The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Greetings and Happy New Year from Cedric and me!  

I took a rather long hiatus from blogging to enjoy the Holidays with the family.  We laughed a lot and ate too much, but it was a blast!  Yes, I'm writing this from my Christmas present from my husband and son, a brand-spanking-new notebook computer.  (Cedric says he's supplying the spanking part.)  No more banging on my ancient desktop.  (Cedric will miss the banging.)  The danger for me now is fooling around too much on social media instead of writing.  (Cedric favors more writing about fooling around.)

Cedric MacKinnon

The focus of this blog will change somewhat in the coming year.  I won't be hosting blog tours anymore, although I'll occasionally have another author as a guest blogger.  Cedric will still be conducting sexy interviews, but will soon be getting his own blog.  My posts will concentrate on mythology and folklore topics or personal observations and humor.

That being said, when my good friend, A. J. Scudiere, asked me to take part in The Next Big Thing Blog Hop, I thought it would be a good time to present the new format and introduce myself (and my naughty Scottish vampire lad Cedric) to some new readers.  

THE NEXT BIG THING BLOG HOP

There are the books everyone has heard about: Twilight, Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Gray. But what about all those books written by people you've never heard of? Some of them are treasures, just waiting to be found, and that’s what this blog hop is all about: the books you might not have heard about, but that you might end up loving.

This blog hop is like a game of tag. One author posts and tags other authors who link back to their website the next week and tags new authors. If you follow the blog hop long enough, you’re bound to find some books you’ll love! Maybe you’ll even discover a book that ends up being the next big thing.

The immensely talented A.J. Scudiere tagged me.  Her recent novel Phoenix  (AND novel #3 God’s Eye) Just got top honors at the USA Book Review Awards for 2012. (2 out of 6 awards given in Suspense.) You can find out more about A.J. and the Intelligent Suspense novels she writes at www.AJScudiere.com and follow the snarky Smart Chickens blog at www.SmartChickens.com or search ‘Smart Chickens’ on iTunes for the podcast.

A big thanks to A.J. for inviting me to the hop!
  
For those of you visiting for the first time, welcome!  I'm the author of the Immortyl Revolution, a series of four Urban Fantasy novels and one collection of three short tales.  The novels are published by L&L Dreamspell.  My latest release is Servant of the Goddess.

This blog hop includes ten questions to help you learn more about an author’s current work in progress, so here’s a little info about my current project:

1: What is the working title of your book?  

Denise: Prophetess.

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

Denise: I originally had an idea for a mystery story set in a rural town where I once lived, but decided to fictionalize the town and add fantasy elements.

3: What genre does your book fall under? 

Denise: Urban Fantasy/Thriller.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?  

Denise:  Oh maybe Charlize Theron as the prophetess heroine, Marena, and Paul Bettany as Lothian, the half-elf demon hunter. For Gabe, Marena’s much-younger boyfriend, who is possessed by an angelic being, someone pretty and intense, maybe Ezra Miller.  

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

Denise:  A young woman, haunted by visions of an impending apocalypse, finds the corpse of a teen-aged boy and sets out on a quest to find and slay the demon responsible for his murder.

6: Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Denise: I’ll be seeking representation once it’s completed.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

Denise:  This was a Nanorimo project from 2010, so one month.  I put it aside to finish my commitment to my Immortyl Revolution series.  

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?  

Denise: I’d say it’s similar to books by Kim Harrison in that there's a central mystery, magic and a variety of supernatural creatures.

9: Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Denise:  I looked at images of male angels, sculptures, painting etc..  

It struck me that they are kind of bad ass and cool.  Think of Michael, he's a warrior who battles his fallen brethren   I wondered a lot about how a war between angels and demons would be fought.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

Denise:  The demon antagonist is inspired by a creature out of Japanese legend.  I wanted a truly horrific monster in this story.  One day, a house centipede dropped from the ceiling and landed on my husband.  Now, I’m a tomboy at heart, the kind of gal who caught toads and snakes as a child, but centipedes just give me the willies.  It’s all those legs.  Well, I did some research to find out if there was a folkloric centipede demon and learned of the Japanese Omukade.  I also researched real centipedes to give my monster some authenticity, but I do give mine qualities that are definitely supernatural.  My Omukade is able to incubate within a human host and act through her until she gathers enough power to manifest, adding to the creep factor

Here are two more authors who will be joining the hop. I hope you’ll visit their blogs next week and learn more about their books. Maybe one of them will become your new favorite author!

1. Cherie Noel writes fun, steamy love stories, adventure and sci fi with a m/m focus.  If men loving men is your cup of tea, check out her sci fi adventure Tian's Hero the First Book of the Akanti series and her other work at http://talesfromthewritingcave.blogspot.com

Read Cedric's interview of the main players Tian's Hero.

2. Anne Marie Lutz's first fantasy novel, Color Mage, just came out this past summer from Loconeal Press.  She's currently at work on the sequel, Sword of Jashan,  http://annemariesblog.wordpress.com

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.