Play and #WIN a #Free Book!

GUESS THE TRUE STATEMENT & WIN JESSICA BELL'S THRILLER, WHITE LADY! (Statement #46)

To celebrate the release of Jessica Bell's latest novel, WHITE LADY, she is giving away an e-copy (mobi, ePub, or PDF) to the first person to correctly guess the one true statement in the three statements below.

To clarify, two statements are lies, and one is true:

The following is a line from the book:

a. I envision the look of calm on a dead face, relax my jaw, and take a deep breath.

b. There is nothing more relaxing than witnessing one’s breathing to cease.

c. What I need is good cutting spree to calm myself down.

What do you think? Which one is true? 

Write your guess in the comments, along with your email address. Comments will close in 48 hours. If no-one guesses correctly within in 48 hours, comments will stay open until someone does.

Want more chances to win?

You have until October 31 to visit all the blogs where Jessica will share a different set of true and false statements on each one. Remember, each blog is open to comments for 48 hours only from the time of posting.

If you win, you will be notified by email with instructions on how to download the book.

Click HERE to see the list of blogs.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

*This novel contains coarse language, violence, and sexual themes.

Sonia yearns for sharp objects and blood. But now that she's rehabilitating herself as a "normal" mother and mathematics teacher, it's time to stop dreaming about slicing people's throats.

While being the wife of Melbourne's leading drug lord and simultaneously dating his best mate is not ideal, she's determined to make it work.

It does work. Until Mia, her lover's daughter, starts exchanging saliva with her son, Mick. They plan to commit a crime behind Sonia's back. It isn't long before she finds out and gets involved to protect them.

But is protecting the kids really Sonia's motive?


Click HERE to view the book trailer.

Click HERE for purchase links.

Jessica Bell, a thirty-something Australian-native contemporary fiction author, poet and singer/songwriter/guitarist, is the Publishing Editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journal and the director of the Homeric Writers' Retreat & Workshop on the Greek island of Ithaca.

She makes a living as a writer/editor for English Language Teaching Publishers worldwide, such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, MacMillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.

Connect with Jessica online:

Website | Retreat & workshop | Blog | Vine Leaves Literary Journal | Facebook | Twitter

Who Loves a BOGO Sale? This Girl!

I'm busy in the revisions cave, reader friends, and Watercolor is on track for Oct. 3 Release!

Still need to catch up on this fun series? Jump in on this superfun BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE Sale! 
(Sale ends 8/18)

How does it work? Easy as 1-2-3!

1. Get Dragonfly Today on Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes

2. EMAIL your receipt to leightmoore@gmail.com, and

3. I'll email you a FREE ebook of Undertow!

***Lost your Proof of Purchase? 

Email me the link to your Review of Dragonfly on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads, and I'll email your FREE ebook!

***Already have Undertow?

Leave a comment below, and I'll pick FIVE lucky commenters to win a FREE copy of Watercolor once it releases!

Please help me spread the word!

THANKS!!!

* * *

Want to see that Watercolor Picture-Excerpt again? Me, too!

Add Watercolor on Goodreads!

Have a super weekend, reader-friends!

Dream Cast #contest, Reviews, and Excerpts, Oh My!

Official Tour Dates

Happy weekend, reader- and writer-friends!

I'm posting a double-header Dragonfly Tour Update for today and tomorrow with a #FUN idea (+SWAG) I hope you'll want to join in!

I was asked for my Dream Cast for Dragonfly, but since I wrote the book way back in 2009, my Dream Cast is somewhat outdated.

Here's my idea: Why not have a Reader Dream Cast contest! With a chance to #WIN some #SWAG!!!

• Put together who you think would be the best actors to play the main characters in Dragonfly, 
• email your collage of their pictures to me (link), and 
• depending on the number of participants, I'll send all entrants a signed bookmark! 

(Or we'll do a vote for like the Top 10.)

Does that sound like fun?

So here are Today & Tomorrow's Tour Stops:

• For MY (somewhat outdated) Dream Cast and a FAB review, head on over to Bend in the Binding (link)!
• A wonderful review by Dr. Book on Wine, Relaxation, & My Kindle (link)
• A great review with another chance to #WIN over at Unputdownable Books (link)!

And to prevent my other book babies from feeling neglected, MaryAnn at Chapter by Chapter posted a Review (link) of The Truth About Letting Go that literally made me cry-smile. See what you think (link)!

* * *

On Sunday, be sure to stop by

• An Exclusive Excerpt and an awesome 4-book nerd Rave on Book Nerds Anonymous (link).
• An unexpectedly AWESOME review from Heather with SMI BookClub (link).
• An Excerpt and chance to #WIN at Brianna Lee Book Reviews (link).

Remember to send me those Dream Cast collages (link), and I'll post them ALL on my Facebook Page (link)!

Have a lovely weekend, my friends! I appreciate you in advance~

Fun News, Jump Boys, & The Edge of the Falls

First the Fun News!

Rouge has made it to the Quarter Finals Round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Download me FREE!

O.M.G.

I confess, y'all, I've been doing everything in my power not to think about the fact that I entered this contest.

Why? Well, I love this swishy, musical-theater, romantic-suspense story so much, I feel like sometimes I'm wearing it on my sleeve.

And after its history, and to see it do well, and to read the nice reviews has just made me ... verklempt.

Give me a moment. Talk amongst yourselves...

Or better yet, if you would, please hop over and download the FREE first chapter (link)!

I don't know if it helps or not, but it might. And it'll give you a feel for the book if you haven't read it. You might like it! (Especially if you liked Les Miz--it's very similar in tone and feel.)

And if you have read Rouge and like it, you might consider leaving a short, sweet review there. Your call.

Thank you so much!

Now for the Jump Boys~

Great bloggy friend Ali Cross/Alex Banks has written the most awesome-sounding middle-grade science fiction adventure! I'm dying to read it and so is my fifth grader!


Jump Boys: SOS
by Alex Banks
MG Science Fiction

A dare gone terribly wrong.
An SOS from another universe.
A threat from right next door.

Thirteen-year-old twin brothers Jayce and Val are about to jump the multi-verses on a dangerous dare, but true danger is closer to home than they realize.

The Jupiter Prime colony has been orbiting the stormy gas giant for nineteen years and all anyone wants is to get back to Earth. Sent to preserve the best and brightest of the population, a grievous error in the Prime’s navigation coordinates sent the colony to an alternate dimension with no way to return to the Earth they call home.

In a society where technical expertise is valued above all else, Jayce and Val are among the most privileged—until they uncover their uncle’s plot to claim dominion over space and time. While attempting to rescue a lone girl from a post-apocalyptic earth, Val will come face to face with space pirates and Jayce will lay his life on the line for the sake of his brother and the little girl who holds the key to time itself.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Kobo * Smashwords * Goodreads

Alex Banks doesn’t live on Planet Earth.Alex lives on the Prime Colony Ship orbiting Jupiter or on a pirate ship off the Nova Scotia coast,or on a world called Insulunda where the land masses shift and move like clouds.Wherever there are dreams to be charted like stars in the sky or fun to be had just down that street . . . that’s where you’ll find Alex Banks.

~ ~ ~

Last but not least, The Edge of the Falls (link) is now out!

I did the cover reveal for great bloggy friend Nazarea Andrews's new book last week, and now you can get it. It's an awesome romance for lovers of Beauty & the Beast.

On Amazon

Here's the description:

Sabah always knew where she belonged—with Berg—and what was expected of her—to care for the other children the Mistress took in.

But when a ban-wolf saves her life, things begin to change.

Arjun isn’t like the other ban-wolves, the savage creatures that are barely human. He’s gentle and furious and as Sabah spends time with him, she can’t seem to get him out of her mind. But in a world of darkness, control, and danger, is there a place for two outcasts?

Edge of the Falls is a romantic retelling of Beauty and the Beast in a dark dystopia.

Here's the link to get it on Amazon.

Nazarea's also having loads of fun giveaways and contests on her blog (link), including things like query critiques and chapter critiques! Check it out!

Fun times.

Enjoy, and have a super weekend, reader- and writer-friends~ <3

CLOCKWISE Book Review & Author Interview

I "met" author Elle Strauss about a year ago... I don't even remember how, but I started following her blog (link) because she always posted amazing video interviews or speeches by authors I liked.

I've used them as the basis for my own posts in the past--remember "Restless Anchovies" (link)?

Strauss

Anyway, I could tell Elle was smart and a good writer doing what she could to learn from other famous writers--mutual interests, right? Right.

Well, I was shocked when she told me she decided to self-publish her debut novel CLOCKWISE. She had an agent, and it was one I'd conversed with on two of my own MSs. I didn't know what to say.

Except that I'd help her get the word out. She sent me an ARC (advance review copy) to do a review. I also interviewed Elle, asking her about CLOCKWISE and self-publishing. Her answers follow my review. (Enter to win free books at the very end.)

Here's my review:

CLOCKWISE is billed as "time-travel-YA-chicklit," which piqued my interest right away. I really dig chicklit, and mixing it with time-travel sounded too unexpected.

But I wouldn't necessarily classify Elle's book as "chicklit." Don't get me wrong, it's very funny at times, and the main character Casey has a real problem: she time-travels uncontrollably, and it gets worse when she's stressed out.

She also carries people back in time with her if they're touching her skin when it happens--just ask her best friend Lucinda, who is also hilarious and determined that she and Casey are going to get dates to "THE Prom" by going to every HS dance that year.

Casey is opposed to this plan for one major reason: the last thing she needs is to get stressed out while dancing with a boy, much less the cutest boy in school, Nate, on whom she has an enormous crush...

Yep, that's exactly what happens. Nate asks her to dance and zhoop! they go back in time. (Read the teaser-excerpt of that scene on Elle's blog here, link. It's short and fun and will give you a feel for Elle's style.)

So she takes the cutest boy back in time... and here's the part where it stops being chicklit. (I know--unexpected again!) Casey time-travels back to the same place every trip, and it's a scary, volatile part of American history.

She goes back to Boston, at the start of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln's just been elected President, boys are getting drafted into the Union Army, runaway slaves are being kidnapped and sent back south because of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Women have practically no rights, and a wealthy Bostonian sets his sites on the mysterious Miss Casey Donovon, who keeps disappearing and reappearing...

Source

Once Nate gets over his initial shock at what's happened (he thinks it's a prank at first), he wants to get involved, to help their new friend, a fugitive slave named Samuel.

Casey's more worried because she never knows when she'll travel back to modern times again, and if she isn't touching Nate when it happens, he could get left there. Waiting for her to come back again, whenever...

I'm going to stop because I don't want to spoil the story, but I'll tell you what I told Elle: I'll bet money this is the best self-published debut novel on the market.

I'm not kidding. And at $2.99 for Kindle (link) or £2.17 on Amazon.co.uk, you've got to get it. The ending is moving and sweet... Kudos to my friend, and I wish her the best with this new venture.

Now for our interview!

LTM: I loved the theme of time travel, and the way you linked it to possibly being hereditary. Have you always been interested in time travel? Was there a book, movie, TV show, or real-life event that sparked your idea for CLOCKWISE?

Elle Strauss: I’m not sure what sparked the interest in time travel—maybe it felt like a puzzle, and I like puzzles. My first time-travel effort had some merit, but not anywhere close to publishable. I did learn a lot from that first effort, though.

(Almost) All of the historical events take place in the same time in Boston during the very beginning of the Civil War. What made you choose that time? Is it your favorite time period in American history?

ES: I’d recently moved back to western Canada after spending a year in Boston. I was fascinated with the history there, the Freedom Trail, the 300-year-old pub, the cradle of America. When I decided to write another time travel book, I knew it was going to have to be set there. Having my protagonist, Casey, loop back to the dawn of the Civil War just made sense then.

To me, time travel is a very intimidating device. How did you prepare for it? Did you already have your where and when plotted out or did you pants it?

ES: Oh, I totally pants-ed it, which I’ll never do again. This novel was actually really hard to write, as I actually had two stories that needed to have a complete arc, and that overlapped into one complete story. I went grey trying to figure this one out. I’m part-way finished with a companion, and I’m definitely planning the structure ahead of time.

Is CLOCKWISE the novel that landed you your agent? How long did your query journey take? Care to share your experience?

ES: It feels so long ago now, I have to think. I queried more than one book, but this is the one that got me representation. I think I had it out for half a year or more. She was a new agent “hungry for clients,” which always helps I think, plus at the time, she only took snail mail. I was willing to do the extra work to get it to her, but I knew many people wouldn’t be. So that helped to get me to the top of the pile. I’m really grateful she fell in love with Casey’s story.

Your agent shopped CLOCKWISE, and then you decided to self-publish. Was she supportive of this decision? At what point did you decide to go it alone and why?

ES: Here’s where I tell you I’ve had two agents. My first agent shopped CLOCKWISE, but the general feeling at the time was that time-travel YA wouldn’t sell (it wasn’t trending). When she left the agency, I was picked up by her colleague. By then, time travel was trending, but the general feel was that editors wanted edgier time travel. At that point I decided it might be worth giving it a go on my own, and my agent agreed.

What did you do to prepare for self-publishing? Any tips for others considering this step?

ES: Oh, gosh. I’d been reading up on it for a while, there are a lot of great bloggers who focus almost 100 percent on this, including The Passive Voice (link) and also a lot of books. I’d spent time following other authors who had self-published to see how they approached it. I suppose it would take a full blog post (or more) to answer this question fully.

What's next for Elle Strauss? Any other books in the pipeline? Traditional or self-publishing? And if traditional, what are your thoughts on doing both?

ES: Yes, there are more books! My next book is going to be completely opposite in feel, a darker drama about a boy who grows up in Hitler Youth, tentatively called PLAYING WITH MATCHES. After that, look for another light and fun romance set in the Merfolk world called SEAWEED. I will indie-publish both of these, with a CLOCKWISE companion to follow.  As for both, that can work for some authors.

Thanks for having me, Leigh!

(Note: I've actually read/edited PLAYING WITH MATCHES for Elle, and I can tell you, I wept. It is fantastic.)

Elle's also hosting a great Contest! to help launch CLOCKWISE. You can win five books, so jump over to her site and read about it (link).

Now go buy Elle's book, reader- and writer-friends (link), and spend the week-end tripping through time.

Til Monday~ <3

Blogging Wins

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I'll be at Miss Snark's First Victim (link) telling how I met my literary agent, Kate McKean of Howard Morhaim Literary, Inc.

Today I'm still walking around, smiling, and trying to wean myself off checking my email every five minutes. It's hard after a year and three months of querying, waiting to hear something. It's hard to think now I've moved to the next phase. Submissions.

I'm not sure what to expect.

Once again, though, I have to give it up. Blogging wins. After all those queries, I found my agent through a blog. It's possible my story's unusual, but maybe not. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts, so I hope you'll drop by MSFV tomorrow.

In the meantime, have a great Monday! After all this daydreaming, I've got to get back to work.

Til Thursday, reader-friends~ <3

Book Trailers & a String Bridge Contest!

Book trailers are one of the newer ways of marketing books. I don't know when or who actually started them, but they're exactly like movie trailers.

Except they're for your book.

And everybody's got one now. Just go onto YouTube and start searching.

(OK, disclaimer, I haven't searched for every book on YouTube to see if it has a trailer, but you get the point. Truth is, if the publisher/author doesn't make one, the fans probably will!)

Now for the exciting news! One of my new writer-friends, Jessica Bell, "The Alliterative Allomorph," (link) has her first book, String Bridge, coming out in November.


And I have the brand-new trailer below!

I haven't read the book, but it sounds very powerful and moving. It's for adults (non-YA), and it's about a woman who gives up her career as a musician to have a family. Then later, she starts to wonder if she made the right decision.

And if I know anything about Jessica and her writing, it's gonna knock our socks off. 

As for the Contest, Jessica needs our help spreading the trailer around the Internet. So if you visit her blog here (link), she's giving away books, etc., for posting or linking to the trailer, and you can read all about how to join in the fun and win prizes!

Without further ado, the trailer! And a cool little tidbit: That's Jessica singing a song written by her mother. (She comes from a musical family and is a musician herself.)

Book review - Harsh Pink & a CONTEST for charity!

I've gotten a lot of feedback that folks are really diggin the book reviews I've posted, so I'll keep those going periodically as I finish books you (or your kids) might find interesting.

(I just realized it might also be helpful if I put the title of the books in my blog titles so you can see what all's been covered--Hello! Must go back and do that...)

So I just finished Harsh Pink by Melody Carlson, and I have to 'fess up, I thought it was pretty good!

I expected this to be one of those true "homework" books (nobody falls in love in it; even worse, it's an "issue" book). But Carlson's characters are solid and her tale is well-told.

Harsh Pink is another of the inspirational YA novels I've read in my efforts to learn more about this market. Here's the cover:

It's #12, the last, of Carlson's True Colors series. Each book deals with a different "teen issue," and in this case, it was mean girls.

Harsh Pink opens with main character Reagan moving to a new school and inadvertently bouncing the most popular girl there from the varsity cheerleader squad. Sort of.

Apparently, Miss Popular blew off practicing for tryouts, and there's also the sophomore, former JV captain who made the squad.

So Reagan's one of two new cheerleaders Miss Popular, as first alternate, takes aim at getting off the squad. Ultimately, Reagan gets pulled into Miss Popular's circle and former JV captain becomes the target of MP's stunts.

What I liked about Harsh Pink is the way Carlson demonstrates both the power of one popular person over the actions of many (weaker) others, and the pressure to conform when that popular person chooses to take you under her wing.

The timing of my reading this book couldn't have been better because JRM and I had just been discussing our own daughters and how they're growing up and how soon they'll be dealing with other girls, mean girls, etc.

I shared with JRM my concern that our oldest really cares about what her friends think and being cool and how she's perceived by others... Our youngest tends to be more like me--You wanna play with me? Be fun and grab a spot in the sandpile. You're in.

At the same time, while I tended to be loose when it came to friends and excluding others as a child/teen, the encounters I remember most painfully were the times I stood by and watched while others were targeted.

I think we all recall how kid politics worked. And Carlson captures those dynamics beautifully in Harsh Pink. Reagan's a sympathetic character. She's not the one pulling the pranks or leaving people out, but she often stands by and watches the events unfold--it's not her deal, right? But the book isn't preachy. It's well-done.

At times, I found the writing a bit repetitive and there wasn't a lot going on outside the mean girl dynamic, but at 210 pages, that's OK. And knowing there's a tragedy by book's end keeps the tension high.

Shew! The teenage years are tough. I applaud Carlson for tackling this thorny subject, and I give Harsh Pink a B+.

I encourage my teen followers to give it a read--especially if you're in the position of victim or the one feeling pressured to conform. It's got some good insights. Heck, even if you're not a teen it has some good insights.

If anyone else has read other books in this series, I'd love to hear your recommendations! Otherwise, read on, reader friends and mean people *stink*~

**CONTEST! It's ON! If you're a writer, you don't want to miss this one--win a phone call w/an agent, page critiques, and more. If you're not a writer, there's free books and other prizes galore!

And by participating, you'll be helping establish communities and provide clean water to people in Ghana through Joy 2 the World. Check it out at this link: Candyland contest. It's fun and easy to enter. Contest ends July 31~

Book review - Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

You all know I started blogging in Feb. because Janet Reid said you weren't ready to start approaching agents if you didn't have a "web presence." And then she dismissed Facebook friends because you have to be a FB member and be approved to access me...

So I got to work posting *stuff* every day that I thought my friends and family might enjoy in the hopes of building a following.

(Umm... side note, if you're one of those still enjoying my blog and haven't clicked on that little grey "follow" button right down there > > >, please feel free to do so now. I promise you won't get spammed.)

OK, so I'm blogging along, then reality set in. I realized that if I'm going to be a freelance writer for two publications, write books, research agents, and pretend to be a good wife, mother and friend, there was no flippin' way I'd be able to post every day.

So I cut it down to twice a week--Mondays and Thursdays.

Then I noticed something... Unfamiliar faces among my followers. (!) So I scurried over and checked out their blogs and from there I found others. And ultimately, through comments and email exchanges, I "met" other writers who now feel like friends.

It's weird. I told JRM it reminds me of the pioneer days when people could only communicate with letters. But it's also better because now we get to see pictures, read profiles, get daily or weekly (as opposed to monthly or yearly) updates...

So not only have I gotten to know my dear friends and family better, which is wonderful, I'm meeting writers from around the world. Yay--blogging wins!

Problem is now I really do need to get back to WIP before I completely lose the spirit of the book.

But I don't wanna leave! I want to keep reading your comments here and commenting back and then visiting all the blogs I've commented on and going back and re-commenting on the comments made to my comments...

Whoa! Where'd Thursday go?

All this to say, I'm headed into the cave for a few days. Back soon--hopefully with good progress made on even newer brand new novel. (!)

Now for the promised book review + CONTEST!

One of my new blogging buddies recommended Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark side by Beth Fantaskey. And while I said a few posts back that I was feeling a little vamped out, I trusted her recommendation and picked it up.

Here's the cover image. I'm including it because I think it's so pretty. I would have totally picked this up in the store and read the back cover. Bonus: it actually portrays a real scene in the book. (!)

But the back cover blurb isn't really true to the spirit of the book, in my opinion. The main character (Jessica) is well-drawn and has a great arc, and the book has a definite mood that makes it not as high-schooley chicklit as it sounds.

To begin with, the opening scene is of Jessica alone, waiting for the bus when a mysterious fellow appears and calls her Anastasia. She's completely freaked out by it, and by the end of the day her mother's told her she's a long-lost princess (yes, the Romanovs called) and the strange guy now living above her parents' garage is her fiance by an arranged marriage.

It's actually a blood pact, and they're both vampire royalty. The conceit of this tale is that she doesn't fully become a vampire until he bites her, which he almost does a few times. (whee!)

At first, I was a little disappointed by the dialogue. Again, I felt like these were teenagers talking like grad-school students, and I was seriously getting Love at First Bite vibes every time the male lead (Lucius) spoke. But by page 60, that's all completely forgotten. (And he's Romanian royalty, so he gets a pass.)

Once the Jessica-Lucius relationship gets going, it's hard to put the book down. First you have him all insisting she embrace her identity. Then you have him all resolved to protect her by breaking the marriage pact. (She's too sheltered and sweet to rule a bunch of assasination-proned, power-hungry vampires.)

Of course by that time, she's determined that she's gotta be with her sexy vampire future husband. He gives her a toothache.

(That sounds funny, but it works.)

Fantaskey throws in some fun plot twists--for example, a competing female love interest for Lucius--which really heighten the tension, and she gives readers enough insight into the cruelty of Lucius's childhood to prove his point without being off-putting to her target audience.

I also liked the nod to Bram Stoker's Dracula provided by Lucius's letters to his uncle back home, and the ending has an element of ambiguity I think readers will dig.

Other than some very mild language (moms), it's a pretty clean read. So JGTDDS gets an A from me!

If you liked the Twilight books, it's possible you'll like this one even better. I've heard there's an epilogue floating around somewhere in cyberspace... must find that...

Now for the CONTEST!
Post a comment below, and on Tues. a.m. I'll use the random number generator to pick one lucky commentor to WIN either Caleb + Kate OR Perfect Chemistry!* (I reviewed these books in the June 24 post.)

What? You thought I was giving away my copy of JGTDDS?! I said I really liked this book.

RULES:
1-Comments have to be below this post to be counted.
2-Followers of this blog get bonus points, and are more likely to win. So click the little gray bar up there > > > to improve your odds!
3-Comments must be made by Monday, midnight to count. (OK, if you beat me up Tues. a.m., you'll be counted, but I have no idea what time that'll be.)

If you're having trouble commenting, shoot me an email, and I'll troubleshoot w/you. Google likes to make me enter my password twice sometimes when I leave comments. Like I hit "post comment" and then I have to enter my password again and hit "post comment" again. I'm sure this is to guarantee I really mean it.

*Those guys following for whom YA romance sinks your boat, we can work out an alternate prize. I'll email you and we can discuss. I have a set of ginsu knives I'm trying to unload... and the first three Charlaine Harris books... Oh, alright, and if you really want JGTDDS, we can chat. Especially if you're a good friend who lives near my house... ;o)

I'll announce the winner Tues a.m., so have fun, and thanks for playing. I won't be commenting back til after Tuesday so as not to skew the results.

Happy 4th of July!