Ask The Author

Today I'm honored to be included in Middle-Grade author, Melissa Roske's author interview series.

Make sure to check out her MG debut, Kate Green Comes Clean on  Goodreads.

Eleven-year-old Kat Greene has a lot on her pre-rinsed plate, thanks to her divorced mom’s obsession with cleaning. When Mom isn’t scrubbing every inch of their Greenwich Village apartment, she’s boiling the silverware or checking Kat’s sheets for bedbugs. It's enough to make any sane middle schooler crazy! Add friendship troubles to the mix, a crummy role in the school play, and Mom's decision to try out for "Clean Sweep," a competitive-cleaning TV game show, and what have you got? More trouble than Kat can handle. At least, without a little help from her friends.

Expected publication: June 13th, 2017 by Charlesbridge.

Doesn't this book sound like fun! Melissa is whip smart and hilarious. I know kids are going to love this book! 

Here it is! The Crossroad Blog Tour

Crossroads Blog Tour 

From small to big-gun presses, debut novels to bestsellers, we’re offering unprecedented (and free!) access to amazing YA authors. Thirteen paranormal writers will embark on an exciting blog tour that will hook readers up with great reads and cool SWAG. 


Participating bloggers will feature two Crossroads authors each day from October 26 thru October 31. You can use the link above for more info.  Lots of treats ahead! Don't forget to sign on the Rafflecopter for a $50 gift certificate!

May the tour begin!  I bring you . . . 



Sarah Bromley

1.)  You and a friend are walking down a dark alley. You hear strange noises. Do you walk ahead and check things out, or send your friend instead? 

I’m gonna send someone else, but I’ll make sure they’re armed well with salt, a wooden stake, and some silver bullets.

2.)  What's your Halloween costume back up, the one that's always waiting in your drawer or closet? 

I dress up as a witch every year when I go trick-or-treating with my kids.

Bio:

Sarah Bromley drinks too much coffee, likes her music loud and off-key, and has loved spooky things since she first saw “An American Werewolf in London” when she was five years old. She currently lives in the St. Louis area with her high-school-sweetheart-turned-heroic-husband, three children, and her dogs.

Book blurb

Winter in Black Orchard, Wisconsin, is long and dark, and sixteen-year-old Vayda Silver prays the snow will keep the truth and secrecy of the last two years buried. Hiding from the past with her father and twin brother, Vayda knows the rules: never return to the town of her mother’s murder, and never work a Mind Game where someone might see.

No one can know the toll emotions take on Vayda, how emotion becomes energy in her hands, or how she can’t control the destruction she causes. But it's not long before her powers can no longer be contained. The truth is dangerously close to being exposed, placing Vayda and her family at risk.

Until someone quiets the chaos inside her.

Unwanted. That's all Ward Ravenscroft has ever been. To cope, he numbs the pain of rejection by denying himself emotions of any kind. Yet Vayda stirs something in him. He can't explain the hold she has on him--inspiring him with both hope and fear. He claims not to scare easily, except he doesn't know what her powers can do. Yet.

Just as Vayda and Ward draw closer, she finds the past isn't so easily buried. And when it follows the Silvers to Black Orchard, it has murder in mind.

"Richly written, A MURDER OF MAGPIES isn't a book to be read, but one to be devoured by the light of a dying fire. Sarah Bromley will pull readers in and have them glancing constantly over their shoulder, where the ghosts of the past await them."
- New York Times bestselling author Heather Brewer


"A MURDER O MAGPIES is one of those books I couldn't put down... a little bit mystery, a little bit horror, a little bit love story--there's something for everyone on these pages. Rich, well-written, and different in a genre desperate for something a little bit different..." -- Hillary Monahan, author of MARY: THE SUMMONING 

Amazon      Barnes & Noble     Indigo       Powell's              IndieBound

Judith Graves   

1.)  You and a friend are walking down a dark alley. You hear strange noises. Do you walk ahead and check things out, or send your friend instead? 

If my friend is wearing a red shirt, and I think she is...I send her off to see what’s what. Don’t judge. Someone needs to be the one who lives to write about our great adventures.

2.)  What's your Halloween costume back up, the one that's always waiting in your drawer or closet? 

It’s so easy to throw together an evil librarian costume, and it’s fitting too, since I am one. Bwhaaaaaa.... All you need are glasses, some baby powered-hair wrapped up in a bun, a blood-stained copy of your favorite book, and blood spatters all over your sweater set.

Bio:

Award-winning writer and screenwriter Judith Graves loves tragic romance, werewolves, vampires, magic and all things a bit creepy. A firm believer that teen fiction can be action-packed, snarky and yet hit all the right emotional notes, Judith writes stories with attitude. She lives in northern Alberta and when she’s not writing, or playing bass in a cover band, she works in a school library.

 Judith on Twitter  & Facebook  Blog

Fright Before Christmas: 13 Tales of Holiday Horrors

It’s the most wonderful time of year…or is it?

 

Christmas Eve is a night of mystery and magic, but not always in ways we expect. Things lurk in the shadows and they’re not the least bit jolly or merry. Let’s just say some presents are better left unopened.

‘Tis the season to be screaming along with our thirteen tales of holiday horrors. Ghosts. Monsters. Demons. And more!

This Christmas, be careful what you wish for…

Edited by Shannon Delany and Kelly Hashway with stories by: Richard Ankers, Jessica Bayliss, Ty Drago, Judith Graves, Jackie Horsfall, Patrick Hueller, Ally Mathews, Laura Pauling, Boyd Reynolds, Medeia Sharif, Andrea Stanet, Lea Storry, and Dax Varley

 Amazon      B&N        iTunes     Booktrailer

GIVEAWAY  Treats!!                    Follow the Tour on Twitter @TheCrossroadsBT

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the tour on Facebook!

My BEA 2015

This year I attended first Book Expo of America. And IT. WAS. AWESOME. I began my day meeting my editor, of Leap Books, Judith Graves, in the cafeteria. Informal and splendid, I've learned that I must have one of the coolest editors out there.  She’s multi-talented, wise and plays guitar! Both of us, musicians and writers, we connected like a 3/4-time signature, storytellers through and through. Even Thoreau was a musician. The essay, On Duty and Civil Disobedience, figures prominently in The Unmoving Sky, my YA suspense with Leap Books. (Spring 2016)

Three "generations" of Leap Books. Judith Graves, founder, Laurie Edwards, and Shine author, K.L. Hallam.

Back to BEA. I was nervous, not knowing what to expect.  The unknown is what often causes us anxiety. But once I got there, everything opened up and I found my place. I meet with, Gail Nall, talented MG & YA author and Kidliterati contributor. She showed me the ropes: how to stand in line, and WAIT. Yeah, that’s pretty much the rhythm of BEA, a lot of waiting, standing and searching for a place to charge your phone. I used the handy-dandy BEA app, which worked fine enough for me. I noticed many print outs in the hands of other attendees, (the pros). But I got by.

Me with YA & MG author, Gail Nall.

I stopped in at a couple of the Blogger/Social Media talks, one of which was supposed to show authors and publishers how to utilize social media for their book sales, but that talk turned into a sales job for Bookgrabbr. And one, meek voice in the crowd stepped up to call them out on it. They immediately apologized and threw us a bone. I enjoyed listening to best-selling authors, Juliana Baggott, Elin Hilderbrand, Kimberla Lawson Roby, talk about their writing process. I always love hearing how authors use their time and writing techniques. I spent Thursday at BEA, and in the morning the exhaustion and excitement hit me like a hangover. And while BEA was in town, along with several writers from my amazing and supportive group, Kidliterati, we gathered that Friday night. It was the icing on the cake!  But we sure did miss the others.  

Benjamin Brooks, Brian Sargent, Chris Brandon Whitaker, Ella Schwartz, Melanie Conklin, Gail Nall, and (me) K. L. Hallam #mgbetareaders. Only 8 representing our 24 members of Kidliterati.

Until Next year BEA!