Authors Are Rockstars- Announcing the Winners!!!

Today is the day we get to announce who won each of our month long Authors Are Rockstars giveaways! 

And drumroll please..........

My

Winner

Is.........


JESSICA HANSEN!!!!!!!

Congrats Jessica you won a box of late Summer early Fall 2013 ARC's! Woooo hoooo!!! I will mail your books out soon!

Now Rachel and Mindy both wrapped up their giveaways too so make sure to go to Fikstshun and Magical Urban Fantasy Reads to see who their winners are!!!

Authors Are Rockstars- It's a Wrap!

August has ended and so has the 2nd Annual Authors Are Rockstars Tour. This year’s event, with over 160 authors on tour, was a bit more of a challenge, but still a lot of fun.

There were guest posts, interviews, dueling interviews in which two authors interviewed each other, playlists, top ten lists, deleted scenes, excerpts, a chat and much, much more.

This year’s author participants sent along some amazing posts for their blog hosts, proving our point that authors are in fact rockstars. And the bloggers that hosted their favorite rockstar authors did a phenomenal job of showing those who stopped by exactly why their author was a rockstar.

In the end we had 168 participating authors plus one author spotlight and 155 bloggers involved in this event. Which was totally surprising and absolutely amazing. Even with a few mishaps along the way we definitely consider this event a success.

If August was as crazy a month for you as it was for us and you didn't get a chance to visit all the stops, CLICK HERE for the full lineup with direct links to each of the stops on tour. There may even be a few giveaways still open, so be sure to check them out.

For this year's event we were honored to welcome back a number of authors from last year and were thrilled to welcome a number of new authors to the tour. Some of the author participants have long been on our rockstar authors list but we are totally stoked to be able to call many new or new-to-us authors rockstars this year.

We hope, for both readers and author and blogger participants alike, that this event was a lot of fun. And we hope that with this year's tour we were able to put a few new authors and bloggers on your radar.

The authors on tour this year are all ones we consider rockstars, but they are not all the authors we consider rockstars. While we would have loved to include every single rockstar author on our tour, we are only three bloggers and can only do so much. But we were super excited to be able to add to the number of authors we had on tour last year.

When we hosted this event last year it was only ever intended to be a one-time event. And while we decided to do this again this year, we currently do not have plans to do this again next year. It's eleven months away and who knows where we'll be. But you never know... anything is possible....



The Tour Giveaways

We will each be announcing the winners of our tour "kick-off" giveaways on our respective blogs next weekend. So be sure to stop by to see if you won. Winners will also be contacted by email after the announcements have gone live.

To Those We Owe Thanks

Firstly we cannot thank the authors enough for generously giving of their time to this event. Taking the time away from their busy writing and editing schedules to create the posts and answer the questions and to support this event means the world to us.

Without them there would be no event. And we are eternally grateful.

Once again we have to thank the wonderful team at Harlequin TEEN for their unfailing support of each and every one of their authors by offering their books for giveaway and for helping to spread the word about this event.

And, of course, we have to thank the wonderful blog hosts who wrote such heartfelt passages about why their author was a rockstar, who came up with interesting topics and questions for the authors they adore, and who put together some pretty fantastic posts which gave readers the chance to learn a bit more about each of the participating authors on tour.

We'd also like to give a special thanks to Lost at Midnight Reviews for putting together an amazing post spotlighting her rockstar author when circumstances prevented her from being able to participate. If we hadn't already considered her author a rockstar, we most certainly would have after reading her post.

And last, but absolutely not least, we would like to thank all of the readers who followed the tour, left comments sharing their thoughts about the rockstar authors on each of the blog stops, who helped to spread the word about this year's event, and who share their enthusiasm and love for the authors year after year by reading their books and spreading the word to anyone who will listen.

Every single one of you totally rocks!

From One Host to Another

This year's event couldn't be the success it was without both Rachel of Fiktshun and Mindy of Magical Urban Fantasy Reads co-hosting with me.

There is no way we could have pulled off an event as large as this year's event without being able to work together as a team. And I felt like together we were an amazing, rockstar, awesomesauce team!

Rachel and I definitely couldn't have done this with just the two of us like we did last year; with the crazy amount of authors who said yes . But with the three of us we rocked it and Rachel and Mindy were absolutely amazing to work with! I'm so glad to have had Mindy on board this year. I'm sure I speak for Rachel when I say that we couldn't have done this without you.

I have always considered Rachel a rockstar and without a doubt Mindy totally rocks, too. So I cannot thank you both enough for making this event a rockstar event and picking up the slack when I got sick or had a crazy amount of work to do.



Well, that just about does it....

If we've forgotten to thank anyone, we are so, so sorry. While the event has ended, we are still knee-deep in giveaways, so we are still just a bit frazzled. So... just in case someone was missed, we'd like to thank everyone!

Thank you everyone!

The Authors Are Rockstars Giveaway Winners will be posted next weekend, so be sure to stop by each of our blogs to see if you've won.

But for now... it’s a wrap.

Authors Are Rockstars- The Epic Maria V. Snyder and an awesome Giveaway!

Hey ya’ll Jaime here! Welcome to my stop on the Authors Are Rockstars tour! We’ve saved the best for last or at least in my opinion the best. My author is Maria V. Snyder and she is one of my all-time favorite authors and a really cool person as well! Oh yeah and there's two awesometastic giveaways as well so keep reading and fill out the rafflecopter forms below!!

So why do I think Maria deserves this rockstar status? Quite simply because she does! Maria’s books were introduced to my life when I was reading nothing but Paranormal and Urban Fantasy YA and adult both. When I first grabbed Poison Study I was worried I may not like it because I hadn’t read High Fantasy in a long time! Like since before high school long time. But I shouldn’t have been worried, her world building and beautiful writing grabbed me at page one! Yelena the heroine in the story was so different than any of the others I had read! She jumped off the page and slapped me, hard, and I immediately loved her for it. I also met my #1 book boyfriend of all time in this series Valek. 

My love for her books grew with each one I read. I finished the Study series quickly and jumped right into her Glass series. When those were finished I scavenged her website for her short stories of Sitia and Ixia. I couldn’t get enough of the world and the characters! These are the two series I re-read a lot! And the best news ever came a few months ago when Maria posted on Facebook that there are going to be 3 more Study books!!!!

Maria then wrote a sci-fi/dystopian for the YA crowd Inside Out and followed it with Outside In and I fell for those books too. In my opinion they ended way too early I could have read more of that world. I loved Trella and Riley.

Maria started a new High Fantasy series The Healer books and I devoured book 1, Touch of Power in one sitting and did the same with book 2, Scent of Magic! Now I’m dying to get my hands on book 3, Taste of Darkness which will be out in December! Oh and I’ve also read all of her short stories in any anthology she has been in! And she also has a new Middle Grade Book coming out in October called Storm Watcher!

Ok so enough about Maria’s books remember I said she was a cool person? Well while I was scouring her site I found ways to get signed bookplates by answering trivia. And oh boy I sent her email after email with my answers lol do you think she got annoyed? Nope she was awesome even gave me hints when I got a few answers wrong. Then she sent me all my bookplates at one time. We even chat on facebook sometimes even though she isn’t on there much. And oh boy do I wish she had twitter but then I’d probably never leave her alone lol. Oh and her covers are gorgeous right? Well you should check out the foreign versions! Her UK covers are some of my favorites! Check them out in her Cover Gallery!

But enough about why I love Maria. She has an awesome post for me to share with you about the maps in her books so check it out!!!!! And make sure to enter the giveaway below!

Which Came First – The Story or The Map?

Maria V. Snyder

If I answered this question back when I wrote my Study and Glass series books, I’d proclaim, “The story of course!”  When I started writing Poison Study, all the events happened in the Commander’s Castle and as my characters traveled from the castle, they created the map.  I didn’t envision what the Territory of Ixia looked like until I had to for the story.  Then I sketched Ixia in my notebook.  This is what I used while writing  Poison Study:

But as I worked on Magic Study with Yelena’s adventures in Sitia and then Fire Study, where she travels between the two countries, I needed a clearer picture of the world.  And I needed to keep track of how long it took to travel between cites/clans/countries or else I’d be getting irate emails from readers (maybe not irate, but they’d point it out and probably laugh).  So I sketched on a piece of poster board in pencil and colored in with markers and came up with this:

Now you know why I write and am not an artist J.  I was glad to have that map as I worked on Opal’s story in the Glass books.  She traveled throughout Sitia and I added places like The Cliffs on my basic map.  Then came the request from the UK office of my publisher.  They would like a map to put in the front of the UK edition of Poison Study, could I provide one for their art department.  Sure I could!  Since my working map had been drawn on and looked messy, I sharpened my pencil and found my ruler and came up with this:

Not too bad.  I figured the Commander would divide his territory into equal parts, ignoring natural borders like streams and lakes. Plus the art department would fix it and make it look pretty.  Well…they added a few touches, but kept most of what I’d drawn.  Here it is:

What do you think?

Now fast forward to my Healer series. I knew Avry and company would be traveling around the Fifteen Realms so I decided to draw the map first and then write the story.  Why fifteen realms?  My birthday is on the fifteenth, so why not J.  I also knew there would be a rather significant mountain range and I named them the Nine Mountains.  Why nine?  Because Touch of Power, the first Healer book was also my ninth novel.  However the other details remained sketchy ;).  How do I draw 15 Realms when I only had a bare bones plot?

I had just gone on a Baltic Sea cruise with my family and had been enchanted by countries and people living in Russia, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and Latvia.  What if I based my Fifteen Realms on Eastern Europe?  I went to Google maps and printed out a map.  Then I loosely traced out 15 “countries” with a sharpie and then put a white paper on top and traced again.  This is what I ended up with:

It was still vaguely recognizable despite splitting Russia into 3 Realms. And I didn’t want it to look like Eastern Europe.  Enter my talented writer/singer/musician friend, Wim Stolk (a.k.a fantasy author W. J. Maryson, r.i.p 2-2011).  He visited my house during a trip to the US, and told me about a new novel he was working on.  He had taken one of his fantasy maps and turned it 90 degrees and created a new world.  He said only his diehard fans would ever suspect.  It was a great idea so I stole it ;).  Here’s my map turned 90 degrees to the right:

Now the Baltic sea is to the east – except I named it the Ronel Sea after one of my readers who emailed me and I liked her name.  The other names I used for my map are small cities and towns scattered throughout Eastern Europe – gotta love Google Maps!  Once I had the general outline, I colored the map in and wrote in the names.  Like so:

And after I wrote Touch of Power, I sent a copy of my map to the art department and they made it look old and mysterious, while still keeping the basic shapes.  Here’s the final map that went into the book:

Pretty nice – right? 

In conclusion, the needs of your story will determine if you need a map first or a story first.  I’ve done both and it’s worked for me.  Just beware the danger of spending months and months perfecting your map before you write a word down.  You might think you need a detailed, multi-colored, cartographer’s dream map, but you don’t.  You’re just procrastinating.  Big Time.

OK that post just rocks my world I am such a huge fan of the maps in books! Thanks so much Maria for stopping by. Oh and I’m lucky to have two awesome giveaways for you today! Harlequin Teen has donated one of Maria’s books to one lucky winner and Maria threw in a copy of her new Middle Grade book Storm Watcher for another lucky person both giveaways US/Canada only!!!!!! Fill out the Rafflecopter Form and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Authors Are Rockstars- Heather Brewer is my Rockstar and check out her Giveaway!

I am so happy to be hosting Heather Brewer today she is the fantastic author of the Slayer Chronicles, the Vladimir Tod Chronicles and also the High Fantasy series the Legacy of Tril which is my personal favorite! Book 2 can't come fast enough!

Why is Heather a rockstar? Why not is the question! She always talks to her fans (they call her Auntie Heather), has awesome giveaways and makes the funniest Vlogs! She also puts up with my constant rambling/complaining about Trill and when book 2 is coming out.

Ok so I'm turning this over to Heather to talk about why she thinks authors are Rockstars!

Authors are rockstars.

I've heard that quite a bit in recent years, Minions. And I've come to really appreciate those rockstar moments. Nothing gets me through a day filled with cat boxes, dust bunnies, and deadlines like the memory of walking into a school gym full of screaming teenagers. Nothing can push away a low self-esteem day like the happy recalling of being asked to autograph a fan's book...or baby (which I'm super proud to admit totally happened). In fact, take away those stardom moments and an author's life can be pretty lonely. Mostly, we stay at home (preferably in jammie pants), and write. It's an existence full of solitude...not that solitude is a bad thing.

But being alone can sometimes mean that we authors get lonely, as any person would. And when we do, we reach out through various means (I loves me some Twitter) to touch someone else, to make a connection, to do something to dispel the loneliness that has befallen us. When I reach out, I largely reach out to my Minions. You guys get me. You understand who I am and what I'm about. And when I need a shoulder, you're always happy to lean over and offer me one. But today I want to talk about the other people that I can count on. Today I want to talk about my fellow YA authors.

You see, I was a lonely child growing up. Never mind that I had four siblings and too many cousins to count, all within about a fifty mile radius. I was lonely. And I was bullied. And I was convinced that I was entirely unlikeable.

Sometimes I am still convinced that I am unlikeable. But that's okay. Because during those moments of loneliness, of low self-esteem, I know that I can pull a book from my bookshelf and lose myself in another world, and that in that journey to another place, I will come to understand a special place in another author's mind. And through that, we will bond. I may never meet them. We may never speak in person or tweet back and forth, but I know that we share a connection. We share a story, and that brings me out of my lonely place and back to thinking that maybe I am not so unlikeable after all. And when I do that--when I read a book and feel a connection with its author--I realize that I am not just an author. I am a reader. I am a fan. And I am not alone.

When I go to events that I am not presenting at, and I see the author walk into the room, I grin. I'm so excited to meet them, so thrilled to know that I will soon have my book autographed by them. It's a magical moment, and I love that feeling. When I meet an author that I truly admire, it makes me feel less lonely in this big, wide world. It makes me feel less like a freak and more like an awesome person--a person who shares a secret with an author, with a rockstar.

Because, yeah, authors are rockstars. But not because of the screaming teens who await their arrival. Not because of the autographs and praise and movies on the big screen. Authors are rockstars because of how they make you feel when you're feeling so unlikeable.

At least, that's what they are to me.

About Heather:

Heather Brewer was not your typical teen growing up. She wore black, danced under full moons and devoured every book in sight.

She hasn’t changed much.

Today, Heather can be found wandering cemeteries, lounging on her coffin couch, devouring every book in sight, and attending renaissance faire in costume (and in character). 

When Heather's not writing, dressing up, or reading, she's hanging out with her 

Minions, whom she adores right down to their lil black hearts.

Heather is the author of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, The Slayer Chronicles, and The Legacy of Tril series. She's penned several short stories, consumes entirely too much caffeine, and will not stop until she has achieved world domination in the name of her Minion Horde.

Find Her

Website/Blog/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads

Also check out Heather's Blog she has an EPIC Giveaway going on right now! And I have a Giveaway for an ARC of Third Strike! Simply comment below with your email address and why you'd like the book and you'll be entered! US Only ends September 6th!

Heather's Books!

Authors Are Rockstars- Featuring Cristin Bishara!

So I have Cristin Bishara featured today on the blog and I think she's a Rockstar because we like the same kind of music (just check out the awesome playlist below and yes I've embeded videos) and she writes a rockin Sci-Fi story! She's a baseball fan too and I even forgive her for being a Rays fan (Go A's lol) Also I believe she may be a beer lover like me because her dog is named Guinness :) 

So I'm going to let Cristin Take it away!

RELATIVITY playlist:

What If • Five for Fighting

RELATIVITY makes you think about the “what-ifs” in life. What if you made a different choice at a key moment? Where would you be now because of that one decision? Who would you be? What if you could step into someone else’s world, and into another life?

We Belong Together • Gavin DeGraw

Ruby is convinced that she belongs with her mother, and with George, and that her parents belong together. It’s what keeps her moving through the multiverse.

Science and Faith • The Script

Perfect lyrics! Ruby has to learn that science can’t always answer everything for her, especially matters of the heart. “You won’t find faith or hope down a telescope / You won’t find heart and soul in the stars / You can break everything down to chemicals / But you can’t explain a love like ours.”

Stubborn Love • The Lumineers

This one is for Kandy (“she’ll lie and steal and cheat”) because she deserves a song, and because it’s my favorite by The Lumineers. 

The Lightning Strike (What If This Storm Ends?) • Snow Patrol

I don’t want to give too much away, but there’s a lot of lightning in this story. (You may have guessed from the cover art.) It’s more than just bad weather, though. Much more.

Cosmic Love • Florence + the Machine

Cosmic: Having to do with the cosmos, which is one of Ruby’s science obsessions. Love: Having to do with everything. “I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map / And knew that somehow I could find my way back.” Really, aren’t we all trying to find our way back to somewhere or someone?

The Scientist • Coldplay

There are so many lyrics from this song that fit RELATIVITY perfectly. “Come back and haunt me.” “Science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart.” “I was just guessing at numbers and figures.” Okay, pretty much the ENTIRE song is spot on. Science, puzzles, running in circles. It’s all there.

Welcome Home • Radical Face

I picked this song because Ruby struggles with the definition of “home” and where she belongs. And the music is so good.

Parallel Universe • Red Hot Chili Peppers

Okay, I’ll admit this isn’t my favorite RHCP song, but I couldn’t resist including it!

Nine songs for ten alternate worlds. Something is missing, and I know what it is. I need a song for Ruby’s amazing brother, Patrick. So this is the part where I ask for help from anyone who has read RELATIVITY. If you have an idea for a Patrick song, send me a Tweet. I’m@CristinBishara.

About the Book Title: RELATIVITY
Author: Cristin Bishara
Pub. Date: September 10, 2013
Publisher: Walker Children's
Pages: 288
Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads

If Ruby Wright could have her way, her dad would never have met and married her stepmother Willow, her best friend George would be more than a friend, and her mom would still be alive. Ruby knows wishes can't come true; some things just can't be undone. Then she discovers a tree in the middle of an Ohio cornfield with a wormhole to nine alternative realities.                                                                                                                                       Suddenly, Ruby can access completely different realities, each containing variations of her life—if things had gone differently at key moments. The windshield wiper missing her mother’s throat…her big brother surviving his ill-fated birth…her father never having met Willow. Her ideal world—one with everything and everyone she wants most—could be within reach. But is there such a thing as a perfect world? What is Ruby willing to give up to find out?

 About Cristin:
Before publishing Relativity, Cristin Bishara worked as a professional copywriter, and taught composition and fiction writing at the university level. She has an M.F.A. in creative writing. Cristin lives in Florida with her husband, two girls, and rescued racing greyhound.

Website/Blog/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads

Authors ARE Rockstars: Featuring Katlyn Duncan and a Giveaway!!!

Today is a really cool one for me! I get to feature a debut author who was a book blogger and she's here to tell us her story about her transition from blogger to author.

Why do I think Katlyn Duncan is a Rockstar? Quite simply it's because she did what a lot of book bloggers dream of. She wanted to be a writer and she succeeded! She proves that if you want something hard enough you can get it. It may not be easy but your dreams can come true!

Ok so let me introduce you to Katyln!

About the Author

Katlyn Duncan was born and raised in a small town in western Massachusetts. Her overactive imagination involved invisible friends, wanting to be a Disney Princess and making up her own stories. Her bibliophile mom always encouraged her love of reading and that stayed with her since. Even though she works full time in the medical field Katlyn has always made time for books, whether she is reading or writing them.

Katlyn now lives in southern Connecticut with her husband and adorable Wheaten Terrier and she is thrilled to finally share her stories with the world.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Carina UK


Now on to Katlyn's Post! 

I'm so happy to be a part of the Authors Are Rockstars event! Last year I was looking in from the other side as a blogger on I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read!. So today I'd love to talk about my transition from blogger to author.

I've always been a "writer", even before I had a computer in my house (gosh I'm old). As a child, my parents encouraged me to write in journals and I started sometime in middle school. I have dozens of journals outlining my daily activities such as what I wore what day (I thought that would be important for my future self to read), if my current crush made eye contact that day, and other random thoughts. Along with the journaling came the outpouring of story ideas, stemming from any situation. The 'what if' questions would pop up and eventually I separated my "real life" journals from the fiction.

I always enjoyed acting and I participated in many plays throughout the years, so my first venture into writing were play and movie scripts. To be honest, I never saw myself as a novelist. Authors were like my movie star idols: Untouchable. I couldn't see myself as Jennifer Aniston just as much as I couldn't see myself as Lois Lowry (my favorite book of all time is The Giver).

But as technology advanced, I started exploring the internet and came across book review blogs. I soon realized that bloggers were regular people just like me talking about books that they loved. I put aside my creative writing for a bit and focused on reading and writing reviews. The further I got into blogging, the closer I felt to the authors. With Twitter and Facebook, these people I admired became less untouchable. Some had full-time jobs outside of writing, yet they still did what they loved and shared their stories with the world. I realized that if I put my heart and mind into it, I could do that too.

I kept up blogging but started to slow down a bit and focus a little more on my own writing. But last year around this time, a personal situation threw me for a loop and I knew I had to take a break and reassess what I really wanted out of my life. So I did what I swore I'd never do and took a hiatus from blogging.

I found writing my greatest escape and even though some days I just wrote how I felt through my characters eyes, it helped me get through a tough situation. I started working on an abandoned book again and when the call for feedback came through from MIRA, I remember there was a subtle click in my head telling me to do it. And I did. Several months later, I got the call from Carina UK (to read more about my "call" you can check out my post HERE and the rest is history.

In terms of how my life is different now, even after four months of being an "author", my life is still changing. I have grown so much through this process and met so many wonderful people. Where I used to write when I felt like it, now I write because I am on deadline. My free time revolves around my deadlines. Where I used to be able to sit down and watch TV after dinner, I now pound the keyboard until the late hours in the night, constantly perfecting my story as best I can for my readers.

The Carina UK team has been the absolute best. I believe it's kismet that I connected with this fabulous imprint for two main reasons: 1. There was a time that I wanted to self-publish digitally since I felt my story didn't really fit into a structured genre category. And 2. Harlequin is one of my favorite publishing companies. Whenever a new Harlequin book came on my radar I knew I would love it. Several of my favorite series are from Harlequin as well, Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series, Rachel Vincent's Soul Screamers series, and Maria Snyder's Inside series just to name a few. I love my editor to pieces and it's still amazing to hear her talk about my characters and actually believe in my writing. And of course they've come out with some spectacular covers (I'm dying to see the cover for Soul Possessed!).

So overall, it's been quite an experience for me in this transition from blogging to becoming an author. If I hadn't been a blogger, I don't think I would be in the position I am at this moment. And I am loving every second of it and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

 

Here's some info for the book! I'm super excited to read it!
 
 

Soul Taken by Katlyn Duncan 
Release date: June 4, 2013, 
Carina UK Series: Book 1 in The Life After Trilogy 
Genre: YA Paranormal 
ISBN: 978-1-472-01709-3

After-life just got a lot more complicated Maggie is a Soul Collector. It’s her job to transport souls from the Living Realm to the After – but during a mission to find a stolen soul, she ends up stuck in a teen mean girl’s body. Trapped, Maggie’s soul is catapulted into Ally’s life – and the human world she hasn’t experienced for one hundred years. But, as a descendant of the most powerful beings in the After, Maggie must rescue Ally before the girl’s soul dies… To survive, Maggie must uncover devastating secrets – because with one soul taken by a terrifying enemy, Maggie’s could be next!

Add Soul Taken on Goodreads

Buy Links

Mills & Boon/Kindle US/Kindle UK/Nook UK/Kobo/Google Play/Sony/Diesel ebooks/iBooks US/ iBooks UK

And an excerpt!

I knelt down again next to Ally and reached out to touch her skin. Even though the sensation was unpleasant, I could feel her pulse as it rapidly declined. 

"No," I moaned. I looked up again to see if any of the Guard could help, but no one was around. 

I looked back down at Ally. Her face was paling by the second. My soul started to tingle. I leaned closer to her body, reaching my hand out to touch her face again, when her arm moved toward mine. 

I jumped back. 

Heather pushed through the crowd. “Did she just move? Did I see her move?” Streaks of black mascara ran down her cheeks. 

A ringing sensation tickled my ear and I tuned in to the True Soul’s presence. I looked at each human. The True Soul was close, but who had it? They all seemed equally shocked at the tragedy. 

An uncomfortable pressure in my chest drew me closer to her body. My soul slanted toward hers until I was practically on top of her. I helplessly watched my hand morph and stretch toward her body. 

"What the—?” I tried to pull back but the strength of whatever was happening had other ideas. My hand disappeared first, then my arm, then my torso. But before I could call for help, my world went dark. 

And here's the trailer!

One lucky winner will receive an eBook of Soul Taken from Katelyn via Amazon. US Only.

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

Authors ARE Rockstars- Featuring Page Morgan and a Giveaway!

Welcome to day 1 of the month long Authors ARE Rockstars tour! Today I am super excited to kick off the tour with my first Rockstar Author, Page Morgan!

Why did I choose Page you're asking? Well that's easy let me set the scene.....

I was staring at my bookshelves not knowing what I wanted to read and this beautiful cover kept whispering to me "pick me up, pick me up"; so I finally did and this book rocked my world! The book is THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE CURSED normally I'm not a historical fan but throw in anything paranormal and I'll devour it. Which is what I did with this book! Pages writing is beautiful and I loved the Gargoyles and Demons! Also it's told in multiple POV's which I adore. And we get not one but 4 hot boys to drool over! There's a boy for everyone's tastes! I am a Nolan girl and Rachel is a Luc girl LOL!

After devouring the book Page and I began chatting on twitter and we've become twitter buddies and Pinterest pals who swoon over hot boys and beautiful scenery! Which leads to our post. I asked Page to share some of her pins from her Pinterest boards and why they inspired her and THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE CURSED!

So lets meet Page!

Page Morgan is the author of the young adult Gothic thriller, THE BEAUTIFUL & THE CURSED. She became intrigued by gargoyles when she came across an old, black-and-white photograph of a Notre Dame gargoyle keeping watch over the city of Paris. Right away, she knew she had to tell that gargoyle's story. Page lives in New England with her husband and their three daughters, along with an ancient dog, arrogant cat, and two surprisingly cuddly bearded dragons.

Twitter/Website/Facebook/Goodreads/Pinterest






And now to Page's post! All of these pics are from Page's Pinterest boards and they all link back to her boards so you can see more of the awesomeness!


The Picture of Inspiration: THE BEAUTIFUL & THE CURSED I don’t usually search for picture inspiration when I’m in the middle of writing a story. I let my imagination do all the work, piecing together the details of a character’s physical appearance or a particular setting. However, when I finally broke down and joined Pinterest a few months before The Beautiful and the Cursed released into the world (I know, I know, I’m late to the party) I went a little Pin crazy. Allow me to introduce my characters and world in this Pin Post:

 Ingrid Waverly and Gabby Waverly have moved from London to Paris in December of 1899.

Ingrid

and

Gabby

They’re supposed to be meeting up with their brother (and Ingrid’s twin) Grayson, who had gone to Paris ahead of them to secure a home and a building to house their mother’s new art gallery.

Grayson

However Ingrid and Gabby find that he’s purchased an old abbey and rectory lined with stone gargoyles, and something worse: Grayson is missing.

And those gargoyles? Well, the statues may be made of stone, but there are other gargoyles—shape shifting gargoyles—who are charged with protecting humans. Ingrid and Gabby have a protector of their own: Luc.

Luc

He’s one of the Dispossessed, gargoyles living among Parisians in plain sight, shifting into their grotesque forms when their human charges find themselves in danger. And Luc knows what’s happened to Grayson.

So does the Alliance, an underground society of demon hunters. Two Alliance members take an interest in Ingrid and Gabby’s search for their brother: Nolan Quinn and Vander Burke.

 

Nolan

Vamder

Soon Ingrid and Gabby find themselves in a world ruled by demons and demon hunters, gargoyles and angels, and they discover that they are already tied to this world in some unexpected ways.

I loved finding images of people who just seemed to fit my vision of these characters, especially Gabby’s.

But there were other things I found on Pinterest that went with the book, like fashion…

and demon hunter weaponry…

modes of transportation…

and of course, plenty of gargoyles…

Now here's some info on the book!

Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble/The Book Depository

After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris. In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures. And Grayson has gone missing. No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home. Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.

Now on to the giveaway! Page is going to send 1 signed copy to a luck person and the giveaway is International! Fill out the rafflecopter form and good luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway