Cover Reveal: Imposs-i-Bella A Tale in 13 Chapters Story by Savannah Verte

Imposs-i-Bella
A Tale in 13 Chapters Story
by Savannah Verte

Release date: August 2017
Pre-Order available late July 2017
Bippity…Boppity…Balance.

We all know how Cinderella went to the ball, met her prince, lost a shoe, and got her happily ever after...but did you know that for such a magical thing to occur the universe demands a price? As a matter of fact, an equal measure in return.

Isabella Beaufort was born at the top of the social food chain. She had everything, including being promised to Prince Christopher, until the ill-fated ball where he met Cinderella. Follow along as we learn about the other side of the rags to riches story we all know, and the price of pissing off a fairy godmother.

About the Author:
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A lifelong lover of words and reading, Savannah Verte hasn’t quite figured out what she wants to write when she grows up. Born and raised in the upper Midwest, Savannah’s gypsy spirit and never quit attitude keep her busy and seldom idle. For so many reasons, Savannah considers herself a ‘Contemporary Vagabond’ when it comes to writing and hopes that others find her diverse offerings as enjoyable to read as they are to write.

As the primary owner and driving force behind Eclectic Bard Books she considers herself immensely fortunate to see writing from varied perspectives as she endeavors to publish the authors rostered there.

That’s the official Savannah, the unofficial version is just a girl who loves experiencing life with every twist and turn it takes. When she was born, she had such fine, light hair that her mother used to tape bows to her head so people would know she was a girl. She’s had a host of crazy unrelated jobs- everything from cake decorator, dry cleaner, and insurance agent to Emergency Room assistant, bartender, crime lab tech and bouncer. Savannah loves air hockey but completely sucks at it. She loves good jazz, good scotch, and antiques but also old rock, a quiet tea, and a tidy home. She’s completely technology impaired and can get it after she’s broken the computer or done it ass-backwards a few times… Thank Gods that there are some amazing meme creators that let her pilfer images or she’d be lost. Lime green is her color, the rhinoceros is her logo & philosophy, and she’s completely mad about seeing new authors try. 

Mitchell Hogan guest post: Top 5 Coming of Age Stories (Blood of Innocents book tour) + giveaway

Coming of Age Stories: Five fantasy series that I really connected with when I was young, and that drove me to write my Sorcery Ascendant Sequence trilogy.

I was drawn into fantasy by reading many great coming of age stories. The protagonist usually starts with a great loss or alienation — perhaps they’re an orphan, or they begin to manifest magical powers which sets them apart. They are then forced to pursue knowledge — about their past, their powers, to find out who or what he/she really is. A dangerous journey ensues, one where the hero broadens their horizons by going out into a perilous world. It’s a journey of self-discovery, of physical and/or mental maturation, of moral growth. Innocence is transformed into experience.

So here are five coming of age fantasy series I read when I was young, and that shaped the way I began my writing career, and my Sorcery Ascendant Sequence trilogy:

1. Magician (Raymond E. Feist): A classic! An orphan is apprenticed to a master magician, and fate of two worlds is changed forever. This was the first modern (at the time) fantasy novel I read. I fell in love with the characters, and I discovered I also wanted a purpose, to be a part of something.

2. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula Le Guinn): Not a traditional fantasy adventure, but one in which the tale is of self-discovery and of acceptance of the darkness that is inside all human beings. A story about the fascination with knowledge and the temptation of power.

The Belgariad (David Eddings): I don’t know if this series has aged well, but at the time it was a breath of fresh air for me. A naive farm boy is led on a dangerous quest by those he loves, at the end of which it’s up to him to confront an evil god.

4. A Man of His Word series (Dave Duncan): A stable boy and a princess… but it works, and works extremely well. It may not be deep, but it is fun! The hero’s strengths are his stubbornness, loyalty, and good heart.

5. The Fionavar Tapestry (Guy Gavriel Kay): My first “portal fantasy”. Five young men and women are transported by a mage to the magical world of Fionavar. Modern day people bringing their modern ideals into a sword and sorcery age. All five take unique paths, some darker than others.

When I began writing, I felt I had to begin my own journey with a coming of age story. After all, I also wanted to grow along the way. I would enter a strange world and endure my own trials and failures, and triumphs. Forged anew — if I survived — I would emerge on the other side a more mature writer, having taken a long hard look at myself and my craft, and at what I wanted to achieve.

Blood of Innocents (Sorcery Ascendant)

by Mitchell Hogan

February 2, 2016
592 pages

Harper Voyager; Reissue edition

A novice sorcerer may hold the key to saving his world—or be the instrument of its destruction—in this second book in The Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, a mesmerizing saga of high fantasy that combines magic, malevolence, and mystery.

Anasoma, jewel of the Mahruse Empire, has fallen.

As orphaned, monk-raised Caldan and his companions flee the city, leaving behind their hopes for a new beginning, horrors from the time of the Shattering begin to close in.

With Miranda’s mind broken by forbidden sorcery, Caldan does the unthinkable to save her: he breaks the most sacrosanct laws of the Protectors. But when the emperor’s warlocks arrive to capture him, Caldan realizes that his burgeoning powers may be more of a curse than a blessing, and the enemies assailing the empire may be rivaled by more sinister forces within.

And soon, the blood of innocents may be on Caldan’s own hands
.

About the author:
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When he was eleven, Mitchell Hogan was given The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy to read, and a love of fantasy novels was born. He spent the next ten years reading, rolling dice, and playing computer games, with some school and university thrown in. Along the way he accumulated numerous bookcases’ worth with fantasy and sci-fi novels and doesn’t look to stop anytime soon. For ten years he put off his dream of writing, then he quit his job and wrote A Crucible of Souls. He now writes full-time and is eternally grateful to the readers who took a chance on an unknown self-published author. He lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Angela, and daughter, Isabelle.

Harper Collins buy links

GIVEAWAY
signed copies of both A Crucible of Souls and Blood of Innocents

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ink Well with Amanda Clemmer: All About Story-Crafting

All About Story-Crafting 

“According to the pacing chart, there should be a slight drop near the end of chapter 2, allowing for the future buildup…”

It’s a question I’ve been asked before, and it’s a question people are certainly going to ask in the future: how do you plan your stories? Some authors love intricate planning stages with outlines and possibly years of research before getting to the actual writing, and some like to make it up as they go. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

Results? Guaranteed.
Good results? Debatable.

Me? I’m a mad scientist when it comes to writing and planning my novels. I love learning and applying new methods, but I just can’t seem to get caught up in a single routine! I wrote a vampire novella about ten years ago that involved planning down to the paragraphs before I wrote. It gave me a lot of confidence in my sense of direction and kept the story from falling flat… but it took out a lot of the excitement on my end of the spectrum. Later I wrote a fantasy novel that I drafted by hand, with the specific condition that I could not plan anything beyond the current handwritten page. The story was cliché in many areas, but the writing itself was lovely and expressive as anything.

These days I’m a little more practical. I think about my books before I write them and decide how much planning I want to do. I usually want a sense of direction but plenty of wiggle room to let the novel build on itself. My recent release, Automaton, hinged on the single idea of a person being replaced by a machine who believed itself to be that person. The original idea was very different than the result. It was going to be sci-fi. A vital crew member on a starship would fall ill and leave the ship’s doctor with no choice but to rebuild him.

Then the questions came. Would it be better if the main character were a male or female? What species or race would he be? Was he going to be entirely robotic or just have some central organs replaced? And—most jarring of all—what if I switched genres? That’s something I’ve been doing a lot lately. Switching genres when planning a story to see what it would look like. Sometimes the results are weird and laughable, and sometimes they’re brilliant.

Or maybe they should all be sheep. 

Steampunk was the first genre to come to mind. I’d never written anything Steampunk before, but my love for science fiction and historical fiction could make it work. Instead of a robot, I would have an automaton. The ray gun adopted as the main character embarks on her quest would be a clockwork and steam powered pistol, complete with gears. The setting would have Victorian elegance—with all the action of a space opera. My novel was turning into something different, something beautiful and unique—and I liked it. 

My tips for story crafting are simple. Experiment. Don’t let yourself settle for good enough. And don’t be afraid to challenge what you’ve assumed this whole time—ewe never know when you’ll discover a goldmine!

Automaton
by Amanda Clemmere
book, 107 pages
May 22nd 2015
Last Thursday I awoke to learn that I died almost a month ago. I was rebuilt from a highly experimental process of clockwork and cloning, and I don’t know why. One man knows my secret—my creator, the lead of the Leona Scientific Laboratory. He says knowledge isn’t free. I say that unless I know why I’m here, he’s the one who’s going to pay.

My friend Jack Beasley has offered his help. He has inside knowledge about the laboratory and the man who runs it. I think he also knows something about me that he isn’t sharing. There’s no one I can trust now. Not even myself.

About the Author:
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Hello! I’m Amanda Clemmer, and writing lengthier fiction has been a passion of mine for most of my life. I graduated with a degree in English Literature and Writing from the University of Northwestern in St. Paul in 2012, and immediately afterward became a writer/contributor (and later managing editor) of Comicbooked.com.

After getting engaged in 2013 and moving halfway across the country, I decided to take my fiction writing more seriously. I left my position at Comic Booked to focus on my more immediate projects and wedding planning. In that time I realized that I had several different fiction projects that I was working on, but I needed to find ways to motivate myself to finish them, edit them, and make them shine!

Cover Reveal: The Holiday Spirit by Dani Harper

Bigger.
Better.
Badder...

Dani Harper's Christmas Ghost Story is BACK! The Holiday Spirit returns with all new material. The characters from this popular PNR novella have haunted their author into resurrecting the story with additional scenes and details. Planned release during the Christmas Season 2014!

When is a ghost not a ghost?

Writer Kerri Tollbrook spends her free time counseling the newly departed, but the tall, dark and handsome spirit she meets at the shopping mall claims he’s not dead. Is he just in denial? Or is there something more sinister at work?

Firefighter Galen McAllister has felt like The Invisible Man ever since a malicious spell separated him from his still-living body. Kerri is the first person he's met who can actually see him. Now if only he can get her to listen … because the nightmare creature which has him trapped between two worlds is coming back for him!

Kerri’s got until Christmas to solve the riddle and free Galen – or lose him forever.

visit the page:

Dani Harper,author,THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT,paranormal romance,GHOSTS

About the Author:

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There isn't anything Dani Harper likes better than exploring myths, legends, and the supernatural - unless it's writing sizzling and suspenseful fantasy and romance.

A longtime resident of the Canadian north and southeast Alaska, Dani's currently trying to keep ahead of a runaway garden in rural Washington with her family. She is the author of several shapeshifter books, including Changeling Moon (a 2012 RITA Award Finalist), Changeling Dream, Changeling Dawn, and First Bite. Her newest releases, Storm Warrior and Storm Bound, are kicking off the Grim Series, which brings ancient Celtic mythology – plus hot heroes and even hotter faeries – to modern-day America. Book 3, Storm Warned, releases March 3, 2015!

DANI HARPER books are available on any Amazon site. They’re sold in a few other places as well (check her website for details).

NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP – (All subscribers, including international, are automatically entered for a chance to win Dani’s monthly giveaways!) http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?llr=hn8w4qmab&p=oi&m=1112966655399&sit=6lw8olxhb&f=550e63eb-cca6-4e42-ba3e-94fdc8a2760f