The Avid Reader

Guest Post: Author Amanda Lance

Today, I'm participating in the Endangered Hearts blog tour hosted by YA Reads Blog Tours!

GoodReads Summary:

Emilia Ward is being watched.

And it isn’t just by her mother’s creep of a boyfriend or one of her many employers. Instead, she is certain it something else—someone else. However, in a life with college classes and alcoholic mother to look after, Emilia doesn’t have time to explore her suspicions. She would much rather think about her new job at Iram Manor, and more importantly—its mysterious and alluring owner.

After a lifetime of isolation and trapped in a disfigured body Kasper Zafar thought he knew pain. Confining himself to his work as an architect and the love of his music, he never expects the beautiful Emilia Ward to enter his life. Young and naive, his new housekeeper does not flinch at the sight of him, and is even so bold as to call him her friend.

Determined to teach her in all worldly things, the opposites grow closer and the role of student and teacher interchange. Yet Emilia’s life outside the manor is not a happy one, and when Kasper’s attempt to watch over her fails, both will discover than love may be the most painful thing of all.

As part of the blog tour, Endangered Hearts author Amanda Lance has graciously agreed to write a guest post describing her personal writing process. Enjoy!

Amanda Lance’s Writing Process

Like many writers I have a cultivated a certain routine when writing my novels, a process that keeps me going from project to project in the most efficient form possible. It is beyond simplistic, but since my first major work, the following routine has worked for me:

Prewriting: From what the characters look like to the overall message of the story, I spend more time prewriting than anything else. I organize the plot; think about possible character names, and brainstorm potential endings. Most of this is done in my head and takes up the most amount of time.

The first draft: This usually takes between four and six weeks depending on how long the project is and roadblocks from the rest of my life. I write spontaneously, generating anywhere from 1k to 5k words a day and do very little editing.

Revising: I do this chapter by chapter, reconstructing sentences and resolving major plot points. Once I feel like I’ve got a decent handle on this, I start sending the manuscript to my betas.

Editing: With the help of my beta readers, my publisher, and editor, I correct grammar and spelling mistakes.

Thanks so much to Amanda Lance for stopping by

to share her writing process! 

Epic Recs: February 2014

I recently signed up to participate in Epic Recs, a book club started by Judith and Amber, in which book pushers lovers partner up and force their favorite books on one another. This is the first month that I'll be participating, and I couldn't be more excited!

My Epic Recs partner is Emily, who blogs at Oh Magic Hour. I think Judith and Amber did a fantastic job pairing us up, and I'm so looking forward to exchanging recommendations each month!

This month's book selections: 

MY PICK FOR EMILY:                      

GoodReads Summary:

Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

My Reasoning:

I love this series SO MUCH. Unwind is a book that I unabashedly push on anyone who even hints that they might be looking for a book recommendation. After perusing Emily's blog, I stumbled across her review of The Darkest Minds, by Alexandra Bracken, which she loved. I immediately knew that Emily would love the Unwind series, so Unwind became her book for February. 

EMILY'S PICK FOR ME:

GoodReads Summary:

Choose: A quick death…Or slow poison...

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear...

At the end of the month, we'll check back and update with our thoughts on each other's choices!

In the meantime, read Emily's Epic Recs post here!

Purchase our book choices here:

Have you read either of these? What did you think of them?

Do you participate in Epic Recs?

The above book cover images are from GoodReads

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books That Make Me Swoon

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Join in and link up!

This week's topic is the top ten books that made me swoon. I'm guessing my list will be a little nontraditional this week because I don't read a ton of traditional "romance". I'm all about swooning in other genres though!

1. Vampire Academy (the whole series!), by Richelle Mead

**And while we're on the subject of Vampire Academy, please do yourself a favor and go see the movie, because it is fantastic and I will be devastated if the remaining books are not made into movies!**

2. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (Rhett! Butler!)

3. Agnes and the Hitman, by Jennifer Crusie

I think Jennifer Crusie is a fantastic writer and very few people do romantic dialogue as well as she does! This particular book is a favorite of mine.

4. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Katniss + Peeta 4-ever in my book. I know these books are dark and maybe not a traditional choice for "swoony" but I love watching the relationship between these two develop.

5. The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

Love, love, love Maggie. This book was an immediate 5 star for me, and the relationship between Puck and Sean is totally swoon-worthy.

6. All the Truth That's In Me, by Julie Berry

I reviewed this one recently, and one of the things I mentioned in my review is how strong the romance is in this book!

7. Delirium, by Lauren Oliver

This book, oh my gosh, my heart. This book is the definition of swoon-worthy. I dare you to get through this without crying (and swooning).

8. The Chemical Garden series, by Lauren DeStefano

I'll admit, I was pretty swoony over Linden. He was a victim of some pretty gruesome circumstances but he was a good guy and I secretly wanted him and Rhine to work. BUT. The reason this series makes my list today is the swoon-worthy relationship between Rhine and Cecily. Rhine and Cecily are both such great examples of strong female characters and I really admire how fiercely they come to love one another.

9. Matched, by Ally Condie

Looking back at the review I wrote for this one, I used the term "swoon-worthy" right in my writeup! This book stands out to me because I think it has that elusive well-crafted love triangle. 

10. Stolen, by Lucy Christopher

I'm always vaguely weirded out by how much I do, in fact, swoon over this one. I never thought I could come around to a kidnapper as a love interest!

 

Do you agree with any of these?

What are your most swoon-worthy books? 

Writers Write

If I'm honest, I've always known I was a writer. I was writing picture books from the time I could hold a crayon. I won a state-wide poetry contest in second grade (which was the last time I wrote a poem worth reading!) and I filled notebooks with short stories and (terrible) poetry right up through high school. Friends pestered me for the next installment in my mini novels. Teachers read my short stories and encouraged me to pursue a career as a writer. I read voraciously and I daydreamed about one day being a published author myself.

Then I went off to college and for a lot of reasons I just stopped writing fiction. And the longer I went without writing, the less like myself I felt. But at the same time, the more time that passed, the more intimidated I started to feel by the prospect of writing again. I think deep down, I was afraid that I might have somehow lost my talent for writing, and if that was true I just did not want to know it. If I never wrote, I never had to officially know that I could not, in fact, make it as a writer. So much of my personal identity was tied up in seeing myself as a writer. For years I told people that I was an insurance claims adjuster, a nanny, an SAT tutor... but in my mind, those were just jobs I held to pay my bills. In my heart I was a writer. But I was a writer who didn't write. A lot of authors will tell you that this is something which doesn't exist. They will tell you that a writer writes, period. That there is no such thing as a writer who isn't writing.

And I get what they're saying, sort of. But...

I still call bullshit. Writers stop writing for all kinds of reasons. They come to writing late in life. They try other hats on for size before they realize that writing is what they are meant to do. I am a writer because I found my way back to writing. I am a writer because I found it in myself to push past my fear and uncertainty and just start putting words on the page again. I don't think less of myself because there were years when I wasn't in a place yet where I could do that. I think more of myself for clawing my way back to this thing that I love, and for loving it even more after so much time away. 

This past fall, I decided to stop thinking about writing a novel and actually write one. In November, I participated in National Novel Writing Month, and while I didn't "win", (complete my novel in one month), I did come the closest I've ever been to a complete first draft. Equally valuable, I had also spent a month cultivating some writing discipline. Nearly every day in November I sat down with my laptop and added words to my story, and it felt amazing. I felt creative and focused and like my old self again for the first time in years.

When November ended, I had 45,290 words written. Coming off the NaNoWriMo high, I hit an awful slump where I immediately decided that every word I had written thus far was utter garbage and that far from being close to a first draft, in fact I would soon need to scrap almost everything I had written and start fresh. The self doubt was crushing and I cringed when people in my life asked me how my novel was going.

Fortunately, rather than rashly deleting most of what I had written, instead I set the manuscript aside and decided to look at it again in a few weeks with fresh eyes. I reread my work in progress tonight and miracle of miracles, I no longer hate it. In fact, I even like it again. I even feel like it's kind of great, in a rough, first draft kind of way.

If I continue with the plan I have in mind for my story, I estimate that I'm about two thirds of the way through my first draft. Right now I feel like the most important thing for me is to get back into the habit of writing every day again. With that in mind, I'm setting a modest goal for myself of writing 500 words per day. If I feel about two thirds complete at 46,000 words, that puts me 100% complete at 69,000 words. At a rate of 500 words per day, in theory I could have a completed first draft 46 days from now.

FORTY. SIX. DAYS.

Which is amazing and wonderful and the hugest of milestones. I will be beyond ecstatic if 46 days from now I'm printing off a first draft and starting revisions.

But you know what? I'm a writer right now. 

Saturday Summary: 2/08/14

This week, on The Avid Reader, I wrote:

• a review of The Killing Woods, by Lucy Christopher
• Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books That Will Make You Cry
• about all of the challenges I'll be participating in for 2014!
• a review of Poison Dance, by Livia Blackburne

I finished reading:

• Poison Dance, a novella by Livia Blackburne

I started reading:

• Alienated, by Melissa Landers

Next week I'm hoping to read a bit more - I've been spending a lot of time blogging and on Twitter, but the consequence of that is that my reading has suffered. Next week I'm hoping to work on finding a better balance!

What did you read/write this week?

Leave me a link to anything you think I shouldn't miss! 

Book Review: Poison Dance by Livia Blackburne

Published: September 2013

Source: I received an e-copy of this novella free from the author in exchange for my honest review

GoodReads Summary:

James is skilled, efficient, and deadly, a hired blade navigating the shifting alliances of a deteriorating Assassin’s Guild. Then he meets Thalia, an alluring but troubled dancing girl who offers him a way out—if he’ll help her kill a powerful nobleman. With the Guild falling apart, it just might be worth the risk. But when you live, breathe, and love in a world that’s forever flirting with death, the slightest misstep can be poison. Poison dance is approximately 14,000 words, or 54 printed pages.

My Thoughts:

As you may know, Midnight Thief was my Waiting on Wednesday pick last week. A book about a female assassin? Put that in my hands right now, please! Alas, there are still several months to go before Midnight Thief is published. Luckily, in the meantime the author has written this novella to introduce readers to the world of Midnight Thief.

I really enjoyed this brief glimpse into the world of the Assassin's Guild. I'm into the idea of main characters who kind of toe the line between good and evil. I love that we have a protagonist who is a career assassin, and James was particularly intriguing to me because in spite of his occupation, he seemed to be a pretty decent guy. He wasn't at all the stereotype that I was expecting. 

One minor criticism I would offer is that I wish that James and Thalia had just a bit more character development - even for a story this short, I wanted them to feel just a little more fleshed out, a little more three dimensional. I would have enjoyed a brief glimpse into their past, maybe. 

I also felt like the big moment near the end of the story was just a little rushed, and a few key scenes took place "off screen", which was a little frustrating for me.

All in all, this was a quick, fun read and definitely left me even more excited for Midnight Thief's release. I suspect that the minor issues I had with Poison Dance are pretty specific to its brief word count. I'm looking forward to reading a full novel that takes place in this world.

Have you picked up Poison Dance yet?

Are you looking forward to Midnight Thief?

Challenging Myself

One of my blogging resolutions for 2014 is to blog consistently. One way I thought I might keep myself motivated to do that is by participating in a few of the 2014 blogging challenges that I've seen floating around out there. As soon as I started looking into this, I realized there are a lot of challenges for 2014! I'm determined not to sign up for too many and then gradually stop doing them, so I really want to stick to just a few that are really calling to me.

After researching a bunch of cool options, I've decided to participate in the following 2014 challenges:

• Ariel Avalon's NetGalley Reading Challenge. The goal of this challenge is to catch up on our backlog of NetGalley books and get those ratios up! I have a bunch of NetGalley books to catch up on, so I set my goal for this one at 21 books. In reality I'm hoping to far surpass that, but we'll see! (A brief aside: I know the "goal" for that ratio is 80%, but I'd love to know how many bloggers out there are currently at or above 80% - certainly not me!)

                           

 

• Literary Escapism's New Author Challenge. This challenge is all about finding "new to you" authors. This one appealed to me because I always sort of want to participate in Debut Author challenges, but I get bogged down by the prospect of keeping track of whether or not a given book is actually a debut. That extra step just feels like too much work to me. "New to me" is much easier for me to figure out, so I'm all over this one! My goal for this challenge is to read 25 books by authors that are new to me.

 

• Coffee Bean Bookshelf's 2014 Rewind Challenge. Love, love, love this one! The purpose of this challenge is to make us step back and remember that it's okay not to only read whatever is new right now. It's okay to read a book that was published last month, last season, last year. It doesn't always have to be about the newest, hottest thing. This challenge is all about reading and reviewing books that were published before 2014. I set a goal for myself to read 25 "pre-2014" books. I've got several series that I need to catch up on, so between those and the many standalones that I've missed, this should be a piece of cake for me as long as I stay organized.

 

Read, Sleep, Repeat's 2014 Series Challenge. This is a challenge aimed at helping us catch up on the series we may have fallen behind on, and I've got plenty of those! It drives me crazy when I absolutely love the first book or two in a series, but somehow I get distracted (by piles of other fabulous books, usually) and never get around to completing the series. This is something I never used to have an issue with, so I need to nip this bad habit in the bud! 

I'm aiming high with this one... I'm looking for the platinum badge!

That would entail finishing 12+ series. We'll see how that works out!

 

Are you participating in any of these challenges?

Are there other great challenges that I just have to join? 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books that Will Make You Cry

This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is "Top Ten Books that Will Make You Cry". This is a tough one, because I can't really share my reasoning for each choice without giving away major spoilers!

1. The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness
2. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
3. Handle With Care, by Jodi Picoult
4. A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast For Crows, all by George R. R. Martin, who gleefully kills off everyone you love
5. Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I own this book, but I have only ever made it through the first 30 pages, because I read all 30 pages with tears streaming freely down my face and spent the next several weeks trying desperately to wipe the book's graphic images from my mind. If you read this book, you will ugly cry through it. That's a given. But you will definitely learn a lot about the terrible realities behind the food you eat. 
6. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, for so many reasons
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, who is probably bff with George R. R. Martin
8. Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver
9. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
10. The Pact, by Jodi Picoult

I feel like I could go on and on with this topic! What made your list? 

Book Review: The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Published: October 2013

Source: NetGalley

GoodReads Summary:

Emily’s dad is accused of murdering a teenage girl. Emily is sure he is innocent, but what happened that night in the woods behind their house where she used to play as a child? Determined to find out, she seeks out Damon Hillary, the enigmatic boyfriend of the murdered girl. He also knows these woods. Maybe they could help each other. But he’s got secrets of his own about games that are played in the dark.

A new psychological thriller from the award-winning and bestselling author of STOLEN and FLYAWAY.

My Thoughts:

I will admit, I was worried about this one for a while there. For maybe the first third of the book, I really struggled to connect with Emily or Damon, and because of that, I had a hard time feeling invested in the story. I also didn't feel that Ashlee was a particularly likeable character, so I didn't feel very affected by her death or curious about what happened to her. I think this bothered me more than it otherwise might have because I had such the oppposite experience with Stolen. When I read Stolen, I fell in love with the characters in spite of myself. Here, I went into the book wanting to care about Emily and Damon and I just couldn't. So it's possible that my expectations going into this book skewed my initial perception somewhat. This is a very different book from Stolen.

However! Somewhere just after the first third of the book, the story pulled me in and I found myself connecting to Emily and Damon much more, especially Emily. I really admired how gracefully Emily handled her near total isolation - her mother has pulled away from her and climbed into a bottle, she doesn't have any siblings to lean on, and most of her  former friends at school have ostracized her since Ashlee's murder. Through it all Emily remains clearheaded and focused. She never seems to let her emotions get the best of her. 

By this point in the story, Damon and Ashlee's relationship had also been fleshed out a bit more, and while I still didn't feel much of a connection to Ashlee, I started to care about what had happened to her because of how her death was affecting Damon. I was also desperate to find out more about The Game, which seriously creeped me out from the first time it was mentioned.

The remainder of the book was well-paced and a tense read. Some darker information starts to emerge about just what went on the night Ashlee died, and I found myself desperate to find out exactly what happened to her and why. I will say that I guessed the identity of the killer early on, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the story because I was much more concerned with the reason for the murder.

All in all, I would say this is a solid read. It was a slow starter for me, but I'm glad I stuck with it because the payoff was well worth it. I will definitely be reading whatever Lucy Christopher writes next. 

Image taken from GoodReads

Saturday Summary: 2/01/14

I thought I might start doing a weekly summary of what I read and wrote during the week. 

This week, on The Avid Reader, I wrote:

• a list of Blogging Resolutions for 2014
• Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Wouldnt Want to Step Into
• Waiting On Wednesday, in which I discuss Livia Blackburne's Midnight Thief, due out this fall

I finished reading:

• The Killing Woods, by Lucy Christopher (review coming on Monday!)

I made progress with:

• Pretty Monsters, a collection of short stories by Kelly Link

I started reading:

• Poison Dance, a novella by Livia Blackburne

Clearly, I need to read more next week! (I'm 5 books behind on my GoodReads challenge, yikes!) But I'm giving myself a pass this week, because I turned 30 on Monday so it was a busy, fun-filled week.

What did you read/write this week?

Leave me a link to anything you think I shouldn't miss!