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?

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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
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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

CAMO GIRL, Interview with Author, Kekla Magoon

CAMO GIRL, Kekla’s tween novel, just out with Aladdin, is the story of sixth grade outcast Ella. Ella finds herself caught between her old best friend Zach, who is increasingly lost in a fantasy world, and a beckoning popular crowd. Her dilemma: she can only fit in if she leaves “Z” behind.

This story is notable for what you chose to leave out as much as what you included. Can you speak to that?
Yes, I left out Z’s official psychiatric diagnosis, and the name of Ella’s skin condition, which created camouflage-like lighter and darker patches on her face. Her POV was such a close one, that I didn’t think it was realistic for her to know Z’s diagnosis. And it wasn’t crucial to the story that I focus on the nature of Ella’s skin disorder. I preferred to concentrate on the ways that kids deal with trauma. Thus, the title CAMO refers to her skin’s light patches; but also to the ways that Ella hides from her budding social life, and how Zach uses his fantasy world to avoid working through his family trauma. Even Bailey, the new boy, who helps Ella take a chance on getting to know the popular kids, has a secret he’s hiding from. *no spoiler here!*

What theme in CAMO GIRL would you most like kids to come away with?
The feeling of self-acceptance, coming to terms with both your strengths and weaknesses. Also, I’d like kids to consider what it means to be a friend: it may mean keeping a friend’s secret, only to reveal it in time. Ella thought that keeping Z’s secret was helping him, but she learned that it ultimately hurt him by preventing him from getting treatment. Also, by remaining “loyal” to him, she stilted her own social growth. Kekla has vivid memories of the tension of trying to straddle two groups, who did not necessarily like each other. That’s why she jokes that this novel could be called How to Choose a Lunch Table.

Regarding humor, I love the feisty grandma. How did you think up her awesome name?
Funny you should ask. I was on a road trip and brainstorming with my friend about what I should name her. I sprinkled Splenda in my coffee, and read the label out loud. My friend said, “Sounds like an old lady’s name, but you’d never name the granny that.”
“Oh, yeah?” I replied. “Watch me!”

Are you more of a realistic fiction author or what?
I’m writing for the child that I was, who wanted to know more about how to negotiate the real world. In that sense, I’m a writer of realistic fiction. I realize, though, that fantasy also describes the real world, in allegorical terms. So who knows? I may try my hand at another genre if it’s the best vehicle for my theme.

What’s up next for you? And how can your readers stay updated?
I have two books coming out in 2012. The first is a YA with Holt, called 37 THINGS I LOVE. The second is FIRE IN THE STREETS, a middle-grade companion book to THE ROCK AND THE RIVER, (ALA Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent Award) published by Aladdin. Please stop by my website to say hello and get updates at: www.keklamagoon.com.