Category Archives: Reading

Sandy Williams Q&A and Giveaway

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Looking for something new to read? Last week Sandy William’s urban fantasy debut, The Shadow Reader, was released, and it’s garnering fabulous reviews. I recently asked Sandy a few burning questions about the book and the lovely author behind it, and here’s a peek into our tête-à-tête. Hope you enjoy her answers as much as I did. Sandy is smart, funny, and sweet, and I cannot wait to dive into her book!

I’ve already got The Shadow Reader lined up on my Kindle, but if you haven’t already picked it up, here’s your chance, because I’m giving away a paperback copy to one lucky commenter. If you want in on this action, just leave a comment below; make sure you leave your email (either privately in the email field or within your comment). I’ll pick one random commenter next Wed, November 9th. Giveaway is open to international readers (any country that Book Depository delivers to — click the link for a list if you’re unsure). Spread the word!

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Jenn: First, let me just say that I love your cover! In particular, I like two things about it: the sword and the curvy butt. What could be better? My Arcadia covers are great, but I’ve lamented at length on twitter about Cady and her lack of rendered booty. Who’s your cover artist, and did you demand that the sword and the backside be featured? (If so, I’m high-fiving you right now.)

Sandy: I feel like I completely lucked out on my cover. I love everything about it! Gene Mollica designed it and, damn, his work is awesome! He captured McKenzie perfectly. But I’ll let you and your readers in on a little secret. The sword? It’s not exactly in the book. The fae have and use them, but if I’m not mistaken, McKenzie picks up a sword once during the entire story – and it’s knocked out of her hands within seconds! I can still picture her as she is on the cover, though. She might not be so great at using a sword, but she sure as hell can fake it.

Jenn: I *love* Gene Mollica. He’s done a lot of great covers. And no worries: your sword secret is safe.

Your protagonist, McKenzie Lewis, is a human student (with an intriguing talent!). A student as an urban fantasy lead sounds so refreshing and different! I mean, not all UF heroines can—or should—be cops, bounty hunters, or PIs. Did you draw from your own college experiences when writing McKenzie?

Sandy: Heh. No, my college life was much more mundane than hers!

Sydney f/Alias

I honestly can’t remember why I chose to make McKenzie a college student. Maybe it’s because I knew it would be impossible for her to keep a day job with the fae always invading her life? I think the decision was at least partially influenced by the TV show, Alias. I liked watching Sydney Bristow try to balance her studies with her work as a super secret double agent spy!

Jenn: Loved Alias, too. And I have major troubles trying to keep Cady behind the bar, so I know exactly what you mean.
Your literary agent is Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. Lucky duck! I have this image of her as being really fun to work with and super-cool. Am I right?

 

Sandy: She is fabulous! I still sometimes have trouble believing I hooked her. When I was querying The Shadow Reader, she was one of the agents on my Dream List, a very short list that I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to get any requests from. I just about died when she read my partial and requested the full within twenty-four hours! She’s been absolutely awesome to work with, and her editorial insight is spot on. I couldn’t imagine doing this writing thing without her!

Jenn: Is it true that you’re raising twins to ghostwrite for you when they turn 16?

Sandy: Who told you about my evil genius plan?! Yep. I have two minions in training. They’re just over three months old now and quite the time-suck, so they’re going to totally owe me when they turn 16.

Jenn: I might want to rent out their services myself, so keep me abreast of their schedule.

 

You’ve professed a love of board games. I’m a HUGE sucker for board games myself, but mine are mostly boring classics like Monopoly and Clue (and the highly addictive Bananagrams). You, however, play strange and wondrous things like Settlers of Catan. What is this, and when can we play?

 

Color me intrigued!

Sandy: Settlers of Catan is THE board game for beginning board game geeks! It’s a strategy game that is pretty easy to learn, but once you play it, it’s a slippery slope to all the other awesome games out there. There’s this whole genre of games sometimes referred to as Eurogames (many of them are created in Germany). I had no idea they existed until I met my husband. Now, we have a whole closet full of Eurogames.

Whenever you and I happen to show up at the same conference, I’ll be sure to pack a few geeky board games. What do you say, RWA in 2012?

Jenn: Deal! Anyone attending RWA in Anaheim next year is going to find us in a hotel lobby, engaged in a mad Eurogame battle!

 

One of my oldest friends is a librarian. Librarians rock! Do you still moonlight as a librarian yourself? Do you dream about the Dewey Decimal system? Does your husband make you don glasses and wear your hair in a bun so that he can act out his Sexy Librarian fantasies with you?

 

Sandy: Librarians do rock! Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to work in months because of the twins and The Big Looming Deadline. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go back to work any time soon, but I can’t wait until the boys are old enough to go to storytime! I definitely still support my local libraries and love going there to browse the shelves, read, or camp out for a few hours of writing.

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Visit Sandy’s website

Add her book to your TBR pile on Goodreads

Follow her on Twitter

 

Blurb for The Shadow Reader:

Some humans can see the fae. McKenzie Lewis can track them, reading the shadows they leave behind. But some shadows lead to danger. Others lead to lies.

A Houston college student trying to finish her degree, McKenzie has been working for the fae king for years, tracking vicious rebels who would claim the Realm. Her job isn’t her only secret. For just as long, she’s been in love with Kyol, the king’s sword-master—and relationships between humans and fae are forbidden.

But any hope for a normal life is shattered when she’s captured by Aren, the fierce and uncompromising rebel leader. He teaches her the forbidden fae language and tells her dark truths about the Court, all to persuade her to turn against the king. Time is running out, and as the fight starts to claim human lives, McKenzie has no choice but to decide once and for all whom to trust and where she ultimately stands in the face of a cataclysmic civil war.

Leave a comment below for a chance to win a copy of this fab-sounding debut!

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Flintlocks, Porcelain Heart, Circus love

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(1) Research for my current writing project (I am excited beyond measure to be working on this):

I have a major girl-crush on Louise Brooks.

 

(2) The song that gave me chills at a concert that I attended with the hubs on Friday (the band is Opeth—Swedish metal—and the lead singer, Mikael Akerfeldt, may or may not have been a teeny bit of an inspiration for Lon at one point or another . . . along with a couple of other people):

 

(3) What I read this weekend (and probably my favorite read of 2011 thus far; however, I would hesitate to recommend this to readers who might find it hard to be patient with a great deal of description and very little action):

Beautiful, literary slow-burn . . .

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Current Project & Weekend Inspiration

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I spent the last week giving my New Project serious consideration. For me, this usually means playing out a variety of scenes in my head, honing character traits, and tooling around with setting. I typically jot down notes about ideas, but lately I’ve been trying to keep project notes contained in single spiral-bound notebooks (as opposed to scattered around my home on bits of envelopes, napkins, and squeezed into the white margins of magazine subscription cards, which always seem to be plentiful and available when I need paper).

This time, I’m going one step further: Instead of just writing down concepts, I’m also keeping a journal of what I’ve watched or read or seen that has sparked an idea related to my project. For example: I watched 1/2 of Naked Lunch on DVD (which I previously saw in the theatre with my first husband), and Micmacs (or Micmacs à tire-larigot, the original French title, which my current husband delightfully translated for me) on one of the movie channels (which we watched not once, but 1 1/2 times).

Anyway, I’m not sure if my new journal obsession will enrich the final product, but it’s been important to me for reasons I can’t quite explain.

One of the biggest bursts of inspiration I got this week came from reading a new quarterly magazine called Lucky Peach. It’s from Chef David Chang and McSweeney’s, for those of you who can attach recognition to either of these names. For those who can’t, it’s basically beautifully designed food writing—both pretentious and down-to-earth at the same time, with breakdowns of the differences between a 62 and 63 degree egg, and Harold McGee (food science hero) explaining the fallacy of MSG headaches, and the chronicle of a drunken (yet utterly brilliant) conversation between Chang, Wylie Dufresne, and Tony Bourdain. Because I’ve been profoundly stressed-out lately, I took an Atarax and lounged in a long, hot bath while reading this magazine. After one-too-many Kindle reads, it was nice to touch paper again. I devoured the entire magazine with stars in my eyes—and a new-found yearning to make my own ramen noodles at home—and will likely read parts of it more carefully later. Just plain wonderful.

Oh, and for the record, I included the magazine reading in my project journal. I am inspired to write something . . . bigger and better than anything I’ve done in the past. I might fail; I often do. But that’s what art is all about: risking failure. And if there’s one thing I do well, it’s risk. At the expense of my sanity, emotional well-being, and financial security. God only knows why, but it’s a character quality/flaw of which I’m (foolishly) proud.

Off-subject P.S.: If you’re interested in winning a copy of KINDLING, you can comment on my Devil-at-the-Crossroads story, which features Cady and Lon in another time period/setting.

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Release Day!

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KINDLING in the wild! Myrtle Beach Books-a-Million via Anjelica on FB

Hey, y’all! My book is finally street-legal and officially published! *throws confetti* To celebrate, I’ll be in a number of places today:

• I blogged (hilariously, I might add) on Pocket After Dark 10 Reasons Why KINDLING THE MOON is Awesome! Go forth and discover the awesomeness!

• I also guest blogged on (the terribly lovely UK urban fantasy author) Suzanne McLeod‘s blog about Authors’ Mothers, and why mine was just not that into my book.* Suzanne added some awesomely hilarious Mother photos (of Joyce Summers, Buffy’s mom) and the cutest picture ever of her doggie and my book. I’m currently reading the first Spellcrackers book in Suzanne’s series, and it is wonderful, fun stuff, just FYI.

*note: after I wrote this guest blog, the Mother in question has written to tell me that she DID enjoy the book . . . just not all the bad words, evil occult-y things, and sexytimes, I suspect.

• Here is a thoughtful (okay, and a bit playful and wacky) Q&A with Gareth from Falcata Times in the UK, as well as a very lovely review.

• Here is another review from Yummy Men and Kick Ass Chicks that totally made my day! Not only can she make an impressive lobster balloon animal (check out her vlog from a few days back) she said very nice things about the book, and she liked the same things that I liked about writing it. Plus, she pictures Lon as Johnny Depp, and I’m definitely down with that!

• Reminder: you still have one more day to decide what you’d like Arcadia to serve you at Tambuku Tiki Lounge in order to enter a giveaway at The Qwillery for a signed copy of my book (and read a Q&A).

• July 5th is the deadline for another giveaway of my book at Dark Faerie Tales, where Angela is asking what you’d do with magic (and where you can also read a guest blog about why Arcadia Bell is Not a Witch).

• And did you read my crazy Q&A with Synde (including why I’d totally do FDR) on Tombstone Tails (plus, she’s got jewelry at Etsy, folks)?

• There are a few nice reviews on Goodreads already. Several book bloggers have indicated that they’ll be posting reviews on their sites this week. I’ll try to list them here in an update later today. If you’ve read the book and wouldn’t mind posting a short review on Amazon or Goodreads, that would also be super-sweet and thoughtful.

• Today I’m going to pop in a couple of Atlanta area bookstores and sign stock. Then the hubs is going to take me out to a pub for a little celebration dinner, and possibly a good pint of ale! Maybe even a VERY good one. Cheers!

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Love Letter to Carolyn Crane

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Not only do I write urban fantasy, but I read it…a lot of it, like, every stinkin’ day. Sometimes I hate the genre and all the boring tropes that define it, and sometimes I’m surprised and thrilled by how a talented author can put a new spin on said tropes.

But when an author comes along with a can of lighter fluid and a gleam in her eye, and throws a lit match on the whole genre, I’m starstruck. Enter MIND GAMES by Carolyn Crane, a psychological urban fantasy-comicbook-noir about a hypochondriac who joins an underground team of crime-fighters.

If you buy this book based on expectations delivered via the cover, you’ll be sorely disappointed; it’s one of the most deceptive covers I’ve seen in the genre. And you also might be alarmed by the present tense, or the fact that the heroine is neurotic and unreliable. You might even be worried that the lack of supernatural monsters might disappoint. But it won’t.

What’s more, this isn’t a book that will mildly surprise you. It’s a love-or-hate thing that will either have you deserting it early on (if you have terrible taste) or wanting to gild it and put it on a pedestal…or at least board and bag it and store it in a long box with all the other treasures that you would never-ever sell in a million years. That was me. I didn’t just like the damn book, I LOVED it. In fact, it rung ALL my reading bells:

–I carried it with me, room-to-room, fearful that someone would steal it from me when I wasn’t looking

–Both related to and was repelled by heroine; got angry at heroine’s choices, to the point of berating the character out loud (and angry with myself for secretly knowing I’d make the same choices)

–Kept thinking about minor characters and plot points days after finishing the book, trying to piece together things I wasn’t sure about

–Laughed, chuckled, and grinned many times when re-reading certain phrases and lines

–Charmed by the author’s ability to describe big things with simple, ordinary words

–Two weeks later tried to fight off need to read book again

–Three weeks later worried that the second book in the series couldn’t possibly live up to the first

–Four weeks later paralyzed with fear that I may not read anything else so engrossing this year

Easily my favorite book of 2010. Marry me, Carolyn Crane.

Buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553592610/

Read her blog here: http://thethrillionthpage.blogspot.com/

XOXO,

Jenn

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First Chapter Turn-offs

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My to-be-read fiction pile is fifteen books high. I read every day, and usually have no problem deciding what’s next, but lately it’s been like pulling teeth.

After a day of see-sawing, I decided to crack open the covers and see which one hooked me within the first chapter. A quick litmus test. Agents and editors do it all the time, so why couldn’t I? The results were surprising. Only four out of fifteen immediately compelled me enough to keep reading—four!

Why? What made them stand out? All followed the basic rules—no major info-dumping, good first lines, and the stories began where they should, with the “inciting incident.” So why didn’t I want to keep reading?

Here’s why:

1) The WHO wasn’t clear. Within a few paragraphs, I want to be able to clearly identify with one main character. Is he/she flighty? Wry? Sneaky? It doesn’t really matter, I just need to connect with someone immediately. The worst offenders, in my opinion, are third-person over-the-shoulder stories where the viewpoint switches within the chapter. One sentence I’m in HER shoes, the next I’m in HIS, but what I’m left with as a reader is a muddled view of both. I’m looking at you, paranormal romance.

2) Generic settings. No need to info-dump, but give me something sharp right out of the gate. Just telling me your character is a waitress in a diner isn’t enough; it only takes a few words to evoke a late-night backwoods bar with three customers, mold on the ceiling tiles, and the lingering stink of stale cigarette smoke.

3) Bad writing. Overwrought “poetic” sentences end up sounding obnoxious if you aren’t smart enough to pull them off. Sure, it’s all about the verbs, but when your prose reads like you took a thesaurus and replaced every verb with something meatier, I’m turned off. Using two (or three) adjectives when one would suffice? I’m turned off. It takes you ten words to explain something that could’ve been said in five? Now I’m not only turned off, I’m probably not going to read much further. Keep it simple, avoid passive voice, and for the love of Pete, don’t fiddle with punctuation unless you know what you’re doing; if you’re not sure what a semi-colon does, either teach yourself or don’t use it.

That being said, I’m certainly not planning a backyard bonfire with the eleven books that didn’t pass my First-Chapter test. I’ve trudged through plenty of less-than-compelling openings to be rewarded by a late-blooming page-turner; I’ve also adored plenty of beginnings in books that petered out and died halfway through.

And hey, obviously someone—a lot of someones—felt differently about those eleven books or they wouldn’t be published. You can’t please everyone, right?

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