Sunday, April 21, 2013

Guess Where I Moved To...

Okay, so this is my first official post since I moved (which is why I have not been posting lately). But I'm excited to announce that I am now living on the beautiful island of PUERTO RICO!!!!!!!!!!!

We are still trying to adjust and get our life settled. We just found an apartment, and we are on the mad hunt for jobs (I'm hoping to go back to work as an elementary school teacher).

Anywhoo, hope you are all well. I will try to post when we are able to get our lives back on a normal schedule.

xoxox

Melanie

Monday, March 18, 2013

Amazing book covers from some amazing friends!

I am very VERY lucky to be part of a writing group that is filled with women who are not only fantastic, talented writers, but more importantly, women who are strong, empowered, intelligent, beautiful, reliable and caring to the depths of their very souls. Some of them are college students, some of them are getting married, and some of them are dealing with teenage children! (I'm not there yet, God help meeeeeeeee! LOL) I am so lucky to call these women my friends. We are a group of writers who are at all different phases of the writing journey and who respect, help, and route for each other in both our professional and personal lives.

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the beautiful covers from a few of these lovely ladies I'm proud to call my bitches chicas lindas. :D


The first one up is Jennifer Walkup's debut YA novel, Second Verse, which set to be released on October 1st, 2013 from Luminis Books.




Bad things come in threes. In Shady Springs, that includes murder.
Murder NowLange Crawford’s move to Shady Springs, Pennsylvania, lands her a group of awesome friends, a major crush on songwriter Vaughn, and life in a haunted, 200-year-old farmhouse. It also brings The Hunt: an infamous murder mystery festival where students solve a fake, gruesome murder scheme during the week of Halloween. Well, supposedly fake. 


Murder Then
Weeks before The Hunt, Lange and her friends hold a séance in the farmhouse’s eerie barn. When a voice rushes through, whispering haunting words that only she and Vaughn can hear, Lange realizes it's begging for help. The mysterious voice leads Lange and Vaughn to uncover letters and photos left behind by a murdered girl, Ginny, and they become obsessed with her story and the horrifying threats that led to her murder.
Murder Yet to Come
But someone doesn’t like their snooping, and Lange and Vaughn begin receiving the same threats that Ginny once did. The mysterious words from the barn become crucial to figuring out Ginny's past and their own, and how closely the two are connected. They must work fast to uncover the truth or risk finding out if history really does repeat itself.


Doesn't that sound amazeballs???? Gah! So. Chilling! I love love love it!!! (And I want to say a special thanks to Jenn, who seriously saved my sanity when we both lost power for several days from Hurricane Sandy and then again when we were both mourning the heart breaking tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary--love you mucho chica!)


Next up is Jamie Blair's debut YA novel, Leap of Faith, set to release on September 3rd, 2013 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers.



Now that Leah Kurtz has a place to call home, there’s no way she can tell the truth.

That her name is Faith, not Leah.

That she’s seventeen, not nineteen.

That the baby isn’t hers—she kidnapped her.

She had to kidnap Addy though. She couldn’t let her newborn sister grow up like she did, with parties where the drugs flow all night and an empty refrigerator in the kitchen holding nothing but pickle juice and ketchup packets inside.

She can’t risk losing Chris—the only guy she’s ever given herself to completely—by telling him she’s been lying. He’s the most generous person she’s ever known, and he’s already suffered the tragic deaths of his mom and infant sister.

But being on the run with a newborn catches up with her when a cop starts asking questions, and Chris’s aunt finds a newspaper article about Faith and a missing baby. Faith knows it’s time to run again—from Chris and the only place that’s ever felt like home.



Goosebumps much? I have been very lucky to have Jamie beta read all my stories and to get to see all her work during various drafts. She is an amazing writer and I can't tell her enough how envious I am of her mad skills when it comes character introspection.


Moving on, we come to the amazingly beautiful cover for Dance of the Red Death, which is the sequel to Bethany Griffin's Masque of the Red Death (another cover that was so visually stunning that I have to show both). 





Bethany Griffin continues the journey of Araby Worth in Dance of the Red Death—the sequel to her teen novel Masque of the Red Death.

In Dance of the Red Death, Araby’s world is in shambles—betrayal, death, disease, and evil forces surround her. She has no one to trust. But she finds herself and discovers that she will fight for the people she loves, and for her city.

Her revenge will take place at the menacing masked ball, though it could destroy her and everyone she loves…or it could turn her into a hero.

With a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, Bethany Griffin concludes her tragic and mysterious Red Death series with a heroine that young adult readers will never forget.

Gah! So, so excited! Team Will or Team Elliott? Hopefully Dance of the Red Death will help me decide (though Bethany writes such a killer love triangle that I want Araby to either end with both or for them all to die so I don't have to decide LOL--JUST KIDDING I DON'T WANT ANY OF THEM TO DIE!!!!!!!!)


Okay, moving on! 

This next book I was lucky enough to beta read. No Ordinary Hero is an incredibly fun story with memorable characters! It is a YA book that was self-published by my girl Dee J. Stone who writes her stories with her twin sister. Yeah, that isn't totally cool or anything. ;-) 



The world is set to explode in three months.

The source: a lonely girl with an extreme superpower fueled by the negative emotions inside her.

The solution: send fourteen year old superhero-in-training Kale Zenith to be her friend and give her a reason to smile.

The problem? The girl trusts no one.

With the fate of the world in Kale’s hands, quitting is not an option. Perseverance is key to knocking down the many walls around her, and soon he gets to know Lindsay as more than just the girl who will destroy the planet.

But there’s trouble back home. A secret plot is brewing inside his superhero League, and it’s up to Kale to expose the traitor. But that takes time away from Lindsay when she needs him most. Can he save her and the world before it’s too late?


Dee is another friend/crit partner of mine. I love reading her work and she is a fantastic beta reader (COMMAS ARE MY NEMESIS!). I cannot wait to (beta) read the sequel to this story!!!!! And she does her own covers! I'm in AWE!


And finally (for this post anyway :D) I have the amazingly talented Debra Driza's debut YA novel, MILA 2.0 which was JUST released on March 12th from Katherine Tegen Books. 


Mila 2.0 is the first book in an electrifying sci-fi thriller series about a teenage girl who discovers that she is an experiment in artificial intelligence.

Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.

Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.

Mila 2.0 is Debra Driza’s bold debut and the first book in a Bourne Identity-style trilogy that combines heart-pounding action with a riveting exploration of what it really means to be human. Fans of I Am Number Four will love Mila for who she is and what she longs to be—and a cliffhanger ending will leave them breathlessly awaiting the sequel.

I was lucky enough to read an ARC of this book. The only thing that sucks is that I finally got to meet Debra at our very first writer's retreat that we recently did in GA (that wasn't the part that sucked--that was actually amazing). What sucked is that had the book come out just a few days sooner, I could have had her sign my very own copy! Booooooo. Oh, well, hopefully she'll be at our next retreat in PR and sign it then :D 

So, these are just a couple of books/covers from the amazing, talented writers from my online writer's group that I'm so blessed to be a part of. I'm incredibly proud and excited for each of them and wish them all the success in the word with these books and all their future ones!


xoxoxox

Melanie

P.S. More covers to come soon!



Wednesday, January 16, 2013

You know you're a shitty blogger when...

it takes you TEN FRIGGIN MINUTES TO FIGURE OUT/REMEMBER HOW TO MAKE A NEW POST!!!!!! arrrrgggghhhhhh grrrrrrrrr

Sheesh. For serious. I could not figure out for the life of me how to post. So, so sad (turns out I had to sign out and sign back in. WHY? WHY???? #^$#^**% technology + me = I totally get how overwhelmed my grandmother felt when microwaves first came out!)

But, since one of my New Year's resolutions is to get back to bloggin' (and twitterin') and tryin' to stay more connected to those out in the social media world, I figured I'd start here.

Not sure what I'll be ramblin' about (perhaps I'll do a post on my affinity to adding the g to those "ing" words. What is that about?), but I just love that top picture thingy on my blog (See? Don't even know what it's called!). Besides, I paid like $60 smackers for it, so gosh dang it, I'm going to enjoy it and so are you.

FYI, I just finished my fourth novel, which is currently titled Blame it on Plato. It's a YA Romance Thriller pitched as Pretty Little Liars meets Scream. I'm excited to start querying this thing and get on to my next book which will be more of a thriller/horror type story.

Hope all is well with you and PLEEEEEASE tell me all the good news (or bad or sad or indifferent) that has been going on with you.

xoxoxo

Mel

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Share it Saturday

Hey guys!

The summer has been a whirlwind of busy. Two six year olds will do that to you. :D It is going so fast, which I strangely love and hate at the same time. Love it because I do miss my quiet time to write, which I'm finding very hard to do right now having the girls with me all day. And yet, I hate it because I love my girls so much and appreciate the time we are able to spend together (except when they are fighting--I spend a lot of time breathing and counting to ten ;)). They are growing up SO fast.

Besides kids, I'm trying to keep up with keeping the house clean (OMMessiness!), keeping my fridge and pantry stocked with food (Holy cow these girls want to eat ALL DAY-Yay for fresh summer fruit!), beta reading, pleasure reading, writing, library events, playdates, going to the pool/beach, and watching the olympics. I LOVE THE SUMMERRRRRRRRRR!

What have you been up to this summer? 


Oh, and if you haven't seen this, this is a cute little video made by the US swim team to the song Call Me, Maybe :D (ETA: you have to click on the Youtube link--sorry!)


Wednesday, June 27, 2012

CONTEST!!!!

Nope, not mine. My good writing buddy (and one of my amazing crit partners) Rachel Allen (newly signed author repped by the amazing Susan Hawk of The Bent Agency) is running a contest on her blog for a chance to win a copy of Larkstorm by Dawn Rae Miller AND a copy of Looking for Alaska by John Green. Check it out HERE! 

Good luck! Both are great books!!!!!!

Saturday, June 16, 2012

AND THE COURTNEY SUMMERS' 3 BOOK GIVEAWAY WINNER IS...

MONICA GUTIERREZ!!

Congratulations, Monica! Hope you enjoy owning these awesome books (and of course lending them to all your friends so they can share the love as well!--just make sure you get them back!) I will be emailing you shortly for your addy deets!

Thanks to all who entered! I wish so hard I had copies to give everyone! But, if you have not yet read any of these books, please do so. You will not be disappointed! I will be having more contests in the future with other awesome titles so please check in!

And to Courtney Summers, CONGRATULATIONS on all your success and I look forward to owning This is Not a Test. Knowing me I'll probably end up purchasing an additional copy to give away so I can continue to share the CS love <3 <3
 
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