Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you had an amazing holiday with your family and continue to enjoy some vacation time or relaxing time as the new year approaches. I am on vacation, but wanted to mention that BEAUTIFUL DEMONS is being featured today on Bargain Books for your Nook! This is a great new site that features good bargains for Nook that are $4.99 or less. Perfect just in time for the holidays when I'm sure so many people received their first ereaders. Please hop over and check it out and if you haven't read the first book in my Peachville High Demons series yet, be sure to pick it up for just $0.99!!!
Rival Demons Release Date
Last week, I had a long talk with my critique group about the timeline for RIVAL DEMONS. We set up dates for when I need to get the completed book to them, and then when we are going to meet to go through the book with their comments. I'm so excited that there has finally been some movement on this book and that I can finally give you a release date!!!
Rival Demons will be published by January 20, 2012!! I know it's a lot later than I originally planned, but life happens and time slips away from you sometimes. I probably could have put out a lesser quality book a lot faster, but that wouldn't be right for me or for you. I owe it to everyone (even Harper!) to write the very best book I can write. And though there have been some bumps in the road (baby bumps, that is), I am really happy with the way this book is turning out.
I hope you'll all be excited that we finally have a target date to look forward to. I put a countdown here on the right side of the blog to keep me motivated and to let you all keep track of how long until the book comes out. Just barely over a month now! I'm very excited to have you all read this book. In some ways, it's very different from the previous books in that it takes place entirely in the Shadow World. You will meet a lot of new characters and find out some very interesting things about the people you already know and love. I won't give away anything more than that for now, but as we get closer, I might release a sneak peek of the beginning of the book here on my blog.
What do you think? Are you excited to read the fifth book in the Peachville High Demons series?
More Updates!
Hi everyone! I think I have finally hit a much better place in my pregnancy. My energy is coming back, and so is my motivation with writing. Whew, that was certainly a tough first few months! A lot of people told me that I would start to feel better in the second trimester, and now that I've hit the 13 week mark, I really am feeling so much better. I hate to think about the fact that I've left so many of my fans waiting for the next book. I never intended to take so long to get Book 5 out, and I'm so sorry if I've disappointed you guys.
On a happy note, though, for the past week I've been working on the book as if it were old times. 3,000-5,000 words a day of revisions and new scenes, which is super exciting. And I know the question on everyone's mind is: When is the book coming out??
I figured after all this waiting, you deserved to be kept in the loop about how things are progressing and when the book should be coming out. Also, I think it will help keep me motivated if I keep running updates going here on my blog. So here's what is next for Rival Demons:
- First, I need to finish all of the revisions and rewrites. I already have an expected timeline on this, but am not quite ready to share yet.
- Once the book is finished, I will pass it off to my critique group. Because of things going on in their lives, along with the holidays coming up and family time, I am expecting it to take them about 2 weeks to read through the entire book and write out their comments.
- After the critique group goes through the book, we will schedule a long meeting to go through the book page-by-page, talking about any errors, any problems with the plot or things that don't make sense. My critique group is possibly the most amazing group in the world. They are very thorough and help me so much, so this is one of the most important steps.
- As long as there are no major problems with the book, I usually just take about three or four days to go through everyone's comments and make all the changes I agree with. Then, I read through the book a few more times, putting the final touches in.
- Once the book is completely done, then comes the formatting. This also takes a couple of days.
- Finally, release day!!
While there are still a lot of steps left in the process before we get to release day, the biggest obstacle is really just finishing the book. Of course, that always sounds easier than it really is. :P But with my energy coming back, I think this will go quickly. The rough draft was completed several months ago, so it's the revisions and rewrites I am working on now, and I'm very happy with how the story is coming together. My truest hope is that when the book finally comes out, all of you will be happy with the results too!
On Friday, I am planning to officially announce the release date for Rival Demons, so I hope you'll come back to the blog this week to check up on the progress and see when you can expect Rival Demons to (finally) be released!!
Cover Reveal!! RIVAL DEMONS
While I still don't know a final release date for the book, I did want to go ahead and give you a look at the cover for Book 5 of the Peachville High Demons series. I have to tell you, this is one of my favorite covers of the series because it's the first one where the girl is looking straight on to the camera. To me, it fits this book perfectly because as you'll see, in a lot of ways, Harper's eyes are being opened to the ways of the Order and to her own destiny.
I hope you like the cover as much as I do!! Thanks for all the messages over the past few days about your excitement for book 5 to come out. I really can't believe it's December already, but time is flying by as we get closer and closer to the holidays.
Have a great weekend everyone. More updates and blog posts to come next week.
Book Review: Once Dead, Twice Shy by Kim Harrison
I know I already try to keep track of the books I'm reading through Goodreads, but I thought I would also put some thoughts on these books up on my blog. Especially when what I read is mostly Young Adult fiction anyway. Since I've been feeling a bit less than ideal lately, my husband suggested I spend more time reading. His goal, of course, is to try to get rid of some of the mountain of YA books I have stacked around the house, haha! Our rule is that when I finish a book, I have to give it away or sell it at the used bookstore unless it's one of my favorites, in which case I get to keep it. With that said, I'm hoping to be reading more in the upcoming months.
My latest pick from my shelves was "Once Dead, Twice Shy" by Kim Harrison. This is a relatively short YA and is Kim Harrison's debut YA book.
I originally picked up this book because I was really drawn to the cover. It's got a punk kind of look to it, so I thought the heroine might be kind of bad-ass. Plus, this is another example of a NYT bestselling author throwing her hat into the ring of YA, so I figured it would be worth checking out.
I will do my best to keep the spoilers out of this, but still let you know what I thought of the book. I did finish the book, which is saying something for me lately. It seems like I'm constantly in search of the type of book that will draw me in from the start and just not let go. For me, those types of books are few and far between, and unfortunately, Once Dead was not one of those grabber kind of books.
Here's the blurb from the inside cover jacket:
Madison's prom was killer - literally. For some reason, she's been targeted by a dark reaper - yeah, that kind of reaper - intent on getting rid of her, body and soul. But before the reaper could finish the job, Madison was able to snag his strange, glowing amulet and get away.
Now she's stuck on Earth - dead but not gone. Somehow the amulet gives her the illusion of a body, allowing her to toe the line between life and death. She still doesn't know why the dark reaper is after her, but she's not about to just sit around and let fate take its course.
With a little ingenuity, some light-bending, and the help of a light reaper (one of the good guys! Maybe...), her cute crush, and oh yeah, her guardian angel, Madison's ready to take control of her own destiny once and for all, before it takes control of her.
Well, if she believed in that stuff.
Great premise, right? I mean, angels, reapers, a hint of some kind of magic. Sounds great. Unfortunately, the beginning was super slow for me. It wasn't quite slow enough to make me put it down and stop reading, but then again, it was probably not until after page 100 of an only 232 page book that I started getting interested enough to want to stay up past my bedtime to read. Part of it for me was that the beginning was confusing. Wait, she's dead? And what exactly is Barnabas, this light-reaper, trying to teach her to do? I didn't get it at first and had to do a lot of re-reading to figure it out.
Also, I think sometimes the fact that Kim Harrison is used to writing adult novels showed itself pretty glaringly. The language these teens use in a lot of the dialogue (especially for a teen like Madison who is supposed to be kind of punk and off-beat) is very stilted. Other times, she uses teen-speak like freaking, which does sound punk, but then also phrases like 'puppy presents', which sounds more like it belongs on the mouth of a do-gooder Christian girl who couldn't bear to swear. I guess for me, it just seemed inconsistent at times. Sometimes, though, the writing was so beautiful. "Looking up, I was blinded by the sun reflecting upon a moving blade, and I gasped as it sliced cleanly through me with the sensation of dry feathers against my soul." (p. 17 in the hardcover) Beautiful writing, right? Yes, but since it's supposed to be Madison's voice here, why does she use the word 'upon'? That doesn't sound very naturally teen to me. It sounds like the author's voice instead. See what I mean?
Or am I being super picky? Lol. Probabaly too picky, I know, but sometimes that's the problem with adult authors writing YA - I'm not sure I believe the voice. And little words like 'upon' instead of just 'on' throw me out of the teen's head just a little bit.
But like I said, somewhere after about page 100, I started really getting into the story. The conflict suddenly seemed real and I was rooting for Madison to figure it all out and learn to use the amulet she'd stolen from the dark reaper. The last few chapters were by far the best part of the book and kept me reading late into the night. Bottom line? If you can make it through the slower first part of the book, I think you'll really enjoy this read. This is also just the first book in a series. I recently purchased book 2, "Early to Death, Early to Rise", and plan to start it right away. There is third book also, titled "Something Deadly This Way Comes".
Have you read this book? Have you read any of Kim Harrison's adult novels? How do they compare? What did you think of 'Once Dead'?
