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Guest Post: Behind the Scenes of Writing Just Two Weeks by Amanda Sington-Williams

The inspiration for my psychological thriller ‘Just Two Weeks’ came after a visit to Sri Lanka where I talked to many of the locals about their experiences during the tsunami of 2004. Their stories moved me to such an extent I thought I might write a novel based around the theme of loss. In fact I wrote a plan.  I had already had published ‘The Eloquence of Desire’, a historical romance. When I studied for my MA in Creative Writing at Sussex University we were encouraged to write literary fiction.  The tutors advised us to aim high; we were all good enough to win the Booker!  My plan for a great literary piece progressed until I realised with a shock that it wasn’t working.  What more could I add to this vast subject? I took a break and began to read psychological thrillers, books like ‘Before I go to Sleep’ by S.J. Watson, books that kept you on the edge of your seat, books that you couldn’t put down. This, I realised was what I really wanted to write. And when I began I found I was really enjoying the process.

 In Part 1 of ‘Just Two Weeks’, I still used the location of Sri Lanka. It is a place where the culture and language are alien to the protagonist – fine on a two week break in the sun. But when frightening events take their course, the unrelenting heat and the inability to communicate properly lead to an immense sense of panic and unease.

Part 2, in contrast, is set in The Lake District in northern UK.  It is cold and rainy especially in January, when the novel is set; it is where the protagonist lives and should be a place of comfort, a home to return to. Instead, the feeling of alienation continues as her sense of reality fragments.

So now my psychological thriller ‘Just Two Weeks’ is published. Better still it won the IPR Agents Pick.

And I managed to slip in a teeny bit of that original grand plan. The protagonist takes a book called ‘A Memory of Loss’ on her two week break in the sun!

Read more about this author and her book Just Two Weeks HERE.

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Guest Post - Romance for YA: How to Create the Perfect Book Boyfriend/Girlfriend by Mia Hoddell

Personally, I find that the best book boyfriends/girlfriends are the ones who are imperfect. I think it’s a well-known fact that authors like to be mean to their characters, and I feel this is where the most interesting relationships and characters come from. I like my characters to have flaws, baggage, or some kind of emotional/physical problem. It gives me more to play with and more ways I can develop the relationship.

  By giving the character something to overcome I can put tension into the relationship, give the characters obstacles to work through on their own or together, and I can—hopefully—make the reader sympathise with them. I can also make the boyfriend/girlfriend a type of hero or someone you love because they help.  The flaws can be used to bring the characters closer together or to create a divide, and I think the best characters are the ones who are tested but don’t give up on each other. The perfect boyfriends/girlfriends to me are the ones who are there throughout everything; they make you fall in love with them because of their actions rather than their looks, break your heart, make you laugh, and draw every emotion possible from you along their journey so that you can’t help being sucked into the relationship.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mia Hoddell lives in the UK with her family and two cats. She spends most of her time writing or reading, loves anything paranormal and has an overactive imagination that keeps her up until the early hours of the morning.

With three poems published before the age of sixteen, Mia moved on to short stories but finding she had too much to tell with too little space, Mia progressed to novels. She started her first series (The Wanderer Trilogy) at the age of fourteen and since then hasn’t stopped writing. Seasons of Change is her third series and with an ever growing list of ideas, Mia is trying to keep up with the speed at which her imagination generates them.

Connect with Mia:

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Google+ | Amazon Author Page

 or subscribe to Mia's Newsletter for information on:

 ARCs, giveaways and new releases

**Giveaway**

3x copies of Summer Demons and Winter Angel (ebooks)

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Guest Post: Bob by Tegon Maus

        Do you believe in UFO’s?  It’s almost impossible not too. There are more than 4 Billion Stars in our galaxy… each of those has a string of planets… according to the Drakes formula that works out to a little over 26,000 civilizations at our level and or higher in our galaxy alone and we know about another 12,000 other galaxies in the observable universe so… 

  When I was twelve I lived close to Norton Air Force base. They carried out training exercises on a regular bases doing what was called a “sac run.”  Giant planes called Star Lifters that roared from the sky one after the other to have their wheels touch down for a brief moment and then take off again.   

At that time there was a road at the end of the runway you could park and the planes would pass no more than thirty feet over head. Their power as they floated by shook me to the core. It filled me with fear, trepidation and excitement that has lasted a lifetime.

            Then, late one afternoon as I sat on the hood of my father’s car, I saw it. It gleamed with the brightness of unimaginable silver. It was stunningly thin from tip to tip with a recognizable bulge at its center... a saucer. It floated silently in place, hanging stationary in the air like a balloon and my heart jumped to my throat in surprise. I stared in disbelief as several minutes crept by and it inched closer and closer, inching its way to the ground and to me.            

My heart beat as never before and my mind filled with every Sci-Fi movie, every book, every abduction story I had ever been exposed too. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t move. It was clear... they were coming for me.

At that instant as it was nearly overhead I crawled backward over the roof of the car to stand on the truck. I was about to scream in terror and the craft turned slightly, banking to the right.

It glided softly toward the runway becoming a Star Lifter once more as it roared over head.

My father and I laughed wildly but to this day the image burns in my memory.

I saw it for myself and real or not I believe.

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To read about this author's book, Bob, click HERE.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR, TEGON MAUS:

           I was raised pretty much the same as everyone else... devoted mother, strict father and all the imaginary friends I could conjure. Not that I wasn't friendly, I just wasn't "people orientated". Maybe I lived in my head way more than I should have, maybe not. I liked machines more than people, at least I did until I met my wife.

         The first thing I can remember writing was for her. For the life of me I can't remember what it was about... something about dust bunnies under the bed and monsters in my closet. It must have been pretty good because she married me shortly after that. I spent a good number of years after inventing games and prototypes for a variety of ideas before I got back to writing.          It wasn't a deliberate conscious thought, it was more of a stepping stone. My wife and I had joined a dream interpret group and we were encouraged to write down our dreams as they occurred. "Be as detailed as you can," we were told.          I was thrilled. If there is one thing I enjoy it's making people believe me and I like to exaggerate. Not a big exaggeration or an outright lie mine you, just a little step out of sync, just enough so you couldn't be sure if it were true or not.  When I write, I always write with the effort of "it could happen" very much in mind and nothing, I guarantee you, nothing, makes me happier.

LINKS:

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NaNoWriMo Writers...

How's it going?

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Review: The Reapers by Jacinta Maree

Jordon Hastings dies a horrible death. Then, his afterlife as a Reaper begins.

The first chapter was difficult to get into and took me forever to read. By the next chapter, it picked up.  In the third, a character was introduced that reminded me of Obi Wan Kinobi. Then, I wanted to see where this would lead.

So I followed Jordon down the rabbit hole and watched him wander through the afterlife. And I do meaan wander. The afterlife unfolded before me and I learned about it right along with Jordon. But, there did not seem any purpose to the story until about halfway through. Then, the plot comes together and the previous wanderings begin to make sense and show their purpose. 

This book has two things going for it. The first is the world building. Jordon, the main character goes into the afterlife and sees where souls go. He also visits different underworld realms similar to in the first book. If you are at all curious about that sort of thing, how it all works would be interesting to you.

The second is the lack of romance. For some readers that's a negative aspect because they only read romance novels. However, if you're like my husband and looking for something other than romance, your options may be slim to zilch. In fact, this is the third book I have read since I started reviewing that was completely without a lick of romance. If you are tired of love stories and want to read something different, this may be the book for you.

This second installment of the series was more polished than the first. The writing was colorful and beautifully complex. My advice to the author would be to present the main conflict of the plot early on, preferably within the first or second chapter. It's difficult to maintain interest without it.

This is a clean read and suitable for all ages.

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Writers...

Right??

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NaNoWriMo Participaters...

How's it going?

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November is National Novel Writing Month

Anybody participating? What's your word count? What are your working on?

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Why I Love Thrillers by Stephen Martino

Of all the book genres on the market, thrillers are definitely my favorite. I love to have my heart pounding and fingers tingling, eagerly awaiting to turn the next page. Plus, a real good thriller makes you think about the story for days or even weeks after you finished reading it.

   For example, take two of my most favorite thrillers ever written, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Both of these novels had the basic ingredients needed to make an exciting thriller. Even before the books were written, both authors sat down and thoroughly researched the material they incorporated in their novels. From anthropology and biblical studies all the way to genetic engineering, they obtained the information required to make their books both credible and believable.

Next, both novels had a captivating theme that appealed to a wide audience. The thought of genetically engineering dinosaurs or that Jesus could have possibly had a daughter immediately captivates the imagination. Even before hearing any more about the books, just the topics themselves are tantalizing enough to pique my interest. Finally, what both authors accomplished in creating memorable thrillers was to adeptly incorporate all their research in such a way that it flowed smoothly throughout the novel and never revealed too much information at one time. The more you read, the more you wanted to know. It makes reading them in more than one sitting a difficult task.

It’s definitely an art and talent to produce such quality work, and few have succeeded so adeptly as Crichton and Brown in creating novels that readers will enjoy for generations to come. Fortunately, the world is blessed with many talented authors and other great novels come to mind when I think of fantastic thrillers. They include Timeline again by Michael Crichton, Excavation by James Rollins, and The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. Just like Jurassic Park and The Da Vinci Code, they had the same formula for success. Well researched, interesting topics, and a fantastic flow marked all of their success.

In The New Reality, I attempted to use this same formula to create a novel that more than just entertained the reader. I really wanted to create a thriller with substance, like Brown’s Da Vinci Code or Crichton’s Jurassic Park.

In The New Reality, I have included such hot-button contemporary topics as genetic manipulation, viral pandemics like the MERS virus, unprecedented economic debt, and the rise of big government, combining them with more esoteric subjects such as the Bible Code and the mysteries hidden in the Book of Revelation. Hopefully, the combination will not only entertain but also leave the reader thinking well after the last page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Stephen Martino holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and is a neurologist in New Jersey. If he is not working, he can be found with his 5 children either on the soccer field, in cub scouts or at a dance recital. The New Reality is his first novel. Visit his website at martinoauthor.com.

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Fifty Shades of Grey on the Big Screen: How Will They Do That?

It is hard to sit still while seeing this come to the big screen. If you live under a rock, then maybe you have not seen that the movie trailer for this book came out yesterday because you have not heard of the erotica trilogy that has crossed over into mainstream romance. For you, here is the trailer below.

Or click here.

The movie went into production this year. There have been postings across the internet showing production scenes in Vancouver in May.

Finally, yesterday, the trailer came out.

What do I think?

Well, the same thing I thought soon after reading this and hearing someone wanted to make this into a movie: How in the world will they make this into a mainstream movie without it being porn?

It’s a controversial book with lots of sex. Everyone knows this. The real-live people who enjoy these sorts of acts say the book mistakenly portrays it. Those who are virgins in this territory tend to be somewhat voyeuristic and curious here.  Many enjoyed the book, regardless of the quality of writing. It may have crossed over into the mainstream readership, but guess what?! It’s still in the erotica genre.

I just don’t see how the director can water down those juicy sex scenes and still maintain the integrity of the story.

See, in a normal romance, the director could just clean up the story by cutting out the sex.  In Fifty Shades of Grey, I am not so sure it is that easy. The Red Room is essential to the plot. In every good romance, characters have inner demons and obstacles they must overcome. Christian Grey has some big ones in that Red Room.

Remember the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall?  

The main character, Peter, breaks up with Sarah Marshall. His hang-up is Sarah Marshall. He has a hard time moving on because he cannot get over his ex-girlfriend Sarah. The break up with Sarah is kind of essential to the plot, don’t you think? You can skip it. Peter can say he had a girlfriend named Sarah. Would it be the same? It is that old literary advice of showing events versus telling them. Sure, cut out the breakup. It could happen. It is possible. But, the movie would not be as good, right?

Now, think about this. What if Peter could not really mention Sarah at all? Then, the story would get weird, right? I remember a scene where Peter is profusely crying in his hotel room.

What explanation would he give? He has issues? Um, yeah, I would say he does. Every movie-goer would think any woman the least bit attracted to him was nuts, too.

That’s what cutting out the sex in Fifty Shades of Grey would be like.

Hence, my question: How in the world will they make this into a mainstream movie without it being porn?

It's the Red Room of Pain. It is supposed to be raw, in-your-face, and shocking. Front and center. How will that be watered down and sugar-coated to fill the big screen in a theatre filled with a mainstream audience?

We only have to wait until February 2015 to find out.

Interestingly, Universal Studios has not yet begun production on Fifty Shades Darker. Even as Fifty Shades fans announce their distaste for the cast (myself included), they have not asked Dakota Johnson or Jamie Dornan to come back for the sequel. Nor have screenwriter Kelly Marcel or “polishers” Patrick Marber and Mark Bomback been asked back. Looks like they are sitting back and watching what happens.

Me too. I am more curious than ever.

What about you? What are your thoughts?

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Recapturing the Narrative by Paul Markun

One driving force behind my writing my first novel, The Big Disrupter, came from a surprise I had as an entrepreneur. I thought, like many others, that entrepreneurs got to do it their way. As their own boss they set the goals, their hours and their daily actions.

Not really. My own experience, both as an owner and as part of the leadership of small companies, was the opposite. Yes, you got to choose the name of the company. And your title. But very quickly after that, if you were successful, your customers own you. Your employees cause you all the angst and joy of kids and family. The engineering and wildfire pace of emerging technology restarts your focus monthly. Your banker and your competitors have tremendous influence over what you do. You don't sleep much. You aren’t in control of your narrative at all.

  I left my last software company (I didn’t start the company but was early in the door) on a Friday afternoon and began writing my first novel Monday morning at six a.m. If there was a character annoying me, I changed her. If something appeared impossible, I invented a smarter, stronger way. If the pace was slow–suddenly a new thread began with a twisted villain. What a thrill! The ideas bubbling up went to paper not to committee.

In my writing I used the backdrop of young entrepreneurs starting a company as the context of their journey. I lived that world, thriving with the dreamers, enraged by the takers, and battling for funding and revenue and brand success. I had lived in a mountain town among extreme athletes and skiers, so that part also came naturally. Still, there were many experts to interview and much research to conduct. It took three complete rewrites and two and a half years for me to complete the book. Three times my experienced ‘thriller editor’ returned the printed manuscript with ripped out chapters, slashed business detail, and extraneous characters rubbed out.

In the end, there is a moral to the story. Here in Silicon Valley I see a few generous entrepreneurs giving back tremendously and I blog and tweet about them. But many others take the U.S.’s fertile and stable pro-business ecosystem for granted. The ‘smartest guys and gals in the room’ sometimes think they are automatically due their billions. My heroes think bigger than that. 

Like the learning curve in business, I hope my writing improves with experience. My mother, along with raising four kids, and working as a speechwriter in Washington, D.C. for decades, also wrote eleven books of children’s fiction. I have a long way to go but many sources of inspiration.

To read more about this author and his latest book, The Big Disrupter, click HERE.

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Review: The Plot Thickens by Danielle-Claude Ngongtang Mba

At the end of Bird of Prey, Polliannah's mysterious new beau John was shot. The Plot Thickens is their story, Polliannah and John's.

The beginning of The Plot Thickens did not pick up right where Bird of Prey ended. This whole book is about Polliannah and John. However, it is not the whole story. It's more like a catch-up story. This read like a flashback episode from LOST: you know the whole story arc but are looking back on the history of one character. About 75% of the way through, I wondered if we were ever going to get to John's death, let alone Semya investigating John's death. I guess Semya's investigation will be book three? I am not sure. I have not read the synopsis yet. 

Now, you might think that the whole book is a romance story, a love story where you know it ends tragically. It is so much more. There are other questions and pieces of a much bigger puzzle. In reading this, I know not to get too invested in John and yet, I couldn't help liking him and really feeling for him. I didn't care about the romance. In fact, at times, I thought there was a little too much sex that did not add much to the plot. Apparently, so did the author. The level of dawdling was perfect.

The story is there, but not too much. It's enough to tell you what happened without dragging you along. It has a great balance of getting on with the story, building characters and telling the story. Most importantly, there's a reason for every bit. Every scene you get a little nugget. A little clue is hinted. Or a character pokes at something which raises a question or two. It is these nudges that just propel you through this. 

Mechanically-speaking, in the version I read, the writing seemed professionally edited. Sure, there's an occasional word missing here or there. But nothing glaringly obvious or irritatingly jarring. There are cliffhanger endings in this series. But, and this is a big BUT, I don't mind. If you follow me, you know I loathe cliffhanger endings. This is a good example of how to write a good cliffhanger ending. It works here. It really does. It works because an entire story is told. The first book solved an unrelated double homicide. The second tells a story about what's going on with one character and how she ended up across the pond hiding in a hotel room with a dead body. I'm ok with that. Now I can't wait to hear what happens next!

Wonderfully baffling and refreshingly different for the genre, this proves not all mysteries have to be crime thrillers. I'm hooked. Loved this!

Due to its sexual content, this is best suited for adults. (It is not erotica by a long-shot nor overly graphic.) 

Click HERE to read more about this book.

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My Latest Review in BTS eMag: Prophesy by Stephen H. King

Or click HERE for the full magazine. My review (above) is on page 151.

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Review: Bird of Prey by Danielle-Claude Ngontang Mba

Semya Slovin agrees to corporate espionage because she needs the money. Soon her investigation turns to murder.

This was a good gumshoe story with just the right amount of bread crumbs to bring this mystery home. And I know mysteries and action. I will gladly pick up the sequel or any other book in this series.

I did find this difficult to get into. It took me over a week, in fact. There are two reasons:

First, it seems to me the author’s first language is not English. I noticed the many errors present here, but soon realized they resembled French. I then looked it up and saw the author is from Quebec. I spent some time there and so I know not all Quebecois are francophones.  Was this translated from French?! I might not be correct on this, but I am right that this book needs a good once over by a good editor. While we are talking about language, I do compliment the author on the use of foreign languages here. Word choices beautifully enhanced characters and their dialogues but then all was immediately translated. I didn’t need to flip through the book to get to a glossary or open up Google Translate. This was well done.

Second, the main character, Semya. Semya is a highly educated, amateur detective with degrees in criminology, computer science, and the like. She’s a strong lead character with a high IQ. Like, Mr. Monk, but without the OCD ticks. No, her ticks are more classic detective: drinking and casual sex. It turned me off. But, then, I realized she is just like Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. She is the stereotypical boozing P.I. sleaze without the trench coat. But with boobs. Then, I liked her. And the guy she was sleeping with? He is not so casual. No, he is in love with her.

Apart from these two points, this book took off and really had me hooked. The mystery was deliciously complicated. The murder unexpected.  The surprising story contained enough plot twists to keep me guessing. Character development was weak but present. I learned what a “bird of prey” is. Any time I learn something new after reading crime fiction for eons is a bonus! I even loved all of the refreshingly different names of the characters.

So, yeah. Loved it. I have book two. I will read that next. Who’s with me?

Due to its sexual content, this is best suited for adults. (It is not erotica by a long-shot nor overly graphic.)  

Read more about this book HERE.

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Review: Surrender by Rhiannon Paille

Falling in love with Krishani may not be Kaliel's only problem. In a world where elves don't normally fall in love, Kaliel is about to unwittingly start a war because someone is coming for her.

The Avristar world is creative. World-building is subtle, descriptions weaved into the plot.    There is enough romantic build where you look forward to Krishani and Kaliel interacting.  The story unfolds realistically. This is decent Fantasy writing.

The book muddled through certain aspects of the plot. For a good portion of the book, I could not understand for the life of me why the two main characters could not be together. That part did not make sense. Elves don't fall in love. So...? Who cares, right? We are told they will marry the land. What?! Marry the land? What does that even mean? I read the book and still have no idea. 

The plot thickens, things get rough, and as a reader, I cannot even guess what will happen next. I have never heard of some of the creatures. I don't know what they are like. The story doesn't talk about the kingdom's defense system much. There is hardly any description of the magical abilities of many characters. While this leaves the door open for anything to happen, this also doesn't build much tension or suspense. 

I read this as an audiobook. The female voice was quite enjoyable. While it could be her dialect, she did mispronounce a word here and there. The narrator also had mismatched expressions in the dialogue, (ie. being overly enthusiastic for a somber moment or vice versa). I liked her version of Puck. Overall, she was good and I liked her.

The ending almost always makes or breaks a book for me. Generally, I am not a fan of cliffhanger endings. This end of this book is a sight never before seen. After the end, I thought I was confused. Then, the book continued with a new chapter entitled, "Alternate Ending". This new version starts out with an ending that was impossible given the previous. So...which is the end?  I don't know! The only redeeming quality here is the inclusion of chapter one of book two. I am still really confused.

Overall, I found this interesting, creative, and refreshingly unique. A clean read, this is suitable for young adults.