Heart in a Box on Tour, plus the story behind the story

Heart in a Box is on Tour with Chapter by Chapter! Below are all of the stops. There are guest posts, playlists, interviews and other fun things, including a giant Rafflecopter full of prizes! As always, the links will go live as the blogs post. I'm proud and grateful to say that Heart in a Box has been on the Amazon top 100 in Teen and Alternative Family for four + weeks and is also an Amazon "Hot New Release." FYI, buy links are on the right side of this blog.

A bit about Heart in a Box's journey...

One main theme is that the girl, Joss has a pot-addled mom who owns a bong shop. I first took this to an editor in 2005. She swiftly rejected it, saying, "Who would want to read about a mom who smokes weed all of the time?" Well, apparently MANY teens want to read about alcoholic parents, and families in crisis, right? This is simply a new permutation. Perhaps its time has come, what with the legalization of pot in so many states. Of course, many folks do need medical marijuana and I'm not morally against it at all. I'm a believer in freedom to live how you see fit. But I worry about what this will unleash for certain vulnerable people. So, this aspect of the story is really about how one negotiates with a tormented family member and still tries to stay close.

Heart in a Box is also about identity, art, and all of the inherent beauty in New York City and Brooklyn's diverse cultural scene. It's hopeful and peppery and also has a sweet romance. If you decide to take a chance on it, I hope you love it as much as I did when I created it--and Joss Olstad.

Enter the Rafflecopter below. The prizes include: 
A $40 gift card, 2 hand-painted heart-boxes with secret treasure inside, a signed paperback of Dorianna by Catherine Stine, a signed paperback of Heart in a Box by Catherine Stine, a great YA ebook pack of novels: Tiger Lily by Wende Dikec, When Sorrows Come by Katie M John, and Time Runs Away with Her by Christine Potter.

Week One

January 18            Cover2Cover – Interview
January 18            Njkinny's Review of Books & Stuff – Review
January 18            Illuminite Caliginosus – Dream cast
January 18         Susan Heim on Writing – Spotlight/Promo
January 19            The Avid Book Collector – Ten writing lessons learned!
January 19            Painted Words Reviews – Review         
January 20            Hidden Worlds Books – mini-excerpts & feature
January 20            M Pax Dimensions in Fiction- Heart Excerpt plus M Pax's critter love
January 20            Driftless – Spotlight/Promo
January 21            Diana’s Book Reviews – Guest post on Why Readers Rule!
January 21            Cassandra M’s Place – Spotlight/Promo
January 21            5 Girls Book Reviews – Review
January 21            Reader Girls – Spotlight/Excerpt       
January 21            Ogitchida Kwe’s Book Blog – Spotlight/Promo/Excerpts
January 22            WS Momma Readers Nook – Joss Olstad character spotlight
January 22            Go Read A Book – Review

Week Two
January 25            A Dream Within A Dream – Spotlight/Excerpt
January 25           Books and Ladders – Guest Post - Why I Write
January 25            The Page Unbound – Spotlight
January 26            Book-Keeping – Review
January 26            Chapter by Chapter - Interview
January 27            Wishful Endings – Spotlight/Excerpt
January 27            Ellie Garratt – Guest Post
January 27            BooksChatter – Interview
January 28            Booklovercircumspect4 – Guest Post - 5 Influential Books
January 29            Star Crossed Reviews – New Excerpts!
January 29            Lisa T. Cresswell – Guest Post on personal themes & inspirations
January 29            Becca’s Book Affair – Review
January 29            Books Direct – Review

RAFFLECOPTER:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Moonless is out! An Interview with Crystal Collier, plus the Realms Faire continues!

Today, Idea City helps celebrate the release of Crystal Collier's YA historical paranormal Moonless with an interview! But first, a bit about Moonless:
Alexia’s nightmares become reality: a dead baron, red-eyed wraiths, and
forbidden love with a man hunted by these creatures. After an attack close to home, Alexia
realizes she cannot keep one foot in her old life and one in this new world. To protect her family
she must either be sold into a loveless marriage, or escape with her beloved and risk becoming one of the Soulless.

Where to find Moonless! Kindle, B&N Nook

Tell us about your main character: 

Alexia: The only and unattractive daughter of a country baron, she has lived a secluded life—as her parents fear they’ll never be able to marry her off. She loves books and has been plagued every birthday by the same nightmare: cloaked wraiths in the night, a blue-eyed man, and a beautiful, but dead girl.

In what ways does she change?
The night she stumbles across a murder and the blue-eyed man, she realizes her parents are withholding vital truths about her, the biggest of which is reflected back at her in the mirror. She has transformed from unattractive and unlikely to marry, to gorgeous and highly sought after—in a single night.

Give us your favorite line from your protagonist:
“If I am going to have a fate worse than death, I will take it right here.”

From an antagonist:
“You may beg for many things: death, revenge, mercy. Never ask for pardon.”

An emblematic, teaser paragraph:
Alexia’s nightmares become reality: a dead baron, red-eyed wraiths, and forbidden love with a man hunted by these creatures. After an attack close to home, Alexia realizes she cannot keep one foot in her old life and one in this new world. To protect her family she must either be sold into a loveless marriage, or escape with her beloved and risk becoming one of the Soulless. MOONLESS is Jane Eyre meets Supernatural.

What keeps you going when your inspiration flags?
Music, and cheese.

Best words of advice you ever received?
Dare to dream.

Can you offer some writing advice to aspiring and new authors?
Read like your writing depends on it, because it does.

Which do you enjoy writing most: action, romance, setting, dialog?
All of the above.

A hint of what you’re working on next?
MOONLESS is the first book in a unique trilogy. It has three protagonists, three separate story-lines, and dangers on moonless nights you haven’t even begun to fathom.

Crystal, author of MOONLESS, is a former composer/writer for Black Diamond Productions. She can be found practicing her brother-induced ninja skills while teaching children or madly typing about fantastic and impossible creatures. She has lived from coast to coast and now calls Florida home with her creative husband, three littles, and “friend” (a.k.a. the zombie locked in her closet). Secretly, she dreams of world domination and a bottomless supply of cheese.

Where can readers find you on the web?

Blog | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | Amazon Author Page

To learn about the rest of the tour, play Moonless games and win prizes go here!
ALSO! The Realms Faire continues ALL this week! Enter the Rafflecopter for prizes below. To play Phasers click here. And for details on all games click here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Realms Faire Begins! Play games all week and win big prizes.

Idea City announces the start of the Realms Faire, a weeklong event with super-fun games and big prizes! It's the brainchild of M Pax, and is now a part of the Untethered Realms author group's repertoire. Everyone is welcome to play! Play at least two of the games and you're eligible for the big Rafflecopter prizes: a Kindle or a big, fat bundle of UR author books, including dark fantasy, sci-fi, space opera, and ghost tales.
Click these links to play. And don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter below!
Joust
Drench a Wench/Soak a Bloke
Stockade Brigade
Dueling Bards
Phasers
Masquerade Parade
Collective Performance
Castle Jumble
Dragon Hunt

Follow the Untethered Realms blog for the schedule.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Team Armonk or Team Blane? Plus the tour & epic giveaway continues!

One of my favorite posts I created for the Ruby's Fire Tour is about the love triangle Ruby's tangled up in. Ruby encounters Armonk the night she runs to The Greening, a strange boarding school in Skull’s Wrath, and their interchange is not so friendly. Armonk has shiny black hair that he braids like the part Native American that he is. He’s traveled to the desert to find Dr. Varik and ask if he’ll make a prosthetic leg, after his own burned up as a child. Ruby meets Blane next, already a student at the school. He’s ruggedly handsome, with a smattering of honey freckles and massive shoulders, but he’s a hardscrabble bully. After all, he saw his family drown years ago and he’s since closed his heart.
Team Armonk or Team Blane-which one are you on?

Armonk:
       Hard crunches explode by my right ear—a wild beast charging? I snap upright. And see it. A large human in an iguana skin suit with an arrow pointed straight at my heart.
        “Hey!” I cry. No!”
       The owner of the arrow steps forward. He grazes the sharp tip against my forehead above my molded burn mask. The guy’s dark eyes blaze out at me from his own mask. The little I see of his exposed skin is bronzed and his long black hair gleams even under this dank tarp. Despite his fierce gaze, he doesn’t shoot the arrow. “Lift your mask,” he orders.

Blane:
       I’m absorbed in collecting more leaves when heavy footsteps crunch up ahead, and I hear fast, labored breathing. Blane appears through the crimson foliage in front of me with an armful of Fireseed.
       He puts it down and brushes off his hands. “So, what’s your story, your real story?”
       “I don’t know what you mean.”
       “Why did you leave your compound for this place?” he asks.
       I shrug. There’s no way I’d tell him about Stiles, or any other details of my life. Would he tell me his? “Why did you leave your home?”
       “That was a long time ago,” he declares.
       “Where was it?”
       “East Coast Sector, near New York. I went to a reputable school, where the kids had money, good families.” Blane kicks at a stone. When he looks back at me, his gaze radiates the pain of people and things long gone.

Armonk:
       The Fireseed compound, that was years ago, wasn’t it? Whoosh, goes the warm rag, whoosh. With all of my strength I raise my lids to the halfway point, and make out a young man’s deeply tanned face with leaf tattoos on high cheekbones, a resolute chin. Ah, yes! It’s Armonk. And I’m lying in a bed of wrinkled sheets smelling of sour sweat. I start to raise myself on my elbows. God, the deep ache in my throat and lungs!
       With a gentle hand, he guides me back down. “Shh, you’ve been sick, take it easy, Ruby.”
My voice creaks out. “Sick? How long have I been out? Tell me… Armonk.”
“A week and a day,” he says, as he sweeps across my brow with the warm, damp rag.

Blane:
        “Someone saw you get high. Do you?” he asks me.
  “No!” Oblivion is for deleting. “What vice do you have?” I add, in an echo of Bea’s sentiment from the other night.
       He laughs as he presses forward, crushing more Fireseed saplings. “Being too good at playing bodyguard.”
       “What’s that mean?” That he’s more violent than I’ve already witnessed?
       “It means I take my job very seriously.” His brows knit in a way that chills me.
I’m tempted to ask him if he’s ever killed anyone, but I’m not sure I could handle the answer. With his massive biceps, trunk-like limbs and giant’s hands he could squeeze the life out of someone without even trying.

Armonk:
       His frequent smile reveals perfect white teeth against touchable mahogany skin. I blush inside to have these thoughts, and to be keyed up to spend time with him, as he steers the vessel out of the hanger and guides it to the runway. It reminds me of when my dad and I went on hunting junkets, of how precious our time was together.

Blane:
       I press him. “Why do you always stare at me from the window? Why do you ask me questions with your eyes and not your mouth? What do you want with me, huh?”
       He stands his ground, his boots planted apart. His silent confidence angers me.
       “I asked you what you wanted. Do you want to kiss me? Huh?” I ask with more fury than I intended.

Armonk & Blane:
       By this time, Blane has caught up to us. We stop in awkward hesitation as we regard him. Am I the one who feels awkward, or is it Blane? His eye is blackening and the skin under it is torn from where Stiles got in one lousy punch. But it’s Blane’s expression that tears me up.
       “Thanks,” I tell him. I loosen myself from Armonk’s firm arm and gingerly test my weight on my sore ankle. It feels wrong to lean on Armonk right now with Blane staring at me, a hungry, lonely look in his eye. It’s as if he’s never been hugged, never been fed, never been loved, as if the sight of Armonk touching me, even just to help me limp along injures him. “Thanks,” I tell Blane again. “I really mean that. That man would’ve killed me if I’d gone back.”
       Blane only grunts, before forging ahead and beating us into the house.

Below are this week's stops on the Ruby's Fire Tour. Links go live on the day of. And the Rafflecopter is open to win big prizes, including a Kindle! To see the entire tour lineup, click here.

August 7th
Feed Your Fiction Addiction >> Review
alwaysjoart >>  Excerpt/Special Sneak Peek

August 8th
Donna Galanti >>  Post: Extreme Beauty-Pleasure, Power, Peril

August 9th
FlutterealFlight >>  Review
Rally the Readers >> Review of Ruby's Fire, and BONUS review of Fireseed One

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sizzling Ruby & Blane encounter, how to brainstorm & MULTIPLE PRIZES & freebies as Ruby's party blazes on.

Ruby's party blazes on with links to my posts on brainstorming, excerpts on Ruby's drug struggles, hot character sketches of Blane and Ruby and more. Enter the Rafflecopter for prizes! Plus there's a bonus prize for the most creative guess as to what the Red critter is in the picture below. But first, here's where you can find Ruby. Big hugs to all who buy, read, review and tweet about her, because readers make the world go around for us indies.

Ruby with a Dragon Lizard, by Catherine Stine

Ruby on Kindle, the illustrated paperback, on Nook

Today (Friday's) revelers! 
Donna Galanti has a scary Ruby medical excerpt
Book Whirlwind has a Ruby excerpt on her drug struggles
Beth Fred has my post on brainstorming
Kelly Hashway has a sizzling Ruby & Blane encounter Mom With a Kindle has a Ruby & Blane character sketch Twilight Sleep has a snippet of Ruby's first frightening encounter at The Greening & an extra prize! Always Jo Art has two special giveaways! Buried Under Books is a cool blog too, A Chick Reading has two mega-giveaways! The Bookish Owl, an extra Owlish giveaway!

Thursday's blog revelers: Oops, I Read a Book Again & Hot off the Shelves
Wednesday's Ruby blog revelers: Crystal Hicken Collier (where you guess which of my three "truths" is a big fat lie), Alex J Cavanaugh, Whimsically Yours, Wintry Words, Fresh Pot of Tea, Eclipse Reviews, Katie Clark Writes & Michael Ventrella.

Can you guess what this red critter is? Hint: it's NOT a bird. Most creative answer gets you a special, bonus prize!

Lastly, which of these Ruby lines most intrigues you? It's fascinating to know what others feel about our characters and stories.

#1: I reach for the velvety sack in my cloak and feel the reassuring give of the powder. It’s diminishing with every dose, and I won’t be able to make more here. I need to ration it carefully. My heart hammering, I flutter into the bathroom, inch open the drawstring and shake a line onto my wrist. I inhale greedily, desperately.

#2: When the man sees my face and my electric haze of hair, his eyes soften. That spark of wonder that men get whenever they gaze at me is in his eyes. That spark I almost always hate. Somehow with this stranger, it fills me with unexpected lightening.

#3: My arm is smarting. I turn it over gingerly to survey the damage, and gasp. It’s not bleeding red—rather some thin, greenish liquid. My insides freeze. “Armonk, I need to find that doctor now.” 
He rushes over. His pale, frightened expression tells me he agrees.

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