Six Sentence Sunday: Road Trip Mayhem

I'm participating in Six Sentence Sunday (http://www.sixsunday.com/) and sharing six lines from my upcoming release Dirty Little Liars.  Enjoy!

     Juliette bent over to wipe her face with the bottom of her t-shirt. When she sat up again, Ty had ditched the jacket and was pulling a white t-shirt over his head, revealing an unmistakably perfect set of silky smooth abs.
     Juliette was no longer thinking about country music. She was barely thinking at all. It took every ounce of her concentration to keep from reaching out to him. All she could think about was the heat of his skin pressed against hers.

Want to learn more about Dirty Little Liars? Check out my new listing on GoodReads: Dirty Little Liars and don't forget to add it to you TBR list!

The Next Big Thing!

I was tagged by the fabulous Faith Van Horne to do the Next Big Thing. Thanks, Faith!

 So, this is what I'm working on:

What is the working title of your next book?
Dirty Little Liars, to be released early 2013. 

Cover Reveal!!

I have a sexy new cover for my upcoming novel Dirty Little Liars! Check it out on GoodReads and share it with all your friends.

Available February 2013

New Release!!

I am excited to announce that I have a new release coming up. My contemporary romance novel Dirty Little Liars will be on sale in February, 26 2013! Please bookmark your calendars and get ready to make your purchases! Would love to have a great opening day.

New(ish) Urban Fantasy Agents

Looking for an agent or editor can be a time-consuming task. I know. I've been doing it for a while now. And because I am engaged in the process, I thought I would share some of my finds with my fellow blogging community.  

This week I have two new(ish) agents who represent the Urban Fantasy genre. (Please note:  I can't speak to the quality of the agent or agency and you should ALWAYS do your homework before signing any contract with any agent or editor).

Kat Salazar of Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents

About Kat: Kat Salazar joined Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents in February 2011 as an intern for the agency working directly for agency co-founder Elizabeth Pomada. Previously she worked for University of Washington Press as a Marketing Assistant and held internships at University of California Press, HarperOne of Harper Collins, and Wales Literary Agency. Currently, she is the Publishing Assistant at Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari Press as well as the agency’s newest Associate Agent and the San Francisco Writers Conference Social Media Coordinator. Kat earned a BA degree from University of Washington, double majoring in English: Literature and Communications: Journalism. For more about Kat you can follow her on Twitter at @KatLovesBooks or read her blog: www.KatLovesBooks.blogspot.com.

She is seeking: Kat is actively looking for young adult, middle grade, and children’s picture books. For adult audiences, she is interested in literary fiction and urban fantasy.

How to submit: Please query her with the first 10 pages of your manuscript and a 1-2-page synopsis copied and pasted into the body of an e-mail to QueryKatSalazar (at) gmail (dot) com.

Sara D'Emic of Talcott Notch Literary

About Sara: Sara D’Emic graduated from Emerson College with a B.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing, and is happy to be starting her career as an agent with Talcott Notch Literary. Needless to say, she’s passionate about books. Her reading tastes range from Dostoevsky and Dumas to Burroughs and Salinger to Lovecraft and King.

She is seeking: “Compelling characters are the crux of good fiction, and I’m seeking stories that will spark the imagination and the soul. I’m looking for adult horror, urban fantasy, paranormal, magical realism, science fiction, mystery, thriller, or crime fiction. I will also gladly take non-fiction science and technology.”

How to contact: Writers can query her with one-page query plus an attached 10-page sample for fiction, or one-page sample plus attached table of contents at sdemic (at) talcottnotch.net.

Top Ten Tuesday: May 15th

May 15: Top Ten Authors I'd Like To See On A Reality Show (and which reality show :P)

1. Mark Henry--Have you met him? He's crazy.
2. Nicole Peeler--Her mind works in mysterious ways.
3. Scott A. Johnson--He tells stories that will scar you for life.
4. Jenna Black--She can dance and writes good sex.
5. Laurell K. Hamilton--Because she would diva up the place!
6. Danielle Steele--Because she would show LKH how it's really done.
7. John Green--Expererienced blogger makes for entertaining TV.
8. Leanna Renee Heiber--She rocks period costume like nobody's business!
9. Hillary Duff--For pretending to write a novel.
10. Suzanne Collins--Who will ensure there is a fantastically staged fight to the death!!


And as for the show, as fun as it would be to see them in a dance off or classing up the streets of the Jersey Shore, I would hate for their brilliant and creative minds to go to waste. So I would pair them up and send them on the Great American Race! We could even add a book/literary theme to all the tasks.  I'm loving it!


What do you think?

Six Sentence Sunday: May 13th

Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday! Last week you had the chance to get to know Chai and Jarret. This week I thought I would introduce you to one of the other boys in Chai's life.  Take the stage, Ethan. But remember, don't get too cocky.

Six Sentence Sunday Excerpt

Ethan pulled me into a tight hug. Even through his cotton t-shirt the coolness of his skin made me shiver. I could practically taste the death of his aura. It clung to my skin as he pulled away. I struggled to wrap my mind around what I was seeing, what my magick was telling me. Ethan, my Ethan, had gone vampire.

Six Sentence Sunday: May 6th

Happy Sunday. We are celebrating it six sentence style with a little frisky action in the woods. Readers should be warned, the werewolves occasionally bite.

Six Sentence Sunday Excerpt:

Jarret grabbed my arm and a jolt of fiery heat spread through me. I yanked myself out of his grasp and he gazed down at his hand in wonder.

"What the hell was that?" He studied his hand, searching for traces of burning. I knew it was still tingling with power.

"This isn't happening," I muttered and wrapped my arms tightly around my chest.

That's it. I hope you enjoyed it!  Tune in next week to meet one of the other men in Chai's life.

Top Ten Tuesday!!! May 1st.

It's that time again. Sorry I missed a few of these last month. I hope to make up for it in May!

The theme this week is Top Ten Books You'd Like to See Made into a Movie.

Here are my picks. (This of course assumes that I have creative control of the casting, director and final edits!)

1. The Night Circus. I love this book and think it would make such a great movie.

2. The Historian. It's been a while since I read this, but it is such a subtle take on vampires that I think it would make a good addition to the film world.

3. The Chocolate Wars. Maybe it is because I just read this for class, and perhaps it has already been made into a movie that I have never seen nor heard of, but this is one of my favorite YA novels and I love the gritty mob feel it has.  With all the talks of bullying going on in the media, a remake could be timely.

4. The Absolutely True Tale of a Part-Time Indian. Another great YA book that I think would translate really well into a powerful family friendly film.

5. Beautiful Creatures. Everybody loves a curse. This book, set in the south had a beautiful backdrop and romantic gothic feel that would be fun to play with in a film.

6. Matched. One of my favorite Dystopian YA novels since the Hunger Games. Though book two leaves much to be desired. The first book is strong and would make for an entertaining story on film.

7. Ship Breaker. This is another Dystopian novel only it has a male protagonist and does no truly focus on a love story, though there is one involved. The premise and setting of this story is so unique that it would be fun to see this world brought to life. Basically, it's the US after being destroyed by oil.

8. City of Bones. I love Cassandra Clare and have been a fan of this series for a long, long time. I like to think of it as a happy medium between Harry Potter and Twilight. There is romance and love and sex in a way that could never be possible with HP, but it also has this thing called a plot and a beautifully complex magical world.

9. Speaking of Twilight. Yes. I would love to see these books done right. Although maybe that simply isn't possible. I just do not like the acting or the directing, or the special effects. The best thing about these movies is the soundtrack and even that is only a six.

10. Anything that I write.  I would love, love, love to see any of my work translated to film. I think it would be a fantastic indulgence.

http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.com/2012/05/julias-top-ten-books-to-be-made-into.html

Six Sentence Sunday: 4/29/12

In honor of my new query going out into cyberspace today for Love Sex Magick I decided to do a little Six Sentence Sunday of my own.  This excerpt comes from one of my favorite scenes in book 1, when our main character Chai has a brief encounter with our pseudo-hero in the woods. Bad werewolf, very bad werewolf. Well, see for yourself and let me know what you think!

Six Sentence Sunday: A strange encounter in the woods....

"I'm sorry about the hard-on," he blurted and my face grew so warm I thought I might actually be sweating. I didn't want to have a conversation with the naked horny man in the woods--especially when the naked horny man's father would skin me alive if he caught the two of us fooling around. Not to mention it was completely unethical. Yeah, unethical. I repeated the word over and over in my head as if that would appease the longing desire to touch him. 

"Turning with your mate can be foreplay," he continued, "and you're in heat, so that doesn’t help."

Come back next week for more of the scene! It's a riot.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books to Play Hooky With

It's that time again. Here is our Top Ten Tuesday theme: Top Ten Books You Would Play Hooky With. I love it already.

Okay so here's the list. 

#10

Yes. It's on the list. Because something about this book is like crack. It's completely addictive. Although it may have been forever ruined by the horrid movies. Perhaps one day I can again pick up the book and not picture Kristin Stewart or Rob Pattinson and their painful acting. Perhaps.

#9

I'm not sure if this is the exact book, but I love Jenna Black and this is one of my fav urban fantasy series. I could get caught up in it again.

#8 

Yep. Harry Potter also had to make this list. The Deathly Hallows is my second favorite book in the series. I've listened to the audio book many a times while at work. 

#7

Oh how I love, love, love this book. I also love the fact that the audio version is narrated by Jim Dale which just reminds me of Harry Potter. I can and have listened to his voice for hours!

#6

Okay, this is my all time favorite HP book. There is something so fantastic about that moment when Harry realizes that despite all odds, his name has been entered into the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And when Dumbledore finds out...so fantastic.

#5

I don't read much of her stuff anymore but once upon a time I was obsessed with all things LKH. This was one of my favorite books in the series and I have a very worn out copy on my bookshelf as a result. If I was going to play hooky, I might have to do it with this book.

#4

Mr. Eric Northman. Shower. Nuff said. ( Side Note: I really wish True Blood had used that scene in it's original form).

#3

The movie is great. The book is better. I've read it multiple times and each time I open it up I am blown away by what Suzanne Collins is able to accomplish. There are so many different things at work that the average reader would probably not catch and yet it is part of what makes this book work so well. It is such a well done YA book.

#2

This entry proves that you don't have to write well to make it to the top of a list. The book is full of grammatical errors, typos, and very basic writing blunders. It is also at the top of the NY Times and USA Today Bestseller Lists. It's also ten times more addictive than Twilight. I read the first two books in less than five days. If I was currently working, this would be the book I'd play hooky with, because everything else just doesn't seem important when you are lost in the world of Christian Grey.

#1

Okay so this is not actually a cover, it is a filler for this post. This is the inspiration for Chai Macek the main character in my Love Sex Magick series. This book has the number one spot because let's face it, I deliberately use vacation days just so that I can get lost in this book. I'm cool like that. Fingers crossed: the book has caught the eye of a couple of editors. Let's hope one of them bites. Maybe then I'll add a cover. Though I would still be willing to play hooky to read the published version of this book.

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring Reading LIst

If you had the chance to change the course of history, would you? Would the consequences be worth it? Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time. 

THREE FEMALE FRIENDS FACE MIDLIFE CRISES IN A NO-HOLDS-BARRED EXPLORATION OF SEX, MARRIAGE, AND THE FRAGILITY OF LIFE.Holly: Filled with regret for being a stay-athome mom, she sheds sixty pounds and loses herself in the world of extramarital sex. Will it bring the fulfillment she is searching for?Andrea: A single mom and avowed celibate, she watches her friend Holly’s meltdown with a mixture of concern and contempt. Holly is throwing away what Andrea has spent her whole life searching for—a committed relationship with a decent guy. So what if Andrea picks up Holly’s castaway husband?Marissa: She has more than her fair share of challenges—a gay, rebellious teenage son, a terminally ill daughter, and a husband who buries himself in his work rather than face the facts.As one woman’s marriage unravels, another’s rekindles. As one woman’s family comes apart at the seams, another’s reconfigures into something bigger and better. In this story of connections and disconnections, one woman’s up is another one’s down, and all of them will learn the meaning of friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness.Unflinchingly honest, emotionally powerful, surprisingly erotic, Triangles is the ultimate page-turner. Hopkins’s gorgeous, expertly honed poetic verse perfectly captures the inner lives of her characters. Sometimes it happens like that. Sometimes you just get lost.Get lost in the world of Triangles, where the lives of three unforgettable women intersect, and where there are no easy answers.

When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview the successful young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind - until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time. 

The unworldly, innocent Ana is shocked to realize she wants this man, and when he warns her to keep her distance it only makes her more desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her - but on his own terms. Shocked yet thrilled by Grey's singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success – his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving adoptive family – Grey is man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a passionate, physical and daring affair, Ana learns more about her own dark desires, as well as the Christian Grey hidden away from public scrutiny. Can their relationship transcend physical passion? Will Ana find it in herself to submit to the self-indulgent Master? And if she does, will she still love what she finds? Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever

It's that time again. Here is our Top Ten Tuesday theme: Top Ten Books On My Spring To-Be-Read list (Note: could be new releases or just books you hope to read this spring). 

My list in no particular order:

 From the acclaimed author of the Morgan Kingsley, Exorcist books comes the gripping first novel in a new series about a private eye who discovers, to her surprise, that she’s an immortal huntress. 

Nikki Glass can track down any man. But when her latest client turns out to be a true descendant of Hades, Nikki now discovers she can’t die. . . . Crazy as it sounds, Nikki’s manhunting skills are literally god-given. She’s a living, breathing descendant of Artemis who has stepped right into a trap set by the children of the gods. Nikki’s new “friends” include a descendant of Eros, who uses sex as a weapon; a descendant of Loki, whose tricks are no laughing matter; and a half-mad descendant of Kali who thinks she’s a spy. But most powerful of all are the Olympians, a rival clan of immortals seeking to destroy all Descendants who refuse to bow down to them. In the eternal battle of good god/bad god, Nikki would make a divine weapon. But if they think she’ll surrender without a fight, the gods must be crazy. . . 

It was as if he called to me, demanding I reach out and touch the brushstrokes of color swirled onto the canvas. It was the most exquisite portrait I'd ever seen--everything about Lord Denbury was unbelievable...utterly breathtaking and eerily lifelike.

There was a reason for that. Because despite what everyone said, Denbury never had committed suicide. He was alive. Trapped within his golden frame.

I've crossed over into his world within the painting, and I've seen what dreams haunt him. They haunt me too. He and I are inextricably linked--bound together to watch the darkness seeping through the gas-lit cobblestone streets of Manhattan. Unless I can free him soon, things will only get Darker Still.

When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night - dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows her. Margo's always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she's always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they're for Q. Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers.

 

That was the whole reason she was sent to Hex Hall, a reform school for delinquent Prodigium (aka witches, shapeshifters, and fairies). But that was before she discovered the family secret, and that her hot crush, Archer Cross, is an agent for The Eye, a group bent on wiping Prodigium off the face of the earth.

Turns out, Sophie’s a demon, one of only two in the world—the other being her father. What’s worse, she has powers that threaten the lives of everyone she loves. Which is precisely why Sophie decides she must go to London for the Removal, a dangerous procedure that will destroy her powers.

But once Sophie arrives she makes a shocking discovery. Her new friends? They’re demons too. Meaning someone is raising them in secret with creepy plans to use their powers, and probably not for good. Meanwhile, The Eye is set on hunting Sophie down, and they’re using Archer to do it. But it’s not like she has feelings for him anymore. Does she?

Sixteen-year-old Neva has been trapped since birth. She was born and raised under the Protectosphere, in an isolated nation ruled by fear, lies, and xenophobia. A shield "protects" them from the outside world, but also locks the citizens inside. But there's nothing left on the outside, ever since the world collapsed from violent warfare. Or so the government says...

Neva and her best friend Sanna believe the government is lying and stage a "dark party" to recruit members for their underground rebellion. But as Neva begins to uncover the truth, she realizes she must question everything she's ever known, including the people she loves the most.

In a future Chicago, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

Rule #1: Do not show fear.
Rule #2: Do not show pity.
Rule #3: Do not engage.
Rule #4: Do not let your guard down.
Rule #5: They lie.

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from.

Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king.

So that is it. What is your number one read for spring?