Blood Entwines by Caroline Healy is a YA Urban Fantasy published by Bloomsbury Publishing (Sparks). The tour runs October 20th- November 16th with reviews, interviews & guest posts. Check out the tour page and schedule.
Blood Entwines by Caroline Healy
A dark compelling story of love and its more sinister elements…possession.
In the aftermath of a blood transfusion that saved her life, Kara feels different. Her senses are stronger ... she can hear whispered comments not meant for her ears ... she can hear the person following her. When Jack, her stalker, reveals himself and insists that Kara has something that belongs to him, she does her best to avoid him. But he’s determined to talk to her, convinced that they’re linked through the blood she received during her transfusion.Jack is struggling against a dark and dangerous demon. His body is host to the evil power that wants Kara’s blood and will stop at nothing to get it. If Jack is able to gain control he can warn Kara. But which is stronger, the power of the blood they share or the force for evil. How can Kara help save Jack without risking her own life?
Caroline Healy is a writer and community arts facilitator. She recently completed her M.A. in
Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast.
She published her first, award winning collection of short stories, entitled A Stitch in Time in August 2012. Her work has been featured in publications such as Wordlegs, The Bohemyth, Prole and the Irish Writers’ Centre Lonely Voice.
She writes literary fiction and young adult fiction, with her Y.A. book Blood Entwines released with Bloomsbury Publishing in August 2014.Caroline loves drinking tea from mis-matched china, doing yoga, as well as reading, writing, talking and thinking about all things bookish. She also has a penchant for cake and dark chocolate.
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Curling Up With A Good Book…what a great title for a blog – thanks for having me. I think everyone knows what ‘curling up with a good book’ feels like.
With Winter coming, the days getting darker, the weather getting more miserable, the idea of warm of woolly socks, thick knitted jumpers, steaming cups of tea and opening the first page of a long anticipated read…you just can’t beat it.
I never thought I would go from the reader to the writer but my love of books took me to that path and gave me a gentle shove in that direction. I have always been a reader but didn’t realise till my early twenties that I was a writer. I did my Masters in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University and suddenly I realised that I had unlocked my passion; that my writing journey had begun.
When people talk about the writing journey, I have an image in my mind. This image is of an open topped car, on a beautiful sunny day, meandering along Mediterranean style roads, the gentlest of breezes stirring the lavender and rapeseed fields, popping purple and yellow colours in your rear view mirror as you Sunday-drive, without a care in the world.
Ha! I say to you now, Writing Journey, oh, how you deceived me!
Forget meander, how about careering; a rollercoaster writing journey, with very limited pit-stops along the way.
To say I was green as grass, in terms of writing, was a major understatement. I kinda thought stories…just happened. After my studies I felt almost more at a loss, I realised how much I didn’t know, so I began to read books, short story collections, essays, poems; I read and I read and I read until I began to see the connections, the links and patterns in writing.
I tried a few things, paying attention to the rules of writing (whatever they are), then I broke a few rules and my writing didn’t immediately disintegrate. I played with experimental short stories and I got publishing in a few journals, a few on-line magazines.
Then I won the Doire Press Short Story Competition and I found myself in possession of an ISBN number….you never forget your first ISBN.
And so I wrote some more short stories and decided to revisit a manuscript I had written back in 2011. Blood Connections had turned to Blood Links as the editing process evolved. Finally, I ended up with a full manuscript that I didn’t want to rip to shreds and that became Blood Entwines, my first book.
It is a book about seventeen year old Kara Bailey, who suffers terrible injuries in a car accident and must have a blood transfusion. When she recovers from her surgery, she finds that her senses are heightened, that she is quick to anger, her personality somehow altered. Things get creepy when a man appears outside her school, outside her house, watching her as she walks home, attempting to talk to her on a dark, winter’s eve. He tells her she has something that belongs to him, and that he wants it back. The blood in her veins is mutant. The blood in her veins belongs to someone else. The blood in her veins is the only thing keeping her alive.
Writing is hard work. Putting your energies in to a story, then sending that out there for people to read is intimidating, in fact it is downright terrifying. But if you don’t do that then how will your creative process evolve? How will you grow as an artist?
To be a writer, you need a thick skin.
In terms of struggles – I think every writer struggles, the intimidating blank page, the ever mounting word count, the internal critic who shouts too loudly, the mountainous journey to the pinnacle…getting the book publishing. However this pinnacle is just the beginning of a different type of journey. And like every turning point on this crazy ride I am learning something, something about the industry, something about my writing, something about language and art and creativity but most importantly, something about myself as a person.
It’s been a busy year, my second short story collection is gone to publishers, I am just finished the edits for the second book in the series called Blood Betrays and I have an adult novel and the first draft of a children’s book to sort out.
There is no rest for the wicked and instead of having a nice leisurely stroll in terms of my writing journey, I think it’s more like a hurtling, zooming, terrifyingly exciting expedition.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
Giveaway:
$20 Amazon Gift Card (INT)
Ooh I really like the cover of this book! As well as that I have to say the guest post was interesting to read. I have always been a reader before writer too... I had been reading for many years and found my love for writing in the last year of primary school I think?
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