Thursday, May 8, 2014
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Cover Reveal: WHO R U REALLY
To celebrate the cover
reveal for Who R U Really? Margo Kelly is giving away TWO Advance Reader
Copies of the book! Visit www.margokelly.net
to enter by Sunday, May 11, 2014!
WHO R U REALLY?
by Margo Kelly
Merit Press --
September 18, 2014
Description:
Thea's overprotective
parents are driving her insane. They invade her privacy, ask too many
questions, and restrict her online time so severely that Thea feels she has no
life at all. When she discovers a new role-playing game online, Thea breaks the
rules by staying up late to play. She's living a double life: on one hand, the
obedient daughter; on the other, a girl slipping deeper into darkness. In the
world of the game, Thea falls under the spell of Kit, an older boy whose smarts
and savvy can't defeat his loneliness and near-suicidal despair. As Kit draws
soft-hearted Thea into his drama, she creates a full plate of cover stories for
her parents and then even her friends.
Soon, Thea is all
alone in the dark world with Kit, who worries her more and more, but also seems
to be the only person who really "gets" her. Is he frightening, the
way he seems sometimes, or only terribly sad? Should Thea fear Kit, or pity
him? And now, Kit wants to come out of the screen and bring Thea into his
real-life world. As much as she suspects that this is wrong, Thea is powerless
to resist Kit's allure, and hurtles toward the same dark fate her parents
feared most. Ripped from a real-life story of Internet stalking, Who R
U Really? will excite you and scare you, as Thea's life spins out of
control.
About the Author:
Margo Kelly is a
native of the Northwest and currently resides in Idaho. A veteran public
speaker, Margo is now actively pursuing her love of writing. Who R
U Really? is her debut novel and will be published by Merit Press in
September 2014. Margo welcomes opportunities to speak to youth groups, library
groups, and book clubs.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Author Spotlight: Jane Jazz
Hilary Mantel has spoken of ideas circling above her
like aeroplanes waiting to land, but mine are silvery moths. They flutter round
my head all day and wake me up at night. I have to capture them swiftly and pin
them to the page before they dissolve. Over my writing career I have written
newspaper articles, magazine features, advertising copy, short stories, poetry
and songs. I even wrote greetings card verses for a time (I know) but although
ludicrously lucrative, it had to stop. I was starting to think in rhyming
couplets.
We recently relocated from wuthering moors to blue
remembered hills and I love the gentle Shropshire landscape, but still miss dramatic
Yorkshire hills and dales. Tantalus was written in our draughty old Yorkshire
vicarage - one of a pair built for neighbouring artists in the late 1800s. The
houses had adjacent studios and whenever I walked through our side voices would
whisper at me. Loudly. Loud whispers can be hard to ignore, and they didn't
give me any peace until I started to write their story.
As a writer and a reader, I find the slightly impossible
quite irresistible...
Q&A
If
you could be best friends with another author (past or present), who would it
be?
I
would like to have befriended Emily Brontë. I loved Wuthering Heights and
felt we had a lot in common when I was growing up. It’s such a shame she only
lived long enough to write one novel; it would have been fascinating to see her
develop as an author. I lived across the valley from their old home - The
Haworth Parsonage - for several years and often visited the Brontë museum. It
was fascinating to see her tiny dresses and shoes, and walk around the rooms
where she and her sisters lived.
What
made you decide to become a writer?
I can’t really
remember a time when I didn’t write, and I still have a tattered cardboard box
full of all the little stories and poems I penned as a child. My family moved
around a lot through my childhood, so I was quite a lonely little girl and
spent a lot of time reading. It just seemed natural to start telling stories as
soon as I could scribble.
What
is the most rewarding part of writing?
That’s
easy! I have all these people whispering in my ears all day long, and if I
don’t write down their words the whispering turns to shouting. It is quite a
luxury to be able to invent my own world and create the people I spend time
with there. I get so lost in their lives that it’s sometimes hard to leave…
Do
you write every day? Do you set word goals?
I
have spent years as a freelance copywriter, so I’m used to writing all day. If
I can’t be at my desk I write in my notebook and type it up later. I don’t have
set word goals as the words usually come faster than I can type, but I do have
a problem with stopping at a reasonable time to make sure I get enough sleep!
Do
you have any writing rituals? How about any favorite writing spots?
My
ritual is to wake up with strong coffee, then comb through what I wrote the
previous day before writing a word – partly to tidy it up, but also to dig
myself back down into this other world, after the hours away from my characters.
I
usually write at my desk, overlooking
the Shropshire countryside. It’s a lovely, rural view but nothing much
happens in it – a lot less distracting than if I overlooked bustling city
streets!
Is
there any special writing paraphernalia that you’re obsessed with: notebooks,
pens, special paper?
I make lots of notes and like to
have gorgeous notebooks for this. Currently I’m using a dusky-pink leather book
but it’s getting quite full. I’m eyeing the next one already: an embossed,
metallic-finish Mucha design, with a
little pocket for loose papers, and a magnetic flap to snap it shut. It might
be a bit decadent, but I’m convinced it makes me more creative!
TANTALUS
Jane Jazz
316 Pages
Synopsis
Sylvia,
a lonely young polio survivor, is fighting hard to be independent, scraping a
living as an artist in a neglected old house. In the last moments of the first
day of May 1975, she sees something dark stir the shadows in her studio,
something that makes her long to be back home and safely tucked up in her
childhood bed.
Sylvia is about to discover that the past and future are closer than they seem... separated only by a quicksilver wall of now.
With one foot planted firmly in the Yorkshire hills and the other in the marble mountains of Carrara in Tuscany, Tantalus explores the torment of soulmates forced to live apart.
Sylvia is about to discover that the past and future are closer than they seem... separated only by a quicksilver wall of now.
With one foot planted firmly in the Yorkshire hills and the other in the marble mountains of Carrara in Tuscany, Tantalus explores the torment of soulmates forced to live apart.
The
anguish and ecstasy are familiar, as is the devastating meltdown when one of
them finally snaps, but the plight of Sylvia and Tom is unique and surreal,
requiring the reader to undo just the top few buttons of reality.
Learn more about Jane and her books at the links below.