I was asked to participate in The Watchers Book 1: Knight of Light blog tour and I’m very excited to be a part of it. I will be posting my review of the book once I finish reading it. For now, here’s a brief description. This is also the first time I have a giveaway included in an upcoming review! The link is at the bottom. There’s a $100 Amazon gift card as the Grand Prize and multiple copies of the book in the giveaway.
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The Watchers Book 1: Knight of Light
In England, 1270 A.D., Auriella (pronounced yurr-ee-ella) flees her village after being accused of witchcraft. Pursued by nightmarish creatures, she struggles to accept the truth about her powers.
“The Watchers” are supernatural beings in human form whose duty it is to protect and guard mankind from the armies of darkness. Unfortunately, some of these Watchers go bad.
Deirdra Eden’s The Watcher’s Series is written in a traditional fairytale style with a young girl’s discovery of incredible, but dangerous powers within herself, a cast of humorous side-kicks, (including a dwarf, pixie and dragon) a quest for greater self-discovery and purpose, and villains of epic proportions.
Watch the amazing Knight of Light book trailer on youtube.
“My goal in writing is to saturate my books with intrigue, mystery, romance, and plot twists that will keep my readers in suspense. I want to see fingerprints on the front and back covers where readers have gripped the novel with white knuckles!
Aside from writing, I enjoy jousting in arenas, planning invasions, horseback riding through open meadows, swimming in the ocean, hiking up mountains, camping in cool shady woods, climbing trees barefoot, and going on adventures.”
I am happy to announce that Stories Unfolded reached 100 followers this past week! I cannot begin to express how excited I am to have such wonderful followers.
As my fellow bloggers know, it’s not easy to keep a decent blog going. It takes hard work, time, effort, and dedication to create content worth reading and having a blog that others will continue visiting.
My blog has been a hodgepodge of things, but I love the process of writing and always hope that each post brings something to someone. I’m passionate about sharing my stories on books, my life, and random things to those who take the time to read it. It’s something I use to hone my skills as a writer and helps me on the path towards finishing my first book.
I’m grateful for all my followers and the feedback I get from them through commenting, sharing, and liking each post on Stories Unfolded. Without my followers, it would just be me writing to myself. Not as much fun.
My next goal is to reach 200 followers! It’s totally possible with your help.
So, please help me get to 200 by sharing posts you love!
Randomly, I was thinking about the books I used to read as a kid. I was always reading and got really excited about those Scholastic book order forms we got every year. I would circle all sorts of books and hope that my mom would buy them for me. She would usually get a few, but I had to narrow it down a bit.
So, I wanted to share a few books that I read when I was a kid.
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
I remember I read this book in elementary school and we watched the movie at some point. I still own it.
Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
I absolutely loved this series. It took a while to read the whole thing since I had to wait for the books to be released. I was disappointed with the ending though.
Goosebumps Books by R.L. Stine
I was obsessed with the Goosebumps. I even had a comforter and sheet set. I read so many of these books and had many of the movies as well.
The Sideswiped blog tour is running from October 7-13 and I will be participating! Yay!
Sideswiped, by Lia Riley, is the second book in her Off The Map series featuring a California girl named Talia and an Australian young man named Bran.
Keep an eye out for my review on October 11th. You can also check out my review of the first book in the series, Upside Down. As an added bonus, finishing the book review will increase my percentage on Net Galley!
After reading Family Inheritance, I wanted to know a bit more about the author, Terri Ann Leidich. Thankfully through Net Galley, we can express interest in connecting with the authors of the books we review. Terri contacted me and agreed to be a part of an “Author Interview”. She is my first official interview! Yay!
This is Part of 1 of the interview which consists of questions on the process of writing a book and a few other book related ones. Part 2 will be published later and will be specific to her book Family Inheritance, which I recently wrote a review on. You can check it out here.
So, here we go…
Q: What genre do you like to write in? What draws you to this genre?
I like Contemporary Women’s Fiction because the stories feel real and could be happening to women just like us. Many times, no matter who is reading the book, there is some aspect of one of the characters in the book to whom we can strongly relate. And, that can be life changing.
Q: How much research goes into your books?
A lot! That’s why it took 30 years to bring Family Inheritance to the marketplace. Most of my research is done by talking to people about their lives, their experiences, their feelings.
Q: How do you structure your day for writing? Is there a special time of the day you write?
Because I still have a “day job”, my writing life doesn’t have the structure I would like it to have. Most of my writing is done on the weekends.
Q: What is the hardest thing about writing?
Once the “creation” is done and it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of editing, honing, and bringing the story to the place where a publisher will accept it. That’s hard work!
Q: Any tips on how to get through the dreaded writer’s block?
What works for me is stepping away, taking a nice warm bath, going to Starbucks and sipping on a chai – something that will get me away from “creating the story” and giving my creative self or what I call “the space beyond the mind” an opportunity to let the story flow. Writer’s block for me is often a time where I’m trying to fit my story or idea into a predetermined outline when in actuality, the story wants to be able to flow in another direction.
Q: What writers inspire you?
One of my favorite authors is Jodi Picoult because she tells stories that are so real and sometimes so raw that by reading them, you come out changed. My Sister’s Keeper is one of my all-time favorites. At the end of the book, I just sobbed. I really think the film makers did the movie a disservice when they changed the ending. True, it was a tough ending, but it was so poignant.
Q: Where do you see your writing career 5 years from now?
I intend to keep writing and/or pulling out manuscripts from my jammed file drawer and working on them. How many books I will have written and published in five years, I’m not sure. I’d rather craft a book and have a story unfold than be on a deadline where I have to “put out something” by a certain date. I’ve been delighted to read that reviewers are interested in my writing and look forward to more books. What a nice feeling to take into my writing.
Q: If you could have been the original author of any book, what would it have been and why?
Gone with the Wind. That is such a masterpiece! The characters are so real, and they stay with you forever. I still have moments when I think about Scarlett and how she would say something to the effect of, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Sometimes, that’s good advice.
Q: If you had one piece of advice for aspiring authors, what would that be?
Write because you love to write. Only a small percentage of authors become rich and famous. If that happens to you, fabulous, but if it doesn’t, make sure that you can say you thoroughly enjoyed the process.
Thank you to Terri Ann Leidich for taking the time to answer my questions.
Look out for my next book review on The Forgers by Bradford Morrow. This will be the second book review for #NetGalleyMonth, running from September 1-30.
Release Date: November 4, 2014
Thank you to Grove Atlantic publishing for allowing me to read a copy of this book.
Upside Down is the first in Lia Riley’s Off The Map series. It follows the relationship of Natalia (Talia) Stolfi, a girl from Santa Cruz, California and Brandon (Bran) Lockhart, an Australian young man she meets during her study abroad program.
The past year had been difficult for Talia and she didn’t know how to deal with the death of her sister. A study abroad program to Australia was just what she felt she needed. It would give her time away from the painful memories that consumed her and the life she felt was falling apart.
Bran comes from a wealthy family, but his life is anything but perfect. As he runs from his past, he meets Talia, but finds that his feelings for her, brought his inner demons to the service. While he’s trying to deal with his issues, he hurts Talia along the way…more than once.
Both are trying to forget the past and start something new, but it’s the past that keeps coming between them.
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I thought this was a great book! As you read, you’re constantly wanting Talia and Bran to finally say they’re together, but too much gets in the way.
After Tailia’s sister dies, her OCD intensified, but spending time with Bran it’s not as apparent. She realizes that she can be more open with Bran than anyone else in her life, including her parents and friends. Not to mention he’s a hot Australian. I was trying to imagine what his accent might have sounded like while I was reading the book.
Talia might have been a little dramatic at times, but I think part of it was her OCD and the other was her inexperience with men.
Bran on the other hand is, internally, dealing with a previous relationship that ended badly. He was in love with this other girl and doesn’t want to feel that same hurt with Talia. That’s why he keeps just enough distance between them, even though he has completely fallen for her.
They both open up about things that lifts weight off their shoulders and in doing so they allow their relationship to grow. They just never solidify their relationship throughout this first book and Talia’s impending departure from Australia makes defining their relationship even more difficult.
The more intimate parts in the book are not over-done and cheesy. It was tastefully done and it didn’t overpower the entire story.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this book and I’m excited to read the next book in the Off The Map series.
Here are the next two books in the Off The Map Series:
Release Date: October 7, 2014Release Date: December 2, 2014
Favorite Quotes
“There’s a part where Mr. Rochester tells Jane it’s as if he had a string under his rib, connected to hers, and he’s afraid there parting would snap the connection and they’d both bleed inwardly. Bran’s become vital to me, and our time together has almost run its course.”
Overall Rating
If you’ve read this book, let me know what you think.
Stories Unfolded 