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!
