Author A. J. Scudiere on The Darkside/Book Giveaways!

Today, it is my great pleasure to welcome A. J. Scudiere to Immortyl Revolution!  I met A. J. through sci fi conventions, and I was thrilled that she agreed to write a guest post.  Since it's October, she has written something on the Darkside.

Whatever Made Me Turn To Darkness?

That’s a difficult answer. If you meet me, you probably wouldn’t guess that I like my stories dark and twisty. I’m cheerful. I’m blonde. I smile a lot and I’m optimistic in the face of overwhelming odds. I might even be called ‘cute.’ (ßgrrr)

This love of the sinister may go back to when I was a small child (I love how ominous that sounds.) My parents didn't teach me to read, they had been told to let the school do it. But in kindergarten, our teachers divided us into ‘those who could already read a bit’ and ‘those who couldn't ’ I was in the ‘ couldn't’ group and my best friend Morgan was in the ‘could.’ And boy was I pissed. (You have to respect a story that starts with the ‘sinister’ and then goes to a pissed off kindergartner ) I decided I’d learn to read so well that they’d all regret not putting me in the advanced group. Looking back, I realize that this isn't nearly as threatening as I thought it was at the time.

At age six, I had showed them all how well I could read. So well, in fact, that I was tired of kid materials and I wound up scrounging around for adult books. (Remember, YA was not the juggernaut that it is today. It was an incredibly small genre, written mostly by S.E. Hinton.) To this day, I have no clue how I wound up with a copy of The Amityville Horror . . . I do remember that my mother took it away from me repeatedly. But I was six, I fit into small spaces, and I was persistent. I kept getting it back and I read every page.

Luckily, my own life has been relatively calm. I've been married twice, but my divorce was amicable. My kids are healthy and smart and my parents are still alive. What does someone like me have to write about?

Oh yeah, all that dark and twisty stuff that lingers in the back of my head. I love a good apocalypse! I root for the hero who isn’t one—the character who is very human (some good qualities, some bad, some clueless.) And I want my characters to be in the middle of some incredibly difficult situations (see the aforementioned apocalypse.) I’ve had some revenge on the mafia go very wrong. I created Katharine who has to choose between good and evil, demon and angel, only she can’t tell which one is which. And I recently finished PHOENIX, about Jason who has a missing brother he doesn't remember. And whoever set the fire that killed his mother and nearly killed him is trying to keep Jason from putting all the puzzle pieces together . . .

I’m currently writing my fifth book, INERTIA. It’s about a family restoring a plantation when they find an old document that brings some very big trouble down on them. It’s a sort of Sci-Fi meets ‘The Firm.’

So I’m going to go make some peanut butter sandwiches for my kids. And I’ll smile and tell the children to play nice with the kids next door. But you know I’m going to be thinking about Kayla holding a shotgun and whether or not she’s going to kill the man in front of her if he won’t tell her where Ivy is . . .

A big thanks to A. J. for joining me today!  Here is a little about her newest release!

Jason Mondy’s world is unraveling. 

He may be the town hero, but his job is in chaos,

his girlfriend has left him and his nightmares keep him from sleeping.

Even just a simple trip home to find some rest leads his adoptive mother to

share a secret she’s kept for over twenty-six years . . .

Jason has a brother he doesn’t remember existed.

He doesn’t remember his life before he was adopted at age seven.

Now the foundation on which he built his world is crumbling.

The life he doesn’t remember is lost somewhere and his brother left behind.

Armed with only this stunning new piece of information,

Jason embarks on a quest to find the truths buried deep in his past.

As he searches, one by one the pieces of his life fall like dominoes.

And the more he uncovers, the more everything he thought he knew

about himself and his past

begins to turn to ash.

His truth isn’t true at all . . .

Biography of best-selling thriller
author A.J. Scudiere

It’s A.J.’s world.  A strange place where patterns jump out and catch the eye, little is missed, and most of it can be recalled with a deep breath; it’s different from the world the rest of us inhabit.  But the rest of us can experience it—when we read.  In this world, the smell of Florida takes three weeks to fully leave the senses and the air in Dallas is so thick that the planes “sink” to the runways rather than actually landing.

For A.J., texture reigns supreme.  Whether it’s air or blood or virus, it can be felt and smelled.  Reality is always a little bit off from the norm and something usually lurks right under the surface. As a storyteller, A.J. loves irony, the unexpected, and a puzzle where all the pieces fit and make sense. Originally a scientist and a teacher, the writer says research is always a key player in the stories. AJ’s motto is “It could happen. It wouldn’t. But it could.”

A.J. has lived in Florida and Los Angeles among a handful of other places.  Recent whims have brought the dark writer to Tennessee, where home is a deceptively normal-looking neighborhood just outside Nashville.  

http://www.ajscudiere.com/

Follow A.J. on Twitter: @ajscudiere

or at Facebook.com/ajscudiere

A very big thanks to A. J. for joining me today!  I have several giveaways going on this month, so please scroll down and look at the posts below this one to enter them.  Here is an ongoing one:

 Giveaway:  

Readers leave a comment or question for A. J. to enter to paperback copies copy each of Resonance and Vengeance. 

The above drawing is limited to US residents only.


All readers who comment will be entered in another drawing to win 
one of five e-copies of Annals of the Immortyls, a collection of three of my short stories. 

Deadline to enter both drawings is 10/31/12 at 11 p.m. EST.  Winners will be announced on 11/1/12.  Please leave an email address where you may be contacted.