Yay - here is the back cover copy for Fairy Bad Day! I'll be putting it up on my website later today but thought you might want a sneak peek of it here first!!!!!
My life seriously couldn’t get any worse.
First, my rightful designation of dragon slayer is STOLEN right out from under me by Curtis Green. Sure, he’s really cute, but that doesn’t give him an excuse.
On top of that, I am assigned to slay fairies. I know what you’re thinking—how hard could it be, right? Wrong! These menacing beasts with their tiny hipster clothes and mocking sarcasm love taunting me. And they won’t STOP!
But the thing that tops my list of stuff to ruin my day? That would be the GIANT KILLER FAIRY that I have to hunt down and slay because I am the only one who can see it. There is someone who can help me. Unfortunately…it’s Curtis.
Whoops - sorry for disappearing! I was so excited to finish my third Djinn novel that I kinda sorta forgota blog!!!!! Anyway, since then I've been having an extremely gorgeous time researching my new YA. Which, for the record is a complete first since my books don't really require much research, but this new one is a bit of a stretch for me and I've actually been enjoying trying to get my world building and backstory all sorted out!!!
But I digress, today it's all about my lovely friend Joanne Rendell and the release of her new book, Out of the Shadows! Jo and I first met after we shared an editor at NAL and we instantly bonded over...well everything! I even got to meet her briefly at the RWA conference in San Fransisco where she is as youthfully gorgeous as her photo implies (but despite this I like her anyway!!!!!!)
Even more exciting, it's now the release of her third book, Out of the Shadows, which I've been looking forward to reading for a very long time!!!!
While unraveling the secrets of her DNA, one woman discovers a monster. The monster is the man she loves…
Thirty-four year old, Professor Clara Fitzgerald has been living in the shadows of her fiancé for too long. While her career seems stalled, his scientific research is on the cusp of a major breakthrough. Professor Anthony Greene is an ambitious geneticist, who is being courted by the top universities and powerful pharmaceutical companies. His fight against cancer in the laboratory doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for Clara anymore.
But when Clara stumbles on an old copy of Frankenstein and remembers her mother’s claim that they are related to the nineteenth-century author, Mary Shelley, everything changes.
With her beautiful but troublesome sister in tow and the help of Kay, a retired Shelley scholar, Clara begins a search for the author’s long lost journals and letters. This search reveals surprising facts about the passionate young woman who wrote Frankenstein, who was the child of two radical writers, and who eloped to Europe with a wild-eyed poet named Percy Shelley.
During her search, Clara also unearths shocking secrets about her fiancé. Like Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein, Anthony is on a secret quest to extend life – and this quest has driven him to cross ethical lines.
Told from alternating points of view between Clara and the young Mary Shelley who is preparing to write Frankenstein, Out of the Shadows is a tale of hubris and greed, passion and truth, loss and love. It is a story that spans two centuries and warns us about the age-old dangers of mixing ambition with the power of science.
Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee why I've been so excited about the release of this book????!!! Anyway, so you can get to know Joanne a bit more, let's have a wee chat to her!
What was the inspiration behind this book?
I’ve always loved Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s a wonderful gothic novel, but it’s very thoughtful, daring, and extremely prescient too – even now, two hundred years after it was written. In the novel, Shelley dared to ask “what if?” She looked around at the emerging technologies of her time and she considered their darker sides and how they could turn monstrous (and even make monsters!). I still find it amazing that she wrote such a daring and thoughtful, poignant and provocative novel when she was just nineteen. Not only that, she was living in early nineteenth century Europe when young girls weren’t supposed to think about monsters and science, let alone write about them!
Anyway, I knew I wanted to write a book about Mary Shelley and as I began to do research, I fell in love with Shelley more and more. She was fiery and smart, outspoken and thoughtful, a non-conformist and a caring mother. I kept reminding myself, though, that I wasn’t going to write a Shelley biography. Out of the Shadows explores the echoes and links between the past, our current moment, and our possible future. I wanted the book to be both about Mary Shelley, but also about how her amazing imagination and insights still resonate today. I wanted Mary Shelley’s story to sit side by side with the story of a modern woman who, although living in a very different world to Shelley, still faces some of the same challenges, fears, and possibilities.
Are you a plotter or a punster and do you find your process changes from book to book?
A little bit of both! I always have a pretty clear idea of the whole plot when I start. Sometimes I even outline chapters. But as I begin to write I’m often taken in all kinds of different directions. Those pesky characters start doing and saying unexpected things and the next thing you know you’re writing a book you never imagined!
I'm a quote queen and there's nothing I like more than reading other people's words of wisdom. Do you have a favorite quote that motivates you or sums up the way the you write?
“Get out of your own way!” I don’t know if this is a famous expression, but I heard someone use it a while ago and I loved it. So often we get tied into knots by our inhibitions or worries about what other people think we end up standing in our own way and hindering all the amazing and creative things we could potentially do. When I’m writing, and I’m having a bad day, I start to worry “Is this good enough?” “Will my editor like it?” “Is it an idea that will sell?” But then I have to remind myself to “shut up and scoot over” and when I do that, the writing starts flowing again! Oooh - I love this and there is a very tiny chance that it might apply to me!!!!
What's your favorite television series right now? Okay, I know this isn't a writerly question but I'm a very nosy person who has a very large television habit to feed!!!!
Okay, not wanting to sound like a Birkenstock-wearing, wool-spinning hippie (not that there is anything wrong with Birkenstock-wearing, wool-spinning hippies, of course - I’m just not one!) but I don’t watch TV. Occasionally, we stream the news but that’s about it. The last TV show I watched was on DVD and it was series 2 of the “last generation” Star Trek. How I love Captain Kirk and the gang! We do watch a lot of movies, however. Recently I picked up a great book called The Best Old Movies for Families (link http://www.amazon.com/Best-Old-Movies-Families-Watching/dp/1400096863). It’s a fabulous guide and together with my seven year old Benny we have been watching a ton of classic movies – e.g. all of Charlie Chaplin’s greats, Frank Capra’s classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, and Mr Deeds goes to Town, plus all the must-sees like Gone with the Wind and The Philadelphia Story. I used to be so screen-illiterate and so getting to know these amazing old movies has been really fun and illuminating.No television? I'm feeling a bit ill at the thought of it! However, since you're into the movies I'm going to forgive you! Actually, I only recently watched Casablanca and finally found out what all the fuss was about! Talk about a master class in dialogue!!!
Everyone has a talent. Mine is being able to discover chocolate no matter where it is hidden in the house. What about you? What is your secret talent (apart of course from being a fabulous writer.
I’m a very talented movie editor! Well, okay, I might be more of a very amateur and highly untrained movie editor. Nonetheless, I’m having a ball making movies with my son and then editing them with my very cheap and bottom-of-the-range movie-making software. If I could start my career all over again, I would head to Hollywood! Here’s our biggest production so far.
Yay!!!! Not only have I finished my wip but today I get to tour the full-of-awesome Lucienne Diver and her book, Revamped!!!! Not only is Lucienne an agent by day and a writer by night, but she's also a giver and we all like that, so if you head over to her virtual launch party on September 15th at Bitten by Books you could go in to win an iPod Nano with a special fashion skin. Gina would approve!
In Vamped, Gina and her minions defeated a vampire vixen, a psycho-psychic and the vampire council of Mozulla, Ohio. Gina was all ready to expose vampires to the world in all their fanged fabulosity…until the Feds arrived to sweep everything under the rug and make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
In ReVamped, Gina and her boyfriend Bobby are sent undercover to infiltrate a New York high school where some seriously weird stuff is going down. Worse than that, Gina’s new super-secret identity is as goth-girl Geneva Belfry. No color palette to speak of. More chains than a bike rack. And don’t even get her started on the shoes. At least she won’t be too worried about blood spatter when kicking the butt of her newest nemesis, who’s decided that the high school makes a perfect playground.
How cool do Lucienne's books sound - especially if you're like me and enjoy the lighter side of dark (because seriously people, sometimes we gotta chill from all the angst!!!!!). Anyway, as normal I've put Lucienne through my regular hard-hitting questions. Sit back and enjoy!!!!!!
What was the inspiration behind this book?
My character, Gina, who I love with a fiery passion similar to heartburn, insisted that her story continue from Vamped into ReVamped. Now she’s insisted on two more books, Fangtastic and Fangtabulous, both forthcoming. Luckily, she’s drawn her readers and my publisher into her sphere of influence and they’ve agreed to keep her in the limelight. She’s even insisted on her own blog: http://ginasgems.livejournal.com. You know that feeling where you don’t so much write the book as channel the characters? I’m so there. Sigh. Yes, I know this feeling far too well. I have a two thousand year old dead djinn called Malik in my new series and some of the things that he comes out with would make a grown woman weep. Oh, and when I try and put a muzzle on it he just laughs at me and demands that I give him more Cheetos!!!!!
Are you a panster or a plotter and do you find your writing process changes from book to book?
Generally, I’m a pantser. I find this doesn’t so much change from book to book as series to series. Usually, voice occurs to me first. Characters just start having a dialogue in my head and I have to find out their stories. Every once in awhile it’s the concept that comes to me first, and I need to plot out the characters, who I come to know by the needs of the story rather than the other way around. It’s very interesting. With a diva like Gina, a fashionista gone from chic to eek when she becomes one of the undead, it’s definitely the character that drives the plot rather than vice versa. I find she so often throws a monkey-wrench into my works that it doesn’t pay to plot more than a few chapters ahead, though I always have a general sense of where I’m going.
I'm a quote queen and there's nothing I like more than reading other people's words of wisdom. Do you have a favorite quote that motivates you or sums up the way the you write?
I don’t know who first said, “Get it down, then get it right,” but he or she was a genius. I used to go endlessly over what I’d written, rewriting and rewriting, insisting on perfection before I could move forward. The problem is that there’s truly no such thing as perfection. If you go looking for flaws, you’ll find them every single time you read something over. It kills the forward momentum of the writing to continually rehash what’s already been done. This is not to say that manuscripts don’t require revision, tweaks, polish and the whole nine yards, but sometimes the “Get it down, then get it right” philosophy is all that gets me to the words “The End.”
What's your favorite television series right now? Okay, I know this isn't a writerly question but I'm a very nosy person who has a very large television habit to feed!!!!
That’s a tough one. My husband jokes that I like “dead people” shows—anything from the humorous, like Castle, Psych and Monk (man, do I miss Monk), to the serious, like Criminal Minds, Forensic Files, Extreme Forensics. Favorite EVAR, though, is, hands down, Buffy the Vampires Slayer…or maybe Firefly. We are now officially BFF - Team Buffy/Angel/Firefly all the way!
Everyone has a talent. Mine is being able to discover chocolate no matter where it is hidden in the house. What about you? What is your secret talent (apart of course from being a fabulous writer!!!!!)
I love this question—might be the use of the word fabulous! Hmm, secret talent…the ability to get lost in my own kitchen? My puzzle proclivity? My not-so-secret talents (my husband calls them addictions) are scrapbooking and jewelry making, though ever since my series has come out, I don’t have the time for them that I used to!
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Nope, not dead. Just writing. Been a crazy week but the book is two scenes away from being finished and about 10k over the word count. Whoopsy! Anyway, I will be back later today with a new GCC blog tour and a catch up!
I've also added a link to Judith Grave's Crossroads tour that's coming up in October. Lots of cool authors are going to be there so make sure you mark your diaries! Right and now, because I'm all about the djinn magic (at least for two more scenes) I'm snapping my fingers and disappearing in a puff of smoke. Gone!
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Today I'm so excited to tour Kristina Springer's new book, My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this title and the premise of this book and I've soooo just added it to my large reading pile!
Anyway, here is the skinny:
Seventh grade was supposed to be fun, but Tori is having major drama with her BFF, Sienna. Sienna changed a lot over the summer—on the first day of school she’s tan, confident, and full of stories about her new dreamy boyfriend. Tori knows that she’s totally making this guy up. So Tori invents her own fake boyfriend, who is better than Sienna’s in every way. Things are going great—unless you count the whole lying-to-your-best-friend thing—until everyone insists Tori and Sienna bring their boyfriends to the back-to-school dance.
See, I told you that it sounded awesome!!! Anyway, as usual, I've put Kristina through her paces and here's what she had to say!!!!
What was the inspiration behind this book?
I may have had a 7th grade fake boyfriend… J
Are you a panster or a plotter and do you find your writing process changes from book to book?
Both! It depends on the book. With The Espressologist, I went to my local Starbucks a couple of times a week and wrote whatever I felt like at the time. With My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours, I outlined the entire book chapter by chapter first.
I'm a quote queen and there's nothing I like more than reading other people's words of wisdom. Do you have a favorite quote that motivates you or sums up the way the you write?
“Don’t Quit!”
What's your favorite television series right now? Okay, I know this isn't a writerly question but I'm a very nosy person who has a very large television habit to feed!!!!
Big Brother and any Real Housewives of Wherever (they’re all great!)! Yeah, I’m a reality TV junkie. The Hills was my fave but sadly it’s gone now. L
Everyone has a talent. Mine is being able to discover chocolate no matter where it is hidden in the house. What about you? What is your secret talent (apart of course from being a fabulous writer!!!!!)
My fabulous CP, Christina Phillips has her blog party going and despite the fact she writes erotica, I'm giving away a copy of Zombie, because that's the way I roll!!! I'm also talking about Buffy/Angel and forbidden love so come and join me!
I'm also posting a GCC tour tonight with Kristina Springer, so watch this space, not to mention the fact that I seem to be writing the book that will not end! Have hit my contracted word count and no sign of the resolution anywhere in sight. Interesting!!!!!!!
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