Blog Tour: The Fearless by Emma Pass (A Day in the Life of a Writer)

In the mood for some action-packed post-apocalyptic intrigue that's also a standalone? Then you've come to the right place!

The world changed when Cass was ten years old. A cure developed for soldiers' PTSD turned them into highly functioning zombies who took over the world in a matter of weeks. Cass's family had connections, so she was whisked away to the safety of an island community called Hope. Seven years later, the real world comes calling in the form of a fearless girl who kidnaps her younger brother Jori.

Told from three perspectives to get the most wide-ranging perspectives on this frightening new reality, THE FEARLESS leads you on a harrowing journey where not everyone is who they seem to be.

Find out more about THE FEARLESS. Out now in the UK, coming in early 2015 to the US.

I'm thrilled to welcome Emma to the blog today to talk about what her dream writing day looks vs her actual writing day. 



The Dream

I begin the day with some yoga or a gentle run – it's a well-known fact that getting the endorphins flowing boosts creativity. After that, I eat breakfast and drink a cup of green tea before disappearing into my study. And it's still only 6am!

I love my study. Spacious and lined with bookshelves, it's flooded with natural light and has a view over fields and woods. I boot up my computer and, with soft classical music playing over the speakers, I dive back into the story I'm writing. The words flow like water. This is my best book yet – my editor is going to love it. With 2K written before lunch, there's time to go for another run. Then it's back to it. By the end of the day, I have 4K written and the end is in sight. Perfect! Now for a light, healthy dinner, and perhaps a movie – I've earned it!

The Reality

Peel open an eyelid. Crap. It's 9am already. Why did I stay up so late last night watching TV? Better get up. G-Dog needs feeding. And I need coffee. COFFEE.

Stumble downstairs. Start to spoon coffee into dog bowl before realizing mistake. Somehow get dog fed and self caffeinated. Stumble into living room (I don't have a study; my office is the sofa). Better switch on the computer and start writing, seeing as my deadline is, like, a week away. But I need to check my emails. And Facebook. And Twitter. And my emails again. And look, there's a funny story about cats on The Poke…

Argh! 11am already. Right. Time to do some work. Oh, wait, G-Dog needs a walk. Better take him or he'll start barking at me and running circuits round the living room.

12pm. TIME TO START WORK. Actually, I'm a bit hungry. What's for lunch?

1pm. Come on, brain. 1K words today or else. Ugh, look at the dust under the armchairs! I need to clean this house now.

3pm. OK. House is clean. That's much better. I can think now. Time to – Wait, I have 10 new emails? Better check them. They might be important.

Dammit, they're all from Amazon. OK. I really must stop messing about and WORK. If only I wasn't so stuck with this chapter. Why the hell did I leave my heroine adrift in a hot air balloon? Maybe I should just delete this bit and start again.

4.30pm. I've written 200 words! That deserves a Facebook break, surely.

6pm. Argh, is it that time already? G-Dog needs feeding again. And there's no time to cook. Thank goodness the local Chinese delivers. It's a bit embarrassing that they know me by name, but never mind…

9pm. 500 words. Hooray! I'd better take G-Dog for another walk – he's giving me The Look. And then I'm going to get an early night. No, really…

Thank you Emma! My writing day looks pretty similar to the latter, substituting cats for the dog...

Follow the entire tour:

FTC disclosure: Book provided by author

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Readathon Wrap-Up

Another readathon has come to an end. It's always fun to follow the #readathon hashtag on twitter and see all the books that everyone is devouring!

I ended up reading 1000 pages.

I started out with DISSONANCE by Erica O'Rourke. This YA science fiction multiverse novel clocks in at 500 pages (!!!) and has some of the most intricate worldbuilding I've read in a long time.  Look for it in July.

Then I read a short story on Tor.com, NOMA GIRL by Elizabeth Fama. It's a companion to PLUS ONE and tells the story of how Gigi met Sol's brother Ciel.

I also read another 70 or so pages of the secret 2015 novel.

Finally, I read FEARLESS by Emma Pass. It's a YA post-apocalyptic out now. I'll be talking more about it tomorrow on the Fearless Blog Tour.

And I'm out ...

How'd you do?

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Readathon Kick-Off

I have a bunch of books I want to read by the end of the month, and I saw that the Readathon was happening today, so I decided to join in!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Home in Frankfurt, Germany. It's a little past 2 pm, and sunny! I'll probably read on the balcony to enjoy the nice weather.

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

I have a bunch of eGalleys I need to read before they expire. And I have a book by a 2015 debut author which is SO GOOD. I can't wait to get back to it.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Whoops. Forgot the snacks.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I did hot yoga this morning, my 13th session this month!

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

I've participated in a few. Usually I get tripped up by trying to read a book that's going too slow for me. If that happens, I'll put it down and move on.

Happy reading!

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Blog Tour: Burn Out by Kristi Helvig

Welcome to my stop on the BURN OUT blog tour. I'm especially excited to interview Author Kristi Helvig today because I loved BURN OUT so much, I blurbed it. See?

I was fascinated by Tora's story from page one. Imagine being the only person left on a dying, scorching Earth and knowing that if you don't somehow get off the planet, your days are numbered. That's what Tora is facing, and yet she doesn't give up hope. And she has the guts to protect her father's legacy at all costs.

The official summary (you might see something familiar...)

A futuristic blend of Beth Revis's Across the Universe and Lenore Appelhans's Level 2, Burn Out will satisfy the growing desire for science fiction with a thrilling story of survival, intrigue, and adventure.

Most people want to save the world; seventeen-year-old Tora Reynolds just wants to get the hell off of it. One of the last survivors in Earth's final years, Tora yearns to escape the wasteland her planet has become after the sun turns "red giant," but discovers her fellow survivors are even deadlier than the hostile environment.

And now, please welcome Kristi!

I think thanks to BURN OUT’s summary, the first question all of my blog readers are going to have is, in what way is BURN OUT like LEVEL 2 (aka THE MEMORY OF AFTER)? And who had the idea to use LEVEL 2 as a comp title?

I think both books are similar in that they imagine a world very different than the one we live in today, and though the settings of our books our quite different, both worlds are navigated by strong, female heroines. Our heroines both struggle with complicated feelings toward certain members of the opposite sex, while dealing with life and death issues at the same time. Neither world is easy and the main characters become stronger in some ways, yet more vulnerable in others. It was my editor’s idea to use LEVEL 2 as a comp title, so naturally, I read it that same night and loved it! I can’t wait for Chasing Before to come out this summer!

While I was reading BURN OUT, no joke, I was clutching a bottle of water the whole time. It just made me so thirsty! Were you the same way while writing? Did exploring the concept of the Earth heating up change anything about the way you live?

Ha, yes, I wrote the first draft of BURN OUT in the summer and remember how scorching hot it was on some of those days. Writing the book made me even more conscious about the value of our natural resources and though I’ve always tried to be eco-friendly, I’ve definitely stepped things up a notch. My seven-year-old just learned a song about “water-wasters” for Earth Day at school, so we’re trying to keep the faucet off while we brush our teeth, etc. Sometimes, I’ll get filtered water from the fridge tap and feel intense gratitude that I have clean water on demand. That’s sadly not the case for many parts of the world.

Your supporting characters are so complex and fleshed-out. Is there one of them you could see being the star of his/her own novel? Or maybe one of those eShorts that are so popular these days?

Thank you—they were so much fun to write. I just turned in the sequel to BURN OUT and Markus became my favorite character in the book, so I could see him him being the star of his own novel. He’d certainly think he deserved it and that it would be the best book ever!

Tora's father built a secret room to store all their weapons. If you had a secret room in your house, what would you store in there?

Books. I loved that whole secret book labyrinth in The Shadow of the Wind. Maybe some good bottles of wine too. That way, I can enjoy some great vintages with some great reads.

And just for fun, how do you think Tora would react if she landed in the world of FROZEN and met Elsa?

Thanks to my seven-year-old, I’ve seen the movie about fifty times already. I think Tora would be in absolute awe of the snow and ice, since it’s something she’s never experienced. She’d probably love Elsa and ask her to make snow cones for her on a daily basis, though Tora might ask her to stop singing after the fiftieth rendition of “Let it Go.” Or maybe that’s just me. ;)

Thanks again for having me! :)

________________________

Kristi Helvig is a Ph.D. clinical psychologist turned sci-fi/fantasy author. She muses about Star Trek, space monkeys, and other assorted topics on her blog and Twitter. Kristi resides in sunny Colorado with her hubby, two kiddos, and behaviorally-challenged dogs. Grab a copy of BURN OUT on Amazon, Indiebound, or Barnes & Noble.

Check out what the other Bookanistas are loving this week:

Jessica Love adores BREAKFAST SERVED ANYTIME by Sarah Combs

Rebecca Behrens raves about THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY by Maria E. Andreu

Katy Upperman praises THE EIGHTH GUARDIAN by Meredith McCardle (with giveaway!)

Shari Arnold is crazy for THE THOUSAND DOLLAR TAN LINES by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham

 

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Top Ten Characters Who Are ... CATS!

It's Top Ten Tuesday and also Cat Tuesday, so I couldn't resist combining the two today.

My favorite cat characters:

1. Hamweenie from The Amazing Hamweenie by Patty Bowman

2. Fat Cat from What Will Fat Sit On? by Jan Thomas

3. Fabian from Hondo And Fabian by Peter McCarty

4. Pete the Cat from Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin and James Dean

5. Prin from Fashion Cats

6. Junkyard Cat (aka, Special Agent Jack Bauer) from the TV series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

7. Grimalkin from The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa

8. Maruman from The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody

9. The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland

10. The Aristocats

Bonus photo of Emmy and Kaia:

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Book Review: Enders by Lissa Price

You might recall how much I enjoyed STARTERS, and ENDERS is just as entertaining, fast-paced and twisty.

ENDERS focuses on the Starters who joined up with Prime Destinations and got the chip in their heads. They are now called Metals (probably a more apt title for this installment than Enders, if you ask me), and the head of the now destroyed Prime Destinations is rounding them up and controlling them remotely.

Callie is especially prized because she is the only one of the Metals who has overcome her no-kill programming, and she's also a talented sharp-shooter. She hears the icky voice of the Old Man in her head and he threatens to kill her younger brother if she doesn't cooperate with him. But just as she surrenders herself, a competitor to the old man rescues her as thus begins an epic battle of technology and wills.

What I especially loved about ENDERS was how unpredictable it was. I had no idea where the plot was going and I was genuinely shocked by many of the developments and reveals. The end was satisfying, but made me wish that there were going to be more books in this series.

ENDERS is available in hardcover now. Find out more about it at the author's website.

FTC disclosure: Bought. The author is a personal friend. 

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Book Review: She is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick

This was a great find for me because probably about ten years ago I became obsessed with coincidence after reading a bunch of books about coincidence by coincidence.

Those books were:

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done by Sandra Newman
The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

So this was a A LOT of fun for me for that reason, but I also loved the puzzles, the quirky details, the history lessons and the sheer absurdity of the plotline.

Laureth (named after a shampoo ingredient) answers her father's fan mail (he's an author!) and get a message from someone who has found one of his writing notebooks in New York. But her father is not supposed to be in New York so Laureth worries something is wrong. She worries so much in fact that she kidnaps her younger brother and takes a flight from England to NYC to search for him. 

Laureth is blind, so she needs her brother to help her find her way. Sedgwick does an amazing job of putting us in Laureth's shoes, imagining what it might be like to be visually impaired. Even though Laureth is reckless, she wins points for her endearing relationship with her brother and her drive to never give up.

In addition to the mini-lectures on coincidence, Sedgwick also explores how first impressions can be deceiving to great effect. 

SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE is available now in the UK and comes out in the US next Tuesday. Find out more about it at the author's website.

FTC disclosure: Review copy from the publisher via Netgalley

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