My Spotlight: The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

The body you are wearing used to be mine.
So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.
She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.
In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.
Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, THE ROOK is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer.

Guest Blog and Giveaway by J Bennett

Getting Creative On A Schedule

One Author Explains How, When It Comes To Writing, Routine Is Essential

I have a muse. Her name is Bridgette, and she and I get along, for the most part. Honestly though, she can be a real flake sometimes. I also suspect that she may unsuccessfully be trying to break a smoking habit, because there are days where Bridgette will duck out, leaving me to stare at the blank page on my laptop wondering where all my great ideas just went.

Even when Bridgette sneaks out for a smoke break or takes the entire day off (almost always without calling ahead), I still have to write. Muse or no, the words must go on the page.

Inspiration certainly has an honored place among all artists, but for most of us, inspiration cannot sustain us through the creation of an entire work, especially a months-long or years-long project like writing and polishing a novel. This blog post is about the decidedly unsexy way most authors – myself included – actually get that whole writing thing done: we turn writing into a routine.

Art and routine ; the two concepts seem to go together like oil and water, but actually routine is almost a necessity for most authors. Writing a novel is an endeavor that requires hour after hour, day after day of steady concentration to build, to polish, to tear down and rebuild.

Inspiration still has its place, of course, but inspiration rarely reaches fruition without a strong established work routine behind it. Take my experience for example:

The impetus for my debut novel Falling – Girl With Broken Wings was a scene that flashed across my mind in a sudden moment of inspiration. I saw a college-aged girl huddled at a table in a bland motel room, shivering, trying to hold herself back from doing something terrible. In the second bed behind her, a boy sleeps, completely unaware of the turmoil the girl is going through. His body is outlined in a beautiful swirl of incandescent energy. It’s this energy that draws the girl, that calls to her like a siren’s song. She stands, and as she walks toward the bed, the skin of her palms peels back, and veiny orbs lift out.

When this scene first came to me, I immediately flipped open my laptop and began to write what I saw. Those words became the prologue for my novel, but after it was down, I realized that the rest of the book wouldn’t come so easily. Completing my novel would take dedication, a harnessing of creative energy and a strong show of support from Bridgette the muse.

Over time, that single scene blossomed into a story. The girl in the motel room became Maya, my quirky narrator who is kidnapped and changed into something other than human. The sleeping boy turned into Gabe, her good-natured and too-trusting half-brother. As the scenes progressed, Bridgette and I settled into a routine. I found that it was easiest to write in the morning as soon as I woke up when my mind was fresh and unencumbered by the responsibilities of the day.

Soon enough, I started waking up naturally at 6 AM and automatically reaching for my laptop. Every day for two years, the hours between 6 and 8 AM each morning became scared writing time. It didn’t matter that the words weren’t perfect, that the plot was a little threadbare in certain places or that Bridgette was out sick for the day. The words came anyway, piling up, turning into something real.

This, in my mind, is what art looks like. It’s not a spark or a transcendent moment. It’s 6 to 8 AM every morning come rain or shine or a cranky muse. After two years of work, Falling was complete. That initial burst of inspiration was now swaddled in a complete story that was completed through routine bursts of creativity. Even after Falling was done, the routine continued, and I’m proud to announce that I just released a follow-up novella, Coping, this month. I’m also hard at work on Landing, book two in the Girl With Broken Wings series, which is slated for January, 2013.

If you want to accomplish something great, whether it’s a novel or some other endeavor, don’t wait on your muse to show up all cheery-eyed and rosy-cheeked. Trust me, that won’t happen too often. Instead, I suggest opening up a regular spot in your schedule which you dedicate to achieving that goal. Keep that time sacred. Don’t let worries, outside obligations or a muse with a smoking habit steal that time away, and you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. I know I was.

***

Falling is J Bennett’s debut novel and the first book in the Girl With Broken Wings series. It is currently available as an ebook for $2.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. Learn more and read a free sample at www.GirlWithBrokenWings.com or visit her Facebook page for news and updates. Coping, a follow-up novella was released in July, 2012. J Bennett is a professional copywriter and copyeditor. She also writes the blog www.ShyWriter.com.

Maya knew something was wrong. The stranger’s glowing hands were a big tipoff.
When the stranger murders Maya’s boyfriend with a single touch, drags her to an abandoned storage unit, and injects her with a DNA-altering serum, Maya prays for a savior.
Instead, the college sophomore gets a double helping of knight-in-not-so-shining-armor when two young men claiming to be her half-brothers pull off a belated rescue. Now Maya is swiftly transforming into an “angel”, one of the scientifically-enhanced, energy-sucking creatures her brothers have spent their whole lives trying to destroy.
Maya’s senses sharpen, her body becomes strong and agile, and she develops the ability to visually see the emotions of those around her as colorful auras…beautiful auras…tempting auras.
One brother wants to save her. The other wants to kill her before she becomes too strong. Maya just wants to go home.
Struggling to control the murderous appetite that fuels her new abilities, Maya must find a way to accept her altered condition and learn to trust her brothers as she joins them in their battle against the secret network of powerful and destructive angels.
Oh, and she’d like a few words with the one who changed her. Words, then lots of stabbing.

I also have been given the opportunity to offer a few eBooks to my lucky readers.  So if you are eager to read the first in the series, just leave a comment for J Bennett here before 27 July 2012.

Book Blitz: Frozen in Time by Marie Symeou

Blurb:
Set in Ancient Greece, a time when the spirit world of gods and goddesses and other immortal beings bleeds into the world of mortals, Frozen in Time is a rich vampire tale of betrayal and revenge, and the eternal longing for blood and love.
After the death of his wife in childbirth, Philip, grief stricken and suicidal, joins the army of his half brother Alexander, with whom he has a very uneasy relationship. But the world of immortals has other plans for him and the vampiric monster Scylla plays on his grief by seducing him in the form of his dead wife.
Horrified when he discovers that he too is now an immortal blood drinker, it becomes his life’s quest to escape Scylla, find a way of destroying her forever, and to hopefully reunite himself with his dead wife's soul in a one way or another.

Author BIO:

Marie Symeou was born in London, where she still lives. She holds a BA (Hons) in Humanities with Literature and is the author of FROZEN IN TIME (Blood of the Gods Trilogy, Book 1), a historical vampire fantasy set in Ancient Greece, and AGE OF DREAMS, a semi-autobiographical tale of fame, love and addiction set against the backdrop of the 1980s music scene. She is also a singer/songwriter and is the vocalist of Violet Eternity. She is currently working on books 2 and 3 of the Blood of the Gods Trilogy as well as writing a cat memoir and a screenplay.

LINKS:

Website http://mariesymeou.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/marie_p_s
Author Central http://www.amazon.com/Marie-Symeou/e/B005O9NHXE
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marie-Symeou-Author/119520001398734
Goodreads  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5219021.Marie_Symeou

Frozen In Time on Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frozen-In-Time-ebook/dp/B005NW1XHO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1327916149&sr=8-4

Frozen In Time on Amazon US http://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Time-Blood-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B005NW1XHO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341329940&sr=8-2&keywords=frozen+in+time+marie+symeou

Sizzling Scoop magazine

Sizzling Scoop, is your one stop for all your book news. Interviews and blogs with your favorite authors, as well as articles, reviews, book news (release information, and events), submission calls and more.

If Sizzling Scoop can reach 500 signups on Mailchimp by launch (September 1^st) we will give away a Kindle Fire. There will also be giveaways for a $25 gift card for Amazon, and two $10 gift cards for Amazon. The winner’s will be announced in the first issue of Sizzling Scoop. To sign up for Sizzling Scoop please follow this link http://eepurl.com/nzghD

Sizzling Scoop will launch September 1st, 2012.

Upcoming themes:
September – Self publishing

October – Paranormal

November – Erotic (warming up a chilly night)

December – Christmas/Holiday

January – Tips & Tricks on writing, publishing, & marketing

Sizzling Scoop is open to submissions of articles, blogs, short stories, and any other information you think readers would be interested in.

Ad Space Prices
Full Page ½ Page ¼ page

Inside cover (second page) $25 $15 $10

Pages (within the magazine) $20 $15 $10

Back cover (last page) $10 $8

Book Cover Spot $5

Contact person:  Marissa (marissa@sizzlingpr.com)

Book Tour: The Bridge of Deaths by M.C.V. Egan

 

 

On August 15th, 1939 an English passenger plane from British Airways Ltd. Crashed in Danish waters between the towns of Nykobing/Falster and Vordingborg. There were five casualties reported and one survivor. Just two weeks before Hitler invaded Poland with the world at the brink of war the manner in which this incident was investigated left much open to doubt. The jurisdiction battle between the two towns and the newly formed Danish secret police, created an atmosphere of intrigue and distrust.
In the winter of 2009-2010 a young executive, Bill is promoted and transferred to London for a major International firm. He has struggled for the better part of his life with nightmares and phobias, which only seem to worsen in London. As he seeks the help of a therapist he accepts that his issues may well be related to a 'past-life trauma'.
Through love, curiosity, archives and the information superhighway of the 21st century Bill travels through knowledge and time to uncover the story of the 1939 plane crash.
The Bridge of Deaths is a love story and a mystery. Fictional characters travel through the world of past life regressions and information acquired from psychics as well as archives and historical sources to solve "One of those mysteries that never get solved" is based on true events and real people, it is the culmination of 18 years of sifting through sources in Denmark, England and the United States, it finds a way to help the reader feel that he /she is also sifting through data and forming their own conclusions.
The journey takes the reader to well known and little known events leading up to the Second World War, both in Europe and America. The journey also takes the reader to the possibility of finding oneself in this lifetime by exploring past lives.

About the Author:

M.C.V. Egan lives in South Florida with her husband and teenage son. She is fluent in four languages; English,Spanish,French and Swedish. From a young age became determined to solve the 'mystery' of her grandfather's death, she has researched this story for almost two decades. The story has taken her to Denmark, England and unconventional world of past lives and psychics.

Excerpt:

He perceived himself to be a sensible man. He

surrounded himself with facts and numbers.

Those who worked and interacted with him saw

him as a levelheaded, reasonable, and credible

individual. He was a man of logic and common

sense. And aside from a handful of therapists,

no one knew him, not wholly.

At this point in time, he had exhausted all

sensible, reasonable, credible, traditional,

levelheaded, common sense, and rational options

to try to solve his problem. He now found himself

open to the possibility of the unreasonable,

incredible, irrational, implausible, and

illogical. It could even be said that he was

now open to the possibility of the absurd and

the ridiculous.

He functioned and lived well enough. To

be sure, he functioned and lived better than

most. And until now, this had been acceptable,

a reasonable way of living. But now this was

no longer the case, and at least in part, this

was due to his age. He was now past the age of

thirty, and he began to have a strong desire for

a family of his own. The stress of such desires

could also be a contributing factor that was

aggravating his problem.

His logical mind made him fully aware of one

thing, and that was the type of woman he wanted

to share his life with: the type of woman he

pictured himself riding off into the happily

ever-after proverbial sunset with was not going

to settle for “enough.” It is also probably

important to note here that although he did not

realize it, he was by all accounts a hopeless

romantic.

Now that he was an accomplished success in

his chosen field and in a financially stable

situation, he felt a need to fulfill other aspects

of his life. As was mentioned before, like so

many men past the age of thirty, he sought to

find a perfect woman, a woman to share his life

with. It was not a particular physical type he

imagined, for he found (as most men do) all pretty

women attractive. The list of requirements for

the perfect woman was more along the lines of

an educational and socioeconomic nature. And,

of course, he required that she have mental

stability.

His problems seemed, as so many things in

life, not to be fair. Fortunately, he was not

one to wallow in self-pity. He knew that enough

effort and resources had been spent on various

traditional medicines and therapies to try to

solve his problem. He had also indulged in the

untraditional recreational drug and alcohol

escapism cure, as some do in youth. None of

the aforementioned had worked, not in the long

term.

He had originally sought hypnosis to learn

relaxation and control techniques. The first

hypnosis session taught him how to apply

relaxation techniques. In that session he

learned that while under hypnosis he was always

ultimately in control. He quickly learned that

he could choose to stop the session at any time.

He could do this by simply opening his eyes.

The second session was quite a different

story; it brought back his worst nightmare with

such clarity that he had a strong physical

reaction. He started moving his arms and legs

in such a way that he unfortunately somehow hit

the psychologist and gave the poor man a rather

nasty black eye. The session was interrupted

before he tasted the salty water of the sea,

cold salty water, and saw the bridge (that part

was always in his nightmare).

With an icepack held to his face, the

therapist warned him that a certain door to

his subconscious had been opened and that he

might start having the dream more vividly than

he had in the past. He could not imagine his

dream to feel any more real than it already

did. The therapist also stated that a problem

having lasted seventeen years could hardly be

solved overnight.

Inasmuch as he accepted that the therapy

might work, he had begun to develop a level

of distrust of his doctor. Frankly, he had

developed a strong dislike for the therapist

and felt that the man made him feel inferior.

The doctor was pushing, trying to take him to

places in his mind that he was not ready to

visit. And with regard to what he saw in his

dreams, the therapist had discussed certain …

beliefs he might consider as a possibility for

his problems. These beliefs were such that most

in a world of facts and numbers would find hard

to digest.

He did realize that his first trip to Europe

as a teenager with his school had been the

beginning of his unpleasant dreams. The therapist

called that the trigger. The problem began with

nightmares, but those had grown into other

problems. Aside from the trigger, the doctor

also spoke of layers of trauma acquired after

the trigger. These problems had created certain

obstacles in his life.

At first, the transfer to London had been

a feather in his cap, a desired jump in the

ladder to reach his career goals. As the weeks

passed and he began to feel more and more

uncomfortable, he began to pinpoint that it

had not been puberty, but rather the eighth

grade trip to Europe (the trigger) when it all

began. Here in London he felt this “problem”

was interrupting the way he liked to function

in his life and in his work.

This trigger, according to the therapist—the

therapist he did not like—bridged who he had

been(in a past life) with who he now was. This

principle of past lives was not a tangible idea

that he could relate to. If he needed to believe

in reincarnation at all, he needed facts that

made it seem plausible.

The dreams continued to haunt him. They

started out in different ways but always ended

the same … the same lettering on the wings and

on the side of the aircraft; the taste of salty,

cold water in his mouth; the anxious feeling of

loneliness and apprehension; and, these days,

the inevitability of awakening to a wet bed and

the frustrating and unpleasant feeling that he

had no control over this.

It was his dislike for the therapist that

had introduced him to past-life regression,

coupled with the embarrassment about the black

eye he had given said man. That made him seek

elsewhere for answers on his own. He had to

tackle the problem, as he had a fear of losing

all that he had accomplished: the steady climb

up a corporate ladder—although in his case,

it was more of a fancy marble staircase. This

had been accomplished through hard work and an

extensive and expensive Ivy League education.

Seeking to understand past lives was the very

reason he found himself in one of London’s finest

(if not the finest) bookstores that had survived

the bad economy and competition from Amazon

and other online sources. It was there at the

bookstore, Foyles that he was holding a book

from an impressive source, which explained why

such an unlikely and illogical type of therapy

might actually work.

My Spotlight: Slated by Teri Terry

 

 

Kyla’s memory has been erased,

her personality wiped blank,

her memories lost for ever.

She’s been Slated.

The government claims she was a terrorist, and that they are giving her a second chance - as long as she plays by their rules. But echoes of the past whisper in Kyla’s mind. Someone is lying to her, and nothing is as it seems. Who can she trust in her search for the truth?

My Spotlight: The Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt

 

What if you were mankind’s last chance at survival?
Sixteen-year-old Tess lives in a compound in what was once the Western United States, now decimated after a devastating fourth World War. But long before that, life as we knew it had been irrevocably changed, as women mysteriously lost the ability to bring forth life. Faced with the extinction of the human race, the government began the Council of Creators, meant to search out alternative methods of creating life. The resulting artificial human beings, or Chosen Ones, were extraordinarily beautiful, unbelievably strong, and unabashedly deadly.
Life is bleak, but uncomplicated for Tess as she follows the rigid rules of her dystopian society, until the day she begins work at Templeton, the training facility for newly created Chosen Ones. There, she meets James, a Chosen One whose odd love of music and reading rivals only her own. The attraction between the two is immediate in its intensity—and overwhelming in its danger.
But there is more to the goings-on at Templeton than Tess ever knew, and as the veil is lifted from her eyes, she uncovers a dark underground movement bent not on taking down the Chosen Ones, but the Council itself. Will Tess be able to stand up to those who would oppress her, even if it means giving up the only happiness in her life?