Welcome Erin Richards, author of the Vigilante Nights!

Don't forget to enter in the Rafflecopter giveaway where Erin will be giving away a signed copy of her new book!

His beloved twin dead, his future destroyed, Lucas forms a vigilante posse to take revenge on the gang members responsible. Can his new love, and his sister’s voice from beyond death, stop Lucas from self-destruction?

After a hideous car wreck, Lucas wakes from a coma to find that his world is gutted. Not only is his beloved twin sister, Silver, gone forever, but Lucas is broken in body and spirit. He will never be a college athlete, and is robbed of what he now realizes was the most important bond of his life. Although they weren’t identical twins, Lucas and Silver shared a bond so fierce it defied reason, and was nearly supernatural.

After her death, that bond seems to endure when Lucas sees Silver everywhere he turns. Either he’s crazy, or Silver is trying to tell him something about the California gang initiation they stumbled into that cost Silver her life. Lucas is bent on revenge, turning on Raymond, Silver’s former boyfriend; the one Lucas never wanted her to date. He forms a posse of vigilantes to take out the gangsters responsible for Silver’s death, but he risks not only his own life, but the love of the new girl on his block, who knows more about Lucas and Silver that can be accounted for by mere chance.

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Tell us about your upcoming release and what inspired you.
Vigilante Nights is my young adult debut novel with romance, suspense, and supernatural all thrown into a contemporary setting. It’s about the risks a 17-year-old boy will take to get revenge on the street gang who killed his twin sister…until he falls in love and risks more than he expected.

The first novel I wrote when I was eighteen, was originally inspired by S.E. Hinton’s classic novel, The Outsiders, one of my favorite all time novels. Memories of gang activity and street racing from my teen years also played a role in the plotting. The story had stayed with me for years, and I always wanted to update and write it with a fresh outlook and more experience. Despite hearing that the market was soft for books written from a boy’s POV, Lucas’s story clamored to be written and published. I couldn’t ignore my muse. Vigilante Nights bears only slight resemblance to that long-ago story, but Lucas’s coming of age in a time of tragedy and justice remained constant.

What are some of the challenges/hurdles you had in writing this book?
The biggest challenge was writing from a 17-year-old boy’s point-of-view, in first person, no less. It’s not like I could channel a teenage boy, you know? Writing three romance novels with alternating female and male POVs helped greatly. I had already read a lot of novels with male POVs. I took it a step further and read some “boy” books from popular YA authors to see how they handled a boy’s POV. In fact, I didn’t know if I had actually accomplished it until an editorial director of a big NY publisher read & critiqued an early version of the first fifty pages and told me I had nailed it. Of course, I also wanted my book to appeal to females, and writing in a love interest was a natural progression since all my books have a romance element!

You’re published in different genres. Any particular favorite thus far and why?
My muse has multiple personalities! When I started writing adult romance novels that’s what I was reading. People say write what you read. Plus, I loved speculative fiction, so everything had to have a paranormal, fantasy or light science fiction element. But I really wanted to go back to writing young adult. I gave it a go and wrote my first YA novel from a girl’s POV. I had so much fun writing from first person POV. After that book, I was hooked on writing young adult. The next book I wrote was Vigilante Nights. I don’t plan on giving up on writing adult romance, but I’m really digging writing for teens. There’s something fresh and innocent about teenagers coming of age in any setting, whether contemporary, supernatural or SF&F, that appeals to me. It takes me back to my own childhood and the type of books lacking back then.

What project are you working on now?
I’m revising a YA science fiction novel that I hope my agent will send out on submission soon. Here’s a short blurb: On a human-colonized planet that’s slipping into perpetual darkness, a telepathic Finder, a young Resistance fighter, and a charming alien lord race to restore the planet to the past before the darkness destroys their future.

Any advice for aspiring writers?
Persevere. Don’t ever give up chasing your dream. Even when you’ve gotten hundreds of agent rejection letters or been turned down by every publishing house and you want to chuck it all, keep writing. It only takes one editor or one agent to like your first, third or even your tenth book. You’ll eat a lot of chocolate (or your favorite indulgence) to get there, and it will be worth it. If writing is in your blood, you’ll never be able to give it up no matter which path you take with your writing.

Fun Facts About Erin:
Favorite Color:  Purple
Favorite Food:  Mexican all the way!
Most Hated Food:  Anything that lives in the water
Drives a: Corvette or Camaro…depending on my mood…or whether it’s raining! I’m a fanatic about my muscle cars.  :)
If I could be a superhero, I would be: Jean Grey-Summers otherwise known as Marvel Girl or Phoenix. She’s one of the founding members of the X-Men. She has super cool telekinetic and telepathic abilities. I’ve always had a fascination with psionic abilities and would love to have them! It’s why you may find characters with these powers in my novels.

After bemoaning the lack of young adult books to read, Erin wrote her first novel at the age of eighteen hoping to shift the tide. Then everyday life took its toll on her writerly dreams until 2003 when she couldn’t ignore the writing bug any longer. By then, she had immersed herself in reading adult fantasy and romance novels. Writing paranormal & fantasy romance was a no brainer. Erin has published two adult romance novels: CHASING SHADOWS, a paranormal romantic suspense (EPPIE award finalist and Night Owl Romance 5-Star Top Pick) and WICKED PARADISE, a fantasy romance, released in August 2012. Erin will finally realize her lifelong dream of publishing a young adult novel when VIGILANTE NIGHTS debuts in July 2013.

Erin Richards lives in Northern California. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, photography, and American muscle cars.

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RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY OF VIGILANTE NIGHTS!

Welcome Karen Lopp, author of Shotgun Bride.  Effie's Outlaw will be out Fall 2013!

Welcome Linda Lange, author of Incomplete Passes

What inspired you to write Incomplete Passes?
There were two factors.  One was a friendship that started in eighth grade.  Growing up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, I became close to three girls who changed my life.  We became friends because we all were obsessed with the Green Bay Packers.  This was during the period when the legendary Vince Lombardi coached the football team and the Packers won five championships in nine years.  Green Bay was a small town and teams didn’t maintain the heavy security they do today, so we could meet the players and get very close to them.  We’d hang out at the practice field and also watch for the players when they came downtown. 

I was a brainy, nerdy, rather prissy kid, but my new friends got me to play sports and try new things.  I became a very different person.  The four of us have kept in touch over all of these years, although we live in four different states.  Since 1997 we’ve been making an annual trip back to Green Bay to renew our ties and see a game. 

The other factor is a weird mid-life crisis I had when I was in my thirties. Believe it or not, this involved the Packers, too.  I woke up one day and realized that I was getting close to forty, and I was older than almost all of the active NFL players.  As a young girl I had dreamed of growing up and dating the players, maybe even marrying one.  It struck me that this was never going to happen.  It became the symbol of all the things that I once thought I would do, but hadn’t.

Tell me about your publishing journey.
 I wrote a few scenes of Incomplete Passes during 2008 and started to write the book in earnest during 2009.  By the end of that year I was trying to find a publisher or agent.  A couple were interested enough to ask for a manuscript.  The problem was, I’d send them the manuscript and they’d keep it for several months before giving me their reaction.  As it turned out, neither publisher took the book, and I’d lost a lot of time.  Now it was the middle of 2010.  The Packer heroes I’d been writing about were in their seventies and eighties.  My friends and I were in our sixties.  I was afraid that at this rate, all the people in the book would die off before I found a publisher.  Some friends recommended self-publishing.  I had no idea how to go about this on my own, but then I found out about companies like CreateSpace and iUniverse.  I chose iUniverse because they offered a social media startup package, and I could buy a package that included an editorial evaluation.   After working on Incomplete Passes for two years, I knew it needed an editor’s eye.  It was ultimately the iUniverse editor who persuaded me to minimize the play script and expand the narrative.  Also, iUniverse had incentive levels, and if I qualified for Editor’s Choice and Rising Star, I could earn a free cover design.  I love the cover they designed for me.  I never would have done as well on my own.  The book came out at the end of August 2011, and I’ve spent almost all of my free time since then trying to market it.

What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
There are things that iUniverse did for me that I could have done far more cheaply on my own.  Also, because the social media package didn’t kick in until my title went live, I lost a lot of promotion time.  I should have been promoting the book long before it came out.  I’m finding out new places to list my book and new ways to network even now, when I should have been utilizing them in 2011.  Fortunately, I’ll have these connections in place when I write another book.

What are you working on next?
The next book is definitely going to be a novel.  I volunteer at an animal shelter, and I’ve just started writing a novel about people who work in a shelter.  I have a lot of it in my head, but very little on paper so far.  I don’t want to write only about the animals.  There are plenty of books around that tell sad or inspirational stories of cats and dogs.  I would concentrate more on the stories of the people who work in a shelter. I want to entertain, but I also want to educate readers about what goes on in a shelter.  Few people know the scope of the homeless-animal problem.  A lot of people think they can drop off their unwanted cat or dog at a shelter and he’ll have a great new home in a couple of weeks.  The numbers are so huge that it just doesn’t work that way. Working title of the novel is You Can’t Save ‘em All.

There is also an emerging genre called Boomer Lit that I’m interested in.  Just as the Young Adult genre was created for baby boomers in the 1960s and ‘70s, authors are now writing Boomer Lit for the same audience.  There are about 78 million boomers in the United States.  Almost all are now in their fifties and sixties.  They have time to read, and they often want to read about people like themselves—people who are adjusting to retirement, looking for second careers, re-examining relationships.   Boomer Lit is not nostalgia, and it is not about people becoming elderly and sick.  We live in an age where older people can be rebellious, sexy, romantic, adventurous, wise, and fun.

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Welcome DelSheree Gladden, author of The Destroyer Trilogy!

Tell us a little bit about what you write and why you chose this genre.
I have tried my hand at writing several genres, but my first love in fiction has always been young adult literature. I was a very shy child and I spent a lot of time reading. Fantasies like The Enchanted Forest Chronicles drew me in and Dianna Wynn Jones' Chrestomanci stories and Diane Duane's Young Wizards Series introduced me to a rich mixture of fantasy and the real world. I think every child hopes that there is magic hiding around the corner. I guess I just never grew out of that, and it translated into a love for YA urban fantasy novels, my main writing genre. 

How did you get started writing?
My love for art initially got me interested in writing. I wanted to be a children's book illustrator, but in the end, creating the story rather than the illustrations was what I really focused on. I love bringing worlds and characters to life and entertaining readers. 

Have you faced any hardships/challenges as a writer?
Like many other writers, when I first started on the road to publishing I was met with many rejections letters. Agents and publishers were not eager to take on unproven writers. I self published four novels before signing with a small publisher for my next series. The first contracted book was published, but our relationship dissolved shortly thereafter due to several problems with the publisher. I returned to self publishing after the difficulties I had with my previous publisher. At the time, I did not intend to seek out a traditional publisher again, but I just recently signed on with GMTA publishing for my next book,Godling Hunger. My first round with traditional publishing did not end as I would have liked, but I learned a lot from the experience which has helped me since then and I am excited to take the next step. 

How was your self-publishing journey?
I started out creating paperback copies. Figuring out how to format everything was a challenge, and it took a lot of work to make it look professional the first time. After all that, I realized that where I really needed to focus was ebooks. Formatting for ebooks can take as much time as print, but they allow so much more flexibility. I can offer my books all over the world as an ebook. I can also give away copies through email, which really saves on postage! What really takes the most effort in self publishing, is marketing.  Getting your name and your books out there takes countless hours of online promoting, blogging, blog hopping, interviews, features, and just straight out asking people to buy your books. It is a lot of hard work from beginning to end, but it is also very rewarding. 

Tell us about your latest book.  What inspired you?
Right now I am in the middle of publishing my series, The Destroyer Trilogy, the story of Libby Sparks, a 16 year old girl with a destiny to destroy the world. The final book of the trilogy, Darkening Chaos, will be released March 2013. This series was inspired by a set of books I read and ended up not liking very much. I challenged myself to write something new and avoid the things I didn't like about the series while creating an alternate reality readers would enjoy. 

My new series,the first book of which is, Godling Hunger, is planned for release in July 2013. This book introduces readers to Vanessa and Zander Roth, siblings cursed with an uncontrollable hunger for pain and suffering, a power which can either bring them indescribable power, or agonizing death. This series was inspired by a single word, godling, mentioned in a Jim Butcher book I was reading at the time. It made me wonder if I could create a character that really didn't know whether they were a hero or villain, or even where there power came from. Would the journey to uncover the secrets behind their power define them, or would fate win out? Readers will have to read to find out!

Any advice for aspiring writers out there? 
Read, a lot. Reading can teach writers so much, from how to format dialog to how to create a good story arch. Not being familiar with the ins and outs of writing fiction shows not only to readers, but especially to agents and publishers. Read books from the genre you want to write. How do the characters interact with each other? Write down why you like a certain book or character and find out what kept you reading, and then use similar tactics in your book. Have other people read your writing, too. This is so scary for new writers, but it is crucial. Having a few people point out where your book may need to improve is much better than publishing and hearing it from hundreds of readers on the internet. Most of all, write, write, write. This is one area where practice really does work.

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Author Maria Swan is helping to kick-off a series of fabulous author interviews I've lined up.   Thank you for spending some time here!

Maria Grazia Swan was born in Italy, but this rolling stone has definitely gathered no moss. She lived in Belgium, France, Germany, in beautiful Orange County, California where she raised her family, and is currently at home in Phoenix, Arizona—but stay tuned for weekly updates of Where in the World is Maria Grazia Swan?

As a young girl, her vivid imagination predestined her to be a writer. She won her first literary award at the age of fourteen while living in Belgium. As a young woman Maria returned to Italy to design for—ooh-la-la—haute couture. Once in the U.S. and after years of concentrating on family, she tackled real estate. These days her time is devoted to her deepest passions: writing and helping people find happiness.

Maria loves travel, opera, good books, hiking, and intelligent movies (if she can find one, that is). When asked about her idea of a perfect evening, she favors stimulating conversation, tasty Italian food and perfectly chilled Prosecco—but then, who doesn’t?

Maria has written short stories for anthologies, articles for high profile magazines and numerous blogs tackling love and life. She engaged her editorial and non-fiction skills for Boomer Babes: Tales of Love and Lust in the Later Years. Her romantic suspense novels Love Thy Sister and Bosom Bodies are available at Amazon.com.

Website:  http://www.mariagrazia.tv
Contact Maria: mariagswan@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maria.g.swan

Interested in doing a blog interview?  Jennifer is currently working lining up author interviews to help promote authors and their books!  E-mail her for more information.