I'm so excited to be a part of the Something Strange and Deadly ARC tour*! Haven't heard of this book yet? Read the blurb below. Goodreads blurb : Eleanor Fitt has a lot to worry about. Her brother has gone missing, her family has fallen on hard times, and her mother is determined to marry her off to any rich young man who walks by. But this is nothing compared to what she’s just read in the newspaper— The Dead are rising in Philadelphia. And then, in a frightening attack, a zombie delivers a letter to Eleanor…from her brother. Whoever is controlling the Dead army has taken her brother as well. If Eleanor is going to find him, she’ll have to venture into the lab of the notorious Spirit-Hunters, who protect the city from supernatural forces. But as Eleanor spends more time with the Spirit-Hunters, including their maddeningly stubborn yet handsome inventor, Daniel, the situation becomes dire. And now, not only is her reputation on the line, but her very li...

One thing that most of you guys can relate to is that new releases sort of creep up on you and then you want nothing else but for the world to stop so you can devour that book you've been waiting endlessly for. The next few weeks have so many releases that I've been dying to read that I'm not sure how I'm going to handle all that reading combined with all of the revisions I still have to do. What books am I waiting on? Let's start with the two that I ended up reading last week because I just couldn't wait another few weeks. BLACK HEART came out on April 3rd and I managed to hold off for FIVE DAYS before breaking this open. I told myself that if I finished writing out all the new scenes I needed to write, I could take a day off to read this. SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY comes out in July, but I'm lucky to be part of the ARC tour. The ARC came to me on Wednesday and by Thursday I was done. (I justified this as writing related work, so reading it du...

With a few exceptions, March was nonfiction/research month for me and with my internet hiatus, I wasn't able to contribute to last week's Road Trip Wednesday and share them with you. Good thing April is only three days old. First up, DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT MYTHOLOGY by Kenneth C Davis. What I Liked About It: This book gives you a broad overview on world myth starting with Ancient Egypt and working around the globe until we learn a teensy bit about the Pacific Rim. If your knowledge of mythology ends with Classical Mythology, Davis' book is a nice introduction to other cultures and stories. What You Should Know: It reads like a college text where the author periodically intrudes to give a pop culture reference with a smarmy attitude. If this wasn't a free ebook offer from Barnes and Noble, I wouldn't have bothered purchasing it. One nonfiction book should be enough, right? No. While I was reading the Davis book, I was reading another nonfiction title...

Writers today have a lot more challenges than just what is on the television. In an age where you can be connected to the internet through your computer, phone, e-reader, and probably a hundred more things I'm forgetting, it's difficult to remember a time when this wasn't the case*. With the exception of a few hours a week, all of my online time has been done by phone or NOOK while I worked on my revisions and only then to look up something or compulsively check Twitter and such**. Doing this was important because the revisions I undertook were TOUGH: scene scrutiny, additional worldbuilding, not to mention a lot of yelling at the paper. (For the record my revisions are still going on, but I'm on back end of it now.) Unplugging is good not only for a particularly hard revision, but for life. When you're not attached to the internet (or technology in general), you can do a lot more in the real world: have lunch with friends, spend more time outdoors, socialize***...