Day: March 26, 2012

Sneak Peek: “The Key” by A. D. Duling

The KeyToday we have a sneak peek from A. D. Duling’s young adult epic fantasy, The Key:

Anna Kippling has found a skeleton key that ironically only opens one door and from the wrong side. On the other side awaits a world called Tatania. There Anna finds herself in battle with an evil Chancellor and also finds love in a grey eyed, blonde hunk named Hayden.

Anna also finds herself fighting abnormally large birds, hiding in the trunk of trees, eating magical beads, saving an Empress,defying death and so much more… all with just a necklace of invisibility, a time turning bracelet and a dagger. Even with a newly acquired book of answers, nothing is every simple here for Anna Kippling, but Anna is slowly learning nothing is impossible, not even for her.

How far would you go to reach your potential? How much would you sacrifice for love? And is it possible to outwit death?

The Key is available on Amazon.com  and Amazon UK. Continue reading “Sneak Peek: “The Key” by A. D. Duling”

Video Trailer: Julieanne Lynch’s In The Shadows

Author Julieanne Lynch shares the trailer for her Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy/Young Adult novel, In The Shadows:

In The Shadows is available through Amazon.com, Amazon UK, and Barnes & Noble.

Feed Your Readers

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” – Brillat-Savarin

Title page, translated, of "The Physiology of Taste", by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Do you agree? I do. That is, of course, if you have the choice to consume whatever your little heart desires. Honore de Balzac was famous for the meals he consumed after the proofs of his novels were sent off to his publisher – his choice of a celebratory meal beginning with dozens of freshly shucked oysters washed down with beer. This appetizer merely whetted his craving for the ensuing feast. The school of French realism, populated with such greats as Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, Dumas and Zola glorified the sensual pleasure of a meal well-cooked and consumed with appreciative abandon. Can we transfer this love of food to our modern day novel and seduce our readers as these masters seduced theirs? Continue reading “Feed Your Readers”

Practical Magic by DCS

Author DCS AKA Crystal Storm
Author DCS AKA Crystal Storm

As most of us writers do I’m always reading articles to improve my craft. There was one particular that has persistently stuck in the back of my mind when I think about this business called writing. Randall Silvis once wrote, “When was the last time you read something and thought, gee I didn’t know that about the human condition…for any reader with a few books under his belt and access to the nightly news, there is little in this world that can truly surprise us.”

While that statement may be true, as a writer with an over active imagination I feel that to take it to heart would be a sell out to my readers. How many times are we going to read the same ole story? When we pick up those books, aren’t we secretly hoping there will be something new inside those pages? Something a little different? Something that brings back that child like wonder and makes us rethink the world? Don’t we as writers owe it to our readers to raise the bar every time we put pen to paper? Stephanie Meyer sucked us in not with just a love story but with a slightly different twist on the age old vampire and werewolf’s tale. We stood in line for Harry Potter because we’d never been in a world quite like that before. When I sit down to write Synarchy I want to pull back the veil on the world you think you live in and show it to you through a new set of eyes. I want to squeeze your heart, and hurt your brain, and make you ponder the real possibility of practical magic. Continue reading “Practical Magic by DCS”