Tag: Publishing

Review of ‘Bound’ by Kate Sparkes

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ Leave a comment

Bound

I’m very pleased to be sharing with you my review of Bound by Kate Sparkes. Kate is a writer friend of mine and fellow WIPpeteer for our WIPpet Wednesdays.

Anyway she recently published Bound, her debut novel, and seeing as it’s so fantastic, I wanted to share my review of it with you here. I just want to add before I do that it really is a stunning novel, hugely enjoyable and I highly recommend it. So here’s my review:

This story blew my mind – I loved it! I don’t read a huge amount of fantasy novels, but this certainly makes me want to read more.

It’s the story of Rowan Greenwood, a young woman who’s in love with the idea of magic and finds herself taken away from everything she knows and thrown into a dangerous world, where each day she faces may be her last. Having unknowingly saved the life of her one of her people’s worst enemies, Rowan finds herself powerless to help herself as she begins a journey. She doesn’t know where it will end.

I don’t want to say any more than that in case I give away the plot. But this novel was wonderful, so incredibly imaginative, with a plot that constantly twisted and turned and two main characters who I absolutely loved. Rowan especially was an endearing character, brave and selfless. Aren, although flawed, was an amazingly complex character. By the end of the story, I felt as if I knew both of them well.

The world that Sparkes has created is wonderfully colourful, memorable and vivid. I thought her descriptions were fantastic and they drew me right into the world. I liked the whole history to that world that she’s given us and it makes me realise that a lot of thought must have gone into depicting it. It’s certainly paid off – the countries that Rowan and Aren travel through are not to be soon forgotten.

I won’t forget this book for a long while and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Bound is available from Amazon.com, Amazon UK and Amazon.ca. For more info about the author you can visit her blog here.

The Butterfly Storm on Kindle Countdown!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ Leave a comment

The Butterfly Storm mark 2

Just a quick post to let you know that a good friend of mine and fellow writer Kate Frost has put her wonderful debut novel The Butterfly Storm on Kindle Countdown until next Saturday.

It’s available now on Amazon UK and Amazon.com. It’s the perfect summer read. Catch it while you can!

Cover reveal for ‘The Slayer Saga: Soulless’!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 6 Comments

slayer saga soulless cover reveal

I’m pleased to be taking part in the cover reveal of my fellow indie author L. S. Engler as she promotes her soon-to-be-published novel The Slayer Saga: Soulless.  Here’s a little bit of info about the book:

The Slayer Saga: Soulless is the first book in a trilogy about a world that has been overrun by zombie-like creatures called Soulless.  The Slayer of the Soulless is a legendary figure who roams the earth, protecting the Untouched from these undead monsters.  There are a few safe havens in the world, but her latest visit to one reveals a dark plot to kill her and, suddenly, the safe havens are not so safe any more.
With a small band of survivors, she must find the elusive Queen, who floats over the land in a flying airship, seeking help and guidance about this new situation.  What the Slayer finds with the Queen, though, is an even bigger problem that may threaten the whole of humanity once and for all.
Described by one beta-reader as Buffy meets The Hobbit and by the author as Thundarr the Barbarian meets The Walking Dead, Soulless is a journey through a terrifying landscape of civilization on the brink of reinventing itself .
Here’s some more information about the author:
L. S. Engler has been writing for as long as she can remember and has previously published a collection of short stories entitled Bowlful of Bunnies.  The Slayer Saga: Soulless is her second book, first novel, and the start of a trilogy which will include books published in 2015 and 2016, as well. She blogs at lsengler.com and can be found on Twitter @lsengler
You may also be interested to learn more about the talented cover artist:
Ingrid Pomeroy is a mixed-media and digital collage artist who loves to work with anything old and beautiful.  She incorporates her passion for vintage photos, postcards, lace, buttons and ephemera into her art.

Ingrid has been featured in publications by Stampington & Company, including “Somerset Studio,” “Somerset Memories,” “Gallery,” “Home,” “Life,” “Apronology”, “Somerset Digital Studio”, “Green”, “Wedding,” and “Holidays & Celebrations.”  She has also been featured in “Shop, etc.”  Ingrid appeared in several episodes of HGTV’s show, “Curb Appeal,” designing and working with the families on decorative projects.

Ingrid sells her work in specialty shops in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay Areas and on http://www.anoriginalbyingrid.etsy.com.  Her work is also featured at the Oregon Shakespeare Tudor Guild in Ashland, Oregon, and Maribelle Chocolates in New York City and Kyoto, Japan.

 

That’s it from me.  Do keep an eye out for this author. 🙂

WIPpet Wednesday & call for cover reveal volunteers

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 18 Comments

Classroom

Welcome to the wonderful, weird world that is WIPpet Wednesday when we writers share our work. Today as well as sharing some of my writing with you, I wanted to ask if any of you would be willing to take part in my cover reveal for Reunion of the Heart.

I haven’t set a date for it as yet, I thought I’d see how many people would be willing to participate first. But it will be soon as I’m making the final touches to Reunion of the Heart and it won’t be long before I publish it. Yay!! I’m amazed, actually, that it’s come around so fast – I was expecting things to take a lot longer to prepare it for publication. But things have come along really well.

So anyway that’s that.  For my contribution to today’s WIPpet Wednesday, I’m being generous and sharing with you 30 sentences for the 30th July (see what I did there?  Genius!!).  OK so maybe not generous by some people’s standards… Anyway it’s another excerpt from my romance about a school teacher.

Before you ask, no I haven’t decided on a title yet.  It’s currently saved on my computer under the hugely original title of ‘school’.  I’m rubbish at thinking up titles for my novels and this one is no exception!  I’m completely stumped at the moment.

In the scene I’m sharing today, my teacher MC Rebecca has kept two of the boys in her class behind at school because they were messing around during the lesson.  They’re not too happy about being given a detention and Rebecca isn’t wildly thrilled at having to keep them there either…

As they’d been told, Daniel and Richard stayed behind at the end of the lesson.  As they were standing in front of Rebecca’s desk to learn their punishment, their faces were surly, their shoulders slumped.  Outside it was a beautiful afternoon, the sun was shining, the sky was blue – and it was a Friday.  Rebecca didn’t really want to be there herself, but it had to be done.  She couldn’t let this go; they needed to understand that rudeness and disrupting the class was unacceptable.

‘Daniel and Richard, I’ve decided in the next hour, you will both write me a two page essay on a book you’ve read which you enjoyed.’  She saw their scowls deepen and sighed inwardly.  This was going to be a long hour.  She watched as they took the paper she handed them and trudged back to their desks.

In spite of her better judgement, curiosity won out and Rebecca pulled out the piece of paper which she’d seized from Daniel from her desk drawer.  She glanced at him, hoping he hadn’t noticed her looking at it.  But Daniel’s head was bent in concentration over his writing.  Rebecca’s lips twitched as she read what was written on the piece of paper, and she had to purse her lips to stop herself smiling.   

It was a little poem about her – she assumed it was written by Daniel.  Not only did it rhyme perfectly, it had a clear rhythm as well.  It was cheeky, yet not offensive, although she did note the allusion to her looks.  But that didn’t bother her.  Rebecca knew what young men were like and she was aware that she wasn’t unattractive.  She stole another glance at Daniel; this time he was looking out of the window and while she had the chance, she quickly put the paper back in her drawer.

Looking at the clock, she saw that there was still ages to go until Daniel and Richard’s detention was up.  Resigned to her fate, Rebecca picked up the first in a large pile of exercise books to begin marking.  But the stories the year 8 pupils had written about their favourite weekends were engaging and often amusing.  She had to suppress a chuckle now and then.  Before she knew it, she looked at the clock and saw that the time was up.

‘All right then,’ she said to the two boys who were looking tired and fed up, ‘you can go.  Put the essays on my desk,’ she added as they approached, ‘and I’ll see you both tomorrow.  And I hope I won’t be seeing any of that misbehaviour again.’

Daniel and Richard shook their heads, clearly itching to be gone.  They turned to leave the room.  Then Rebecca thought.

Oh BTW I should say if you need to contact me re. the cover reveal my email address is: elaine (dot) jeremiah (at) gmail (dot) com

That’s it from me today.  If you’re reading this, but you’re not involved in WIPpet Wednesday and you think it’s something you’d like to get involved with, it’s easy to take part.  Just share on your blog anything you’ve been working on recently writing-wise.  Your excerpt should preferably relate in some way to the date.  Then once you’ve done your post, add your details here.

Thanks once more to K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

Call for volunteers for cover reveal for Reunion of the Heart!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 20 Comments

cover reveal

Well this has certainly come around fast! I’m in the final stages of preparing to publish my second novel Reunion of the Heart.

To tell you a little bit more about it (without giving too much away!), it’s a romance and the story of a young woman who returns to her school for a reunion.  She finds that her life won’t be the same again…

I’m not gonna say any more about it because (obviously) I don’t want to give half the plot away.  But to cut to the chase, I need some volunteers to do the cover reveal for it.

I didn’t do one for my previous novel, The Inheritance.  To be honest I was learning the ropes – I still am but last year when I published it, I had no idea about cover reveals, so I simply shared the cover for it on Twitter.

This time around, having seen other people do it, I thought it would be a good way of generating some interest in my novel.

I’ve decided to do things differently in other ways too for the launch of Reunion of the Heart.  Last year when I published The Inheritance, I did a blog tour which I’ve decided I’m not going to do this time.  Organising and promoting the blog tour was a lot of work and while it was quite fun to do, I didn’t have a lot of people commenting on what I’d shared and it didn’t really seem to translate into sales.

So.  That was then and this is now.  I’m doing this cover reveal and I’m going to do some other promotions for Reunion of the Heart… Watch this space!

New novel coming soon…

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 15 Comments

Just a very short post to say that I’m getting to the final stages of preparation for publishing my next novel Reunion of the Heart.

There’s still a way to go yet, but watch this space.  Announcements to follow… 🙂

Review of ‘Emergence’

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 9 Comments

Emergence

I thought I’d post another review of a book I’ve enjoyed here on my blog. It’s by the lovely K. L. Schwengel who kindly hosts WIPpet Wednesday on her blog once a week.

It’s called Emergence and it’s the second in her Darkness and Light series. It was a hugely enjoyable book to read. Here is my review:

This novel picks up the story of Ciara, and the battle for her power, where the last story ‘First of Her Kind’ left off. As the story begins Bolin, who is trying to protect Ciara, has a summons from the Emperor of Nisair demanding that he bring her to him. Bolin does everything he can to try to avoid this. There are powerful people who want Ciara and her powers for themselves and Bolin doesn’t want to risk taking her away from the safety of the Greensward, where she is being cared for, on a potentially perilous journey where she could be captured…

I really enjoyed this novel. I thought it was even better than the first, although I would say that to understand the story fully it might be helpful to read the first in the series, ‘First of Her Kind’, before this one.

The characters were vivid and memorable. Bolin in particular stands out for me. He is a troubled character, desperately trying to ignore what he feels for Ciara and always putting himself in dangerous situations before others. He refuses to let anyone get properly close to him and the consequences are often near fatal.

Reading this novel, it is clear that the main character, Ciara, is maturing. She is less hotheaded and headstrong than in the first novel, and she actually listens to people who’re trying to give her advice. Like Bolin, she is a memorable character – a strong young woman, yet endearingly vulnerable at times too.

I thought that the battle scenes were realistically described and the author also drew me, as a reader, into her world. The people and places felt real to me. All the characters were well drawn and I really felt that I got to know them as the story unfolded.

The story was gripping and exciting. There were plenty of twists and turns and the author kept me guessing as to who would have the upper hand by the end.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an adventurous, thrilling tale. You won’t be disappointed.

If you would like to read it, it’s available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

Unsure

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 19 Comments

Unsure

This is going to be a quick post as I haven’t got a lot of time this evening. But I just wanted to share with you a little about what’s been on my mind today.

As with many of my thoughts it’s to do with my writing and how it’s going.  To update you, I’m about to send my upcoming novel Reunion of the Heart to my proofreader. Once I have it back from her, I’ll start making the final preparations to publish it – hopefully by the end of the summer.

But it’s not Reunion of the Heart I’m stressing over – well not much anyway! 😉  It’s actually my new WIP, as yet untitled.  I’ve shared bits of it on WIPpet Wednesday; you can read this week’s excerpt here.

What I’m unsure about is the fact that it’s about a teacher (it’s a romance), a young woman, who works in a secondary school (11-16 yr olds), but I don’t know a huge amount about secondary schools in the 21st century – I haven’t been at a secondary school for the best part of 20 years.  I’m kind of feeling that I may be out of my depth.  I just don’t know enough about, for example, how technology is used in schools nowadays.  I’m sure it’s light years away from when I was there.

Also, although I’ve planned quite a lot for this story (I am DEFINITELY a plotter not a pantser!!), I feel that it’s still not clear in my head the way it should go in the middle.  I know the beginning and the end, I even know part of the middle, but it’s the in between scenes I’m trying to create now which are wearing me down.

So I was wondering… what do you guys do when you’re in a similar position to me?  Do you keep going and plugging away at it?  Or do you think ‘I’ll stop and do something else, or go back to the drawing board’?  And have you ever been writing something where you’re unsure you know enough about it?  If so, what do you do?

It’s  a lot of questions, I know.  But as always your thoughts are welcome. 🙂

It’s OK now cos I’m back!!!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 24 Comments

I'm back no 2

My apologies for missing last week’s WIPpet Wednesday. I’d been very busy with work and I was also really tired. But now I’m back! And I’ve actually written some more on my WIP – finally after months. So I’m happy about that.

If you follow my blog, you may have seen that I’ve been thinking about how to increase my presence online, particularly with this blog.  You can read about that here.  This is with the ultimate aim of publicising my writing.  I guess that’s fairly obvious, but I find it amazing how the whole purpose of social networking i.e. to promote our writing can become obscured until we have less and less time to spend on the writing which is what it was all about in the first place.

That’s how I see it anyway.  I certainly find it to be true of me.  I’m finding it hard to keep up with everything, what with work and blogging, tweeting and most importantly writing.  I feel that I maybe need to scale back what I do on social media a little to focus more on my writing.

Anyway for this week’s WIPpet Wednesday post, I’m sharing with you 4 short paragraphs from my current WIP.  My maths goes like this: 6 for the month – 2 from 2014.  Not great but I couldn’t see another way to do it.  In this scene, my MC Rebecca, who is an English teacher at a secondary school (11-16 yr olds), is teaching her class of fifth formers (15-16 yr olds).  Some of the boys are mucking around.  She’s determined to maintain control over the class…

‘Daniel Leavis, what do you think you’re doing?’ Rebecca said sternly.  She was teaching the fifth formers’ English class.  It was two thirty on a Friday afternoon, the end of a busy and stressful two weeks for her – and they were only the first two weeks into her job.

Daniel looked up at her, smirking.  She saw a bit of folded paper in his hand that he was attempting to conceal.  Feeling her patience wearing thin, Rebecca stalked up to him.

‘Whatever that is in your hand, you can give it to me.’

‘Ooh give it to you, yes please,’ Daniel’s sidekick Richard snickered under his breath.

That’s it from me this week.  If you’d like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday but are unsure how, all you have to do is post on your blog something that you’ve written recently.  Make sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your name here.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

An update on how things are right now

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 8 Comments

Well I didn’t make WIPpet Wednesday this week.  Truth be told I didn’t have anything new that I’d written to share.  I’ve been busy and Wednesday just crept up on me so quickly.  I kept umming and ahhing over whether to write something at the last minute to share, but in the end I decided not to.  I was so tired I couldn’t face it.

Anyway the reason I’m busy and tired is that a couple of weeks ago I started another work placement with Bristol City Council (UK). Reason being that after I left the paid job I was doing, I decided rather than spend a lot of time on my own with only a bit of job hunting to do, I would do something constructive with my time, put the job hunting on hold and go back to the council.

I’m with a different team this time, but they’re just as lovely as the first team and I’m really enjoying it.  I felt I needed the experience and confidence boosting that the placement at the council would give me. I’m not that accustomed to the world of work due to illness over the years, so doing things this way gives me time to increase my skills and confidence.

I’m doing admin with the aim of being able to get a job in that field later on.  I enjoy working as part of a team with all the camaraderie that entails.  It’s good for me – I couldn’t have coped working alone in the job I left which you can read about here.

So what about my writing?  Well today I finished my editing of Reunion of the Heart (yay!) and I’m going to send my manuscript (via email of course) to my mum for proofreading.  The catch is that I haven’t timed things very well – she and my dad are off walking the Camino (the pilgrims’ trail in Spain) and won’t be back for another couple of weeks at the earliest!

Oh well.  That gives me time to go back to my WIP which I began working on before I started editing Reunion of the Heart.  Apart from all this I’m trying to blog as much as I can and follow as many blogs as I can.  I’m failing miserably at keeping up with all the emails of blog posts I’m getting – but hey I’m only human and I can’t look at everything.  So I’m picking and choosing, trying at least to comment on those blogs of people who’ve done me the courtesy of commenting on mine.

Talking of blogging, I’ve linked my blog to Facebook and Twitter (and then got really surprised when the number of my blog followers leapt from 181 to over 2200 lol!!).  So I’m hoping that’ll help me to give it a bit more exposure.  I also want to link up to some more social media sites – but all in good time.  At the moment I’m finding it hard to keep up with life – though things are good they’re busy and a little bit hectic. By my standards anyway!

So hopefully I can get Reunion of the Heart published by the end of the summer (hopefully being the operative word!!).  I’ll keep you posted as and when that happens.

How is your writing going at the moment?