Tag: book release (Page 3 of 8)

Celebrating Book Birthdays and Baby Birthdays All Week Long

July 13, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

With ELIXIR SAVED releasing tomorrow and three family birthdays this week, it’s all about books and birthdays on the blog (say that three times fast!). Stop by tomorrow for the official ELIXIR SAVED launch video…where I may have taken the idea of a book birthday a little too far.

On Wednesday, I’ll be on author Kai Strand’s blog talking about my biggest challenge in writing book 2 (I cheated a little on this one and wrote about two things that challenged me). Then here on Friday, I have an author interview with Estelle Laure, whose book MAYHEM shares a book birthday with ELIXIR SAVED.

There will more fun on the blog the rest of July. Next week, you can take a quiz (don’t worry, it’s only 7 questions and there are no wrong answers) to find out what element fuels your magic. And then some posts about the process of writing ELIXIR SAVED. If you have any questions about the writing process or any of my books, drop them in the comments and I’ll answer them here on the blog.

Today, though, is all about birth stories. I’ve shared here on the blog the exciting birth stories of my first two kiddos, one of whom was born during a hurricane (check out “A Beautiful Life Is Born”) and the other who was almost born in the car (check out “The Precipitous Birth of Baby Boy #2”). When I went looking for a post about the third kiddo’s birth story, I realized I never wrote it up (such is the way of parenthood after the first couple of kids), all I found was a post called “Summer 2017 in Pictures – All About Adjusting” with me saying his birth story will get up on the blog eventually.

The Gentleman (kiddo #3) came in an equally exciting way as the other two. The only reason we made it in time to the hospital was because we knew from the very quick birth of kiddo #2 to head there at the very first sign of labor. We still never made it to labor and delivery, and he was born in one of the tiny triage rooms before my doctor made it to the hospital. This was despite the several warnings my husband and I gave them about how our previous baby was born in one of those same triage rooms and maybe they should go ahead and send me to labor and delivery. It all worked out in the end, and that’s the important thing.

Turns out my own birth story was rather exciting as well. My dad worked for the local newspaper at the time and wrote about it in his column. My parents didn’t have health insurance, so when my mom went into labor at about 9:00 p.m., she decided to try and labor at home until midnight to avoid the extra night’s charge. The hospital was down the road from our house, so they almost decided to walk but got a ride from my aunt at the last minute. My mom was admitted at 12:01 a.m. (with my dad double-checking the time on the paperwork) and I was born at 1:03 a.m. I guess quick births run in the family!

Anyone else have an exciting birth story? See you all tomorrow where I embarrass myself on video and share ELIXIR SAVED’s birth story!

ELIXIR SAVED and Author Life Updates from Katie L. Carroll

June 17, 2020 / Katie L. Carroll

I hope you all enjoyed the reading I did of my middle grade adventure PIRATE ISLAND last week. I love presenting workshops and talks to writers and readers in person, but something about recording a video makes me nervous. I think I’m just the type of person who thrives on that face-to-face interaction, but we all must adjust during these strange times.

I’ve been working on my video space and equipment in particular because I recently became Talkabook Certified. Talkabook is a website where readers can book live video calls with authors. I’ll be offering several different options once they launch later this year, and I’m excited to be able to connect with readers this way and details will be on my author visits page.

In book news, ELIXIR SAVED launches in less than a month! It’s been a bit of an ordeal to get it listed for pre-order, but after many chats and emails with various distributors, I think it’s up in paperback and ebook most places now, including IndieBound, BookShop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. If there’s somewhere you like to buy books and it’s not there, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

It’s really hard to have book coming out amidst everything going on in the world, but I’m doing my best to get the word out without being obnoxious about it. If any bloggers have guest spots open in July, I’d be happy to hop on your blog. I’m working on some fun promo stuff for release day, including a “book birthday” video and a quiz take will tell you what element your magic is aligned with.

At the beginning of the year, I ordered a bunch of bookmarks (pictured above) to give out at in-person events, which obviously aren’t happening. I’m not running any kind of official pre-order campaign for ELIXIR SAVED, but if you have ordered it, drop me a comment or an email and I’ll send you one (U.S. only…sorry).

As for work-in-progress news, I’ve been getting up early a couple mornings a week and hopping on video chat with one of my writer friends to continue drafting my witchy middle grade book–think Mean Girls meets The Crucible with a slight paranormal twist. With everyone still at home , early mornings are the best option for any kind of writing time…at least distance learning for the two older kiddos is over and they’re on summer break. I’ve come up with themed activities for kids for the summer that will hopefully allow me some time to work during the day.

One last thing (this update turned out longer than expected!), I have a secret project I’m working on that I’m hoping to release later this year or early next year. It involves a design skill set that I’m teaching myself, and it’s a project some of you might be familiar with. I got all the rights for it settled, so now it’s a matter of carving out the time for it and figuring out how to make it work.

Sending you all healthy vibes! I’d love to know what you’ve been up to or if you have any summer plans.

Release Blitz SOMEONE ELSE’S SOUL by Meradeth Houston

May 7, 2019 / Katie L. Carroll

Title: Someone Else’s Soul

Author: Meradeth Houston

Genre: SciFi/Suspense

Publisher: Bleeding Ink Publishing

Publication Date: May 7^th, 2019

Hosted by: Lady Amber’s PR

Blurb:

There are 14 strangers who share her face, and one company is determined to erase them all.

Everyone has secrets, and it’s Diana Kane’s job to know them. It’s a talent–being able to see into someone’s life from the scuffs on their shoes to the way they hold their hands–a talent that sets her apart from everyone. When a mysterious stranger drops into her life dangling the possibility of something she’s longed for, a real connection with someone who might actually understand her, she’s too intrigued to refuse.

But when David Addington shows up to their date knowing too much about her, and the top secret agency she works for, Diana realizes their meeting was anything but coincidence. David has more than his share of surprises, including an impossible claim about Diana’s past and photos of an inexplicable woman who shares her face.

When her life begins to unravel around her, Diana has no choice but to put her faith in the mysterious David and the man he claims is his father. As she struggles to piece together the truth about where she came from, she’s forced to face the reality that her entire life has been manufactured, along with fourteen other women who share her exact same DNA. Confronted with the troubling reality that she’s nothing more than a research experiment that’s pushed the boundaries of science and ethics, Diana must rescue the others like her before the company can erase them as mistakes, putting all her skills to the test in the ultimate game of survival…

Get your copy today!

Meradeth Houston lives in Montana where she’s an anthropology professor and scientist. If you let her, she’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about getting DNA out of dead bodies and old poop. She specializes in degraded DNA (translation: really old DNA that’s decayed), and runs two laboratories filled with students, interns, and maybe a few shenanigans. Her research seeks to better understand the dynamic of past migration on human populations. Her goal is to someday clone herself because that’s probably the only way she’ll ever get through her to-do list. Though, who knows, maybe that’ll mean she’s donating to someone else’s soul?

Other than teaching, research, and writing, Meradeth enjoys the lakes and ski slopes of Western Montana. It’s not uncommon to find her haunting the cafes of Missoula. She is also a proud dog mom and represented by Cristi Marchetti.

Author Links:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5321667.Meradeth_Houston

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PNa7HV

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeradethHouston/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeradethHouston

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/meradeth-houston

Website: http://meradethhouston.com/

Get your copy today!

ECOSYSTEM by Joshua David Bellin Blog Tour

April 20, 2018 / Katie L. Carroll

Today’s guest is Joshua David Bellin, who is here to celebrate the upcoming release of his YA fantasy ECOSYSTEM. The full blog tour schedule can be found here. Check out the excerpt below and don’t forget to enter the giveaway.

ECOSYSTEM blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Sarah is a Sensor, gifted with the ability to survive within the sentient Ecosystem that swept away human civilization centuries ago. While the remnants of humankind huddle in small villages of stone, Sarah uses her psychic connection to the Ecosystem to travel freely in the wild in search of food, water, and fuel. Sarah doesn’t fear the Ecosystem—but she hates it for killing her mother when Sarah was a child. When she hunts, she hunts not only for her people’s sustenance but for revenge.

Then Miriam, an apprentice Sensor, is lost in the Ecosystem, and Sarah sets out to rescue her. Joining Sarah is Miriam’s beloved, Isaac, a boy who claims to possess knowledge of the Ecosystem that will help their people survive. The harrowing journey to find the missing apprentice takes Sarah and Isaac into the Ecosystem’s deadliest places. And it takes Sarah into the unexplored territory of her own heart, where she discovers feelings that threaten to tear her—and her society—apart.

A thrilling fantasy adventure from the author of Freefall and the Survival Colony series, Ecosystem is the first book in a YA trilogy that includes The Devouring Land (2019) and House of Earth, House of Stone (2020).

Ecosystem on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39663460-ecosystem

Ecosystem on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ecosystem-Trilogy-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07C2HDF9G

ECOSYSTEM excerpt:

The Ecosystem breathes.

I crouch at the edge of the forest, waiting. Waiting for its attention to shift so I can make my dash across the greensward. Waiting until I can Sense its thought in my bones.

There are no guarantees, Sarah, Aaron told me before I set out this morning. There is only the Sense of things: eyes and ears and nerves and muscle. And, he added, smiling, a little bit of luck.

The Ecosystem rustles, settling. I edge forward, my eyes focused on the patch of bright green turf just beyond the dense tangle of bushes and creepers. I breathe shallowly, lowering my heart rate to a relaxed, steady rhythm. The suffocating smell of vegetation surrounds me, but I detect no threat from the sultry air. The Ecosystem has lost sight of me in the tall grasses, failed to track me from the kill site. Its final assault will come at the edge of the village, where its anger runs deepest. Where there’s nothing to attract its thirst for blood but me.

I rise to a sprinter’s crouch, fingers braced against moist earth. My heart pulses in my fingertips, and I hope that isn’t enough to rouse the Ecosystem’s ire.

The Ecosystem doesn’t sleep, Aaron reminded me. But it dozes. It sends signals from place to place, heightening some zones while dulling others. Always conscious, but not always mindful. Not always. Not everywhere.

Not here, I think. I Sense. Not now.

Now.

My body uncoils, hurdling the fringe of underbrush that separates forest from lawn. My foot strikes the turf, but only long enough to propel me into my next stride. Stumble on the grabgrass and I’m dead. I cross the green in a random, zigzag pattern, hoping the individual blades can’t anticipate my next move. I Sense snares exploding in my wake: a sinkhole, a clinging tendril, a venomous thorn. But the Ecosystem is sluggish, emerging from dormancy, too slow to catch me. I leap from living grass to the charred circle surrounding the village stone, and the vines the Ecosystem hurls at my back clutch nothing but air.

I trot across the boundary circle, bare soles crunching on blackened turf, heart hammering in my throat. When cool village stone lies beneath my feet once more, I turn to the forest. The Ecosystem’s many tongues erupt at the sight of me: winged cicatrix chatter, prowler monkeys hoot, bloodbirds screech. I smile, pull my first kill from the pouch at my belt, and dangle the dead thing before the forest’s face.

“I am Sarah,” I say to it, enunciating each word despite the raggedness of my breath, the heaviness of my heart. “You have taken what was mine, and now I take what is yours.”

With an exaggerated motion, I twist the spine of the thing I killed until I hear a sharp crack. Then, while the Ecosystem howls in thwarted rage, I cross the stone terrace and enter the village.

About the Author:

Joshua David Bellin has been writing novels since he was eight years old (though the first few were admittedly very short). A college teacher by day, he is the author of three science fiction novels for teens and adults: the two-part Survival Colony series (Survival Colony 9 and Scavenger of Souls) and the deep-space adventure Freefall. His new book, the YA fantasy Ecosystem, releases on April 22, 2018 (Earth Day). Josh loves to read, watch movies, and spend time in Nature with his kids. Oh, yeah, and he likes monsters. Really scary monsters.

Website: http://www.joshuadavidbellin.com

Blog: http://theyaguy.blogspot.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheYAGuy

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joshuadavidbellin

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7393959.Joshua_David_Bellin

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Book Excerpt of the YA Contemporary I AM ME by Kai Strand

March 23, 2018 / Katie L. Carroll

Let’s give a big Observation Desk welcome to my good writing buddy Kai Strand. She is here to share an excerpt from her latest novel, a YA contemporary called I AM ME. Welcome, Kai!

I AM ME blurb:

Despite—or perhaps because of—her fancy car, private school education, and life of privilege, Lola Renaldi has become a volunteer junkie. Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the elderly—if it’s a good cause, she’s done it.

Lola’s favorite stint, building affordable houses, puts her directly in the path of Rodney. He refuses to discuss why he’s doing community service, but it’s clear he’s hiding something dark about his past. As their friendship grows, Lola begins to question the true reasons for her obsessive volunteerism and her view of those she has pledged to help.

She is only beginning to understand how lucky she truly is when her life falls apart. After losing friends, her boyfriend, even Rodney, Lola finally recognizes which parts of her life she wants to hang on to and what specifically she wants to go after. But with all she’s been through, will she be able to hang onto who she wants to be? Or will she lose all that defines her?

Excerpt:

Hank is now around the north side of the house talking to a man and a boy who looks to be about my age. The man seems very official somehow. Maybe it’s the way he’s standing, with his feet shoulder width apart, his back ramrod straight, thick arms crossed over his chest. He’s sporting a crew cut that emphasizes his strong jaw. He looks a bit like a Stretch Armstrong doll, like if Hank and I each grabbed an arm we could taffy-pull all those thick muscles until his arms were long and thin and able to wrap around Talia’s house. The grim line his lips form when he isn’t talking, the flex of muscle in his jaw, his shifting eyes that take in everything around the job site, all warn me not to eavesdrop, so I slow my approach.

The boy has caramel brown hair that hangs into his eyes. He’s in a t-shirt even though the air is still crisp, especially on the shady north side of the house. His arms are pretty thin. I’m cold just looking at him even though he appears unaffected. He’s tall. Taller than Hank, but his hunched posture almost camouflages it. It’s like he’s a turtle hiding in a shell. He isn’t slouching, just inward somehow. He nods at something Stretch Armstrong says without turning to look at the man. Maybe he’s being scolded or lectured. I reconsider eavesdropping.

Hank sees me and smiles. He raises his voice, so I can hear him. “Perfect. I can pair you with Lola. She’s a longtime volunteer and knows the ropes.”

Oh splat. Now I have to meet them. I want to glare at Hank for saddling me with Stretch Armstrong for the day, but instead I just nod and smile pleasantly as I join their group.

“Lola, this is Dave and Rodney.”

I turn to Dave—Stretch Armstrong—to shake his hand and I have to school my reaction when I see the embroidery on his polo shirt. LINDSEY COUNTY JUVENILE DEPARTMENT. Dave squints at me and then glares at Rodney.

I turn to the kid next and offer my hand. He all but sighs when he digs his out of his front pocket. “Good to meet you, Rodney.”

He reluctantly raises his gaze to meet mine and my smile is suddenly genuine. What yummy eyes he has. They’re the same color as his hair, which strikes me as unusual. The caramel color is light as far as eye shade is concerned. Warm. Glowing. Ringed with black. A toffee colored starburst adds the most compelling depth. Wow. I could spend hours staring at this boy’s eyes…if they didn’t look so hostile.

I look away to discover Dave studying me. “I’m not sure—”

“I’ll be here if there are any questions.” Hank interrupts, which I consider extremely brave. “But Lola knows her stuff. How many homes have you helped us build, Lola?”

“Six now.” I can’t help the pride that swells inside me. It must show on my face because a corner of Rodney’s mouth twists and an eyebrow raises and lowers so quickly I think I might have imagined it. As heat flares in my chest, my shoes become intriguing. I notice that Rodney’s have small holes on either side where the toes bend.

“I’ll be back this afternoon to pick you up,” Dave tells Rodney. “Don’t leave this site.”

“He’ll be fine, Dave.” Hank’s familiarity with Stretch Armstrong almost makes me more comfortable around the guy. Almost. “Lola, why don’t you get Rodney suited up. You two will have the entire north wall.”

Rodney looks at me with a panicked expression.

I laugh. “Don’t worry. It’s not Hazmat or anything. Today you’ll just need gloves and an apron.”

His expression goes blank again as he follows reluctantly.

In the supply shed I throw an apron at him, then I hold a pair of gloves out. “See if these fit.”

He takes them from me, his movements careful like he’s afraid to spook me by moving too fast.

I grab an extra caulking gun, shove another container of caulk under my arm, and skirt around Rodney. “Okay, let’s get started.”

The guy couldn’t look less enthused if he tried. With the work gloves on, he’s forced to keep his hands out of his pockets, but the way his arms hang listlessly at his sides as he trudges behind me makes me think of Droopy Dog.

This is going to be a long day.

Get your copy:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks

About the Author:

When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died. The end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers Kai entertains children of all ages, and their adults. Learn more about Kai and her books on her website, www.kaistrand.com.