Heart in a Box blitz, Giveaway prize pack & FREE story collection download!

This week is the book blitz for Heart in a Box and the big Facebook party is tomorrow. There's still time to join the party. I will be giving away my handmade heart boxes with messages in them like my character Joss writes, and there's a lineup of great guest authors. Thanks SOOO much to everyone who is posting about Heart this week!!! I am very humbled by the response. I want to invite you all to enter the blitz Rafflecopter below. Prizes include a $40 gift card, signed paperback of Heart in a Box, signed paperback of Dorianna, ebooks of my Amazon bestselling YA futuristic thrillers Fireseed One and Ruby’s Fire, and a super-pack of very cool YA eBooks: The Danaan Trilogy by Howard, Changeling by Herbert and Drawn by Ledbetter.

Heart took a long while to brew and polish and it contains elements very close to my own heart: addicted family members, identity issues, a close, yet complicated mom - daughter relationship, creativity, healing through art, and of course, a sweet romance. Here is a mini-excerpt to get a taste of what I'm talking about.

Thoughts on school veer off when I spot the box on my mother’s night table. The box. I know its black, lacquered form by heart. It’s the size of a large jewelry box. My father painted it with Bengali pink roses and a tangle of red cardinal vines. He must’ve used the tiniest brush, as if the objects inside were treasures—emeralds from Mumbai or silk doll clothes from Kancheepuram.
      The box sits next to Mom’s organic remedies: tea-tree oil, Saint John’s Wort, aromatherapy ampules, zinc, monster-dose wheat grass capsules. She thinks these keep her functional. But I see how one accelerates her and the next slows her down, adding up to zero. The box is close enough she doesn’t even have to get out of bed in the morning. She can reach, with trembling fingers, light up and space out even before her first cup of black tea.
      I crack open the box. Pre-rolled blunts sit like tainted royalty on a plush, purple pillow. Their sharp floral resin makes me sneeze.
      Once when I was twelve, Mom offered me a doob after closing the store for the night. She claimed to be worried about how uptight I was getting. It was around the time when I was sprouting zits, boobs, hips and my period. Who wouldn’t be down in the dumps? Mom claimed that if I got stoned I might relax. “Cave women probably used it for cramps, before all these greedy pharmacists crawled on the earth, trying to sell Midol and Tylenol and—”
      “Gee, thanks,” I snapped. “Are you serious? You want me to be a stoner too?”
      “Darling, I want you to be less anxious, that’s all. I want you to be whoever you want to be,” Mom answered cryptically. “Look, weed is superior to all those anti-depressants shrinks prescribe to kids these days. It won’t poison your liver like Prozac. It’s organic.”
      “Arsenic’s organic too,” I argued. Plus, some kids at my school would bounce off the walls without their so-called evil-shrink pills. But maybe I was too stiff.
      Soon after, I opened the box, took one and lit up. After only two inhales, I felt trapped inside a thick glass room. Then, when I ventured down to the street for a soda, people seemed in a galaxy eons away. It scared me. I vowed not to try it again. How could my mother stand to feel so cut off? Or was it different for her?

*******

Here are the buy links. Books make great Christmas presents! LOL.
Amazon, iTunes, Amazon UK, B&N, Kobo, All Romance eBooks

As a token of my appreciation for the indie book community, nab a FREE download of Beyond Secret Worlds, a fun, fantasy-filled short story collection that includes my brand new story Blue House Magic! Blue House Magic is the lead-in to the forthcoming book three of my Fireseed series! Find out what Ruby and Blane are up to in Vegas-by-the-Sea.
Get it FREE at: Amazon, iTunes, Kobo
*******
Stop by these fabulous bloggers, spreading word about Heart in a Box and other great book deals (more added as I get them): MS Kaye, Alyse Miller, River Fairchild, Elodie's blog, Heather Gardner, Lucy Leroux, Christine Rains, Raine Thomas, SF Benson, Bridie Hall, Tricia Zoeller, Rachel McClellan,

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Stephanie Keyes Star Catcher, Sale & Prizes!

Today on Idea City I have a fellow Inkspell author, the fabulous Stephanie Keyes, with a focus on her Star Catcher novel! Plus the first two in the series are on sale. Enter the Rafflecopter below for these prizes: One Complete E-book Set of the Entire Star Child Series (INT) & Multiple e-book Copies of The Star Catcher (INT). How cool is that?!

Magick and destiny intertwine as he fights to save his kingdom and the goddess he loves.

Her kiss…the feel of her skin…the beat of her heart…For seventeen-year-old Kellen St. James, each memory is marred by a single sentence on a lone strip of paper.

Cali has been taken…

Armed with an amulet that channels the ultimate power of Faerie, Kellen searches for his love. However, control of the amulet’s energy comes with a price, and Kellen soon learns that Cali’s captor has plans for the stone. With the threat of the Star Catcher’s evil looming above Kellen and his kingdom, he’ll have to free the Heart of Faerie and break the curse the binds the Children of Danu to the darkness. But before that, he has to find his real father, the king. No pressure, right?

Kellen and Cali will battle bewitched armies and unknown foes as they fight to stay together. Will Kellen embrace his immortal destiny? Or will his world, and the man he is fated to become, be destroyed by The Star Catcher?

Buy the book! Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Kobo
Find Stephanie: Stephanie's Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Goodreads

Book Trailer


Sale! This week only, grab the first two in the series:
The Star Child and The Fallen Stars for just $1.99!
Amazon | B&N

Excerpt
“I thought I’d never see you again.” Cali’s voice sounded small.
“There’s so much to tell you, I don’t even   know where to begin.”
“I know.”
“Marry me. For real this time.” The words came out in a rush, but I’d never wanted anything more. I didn’t plan on being apart from Cali ever again. “No Faerie attacks, no fleeing the country.” I didn’t know how to sum it up properly. “Just be mine.”
Cali smiled and pushed her warm body even closer against me. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.” Her yeses jumbled together as we kissed again. “I will marry you. I will.”
We had so much more to share, but I wouldn’t think past this moment, past today when I had Cali in my arms, finally, with our never-ending life lying ahead of us. I asked her to marry me. Promised it, in fact. I would keep my promise. Somewhere in the middle, I’d have to tell her the rest of what had happened. But today, in this infinitely glorious time, we were finally together again.

About Steph
Stephanie Keyes grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and spent years traveling and working as a Corporate Trainer before she made the decision to pen her first novel.  As a teen, her family always accused her of having an “overactive imagination.” Now, she’s encouraged to keep her head in the clouds and share her world with readers.
Still a resident of the ‘Burgh, Steph is now Mom to two little boys who constantly keep her on her toes. In addition, she's best friend to her incredible rockstar of a husband. She is an active member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), as well as a featured author for Love a Happy Ending Lifestyle e-magazine.
Keyes is the author of the YA Fantasy series, The Star Child, which currently includes The Star Child, After Faerie, The Fallen Stars, and The Star Catcher, all from by Inkspell Publishing. Steph writes YA novels because she’s a hopeless romantic who lives to believe that Magick truly does exist. She is hard at work on a new YA novel.

a Rafflecopter giveaway