pay their slush readers, they use interns. I didn’t particularly want to edit stories or work in any other division of publishing. So now I volunteer my time slush ready for a small publishing house. Consequently most of the books I read now haven’t been released yet.

I still read mostly YA books. I also write YA books. The first in my book series (not the one from high school) is due for release in July. Pending sales, the rest of the trilogy should be out shortly.
Despite my preference for YA, lately my horizons have been expanding. My mom’s group has a book club. We read one book a month, and alternate who chooses the book and the restaurant. Because of their more literary taste, I’ve read things like “The Help,” and “Water for Elephants,” and “The Uses of Enchantment.” We also read mystery novels, and self help books. They make fun of my YA choices, but when my month roles around we discuss not just the one book I chose, but any other book in its series, because most of the time they couldn’t stop after the first book.
I’ve also been reading a lot of children’s books out loud to my two year old lately. My husband and I recently started doing read alouds. We read a Bella book, and then a chapter of a grown up book every night. If we ever go on long trips I read out loud while he drives.

I just started running, and because music doesn’t create enough of a distraction, I purchased a subscription to Audible, and listen to audio books when I run. It’s great motivation. I can’t hear the rest of the story until I’m running.

Reading has always been my choice of leisure activity. It’s an activity that defines me. My whole life people have told me I’m a reader. Even now, my writers group turns to me for reading recommendations. Reading has also always been a social activity for me. It’s gotten me into more trouble than any other single activity I’ve ever attempted, but it’s also influenced my scholastic journey and defined my career choice. I love to read.

When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master’s illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.

Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.

My review:

I really liked this book, which was really surprising because I don’t often like literature set in the old South, books with passive protagonists, or plots that rely on people not telling each other stuff. So why did I read it? Book club, and I’m really glad I did, because I couldn’t put it down. The book grabbed me right away, and didn’t put me down until very close to the end where I found it a bit overwhelming. Too much happened in the last two chapters to get a firm grip on what happened, if that makes sense, but up until then, the pacing was good. The characters were very well developed, if frustrating at times, and the plot was great. If Southern historic literature is your thing, I recommend this and The Swan House

The winner of the Hot Summer Heroes Blog hop is….

Jean MP!

 

Thanks for commenting everyone!

 

I was invited by my friend, Sharon Ledwith, to participate in a “blog hop interview.” Sharon sent me some interview questions, which I answer here on my blog. Following my answers, I tag 3 other writers who will, in turn, answer questions on their blogs next week. It’s been fun checking out the Blog Hops to see what other children’s authors have posted!

Sharon posted her answers to the questions at her blog, I came, I saw, I wrote on August 12th. If you like, you can leave a comment on her blog and tell her that you connected to her through my link.

1) What are you working on right now?

I’m working on the fourth book of my Daughters of Zeus series, Venus and Adonis. It’s a modern day retelling of several Greek myths set on a cruise ship.

2) How does it differ from other works in its genre?

Unlike many retellings, my versions feature the gods, not demigods and not reincarnations. My story about Persephone is actually about Persephone, and Venus and Adonis actually has Aphrodite and Adonis as the main characters.

3) Why do you write what you do?

I’m just drawn to mythology. Something about those stories have stuck with us for…ever, and inspired generations of writers to add their own spin. I think in rewriting the myths, by putting my own spin on them, I understand them better.

4) How does your writing process work?

I outline, then I write drafts and drafts and drafts that progressively make the outline look more and more like a different story altogether. They get easier as they go. The first is always the hardest.

Today I’m swapping blogs with author J.Q Rose. Be sure to check out my blog on how I was inspired to write here.

Kaitlin, Thank you so much for swapping blogs with me today. I appreciate the opportunity to shout about my book written especially for 9 to 13 year old girls, Girls Succeed. I have two daughters and now a granddaughter so I have a special place in my heart for girls and for encouraging them to achieve their dreams.

My Inspiration for Writing
Girls Succeed: Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women by J.Q. Rose

I was inspired to write a book for girls after working four summers at Camp Newaygo, a girls’ residence camp in Michigan. I met the most amazing young women who were counselors and energetic campers who kept life interesting! I marveled at the potential for the futures of these smart, enthusiastic girls. Faced with so many possibilities for careers, I wondered what choices they would make.

Unlike my era of high school graduates when girls were limited to career choices of teacher, nurse, and secretary, today’s girls face so many more possibilities of vocations in science, business, athletics, and more. How could they decide? This e-book gives them information on careers, but the stories also inspire and empower them to pursue their dreams and make them come true.

Each chapter begins with an inspirational quote which I hope will touch the reader’s heart and use it as a reminder to keep her focused on her dream. As I wrote the book, I kept Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote in mind, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
It was a privilege to interview the fifteen remarkable women. I felt very special to have them trust me to tell their stories. Now I look forward to getting the ebook out to readers and hope to inspire them to follow their dreams.

Back Cover: An interactive e-book filled with dreams and passion to inspire, entertain, and empower girls. Fifteen remarkable career women in a variety of occupations share their stories about their work and the path they took to become successful in their dream careers. These diverse careers encompass women in the arts, business, science, medicine, ministry, entertainment, and sports. Learn about contemporary women who have discovered cures to stamp out disease, made people laugh, earned Olympic and Paralympic gold medals, and crossed the country in the cab of an eighteen wheeler.

The e-book is available now at the Back to School Special Price of $1.99. A Study Guide to accompany the book is available online for 99 cents. However, if you email me at jqrose02 at gmail dot.com, I will send a PDF copy to you FREE.

You can download a sample which includes the Table of Contents and/or buy the e-book from the following booksellers:

Smashwords Link http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/241825
Amazon Link http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NY6ZAS
Kobo Link http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=girls+succeed%3A+stories+behind+the+careers+of+successful+women
Barnes and Noble Link http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/girls-succeed-jq-rose/1114041658?ean=2940045118033
Sony Link https://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/j-q-rose/girls-succeed-stories-behind-the-careers-of-successful-women/_/R-400000000000000883970

Meet these remarkable women: You Tube Book Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPnpbAOlbmI

BIO: After writing feature articles in magazines, newspapers, and online magazines for over fifteen years, J.Q. Rose entered the world of fiction writing with her published mysteries, Sunshine Boulevard and Coda to Murder, released by Muse It Up Publishing. With Girls Succeed: Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women she returns to her first love, writing about real people. Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, and travel are the things that keep her out of trouble. Spending winters in Florida with her husband allows Janet the opportunity to enjoy the life of a snowbird. Summer finds her camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter.

Connect with J.Q. Rose online at
Girls Succeed blog http://girlssucceed.blogspot.com/
J.Q. Rose blog http://www.jqrose.com/
Author website http://jqrose.webs.com/
Facebook http://facebook.com/jqroseauthor
J. Q. Rose Amazon Author Page http://tinyurl.com/aeuv4m4

It started young. I was sitting on a carpet, knee to knee with my pastor, surrounded by ten or fifteen other squirming children while Mrs. Patty played “Jesus Loves Me,” on the piano. The music stopped, and the pastor looked at each one of us, a smile on his face, ignoring the pews full of adults.

“Let’s talk about the future. Kaitlin, do you know what you want to be when you grow up?”

I considered for a moment. I looked from my pastor, to the cross hanging above his head and found my answer.

“God.”

The church burst out laughing. I looked at the audience in confusion. What was so funny? I wanted to be different, and powerful, and loved by everyone in the whole wide world. What was wrong with that?

The pastor chuckled. “That job is already taken.”

“Oh,” I frowned, deep in thought. “Can I be the little mermaid then?”

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted more. Being human was just so plain and boring. Why couldn’t I be a magical mermaid princess? Or an all powerful deity? As I grew, the feeling didn’t go away. I gravitated toward books about twins with telepathy, vampires, witches, and shape-shifters. I watched shows, like Sailor Moon, and took long walks around my neighborhood, hoping against hope that I’d find a talking cat who would tell me I was really a princess.

I made up elaborate stories, telling people I was adopted, or had a twin sister. I pretended to have magic. I wanted so desperately to be special.

In retrospect, it wasn’t just the magic I wanted. I wanted to belong to something special. Something bigger than me. Sailor Moon had her Sailor Scouts, the secret circle had each other. The vampires had their own underground society. The children at Hogwarts had each other. Buffy had her click. It wasn’t like I didn’t have friends, but I wanted the type of relationships I saw in these books. Strong and unbreakable because of everything they’d gone through together. They all had a secret, and in bound them in a way that nothing normal ever could.

Friends are great and all, but no story featuring any paranormal activity would be complete without a hot love interest. My first crush, ever, was on Julian from The Forbidden Games trilogy. Equally enticing as the idea of being special, was the idea of finding that one person, who might be a bit dark and was probably a little dangerous who understood a part of you better than you did. These heroes are often broody, good-looking, sarcastic, and for whatever reason are drawn to– no, need– the protagonist. I wanted that.

I really did want that. Right up until I met the first broody, sarcastic boy in my middle school. I spent five minutes in a class-room with a boy who had the good looks of Tuxedo Mask, and all the charming qualities (i.e sarcasm, condescension, argumentative). I took a moment to wonder, was this the start of an epic romance? Would our back and forth eventually lead to a heat of the moment kiss? Five minutes lapsed into ten, and I came to a sad conclusion about myself.

If I were the protagonist of one of my books, would have lost my chance at an epic romance in chapter one by telling the romantic interest where he could shove it and then spending the rest of the book as far away from him as possible. Turns out, guys who treat people the way that most paranormal love interests do at the start the story come off as jerks for a reason. They are jerks. Being the one and only person who can get through Mr. Paranormal love-interests tough exterior kind of requires having the patience to break through that tough exterior. I don’t.

Fine. No epic love interest for me. But surely I could have magic. Then I realized something when reading one of the So You Want to be a Wizard books by Diane Duane. Nita had just confessed to her parents that she was a wizard. Her father told her something to the extent of, “I get why you want to do this, had I been given magic as a kid I would want it too, but…” and Nita tried to point out that he was lying. Had he wanted magic, been the right candidate for it, or whatever, he would have found it. It would have called to him, found him. The fact that it hadn’t meant he really wasn’t a match for it.

I think that one line of exposition in that one middle grade novel broke my heart. My whole life, I’d assumed that magic, if it was out there, would find me. I’d be one of the kids that got an invitation to Hogwarts. I’d be the victim in the freak accident, granting me superpowers. But in reality, if that stuff existed, more likely than not, I’d either never know about it, or I’d be one of the random sidekicks. After all, I’m not super rich. I’ve never won the lottery. I’m not a princess. I’m not a genius. I wasn’t born in New Zealand. Each and every one of those things is real. They’re all random luck of the draw. If I’m not anyone of those things, why would I ever assume I’d be lucky enough to be some magical hero?

Then I realized something else. Magic came with baggage. I didn’t want to lose my family, even if it meant it would awaken magical powers. I didn’t actually want the burden of saving the world. I barely recycle. I didn’t want to worry that my actions would put my friends and loved ones in danger. Maybe I’ll never form the kind of bonds that come with fighting to the death beside a band of unlikely misfits turned hero, but bonus, I’d never have to fight to the death!

In short, I grew up. I realized I was pretty lucky. Most of the protagonists in those books would sell their souls to have my life. I have friends, and I didn’t have to save their lives to get them. I met my dream guy, married him, and have a daughter. I started reading the books and watching the shows differently. Now, I didn’t breeze by the sad stuff and focus on what they got out of it. I realized what they lost. There’s a ton of books I can’t read anymore because it’s too sad.

I thought I was the only one who’d gone through this. Then my mom’s group started a book club and we had a talk about our favorite books and movies when we were younger. I realized something shocking. They’d all felt the same way. Every single one of them spent countless hours dreaming, and wishing, and hoping to be something different, something special. And every single one us, on rereading, or rewatching, were horrified at how tragic the main characters lives were. None of us would wish that life on anyone, much less want it for ourselves.

There is something tragic and isolating about childhood that lasts all the way to young adulthood. Some part of us that’s terrified that this is it, and wishes desperately for something more. Something that’s afraid of being alone and powerless. That fear is reflected in every.single. children’s story. Maybe it’s because when you’re young, you’re still learning about the world and trying to figure out your place in it and your limitations. I remember that feeling, which is why the worlds I create in my books are full of magic and wonder.

So in light of my grass-is-greener paranormal philosophy, I propose a giveaway. Pick your favorite protagonist from a paranormal book and name one thing you have that they would be jealous of. OR one thing about your favorite paranormal love interest that would probably drive you insane if you actually had to live with it every day. My favorite comment gets a copy of my paranormal romance novel, Persephone.

Happy hopping everyone

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I’ve signed up for another one! Sorry, but these seem fun. Read along with me.

The following guidelines come from this blog:

http://megantalksbooks.blogspot.com/p/2013-tour-of-paranormal-reading.html

Welcome to the 2013 Paranormal Reading Challenge hosted by Megan Likes Books and Auntie Spinelli Reads! There are so many awesome sub-genres of paranormal books, that it’s easy to find one you like and stick with it. So that’s why I decided to make a reading challenge with the goal of reading about all kinds of paranormal creatures.

The goal is to read one book featuring each of the following paranormal creatures:

Vampires
Werewolves/Shifters
Fey
Angels/Nephilim
Mermaids
Dragons
Zombies
Demons
Witches/Wizards
Ghosts
Aliens
Other (ie: sirens, unicorns, centaurs, timetravel etc.)

Guidelines:
1. This challenge runs from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013.
2. You must have a blog to able to participate, since reviews must be added to the linky.
3. When you sign up with the linky, please put the link to your post about joining the Paranormal Reading Challenge.
4. You’re welcome to list your books beforehand or just add as you go.
5. Sign-ups are open until December 1, 2013
6. At the beginning of each month, I will post a kick-start post, each month featuring a different category of paranormal creature. This post will also include a linky to include your reviews from that month.
7. Each review you link will qualify you for an entry into the monthy giveaway and if your review includes the feature paranormal creature of that month, you get a bonus entry.
8. Each book can only count for one category, even if it contains more than one paranormal creature. For example, Twilight contains both vampires and werewolves, but you can’t use it for both the vampires and werewolves/shifters categories.
9. Everyone who completes the challenge will be entered into a grand prize giveaway at the end of the year.
10. If you read multiple books from one category, feel free to add them to the linkies. Don’t stop at just one!
11. Book can count for other challenges.

Its pretty late in the year, but luckily, I’ve read a few of these that can count. Book titles link back to the reviews.

January – Vampires– Ever After by Kim Harrison. There are vampires in it.
February – Angels/Nephilim– Angelfall by Susan E.E
March – Fey — Glass Frost by Liz DeJesus, it has fairies in it. Review to come
April – Demons– The Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent
May – Aliens– I’m counting the Mistborn series for this one as their planet is located in a different place than this one 😉
June – Zombies– Delirium series by Lauren Oliver (review to come) What? They even call the lobotomized people zombies, it works.
July – Witches and Wizards
August – Mermaids
September – Dragons
October – Ghosts
November – Werewolves/Shape-shifters
December – Other

This looks fun! I’m a bit late to the party, but the idea is to read as many fairy tales and mythology retellings as you can within a year and write reviews to them each month.

Here’s the rules…. the official sign up is here: http://anarmchairbythesea.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/announcing-telling-tales-challenge-2013.html

The challenge runs from January 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2013. You can sign up at any point throughout the year.
Again, any genre counts as long as it is in some way related to fairytale and/or mythology. Once again, if you are unsure, as long as you can make an argument for its’ inclusion, it counts!
Re-reads count, and you are more than welcome to overlap books with other challenges.
Please leave me your email address in the comments if you want to participate (I promise not to harrass you, it’s just so that people get a reminder every now and again about the monthly link ups, and also so I can contact you for competitions etc).
Please link up your reviews every month in the posts which will go up on this blog.
In your sign up post, please indicate the level you aim to complete. You are entirely welcome to change this as the year progresses. You can make your lists beforehand, or as you go. Whichever you prefer!
When you sign up, please leave the link to your sign up post, rather than just to your blog in general.
You don’t have to have a blog to participate – you can review on Goodreads, Amazon, wherever, just let me know where you will be reviewing!
That’s it!

The levels are as follows:

Pixie – read 2 books
Troll under the Bridge – read 5 books
Princess – read 10 books
Prince Charming – read 15 books
Evil Queen – read 20 books
Dragon – read 30 books
King/Queen of the Silver Screen – read any number of books and watch the film adaptations

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I’m going for Princess level. My first book will be Persephone’s Orchard and that review will be posted this Thursday 🙂