Behind-the-Scenes with Megan Crewe

This week’s guest blogger is Megan Crewe, author of YA novel, Give Up the Ghost. Megan lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and two cats. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Brutarian Quarterly and On Spec.  GIVE UP THE GHOST is her first novel.  You can learn more about Megan by visiting her website at www.megancrewe.com.

Guest Blogger: Megan Crewe

As an author, I think the question I get asked most is “Where did you get the idea for your book?” This is often difficult to answer, and not just because inspiration can be mysterious.  The truth is that one book idea comes not from one specific place, but from many different sources, all blended together into something new and exciting.

To give you an example, here are some of the pieces that came together to form what is now my first novel, GIVE UP THE GHOST:

Life

When I was in high school, I overheard some younger girls talking about how they were avoiding another girl they used to be friends with, whom they’d now decided was too weird.  They made fun of her and laughed about how no one wanted to hang out with her any more.  That stuck with me, and made me wonder what it’s like being on the receiving end of that sort of “friendship.”  And eventually it produced Cass, GHOST’s main character, who had her own friends turn on her in junior high.

Fiction

Because I write YA, I’m always reading YA fiction.  One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that most real-world protagonists who are saddled with a supernatural ability (like talking to ghosts) resist their talent and wish they were normal.  I started thinking it’d be interesting to write about a character who embraced her ability, and incorporated it into her everyday life.  In GHOST, I explored what might happen if someone relied too much on her supernatural talent, at the expense of the good parts of “normal” life.

Mythology

While writing GHOST, naturally I drew on my knowledge of standard ghost lore.  I played around with the idea that ghosts may be waiting for some sort of trigger to move on, and that they might be stuck in the time period when they died.  The existing mythology gave me something to build on, and also inspired some of the plot’s twists and turns.

Research

After I determined that my main character had been bullied and ostracized, I wanted to make sure I portrayed what had happened to her authentically.  The book that helped me the most was ODD GIRL OUT by Rachel Simmons.  It allowed me to create a believable backstory for Cass and to understand how her experiences would have shaped who she was.

Good Old Random Inspiration

Before the research and the writing, the book first came into being one night when I was drifting off to sleep.  The image of a teenage girl talking to her dead sister like it was an everyday thing popped into my head–out of nowhere, or some unknowable part of my unconscious.  That’s where the mystery of creativity comes in.  I may be able to see where the pieces of the idea came from, but there is a spark I can’t control, that made it all more than just the sum of those parts.

Contest: Win a signed copy of Give Up the Ghost!

Once again, a big thanks to Megan for joining us today on Wicked Jungle. We want to keep the conversation going so this contest is going to be all about comments! Given the gossip girl nature of the book, we want to know what your experience was (or is) like in high school. Did you loose a childhood friend as you entered teenage life? Did you ever participate in gossip? What was the craziest gossip rumor to hit your high school?

Each person who posts a comment (in response to the above questions) will get one entry in the contest.

You can get an additional entries by doing the following (note these are in addition to posting a comment. You must comment first to be qualified).

Option A: Tweet about the contest on Twitter (you must include @wickedjungle for your tweet to qualify each tweet will get you an additional entry).

Option B: Become a follower of our blog (only new followers joining between the time of the contest will be counted).

Contest Ends Saturday at 12PM Eastern!!!

Behind-the-Scenes with Carolyn Crane

Today our featured guest is Carolyn Crane, author of the new urban fantasy Mind Games. Carolyn has taken a few moments out of her very busy writing schedule to share six writerly behind-the-scenes anecdotes about her recent novel. We hope you enjoy this special behind-the-scenes peak.  As  a special treat, we are also giving away a signed copy of Mind Games to one lucky Wicked Jungle reader.  Details on how to enter the contest can be found below. Good luck and a big welcome to Carolyn!

Guest Blogger: Carolyn Crane

Hey, thanks so much, Melissa, for inviting me here! So, because this is a community of writers as well as readers, Melissa suggested I talk a little about behind the scenes stuff around Mind Games. So, a few things:

How I got the idea.

This is actually something I may regret going around telling, but I got the idea after reading Straw Dogs, a hugely depressing book by this philosopher, John Gray, who takes a super dismal view of humanity. It made me feel really awful, and I thought, if I had an enemy, I would give them this book as a gift, so that they could feel as disillusioned as I did. In fact, I actually recommended it to somebody I was mad at. Then I thought, what if there were people who disillusioned other people for money? Hey, that would make a great plot!

Non fiction books: secret sauce.

There’s this one scene from Mind Games where this creepy villain follows my heroine out of a grocery store, and she knows she can’t get away from him, so she asks him to carry her groceries as a way to tie up his hands and free hers. Totally inspired by a tiny detail from a book on predators and intuition called The Gift of Fear, which I had read years ago—the detail popped out of nowhere.

I think non-fiction books are such a goldmine for writers because you build a store of details like that. I’ve gotten super valuable ideas, details and analogies out of books on animals, art, you name it. To me, reading nonfiction is like making an investment in myself as a fiction writer.

How one of the central concepts of Mind Games got totally degraded!

So, this is sort of funny. A bit of background: the psychological hit squad in Mind Games is called the disillusionists, and it’s run by this tortured mutant mastermind who has these extreme powers of psychological insight, and he recruits people who are really messed up to be on his hit squad. Anyway, in early drafts, they’d disillusion criminals in a kind of philosophical way. As you can imagine, this made for a pretty thinky book. Philosophy is not really action packed! Who knew?

Little by little I revised it; in the final drafts, the characters are basically just weaponizing their internal darkness, turning it outward on their targets to overwhelm and “reboot” them, and the targets bounce back with a fresh attitude. However, the ‘disillusionists’ name stayed. I’m always wondering when somebody is going to notice that nobody is being technically disillusioned. It’s sort of like that Irony song by Alanis Morissette where none of the stuff she sings about is all that ironic.

Rejection.

I wrote three totally finished, polished, slaved-over novels before selling Mind Games—we’re talking like 8 years of failed novel projects. It was hard because when I’m working on a novel, it’s my world, and I put all this energy into it, and have all these hopes, and then at some point, enough agents or editors say no that I realize that it’s going nowhere. It’s a little like having your heart broken. The secret for me is to start over on a new project, and find things to love about it. If you’re a writer who is in a learning and growing mode, you’ll usually end up liking the new novel better than the old one anyway. I know everybody says this, but it really does work to just keep going forward.
Querying and a trick.

Contrary to popular belief, most writers sell without connections, and I’m one of them – a slush pile baby. (To see actual statistics on how first novels get sold, there’s a fantastic study done by Jim Hines [http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/survey-results/])

Anyway, the most important thing in a query letter is the “hook,” the sexy line that sells your book. My trick for writing a hook is to write the best hook I can. Then put it aside and write another completely different, but excellent hook. Then another. Do it ten times. And I mean, write ten good hooks. The trick works because people get fixated on their first ideas, and your first idea is rarely your best one.
Characters & being popular at parties.

Writing can mirror life in such weird ways. For example, whenever I deliberately try to create a character that is attractive or fascinating, that character usually ends up boring. But when I’m not trying to do that, like I’m making a secondary character, and just working on creating a realistic, true, quirky or even offensive person, a lot of times people LOVE that person. It reminds me of being at parties—when you’re trying to be popular, it doesn’t work out, but when you’re just being yourself and you don’t care, people are more interested in you.

That happened with this character Simon–he’s a disillusionist whose specialty is recklessness, and he doesn’t like my heroine, Justine, who is the new girl, with a specialty of hypochondria. So I made him menacing and weird and mean, and he wears clothes like a space age pimp. I meant him to be this dark force, but readers love him. And he actually is fun to write. So much so, that I’m letting him have an expanded storyline in books 2 & 3.

Contest: Win a signed copy of Mind Games!

Once again, a big thanks to Carolyn for joining us today on Wicked Jungle. We want to keep the conversation going so this contest is going to be all about comments!  To enter post a comment below about the Carolyn’s post, her novel, or your experience as a writer. Can you relate to any of the things Carolyn referenced?

Each person who posts a comment will get one entry in the contest.

You can get an additional entries by doing the following (note these are in addition to posting a comment. You must comment first to be qualified).

Option A: Tweet about the contest on Twitter (you must include @wickedjungle for your tweet to qualify each tweet will get you an additional entry).

Option B: Become a follower of our blog (only new followers joining between the time of the contest will be counted).

Contest Ends Friday at 12PM Eastern!!!

Guest Blogger: Laura Bickle (Contest & Excerpt!)

Today’s guest blogger is Laura Bickle. Her debut novel, Embers, is first in an exciting new urban fantasy series that continues with her forthcoming second novel, Sparks. Laura also writes as Alayna Williams. Alayna’s “debut” will be Dark Oracle, Pocket Juno’s June 2010 release.

Magical Places: Serpent Mound

Some places are magical.

There are some places that lodge in your memory like a splinter. Places that have their own pull, that bit of extra gravity that makes me want to include them in a book. For me, one of those places has always been Serpent Mound, and I included it as a setting for EMBERS.

Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy mound in the U.S. It’s located in rural Ohio, in a green meadow near forest – overall, a very peaceful place. I remember that my late grandfather took me there as a child. It’s about 1330 feet of coiling serpent, swallowing an egg. It was build around 800 BC by the Adena. Smaller burial mounds dotting the area were built by the Fort Ancient people. The head of the serpent faces the summer solstice sunset. Grass has grown up over the undulating curves of the mound. When I was a small child, I remember stroking the grass over the surface of the mound, wondering what lay beneath. Scientists have found melting in the rock beneath the mound – what they call a “cryptoexplosion structure” in the rock. It’s the result of intense heat.

And that question worked its way into EMBERS, bubbling up years later. In EMBERS, my heroine, Anya, travels to Serpent Mound to find clues about a magical creature, a large dragon called a Sirrush. She finds that the ghost of an Adena woman, walking along the edge of the mound, patrolling. Beneath the mound, a dragon sleeps. The Adena woman patrols the area to make certain the dragon does not awaken. Anya realizes that her destiny is the same as the Adena woman’s – she must find a way to make certain that the Sirrush hibernating in the salt mine beneath Detroit does not arise, even if it means the sacrifice of her life.

As an adult, I went back to Serpent Mound to do research for EMBERS. It was smaller than I remembered. I didn’t need to reach up to touch the grass at the top of the mound. But it was, in many ways the same: eerily silent, peaceful. It was a magical place worth revisiting both in person and in the book.

Contest:

In celebration of the Embers book release, Laura has generously donated one signed autographed copy of the book to one lucky reader. To enter the contest you must do one of the following actions. Contest closes on APRIL 2nd @ 12 PM EASTERN!!

1. Post about the contest on your blog. (Must include link in comments below for verification)

2. Tweet about the contest on twitter. (Must include @wickedjungle in the tweet to be counted!)

3. Add Wicked Jungle to your blogroll. (Must include link in comments below for verification)

4. As an added bonus, we will award two entries to anyone who uploads the Wicked Jungle badge (see below) to their sidebar.

<a href="http://wickedjungle.com" ><img src="http://i907.photobucket.com/albums/ac279/meliwriter/WJwebbadge180w.jpg" alt="Wicked Jungle Button" width="180" height="272" /></a>

Excerpt:

Chapter One

Truth burned.

It always burned, even in the dark, cold hours of the morning when nearly everything slept.

Anya stood on the doorstep of the haunted house, hands jammed into her pockets, stifling a yawn. She’d taken a cab, not wanting her license plates to be seen and recorded in the vicinity. The cab had peeled away, red lights receding down the gray street. The two-story brown brick house before her looked like every other house on the block, windows and doors ribboned in iron bars. Cables from the beat-up panel van parked curbside snaked under the front door, but no light shined inside. Empty plastic bags drifted over the cracked sidewalk until trapped by a low iron fence.

She poked the doorbell. Inside, she heard the echo of the chime, the responding scrape of movement. Anya wiped her feet on the doormat duct-taped to the painted stoop, waiting.

A lamp clicked on inside the house, and the door opened a crack. “Thanks for coming,” the masculine voice behind the door said.

“It’s not like I could say no.”

That was the truth; it was not as if she could turn down what they asked, even if she wanted to. She held back a larger truth that scalded her throat: And I wish you would stop calling. I wish you would stop asking me to do this.

Anya stepped over the cords into the circle of yellow light cast by a lamp with a barrel-shaped shade in the living room. The shade’s wire skeleton cast dark spokes on the ceiling, illuminating a water stain that had been carefully painted over. But the water had still seeped through, yellowing the popcorn ceiling. A wooden console television sat dark and silent as a giant bug in the corner, rabbit-ear antennae turned north and east, listening for a dead signal. A shabby plaid couch dominated the room, covered with out-of-place pieces of tech equipment: electromagnetic field readers, digital voice recorders, compact video cameras. Laptop computers were propped up on TV-tray tables, casting rectangles of blue light on the walls.

Anya’s gaze drifted to the video cameras, then shied away. “I don’t want to be recorded.”

“We know.”

Jules, the leader of the Detroit Area Ghost Researchers, leaned against the wall, nursing a cup of coffee. No one would ever suspect Jules to be so deeply interested in the paranormal that he would lead a group of ghost hunters. He was the epitome of an ordinary guy: early forties, slight paunch covered by a blue polo shirt, well-worn jeans. A tattoo of a cross peeked out underneath his sleeve. Exhaustion creased the mahogany face underneath the Detroit Tigers baseball cap. Judging by the amount of equipment and the rolled-up sleeping bags in the corners, DAGR had spent a number of nights here.

Anya perched on the edge of the couch, rubbed her amber-colored eyes. “What’s the story?”

Jules took a swig of his coffee, creamer clinging to his dark moustache. “We first took the case two weeks ago… the little old lady that lives in the house was convinced that her dead husband was coming back to haunt her. She described lights turning off of their own accord, dark shapes in the mirrors.”

“Did she come to you or did you find her?”

“I found her.” Jules worked as gas meter reader in his day job. He had a knack for easy conversation, and people instinctively trusted him. Anya suspected he might have some latent psychic talent in getting a feel for places and people. He had an affinity for most people, anyway. Jules seemed wary of Anya. She didn’t think he liked her much or thought very highly of her methods. But she got the job done when Jules couldn’t.

“She’s got a basement meter and was afraid to go down there all by herself. Neighbor lady who used to do her laundry won’t do it anymore…said a lightbulb exploded while she was loading the washer.” Jules took a sip of his coffee.

“What evidence have you found?” Anya asked.

Brian, DAGR’s tech specialist, peered over one of his computer screens and took off a pair of headphones. “Come see.”

Anya sat beside him on the sagging couch that smelled like lavender. Brian scrolled through some digital video; she assumed it to hade come from a fixed-camera shot of the basement stairs. A flashlight beam washed down the steps, green in the contrasting false color tones of night-vision footage. The glow from the screen highlighted the planes and angles of Brian’s face. Anya noted the circles under his blue eyes and his mussed brown hair. She thought she smelled the mint of the caffeinated shower soap he favored still clinging to him.

Anya never asked where Brian got all his techno-toys. She knew that most of DAGR’s clients had little money and donations were few and far between. DAGR was more likely to be paid with an apple pie than cash. She suspected that Brian borrowed much of it from his day job at the university. Apparently, the eggheads in the IT department never seemed to notice that things kept disappearing into Brian’s van.

The footage paused, fell dark green once more. In the well of jade darkness under the stairs, something moved. The shape of a hand clawed up over one of the upper steps, then receded.

“Weird,” Anya breathed, resting her heart-shaped face in her hand. “What else have you got?”

“This.” Brian handed her his headphones, still warm from his ears. Anya fitted them over her head, listened to a static hum of low-level white noise that barely vibrated an on-screen noise meter.

“I don’t–”

“Wait for it.”

There. A hiss shivered the line on the meter. A voice–reedy and snarling–ripped the volume line to the top of the meter: “Mine.”

Anya frowned. “Can I hear it again?”

Brian backed the tape up. Static hummed, something hissed, and the voice repeated: “Mine.”

Anya pulled the headphones off, disentangling them from her sleep-tousled chestnut hair. Her hair caught on the copper salamander torque she wore around her neck and she gently unsnarled it. The salamander gripped its tail in its front paws, the tail sinuously curling down to disappear between Anya’s breasts. The metal, as always, felt warm to the touch. “Did you guys provoke it?”

“Of course. We told it that it was ugly and that its transvestite mama dresses it funny.” The youngest member of the group, Max, grinned at her, megawatt smile splitting his brown face. He’d been exiled to the floor, hands wound in his warm-up jacket, his sneakers and long legs tucked under one of Brian’s TV tables.

Jules smacked him on the back of the head. “Max got too mouthy with it. Started in on the ‘your mama’ jokes while I was reading the scriptures to it.”

Max ducked. He was still on probation and was very close to getting booted from the group. Anya hoped the kid would stay, that he would eventually fill the spot on DAGR’s roster from which she was trying to extricate herself. Though no one could do exactly what she could do, it would be good for them to have someone new to focus on.

“So…what is it, exactly?” Anya asked, redirecting the conversation from Max’s punishment to the matter at hand.

“We don’t think it’s the old lady’s husband.” Katie’s hushed voice came from the darkened kitchen as she pushed Ciro’s wheelchair across the wrinkled olive-colored carpet. Katie was DAGR’s witch. She was dressed in jeans and a patchwork blouse, her blond hair curled over her back, tied with black velvet ribbons. A silver pentacle hung just below her throat, gleaming in the dim light. “It feels like an impostor, something toying with her.”

Ciro folded his gnarled ebony hands over the blanket in his lap. The light from Brian’s computers washed over his small-framed glasses, and he smiled at Anya. “Hello, Anya.”

“Hi, Ciro.” Anya crossed to the old man and gave him a hug. He felt more fragile than the last time she’d seen him. It had to be a serious event for Ciro to be here… he was the group’s on-call demonologist. And he was the one who had brought them all together, over Jules’s objections. Ciro understood, more than anyone else, what it cost Anya to be here with them.

Anya put her hand on Ciro’s thin shoulder. “Is it a demon, then?”

Ciro shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s one pissed-off malevolent spirit that’s moved in. The woman’s grief opened the door… but it’s a tough bastard.”

“You tried to drive it out already?”

Katie nodded. “Salt, bells… we even brought in a priest. It’s rooted here and we can’t dig it out.” From the corner of her eye, Anya watched Jules frown at Katie. He didn’t think much of Katie’s methods, either. Jules preferred to put the fear of God–or at least his version of it–into ghosts to scare them out the windows, but that seemed to be working less and less. Anya observed the carbon stains worked into Katie’s fingernails. The witch had been trying hard, but all her spells and incantations had also failed to drive it away. This had been happening more and more often in recent months: recalcitrant, restless spirits that just wouldn’t let go. Once a spirit had chosen to hang on, after all efforts to convince it otherwise, there was no choice but to remove it by force.

“The old lady wants it gone?” Anya asked, just to be certain. There was always the possibility that the old woman’s attachment prevented it from leaving. Perhaps, in her loneliness, she’d taken in a spiritual boarder. Anya understood how isolation could cause a person to unwittingly do things contrary to one’s best interests. An empty, silent house left a lot of room for ruminations, for regrets. And, sometimes, sinister things could move into those spaces.

“She wants it out. She wants to sell the house and move to Florida.” Ciro smiled. “I’m jealous.”

“Will you do it?” Jules’s expression was pinched. “Will you get rid of it?”

Get rid of it … that sounded so tidy. So clean. Like taking out the garbage. Ciro glanced sidelong at her, the only one with an inkling of what this cost her, over and over again.

“Okay.” Anya shrugged off her coat. “Take me to it.”

* * *

Bio

Laura Bickle has worked in the unholy trinity of politics, criminology, and technology for several years. She and her chief muse live in the Midwest, owned by four mostly-reformed feral cats. Her short fiction has appeared here and there. Embers, her debut novel, is first in an exciting new urban fantasy series that continues with her forthcoming second novel, Sparks.

Laura also writes as Alayna Williams. Alayna’s “debut” will be Dark Oracle, Pocket Juno’s June 2010 release.

To read more of this excerpt click here:

Author websites:

www.salamanderstales.com

www.alaynawilliams.com

Author Blogs:

www.salamanderstales.blogspot.com

www.delphisdaughters.blogspot.com

The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

This week we have a sneak peak of the new YA novel, The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting. The book is available now in stores and has had fantastic reviews. And of course, to encourage you to share the love, we are running a contest that includes some awesome Body Finder SWAG!!!! We’ve got a poster, signed bookmarks and an awesome tote bag to give away, so there will be more than one winner.

To enter the contest simply read the prologue and post a comment below. You get one entry for commenting, one entry for each time you tweet about the contest on Twitter. (Note: you must be a follower of Wicked Jungle and include @wickedjungle in your tweet for it to count!). The contest ends Saturday March 27th at 12PM Eastern!!!

For additional fun, you can click on the link to watch the book trailer for The Body Finder, and of course  the prologue is below. Enjoy!

A BIG THANKS TO KIMBERLY for joining in the Wicked Jungle Fun!

PROLOGUE

Violet wandered away from the safety of her father as she listened to the harmony of sounds weaving delicately around her. The rustling of the leaves mingled gently with the restless calls of birds and the far-off-rushing waters of the icy river that lay beyond the trees.

And then there was another sound. Something she couldn’t quite identify. Yet.

She was familiar enough with the meaning of this new, and misplaced, noise. Or at least with what it signified. She had been hearing sounds, or seeing colors, or smelling smells, like these for years. For as long as she could remember.

Echoes, she called them.

She looked back at her father to see if he had heard it too, even though she already knew the answer. He hadn’t, of course. Only she could hear it. Only she understood what the haunting sound foretold.

He walked casually behind her, at his same slow and steady pace, keeping a watchful eye on his eight-year-old daughter as she ran ahead of him.

The sound whistled past her again, carried on the breeze that sent crisp, golden leaves swirling around her ankles. She stopped briefly to listen, but once it passed she continued on ahead.

“Don’t go too far,” her father dutifully called from behind her. He wasn’t really worried about her out here. These were their woods.

Violet had practically been raised in this forest, learning about her surroundings, learning how to tell what direction she was facing by the lichen growing on the tall tree trunks, and knowing how to tell the time of day by the position of the sun…at least on those days when that sun wasn’t obscured by the gloom of cloud cover. This was easy territory, even for an eight-year-old girl.

She ignored her father’s warning and wandered off the path, still listening to that something that was beckoning her forward. Her feet felt propelled by a will of their own as she struggled to make the sound into something coherent, something she could identify. She stepped over fallen branches and walked through a sea of fern fronds that grew up from the damp ground.

“Violet!” She heard her dad’s voice breaking through her concentration.

She paused, and then called back, “I’m right here,” although not as loudly as she should have before she started walking again.

The sound was getting stronger. Not louder, but stronger. She could feel the vibrations practically resonating beneath her skin now.

This was how it was with these things. This was the way these feelings came to her. They were indescribable, yet to her they made perfect sense.

And when they called to her she felt compelled to answer.

She was close now, so close that she could hear a voice. That was what this echo was, a voice. Single and solitary, seeking someone—anyone—to answer it.

Violet was that someone.

She stopped at a mound of damp dirt covered with a thick layer of rotting leaves. The soil was oddly out of place amid the undergrowth, with nothing living springing up from it. Even Violet knew that the soil was too newly placed to have fostered life just yet.

She knelt down, feeling the pulsating echo coming from beneath. She could feel it reverberating within her veins, coursing hotly through her small body. Without waiting, Violet brushed away the leaves and debris with a sweep of her coat sleeve, before she began earnestly scooping at the soft earth beneath with her hands.

She heard her father’s light footsteps catch up with her and his gentle voice ask, “Find something, Vi?”

She was too lost in her task to answer, and he didn’t pry. He was used to this, his little girl searching out the lost souls of the forest. Without speaking, he leaned against the soaring trunk of a nearby cedar and waited without really watching.

Violet felt her fingertips brush against something hard and smooth, cold and unyielding. She shuddered against a disturbing awareness that she couldn’t quite name and kept digging.

She sank her fingers into the moist soil once again. And again, they touched something chillingly firm.

Something too soft to be a rock.

And it was back, that nagging something that was trying to get through to her.

She reached in again, this time not to dig, but to sweep away the thin layer of dirt to get a better view of what lie beneath. She had captured her father’s interest and he leaned over her, looking into the shallow hole.

Violet worked like an archeologist, carefully sifting and brushing across the top of her discovery, so as not to disturb what might be buried there.

She heard her father gasp at the same time she recognized what she had uncovered.  She felt his strong hands reaching for her from behind, pulling her firmly by the shoulders away from the fresh dirt and gathering her into his strong, safe arms…away from the sound that was calling to her…

And away from the girl’s face staring up at her from beneath the soil.

Weekly Roundup: Feb 17, 2010

How do you keep up with all the great things that are happening in the world of Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy? We’ve got the answer. Each week we post our weekly round up, a collection of our favorite book reviews, blog posts, news briefs and more.

Here’s what’s in store for the week of February 17, 2010.

News Briefs:

• Vampire Diaries is renewed for a second season!! We love this show over at Wicked Jungle and are psyched that we get to keep seeing those sexy Salvatore brothers.
• BBC America Nabs More ‘Being Human’. If you haven’t hopped over to BBC America to check out Being Human you are missing some good fun. Not as well known as it’s paranormal peers, this show has been a quiet success and was picked up for two more seasons!
• New Release: The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden
• Pleasure of a Dark Prince by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark, Book 9)

Book Reviews:

• Unknown by Rachel Caine. Great review over at thebooksmugglers.com
• Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs by Molly Harper. Great review by @blodeuedd.

Book Excerpts

• The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan. We love, love, love the Forest of Hands and Teeth. This second book is sure to be as awesome as the first. Check out this teaser on Carrie’s website.
• Tempest’s Legacy by Nicole Peeler. Brief review and great covers. Check out this fun know series.

Writer’s Corner:

• The Role of Subplots—blog post on RWA FFP Site. http://ffnp.blogspot.com/2010/02/supporting-role-of-subplots.html
• Five Strategies for Plotting your Novel: http://writeitsideways.com/5-visual-strategies-for-plotting-your-novel-2/ Plotting out a full length novel can be a ton of work. Here are five visual strategies to help ease you through the process.

Contests and Giveaways:

• Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison. This book releases February 23. Our friend SciFiGuy has two (2) copies to giveaway to some very lucky readers. Black Magic Sanction is #8 in the series. You can read a Chapter 1 excerpt on Kim’s website.
• Linger by Maggie Stiefvater. Huge contest with an Arc of Linger, a copy of The Dead Tossed Waves, The Replacement, and The Sister’s Red. YA Fans, this is the contest for you!
• First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost. I’ve loved Jeaniene ever since I picked up her first book and discovered part of it took place in my hometown! I met her in Tulsa at Conestoga and like all our paranormal romance/urban fantasy authors, she is so sweet and lots of fun. Check out this awesome interview with our friend SciFiGuy posted and enter the contest to win her next book.
• Fantasy Dreamer’s Ramblings: Spotlight & Giveaway: Xombies: Apocalypticon by Walter Greatshell
  Fantasy Dreamer has a copy of Xombies: Apocalypticon by Walter Greatshell to giveaway to one lucky commentator. Xombies: Apocalypticon is the second book in Walter Greatshell’s horror series, Xombies and releases on February 23, 2010. Open to everyone. Deadline to enter this giveaway is Thursday, February 18th at Midnight CST.
• Lala’s Book Corner Presents: Interview & Giveaway with Author Michele Bardsley
  Larissa has interviewed Michele Bardsley and Michelle is giving away a signed copy of her latest Broken Heart novel Come Hell of High Water. Open to everyone. Deadline to enter is Feb. 18.
• A Romantic Heart: My 30 Followers Contest
  Stacy in conjunction with Ivy of Book Reader Times is giving away a copy of Inked by Karen Chance, Marjorie M. Liu, Yasmine Galenorn, Eileen Wilks and a book light. Deadline to enter is Feb. 19.
• All Things Urban Fantasy: Interview & Giveaway: Lesley Livingston -Darklight
  Abigail has interviewed Leslie Livingston and she is giving away a copy of Leslie’s latest book Darklight. Open to U.S. and Canada. Deadline to enter is Midnight MST on Saturday Feb 20th.
• Anna’s Book Blog: Guest Blog & Giveaway with Terry Spear
  Terry Spear is guest blogging at Anna’s place and thanks to Sourcebooks, two copies of Terry’s latest novel Legend of the White Wolf will be given away. Open to U.S. & Canada. Winners will be announced on February 21, 2010.
• Stumbling Over Chaos: Ebook Giveaway: The Guardian by Mary Calmes
  Chris is giving away an ebook copy of a new paranormal m/m romance, The Guardian by Mary Calmes. Open worldwide. Deadline to enter is 7 pm CST, Monday, February 22.
• Leontine’s Book Realm: Valentine Guestblog & Giveaway: Mr. Darcy the heartthrob
  Enid Wilson is guest blogging at Leontine’s place and she is giving away a copy of her latest novel Really Angelic. Open to everyone. Deadline to enter is February 27th.
• Alternative-Read.com: TEASER TUESDAY + GIVEAWAY: Darklight | Lesley Livingston
  Sassy Brit is giving away a copy of the YA Urban Fantasy, Darklight by Lesley Livingston. Open to the US and Canada. Deadline to enter is Monday, March 8th.
• The Book Butterfly: Guest Post with Carrie Jones and Giveway!
  Carrie Jones has a guest post up at The Book Butterfly and she is giving away a copy of her YA Urban Fantasy novel Need. Open to the US. Deadline to enter is Monday, March 8th.

Have a tip you want us to include in our next weekly round up? Send an email to Melissa@WickedJungle.com (Subject: Weekly Round Up).

Open Call for Submissions!!!

Though we usually only publish work from our regular contributors we are super excited about the launch of our new online community and actively looking for good fiction to showcase.  Until further notice we will be accepting submissions for flash fiction, short stories and novel excerpts in the paranormal romance or urban fantasy genre.  Though we are a non-paying market we are willing to work with our authors to cross promote other websites and published material.

Please remember, all submitted stories must fit within the genre.  This means they must include some supernatural, paranormal, or fantastical element. While we prefer stories to take place in a modern/contemporary setting, we will consider futuristic or period pieces as long as they meet the broader genre criteria.  Humor and satire are welcome as are darker works. However at this time we will not consider erotica!! Checkout our submission guidelines for more details.

Good Luck!!

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