The best authors in New Fiction at BestSellingReads.com/ are celebrating the arrival of Spring with a March promotion:
BestSelling Reads Kindle Fire Giveaway Prize for winning reader entry:
Kindle Fire 7”, LCD Display, Wi-Fi, 8GB
2nd & 3rd place winners: $25 Amazon gift card
Enter at http://www.bestsellingreads.com/march-giveaway
Winners will be chosen March 26th by Rafflecopter.
No purchase necessary but always welcome.
Have you started another book yet? Yes, I have started Creche. A lot of my early readers and reviewers have said they cannot wait to read the sequel, so I better get to it. It reveals a lot more about Amedeo’s past and also some surprising information that even Amedeo was unaware of.
Where do you see yourself in five years? Making enough to write fulltime in a beautiful little cabin in the mountains, or in my Greek Island holiday home, or my villa in Tuscany, or my house on Sunshine Coast acreage while my partner quits his job to play daddy daycare to our brood of happy little kids. J
What are your current writing projects now? Right now, I’m working on several different things, but Creche is my priority. My other works in progress include:
Float, a YA Dystopian novel set in Australia.
Day of the Danae Shee, a YA fantasy trilogy.
From Memory, a half-finished romance novel.
The Phoenix Feather, another YA fantasy.
A book about self-editing (as yet untitled).
A free ebook about using indiereviewtracker.com and getting reviews or free or paid marketing (also not yet titled).
Are you reading any interesting books at the moment? Much as I have busy days, I always set aside half an hour before bed to read. That usually means sometime between 12 and 1 am, I am reading. At present, I am really enjoying Tony Slater’s new comedy Don’t Need the Whole Dog; Heather Adkin’s spooky The House; and GR Yeates soon-to-be-released young adult fantasy The Sword of Sighs. All are great examples of just how much indie talent is out there in different genres.
Are there any new authors that have sparked your interest and why? I’m a sucker for a success story, especially an indie one. I’ve grabbed a copy of Colleen Hoover’s latest book, Hopeless, and I was also really impressed with Carol Davis Luce’s latest Awakening: Story of a Brown-eyed Girl, and Charles Sheehan-Miles’s Just Remember to Breathe. And Wool, of course. There are loads of excellent authors out there.
What are some of the best tools available today for writers, especially those just starting out? It really depends on how you like to write. For some authors, it might be a pencil and a notebook. I personally love my Macbook and I use Scrivener to help me get organised, plot, and develope my characters. I write in Scrivener, too, but I then import it to word for the second and subsequent drafts and use Calibre to create my files once the book is formatted.
I’ve recently found an excellent program called Write or Die, which has forced me to just let go and write, rather than be constantly in “edit mode.” I set it to a function called Kamikaze, which means it starts eating my words if I pause for too long. Yes, eating them! Making them vanish. It’s kind of crazy, and I know this would tip some writers over the edge, but for me, it stops me over-thinking things. I then tidy scenes up afterwards when I edit, and I enjoy that part of the process a lot more.
Anti-social is a brilliant program for procrastinators like me too, and enables you to switch off social media but still use the internet for research if you need to.
What contributes to making a writer successful? Determination, a thick skin, a willingness to be flexible about how you write and to take feedback well, the ability to turn a phrase and to “hear” the rhythm of sentences, a love of words, and a curiosity about life and about how people react to events or how individuals reveal or conceal themselves in society.
Do you have any advice for writers? Just put your bum in the chair and tap it out. You can “plan to” and “mean to” all you like, but until you have the word count, it amounts to naught. Make it happen. It sucks that you might have to sacrifice some things in order to write your novel (think sleep, gym, or other hobbies) but if you really want to write you have to sit down and write it out, and then sit down again and revise and edit, and revise and edit, and revise and edit ad nauseam. And understand that the editing doesn’t stop as soon as you upload to Amazon. It is all part of the process. Big publishers make changes to their authors’ work at reprint to remove errors or update information all the time; you should too.
Do you have any specific last thoughts that you want to say to your readers? Thank you for reading. It thrills me you’re willing to spend some of your precious hours lost in a world I created. I can’t thank readers enough for taking the time to do that. Oh, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Email me on cruxim@hotmail.com or leave me a review on Amazon or Goodreads, or on my blog www.karincox.wordpress.com
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Genre – Paranormal Romance
Rating – PG15+ (some violence & swearing. No sex)
More details about the author & the book
Plotting and a Large Load of Laundry
by Susan Russo Anderson
For me, plotting is like hanging up a large load of laundry.
Picture it, a beautiful Monday in June. The air is fresh, the breeze is flappy, and you’re doing three loads of wash. Don’t you dare use that drier. Get a rope and two poles.
When I start to plot, I know the beginning and the end and the two plot pivots, all subject to change of course. I jot in the bones of these five scenes intermingled with some character sketches, perhaps the arcs of the most important players, and pretty soon, the story is writing itself.
When I read fiction, whether it’s a short story or novella or novel, I look for those two pivotal plot points. Name them, re-read them, because it’s around these two points that meaning clings to the story like barnacles to a ship.
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Genre – Historical Mystery
Rating – PG13
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Connect with Susan Russo Anderson on Facebook & Twitter
Website http://susanrussoanderson.com/
Cruxim: You Are Never Alone by Karin Cox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Did you like the way the book ended? On one hand, I really like the end. But I would have liked it more if Sabine been saved to live on. Especially sense she was the only one of her kind left in the world.
What part would you change in the story, and why? Don't think I would really change the story.
What are the most revealing scenes? All the fight scenes were awesome. When Adedeo jumps into the water trying to save Sabine.
Who was your favorite character? Sabine, she was strong, loyal and loving. Very unique.
Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the author.
View all my reviews
Eternal Life is To Die
For seventeen year old Zoe Vanderveen is a GAP—a genetically altered person. She lives in the security of a walled city on prime water-front property along side other equally beautiful people with extended life spans. Her brother Liam is missing.
Noah Brody is a natural who lives on the outside. He leads protests against the GAPs and detests the widening chasm they’ve created between those who have
and those who don’t. He doesn’t like girls like Zoe and he has good reason not to like her specifically.
Zoe’s carefree life takes a traumatic turn. She’s in trouble and it turns out that Noah, the last guy on earth she should trust, is the only one who can help her.
Want to read PERCEPTION? It’s FREE on Kobo itunes B&N Smashwords and on Amazon!
VOLITION is the exciting continuation of Noah and Zoe’s story from Perception.
What doesn’t kill you …
Zoe Vanderveen is on the run with her captor turned rescuer, Noah Brody. They’re in love. Or at least that’s what he tells her. Her memories have returned but her feelings are dreamlike—thin and fleeting. Her heart can’t be trusted. Just look at what happened with Taylor Blake.
Senator Vanderveen’s new team of cyborg agents are in hot pursuit, and a reward for their capture is broadcast nationwide. Record breaking cold and snow hinder their escape. Someone dies helping them.
And their fight for survival has only begun.
Mark to read on goodreads.
To celebrate Lee Strauss is giving away a $200.00 Amazon, Nook or itunes gift card!
About the author
Lee Strauss writes historical and science fiction/romance for upper YA and adult readers. She also writes light and fun stuff under the name Elle Strauss. To find out more about Lee and her books check out her facebook page. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/elle_strauss To find out about new releases sign up for her newsletter at www.ellestraussbooks.com
Amedeo is Cruxim, an immortal fallen angel destined to seek redemption as a vampire hunter, quenching his insatiable hunger on their blood. But when the object of his passion, the novice nun Joslyn–his beautiful charge with whom he has fallen in love–is kissed by darkness and joins the leader of a powerful vampire coven, Amedeo’s worlds collide. Shattered by the loss of his beloved, he vows to rid the world of vampires once and for all, even if that seems hopeless, even if it means destroying Josyln in the process. But he cannot do it alone. Can he even do it at all?
Joining him on his quest to rid the world of the undead is Sabine–a guardian. Half-woman, half-lioness, she is a Sphinx who has been protecting humans from vampires since the dawn of time. Although immortal ever after, she is pursued by an evil scientist, Dr. Claus Gandler, who knows the secret of her mythological past and her immortality and vows to torment her for eternity or destroy her forever. When the two are captured and paraded as the focus of Dr. Gandler’s Circus of Curiosities, will Joslyn prove their redemption, or their nemesis?
A powerful gothic paranormal game of cat and mouse, Cruxim explores the beast within and the sacrifice, rapture, redemption, and regrets of eternal love.
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Genre – Paranormal Romance
Rating – PG15+ (some violence & swearing. No sex)
More details about the author & the book
A gripping tale of murder and deceit. A baroness poisoned . . . A family masking dark secrets . . . and one woman determined to uncover the truth.
Sicily, March 1870. When a headstrong aristocrat commissions Serafina to find her mother’s poisoner, the midwife turned sleuth travels to a windswept villa on Sicily’s gold coast where she begins her investigation of the baroness’s death. There, she meets with the irascible baron and his huge staff of servants. Adding to her peril are the ruthless attempts to foil her success by her arch enemy, Don Tigro, the local mafia capo.
Yet Serafina is unflagging in her determination to unmask the killer, despite mortal danger, the pleas of her children for her speedy return, and a longing to resume her broiling new romance with Loffredo, the lusty count of Oltramari. With the help of her friend, Rosa, two daring servants, and an unexpected visitor, she uncovers ugly entanglements that portend dire misfortune for the baroness’s heirs. Will Serafina catch the killer before his henchman throws her to her death?
This is the third book in the Serafina Florio mystery series.
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Genre – Historical Mystery
Rating – PG13
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Connect with Susan Russo Anderson on Facebook & Twitter
Website http://susanrussoanderson.com/