CBB Book Promotions Blog Tour, Excerpt, & Giveaway: 27 Days To Midnight (Kristine Kruppa)

Welcome to my tour stop for 27 Days to Midnight by Kristine Kruppa! This is a young adult steampunk novel and the tour runs May 16-27 with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts. 27 Days to Midnight released May 3rd by Giant Squid Books. The cover art is by artist Elizabeth Early.

Check out the tour page for the full schedule.

Everyone in Dahlia's world knows when they're going to die. Except her.Her father has never shown her the pocket watch counting down the days she has left to live. When he sacrifices himself to save her from her scheduled death, Dahlia abandons her comfortable home and sets off after his murderer to uncover the secrets her father died to protect…and the time research that could bring him back to life.Then she meets Farren Reed. She should hate him. He’s an enemy soldier, a cowardly deserter, and the most insufferable man Dahlia’s ever met. Still, she needs all the help she can get, and Farren is the only chance she has to find the man who murdered her father. But Farren has only twenty-seven days left on his watch.In that time, Dahlia must recover her father’s time research, foil a psychotic general’s plot, and learn to survive in a world that will never be the same. But the research holds secrets more dangerous than she had ever imagined. She will have to choose what is most important: revenge, Farren's life, or her own. And time is running out.

Goodreads | Amazon

Kristine Kruppa is a mechanical engineer, writer, and world traveler. Her days are spent designing cool new car parts, but her evenings are filled with writing and cats. She has traveled solo to seventeen countries on five continents. Her other hobbies include hunting for the perfect cup of coffee, exploring used book stores, and accidentally climbing mountains. To keep up with her adventures, follow Kristine on Twitter @kskruppa.  

Dahlia’s heart stopped. She leapt to her feet, hardly noticing the twigs scratching her skin. The backpack slid from her shoulders.

“Run!”

She fled. The long skirt flapped at her ankles, threatening to catch on the lines of low crops. She didn’t care. It was either run or be captured and sold to Anglia, into the clutches of the man who’d killed her papa…

“Dammit!” Farren’s yell snapped through her adrenaline. Dahlia shot a glance over her shoulder without slowing.

The airman had only just managed to extricate himself from the bush. He jogged along, cursing the leg brace with every step, stumbling after her.

A panel slid open in the airship’s gondola. Something leapt out, something huge and shadowy. The hulking shape dropped to the road, stirring dust and shaking pebbles. A pair of burning yellow eyes fixed on Dahlia.

It was a gargantuan mechanical man. Tall and hunched, covered in segmented armor plates that clicked as it started forward. It passed Farren in four massive strides.

Dahlia ran faster than she’d known she could. The mechanical thumped along behind her, heavy steps drawing closer. Panic gripped Dahlia. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

A pistol shot shattered the sound of the mechanical’s metal plates. Dahlia risked a look back, just in time to watch Farren empty his clip into the thing’s head. Four perfect shots.

It didn’t even flinch. The bullets that should have torn through its processing circuits simply splattered against the back of its metal skullplate.

Then it was upon Dahlia. She shrieked with fear as a steel hand wrapped around her waist. The thumb jabbed into the small of her back, and the tips of the fingers pressed against her bellybutton. Her feet left the ground.

Dahlia struggled, beating vainly at arms the size of tree trunks. The mechanical turned her so they were face to face.

“Stop that,” it ordered. The low voice rumbled up from deep within the creature. A slotted face grille shielded the place where its mouth should have been.

One (1) winner receives a hardback copy of the book (US only) 

Three (3) winners receive a digital copy (INT)

One (1) winner recieves a $10 amazon gift card (INT)

Ends 6/1

Prizing is provided by the publisher, hosts are not responsible. Must be 13 or older to enter and parental permission if under 17. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary to win.

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This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

CBB Book Promotions Blog Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway: The Dragon Scale Lute (JC Kang)

Welcome to my tour stop for The Dragon Scale Lute by J.C. Kang! This is a mature young adult multicultural epic fantasy. The tour runs April 4-15 with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for the full schedule.

For a limited time The Dragon Scale Lute is on sale for only .99 cents for Kindle!

Kaiya’s voice could charm a dragon.
Had she lived when the power of music could still summon typhoons and rout armies, perhaps Cathay’s imperial court would see the awkward, gangly princess as more than a singing fool. With alliances to build and ambitious lords to placate, they care more about her marriage prospects than her unique abilities.
Only the handsome Prince Hardeep, a foreign martial mystic, recognizes her potential. Convinced Kaiya will rediscover the legendary but perilous art of invoking magic through music, he suggests her voice, not her marriage, might better serve the realm.
When members of the emperor’s elite spy clan-- Kaiya’s childhood friend and his half-elf sidekick (or maybe he’s her sidekick?)-- discover mere discontent boiling over into full-scale rebellion, Kaiya must choose. Obediently wedding the depraved ringleader means giving up her music. Confronting him with the growing power of her voice could kill her.  

Goodreads | Amazon 

A Chinese Medicine Doctor and Martial Artist by trade, JC Kang would have never started writing fantasy stories save for two fluke coincidences.
In the Christmas of 2010, while cleaning out childhood junk from his mom’s house, he came across his old Dungeons and Dragons campaign world.  Before relegating the binder of maps and notes to the trash where it belonged, he decided to peek back and see what his 13-year old self had created.
He couldn’t help but laugh at the silly ideas that had crossed his teenage brain.  Rivers flowed uphill.  Empires produced resources out of thin air.  However, a few interesting premises had potential.
For the next six days, he redesigned his world, taking into account things he’d learned over the last 25 years.  Advanced stuff like gravity,  evolution, and supply and demand.
On the seventh day, he rested.  Looking at his glorious creation, he was hit by the realization that he’d never play D&D again.
A month later, the second event occurred:  three weeks of major snowstorms.   Stuck indoors for days at a time, he used his skills as a professional technical writer and pumped out a 120k word novel set in this world… only to find out that fiction writing and technical writing were two different beasts.
He set off to study the craft, and learned advanced ideas like characterization, point of view and tension.  After revising the first book, he wrote a prequel.  After the prequel, he wrote a sequel.  And finally, he wrote the prequel to the prequel:  the Dragon Scale Lute.

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What gave you the inspiration for this book?

My inspiration for writing The Dragon Scale Lute, a multicultural epic fantasy, goes back to my geek roots. For me, the gates to Geekdom were the front doors of a movie theater. I saw Star Wars for the first time there, at the tender age of seven. My brother soon helped secure my residency status by reading me The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit. In middle school, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, thereby beginning the naturalization process. Not long after, Geekdom granted me full citizenship when I demonstrated mastery of Elvish from the appendices of the Lord of the Rings (and proved I’d actually read the Silmarillion).

Of course, unless you were a member of the Trekkie faction, Geekdom’s holy codices and founding documents featured almost all-Caucasian heroes. That was fine for a Chinese-American kid growing up in the urban South, who just wanted to fit in. I didn’t care that characters who looked like me were more likely to be the villain or a Red Shirt sidekick. When I went to create my own D&D fantasy world, I modelled it after concepts I’d read or seen, including exclusively Northern European characters and cultures.

Fast forward twenty-some years (through a dark age when I hid my Geekdom passport, only occasionally exchanging Vulcan greetings with other nerds). While cleaning out stuff from my parents’ home, I unearthed my old fantasy world. I laughed at the liberties my teenage self had taken with gravity and economics, and shuddered at the ubiquity of humans in it. However, I liked a few of the underlying ideas. 

Feeling my Geekdom nationalism stirring, I remade the world; only this time, I used diverse ethnicities and gave each their own sphere of magic. I considered how their proximities would influence each other culturally, religiously, and technologically.

On the seventh day, I rested. In that moment of deep contemplation, I realized I would never play D&D again. 

Instead, I decided to write. I’d lived in Asia and California for a decade, and had watched plenty of Samurai dramas, Wuxia flicks, and Korean romantic comedies. With two daughters, who I hoped would feel proud of their ethnic heritage after I smuggled them into Geekdom, I started with an action adventure love story set in the Asian part of the world. In the span of three weeks, I pumped out a 150,000 word novel. I submitted a chapter from my masterpiece, expecting rave reviews. 

It got ripped to shreds.

It turned out my offering to Geekdom read like Ikea furniture instructions, only without pictures—the result of years working as a technical writer and editor. Still, as a true patriot, I refused to surrender. I dove headfirst into learning the craft. Through critiquing and revising, and with the help of awesome crit partners, I discovered my stinking hot mess lacked minor details like consistent Point of View, Narrative Distance, Pacing, and Dramatic Tension. 

I heavily revised that first book, then wrote a prequel and a sequel. Not satisfied with the start, I drew upon the Trekkie Cult and wrote a prequel to the prequel. That is the Dragon Scale Lute, hopefully an honorable addition to the Great Library of Geekdom, which honors both my ethnic and geek roots.

One (1) winner will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card (INT)

One (1) winner will receive a paperback copy of The Dragon Scale Lute (US)

Ends April 20, 2016

Prizing is provided by the author, hosts are not responsible. Must be 13 or older to enter and have parental permission if under 18. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary to win.

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This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

CBB Book Promotions Blog Tour, Guest Post, & Giveaway: Silenced In The Surf (Kate Dyer-Seeley)

Welcome to my tour stop for Silenced in the Surf by Kate Dyer-Seeley! This is book three in the Pacific Northwest Mystery series and released March 29th, 2016. The tour runs April 4-15 with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for the full schedule.

Covering a windsurfing competition should have been a breeze for reporter Meg Reed, but with a killer in the curl, she's headed for rough waters…
Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge is the windsurfing capital of the world, and Meg is stoked to cover the King of the Hook event for Portland's Northwest Extreme magazine. Before the competition gets under way, Meg has a chance to try some windsurfing on her own. But when the current sweeps her downriver, she spots a body snagged on the rocks. The dead man is Justin Cruise, aka Cruise Control, a celebrity windsurfer and not exactly a nice guy. It's soon clear his death was no accident, and Cruise had no shortage of enemies. As Meg dives right in to discover who wiped out the windsurfer, she'll need to keep her balance--or she too may get blown away.

Praise For Scene Of The Climb "A splendid overview of the greater Portland and Columbia River Gorge region, perfect for travel buffs. Her protagonist shows promise with her determined attitude and moxie." --Library Journal "A fun, terrific adventure." --Suspense Magazine

Includes Adventure Guides!

Goodreads |  Amazon | B&N

Don't miss out on the first two books, Scene of the Climb and Slayed on the Slopes!

Kate Dyer-Seeley writes the Pacific Northwest Mystery Series for Kensington Publishing. The first book in the series, Scene of the Climb, features the rugged landscapes of the Columbia River Gorge and a young journalist who bills herself as an intrepid adventurer in order to land a gig writing for Northwest Extreme. Her work has appeared in a variety of regional and international publications including: The Columbian, The Vancouver Voice, Seattle Backpacker, Portland Family Magazine, and Climbing Magazine. Kate lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and son, where you can find her hitting the trail, at an artisan coffee shop, or at her favorite pub. Better yet—at all three.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

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What was your inspiration for this story?

This is the third book in the Pacific Northwest Mystery series, and since I began writing the series I’ve wanted to send Meg to Hood River. Meg is a young journalist who has landed a job writing for an outdoor magazine, Northwest Extreme, but let’s just say that her athletic skills could use some serious improvement. She’s had adventures out in the wild Oregon forests and on the high slopes of Mt. Hood where things haven’t gone exactly as she planned. But Meg is spunky and willing to try anything to keep her job at the magazine, so when she learns that an international windsurfing competition is going to take place in the charming and very windy town of Hood River, she signs up for the assignment. Swimming just might be her sport, but she never anticipates finding a body on the banks of the mighty Columbia River.

Hood River is about a forty-five minute drive from my house. It’s considered one of the windiest places on the planet and attracts windsurfers, kite boarders, paddle boarders, and water lovers from all over the world. The town is situated just up the hill from the Columbia River and exudes the perfect mix of small town charm with a touch of adventure. There are artisan coffee shops, brew pubs, restaurants, shops, and dogs everywhere. My family and I love taking day trips to Hood River. We’ll grab a delectable lunch and pint of Northwest microbrew at one of the restaurants, meander through the shops, and then head down to the river.

On windy days you can sit on the sandy shores of the river and watch windsurfers and kite boarders catch incredible air and perform death-defying stunts. Colorful kites and sails fill the sky and rain down like confetti. Throughout the season Hood River hosts a variety of tournaments and competitions where (like Meg) spectators can get a glimpse of professional athletes in action. 

When the river is quiet you’ll spot paddle boarders slowly cutting through the calm water—often with a collection of dogs along for the ride. They glide in almost a meditation as the sun sparkles and reflects from the river’s brilliant blue surface.

You can dip your toes in the water, soak up the sun from the safety of the sand, or try your hand at one of the river sports. There are board rental companies and guiding groups that will give you a quick lesson and let you catch your own air! 

I hope that readers will fall in love with the charming outdoor mecca of Hood River as Meg puzzles through the clues and pieces together whodunit. 

Signed copies of Scene of the Climb, Slayed on the Slopes and Silenced in the Surf, pink water bottle, Organic Clif bars, Sunscreen, Chapstick, Pink sunglasses & Gourmet lemonade.

Open to US addresses only.

Ends April 20, 2016

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This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

CBB Book Promotions Blog Tour, Interview, & Giveaway: The Patron Murders (Edwin Wilson)

Welcome to my tour stop for The Patron Murders by Edwin Wilson.  The Patron Murders is a mystery and the tour runs March 1-11 with reviews, guest posts, interviews and excerpts. Check out the tour page for the full schedule.

Matt Johanssen, a dedicated stage actor in his early fifties, is currently rehearsing a play soon to open on Broadway. Through the years, Matt has also anonymously assisted the NYPD in solving a number of crimes.Midway through rehearsals, a startling murder takes place thirty blocks away at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a trustee is discovered on the roof with a javelin thrust through his heart. Later, just prior to opening night, the admired and beloved producer of Matt's play, Dorothy Tremayne, is found dead in the theatre’s darkened basement lounge.Ten days later, during a gala at the American Museum of Natural History, there is another murder far more sensational than the ones before. Working behind the scenes, Matt becomes deeply involved in solving all three cases. Meanwhile, he meets an intriguing, auburn-haired woman writing about the murders, and a romantic liaison develops amid the danger and suspense. Set against the backdrop of the inner workings of New York City’s theatre, art, and cultural scenes, The Patron Murders is part detective story, part social novel, and a witty, incisive critique of the parvenues who attempt to gain acceptance in the old-line arts establishment.

Amazon | B&N | IndieBound | Goodreads

Author, teacher, critic, Edwin Wilson began his career as Assistant to the Producer for the Broadway play Big Fish, Little Fish directed by John Gielgud, and the film Lord of the Flies directed by Peter Brook. He produced plays off-Broadway and coproduced the Broadway play Agatha Sue, I Love You directed by George Abbott. He also produced the film The Nashville Sound.
Educated at Vanderbilt, Edinburgh, and Yale, he received the first Doctor of Fine Arts degree awarded by Yale. From 1972 to 1994 he was the theatre critic for The Wall Street Journal. For thirty years he taught at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. During the past four decades he has been the preeminent writer of college theatre textbooks in the U.S. His three books (two coauthored with Alvin Goldfarb) have sold nearly one million copies.
He has served as president of the Theatre Development Fund and the New York Drama Critics Circle, as well as chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Drama Jury.In the early 1990s, he conducted a series of ninety half-hour television interviews with theater artists ranging from George Abbott to Jerry Zaks, which appeared on CUNY-TV in New York and 200 PBS stations around the country.
The Patron Murders is Wilson’s first novel.

Website

What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

I have always enjoyed murder mysteries – reading them in my free time. I was especially fond of the English author Simon Brett and his series on Charles Paris, an alcoholic, second-rate actor in Britain who has a knack for solving murders that take place in and around the theatre. Brett also has a grand sense of humor so the books are amusing as well as intriguing. 

Who is your favorite character in the book?

It would have to be Matt Johanssen, the successful, middle-aged stage actor who, in the book is in rehearsal for a new play about to open on Broadway. Through the years, Matt, behind the scenes and out of sight, has helped the NYPD solve crimes that they have been unable to find the answer to. In the case of The Patron Murders, there are three homicides and Matt is helpful in finding the guilty party in all three cases.

Which came first, the title or the novel?

The novel came first. I had a different title in an earlier draft when there was only one murder. In later versions, other murders were added and the title emerged.

What scene in the book are you the most proud of, and why?

This is difficult to answer; it is like being asked to name your favorite child when you have three or four. The scene where Mikey – a gay, tough guy – accosts Matt in his loft apartment at gunpoint is the most graphic and suspenseful scene. But I also like the scenes during the theatre rehearsal process when new material is added to the script and the actors find it extremely gratifying and satisfying when it enhances their performances.

Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

I wrote this while I was also working on the revision of one of my textbooks published by McGraw-Hill, so the writing was intermittent. I would work intensely for several weeks, and then put it aside for a time. The spacing out of the writing, with time to absorb ideas and return to the work with a fresh eye, was a tremendous advantage.

What do you most like about the cover of the book?

The photograph of the front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, because one of the murders takes place in the museum.

What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2016?

The Abundance by Annie Dillard

What was your favorite book of 2015?

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

What’s up next for you?

To finish work with my co-author of the 7th edition of our theatre history book, Living Theatre to be published by W. W. Norton, and perhaps contemplate a sequel to The Patron Murders.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Only that having the time to work slowly on The Patriot Murders was a true luxury and that writing it was a great adventure.

$15 Amazon gift card (INT)

5 hardcover copies of The Patron Murders (US)

5 ebook copies of The Patron Murders (INT)

Ends March 16

This giveaway is provided by the publisher, hosts are not responsible. Must be 13 or older to enter and have parental permission if under 17. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary to win.

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This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

CBB Book Promotions Blog Tour, Guest Post, & Giveaway: Level Up (Cathy Yardly)

Welcome to my tour stop for Level Up by Cathy Yardley. This is a romantic comedy and the tour runs January 4-22 with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts. Check out the tour page for the full schedule. 

Geeky introvert Tessa Rodriguez will do whatever it takes to get promoted to video game engineer– including create a fandom-based video game in just three weeks. The only problem is, she can't do it alone. Now, she needs to strong-arm, cajole, and otherwise socialize with her video game coworkers, especially her roommate, Adam, who’s always been strictly business with her. The more they work together, though, the closer they get…
Adam London has always thought of his roomie Tessa as “one of the guys” until he agreed to help her with this crazy project. Now, he’s thinking of her all the time… and certainly as something more than just a roommate! But his last girlfriend broke up with him to follow her ambitions, and he knows that Tessa is obsessed with getting ahead in the video game world.Going from friends to something more is one hell of a challenge. Can Tessa and Adam level up their relationship to love?

Goodreads 

Cathy Yardley needs to get out more. When not writing, she is probably cruising the Internet, sleeping or watching D-list movies and adding to her unnatural mental store of character-actor trivia. She is a closet fangirl for Supernatural, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and too many others to name. Her family is considering performing an intervention for her addiction to pop culture. Want to read more of her writing? Sign up for her notification list, and get a free novella, Hooked, from the Fandom Hearts series!  http://www.cathyyardley.com/notification-sign-up

Inspiration for LEVEL UP article

Age of the Geek, Baby!

I have a terrible confession to make.

I don’t like Alpha males.

I don’t hate them. There are plenty of novels with Alpha males that I enjoy: J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, Suzanne Brockmann’s Navy Seals. Throw in the occasional billionaire with control issues, you’ve probably got a good time. 

And let’s face it: I wouldn’t kick Aragorn out of bed for eating crackers.

But I grew up with geeks. My first love was a shy cutie who set up his own server and knew how to whip up nitrogen tri-iodide and homemade fireworks. He was part of my nerd posse, a group that watched Star Wars marathons, snickered thrown Dr. Strangelove, could quote Monty Python with ease, watched Twin Peaks with complimentary cherry pie & coffee. 

In college, my best friend and I had Disney-fests and baked. We’re Doctor Who fans, Sherlock fans, Supernatural fans. We can speak entirely in movie quotes and can finish each other’s sentences. (And we’re still best friends.

Beyond that, I’ve always been attracted to funny guys, the ones who were brighter than they let on, and had that wicked wit and snarky humor to back it up. Chandler from Friends. Mal Reynolds from Firefly. Give me the goofiness of Paul Rudd over a scowling, brooding beast any day. Chris Pratt is a hottie now, but you can still see the glimmers of oddball cut up Andy from Parks & Rec, despite his rippling muscles and Alpha grin. 

Guys that make me laugh are the ones that make me melt.

I wanted to write a series of romantic comedies about geek girls, and the funny guys they fall in love with. And with the rise of geek culture, I felt like I finally wasn’t alone in wanting to see these heroes and heroines. Leverage’s Hardison crows: “It’s the age of the geek, baby!” Big Bang Theory is on top in ratings. My Pinterest board called Geek Love has 2400 followers and counting – with no promotion. Acapella topped the Billboard album chart -- #1 – for the first time in… well, ever.

So I decided to write my Fandom Hearts series. Each book has little nods to my favorite geek fandoms. The first book, Level Up, is about a video game designer who meets her own geek posse, and falls in love with her funny (and previously platonic) roommate. There are plenty of hat-tips to Sherlock. I also wrote my novella, Hooked, taking place at the same time, right after Christmas. That one has Easter eggs from the TV show Once Upon A Time. The next books in the series will hint back to Supernatural, Game of Thrones, Arrow, Firefly, and Doctor Who.

Do you have a geek streak? How do you feel about funny heroes and romantic comedy? And what are your favorite fandoms?

$25 Amazon gift card (INT)

Ends Jan. 27, 2016

Prizing is provided by the author, hosts are not responsible. Must be 13 or older to enter and have parental permission if under 18. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

CBB Book Promotions Blog Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway: The Standout (Laurel Osterkamp)

Welcome to my tour stop for The Standout by Laurel Osterkamp! The Standout is a psychological thriller and is a stand alone. The tour runs December 7-18 with reviews, interviews, guest posts and excerpts.

First Robin gets the email with its simple demand: dump your fiancé or else. Then someone puts up the slanderous Rotten Robin Website that threatens to crush her chances to win The Standout, a ballet-themed, fashion reality show. Surrounded by backstabbing co-contestants and haunted by mysterious ghosts from her past, Robin can't trust anyone, including herself. This new psychological thriller by Laurel Osterkamp, author of The Holdout and The Next Breath, is Black Swan meets Project Runway.
Get ready for a breathtaking novel about love, betrayal, tall buildings, and finding the courage to jump.

Goodreads | Amazon

Laurel Osterkamp becomes very attached to her characters. The Standout, The Holdout, The Next Breath, November Surprise, Blue State, and American Angst all feature the Bricker family, but these books can be read in any order. Laurel teaches English and Creative Writing in Minneapolis, where she tries to stay warm, hang out with her husband and two chatty children, and find the time to write. Her other novels are the award-winningFollowing My Toes and Starring in the Movie of My Life.
You can find Laurel on Twitter but she needs to work on sending clever Tweets. A better idea is to follow her blog at www.laurelosterkamp.blogspot.com.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

When I was a little girl I became infatuated with the ballet, so my mom signed me up for dance class, and I stuck with it all the way through college. I was in numerous productions of The Nutcracker (always as something generic, like a party guest or a sugar plum) and I was taken to see professional productions of it too. I loved The Nutcracker, but I wanted more.

At the peak of my all-things-ballet obsession, my father bought me a book for Christmas. It was beautifully illustrated, and it told several classic ballet stories, like Giselle, Swan Lake, and Scheherazade. Looking back, I’m sort of amazed that they were included in a children’s book. Think about it…

Swan Lake: A guy goes out hunting, but instead of killing a bird with his crossbow, he falls in love with a white-swan lady. Then he gets duped by an evil sorcerer and his black-swan lady sidekick. Everybody dies. 

Giselle: A woman gets tricked by her lover into believing that he’s poor, but once she realizes that he’s rich she’s so sad and betrayed, she dies of a broken heart. The she joins a gang of ghostly brides who literally dance guys to death. Everybody dies.

Scheherazade: A sultan has the nasty habit of always killing those who serve him, until Scheherazade tells him stories of love, betrayal, and adventure. After 1001 nights, her survival no longer depends on her ability to spin a good yarn, but she does have to marry the sultan. 

At least nobody dies.

Even the ballets with happy endings are twisted and wrong, yet somehow they’re beautiful too. That was my inspiration for The Standout.

Not only did I literally weave classical ballet stories into the narrative, I used their themes throughout. Love and betrayal become matters of life and death. Beauty becomes truth, but nobody knows what’s real, or whom they can trust. Of course, life can be like that too. That’s the fun with fiction; we can take real-life, stretch it, contort it, and twist it into something slightly impossible yet entirely conceivable – just like ballet!

I had so much fun writing The Standout, remembering my years of ballet training and putting it to use. I also learned a lot about fashion, cyber-stalking, and roofing (if you don’t know what that is, you’ll find out if you read my book.) Of course, I also got a lot of ideas from watching Project Runway. I would love to go on a reality show like that, but I have neither the talent nor the lifestyle that would allow it. Writing about it is my way of living vicariously. In other words, inspiration is everywhere, it’s just a matter of putting it into words on the page!

$25 Amazon gift card (INT)
Ends December 23
Prizing is provided by the author, hosts are not responsible. Must be 13 or older to enter and have parental permission if under 17. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary to win.

 

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This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.

CBB Book Promotions Release Event & Giveaway: Vertical Lines (Kristen Kehoe)

Welcome to the release event for Vertical Lines by Kristen Kehoe! Vertical Lines is a new adult contemporary and is now available for sale on Amazon.

An artist and a smart girl.A staid family and a broken one.She’s adorably literal; he’s big and quietly emotional.
Jordana Richards was determined to make the best of her post high school life, despite the fact that nothing about her current college experience was of her choosing: not the school or the major, and definitely not the place. But it wasn't home, so that's something. Yet, the harder she tried to fit in, the less she felt like she did.

Until the night she said screw it.

Until the night she walked out on her parents and bought her very own piece of cake.
The same night she met Brooklyn Novak: brooding artist, huge man, overall scary human being who took a keen interest in her.
Brooklyn was out of ideas. He had no art, because really, his subjects had no soul. When the girl at the convenience store clicked her way into his life on five hundred dollar shoes and the fumes of a tantrum, this changed. Jordana Richards: the rich girl with a mission who gave Brooklyn the spark he needed to create again.

Uncomfortable with their attraction, Brooks and Jordan strike a deal: he'll help her have fun, she'll be his muse for as long as he needs. Simple.
Yeah right.
The more time they spend together, the more both of them realize that what started out as a convenient relationship is now transitioning to vital, and neither knows how to deal with it.
When a truth comes to light that has the potential to break both of their worlds, Jordan and Brooks have to decide how deep their feelings really go, and just how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to be together.

Amazon | Goodreads

Mom, Wife, Coffee Addict, and Book Lover
I am a writer of YA/NA contemporary novels. I write about those crazy ages of 18-23 because there is nothing scarier than being told to grow up and decide what to do with your life and who to be so suddenly. I write about love because it’s my belief that love, in one form or another, saves us all at some point in our lives. I am married to a man who understands and believes in me, and mother to a beautiful baby girl and a neurotic Great Dane Puppy.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Stella and Dot Tourmaline Necklace (US)

Ends Jan. 5th

Prizing provided by the author, hosts are not responsible. Must be 13 or older to enter and have parental permission if under 17. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This event was organized by CBB Book Promotions.