#author takeover

[mugglenet]

Jason Cockcroft Breaks Down Dreamy Illustrations for New Novel "We Were Wolves" - https://blog.mugglenet.com/2021/06/jason-cockcroft-breaks-down-dreamy-illustrations-for-new-novel-we-were-wolves/

[kensingtonbooks]

My Favorite Moment

Leanna Renee Hieber shared her favorite excerpt from A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS:

One thing that’s been commented on a great deal about this series is the strength of female friendships and relationships. It’s vitally important to me. A character that has been a reader favorite is little Zofia, a Polish immigrant ghost with a tragic story. Here’s a touching moment between her and our heroine Eve, one of my favorite moments in the book.

From A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS:

Eve needed to pull herself together, for everyone’s sake. Perhaps that realization was what summoned little Zofia into the hallway. The young shade wavered, her white dress with its singed hem buffeted in the slight breeze wafting off all spirits—the eternal chill. The girl’s mother had perished in the same shop fire and her father had died in Warsaw long before that, but her parents’ souls had gone on to peace. Zofia chose to stay in the city to help other children find ways out of desperate ends.

Zofia had met Eve on her first case, haunting the same place a child was in need. In some cases, Zofia would appear to point a child toward an exit in an emergency; in others she’d try to inspire escape from myriad torments. Eve tried never to pin Zofia down to one mission. The child fiercely chose her own. But right now, it seemed Zofia just wanted a friend.

“I know we’re not supposed to be in your room,” Zofia murmured, “but… can I watch you get ready?” The child looked pained. “I will never experience going to a ball. Having a suitor. Trying to make myself beautiful…”

Her plea hit Eve like a blow, and she blinked back tears. “Of course, dear. We can experience all this together, then.”

Opening the tall wooden wardrobe in her room, she stared at the dresses therein. There were only a few, nothing ostentatious, a couple of ball gowns Gran insisted she have ready for moments like these where work would be accomplished while socializing. Staying on task helped Eve counterbalance the butterflies that threatened inelegantly to topple her over.

There was waltzing to worry about too. The aerial flips her stomach had been doing now plummeted. She dreaded dancing; she wasn’t any good at it. “Zofia, come here, practice a waltz with me. I’m hopeless.”

She hummed some Strauss and practiced the box step in her room with the little girl, thankful there were no corporeal feet to trip upon, laughing with the child until Eve felt she had made herself safe for contact.

“Who will you be dancing with, the detective?” Zofia asked excitedly. Almost too excitedly, as if it were a foregone conclusion.

Eve pursed her lips. “Perhaps. And if the detective demands a waltz, I can’t step on his feet, or worse, trip the poor man.”

“He’d be a good sport about it even if you did,” Zofia posited. “He’s very nice.”

“Yes, yes he is,” Eve said. “Now I have to choose a dress. I’m a disaster at this.”

Back to the wardrobe again. Nothing gaudy. This was a working-class theatre circuit. But she couldn’t wear her black uniforms. There was a simple royal blue evening dress, nice taffeta with elegant gathers. When she put her hand on it, Zofia nodded her approval. Starched lace along a high bodice line provided modesty, and that would be wise. She was meeting his parents, after all. There went the stomach again.

She removed her outer layers, keeping on her chemise, bloomers, and petticoat, and lifted a long-waisted whalebone corset around her, cinching it tighter to accommodate the dress, an act that didn’t help her stomach in the least. She slipped into the body of the dress, folding her arms into it, double checking all of the hooks and eyes on the side that kept her swathed. When Gran had insisted Eve own a few fine dresses, Eve had said she wasn’t interested in wearing “a thousand ties and tribulations” and agreed to be fitted only on the condition that she could get into an outfit entirely on her own.

Dashing rosewater about herself, she carefully swept up her hair in her favorite marcasite hair combs and debated about a necklace. A tiny sapphire on a whisper-thin silver chain, a gift from her father, completed her ensemble. The stone was an important one. Powder, a faint dash of rouge, and a slight tint of lip balm made her less green. She stared in the mirror and tried to bolster herself. For someone who was so confident about her work, she felt terribly awkward being a lady in polite society. Zofia wafted her little hand over Eve’s temple and utilized the cold breeze generated by her spirit to brush a stray wisp of hair back in place.

“You look beautiful,” Zofia commented. “Thank you for not minding me.”

Eve’s eyes watered as she smiled at the girl, wishing she knew what to say when the ache of a life cut short was an unmitigated melancholy. “As if I could ever mind you,” she murmured, a lump in her throat.

“It all seems a bit magical,” the child continued, wistful romance in her voice.

Download your copy of A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS today→ http://bit.ly/2kdKG7f

[luninosity]

Hi internet friends!

Just FYI, I’ll be doing an author takeover tomorrow - courtesy of generous fellow romance author Karma Kingsley - in her Facebook group Kingsley’s Kweens!

I’ll be over there from 2:00-2:30 pm California time (so, 5:00-5:30pm East Coast), talking about author things, my new f/f release - The Ninepenny Element! - and anything else you’d like, from weird medievalist trivia, to story tidbits, to teaching comics, to getting published, to that time I talked to Sebastian Stan about Shakespeare!

So come say hi and ask me things and help me, er, promote myself! Which I’m not all that good at! So it’d be awesome if you wanted to chat!

Here’s the link again, and I’ll see you tomorrow, if you’d like!

[buttermybooks]

If you have been a part of the bookish community for any amount of time, then you have probably seen The Princess Saves Herself In This one on your favorite bookstagrammers feed or in Barnes and Noble sitting on the best sellers shelf right next to Milk and Honey. Amanda Lovelace has been featured on Bustle, PopSugar, and V Magazine for her debut novel, which also won goodreads choice award in 2016.  Since self publishing,  Lovelace has become everyone’s favorite poetess and feminist queen, Which is why I am thrilled to have her on the blog today! I asked Amanda if she would share her top 5 favorite poetry collections with us and the list is incredible! I cant wait to get my hands on these!

Without further adieu, Amanda Lovelace’s favorite poetry collections!

We Carry The Sky by Mckayla Robbin

I couldn’t possibly list my favorite poetry collections without putting this one at the very top. In one of the most empowering collections I’ve read in my lifetime, robbin explores an array of topics, including womanhood, eating disorders, sexual assault, human rights, and self-love. This collection lingers with me always.

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur 

There is no poetry collection I own more copies of. Filled with feminist musings and life experiences from the point of view of a Punjabi woman, this book seems equally beloved and controversial. I have no doubt milk and honey will be shelved alongside the classics in the future.

Wild Embers by Nikita Gill

This is a more recent read of mine, but it climbed directly into my heart and made a permanent home there. In her much-anticipated release since Your Soul is a River, Nikita Gill delivered…and then some. Wild Embers explores feminism and rape culture in a way that made me want to set every galaxy aflame.

Magic with Skin On by Morgan Nikola-Wren

There is no other poetry collection like this out there. It’s dark. It’s lyrical. It makes you feel like you’re taking a romantic midnight stroll through the fog. Think The Night Circus, but in poetry form.

The Chaos of Longing by K.Y. Robinson

In my humble opinion, this collection doesn’t get enough hype. Told in beautiful and accessible verse, Robinson writes on desire, mental illness, and survival. There is a poem in here for anyone who knows what it is to ache in every way imaginable.

These sound amazing! Will you be picking any of them up?

If you have been living under a rock and haven’t read any of Amanda’s work, I will leave links below!

Buy Princess on Amazon

Pre-order Amanda’s next book

Follow Amanda on instagram

[kensingtonbooks]

The Power of Gemstones

The following is a guest blog from A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS author, Leanna Renee Hieber.

Eve loves Marcasite, it’s her favorite stone. A classic in vintage jewelry, Marcasite is a luminous, grey, silver cut mineral, faceted like a gemstone. It’s Eve’s favorite because she believes it to be reflective of, as she says in THE SPECTRAL CITY ‘the luster of the ghosts’.

The properties of Marcasite are encouraging self-direction and taking steps towards realizing one’s goals as well as balancing energetic polarities. This is a perfect stone for Eve to cherish as she’s constantly balancing the well-being and needs of her team against her own and she’s such a strong leader and personality, driven and full of purpose.

She also wears a sapphire pendant on a whisper-thin chain during critical points in A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS, a gift given to her by her father, Jonathon Whitby, Lord Denbury, hero of my Magic Most Foul saga beginning with Darker Still and here, Eve uses it as a protective Ward and its properties are described directly in the text:

“She pressed against the necklace her father had given her, the tiny sapphire given with so much love and charged with her energies, glad she was still wearing it from the soiree. Sapphire enhanced psychic abilities, clarity, and insight. It was a stone of strength and confidence. As she touched the gem, the figure before her flickered—still spectral in part, but not in the way she was accustomed to.”

I’ll be using more stones with protective and clarifying qualities, such as obsidian and lapis lazuli in book 3, A SUMMONING OF SOULS, coming next summer!

Download your copy of A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS today→ http://bit.ly/2kdKG7f

[kensingtonbooks]

Lessons Of The Dead by Valentine Wolfe: A Spectral City Theme Song!

How did this eerily beautiful song and video come together as an official Spectral City theme song?

From Leanna: I've loved Valentine Wolfe from the moment I met and heard them: female-fronted vocals by Sarah Black backed by rich, layered, Gothic, atmospheric metal and exquisite upright bass thanks to Braxton Ballew. Their Edgar Allan Poe adaptation into gorgeous, dark beauty made me wonder how my words would sound with their artistry. 

Sarah's look resembles Eve strongly and I knew our interests and aesthetic was mutual. I didn't direct the creation of the song, only sent them the book and wanted them to adapt as the spirits moved. As for a video, all I hoped for was something very simple and evocative of period and mood. They delivered in every way. They picked up on one of the most important concepts in the series: The dead teach us so much about life. It's a great thematic entree into my world of Spirits and the living who care for them.

From Valentine Wolfe:

"Leanna Renee Hieber's books are delightfully dark and spooky and peopled with decadent Victorian characters. These books are so incredible and I highly recommend them! So when Leanna approached us to do a theme song for her three part series, The Spectral City Series, I got so excited. I read carefully through The Spectral City (book 1) and paid attention to which phrases jumped out at me, almost as if the lyrics were in spectral form and I could channel them the way the main character Eve and her close circle of friends (also mediums) channels the spirits. We used a lot of musical parts (layers) to depict the realities Eve has to navigate, whether spectral or corporeal, so listen for the different bass and vocal parts, along with other musical ghostly apparitions."

Download your copy of A SANCTUARY OF SPIRITS today→ http://bit.ly/2kdKG7f

[kensingtonbooks]

5 Things to Know About Verity Kent

From PENNY FOR YOUR SECRETS author, Anna Lee Huber.

1. Verity worked for the foreign division of British Military Intelligence during the First World War. She started working for the Secret Service as a typist and secretary before steadily advancing to translator, analyst, and then field agent. During the latter years of the war, she frequently traveled to their headquarters in neutral Netherland before sneaking across the heavily-fortified border into German-occupied Belgium, where she liaised with intelligence gathering networks there, including La Dame Blanche. On a number of occasions, she also assisted an intelligence agent who had infiltrated the German Army before the war and was stationed in Brussels. Verity was demobilized in early 1919, though she has since discovered that an agent never truly retires from the Secret Service.

2. Verity passionately loves her husband, but their marriage is on rocky footing. Sidney marched away to war just three days after they married in October 1914, and they spent the remainder of the war apart but for short snatches of time when he was home on leave. Then in March 1918 he was reported killed during a tumultuous battle, and Verity was devastated. Though severely injured, he recovered, but allowed himself to remain reported dead so that he could pursue a group of traitors. When Verity discovered he was actually alive in May 1919, her feelings were conflicted. Though elated he was alive, she was furious and hurt that he’d allowed her to believe such a painful lie for so long. She has since accepted his reasons for doing so, as he has accepted her role with the Secret Service during the war, and they are slowly working toward reconciliation.

3. Verity is intensely loyal to her friends. It is one of the traits she values most. If you have gained her trust and devotion, she will walk through fire to help you, even to her own detriment. During the war, she risked all to extract a fellow agent posing as a German officer from Belgium. In June 1919, she sacrifices much to journey to an engagement party she doesn’t wish to attend, all in an effort to clear the name of her husband—whom she still believes is dead. In July 1919, she travels back into war-ravaged Belgium to track down a former fellow spy who may be in grave danger, risking her shaky marriage in the process. And in PENNY FOR YOUR SECRETS, she will come to the aid of her friend Ada, with some unpleasant consequences.

4. Verity has not returned to her parents’ home in Yorkshire since the early part of 1915. She cannot bring herself to confront the place filled with so many memories of her brother Rob, knowing he was killed in July 1915—his aeroplane shot down over France. She knows in her head that he is dead, but she hasn’t allowed herself to accept it in her heart. She’s already experienced so much loss, but she simply can’t bring herself to face this one. Making matters worse, her relationship with her family, particularly her mother, is complicated, to say the least. And the longer she stays away, the more strained it grows. Particularly because they don’t know the truth about her wartime service.

5. Verity is cool under pressure. She believes one should hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And that you should never, ever let them see you sweat.

[mugglenet]

Author Takeover: Snakes in Mythology by Bex Hogan - http://blog.mugglenet.com/2019/05/author-takeover-snakes-in-mythology-by-bex-hogan/