Genevieve - Cover Reveal

Well guys... I don't now if you've noticed my word count widget on the blog but I've finished 'Genevieve' - the short story / Novelette. It is about 14000 words long... which would equate to about 50 pages I think, and because of its midget size it will have a midget price to match and be cheaper than a coffee!

I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out... pre-edits... as it's my first attempt at writing short fiction and it's also the first time I've written in third person narrative. It's nice to get a deeper understanding of Sebastian and Eva, who are two favourite characters of mine and who we didn't see much of in WitchLove. Although I'll warn readers now that Genevieve is set in the French Revolution and is centred around two full-on, no holds barred vampires so things get a little bloody... and yes there is some sex too so whereas the Witchblood books are YA books age 14+ I would say Genevieve is New Adult say 16+... if you're a mum / mom and your teen wants to read it just pick it up and read it through first...

Now I've got to work on the blurb for Goodreads but I'll leave you with the cover. If you voted on my covers I chose the middle picture in the end because I felt it matched my other three covers nicely as they are all face forward images. I also took the French flag colour fading off as it was too messy! Hope you like it...

Luisa Plaja: Teen Book Reviews

As my blog has been a bit Witchblood obsessed recently I thought it was time to review some books! Amazingly since January I have managed to start the Goodreads challenge and initially I started out giving YA Dystopian books a try. I really loved Earth Girl by Janet Edwards, but then I read another similar sci fi space orientated one which wasn't half as good... reviews to follow shortly. In between reading these I've also read a couple of grown-up books ie the book club/prize winning types which interestingly I can't even remember the names of right now and to mix it up a little I've read a couple of teen lit books by the lovely Luisa Plaja which I'm going to review right now!

Luisa is a Brit based author like myself and has her own website here and also runs the teen website Chicklish. Luisa has written five books: 'Split by a Kiss', 'Extreme Kissing', 'Swapped by a Kiss' and 'Kiss, Date, Love, Hate' which are all published by Random House and most recently 'Diary of a Mall Girl' published by Curious Fox.

In January I read Kiss, Date, Love, Hate and even though I didn't get on with the protagonist I tore through the book and put it down with a smile on my face.

 

Lex Murphy's group of friends have all dated, hated, ignored and lusted after each other for the last few years. If only there was a way of matching people perfectly to avoid all the unrequited love, dumping and drama!

Then Lex's friend George is give a mysterious Sims-like game by his software-testing dad which involves building character profiles in the categories of Life, Looks and Love. Lex and George populate the game with avatars for all their mates, making a few 'wishful thinking' adjustments to the settings - and find that the next day these tinkerings have come true! But how long can this new calm, loved-up atmosphere continue...?

 

 Review:

 I haven't read many young teen girls novels, but occasionally I'll pick one up for some light entertainment. The novels I would compare Luisa's too would be those of Louise Rennison. The teenagers in these books are all believable and suffer with the same anxieties and ideals. What makes this story different is the fabulous plot idea! I love the idea of a trial computer game where you input all your details and manipulate real life. It brings up fun situations of course and comedy moments but also adds some interesting moral dilemmas. As I said before I didn't get on with Lex, I found her too irritating and self obsessed, but unlike with some other books it didn't detract from the story and I still enjoyed the book.  Four pink girly stars from me!

****

Last month Luisia released her newest novel called 'Diary of a Mall Girl' so after enjoying 'Kiss, Date...' I thought I'd give it a whirl.

 

 

Fifteen-year-old Molly actually lives in the residential wing of her local mall, and mysterious twins Jewel and Jasper have just moved into the flat upstairs. As Molly grows closer to them, she becomes more determined than ever to find out their secret and so do her other friends. Will their prying spoil Molly s chances of happiness?

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 Review:

If anything I enjoyed 'Mall Girl' more than 'Kiss, Date', mainly because I loved the main girl Molly and the twins were great too. The plot in 'Kiss, Date' is more unusual, where as this is more of a typical story of teen friendship, shopping and boyfriend dilemmas, but there was something extra with this book that kept me glued until I finished at 1am! This is a fun, fast read ideal for a rainy weekend curled up on your bed! Four and a half pink stars this time!

****

 

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All Fired Up And Nowhere To Go!

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy and I'll be honest, I've really struggled. It is hard enough making the decision to move your kids out of the area and away from their friends... You just want everything to go as smoothly as possible for them. And it looked like it was, we sold our house in the the first two weeks, found a dream house in a perfect village, with a lovely school. We had a moving date of May 3rd and I was starting to panic about everything that needed to be organised... And then with one phone call after Easter weekend everything changed. The first time buyers at the start of the chain have pulled out, which means our buyers are no longer in a position to buy, consequently we can't buy either!

After a week of feeling sick and not sleeping I've had enough. It's time for an attitude change. The kiddies are back in school after the holidays and I've had a long soak in the bath and decided to let it all go. My new mantra is:

What I can't control I will do my damnedest to forget about!

 

So the house is back on the market, and I'm concentrating on my writing. Have you noticed my word count bar? I've just written a wicked, murderous scene that takes my word count up over 8000 now. I hope to be finished in two weeks, then do edits and have it published before we go on holiday on May 17th.

 

 

As I'll be on holiday I'll need some promo help, so if you want me to release before my holidays, leave a comment below if you have a blog or FB page and can help me out with a review or just a cover/blurb post.

 

Here is an unedited teaser from the section I have just written:

 

 

Instinct told her to leap from the bed and in one lithe movement she was at the window dragging the material away from their frames, eager to find the source of the beating noise that was drawing her in.

‘Eva no!’ Sebastian’s voice carried across the room and simultaneously pulled at something deep inside. She took a glance out at the dying day on the street below, her eyes squinting in the dim light before pulling her gaze back to the man by the bed.  She knew where the noise came from now and her mouth watered pleasantly at the thought, but even as every emotion in her body willed her to smash the window, leap out and sink her teeth into those warm, pulsating creatures that wandered past oblivious, she could not. An iron leash held her tight and pulled her back to the man by the bed.

 



Holiday Chaos

In case any of you were wondering why my blog is being ignored recently I'm afraid I need to blame the kids again! I think when I started writing I never expected half the interest and success... which is amazing but consequently I thought writing books would fit in nicely with my kiddies, doing a bit here, a bit there! However as any of you who are writers out there know only too well this is sadly not the case! When I'm writing a novel I'm fully immersed and ideally need to write every day to keep the flow going (although I tend to write mon-fri and have the weekends with family). Now the kids are both at school this tends to work out well, and if I'm in the right frame of mind I can write 10,000 words a week and refresh myself at the weekend.

However as I have already explained I'm currently NOT in the right frame of mind... In fact I'm rather stressed out with this house moving business. I think I'm getting more greys lol! The good news is that it is actually moving fairly speedily considering these things normally take months and months. It even looks like we might make it into our new house before our holiday in May. Which means come June I can breath out and make a start on WitchHunt.

For now I'm writing my novella/short story, but even this has come grinding to a halt this week. Why?  I was doing so well, I had almost 6000 words down! The reason it has stopped is of course due to the school holidays... 2 weeks of kiddy chaos! It seems that the only way I can actually keep them from not warring, bickering or pestering me for snacks is to let my 8yr old daughter play Minecraft on my ipad and let my 5yr old boy play games on the CBeebies website on the PC... Where does this leave me? With peace and quiet, but no technology to write my story on! Drat!

And sorry but I'm just not an evening writer! So you're going to have to wait... 1week down 1week to go and then I'll be back in the game.