Back from a Hiatus! The Lowdown & Plans

Hi dear blogging, reading, author community!

I've missed you all. I kind of fell off the face of the earth toward the end of June. Well, maybe a bit before that. The highs and lows:
A high * I got super-busy trying to get ready for a bunch of amazing book conventions.
A high * I splurged for my first professional author photo (this one).
A low * I got bedbugs at one of the conventions!!! So did the unlucky photographer. Luckily, my exterminator had me well trained and I took care of business the second I hit home. NO bugs survived my war to the death. But my bites and resulting scars lingered for months. Yuck!
A high * I hit the USA Today bestseller list with a boxed set I'm in!!!
A high * I went to a writing retreat in Cape Cod and wrote every day, all day. Except for our sailboat ride and long dinners. Oh, and watching the Olympic Women's Volleyball teams kick some serious you-know-what!
A high * Attended a different book con in Saint Louis, sold lots, made new friends and had a blast! Penned Con to be exact, which gives all of their profits to Action for Autism. Mad respect to founders, Amy and Rick Miles.

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I've had a long time to think about the blog. About how often I want to post, and more importantly, WHAT I want to post. I will post a bit less, but I will post. And yes, I will post about amazing books, and my own books... because I do love books and I do write. Just not 24/7.

The new Fireseed series covers

Ghosts of Fire anthology,
Untethered Realms Elements book 3

Shades of Prey, book 2

 So, happy fall, and wow, the Halloween season! And, I do have book stuff. A re-release with new covers and sales/freebies for my future shocker Fireseed series, including a new sequel novella called Blue House Magic. Untethered Realms has new story anthology out, Ghosts of Fire, book 3 of the Elements series. My story in this is Rollerskate Boys. Put the anthology on your Goodreads TBR list if you like. And I'll be doing a bunch of Facebook parties like Haunted Halloween Spooktacular on OCT 20 from 4 to 5 (EST) and A Magickal Samhain on Sunday, OCT 30 from 12 to 1:30 pm (EST) - all to help spread word of Ghosts of Fire and other spooktastic boxed sets I'm in, like Shades of Prey, Mystical Magic. Join the parties to chat with lots of authors and play games for giveaways if you like!!!

I'm happy to be back, and blogging. I will be checking into my fave old blogging haunts, and new ones, too.   xo Catherine

New Winter Reads!

Today Idea City is featuring a bunch of great new reads to upload and read under your warm, winter quilt. We have a fun variety of sci-fi, paranormal romance, and thrillers.

The Mystery House by Eva Pohler
Thriller/Suspense
 
Ellen and her two best friends share a mid-life crisis by hatching a plan to renovate an 1860's Greek revival in the nearby historic district of San Antonio. Although Ellen isn’t one to believe in ghosts, she comes face to face with something inexplicable in the attic. Her ghost-enthusiast friends convince her that they must help the spirit find closure, and as they dig deeper into the past, they uncover a shocking history that someone in the neighborhood doesn’t want exposed. But Ellen and her friends don't give up easily. They realize they've been called to give voice to the invisible women who suffered behind the walls of the house for decades.
 
Check out The Mystery House at Amazon & Smashwords

Eva Pohler teaches writing and literature at a university in San Antonio, where she lives with her husband and three kids. She’s the author of several novels for teens based on Greek mythology, including her bestselling six-book Gatekeeper’s Saga and three-book Vampires of Athens Series. Learn more at Eva's website, her thriller Facebook page and her Teen Fantasy Facebook page.

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The Reader by M. Pax
science fiction (Book Three of the Rifter series)

With the rift closed for the season and no more monsters to fight, Daelin Long gets bored as librarian in the podunk town of Settler, Oregon. A job interview and her brother’s arrival present a tempting opportunity to escape, until her brother and her best friend, a ghost, disappear.
While Daelin searches for them, more mysteries pile up: dead people coming back to life, portraits of the town founders replaced with strange white trees, and people on the other side of the rift returning. It’s impossible. The portal that allows monsters from other universes to come to Earth is sealed until next summer.
The Rifters, a secret group protecting our world, believe the troubles are nothing more than the tantrums of an offended ghost. Daelin disagrees. If she’s right, the evil hell-bent on destroying Earth has new technology making the rift more deadly.
Before the monster summons the next apocalypse, Daelin must find it and destroy it.

Get the Reader at Amazon, UK, iBook, Kobo, Nook, Smashie
Check out the entire Rifter series!

M. Pax is author of the space adventure series The Backworlds, plus other novels and short stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird beckons  to her, and she blames Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain Observatory in the summers as a star guide and has a cat with a crush on Mr. Spock. Learn more at mpaxauthor.com.

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Angela Brown has a fabulous new release, Degrees of Being Boss out with her pen name Rayven Godchild. I can't show the cover here because this blog doesn't feature erotica. BUT... since she's a fellow Untethered Realms author and a very talented writer, I am posting the link to all of Rayven's books! Click here if you are adventurous, over 18 and seeking new reads.

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Annnnnnd, Beyond Secret Worlds, an amazing short story collection is still FREE! My story in it, Blue House Magic, is the sequel set-up to Ruby's Fire.

Get it at Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo


Reading is a great way to relax during the holidays! I've got my own kindle loaded up with a colorful array. You?

HUGE SALE!!! All prequels and sequels free or 99 cents!

Did you enjoy the 21 spell-binding tales of paranormal romance in the Secret Worlds box set? Then continue the adventure with:

Book two in the Wolf Rampant trilogy. When a female werewolf shows up on Terra's doorstep smelling just like her absent mate, the new alpha is faced with her biggest hurdle yet. 99 cents for a limited time!	Book two in the Forever Girl series. Even if Cordovae can kill the dark spirits plaguing Salem quickly enough to return forward in time and save her daughter, there's still one problem: she's falling in love with a man who can't return with her. FREE for a limited time!	Book two in the Devil Series. To save Eve, Lucien must face the monsters of his past. But when they collide with the present, the consequences prove deadly. 99 cents for a limited time!
The prequel to Ruby's Fire. Varik inherits a sea farm after the mysterious drowning of his marine biologist father. When a beautiful terrorist steals from his father's secret seed bank, he must venture with her into a zone teeming with treacherous nomads and cults to search for a magical hybrid plant that may not even exist. 99 cents for a limited time!	Part of the Moonlight story line (a companion and series starter). Becoming a vampire is easy. Living with the condition... that's the hard part. 99 cents for a limited time!	Book two in the Conduit series. After narrowly surviving a murderous mob, curvy Conduit/Supplicant Charisse and alpha Beast Abram escape to the remote island of Grimoult, where their relaxing vacation soon turns into a sinister suicide mission. 99 cents for a limited time!
Book two in the Broken Angel series. When secrets of the past are finally revealed, tempers flare, brother is pitted against brother, and fallen angel Lash and Naomi face their greatest threat: choosing love, family, or duty. 99 cents for a limited time!		While this title is also the first book in The Ryan Chronicles, Saving Grace picks up where Trinity Rising leaves off. CJ Ryan holds the power of the gods, and Lucifer wants him in order to destroy Damian and obtain a coveted trinity to build his dark army. 99 cents for a limited time!

Other 99 cent books you may enjoy:

Freak. Weird. Crazy. These are the names tossed around seventeen-year old Jane Watts by her fellow classmates. But things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes there’s a reason for talking to yourself in the hallway at school. 99 cents for a limited time!		After a teenage boy ingests a stolen drug from a medical research company, his dark alter ego takes over and he is determined to make Claire just like him. Like hell. 99 cents for a limited time!
Toni's grandmother is a psychopath. Her sister is a ghost. Her boyfriend is possessed. And she has no idea who she is. 99 cents for a limited time!		Ixchel is a lonely veterinarian fleeing from her past. Finn is a were-jaguar hunting for his future. Can the two learn to work together, or will they lose the game that has turned into a struggle for survival? 99 cents for a limited time!

All about M Pax's New Rifters series!

M. Pax has a spankin' new paranormal series just out! Book One is called The Rifters, and guess what? It's free on selected sites for a limited time! Here's the lowdown:

The Gold Rush trickles to a fool’s quest and a string of stagecoach heists. In 1888, Earl Blacke decides to make a new start and become a better man. He escapes into the mountains, heading north. In the wilds of Oregon, a rift inside an ancient volcano opens and sends him into the future, into the present day. It also shaves forty years off his age, forty years to live over again and atone for what he’s done.

Starting over is hard to do. In current day New York, Daelin Long’s dream job at a publishing house goes the way of the dinosaurs her sister chases. With no money and nowhere else to go, Daelin accepts the librarian position in her sister’s dinky town in the middle of Oregon. Nestled inside ancient volcanic peaks, the town of Settler holds onto many secrets. Residents roam the streets with weirdly fashioned devices, and odd lights pulse in the night skies. People whisper of a phantom outlaw and start dying, murdered and missing their heads. On top of it all, Daelin’s sister is missing, and Daelin doesn’t know who to trust.

Earl knows more than he’s saying. He shares a notorious history with the phantom, one he’ll see remains buried. Keeping Daelin’s sister’s secrets is his only chance at redemption, and the only way to keep this world safe.

And now for a short excerpt:
A woman in a long flowered dress hurried forward carrying a paintbrush. “Hello, hello.” She waved. “Excuse the mess. I’m renovating… again.” She laughed with little snorts, stumbling in a little circle, defying her years. She couldn’t be younger than forty. “Inside joke, man, sorry. What grooviness can I help you find? I know where everything is.” She gestured at the piles of castoff merchandise strewn about.

If not for the goose bumps on her goose bumps, Daelin would have left. “A winter coat? Earl Blacke mentioned you might have some.”

“Oh man! What a tragedy about him, huh?” She wore her amber hair in two braids, tied with twine and decorated with plastic flowers.

Tragedy? What had happened to Earl? Daelin clutched at her knotting stomach. “What do you mean?”

“There was a murder last night. Umm, wow. Didn’t you hear?” She set the paintbrush down on a plate that had been used for the purpose before. Bracelets covered her arms, clinking with her simple movements.

“In Settler?” Violent crime wasn’t what Daelin expected to hear. She didn’t know what she had expected, but not murder.

The thrift store woman leaned in closer, whispering in a conspiratorial tone. “Yeah, they’re saying Earl Blacke killed Susan Leeds. Took her head plum off, man. Only thing is…,” she glanced at the shadows then wet her lips, “her head is missing.” The soft scent of melon accompanied her words.
Earl had murdered somebody? Daelin gulped, getting a lungful of paint fumes. Right, the paint. The fumes had to be messing with her mind. “Are you serious?”

The Rifters is free at selected sites! The second book in the series, The Initiate, will be available October 20, & for preorder at a special price via iTunes, Amazon, and B&N. Check HERE for links. Giveaways & events ongoing through October 31. Check HERE for details.

Links: Amazon / AmazonUK / B&N / Smashwords /Googleplay / iTunes

M. Pax is author of the space adventure series The Backworlds, plus other novels and short stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird beckons to her, and she blames Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain Observatory in the summers as a star guide, has a cat with a crush on Mr. Spock, and is slightly obsessed with Jane Austen. Learn more at mpaxauthor.com.

Beautiful cover from Elizabeth Arroyo for her new YA supernatural, DARKNESS

Today, Idea City is revealing the cover for Elizabeth Arroyo's new YA supernatural thriller DARKNESS. Isn't it pretty and mysterious? The novel launches on August 12!

About the book

Seventeen-year-old Carly Lopez suffers from post-traumatic stress, though the “post” part technically doesn’t apply…not when the killer’s still out there. 
As the only survivor of the killing spree that left four dead girls in its wake, Carly fails to unearth her buried memories of that day and is consumed with guilt. After a year of silence, the killer is back, and Carly will stop at nothing to stop him. 
With each new death, Carly’s reality shatters, propelling her deeper into the darkness where the dead haunt her and where the truth lies. Her only firm grasp of reality is Hunter Jackson, whose mysterious overprotectiveness of Carly forces her to doubt the reason behind her guilt. But Hunter has a secret.

And when she discovers a horrible truth, Carly questions her involvement in the murders. Was she directly responsible? Did she help the killer? Carly soon learns that finding answers may mean risking more than just her sanity.

About the author:
Elizabeth is the author of THE SECOND SIGN and THE SECOND SHADOW, a dark young adult paranormal romance series. Elizabeth currently teaches writing to teens at a local community center.

Find more about Elizabeth at: 
Website, blog, Facebook, Twitter

Meradeth Houston Opens up about Writing & Surrender the Sky

Today, Idea City welcomes Meradeth Houston. Her brand new novel, Surrender the Sky is out and I know you're curious about it, so take it away, Meradeth.

Thanks so much for asking me here today, Catherine! Here's the rundown on Surrender the Sky:

Gabby lives by two unbreakable rules: don’t expose her kind, the Sary, and don’t fall in love—too bad some rules are made to be broken.

When Gabby’s most difficult charge accidentally shoots her in front of a class full of students, the event exposes her carefully hidden identity. She shifts from looking like a normal teen to her secret Sary form, revealing her wings and the existence of her kind—immortals who try to keep people from committing suicide. Her incident attracts the attention of the next leader of the Sary, Jassen, who offers her an impossible bargain: she can keep her wings if she makes amends with those who know the truth. Things get more complicated when a rebel Sary, intent on exposing them to the world, starts interfering with Gabby’s work. And there’s no denying her attraction to Jassen, who is torn between his duties and his heart. With threats at every turn and her immortality on the line, Gabby has to find a way to save the Sary or surrender the sky forever.

Tell us about your main characters:
Gabby is the main character. She’s a pretty typical Sary, AKA a being who wasn’t able to take her first breath and is therefore sent to help people who are on the verge of taking their own life. She has to face some pretty horrible situations, and doesn’t feel exactly ready to take on the responsibility that come with them, but she has some amazing friends who help her out :).

In what ways do they change?
Over the course of Surrender, Gabby has to come to terms with what she is, and the gifts she’s been given. Also, she has to know just how much she’s willing to sacrifice for what she loves. It’s not an easy decision!

Give us your favorite line from your protagonist
Hmm, that’s a tough choice. “How could I give this up? Surrender the sky? It wasn’t fair. I wanted to choose for myself.” I think this is one of my favorite lines from Gabby.

From an antagonist
Leon is the antagonist in this book, and wow does he have a lot of tricks up his sleeve. How about this one: “Leon, his lips still pink from the kisses we’d shared, turned to me. “I may not be him, but I have so much more to offer.” He managed the same little quirk of a smile patented by Jassen and took my hand from where it sat in my lap and pressed it to his mouth.”

An emblematic, teaser paragraph
This is how things get started: “I knew the day was not going to end well as soon as I saw the gun. It bulged in the outside pocket of his backpack, hidden unless someone looked for it. Of course, I had to be the one looking for it.”

What keeps you going when your inspiration flags?
Hot chocolate. Lots of it :). Reading something else awesome that distracts me from my own world so I can return to it with fresh eyes.

What truly inspires you and fires up your vision?
A good book or movie that gets my creative juices flowing. Also, a long afternoon with nothing else on where I can actually relax and enjoy myself. There are very, very few days like this, but I treasure them.

Best words of advice you ever received?
Take time to do what makes you happy. It’s so important! Life is short.

Worst?
Strive for perfection. I hate this. Like, with a passion. Because it haunts me. And it’s impossible to attain, which just messes with my head. I hate that anyone would even suggest that you should shoot for this—impossible goals help no one! (End mini rant! Haha, can’t help it!)

Some writing advice to aspiring and new authors?
Keep writing and don’t give up! The only way to improve is to keep going, even if some days it feels like slogging through ten feet of snow, uphill, in -20 weather with a wind chill.

Which do you enjoy writing most: action, romance, setting, dialog?
Hmm, that’s a toss up before action and romance. Dialog is part of both, as is settling, but I love a scene that is fast paced and gets my blood pumping.

A hint of what you’re working on next?
The fourth book in the series, which I hope I can pull together. It’s a crazy tale with several different points of view, but so far it’s been a blast to write.

Where can readers find you on the web?
My favorite haunts: website, blog, Facebook, Twitter

Buy the ebook! Amazon, Goodreads

A bit about Meradeth:
*I'm a California girl. This means I talk too fast and use "like" a lot.
*I have my doctorate in molecular anthropology. Translation: I sequence dead people's DNA and spend a whole lot of time in a lab, which I love.
*I've been writing since I was 11 years old. It's my hobby, my passion, and I'm so happy to get to share my work.
*My other passion is teaching. There's nothing more fun than getting a classroom of college kids fired up about anthropology!
*If I could have a super-power, it would totally be flying. Which is strange, because I'm terrified of heights.