Monthly Archives: October 2012

Everyone starts somewhere: My first novel (E.T. meets Freddy)

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ImagePublishing my first novel has made me think of the first novel I wrote. I was about 12-years-old and the story, entitled Sweet Dreams, was about aliens. It was 183 pages.

Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:

The doorbell rang. Darlene Devries ran downstairs. “I’ll get it,” she called. Darlene finished buttoning up her red silk shirt. She straightened out her wrinkled black suede skirt and opened the door. There stood Joey Wellington, the most popular guy in school.

Later, Joey takes Darlene to the MC Hammer concert in his pink convertible. (Joey apparently has borrowed Barbie’s car.) A whole bunch of people die. Joey gets torn between three beautiful girls (well, he IS the most popular guy in school). He rescues them from aliens who attack them in their dreams (like extra-terrestrial Freddy Kruegers, I guess). And then wakes up like Dorothy wondering if it was all some crazy nightmare.

That’s right. Bestseller.

Well, all writers started somewhere… What was your first story about?

A beautiful world of terrifying things: Treason (Grimoire Trilogy #2) by S. M. Boyce is out!

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ImageI’ve been talking it up on the blog for a while and today, Treason (Grimoire Trilogy #2) releases. Treason, the sequel to Lichgates, is part of the Grimoire Trilogy by S. M. Boyce. The paranormal fantasy series features a bit of romance and a lot of action, all set in Ourea: a beautiful world full of terrifying things. Check out Lichgates today and get hooked on this trilogy.

Boyce is also starting a blog tour today. She’s kicking it off with a day-long tweetchat party, so head over there if you want some freebies and want to meet the author. You can also check out her blog tour calendar to join in the fun (it lasts until Dec 31 — how’s that for stamina!?!), as well as the grand prize giveaway. You can enter the giveaway daily, so make sure you bookmark it to get extra entries.

Here’s a bit more about Boyce and her series. Enjoy! Continue reading →

Rachel McClellan trades “supernatural girlie books” for real life

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ImageI love the title to Rachel McClellan’s upcoming memoir. It’s self explanatory — Confessions of a Cereal Mother: True Stories to Let Every Mother Know She’s Not Alone in the Craziness. In it, she promises to relay stories from raising four kids in Rhode Island, including tales of “chunky chunder,” and band-aids being chewed as gum. The book will be released in March 2013 and is available for pre-order on Amazon. In the meantime, McClellan was kind enough to answer a few questions about her book.

Continue reading →

Monsters reinvented again! Thomas Winship is back with another bloody tale.

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People. Hold your guts in. Thomas Winship is back with another bloody tale: vampires reinvented yet again!  Vaempires: Zombie Rising is out Oct. 22 so what are you waiting for? The gore won’t come to you!

Buy the Book Continue reading →

How about some post-apocalyptic drama for the holidays? After the Fear is out in December!

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ImageI wish I had Christmas holidays again so I could just sit around and read all of these great new releases coming out in December! I’m looking forward to After the Fear by Rosanne Rivers, out December 2012. Love the cover, the title, and the blurb.

About the book: You have not attended a Demonstration this month.

In Sola’s city, everyone obeys the rules. Stay away from the trigger cameras and regularly update your Debtbook, and you just might survive. But having to watch the way criminals are dealt with—murdered by Demonstrators in the Stadium—is a law Sola tries to avoid. When a charming Demonstrator kisses her at a party, however, she’s thrust into the Stadium and forced into the very role she despises.

Armed with only natural resourcefulness and a caring nature, Sola narrowly survives her first bout. Her small success means she’s whisked off to a training camp, where she discovers a world beyond the trigger cameras and monitoring—a world where falling in love with a killer doesn’t seem so terrible.

Yet life as a Demonstrator has no peace. Sola must train her way through twenty-five more Demonstrations before she can return home to her father. At the end of each battle, only one survivor remains.

Sola could face anyone in the Stadium . . . even a loved one. Continue reading →

How winter makes trick-or-treating better (and a giveaway to win one of 40 prizes!)

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This looks warm.

Trick-or-treating in winter weather is well, tricky. You’re never just a princess or a ninja. You’re a girl in a snowsuit with a pink cone hat or a ninja in a parka. So growing up in a Canadian city with blizzards, eight-foot-tall snowbanks and -30 C temperatures, forces you to approach Halloween differently.

First, all of my costumes accommodated winter gear. I mostly wore capes. I was a bat. I was a vampire. I was a witch.

Second, you have to keep warm on the streets. If you keep moving, you can work up a sweat. And this also facilitates optimal candy collecting. The faster and more efficiently you hit houses, the heavier your pillowcase will be — and the more you will sweat.

Lastly, it’s too cold for antics. The less fooling around you do — toilet-papering trees and what not — the more you can focus on that sweet haul. Continue reading →

Artist profile: Liliana Sanches Davis on remembering the details of her nightmares

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ImageLiliana Sanches Davis designed the amazing cover of What Kills Me. The talented 29-year-old artist from Lisbon, Portugal talked to me about how her nightmares inspire her work.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m quite obsessed about the things that I feel passionate about, I’m very introverted, as I dread social relationships, and often run to my inner world where I am a lot more comfortable.
For your art, where do you get your inspiration?
Music definitely drives me, and helps me give shape to my work, but as my art has been evolving, my fears have been playing the main role as my inspiration. When I have dreams/nightmares I also remember every tiny detail so that also helps me express myself in a more surreal way as well.
What kinds of things freak you out?
I hate admitting it but I have a severe case of nyctophobia (phobia of the dark). I can’t be left alone at home at night. It’s excruciating for me, I have no words to describe it. I’ve tried everything a person can to cure it. Therapy, confrontation, research, understanding. It never changes.

New release: Lichgates is here! Again!

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ImageIt’s here! Boyce has re-released Lichgates, the bestselling first book in the Grimoire Trilogy, with Immortal Ink Publishing. This new edition has a great cover, re-edited narrative, and fun bonus content hosted on the series’ bonus site—The Grimoire Online. Go grab your copy now!

Lichgates

The Grimoire turns its own pages and can answer any question asked of it…and Kara Magari is its next target.  Continue reading →