Saturday, June 29, 2013

Author Amy Miles


Meet Author Amy Miles
Indie Bookfest August 3, 2013

I'm featuring the authors who will be attending the Indie Bookfest in Florida this summer.  If you will be vacationing in Florida this is an event you don't want to miss.  Our featured keynote speaker is Isaac Marion - the author of Warm Bodies (was a movie this winter).







Wanna know how to get this t-shirt - go to the bottom of the page to see all of the styles and colors!  Help support Indie Bookfest


AUTHOR AMY MILES
BY DEVYN DAWSON



Amy Miles is an obsessive writer, avid reader and Facebook fanatic.  She's been a carbaholic since birth and is hopelessly addicted to frozen cokes.  She loves creating strong female leads, twisty plots and thrives off adrenaline pumping action sequences.  Amy is the author of Defiance Rising, Forbidden, Reckoning and her soon to be released novel, Redemption.
To learn more about her and her books visit AmyMilesBooks.com 

Stalking info:
Facebook:  Amy Miles, Author
Twitter:  @AmyMilesBooks
Email:  Amy@AmyMilesBooks.com



*** NA/YA crossover novel. Suitable for early teen to adult***

“Now that is a beautiful sight.”
I whip around, instantly covering myself with my arms. “What are you doing here?” I scream. “Get out!”
“Aw, don’t tell me you’re a shy one. I didn’t peg you for that.” Bastien grins as he throws his leg over a rock and settles in for what appears to be an annoyingly lengthy time.
Using one arm, I swim as quickly as I can away from the center of the pool and head straight for the rocks. Bastien seems completely unphazed by my rising fury and he grins down at me. He does however reach out to retrieve my dagger from the pile of clothes he’s perched beside. 
“Have you no decency?” I growl through chattering teeth. If I don’t get out soon I’ll risk hypothermia, but there’s no way I’m going to give Bastien the satisfaction of seeing me naked.
Twirling the dagger in his hand, he appears to contemplate my question. “I suppose this might seem a bit forward of me, but I thought you might like to know it’s time to go.”
“Fine. Message received. Leave now!”
He leans over the edge, peering down at me. “And miss all the fun? I think not.”

Illyria has never known a life without the Rebellion.
Instinct.
Survival.
Nothing else matters…until she ventures out into unknown territory and is faced with an enemy that proves even more fierce and determined than she ever thought. 
Bastien is infuriating, dangerous and annoyingly gorgeous. Eamon is familiar, comforting and turning into a man before her eyes. Both want her heart...but she is torn between duty and desire. When her choice affects all of mankind, how can she allow herself to be selfish?
There is a power within her that can change everyone’s fate…but she underestimated the most potent force on Earth—love. Illyria must discover if she has the strength to sacrifice her heart to save mankind.


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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Author Toni Sinns



Meet Author Toni Sinns
Indie Bookfest August 3, 2013

I'm featuring the authors who will be attending the Indie Bookfest in Florida this summer.  If you will be vacationing in Florida this is an event you don't want to miss.  Our featured keynote speaker is Isaac Marion - the author of Warm Bodies (was a movie this winter).







Wanna know how to get this t-shirt - go to the bottom of the page to see all of the styles and colors!  Help support Indie Bookfest









Bio: 

Toni Sinns was born and raised in Western North Carolina before moving to Central Florida in 2011 with the love of her life husband and their 2 dogs. She is currently working on multiple novels in multiple genres and has many plans for much more. When she isn't busy having conversations with the characters in her head she is helping others with her promotions business Turning The Pages or she is lost in one of her many joys and hobbies which could include: video games, movies, crochet, cooking, crafts, reading, or something else she finds to toy with.








Sunday, June 23, 2013

New release!

I am so excited to have this book out there in the wild. It's been a big labor of love, and I told friends as I was writing it that the characters kept breaking my heart, which is so true! If you enjoyed The Boyfriend Thief, I hope you'll enjoy companion book The Rules of You and Me, narrated by Hannah. It takes place a few weeks after The Boyfriend Thief ends and you'll see some familiar names pop up in the story. Even if you haven't read The Boyfriend Thief, you can still read The Rules of You and Me on its own because it's a standalone story.


The Rules of You and Me by Shana Norris 

Hannah Cohen has always lived her life by a set of carefully constructed rules to maintain the image of perfection. But now, the rules aren’t helping control the chaos that is quickly taking over.

Opting out of spending the summer in Paris with her mom, Hannah instead heads to the mountains of North Carolina to stay with her aunt. The Blue Ridge Mountains provide a barrier between Hannah and the rest of the world, a safe haven where her secrets can be forgotten.

When Hannah crosses paths with Jude Westmore, a guy who hangs a different shirt from the tree in his front yard every day, she finds herself breaking out of the comfort of her rules and doing things she had never dared before. As the summer passes, Hannah and Jude grow closer and make up their own rules for dealing with life.

But when the secret Hannah has tried to forget is finally revealed, even the new rules can’t save her from possibly losing everything–including Jude.

On sale now in ebook format at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. (iTunes coming soon.)

You can read Chapter 1 over here!

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Interview with Trisha Wooldridge (Part 2)!


Welcome Trisha Wooldridge!
Besides writing, what do you like to do in your free time?

Free time, what's that? ;) I make time to spend with my horse and pets and husband. (Not necessarily in that order.) My husband and I love hiking, and we share a love of fandom--so we watch Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, My Little Pony, and several other shows. And we go to conventions together when we can. I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with my cat and Giant Baby Bunnies at home. And I adore my horse, Calico Silver. It's a half-hour drive out to the barn where I keep her, so I have days where I'm like, "I don't wanna leave the house grumble, grumble, grump," but then I get out to the barn, and even if I only get to brush her and take her for a walk, it's so worth it. And if I get in the saddle and just futz around for ten minutes, it's so, so, so worth it. It puts me in a place of peace and balance I don't get any other way.

Tell us something about your book that we wouldn’t know just by reading the blurb.

One of the difficulties that Heather has in dealing with the challenges before her is that she went through some Hellish times at school. I know a lot of kids' writing has protagonists who are outcasts and bullies, but there is a reason for us. Most writers think and act differently than "regular" kids when they're growing up…and so many of us turned to books as our tools to get through things. The picked-on kids were something special.
 
However, the reality of it is that after having been out of middle school and high-school for nearly two decades, having had a great college career, being married to the man I call "Husband-of-Awesome" who treats me like a queen, working--truly--in my dream job as an editor and an author for a company I am so proud to be part of…you know what my first reaction still is to a new situation? To when perfect strangers are laughing on a bus or a train? I'm afraid: Afraid of being picked on, being bullied. And I know I'm not alone in that. Many of my friends have this defensive streak; it's a survival instinct.
 
When you're bullied and picked on, the results are far more insidious and pernicious than people realized, even in the current level of bullying-awareness we're seeing in society. It affects how you deal with life for a large part of your life, even when you've left the abusive situation. You could have a wonderful, loving family (I did and still do) who supports you no matter what (even in the crazy plan of being a writer), but that's not always enough.
 
So, for Heather, I got to show a little more of that. She's not even in school at the moment, but her experience still affects her choices, her desire to protect people, her ability to trust others, and her self-esteem.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you!

I'm pretty good at reading Tarot cards and tachometry (reading things based on touch.) I also do some massage and energy work, but only for close friends and family.

Which came first for you--the characters, the idea for the setting, or the plot?

For novels and short stories, the characters always come first. I need to know who I'm going on this journey with before we can attempt to plan--and then detour from--this journey together. For The Kelpie, Heather's parents actually came to me first, which is why her family is so freaking complicated. Heather came after some years of playing with Michael & Aimee's stories--and Heather's was a much simpler one to tell. The one type of writing, for me, that's different is poetry and story-poems, and only with those things, the idea/plot comes first and I don't have the same tie to characters.

When you were growing up, what did you want to be?

I always wanted to be a writer of some sort. (Though, for a while, I thought I could actually make good money and write as a lawyer, but reality that I wouldn't enjoy that set in pretty quickly.). When I was in first grade, I couldn't wait to bring home my vocabulary sentences and share them with my mom. I always loved being creative with language!

Is there one piece of advice you wish someone would have given you before you started writing?

I always find these questions interesting because, as a fan of time-travel fandom and Doctor Who, I'm a firm believer that if people were to go back and try and change something, either with advice or to change an action, they would no longer be who or what they were currently. We're an amalgamate of every good and terrible decision we make; we have to learn things the way we learned them. To circumvent that would avoid learning the lessons we needed. And, honestly, if there were some key piece of advice that would have me at Neil Gaiman or J. K. Rowling levels of author fame and fortune, I probably would have totally not listened well. Because, well, most of us wouldn't.

Holiday Magick

Stop by Trisha's website to find out more
about her upcoming and previous releases!

Thank you for stopping by
The Writers Voice

Friday, June 21, 2013

Interview with Trisha Wooldridge (Part 1)!

Welcome Trisha Wooldridge!
Are the traits of anyone close to you apparent in your characters?

Just about everyone close to me--as well as some people I may not be that close to--end up with pieces of them in my characters. People, in general, are interesting, and there is a bit of my brain that is always recording and analyzing in almost every situation.

If you could have any extraordinary gift or super power what would it be and why?

I'd love to communicate with animals: understand them better, get them to understand me better. I've given that power to a few characters, and then I throw in a lot of fey creatures who can speak with humans. Granted, I do a lot of anthropomorphizing of animals--even the ones outside of fiction--and that can get you into trouble. But, at least in fiction, if you make your animals fey, you can get away with that and imagine some of the interesting differences in communication between cats and humans and horses and humans. I can only imagine how crazy animals think the human species is! (And then I write fantasy to further explore such musings.)

What would you like for readers to take away from your novel/novels?

One of the most powerful messages in novels I read are from Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series--and that message would be that there exists a harmony and melody between family/community/individual, faith/science/magic that creates one massive Song of the Universe. As humans, we simply cannot comprehend the extent of it all--but that is okay. It still exists, and we are still part of it, and everything--everything--can in fact be true all at once. Our actions and intents as small as they are in comparison to the whole Song, still are an important part.
I hope I can come close to that through Heather's adventures.

What do you feel is your biggest writerly fault and how do you deal with it?

Time management: it's my biggest fault in general. I make lists, and I keep trying to better organize my time. And then Something Big happens in Real Life, and it all falls apart, and then I have to pick myself back up, nurse my wounds, climb back into that saddle, and try again. And again. And again.

What is your biggest pet peeve in fiction writing?

Lack of research. Especially from new authors. We live in this awesome world with libraries, the Internet, and an interconnectivity with other people--doctors, police, military, etc.--that authors even ten or fifteen years ago simply did not have access to. We can stream episodes of Mythbusters, we can look up how much blood should spurt from a decapitation, we can read versions upon versions of various mythology and history; there's no excuse for the extent of misinformation authors put into their books.

Worldbuilding is such an important part of writing. What would your words of encouragement for aspiring authors be when it comes to developing their own worlds?

Research, research, research!! If you want people to believe the things you make up, you simply must get the researchable parts of the world correctly. Readers are willing to suspend disbelief for flying equines, magic/magick, faster-than-light travel…so long as the machinery, the physics, and the parts of reality that they know are correct. Next, after research, make sure the laws of your own technology and magic are consistent throughout your world. There's always a cost for power, there's always a reaction for an action--and they must be equivalent.


Holiday Magick
 
Stop by Trisha's website to
find out more about her novels!
http://www.anovelfriend.com/

 Thank you for stopping by
The Writers Voice


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Indie Bookfest Author Kristina Circelli


Meet Author Kristina Circelli
Indie Bookfest August 3, 2013

I'm featuring the authors who will be attending the Indie Bookfest in Florida this summer.  If you will be vacationing in Florida this is an event you don't want to miss.  Our featured keynote speaker is Isaac Marion - the author of Warm Bodies (was a movie this winter).







Wanna know how to get this t-shirt - go to http://indiebookfest.blogspot.com/ to see all of the styles and colors!  Help support Indie Bookfest


Kristina Circelli
Author and a Professor at University of North Florida
Interview


1. What is one thing you're most looking forward to at the Indie Bookfest.
 
For starters, I love that it’s a brand-new event. I like being part of things from the get-go J. I’m also excited to meet so many new authors. I’ve never been to an event this large before, so it will definitely be a whole new experience. Plus, I get to meet some big names, which is always exciting.
 
And, let’s face it. I wanna ask Isaac Marion some zombie questions. I just watched Warm Bodies (shhh...I’m gonna read the book too), so I’m ready to chat him up.
 
 
2. What piece of advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Always stay true to yourself. Write what you love, not just what’s popular. Write what you believe in, not what others try to convince you will sell more copies. And most importantly, never let anyone tell you that being published is just a pipedream.
 
3. As a professor at the University of North Florida, teaching creative writing, what made you go indie? As a teacher in your real life, do you have a leg-up on everyone else, or do you find it more challenging?


I actually published several books before I started teaching, which kind of fell onto my lap and was too good an opportunity to pass up. Honestly, teaching wasn’t anything I planned on doing, and I’m surprised by how much I enjoy it. I love being able to help writers (both experienced and beginner) and apply what I’ve learned as an author to my lessons.
 
I wouldn’t say teaching has given me a leg up on writing - rather, the other way around. Writing has helped me be a better professor than I would have been without that experience. Plus, I’m (relatively) young and I look like a 15-year-old, so having a few books under my belt helps ensure the students take me a little more seriously.
 
4. What is the first thing you teach your students about creative writing? Do you find you have to throw out the rules sometimes?

Exactly what I said above - be yourself and write what you love. I encourage my students (and other authors) to find their own style and voice. I never tell a writer that his or her style is wrong. I may offer suggestions on how to make the narrative flow better or edit syntax, but voice? That belongs to the author, not me.
 
My favorite lessons are actually the ones that discuss the “rules” of writing, either grammatical or rules given by some of today’s popular writers. Those are the best discussions, hearing what students think of the rules and whether or not the rule can be broken. Never writing a fragment, never starting a book with weather, only using “said” as a dialogue tag...they are great discussion (and debate) starters!
 
5. What is your guilty pleasure?

I don’t even want to admit this...Nora Roberts books. I am NOT a gushy romantic person, but I admit, when I want a light read where everyone lives happily ever after, I’ll read one of her books. Lots of people die in my novels and life in general is ridiculously busy, so I like knowing what to expect when I go to one of my favorite Nora book.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
.
 
Bio:
A lover of the written word since the time she first picked up a pen, Kristina Circelli shares her passion for fiction in her multi-genre novels.
 
Circelli is the author of several fiction books, including The Sour Orange Derby, a young adult novel about family and childhood imagination steeped in southern traditions; Beyond the Western Sun and Walk the Red Road of The Whisper Legacy, which centers on Native American cultures and the legends that come to life in the spirit realm; and The Helping Hands, a book that follows a gang of friends who rescue abused children.
 
Currently, Circelli works as a copywriter, author, book editor, and creative writing professor at the University of North Florida, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English. She resides in Florida, with her husband and two kittens.
 





“Out of nothing, we create something.”
Arianna has spent her entire life being called a dreamer, an artist who created a world no one else can see. And for her entire life, she has taken the medication that keeps that world – and the one who brought her there – at bay.
Now an adult, Arianna reawakens that part of herself kept locked away in the darkest corners of her mind. When she hides her medicine from her fiancé’s ever-watchful eye, he returns – the shadow in the night who collects her for an adventure known only in her fantasies.
But something is different about this world called The Never. It is no longer the cheerful place filled with light and laughter that she knew as a child. Now, the sea creatures drag their visitors into the depths of murky waters. The natives battle to the death against the tribe of children. And the pirates, led by the feared captain called The Hunter, seek out Arianna for their own sinister plans.
As Arianna goes deeper into The Never, she discovers just what her connection to the land means – and must choose between her life rooted in reality, and the world where anything is possible.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Indie Bookfest Author Kristie Cook



Today's featured author is Kristie Cook
Indie Bookfest is August 3, 2013 in Buena Vista, FL
by Devyn Dawson







The Book of Phoenix
The Space Between Synopsis:

When Life Falls to Pieces, Answers Lie in the Space Between

Leni Drago can't make a smart decision on her own, according to her mother anyway--the few times she's tried resulted in disaster. When her uncle sends her on a dance tour in Italy to find her real self, she returns to an empty home and any evidence of his existence wiped out. Then things get even stranger, like the mysterious appearances of Jeric Winters--inked, pierced and a hit-'em-and-quit-'em type. He's one decision that should be easy for Leni. Or is he?

Jeric doesn't do girlfriends. Unless they're someone else's. He left the fighting cage and modeling for a reason, and girls who want more than a night of fun are distractions he doesn't need. Especially when they come with as much baggage as Leni carries. But he can't shake the gut feeling that he needs to know her. All of her.

To discover the truth behind their connection and their ties to a journal from 1989, they must face painful secrets from their pasts. And they must do so quickly because their own existences are falling to pieces.

Two love stories, one mystery and a paranormal twist that readers call "mind blowing." This first part of The Book of Phoenix takes you on a heart-wrenching ride as you discover the answers that lie in The Space Between.

The Space Between

Other Books by Kristie 

Promise

Kristie Cook's Soul Savers Series is captivating readers in the US and abroad. Promise, her debut release, won 1st Place - 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award - Fantasy (Published) by Florida Writers Association. Since that time, the series has grown to include four novels and a novella and her books have gone on to sell over 150,000 copies, peaking at #1 on Kindle's Top 100 List for Fantasy and at #54 on Kindle's Top 100 Paid Books. Besides writing, Kristie enjoys reading, cooking, traveling and riding on the back of a motorcycle. She has lived in ten states, but currently calls Southwest Florida home with her husband, three teenage sons, a beagle and a puggle. 
Pages:
Author page: www.KristieCook.com
Soul Savers page: www.SoulSaversSeries.com
Twitter: @kristiecookauth