Dream Destinations and more!

To celebrate the launch of their books
Soul Cutter and The Ghosts of Aquinnah

Lexi Cain and Julie Flanders are holding an awsome blog hop.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, 
where would you go?
Beaches of Hawaii? Slopes of Vail? Cancun, Paris, or Rome?
Where is your Dream Destination?

Before I tell you where in the world I'd love to go (okay, while I think hard about it), let me share the gorgeous books being launched today.

I'm lucky enough to be Lexa's critique partner, so I've already had the good fortune to have read Soul Cutter.  And even if she wasn't my bestie, I'd be urging you to read this one.  Lexa writes the best action scenes, and this book is a heart-stopper from start to finish.  I seriously could not recommend it more highly.

Soul Cutter
 BUY LINKS:

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Smashwords ~ Kobo ~ MuseItUp  

Julie's book sounds great too.  I mean, who doesn't like a good ghost story on a dark and stormy night?  

Now... My dream destination.  You know, this is a tough one.  I've traveled all my life and I've been a lot of wonderful places.  Before I had kids, when life got boring in one place, it was easy enough to pack up and move somewhere else.  Now I've been living in New Zealand longer than I've ever lived anywhere in my life.  Isn't that freaky?

So for my dream destination, I've gone back to my childhood dreams.  When I was about ten, I saw a movie about an archaeologist (no, not Indiana Jones.  I can't remember the name of the film) and it looked like such an exciting profession.  I mean, uncovering priceless, ancient treasures?  Ducking curses and booby traps set by ancient cultures?  How exciting!  I spent hours in museums in every city I visited, studying the artifacts pulled from pyramids and tombs.

Yet despite my worldly ramblings, I have never set foot on the African continent.  I've never been to Egypt.  And I'd love to go and see the place that really started my childhood dream.  Of course I didn't actually become an archaeologist, but that curious, daring little girl still lives inside me and she would love to come face to face with the Sphinx or see the pyramids.

And of course, Egypt is where my dear friend Lexa lives, so if I was to go, there would definitely be a day or two reserved for seeing her and letting her show me the Egypt she knows.  It's always different when you see a place with someone who actually lives there and knows the place in a way you never can as a tourist.

What would your dream destination be?

Dream Destination Blog Hop

My friend and CP, Lexa Cain's book, Soul Cutter, comes out on Friday this week.  I'm so excited for her because her book is fantastic. As part of the release, she and fellow author, Julie Flanders are hosting a really inventive blog hop contest with amazing prizes including agent critiques and masses of books.

The Dream Destination Blog-Hop is almost here!!!

On Thursday Dec 5, 

1. Post about your Dream Destination with blog-hop badge.
2. Post links to Lexa and Julie's blogs --
                   http://lexacain.blogspot.com/
                   http://julieflanders.blogspot.com/
--  and invite your visitors to go there and enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway.

3. Don't forget to go and enter the giveaway yourself!
4. Use the Linky tool to visit the other bloggers to see the wonderful places they want to visit!

Click HERE to find out about all the fantastic prizes you can win!  

I'm entering, so pop back on Thursday to find out about my dream destination....

Celebrate the small things? Nah! This one's huge!

This post is part of VikLit's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to join up! 


So, what am I celebrating this week?




My cover!  It's so amazingly gorgeous.  Waiting two days to share it with you all was torture, but I think worthwhile.  So without further ado, allow me to show you the absolutely perfect artwork my publisher's cover designer came up with....

Isn't it gorgeous?

And here's a little about the book for those of you who may not have been around when I was angst-ridden on draft number 486 of The Boyfriend Plague.

Things at home are rough for fifteen-year-old Livvie Quinn. Jules, her beloved older sister is sick again after being cancer free for almost ten years.  Her mom becomes more frantic and unapproachable every day. School isn’t much better.  Just when she needs them most, her closest friends get boyfriends and have little time for Livvie – except to set her up on a series of disastrous blind dates.

Livvie seeks refuge in the art room and finds Bianca, the school ‘freak’.  Free-spirited and confident, Bianca is everything Livvie isn’t. Shaken by her mom’s desperation, her sister’s deteriorating condition, and abandoned by her friends, Livvie finds comfort and an attraction she never felt before with Bianca.

When their relationship is discovered, Livvie and Bianca become victims of persecution and bullying. School authorities won’t help and even forbid the pair to attend the Winter Formal as a couple. If Livvie defies them and goes, she risks expulsion and further ridicule from her classmates. At home, her mother’s behavior escalates to new levels of crazy and Jules is begging for help to end the pain once and for all.

While searching for the strength to make her life her own, Livvie must decide how far she’s willing to go for the people she loves.

An Unstill Life will be available through Musa Publishing on January 3rd.  You can add it on Goodreads too, if you want.  I'd love it if you did.

What are you celebrating this week?

Teasing....

I just got my cover art from my publisher and holy crap is it beautiful!  I never imagined that my book's cover could look so amazing.  I can't wait to share it with you all, so you can all see this thing of beauty.

But you'll have to wait...  That's the teasing thing.  But not for long.  I will be unveiling the cover of AN UNSTILL LIFE (formerly, The Boyfriend Plague) on Friday.

And there will be other people out there in blog-land helping me to share over the next week too.  So pop back here on Friday to get a first peek, and I'll keep you updated about where else you may catch it as the days go by.

Celebrate the Small Things 22-11-13

This post is part of VikLit's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Head on over there to join up! 


So, what am I celebrating this week?




I got my edits from my publisher.  And they were not nearly as daunting as I thought they might be.  Since Wednesday I've managed to get through fourteen chapters, so I'm almost at the halfway point.  I'm hoping to have got through them all by the middle of next week.

Summer seems to have arrived.  The weather has been stunning all week, which is not good for business, but is great for my walk to and from work every day.  I've actually been enjoying it, despite the walk there being up a pretty steep hill.

And that's about it for this week.  What are you celebrating?

Edits

My editor sent through edits on my book yesterday.  I saw the email sitting in my in-box and felt my chest seize up with fear.  I wanted to open the file right away to see what was in store, but I didn't.  In fact, I didn't even look until the following morning when I knew I'd be fresher and more able to process what I had to do.

Which meant I had a long night of tossing and turning while I worried about how much work I have ahead of me.  The deadline for my book is really soon (December 6th), so I'm very aware of the ticking clock behind me. I have a lot on at work at the moment as well as a family who like me to come out of my writing cave on occasion.  So I was concerned.

So, I opened the document with great trepidation.  The first few pages were a cloud of 'track-changes' bubbles and my heart sank.  But when I got closer and actually started reading them, I realized there was nothing too major that has to be done.  I've done the really big stuff already.

And believe me, that was a relief!  But now I can settle in and do the edits without worrying too much about the time I have to do them because I'm confident I can knock them off easily in a few days.

Phew!

Have you ever had unfounded panic about something, only to discover it's not nearly as bad as you might think?