A Most Happy List of Books!

I call this a most happy list because it's a list of books that came through contests I helped host and got agents or just went straight to getting publishing deals! So for your inspiration for today, I wanted to show this list again and say, "Look! This stuff happens!"

Perhaps someday you'll have a book on this list! 

And here is the list I've called from Contest to Contract.  It has sixteen books and growing! So please do let me know if you've been in a contest and now have a book on Goodreads that I can add to the list.

In related happiness, I also created a list to showcase the books of our mentors. Some of them came from the contests, though the vast majority came from querying. Please take a look at this list also of Writers who Help Writers. If you see something that looks fun to read, you'll also be support a writer who supports you! 

New Release: THE BEST KEPT SECRET

In high school, everyone has secrets. Even well-brought-up Emma Fraser.

Emma’s sophomore year started out all wrong. First, her best friend Andy confessed to losing his virginity leaving Emma all alone in the V-Club. Then the rest of her friends got weird and suddenly Emma finds herself feeling like the people she knows best have become total strangers. And total strangers are becoming friends.

When Deegan Burke, a rich, gorgeous senior, asks Emma to be his date for the prom, Emma thinks her luck has begun to change. But rather than being able to bask in this newfound glory, her whole world starts to unravel. And when secrets that once seemed so innocent start to take a very dangerous turn, Emma discovers that true friends are friends no matter what…and some secrets aren’t worth keeping.

Amazon US:

Amazon UK: 

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Wendi Nunnery is the author of The Mayfield Family Story. She is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and The Simply Beloved, a lifestyle website for women of faith. She is a proud alumna of Georgia Southern University and, at any given time, you can find her with a cup of coffee and a book. She lives, loves, and mothers in Atlanta, Georgia. The Best Kept Secret is her first novel.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/wendinunneryauthor

Twitter: @ladynunnery

Instagram: @ladynunnery

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/ladynunnery

Blog: www.wendinunnery.com

Happy Release for Call Sign Karma

CALL SIGN KARMA by JAMIE RAE 

 

ABOUT CALL SIGN: KARMA

Love in the no-fly zone…

Distraught over the loss of her brother in a fighter jet accident, Tinklee Pinkerton decides to follow in his footsteps—and prove the tragedy wasn’t his fault. But when she’s chosen as the first woman to fly the Air Force’s F-35, her plan for a life that revolves around work is thrown off course by a handsome, mysterious stranger…

Thanks to Locke’s seductive British accent, sweet nature, and one too many beers, Tink is soon inspired to throw caution to the wind—and herself into his arms. She thinks maybe love can heal after all—until she discovers Locke is her superior officer. Tink has no problem risking her life in the air, but with everything on the line, is she brave enough to risk her heart on the ground?

5 Things you may not know about Call Sign Karma

1. Tink is a twenty-two year old, strong female heroine who is a student in flight school.

What drew you to write in the new adult genre?

I was already following a lot of New Adult authors and reading their novels. I loved the risks they took, trying something new and writing about an age group underrepresented in publishing. My own “new adult” years were exciting and challenging, and I was eager to explore writing in the genre. An idea came to me, about a female fighter pilot who was in flight school, sort of a modern day Top Gun with a unique twist.

2. In Call Sign Karma, Tink falls in love with her superior officer.

What were some challenges of writing a romance where both characters are in the military.

With both members being in the military, there were certain lines that couldn’t be crossed in order to keep the story realistic. Also the characters are supposed to be professional, disciplined men and women who are expected to follow orders and compartmentalize their emotions to focus on the mission, so at times it was difficult to keep the characters from reacting with raw emotion. Thankfully, Tink and some of her squadron members don’t always play by the rules. ;-)

3. Tink flies the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in the book.

How did you research the Air Force’s newest jet?

My husband is an active duty fighter pilot so I relied on his expertise, knowledge and personal experiences. I talked to other pilots, photographers, and studied media coverage of the plane. I also had the opportunity to see the plane in real life.

4. Like the heroine, I served in the military.

How did you draw from some of these experiences when you wrote the book?

I lived and experienced first-hand life in the military so a lot of the story is fairly accurate of how life can be in the military. There was one section of the story where my editor asked if would it be realistic for them to have alcohol in a squadron bar. I had to chuckle, knowing that it was one of the most realistic aspects of the story. Also, the military offers a lot of camaraderie that I hope is well-depicted in the story. Some of my closest friends, I made while serving.

5. Call Sign Karma is a stand-alone novel but intended to be part of a three book series.

Who was your favorite character to write? Why?

I spent so much time with Tink, that of course, I love her. So I’m going to disqualify her from the running and say Ash. I really had fun writing his character. He has a boyish charm, quick-wit and he’s an all-around stand-up guy. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s super hot and Special Forces. I’m currently working on his story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 JAMIE RAE is a New Adult and Young Adult author. She writes with one goal in mind - to create stories with a positive message that will stay with the reader long after they've finished reading.

Jamie is an avid reader and loves discovering stories with a great hook. She will not eat, sleep, or speak until she reaches the end. The Harry Potter years weren't pretty! Convinced that her Hogwarts letter was lost in the mail, she keeps a watchful eye for owls hoping her children will have better luck.

In her other life, Jamie Rae creates smiles to last a lifetime as an orthodontist, keeps her heart overflowing with love as a mother of three and has perfected the art of nomadic living as a military spouse and Air Force veteran. Jamie has a passion for critters of all shapes and sizes and you can often find her sneaking them into her own home or volunteering for rescues.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Website- www.jamieraewrites.com

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/JamieRaeAuthor

Twitter- https://twitter.com/JamieRaeWrites

Instagram- JamieRaeWrites

Blog- http://jamieraewrites.wordpress.com

Tumblr- https://www.tumblr.com/blog/jamieraewrites

BUY LINKS

Amazon- http://www.amazon.com/Call-Sign-Karma-Jamie-Rae-ebook/dp/B00OZUMI7O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419799396&sr=8-1&keywords=call+sign+karma

BN.com- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/call-sign-karma-jamie-rae/1120657536?ean=9781616506711

iTunes- https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/call-sign-karma/id934875813?mt=11

Best Box of Books Ever!

The long awaited box of books arrived from my publisher yesterday! I wasn't really expecting it so it came as a pleasant surprise. Sort of an early birthday present.

Many of them are already promised to winners of other contests, friends, and libraries, but I hope to have some giveaways soon. 

Who doesn't love a giveaway! Any ideas?

I also did an interview for Amy Trueblood about publishing choices. There are so many roads to take in publishing these days, and no reason that a writer can't take more than one of them. I tried to explain why I decided to go with a small press over at Chasing the Crazies.

New Release: Human No Longer

Please welcome back Kathryn Meyer Griffith with the story of her latest release. Seventeen books and counting. That's amazing, Kathryn. What's more amazing is this one she self-published. There are just so many opportunities to explore in publishing these days.

Human No Longer. It’s my 17^th published book – yeah! – and my fourth vampire novel. First, let me tell you where I got the idea for it. About five years ago, I was still trying to please the agent (who I no longer have) who’d sold four of my earlier paperback novels to Zebra in the 1990’s and, because she didn’t seem to like any of my new potential concepts, I asked her what she would like to see. Out of nowhere, she said, “You know your 1991 Zebra vampire novel, Vampire Blood? I liked that one a lot. The characters. Well, how about writing me a sort of sequel with basically the same cast, but with this premise: A woman, a mother, after being turned into a bloodthirsty vampire, must learn to adapt to the human world and still be a good mother. You know, how would she deal with everything when she had children she loved; didn’t want to hurt or leave them…but still had the need to feed on blood? Still had all the urges and desires of a vampire?

Yikes. I hated the idea but, to please her, I went ahead and begrudgingly wrote the book. I tentatively called it The Vampire’s Children or the Vampire Mother or something like that. I finished it. Not too happy with it. I had never liked writing what other people wanted me to write. Stubborn, I guess.

My agent, in the meantime, had begun her own online erotic (which I don’t much care to write) publishing company and when I’d gotten done with the novel she was too busy to even read the finished book. She handed it off to an apprentice intern. An intern? What? Who didn’t like it at all. Duh. So, disgusted, I tucked the file away on my computer and, fed up with the whole agent thing, returned to writing what I wanted to write. An end of days novel called A Time of Demons and a new vampire novel where the evil vampire wasn’t a mother. In 2010 I went with a new publisher, Kim Richards at Damnation Books/Eternal Press, and she contracted not only those two books but asked me if I’d like to rewrite, update and rerelease all 7 of my older out-of-print Leisure and Zebra paperbacks going back to 1984. Heck yes, I said! So for the next 2 years I was busy doing that. Some of those books were over twenty-five years old and very outdated. Their rewriting, editing and rereleasing took a lot of work and time.

Then, in late 2012, I decided to take a very old book of mine (Predator) which was contracted to Zebra Paperbacks in 1993 but, in the end, never actually released, and just for the heck of it, as my 16^th novel, self-publish it to Amazon Kindle Direct. Just in ebook form. A kind of grand experiment. The first time I’ve ever tried self-publishing. See how it’d sell. Dinosaur Lake. A story about a hungry mutant dinosaur loose in the waters of Crater Lake that goes on a rampage. Hey, I wrote Dinosaur Lake before Jurassic Park, the book, ever came out! Really. I had my cover artist, Dawne Dominique make a cover for it…and it was stunning with a dinosaur roaring on the front. And I did everything else myself. Editing. Proofing. Formatting. With forty years and endless publishers behind me I felt I was capable. And it’d been selling so well I decided to self-publish another one…and I remembered the mother/vampire book. Hmmm. So I revamped (ha, ha, inside joke), polished, and self-published it, as well. I retitled it Human No Longer. Got my fabulous cover artist, Dawne Dominique, to make me a lovely haunting cover with a troubled-looking woman standing outside a spooky house, with two children behind her in its shadows, on the front and voila! All in all, I don’t think the book turned out half bad. In fact, with the changes I made I think it’s not bad at all. Now I just hope my readers will like it.

So that’s the story of Human No Longer. My 17^th published novel.

Human No Longer Blurb:

Jenny and Jeff Sanders on a summer night become the victims of a bizarre crime, leaving Jeff dead and Jenny in a coma. Their attackers aren’t caught.

She returns to her children and her life. With Jeff’s death his business and their income are also gone. Jenny, a novelist, hasn’t written a book in years, so she must move back to her childhood home in Summer Haven, Florida, where years before she and Jeff destroyed a sadistic family of vampires.

At least her brother, Joey, who owns a local diner, is there to help.

But Jenny has no appetite. She’s edgy. Her eyes hurt. Could be trauma from the attack. Grief. Until one night, after they’ve moved into the rundown family farmhouse, she can’t resist the night woods and going out to drink animals’ blood.

Gradually she accepts the truth. Her attackers were vampires. Now she’s becoming what she once hunted and fears she must either kill herself or run. She can’t abandon her children, but promises never to drink human blood; to find a way to live in the human world. It’s not easy. They renovate the farmhouse, which local gossip says is haunted. At night she hunts, and hides what she’s becoming from everyone. She fights to be a good mother and not let the bloodlust overpower her. Gets a job and attempts to fit in.

People, bodies emptied of blood, begin dying. Like years before. With her blackouts, she fears she may be the killer and confides in Joey. While a Detective, investigating her husband’s and his daughter’s murders, complicates things.

Jenny suspects it’s her attackers doing the slayings. They’ve found her and demand she join them–or her family will die. When she resists, her children are taken; to save them, she becomes part of the vampires’ killing spree. Becoming a monster like them…until she finds a way to outwit and ultimately destroy them.

In the end it takes supernatural intervention, a ghost, and the help of a childhood friend to set her, and the world, free from the vampires once and for all.

About Kathryn Meyer Griffith...

Since childhood I’ve always been an artist and worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. I began writing novels at 21, over forty years ago now, and have had seventeen (ten romantic horror, two romantic SF horror, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel, one historical romance and two murder mysteries) previous novels, two novellas and twelve short stories published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books/Eternal Press and Amazon Kindle Direct.

I’ve been married to Russell for almost thirty-five years; have a son, James, and two grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and I live in a small quaint town in Illinois called Columbia, which is right across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo. We have three quirky cats, ghost cat Sasha, live cats Cleo and Sasha (Too), and the five of us live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the day I die…or until my memory goes.

All Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s Books available at Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Kathryn+Meyer+Griffith

                                                                                                            

My Websites:

http://www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith (to see all my book trailers with original music by my singer/songwriter brother JS Meyer)

http://www.bebo.com/kathrynmeyerG

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=1019954486

http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://www.goodreads.com/profile/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://www.jacketflap.com/K.griffith

http://www.shoutlife.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

http://romancewriterandreader.ning.com/profile/KathrynMeyerGriffith 

http://www.romancebookjunction.ning.com/profile/kathrynmeyergriffith 

Happy Release Day: Grave Intentions

This morning I woke to a pleasant surprise. My book preorder had arrived for my kindle, waiting to be read. I'm so happy to announce the release day for my friend Lori Sjoberg's, Grave Intentions. I had the privilege of reading a bit of this during an AQC Speculative fiction feedback marathon, and I know I'm in for a treat. Now here's your chance to share the treat from Lori herself:

Thanks so much, Michelle, for helping me celebrate the release of Grave Intentions! (And I'm so looking forward to celebrating the upcoming release of Kindar's Cure as well!) To mark the occasion, I'm giving away a free copy via amazon or B&N (winner's choice). All you have to do is leave a comment below about your favorite read of 2012. Good luck!

Edit: The contest will end on January 8th.


Grave Intentions:

He’s handsome, reliable, and punctual—the perfect gentleman when you want him to be. But this dream man is Death’s best agent—and now he’s got more than his soul to lose…

One act of mercy before dying was all it took to turn soldier David Anderson into a reaper—an immortal who guides souls-of-untimely-death into the afterlife. But the closer he gets to atoning for his mortal sin and finally escaping merciless Fate, the more he feels his own humanity slipping away for good. Until he encounters Sarah Griffith. This skeptical scientist can’t be influenced by his powers—even though she has an unsuspected talent for sensing the dead. And her honesty and irreverent sense of humor reignite his reason for living—and a passion he can’t afford to feel. Now Fate has summoned David to make a devastating last harvest. And he’ll break every hellishly-strict netherworld rule to save Sarah…and gamble on a choice even an immortal can’t win.

Excerpt:

Death never took a holiday.

No, Death was the consummate workaholic, more steadfast and diligent than the U.S. Postal Service. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stayed the agents of Death from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Always the professional, Death never discriminated, taking young and old, weak and strong, healthy and infirm. It couldn’t be bought, or bullied, or reasoned with. Death had a mission and come Hell or high water, it would be accomplished.

For David Anderson, today was an easy day. As one of Death’s more seasoned agents, he’d been given the task of training the newest inductee in the tools of the trade. And with only two terminations on the day’s docket, it wouldn’t take too long to drink the memories away.

He looked down, checking his watch. Shit. Time to move. He gulped the last of his soda then crumpled the can and tossed it in the trashcan near the curb.

“Let’s roll,” he told Adam Javorski, his latest trainee. He gave a slight nod to the left before sliding on a pair of dark tinted sunglasses. “We’re due for our appointment.”

“Appointment?” Adam asked, looking confused. Then the light bulb went off in his head. “Oh. Yeah, right. Appointment.”

David’s gaze slanted over to his apprentice. The kid looked bright enough. Tall and rangy, with sharp brown eyes and distinctive Eastern European features, he had the look of a man always on the watch for trouble. Which made sense. He’d been a cop in his mortal life, fiercely dedicated to protecting and serving. Well, up until his last assignment, which is what led to his current situation.

“So when’s this going down?” Adam asked with a youthful exuberance, and David let out a mental groan.

Newbies. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever been that green. Stopping at the bustling intersection, he closed his eyes and focused inward, tuning out the sounds of early rush hour in downtown Orlando. “Not for another seven or eight minutes,” he said, homing in on the low-grade buzz pulsing through his veins. The vibration was barely distinguishable, but nevertheless, it was there.

“How do you know?”

“I can feel it.” When the light changed, they crossed over to Washington. The last thing David wanted was to be late so he picked up the pace, moving around a homeless man camped out on the sidewalk, a foul odor radiating from the overflowing shopping cart holding all of his worldly possessions.

Adam glanced over at him, a bewildered expression on his face. “You can feel death?”

“Of course.” Then he remembered mortals couldn’t feel death, couldn’t scent mortality like a bloodhound. He cursed under his breath. It had been so damn long since he’d drawn mortal breath he was beginning to forget the little things. Or was it more of a choice? He suspected it was the latter.

“How?” Adam asked, intrigued. “What does it feel like?”

The pair cut through the park, paying no attention to the cluster of small children squealing with glee as they tossed chunks of bread to a trio of greedy mallards. They were close now; David could feel it. The buzzing had intensified, growing stronger and more insistent as it rumbled inexorably toward its macabre crescendo.

Deciding they had enough time for a quick lesson, David came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the park and Adam quickly followed suit. “Close your eyes,” he ordered his trainee.

“Why?”

Patience was never one of David’s strong points. He gritted his teeth and counted to ten. “Just close your eyes, dammit, I’m trying to teach you something.”

Adam shot him a guarded look but complied without further question or comment.

“Now quiet your mind. Ignore everything but the sound of my voice.”

After a few moments, Adam said, “Okay.”

“Do you notice a low hum in the background?”

“I thought you said to ignore everything but the sound of your voice.”

David let out a low growl before clamping down on his temper. “I did,” he said, jaw clenched. “But now I’m telling you to listen for the hum. Can you hear it or feel it?”

Adam stayed silent for what seemed like forever. Then his expression shifted to one of near wonder. “I feel it! It’s kind of like a low electrical current, right?”

For the first time in days, David smiled. The kid might not be a lost cause after all. “Yes. Very good. That’s what you need to focus on. The stronger the sensation, the closer you are to the point of death.”

He paused to scan the area, making sure no one noticed. Of course, he had nothing to worry about. People were such creatures of habit, scurrying about their daily lives, oblivious to the forces working around them. Tourists snapped pictures in front of the fountain while locals hurried along the sidewalk, eager to reach their destinations. A bus eased up to the curb and opened its doors, letting passengers off while others waited to board.

Adam opened his eyes. “How’s this going down?” he asked, his eyes scouring the scenery, searching for any traces of imminent doom.

“I have no idea,” David replied, leaning back against a weathered oak. He watched the bus pull away from the curb, spewing out a cloud of noxious exhaust as it merged into traffic. Out of habit, he checked the time again. Less than a minute.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Adam’s brows crinkled. “I thought you knew what was going to happen.”

David shook his head and felt a trickle of sweat run past his temple. So much for fall in Florida. Late October, and the temperatures were still cranked above ninety. “Nope. The docket only gives a place and approximate time.” He watched while Adam’s face scrunched up in obvious confusion. He vaguely remembered giving his handler the same expression when he was new, so he decided to fill in the blanks. “Look, if you really want to know the exact details ahead of time, you can request it. But from my experience, you’re better off knowing as little as possible.”

As far as he was concerned, the less he knew, the less he had to purge from his mind afterward. Just how many times had he stared into the face of death? To be honest, he’d lost count. Maybe that was for the best, too. In his six decades of harvesting souls, he’d witnessed every act of savagery known to man. First, he’d been shocked. Then revolted. Eventually, he’d gone numb. Now he viewed the world through the jaded eyes of an ambivalent spectator, always watching from a comfortable distance.

The sound of tires screeching jerked him from his thoughts. Like countless times before, familiar events unfolded. Horns blared, tires screeched, and metal crunched against metal in a twisted symphony. Somewhere in the distance, a woman screamed. And then everything grew quiet, leaving only the smell of burnt rubber and the faint whimper of the dying. 

Time to get to work.

Lori's contact info is: www.lorisjoberg.com
www.facebook.com/AuthorLoriSjoberg
@Lori_Sjoberg (Twitter).

Congratulations to Terri Bruce!

In place of a Getting the Call post today, I'm excited to have a Happy Release Day post for Terri Bruce! Her novel, Hereafter, is out! She'll be back soon with a report of her very emotional feelings at this big day. I know that Terri went through a lot trying to bring this moment about, including a ton of work with a very short window to her release date. You can read her Getting the Call story here. And she will be enjoying a Meet the Author chat tonight at Eternal Press' web site and asks that everyone join her at 7:00EST. Check it out as there will be door prizes and who doesn't like free. I'll be ordering my copy of Hereafter and sending her a photo for her wall.

Kate Evangelista- Taste Trailer and Excerpt Reveal

Coming from Crescent Moon Press on May 1, 2012, TASTE by Kate Evangelista.

At Barinkoff Academy, there's only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.

When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.

Song Credits: "Hunger" © Noelle Pico.

Full Download available at http://sheisnoelle.bandcamp.com

Taste Excerpt

I mentally stomped on the intimidation their perfection brought into my mind and said, “Excuse me.”

The group froze, startled by my words. The girls had their brows raised and the boys stopped mid-speech, mouths agape. They stared at me with eyes the shade of onyx stones.

I smiled and gave them a little wave.

The boy a step ahead of the rest recovered first. His stunning features went from shocked surprise to intense interest. He reminded me of a hawk eyeing its prey. I gulped.

“A Day Student,” he said, his eyes insolent and excited.

Something about the way he said “Day Student” made my stomach flip. “Excuse me?”

They snickered. The boys looked at each other while the girls continued to stare, muffling their laughter by delicate hands. I seemed to be the butt of some joke. 

“You broke the rule.” The boy’s grin turned predatory.

The students formed a loose semi-circle in front of me. My gaze darted from face to face. Hunger filled their eyes. The image of lions about to chase down a gazelle came to mind. I mentally shook my head. I was in the mountains not the Serengeti for crying out loud.

I took a small step back and cleared my throat. “Can any of you give me a ride back to the dorms?”

The boy wagged his forefinger like a metronome. “Ah, that’s unfortunate for you.”

One of the girls pinched the bridge of her nose. “Eli, you can’t possibly—”

“It’s forbidden, Eli,” another boy interrupted, pronouncing the word “forbidden” like a curse.

The nervous murmur at the pit of my stomach grew louder. Six against one. Not good odds. Instinct told me to cut my losses and run. Bad enough I faced expulsion, now it seemed like weird, beautiful people who’d suddenly appeared on campus wanted to beat me up. No, scratch that. Judging from the way they studied me, beating me up wouldn’t satisfy them. Something more primal prowled behind their looks.

I definitely wasn’t going down without a fight. Years of self-defense and hand-to-hand combat classes had me prepared. While other children from rich and important families got bodyguards, I got defense training. But I think my father meant for my skills to go up against potential kidnappers, not against other students who may or may not be crazy. Oh God! Maybe I stepped into a parallel universe or something when I reentered Barinkoff.

“None of the students are supposed to be on campus,” I said. Then, realizing my mistake, I added, “Okay, I know I’m not supposed to be here either. If one of you gives me a ride back to the dorms, I won’t say anything about all this. Let’s pretend this never happened. I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me.”

“We’re not ordinary students,” Eli answered. “We’re the Night Students.”

He’d said “Night Students” like the words were capitalized. I didn’t know Barinkoff held classes at night. What was going on here?

Eli smiled with just one side of his mouth and said to the group, “She’s right, no one will have to know. We’re the only ones here. And it’s been so long, don’t you agree?”

The rest of them nodded reluctantly.

“What’s been so long?” I challenged. I fisted my hands, ready to put them up if any of them so much as twitched my way.

“Since the taste of real flesh passed through my lips,” Eli said. He came forward and took a whiff of me then laughed when I cringed.

“Flesh.” Yep, parallel universe.

“Yes,” he said. “And yours smells so fresh.”

Someone grabbed my shoulders from behind and yanked me back before I could wrap my mind around the meaning behind Eli’s words. In a blink, I found myself behind someone tall. Someone really tall. And quite broad. And very male.

I realized he wore the same clothes Eli and the other boys did. Not good. He was one of them. Although… I cocked my head, raking my gaze over him. He seemed born to wear the uniform, like he was the pattern everyone else was cut from. My eyes wandered to long, layered, blue-black hair tied at the nape by a silk ribbon. Even in dim light, his hair possessed a sheen akin to mercury.

I looked down. The boy’s long fingers were wrapped around my wrist like a cuff. His fevered touch felt hotter than human standards, hot enough to make me sweat like I was standing beside a radiator but not hot enough to burn.

“I must be mistaken, Eli,” the boy who held my arm said in a monotone. “Correct me. Did I hear you say you wanted to taste the flesh of this girl?”

A hush descended on us. It had the hairs at the back of my neck rising. How was it possible for the atmosphere to switch from threatening to dangerous? Unable to help myself, I peeked around the new guy’s bulk. Eli and his friends bowed. They all had their right hands on their chests.

“Demitri, I’m sure you misheard me,” Eli said.

So the guy standing between me and the person who said he’d wanted to taste me was named Demitri. I like the sound of his name. Demitri. So strong, yet rolls off the tongue. Definite yum factor.

“So, you imply I made a mistake?” Demitri demanded.

“No!” Eli lifted his gaze. “I did no such thing. I simply wanted to show the girl the consequences of breaking curfew.”

“Hey!” I yelled. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”

Demitri ignored my protest and continued to address Eli. “So, you threatened to taste her flesh.” His fingers tightened their grip around my wrist. “In the interest of investigating this matter further, I invoke the Silence.”

All six students gasped, passing surprised glances at one another.

Before I could ask about what was going on, Demitri yanked me down the hall toward the library. But why there? Oh, maybe we were getting my things. No, wait, he couldn’t have known about that. Everything was too confusing now.

Eli and the others didn’t try to stop us when we passed them. Demitri’s cold command must have carried power. Handsome and powerful, never a bad combination on a guy.

We reached the heavy double doors in seconds. He jerked one open effortlessly. I’d needed all my strength just to squeeze through that same door earlier. To him, the thick wood might as well have been cardboard. I raised an eyebrow and mentally listed the benefits of going to gym class.

“Why are we here?” I asked after my curiosity overpowered my worry. I’d almost forgotten how frightened I’d been right before Demitri showed up. I wasn’t above accepting help from strangers. Especially from gorgeous dark-haired strangers with hot hands and wide shoulders.

Demitri kept going, tugging me along, snaking his way deeper into the library. I had to take two steps for every stride his legs made. I tried to stay directly behind him, praying we didn’t slam into anything.

He stopped suddenly and I collided with him. It felt like slamming into a wall.

“Hey,” I said, momentarily stunned. “A little warning would be nice!”

He faced me, and I gasped. His eyes resembled a starless night, deep and endless. Their intensity drilled through me without pity, seeming to expose all my secrets. I felt naked and flustered beneath his gaze.

“You could have died back there,” he warned.

A lump of panic rebuilt itself in my throat.

When Kate Evangelista was told she had a knack for writing stories, she did the next best thing: entered medical school. After realizing she wasn't going to be the next Doogie Howser, M.D., Kate wandered into the Literature department of her university and never looked back. Today, she is in possession of a piece of paper that says to the world she owns a Literature degree. To make matters worse, she took Master's courses in creative writing. In the end, she realized to be a writer, none of what she had mattered. What really mattered? Writing. Plain and simple, honest to God, sitting in front of her computer, writing. Today, she has four completed Young Adult novels.

Author Website: www.kateevangelista.com

Twitter: @KateEvangelista

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kate-Evangelista/165693410143202

Find Taste on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13484226-taste

Crescent Moon Press page for Taste: http://crescentmoonpress.com/books/Taste.html

My Review of The Hunger Games Movie

I promised a review of the Hunger Games movie in comparison to the book. Two weekends should be enough time to allow diehard fans a chance to see it first so here goes:

I was a little worried at the opening. Not that the first scene didn’t start off according to the book, but that Buttercup wasn’t yellow. How hard can it be to find an orange cat? My grandparent’s farm was full of them, which has naturally given me a thing for that particular color cat, and it was rather a jolt. Then there were a few other changes right at the getgo that didn’t make me feel any better. Changes which I won’t mention to avoid spoiling, but which really wouldn’t have been a big deal to do right. Little things, really, but annoying.

Then the movie got rolling and those small nitpicks no longer mattered. The heart and soul of the movie kept to the book. There were even a few spots where the straying proved useful to enhance the scenes. During the games themselves, such as in the trackerjack scene, they cut away to announcers which enabled the necessary tell about these vicious bugs without the characters from the games having to say ‘look out, killer bees’. It was a smart way to make the scene understandable for people who haven’t read the book.

I thought the actors all did a first rate job. In particular, the guy who played Cinna and his relationship with Katniss was spot on. And would you believe Lenny Kravitz’s, a musician, played that part. The character of Peeta was genuinely likeable, while Katniss was great as the girl who’d do what it took to stay alive. I can only picture Haymitch as a hairy Woody Harrelson now. Rue was plain adorable.

Another bigger change involved added a flesh and blood antagonist to the mix. If you read my first post on the Hunger Games, you’ll remember I praised that Suzanne Collins made the games the antagonist in her first book of the series. Well, that wasn’t good enough for movie magic. They created a bigger role for President Snow and made a martyr/villain of the Gamemaker man behind the games. (Though who couldn’t love that really cool beard.) It was neat seeing what went on behind the games; and the arrow scene with the pig—amazing. I’ll let others judge for themselves whether this further focusing on good guy/bad guy was an improve or not. In my opinion, it added rather than detracted from the book.

Necessarily because of time, some things in the movie didn’t seem to have enough time allowed to them. For instance, the scenes Katniss spent with Rue seemed short to me. The time allowed to Haymitch also felt cut short. I was miffed they chose not to show his falling off the stage. I had the same reaction with the Harry Potter films though. You just wanted more. And they did leave in the part about Prim’s shirt being untucked at the reaping.

Overall, two thumbs up. I’d see it again, and I’d buy the DVD. It made me cry—twice. I’ll get the popcorn if anybody needs a friend to go with them.

Tears on the Page

At a chat with fellow writers the other day, a friend mentioned that The Hunger Games almost made her cry. The five or six of us there all went on to list books or movies that had made us cry. I’m a crybaby so the list was long for me. Unsurprisingly, we agreed on a lot of titles. One other thing became pretty clear, movies have an advantage. As they say: seeing is believing. Or in this case, seeing is sympathizing. Plus, the visual art form also gets to weave in sound effects. How can you resist joining in a tear-fest you can both see and hear? Just like a yawn, see someone cry and you respond in kind. Hardly fair for writers, you might say. Writers have words on a page. Black against white.

But writing can run the gauntlet of emotion from the ultra blah, how to program your DVD player, to that tear-jerker novel you can’t put down. So how do the successful writers do it? Think about the scenes that made you cry, or maybe made you wish you could. (Come on, tough guys cry too.) They all have some things in common. The writer created a world or a character so real that it didn’t matter that none of it ever existed. Isn’t that what happened? You just wept over something that is complete fiction. It happened only in one person’s imagination. Yet, you felt for that fictional situation maybe even more than for a story you’d hear on the news. Emotional writing involves fully alive characters in a believable world.

And it should go without saying that, the character has to be a likeable character, not the antagonist. We should cheer when the villain gets theirs, not cry. Another given: the writing also has to be clean and have a good flow.

So why don’t writers try to provoke tears in every chapter? Obviously if writers killed off characters left and right, they would stop getting a proper reaction. Readers would give up on the book altogether or become deadened to being jerked around. So trauma must be a situation called for in the plot. You can’t just throw in a scene without reason and expect readers to react. It has to flow with the rest of the book and not stick out like a sore thumb. In other words: use super-emotion sparingly.

So what kinds of situations cause the most sorrow?

I can only speak for myself, but I boiled it down to a few situations I’ve noticed in multiple novels. The biggie: Anytime an animal is injured or killed, especial if a child is attached to it, look out. Think Black Beauty, or that staple of elementary school reading, Where the Red Fern Grows. Boy loves dogs, dogs die in tragic fashion. Not one, but both dogs. Tears galore. My personal record for crying is with the books by James Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian. Pets put down. Yikes, those chapters still make me break down.

Next most weepy: death of a beloved favorite character. Anybody remember Beth from Little Women? You knew it was coming, but you couldn’t help yourself anyway. Another example: Tonks and Lupin from Harry Potter. They just had a baby, sob. (Hope this isn’t a spoiler, but everybody who was going to read Harry Potter has probably seen the movie.) The list could go on and on.

There is a third shorter category of tear-jerkers: when a favorite place/setting is destroyed. The place has to have a mystic kind of perfection in some fashion to make this work. In the end of Return of the King, when the Shire is burned and enslaved. The Shire represented peaceful co-existence, a utopia that didn’t go untouched and so tore your heart to see it reduced. The rampage that wrecked Hogwarts at the end of Harry Potter is another example. Hogwarts should have been a place of safety; it was a beloved castle where loyal friendships were forged. Thus the hurt to see it torn apart.

And lastly, perhaps the hardest to pull off: the heroic sacrifice. A character makes a sacrifice out of love and loyalty to protect another. (Often this doesn’t have to end in death, thank goodness.) My favorite example is in Lord of the Rings when Merry and Pippin jump out, exposing themselves to the orcs in order to draw the orcs away from Frodo. Frodo gets away, Merry and Pippin get taken. Foolish, brave little hobbits, makes me cry every time. Another probably unknown example from Patrick O’Brian’s books. The main character was sentenced (unjustly) to the pillory as a form of public humiliation. You might remember the pillory scene from A Knight’s Tale, your head and wrists are locked in place, making the victim helpless. O’Brian’s book is similar, but written before that movie came out. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of loyal sailors came to the square to protect their Captain from being pelted with garbage or slapped around while he was helpless. A real emotion scene of pride and love. And then, there’s Dobby from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can’t think about it with dry eyes. Dobby frees his friends, but takes a knife. “Here lies Dobby: A free elf.” Just try not to cry at that one.

So that’s my thoughts on the subject. I probably left out many important points as there are so many possibilities. Please feel free to list your favorite tear-jerkers in the comments, or any ideas you have for what makes a good sad scene.