Whiskey Witches by S.M. Blooding Promotional Book Tour!

Whiskey Witches

Complete Season 1

Episodes 1-4

Genre: Dark Paranormal Thriller

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Date of Publication: December 19, 2014

Cover Artist: Frankie’s Mind Design

Available From: Amazon

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Summary

Detective Paige Whiskey comes from a long line of witches. They may not all be the most powerful, but they are outspoken and supportive of their community. She alone has no gifts. She can’t summon fire, can’t read minds. She knows the arcane. She’s studied it. That, along with her connection to the Whiskey Witches, lands her some pretty strange cases.

Like the sacrificial murders of St. Francisville, Louisiana. There’s a killer on the loose, choosing people in a vain attempt to raise a demon. Not just any demon, though. A man born long ago, made a demon in order to protect the Gate to Hell.

Together with demon hunter, Dexx Colt, her kitchen-witch grandmother, and her paranormal investigator brother-in-law, they unravel a conspiracy far bigger than a few simple murders, and re-discover Paige’s gift.

She’s a demon summoner and she’s key to the killer’s plan.

…………………………………………….

Demon Show

by S.M. Blooding

Episode 1

Genre: Dark Paranormal Thriller

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Date of Publication: October 31, 2014

Cover Artist: Frankie’s Mind Design

Available From: Amazon

Summary

Detective Paige Whiskey comes from a long line of witches. They may not all be the most powerful, but they are outspoken and supportive of their community. She alone has no gifts. She can’t summon fire, can’t read minds. She knows the arcane. She’s studied it. That, along with her connection to the Whiskey Witches, lands her some pretty strange cases.

Like the sacrificial murders of St. Francisville, Louisiana. There’s a killer on the loose, choosing people in a vain attempt to raise a demon. Once she gets there, she realizes the murders were nothing more than an elaborate invitation, tempting her into the claws of the killer.

She does have a gift, a very powerful and terrifying one.

The killer is after her.

…………………………………………….

Possession

by S.M. Blooding

Episode 2

Genre: Dark Paranormal Thriller

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Date of Publication: November 14, 2014

Cover Artist: Frankie’s Mind Design

Available From: Amazon

Summary

There’s only so much you can do when there are no new clues. Wait. That’s never been Detective Paige Whiskey’s strong-suit, though. With her memories and her gifts back, she’s faced with a whole new ball game. She now has a better understanding of who the killer might be and what he wants.

But when she’s attacked by a ghost—of all the dumb things—on a paranormal investigation of the Metley plantation, she realizes the situation’s worse than she thought. If that’s possible at all.

The gate has already been opened.

So why in the seven blazing pits of Hell does the killer still need her?

…………………………………………….

Love Bodies

by S.M. Blooding

Episode 3

Genre: Dark Paranormal Thriller

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Date of Publication: November 28, 2014

Cover Artist: Frankie’s Mind Design

Available From: Amazon

Summary

Possession’s a messy business on a good day. When demon hunter Dexx Colt realizes sees Paige possessed and the mark the killer engraved on her skin to do it, he knows they’re screwed. No protection sigil in his arsenal can protect her from being possessed. Not now.

A demon summoner who can’t summon or send demons back.

The killer still has a plan for her, though, and what that could be is anyone’s guess. Dead bodies continue to pile up at an alarming rate, and the race is on to discover how to keep the gates closed.

…………………………………………….

Gates of Hell

Episode 4

Genre: Dark Paranormal Thriller

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Date of Publication: December 12, 2014

Cover Artist: Frankie’s Mind Design

Available From: Amazon

Summary

The mission is simple. Grab the key. Close the gate. Get the hell out of St. Francisville, Louisiana.

What could be so frelling hard about that?

Everything.

The clock is tick-tick-ticking and the team of demon fighters are running out of time. First, they have to find the key, then get through the demon army protecting it, and then fight the one who master-minded it all.

No problem. Easy as pie.

Right.

…………………………………………….

Blood Moon Magick

by S.M. Blooding

Episode 5

Genre: Dark Paranormal Thriller

Publisher: Whistling Book Press

Date of Publication: October, 2015

Cover Artist: Frankie’s Mind Design

Pre-Order: Amazon

Summary

Going back to Denver should have been easy. Old life. Old routine. Ten kinds of “all good.”

However, with her gifts open, the paranormal world isn’t going to let her have that easy life. It turns out her partner of the last five years is a vampire and has been for several decades. He’s also the regional paranormal protector.

So when a few shapeshifters go missing, he gets the case.

But there’s also a demon killing those shapeshifters, a demon she can’t hunt because she’s still an open target for possession.

Not to complicate matters, Dexx isn’t about to let Paige out of his sights. Bringing a demon hunter to a shapeshifter party only makes things that much more interesting. But when he gets bitten, the entire game changes.

…………………………………………….

Author Bio:

S.M. Blooding lives in Colorado with her pet rock, Rockie, and her two birds, Jack and Moose. She’s currently up to her to ears in yarn and crochet projects as she’s just discovered one in seventy-five stitches that she didn’t know. Oh, the horror.

Her real name is Stephanie Marie (aka SM), but only family and coworkers call her that, usually when they’re screaming at her. Friends call her Frankie.

Frankie challenges the world around her. She served in the military as one of the first female tactical air traffic controllers, worked at a coal mine, and shot herself through school to become a CAD (computer aided drafter) operator. She’s worked as a stenographer, a lab technician for a scientist attached with NOAA, and traveled with the Renaissance Festival. She’s survived hurricanes in a tent, and ditches in winter. She’s sometimes crass, often crude, and almost always blunt.

She’s dated vampires, werewolves, sorcerers, weapons smugglers and US Government assassins. Yes. She has stories.

She loves to take the real world, find a singular line of truth, and wrap a complex fiction of reality around it. She’s incredibly excited to share her world with you, and there’s a wide selection to choose from.

She’s also an investigator with a local paranormal investigation group, Colorado Paranormal Rescue!

1. “So, you dance naked under a full moon?”

This is usually asked by, you guessed it, men. And they get that crazed look in their eye. I can almost hear the Beevus laugh.

Personally, I have not. I know a couple of witches—male and female—who do. I enjoy dancing under the light of a full moon, you know, with my clothes on.

The only bad thing with that is, when you live in the city and you’re dancing . . . at night . . . under the light of the full moon, you have to bring mace, a Taser, and/or a gun. You’ve always got to think safety first.

But one day . . . one day, I’m going to live in a place that’s safe fo r dancing under the light of the full moon. Skyclad or not.

2. “Do you have a cauldron?”

That is on my wishlist, but no. I have a stew pot. And not a massive, canning stew pot. It’s that pot that came with the set of pans I bought. I went all out and got the good set of pans. Well, the best set in the poor section of pans. And you know what I cook up in that?

Pasta. Soup. Chowder. Oh! Chowder season is coming soon! So excited!

No witches brews. *shakes head* The best magick comes in the forms of baked goods and chowder. No caldron required.

3. “So . . . you can tell the future?”
That would be a psychic. Not all witches are psychic, and not all psychics are witches. There’s a lot more involved with witchcraft than seeing the future.

That’s not to say I don’t. Occasionally, I do. When I turned sixteen, I could see the entire day in front of me. I knew who I was going to see, what we were going to talk about, what was going to be said, what color shirt they’d be wearing. It was freaky. But then it got to be very boring.

I can’t say if I really had a gift of foresight, or if I was just seeing how ordinary and predictable my life was.

I have, however, had a few true visions. There were a few incidents in my life I wish I’d had a vision for. Good grief, but . . . the few I’ve had, I’ve heeded.

4. “So, uh, that means you know herbs and stuff, right? So, you’re not evil?”
Well, yeah, I know herbs and stuff, but that’s not the reason I’m not evil. It’s funny to me that others still think witches are evil and scary. I keep wanting to say, “Hey, it’s 2015.” But then I look at the political world we live in right now, and realize that’s a ludicrous statement. We may be in the year 2015, but we’re regressing in a lot of areas. It’s not great. And that terrifies me. When people react in fear and ignorance, they usually do some pretty awful things. History is filled with those instances, even if we are trying to erase a lot of them. They still happened.  Witchcraft isn’t evil unless I’m evil. My spells aren’t good unless I’m good and my intentions are pure. Most witchcraft? It’s grey. It’s a normal person with good intentions and a little anger, trying to produce change with nothing more than the power of her will. I only say anger because that and sadness are the two things that drive me to cast. Mostly anger. I’m a naturally angry person.

But I’m not evil just because I know, like, herbs and stuff. LOL!  

5. The most common one is, “Did you know you have a broom hanging from your ceiling?”

I keep forgetting that not everyone knows I’m a witch. After all, I don’t preach it. I don’t advertise it. I just am. So, when I bring someone into my home for the first time, some of them react with a little surprise. My usual response is, “Seriously? When did that get there? How did this happen?!” But I’m looking forward to the next time because what I want to say is, “All the parking spaces were filled.”

They’re very embarrassed most of the times. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction, I guess. I’m one of the few people who decorates her ceiling. I don’t care. It’s blank space. Why not fill it. So, I typically, don’t even see my brooms. I charge them, of course. I can feel their energy, but I hardly see them anymore. So, when someone else does, it makes me giggle a little.

What are the most common questions you get asked about Witches?
OMW. This is going to be a good one. I get asked some doozy questions.

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NOVEMBER 11: NO BAD DEED by Ryan Seaver BLOUG TOUR

NO BAD DEED
by Ryan Seaver
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

Private detective John Arsenal can’t tell you what terrible crime he committed to wind up in a sweltering urban hellscape, surrounded by thieves, drug addicts and murderers—only that it was very bad, and now he’s being punished. That’s because in Hell—or Brimstone, as the damned prefer to call it—your identity, your memories, even your name, are stripped away from you.

John is relatively comfortable in his damnation, working easy cases and making himself at home in the grimy squalor of the afterlife. That is, until a mysterious woman appears in his office, begging him to find her missing sister, and promising him the impossible in return—a glimpse of his old life, before Brimstone.

To track down the enigmatic Sophie, John must delve into Brimstone’s darkest recesses, where murderous children run wild in packs, and a strange and terrifying new drug promises to deliver the user to the heights of ecstasy, but at the risk of being snuffed out of existence altogether. All the while, John must grapple with the vivid nightmares that have haunted him since his arrival in Brimstone, and confront the thing he desires and dreads the most—the truth of what he did to deserve damnation.

Excerpt :

In the center of camp, one kid was beating with a slow, irregular tempo on a sort of makeshift drum, patched together out of skins stretched over an old rubber tire. He wasn’t playing it so much as he was testing it, tapping this spot and that, checking it for tone. He stood and stalked around to the other side of the drum, lanky and capable looking, and older than the rest, maybe twelve. I watched him working from a distance, and when he spoke, he didn’t bother looking at me.

“What do you want, mister?”

He was still slender like a kid, but tall, and he was working hard on the voice of a young man, or at least had been before whatever had ended his life stuck him in permanent adolescence. He had a smattering of painful-looking acne studded across both cheeks, and the beginning of a patchy beard coming through here and there. It looked like he had made some sort of attempt at shaving at one point, and I felt the stirrings of one of those troubling old half memories as I looked at him—the adolescent frustration of trying to pull a blade across pimply, broken skin.

I stepped closer to the kid and his work, and noticed the other kids glancing cautiously up at him. Him, not me. The captain, I decided. Any conversation I was going to have on this trip, I was having with him.

Author Bio:

I was raised in Rochester, New York, in a house that was constantly full of writers. On nights when my parents and their friends were holding court in our living room, I would practice the fine art of evading the little kids in the next room, setting up camp among the grown-ups, and being quiet long enough that they would forget I was there, and that it was past my bedtime. All my best dirty jokes were picked up this way.

I studied theatre performance at Northeastern University, where I spent a little time onstage, and a lot of time reading plays. I fell in love with Sam Shepard, Arthur Miller, and Nicky Silver. Exposed to plays day in and day out, I honed my ear for dialogue, and learned firsthand that if the writing doesn’t ring true, no amount of brilliant acting would make it right. I wrote my first play (terrible, melodramatic, with characters whose names did absolutely nothing to mask the real people they were based on). I showed it to no one. It’s probably still on my computer somewhere.

John Arsenal and Brimstone came to me during a bout of unemployment, in between searching desperately for a job, and baking more bread than was sane or reasonable for my two person household. The idea came to me in my sleep, demanding to be written, and that’s how the prologue of the book came into existence: In my darkened apartment in Boston at one o clock in the morning, my eyes barely able to focus on the computer screen long enough to get the words down. Sleep has continued to be the place where John Arsenal and I meet up to put the pieces of his story together. I’ve never been prone to insomnia, but John, it seems, is, and has never cared much for my sleep schedule.

In my life before Brimstone, I’ve worked as a telemarketer (I’m sorry) administrative assistant, waiter (badly, briefly), clerk and occasional story-time reader in a children’s bookstore, and professional hawker of everything from magazine subscriptions to national television advertising. I was better with magazines. I now live in Chicago with the love of my life, and my snarling, seven-toed demon-cat, Clara. No Bad Deed is the first book in the John Arsenal mystery series.

Links:

• Website: http://mryanseaver.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MRyanSeaver
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mryanseaver?ref=hl
• Buy link: http://www.amazon.com/Deed-John-Arsenal-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B00NBHJIX4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411230911&sr=8-1&keywords=no+bad+deed

Author Interview

Did you do any kind of research to determine the details of your characters’ lives / lifestyles?
I’m a really visual person, and more than anything in this book, the city of Brimstone itself impacts how the characters live, so the first thing I did when writing the book was search out images I thought best represented what living in Brimstone is really like. I used a lot of abandoned space photography, images of refugee camps, things like that. I came up with ideas from those images that I wouldn’t have really thought of otherwise—the light, the grit, the graffiti, and how places that once might have been considered beautiful can turn ugly with neglect. That research helped me define the different neighborhoods in Brimstone, and start to put together a catalog of little sensory details that make up John Arsenal’s world.

The best book/s you ever read?
I just loved In the Woods by Tana French. It’s one of those books I come back to over and over again. It’s a wonderfully crafted mystery, but there’s also this great friendship there, and a truly damaged narrator, which is something I appreciate. More than anything though I love how Tana French weaves this delicate thread of something supernatural through the story. It’s so subtle, she really makes you believe that there might be something lurking there in the woods—not in the way you do as a reader who’s suspended disbelief in a paranormal story, but more like the way you did when you were a kid, and got yourself spooked about something hiding in your closet or following you through the woods, even though you really knew better.

Who inspires you?
My mother is a novelist, and so I grew up seeing firsthand what it’s like to make a living from your writing. I didn’t discover my own love of writing until I had been out of college and in the work force for a couple of years, and I really wasn’t happy with what I was doing. I started writing in my spare time, just for myself, and then one day I realized I needed a plan if I ever wanted to get out of the rut I was in with my career. I got honest with myself, and I said, “I want what my mom has.” I want the freedom to set my own schedule, to work from my home, to get paid for doing what I love. I think a lot of people who want to write for a living, or really be creative in any capacity, struggle with this idea of legitimacy—is this really a career path, or am I just kidding myself? Is it even possible to make a living this way? In my case, I was really lucky. I could look at my mom and say, “this is a real career path, if I really focus and write my face off.” And when I talked to her about it, she told me, “of course you should be a writer. It’s the best job in the world.” Growing up with my mom let me know that what I wanted to do was possible.

Do you have strange writing habits?
I leave about 50% of the story in the hands of the characters. What I mean by that is, I don’t plot everything out ahead of time, I don’t keep a set writing schedule, and I have a tendency to talk about my characters as real people, who make real choices in the moment as I’m writing. That last part tends to get me some funny looks, but I actually find it really freeing. It means that I can walk into a scene that I’m not really sure where it’s going yet, and my characters can surprise me. It’s fun for me as a writer, because I get to see something in my story I hadn’t been expecting. On the flip side, it means that about half the people I end up talking to at parties think I’m crazy.

How did you get into writing?
I was always a strong writer as a kid, but with a novelist for a parent, you get asked a lot if you want to become a writer yourself when you grow up, to which of course, the obvious knee-jerk response is “No.” So I didn’t start writing seriously myself until I was done with school. I started with plays, because my background was in theater. They were all pretty rough, as I recall, and have thankfully never seen the light of day. Switching to novels helped keep me grounded during a period where I was really unhappy in my professional career. At one point I had left a job I wasn’t thrilled with to take a job I loved, only to get caught up in a wave of layoffs six weeks later. I had too much time on my hands, even after searching for jobs, and started writing nine, ten hours a day, just to have something to do. I finished my first full length novel that way. After that, even after I’d gotten back on my feet, I kept writing. If you can do something for ten hours straight and not feel burned out after you’re done, that’s probably what you should be doing.

What do you consider your best accomplishment?
Any time I finish the first draft of one of my books, it feels like a huge triumph. There’s always this point about halfway through when I start to think, “This is impossible. This is never going to get finished.” So every time I reach that last sentence, it’s a huge win. That never gets old. Coming to the end of No Bad Deed, though, that was really special. I was more proud of that book than I’d ever been of anything I’d written. I remember walking out of the office when I was done with an enormous smile on my face, because I knew that this would be the first book I would try to put out into the world, and not just let sit on my hard drive. It was the first thing I ever created that I knew was good enough.

What sacrifices have you had to make to be a writer?
Time! It’s so hard to lock yourself away on a Saturday when all you want to do is hang out and read a book, or watch TV. It’s so hard to tell your spouse, “I know you just got home from work, but I have at least another hour of writing to do, and you’re just going to have to wait,” but that’s what you need to do. I’ve learned that if the writing is coming, I need to make it a priority over everything else, because tomorrow it might feel like pulling teeth, and my friends and family have learned to expect that too. But in the beginning, that was a very hard decision to make.

Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?
There’s no way to get away from it, people will judge your book by its cover. As an author, particularly as an indie author who has a little more input over my cover than a traditionally published author might, I embrace that. I think a really great cover, one that’s a true collaboration between the world the author created and the work of a skilled artist, can be a beautiful marketing tool. It tells your reader what kind of a story to expect, and a high quality cover conveys to a reader that there’s a high quality story underneath. The trouble comes from when bad cover art is attached to a good book. Even as an author, who knows better, I find it hard to look past a lackluster cover.


How did you come up with the title? Names?
The title was a real struggle for me. No Bad Deed started off with a different title altogether, but as it turned out, the original title was a little too good—there were already a half dozen other books out there with the same name. I came to No Bad Deed because it had that snappy, noir feel that I wanted, and of course it came from that phrase, “No good deed goes unpunished.” In Brimstone, you’re constantly aware that everyone you meet is being punished for something, and I liked that the new title conveyed that. As far as the characters, I wanted to give everyone a name that pointed very specifically to a physical or personality trait. In Brimstone, no one remembers who they were in their old life, and this includes names, so people tend to pick up new names that have to do with what they do, or what they look like. Hence, my firebug character is named Mickey Sparks, and John Arsenal is so named because before becoming a detective, he made and sold guns.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
The worst job I ever had should have been the best. I was doing work I loved, creating large-scale floral designs for weddings and events, but my boss was a screamer, and a micro-manager, and I used to go home and cry every night. I finally snapped after getting chewed out over the phone for not being able to drop everything and go into work during my pre-arranged vacation, while I was out of town. I quit with a long rant on his voicemail. I’ve never regretted quitting that job.

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$25 Amazon/B&N GC for a randomly drawn winner
(US ONLY) Signed copy of No Bad Deed for a randomly drawn host.

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Author Jennifer Malone Wright Interview and Amazon Gift Card Contest LIVE Here!

BBB: Tell us 3 things not in your bio we don’t know about you that might make us leery of befriending you. LOL
JMW: Well, I have some pretty serious mood swings. I don’t know if that will make you leery, but my husband would probably say that it would. I have lost my home twice to house fires (it wasn’t my fault) so, I’m not a very lucky person to hang around. Finally, for the third thing, I am a gun lover. Those who read my work or are already on my FB page probably know this, but that should make you leery. Or maybe it makes you feel safer, I don’t know. lol
BBB: Do you have any strange writing habits (like standing on your head or writing in the shower)?
JMW: I have five kids, so I have learned to write whenever and wherever I can. I don’t really think that any of my habits could be considered strange, but I’ve been known to write in some pretty crazy conditions … like with a kid hanging on my back. No, I’m not joking.
BBB: What was the BEST book you read in 2013?
JMW:  I blew through the entire (what is out so far) Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward. OMG, she is my new favorite author. People had been raving about BDB and I didn’t know why, so I finally read them and now I know. Boy … do I know!
BBB: What actors from the PAST (not living now) would you choose to play some of your characters if The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter were made into a movie or a TV show?
JMW:  Oh, that is a hard one. Let’s see … I Know that this is sort of far fetched with the era difference, but I’d pick Paul Walker for Drew (so fresh in my mind when we say not living actors) and Vivien Leigh for Chloe. Chloe is so full of fire (literally) and stubbornness that Vivien would be amazing playing the role.
BBB: How do you keep track of your world building?
JMW:  Well, TVHD was never intended to go very far, so when I first started it I just wrote whatever I felt like. I never specified cities or states or even a side of the country. I wrote “We went into the city” or things like that. The place where the characters actually live was referred to as “The Community” for a really long space of time in the book. It’s a gated, secret community where all the vampire hunters live. It’s their own little town. Then I named it toward the end.
BBB: Please tell us more about The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter series and the storyline that drives it.
JMW: The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter series is a series of short stories. They start off really short and get longer and longer. The story begins when Chloe witnesses her mother’s death at the hands of vampires. She is rescued by vampire hunters and whisked away to the community of vampire hunters where she meets her only remaining relative, her grandfather. She learns the truth of vampires and discovers that vampire hunters are a race, born from the blood of angels and demi-gods.
Most hunters reveal special powers at about the age of 16. Chloe is no different and begins to show signs. She also discovers that she is different from the other hunters, because the man who ordered her mothers death is her father … a vampire. Which makes her a dhampir, a half vampire.
Chloe makes it her mission to train and be a great vampire hunter so that she can track down and kill the one responsible for her mothers death.
BBB: How many more books will there be in this series?
JMW:  The first series of shorts is The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Parts 1-6. All six parts make about 73,000 words which is basically a full novel. After that I created The Arcadia Falls Chronicles which are in the world of The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter, continuing story. I wanted to change the series so that I could move away from the first person point of view of Chloe, now I can do as many stories from as many different perspectives as I want. So far, there are 2 released books of The Arcadia Falls Chronicles and the third releases April 14th. Each of these are close to 30,000 words each.
BBB: Did you do any kind of research to determine the details of your characters lives / lifestyles?
JMW:  Yes! Chloe’s family and the hunter’s descend from demi-gods and angels, so I did a lot of mythology research and on ancient Greek names. Chloe, means Green Shoot in Greek and Kallistrate, her last name, means either beautiful army or safe army (I can’t remember which) Sostrate, is her demi-god descendant that occasionally appears to her and that is the other one that means beautiful or safe army. I have it written down somewhere. But, names mean a lot to me when writing and I wanted all my information to be correct. I also do a lot of research on weapons, mostly I do that for me, but it helps with the writing.
BBB: Are you a plotser or a pantser? or a Planster (a combo of both – lol)
JMW: I used to be a planster, but now I am a plotser. I write much, much better when its mapped out. You can tell the difference in my writing now and my first novel, Savior (Used to be The Birth of Jaiden) Savior was a mess of me going in every direction.
BBB: What types of creatures/characters can readers expect in your world?
JMW:  I love snarky, badass women who know how to fight and use a gun. My male characters are usually hunky and kinda broody. lol. With The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter I created a variety of different characters who all have very different personalities, giving us a wide range of entertainment while balancing each other out.
BBB: Do you ever come up with anything so wild that you scare yourself, that leaves you wondering where that came from?
JMW:  Absolutely. My zombie stories make me sick to my own stomach sometimes when I’m doing my mapping for it.
BBB: Who is your top book boyfriend or girlfriend?
JMW:  I can’t choose!! V from the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Wait .. no, Butch. Ugh! It’s soooooo hard to pick. Also I just finished A Fiery Heart so I’m sort of in love with Adrian Ivashkov right now too.
BBB: What’s coming up for you in 2014?
JMW:  You are gonna LOVE what I have coming up. I haven’t been saying anything about it because if I announce a release date I might lose steam with my writing, but the Title is Keeper VS. Reaper and its a nine book series (full length novels). I’m about half done with the first one.

10 Quick Things About Jennifer

Favorite Food? Carbs

Favorite Color? Purple

Favorite Movie or TV Show of all Time? Can’t choose, have too many.

Favorite Drink? Coffee

Favorite Book? Again, I can’t choose because there are too many.

Favorite Season? Fall

Favorite Online Hangout? (think FB, Twitter, Goodreads) Facebook, for now.

Favorite Animal? Fish

Favorite Band or Musician? Again, I can’t choose. Right now I’m partial to jazzy bluesy type music.

Mode of Travel? (Trains, Planes or Automobiles) I like cartrips.

Favorite Vacation Destination? New Orleans rocked. My favorite so far.

Read the 5 star reviews for this series by clicking here.

Books in the Vampire Hunter’s Daughter series in the order they should be read:
The Beginning

Powerful Blood
Becoming
Divided
Living With Vampires
Arcadia Falls

Buy the complete Kindle book set of  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter from Amazon by clicking here.  - ONLY $4.99!

Buy the complete print book set of The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter  from Amazon by clicking here.

About Jennifer Malone Wright

Author Bio:

Jennifer Malone Wright is best known for her short story series, The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter. She resides in the beautiful mountains of northern Idaho with her husband and five children where she practices preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Just kidding!
But seriously, between the craziness of taking care of her children, Jennifer has little time left for herself. The time she does have left, usually leading far into the night, is spent working on her beloved fiction or chatting with her equally crazy friends.
Jennifer also loves coffee, has a passionate affair with red bull, wishes the sushi were better where she lives and dances while she cleans.

Connect with Jennifer 

Website | Blog | Newsletter | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Books by Jennifer Malone Wright | Reviews of Jennifer’s Books |

featured 2014-04-09

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Interview with Julie Dillonwith Julie Dillon

Interview with Julie Dillon

Posted by: Redhead on: February 3, 2014

Ok blog tour participants and anyone else who has a  copy of The Book of Apex Vol 4, raise your hand if you have a print copy.  it looks wet, doesn’t it? I left the book on the kitchen table a few times, and even my husband wondered why I’d let water get on a book. The magical cover of this book, my friends, is the work of the unbelievably talented Julie Dillon.
(in fact, all of the artwork you see in this post is by Julie Dillon)

That names rings a bell, doesn’t it? Oh yeah, she also did the cover art of the very first Subterranean Press special edition I bought for myself, Silently And Very Fast, by Catherynne M. Valente.

So it goes without saying that I was over the moon when Julie agreed to do an interview for this blog tour.  When you’re just browsing through the bookstore, not looking for anything in particular, what do you gravitate towards? Interesting cover art, of course. Julie Dillon makes that cover art. She’s the reason you touch a book.  She’s the reason I expected my finger to come away wet every time I picked up The Book of Apex: Volume 4 of Apex Magazine.
So let’s get to the interview!
LRR: You’ve won the Chelsea award twice, been nominated for the World Fantasy award and you were nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist in 2013. What was it like to learn you had made the Hugo ballot? And speaking of, we’re right in the middle of nomination season. Are you eligible again this year?
J.D.: It was very validating to make the Hugo ballot. I didn’t think I’d be ready for that kind of recognition for another 5 years or so, and I was blown away that I was nominated. I was very honored and flattered that people saw anything of value in what I do. That said, I try not to let awards or nominations affect me too much, and I try to keep learning and working hard regardless of whether or not I am recognized. The recognition definitely helps, though, and goes a long way for helping me to reaffirm my decision to purse art fulltime. Getting awards and nominations encourages me to keep trying even harder.
I do have several pieces that are eligible for the Hugos this year. Andrea Höst was kind enough to put together a tumblr of various artists’ eligible work. My posts are available here and here.

Cover for Long Hidden Anthology

LRR: Did you always want to be an artist? Can you tell us a little about your journey to becoming a professional artist?
J.D.: That’s a tricky question. I was always interested in drawing and creating, but it never really occurred to me that I could pursue art as my profession until my mid twenties. From all I had heard from other people, art was just something you do as a hobby in between your real work and real jobs. I spent much of my college life prepping for other careers, but I was always drawing and painting whenever I had free time. Eventually, thanks to the internet, I started noticing that there were such things as art schools, and professional artists, and people making a living doing a variety of types of art. I started wondering if maybe that was something I could do, too, and slowly I began taking actual art classes and investigating local art schools, and eventually started seeking out more freelance jobs. It took many long years before I got my portfolio up to a level where I was able to have fulltime freelance work, and I probably would have progressed faster if I had believed in myself more earlier on, but all things considered I think I’m doing an okay job of it.

“Breaking Through”

LRR:  What are your thoughts on traditional media (oil, acrylic, etc) vs digital?
J.D.: I think traditional media is vitally important, I think there are a lot of benefits to working in traditional media, and I enjoy doing working with real paint when I get the chance. But I think digital media is a valid tool, one that has it’s own strengths and weaknesses. So often I see people dismissing digital art as somehow cheating or not as valid or important as traditional art, but the computer is just another tool. It doesn’t do the work for you, you still need to have foundational drawing and painting skills to make a good digital piece. I personally prefer working digitally because it allows me to work quickly and cleanly. I don’t have to buy paint or brushes or canvases, I don’t have to wait for paintings to dry before sending them to clients, I don’t have to photograph or scan my final work, and I can make edits immediately and easily. But, I also do not have a physical original painting that I can hang up or sell, and I do miss out on the fun and satisfaction of working with real paint.

“Launch Point”

LRR: How long, on average, does it take you to complete a piece of art?
J.D.: It’s hard to tell, since I’m usually working on multiple illustrations that I rotate through, but I’ll usually spend at lease several days or weeks working on something. The actual time spent on any given piece are probably something like 8-20 hours, depending on the complexity.
LRR:  Do you do commissioned pieces as well? How does that creative process differ from when you are creating a piece out of your mind?
J.D.: Most of my work is commissioned, although I don’t post all of it online. The main difference between commissioned work and work I do for myself is that if I’m doing for myself, I don’t have to worry about sticking to an art description or working for a specific audience or project. On the one hand, with commissioned work it’s sometimes nice having an art director to bounce ideas off of, because sometimes it’s difficult narrowing down concepts or compositions. But it’s also nice to be answerable only to myself and to work on projects where I have full control over how the piece progresses.

“Ancient Discovery”

LRR: I really enjoyed the Digital Illustration Tutorial you have on your website, it really opened my eyes to all of the behind the scenes work that goes into art creation. do you think you’d do more tutorials like this?
J.D.: Thank you! I’m glad it made at least a little sense; I worry if I’m being coherent or helpful at all when I make those things. I might do more tutorials in the future, although I’m not sure what my focus would be. For the most part, my actual method of painting has remained the same. Any improvements I’ve been making have been because I’ve been going back and trying to work on my art foundation skills more with figure drawing and anatomy studies.

“Nautili”

Want more of Julie’s artwork? Of course you do! Check out her website, and her deviant art site.

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Confident Reads: Interview with Realm Lovejoy + Giveaway!

Today I'm excited to welcome author Realm Lovejoy to the blog for the Confident Reads feature to celebrate her YA sci-fi book, Clan.  You can check out my review of this fantastic book HERE.   I asked Realm a few questions, and here's what she had to say.


When, and how, did you come to being an indie/self published author? 

I’ve been writing all of my life. I wrote my first novel, CLAN, when I was 22 years old and shopped it around with an agent while I worked on other novels. Self-publishing it on November 12th, 2013 was the decision that I reached with my agent’s blessing.


Did you attempt to publish traditionally? What were your experiences?  

Yes. I spent time submitting manuscripts to publishers through an agent and going through rounds of revisions. It was challenging because of the slow process and because most publishers were wary of taking any risks. Since I love trying different things, ultimately, I decided to take the risk myself and self-publish.


If you were offered a deal with a traditional publisher, would you take it?  

I appreciate the amount of freedom and control that comes with self-publishing. That being said, it would really depend on the kind of deal it is. For example, I’d be happy to consider a print rights proposal, similar to the approach that Hugh Howey has taken.


What is the best part of being indie/self published, for you?  

I’ve grown to love that I can control every aspect of publishing: the release date, the number of editors, the cover, and the amount of risks. After hearing about the long, drawn out process that traditional publishers can put you through, it was very freeing to know that I don’t have to needlessly wait around in order to fit into a publisher’s schedule or release catalogue—instead, I can go with the book’s natural cycle and know that it will be released when it’s ready.


As an indie/self published author, what has been your biggest obstacle? 

I think the final month prior to the release date was the most challenging. I’m responsible for the final formatting, the proofreading, scheduling all the promotions, and making sure everything gets done on time.


In the world of indie/self published not everyone goes about things the same way. Many make mistakes (and hopefully learn from them). What are the biggest mistakes that you think authors are making and how do you suggest they improve?  

I’m not sure about other authors, but I think I didn’t plan enough promotions ahead of time. I should have scheduled blog tours to run during the release month several months ahead of time.

I also wish I started to self-publish earlier rather than spending years waiting—but I must just accept that it happened when it was meant to.


How do you approach reviewers? And what has worked best when doing so?  

Approaching bloggers (such as you) who have a network of reviewers who might be interested in my genre has helped a lot. This has been the best method so far.


When it comes to sales, what do you think has worked the best for you and had the biggest impact?  

Whenever a major site picks up my book, I see a boost in sales. Kirkus had my book on their recommendation site for a while and it seemed to have helped. Having Twitter noise is also helpful. I do free days sometimes and see a crazy amount of downloads which pushes my book up the bestseller list—however, I’m not sure yet how much it has impacted sales afterwards or if I am yet seeing the repercussion of it.


If someone tells you they are thinking of publishing a novel themselves and they would like some advice on where to get started or some tips for success, what advice would you give? 

I would suggest hiring a developmental editor, line editor, copyeditor, proofreader, and a cover designer. It’s a lot of money but well worth it if you’re very serious about becoming an author. You want your manuscript as mistake-free as possible and a cover that makes your book look professional. I would also recommend considering Amazon’s KDP Select—the free days help spread your work around.


We all know covers are important; can you tell us about your cover story? 

My cover was based a lot on the ideals of CLAN. In the story, the environment is pretty sterile and the culture of Clan values simplicity. I chose to stay true to the essence of the story and keep the cover iconic. It’s a bit of a risk, but it’s part of the benefit of self-publishing—I get to experiment.


Bad reviews are inevitable; most every author gets at least some. How do you handle things when you get a bad review so you don’t get hung up on it or possibly lash out which could cause more damage in the long run?  

As a professional artist in the game industry, I am used to getting feedback on my work – good and bad. I do my best to get as many feedbacks as possible prior to publication to make sure that I did my best. Since art is subjective, there will always be someone who doesn’t like it. I would advise authors to focus on the positive! If you did your best, you can’t have regrets.


It’s your turn! Ask my readers one question that you are dying to know the answer for.

What’s your favorite indie book? I’d love to check them out!

Please note, Clan is currently only .99 cents for ebooks and under $8.50 (!!!) for paperback (it has great illustrations!). This sale ends Sunday, January 19th.

Clan by Realm Lovejoy

336 pages

Published: 11/12/13

 

Clans are Unity.
No variation. No deviation.
On Clades, to be a Clan is to be an exact copy. A perfect society cloning themselves to survive, even as the zombielike Frags threaten to overrun them on an unforgiving planet.
Clan 1672 (privately known as Twain) was never supposed to survive the Incubation Tank. But he did. Illegally. He is different from the other Clans.
A secret that could destroy him.

Find the Book:

Goodreads | Amazon
Illustration Samples

About the Author:

Realm Lovejoy is an American writer and an artist. She grew up in both Washington State and the Japanese Alps of Nagano, Japan. Currently, she lives in Seattle and works as an artist in the video game industry. CLAN is her first book. You can find out more about her and her book at www.realmlovejoy.com

Find the Author:

Webpage | Facebook | Twitter | Blog 

I have awesome giveaway's for you guys as well!

Sky Runner Kilian Jornet

Photograph by Sébastien Montaz-Rosset

A prolific mountain athlete takes his sport to the vertical realm.

Clothed in a T-shirt and a pair of running shorts, Catalan Kilian Jornet, 26, bounded up the last few meters of the 14,692-foot Matterhorn before tapping the metal cross that garnishes the summit, turning around, and tracing the fixed lines down the Matterhorn’s rocky Lion’s Ridge with astounding speed and agility. For the last few meters of his descent, he was joined, in a gesture of support, by his childhood hero, champion sky runner Bruno Brunod. Since he began racing as a sky runner at age 17, Jornet had dreamed of beating Brunod’s 1995 speed record on the peak.

"Bruno was a big inspiration," Jornet says, "When I started, he was winning everything. And in Europe, [the Matterhorn] is a very symbolic mountain."

On August 21, 2013, Jornet sprinted out of the crowd of spectators gathered in Breuil-Cervinia to begin his attempt, and ran up and down the mountain’s 8,100 vertical feet, beating Brunod's longstanding record by 22 minutes. Jornet's time: 2 hours and 52 minutes. The push typically takes climbers around 12 hours.

Jornet did not invent "sky running," a cross between mountaineering and trail running that involves ascending technical terrain at a runner’s pace. The sport dates back to Italian mountaineer Marino Giacometti's speed records in the Italian Alps in the early '90s. Jornet has, however, taken sky running into the public eye with his unprecedented streak of breaking records and winning races. In the past three years alone, he set a new speed record on Mount Kilimanjaro, and, six weeks before his Matterhorn record, he completed a speed ascent and descent of Mont Blanc, an elevation change of 12,378 feet, in 4 hours and 57 minutes.

"Trail runners have always searched out mountains. There has been a shift in the sport, however, as sky running illuminated a desire that many have to push beyond the defined single-track, upwards into the craggy rock," says American ultra-runner Hal Koerner. "Kilian’s worldly ascents have definitely highlighted and helped to kick-start the new trend but, more importantly, I think the proficiency of his prolificacy and vice versa has caused many to rethink what is possible."

Jornet grew up in Cap del Rec, small ski village in the Catalan Pyrenees, where his father worked as a mountain guide and his mother as a schoolteacher. Jornet and his sister commuted to school by skis during the winters and by bicycle during the summers. "But it wasn’t that far away," Jornet is quick to add, by which he means "maybe one hour" each way. Jornet couldn't help but turn out to be an endurance athlete in the mountains.

"I always joke with my sister that we didn’t have a chance to do something else because we were always in the mountains," he says.

Jornet began racing in ski mountaineering at age 13. He did well in youth competitions but clearly remembers the moment when, during the 2004 International Ski Mountaineering World Championship, he found himself unexpectedly in the lead alongside four of his idols. He discovered he might have a talent for racing.

"What happened here? Why did they stop? Why are they waiting?” Jornet remembers thinking. “I did not understand that I was at the same level that they were."

Jornet won that race, and went on to win too many championships and break too many records to list concisely, not only in ski mountaineering, but in trail running, ultra running, and sky running. This coming year, Jornet will race in sky running, ski mountaineering, and trail running, and if conditions allow, he plans to spend time in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, and to challenge the speed records on Denali and Aconcagua.

When asked what type of athlete he considers himself, Jornet responds simply: "I am a person that loves mountains. I can go with skis when there's snow, and I can go running when it's summer. Doing all this stuff—it's the possibility to live in the mountains and to live my passion. It doesn’t really matter if I win or whether I finish last. It’s important maybe for me, but it really doesn’t matter."
—Fitz Cahall

THE INTERVIEW

Adventure: Of the races you’ve won and the records you’ve broken, do you have an accomplishment you’re most proud of?

Kilian Jornet: The Matterhorn record I did this year and the first World Cup in Ski Mountaineering that I won when I was young. When you go to a race you know you’re going to win, when you win, you are proud of yourself, but it’s not that strong [of a] feeling. But in a race that you didn't know you're going to do [well in] and you do, there’s an explosion of endorphins, and that’s what it was like.

A: Do you ever have moments when you’re running or racing when you want to stop? That you don’t enjoy what you’re doing?

KJ: In long races, you want to stop all the time. You think, "Okay, I’m going to go to the next aid station, and then I’m going to stop," because you have pain everywhere, and you want to just stop the pain. We are a bit masochistic or a bit stupid.
Then there are days that you are training and the conditions are hard and you don’t want to continue, but it’s these days that are going to make you stronger. It’s not always good days. You need to have the shadow to be in the sun.

A: Are there any moments like that that really stand out to you?

KJ: Last year, we did a ski crossing of Mont Blanc, and I lost my friend Stéphane [Brosse]. We were together, and he just broke through the snow [a cornice] and fell for 600 meters. So, you think about whether or not this thing we do is good, or makes sense. And then, you realize that we all know the risk and we all accept the risk. It’s not like we are playing football and the worst thing that can happen is we break a knee. We are mountaineering. We know that the mountains are dangerous. We need to accept that it’s risky. We don’t want to die, but we need to know that we can.

A: On September 7, 2013, you and Emelie Forsberg called for a rescue partway up the Frendo Spur Route on Mont Blanc. The incident stirred up controversy over the style in which you climb mountains without traditional mountaineering equipment and safety gear. Are you concerned that people will follow your example in the mountains and get in over their heads?

KJ: That day we called because I was anticipating having more problems. There are things that we cannot do for ourselves. It’s important to be humble, and just to call for help before having big[ger] problems.
I always try to say, "We are not an example." If I see a video of Alex Honnold soloing in Yosemite, I'm not going to go to Yosemite tomorrow to do that. I think it’s very important to know the person that’s inside, and to really think if it’s possible or not.

A: What do you say to people who are getting started in the sport of sky running?

KJ: More people are going to the mountains. We are in a land that’s really beautiful, and can give us a lot, but we need to know that we are really fragile animals. Compared to the others, we are really nothing. We are good for the brain, but as for the body, we are really fragile. So, just think about that.