The totally amazing and incredible Sheila from Book Journey is once again organizing the First Book of The Year 2018 edition. This is the fith year that she is hosting this.
I have taken part in the previous First Book of the Year and I have to say its so much fun trying to figure out what book I want to start a new year off with. The book can be a re-read, a guilty pleasure read or it can be basically anything you want to begin 2018 with.
I’m not quite sure which book I want to read so I have been weighing out my options and as soon as I pick the book I will be sharing it in a new post.
If you are interested in taking part then all you have to do is click on the above banner and it will take you to Sheila’s blog so that you can sign up.
Poppies for Christmas by Stacy Renée Keywell Publication Date: November 16, 2016 Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing, LLC
A celebration of love without labels. It’s easy to be brave with you by my side!
Popular DJ Dexx finds himself positively smitten by the precociously pristine Poppy Paris. Too bad she’s already taken by an older boy, Declan Davies, a beautiful model with a thriving career, and a perfect family. By a dreamful stroke of chance, Dexx finds himself invited to spend Christmas at the Davies home by a gorgeous girl, granting him the opportunity to pursue the precious Poppy. But in his quest to win her over, he unlocks a world of imperfection and insecurity, where people are picked on for their disabilities, speech, appearance, and eccentricities. For Poppy and her friends, love trumps labels, and everyone deserves a brave friend to stand by their side. What gifts will Dexx discover this Christmas? Will he ultimately find true love, or will he discover something even greater?
You are invited to read a powerful story about living with autism, but not letting it define you, about being bullied, but carrying on with determination and grit, and about having dreams, but not giving up in the face of adversity. Come celebrate something beautiful with Poppies for Christmas.
Author Stacy Renée Keywell lives a life of fabulous clichés. She enjoys asking rhetorical questions, and speaking redundantly. Stacy works hard at telling bad jokes, dancing oddly yet awesomely, and making up amazing new words in hopes that they will one day find their way into the dictionary. She strives to love without labels. She vows to bravely stand by the sides of those who need her, especially her two daughters. Stacy, her husband, and her children live in Michigan in a quaint house in the woods.
Where I Found You (Sea #1) by Heidi R. Kling Genre: YA Contemporary Published by Entangled Teen Published on December 4th, 2017Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36430174-where-i-found-youhttps://entangledpublishing.com/where-i-found-you.htmlAfter her mother’s plane went missing over the Indian Ocean, seventeen-year-old Sienna Jones gave up everything she loved about living in California. No more surfing. No more swimming. No more ocean, period. Playing it safe, hiding from the world, is the best call.
Until her dad throws down the challenge of a lifetime: spend the summer with his humanitarian team in Indonesia, working with orphans who lost everything in a massive tsunami.
The day they arrive, Sienna meets a mysterious boy named Deni, whose dark, intense eyes make her heart race. Their stolen nights force her to open up and live in a way she thought she couldn’t anymore. When she’s with Deni, she remembers the girl she used to be…and starts to feel like the woman he sees in her.
A woman he wants for his own.
Gulp.
But when Deni’s past comes looking for him, Sienna’s faced with losing another person she loves. She can’t do it. Not again.
Heidi R. Kling writes about normal girls in fantastic situations. PAINT MY BODY RED, a romantic thriller about a girl fleeing secrets from home launches November 2 with EntangledTeen, followed by several more novels on various Entangled imprints. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the New School, but has been writing books, plays and screenplays since she could practically hold a pencil.
Her first novel, SEA (Putnam), was a Gateway Readers Award Finalist & Northern California Book of the Year nominee, was a Summer 2010 Indie Next Pick and a Goodreads “Mover and Shaker”.
A Study In Shifters Majanka Verstraete
(The Adventures of Marisol Holmes, #1)
Publication date: June 26th 2018
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
Seventeen-year-old Marisol Holmes may be the great-great-great granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes, but it’s hard to live up to the family name when only one mistake can spell your downfall. After trusting the wrong guy in a case gone totally wrong, Marisol convinces the Conclave, an underground organization of detectives solving supernatural cases, to give her a last chance to prove her worth, and maybe even heal her broken heart
After all, as a half-blood jaguar shifter, Marisol is uniquely qualified to solve this murder—and every scrap of evidence points toward the culprit being a fellow jaguar shifter. But is one of her own people involved, or is this all a ploy to kick Marisol’s mother off the shifter throne?
Then Marisol discovers her best friend, Roan, is missing, and maybe the killer’s next target. The stakes just got higher than political intrigue. Just when things couldn’t get worse, Marisol’s ex-boyfriend-turned-nemesis, Mannix, starts leaving sinister clues for her. Marisol fears this case might be far more personal than she could’ve imagined.
It’s time for Marisol to prove her worth, or her people could fall into chaos while her best friend loses his life.
Author Majanka Verstraete has written more than twenty unique works of fiction. A native of Belgium, Majanka’s novels explore the true nature of monsters: the good, the bad, and just about every species in between. Her young adult books include the acclaimed Mirrorland (YA Dark Fantasy) and Angel of Death (YA Paranormal) series of novels. At MHB, Majanka is currently developing a new YA shifter series with a fresh take on fierce female detectives called THE ADVENTURES OF MARISOL HOLMES.
When she’s not writing, Majanka is probably playing World of Warcraft or catching up with the dozens of TV series she’s addicted to.
Nikki knows what it is to lose those you love. With her focus on her orphaned sister, she hasn’t given herself the chance to process her own grief over the loss of their parents. Life is chaos and the last complication she needs is a mate.
A lion alone for too long …
Joe Miller knows chaos. Being orphaned as a child, he’s never had a family to call his own. Crashing with a friend for the holidays, he’s hoodwinked into playing Santa Claus at a local mall. The last thing on his mind is finding a mate.
A love worth the risk …
With her baby sister on her hip, sadness in her eyes, and a longing in her heart, Nikki waits in line with her sister to see Santa. From the moment he scents her, Joe is in deep. It’s going to take everything he has to convince Nikki the love outweighs the risk to her heart. Luckily for Joe, he has fate and Nikki’s adorable baby sister on his side. After all, who can say no to the Purrfect Santa at Christmas?
Jessie Lane is a best-selling author of Paranormal and Contemporary Romance, as well as, Upper YA Paranormal Romance/Fantasy.
She lives in Kentucky with her two little Rock Chicks in-the-making and her over protective alpha husband that she’s pretty sure is a latent grizzly bear shifter. She has a passionate love for reading and writing naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them.
She’s also a proud member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA).
Chasity Bowlin lives in central Kentucky with her husband and their menagerie of animals. She loves writing, loves traveling and enjoys incorporating tidbits of her actual vacations into her books. She is an avid Anglophile, loving all things British, but specifically all things Regency. She also writes steamy contemporary and paranormal romance.
Growing up in Tennessee, spending as much time as possible with her doting grandparents, soap operas were a part of her daily existence, followed by back to back episodes of Scooby Doo. Her path to becoming a romance novelist was set when, rather than simply have her Barbie dolls cruise around in a pink convertible, they time traveled, hosted lavish dinner parties and one even had an evil twin locked in the attic.
I just quickly want to take a moment and thank Nichole from YaReads.com for putting together this huge debut authors bash. This has been happening since 2013 but my first time hearing about it so after hearing about it I quickly signed up. There was 112 debut authors taking part and its happening all this month. You can check the tour schedule by clicking THIS.
This is day 10 of the Debut Authors Bash and today I am going to talk with Rebecca Christiansen author of Maybe In Paris. I will be reviewing her back as well.
About the Author:
Rebecca Christiansen tried to study creative writing at university, but kept skipping classes to write YA novels in the library, so she decided to pursue that instead. She loves boy bands and diet soda and suffers from incurable wanderlust. Rebecca lives with her boyfriend in a house packed full of books in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
I have to thank Nichole for arranging this and to Rebecca for taking the time out of her busy schedule to do this interview with me.
Cindy: What inspired you to become a writer?
Rebecca: I’ve always been a writer, since I first learned to write. But two people in particular inspired me to “go for gold” and take it more seriously: my third grade teaching assistant, Miss Shillum, who started a creative writing period in my class, and a French author (whose name I can’t remember) who visited my french literature class in eighth grade. She had published a book and told us that it was 40,000 words long — I remember my mind being blown, because I had just put the finishing touches on a fanfiction I had written that was 50,000 words long. I realized I had written a novel-length story, one as long as already-published books. That was when I really decided I wanted to be published someday.
Cindy: What was your favorite childhood book to read growing up?
Rebecca: Harry Potter was big for me, but for a more unique answer, I’ll say EMILY OF NEW MOON by L. M. Montgomery. She’s more famous for writing ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, but the Emily books really awoke me. Emily Starr is a budding poet and writer and an orphan who has just been shipped off to live with her mother’s relatives, who she has never met, at their ancestral farm on Prince Edward Island. It was the first truly beautiful book I ever read, and it was absolutely instrumental to me becoming a writer.
Cindy: I loved the Anne of Green Gables books growing up. I think its time to dig them back out and read more of L. M. Montgomery. Did you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
Rebecca: Good question! There are actually a few nods to my favourite musician in MAYBE IN PARIS, Andrew McMahon. The main characters live in Shoreline, WA, a town where Andrew once recorded an album with his band, Something Corporate.
Cindy: Who is your favorite author? What is one book they wrote that you would recommend?
Rebecca: My favourite underrated author is Marcus Sedgwick! He’s a British YA author who has written a ton of books, and most of them win big awards in the UK, but he’s barely known in North America. Most of his books are historical fantasy tinged with horror, but they’re all incredibly unique and well-written. My faves are THE GHOSTS OF HEAVEN, SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE, MIDWINTERBLOOD, and WHITE CROW. His adult novel MISTER MEMORY is also incredible.
Cindy: Every time I am at my local bookstore I always pick up one of his books and end up putting it back but I think the next time I have to pick it up. What was the inspiration behind Maybe in Paris?
Rebecca: In MAYBE IN PARIS, Keira’s family’s lives are shattered by her brother Levi’s attempted suicide. That happened to my brother, too. I was an adult when it happened, but as my brother got better and we had to learn to live with a new normal after his new mental health diagnoses, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I might have reacted if I had been younger and less mature. I wouldn’t have been as good a sister, and I wanted to explore that sibling dynamic as a way of healing in real life. That’s often how I work through issues: I fictionalize them and write about them.
I also went to Paris when I was fifteen and always wanted to write about the city, so I put those two ideas together!
Cindy: My brother in law was diagnosed with Schizophreniamany years ago and we had to learn a new normal when you have a family member like that. Do you have any books in the works that you can share?
Rebecca: Nothing under contract yet, but I’m working on a few different manuscripts that I’m really excited about. Can’t wait to have some real news soon!
Cindy: Oh I can’t wait to hear the news. Fingers are crossed for you. If we were too look at your desk what would we be surprised to find or discover?
Rebecca: I have some cool things on my desk! A beautiful hand painted sugar skull from my trip to Mexico earlier this year, a pair of Eiffel Tower bookends that hold up my author copies of MAYBE IN PARIS, and a framed fortune from a fortune cookie I got at an Andrew McMahon show. The fortune is a line of lyrics from his song “All Our Lives”: it says “Skeletons and plans, you’ve gotta let them go.”
Cindy: What are you currently reading?
Rebecca: Right now I’m reading THE PEARL THIEF by Elizabeth Wein. It’s the recently-released prequel to CODE NAME VERITY, which is one of my all-time favourites. I cried while rereading it on the bus a few days ago! THE PEARL THIEF is very different, but it’s wonderful to get to see my favourite character and what she was like before the war started.
Cindy: Another book I need to get to as I have it sitting on my TBR pile. Who is your all time favorite boy band?
Rebecca: Growing up I loved Backstreet Boys, but oh man, One Direction are my loves. I’m a huge fan, as anyone who follows me on Twitter will know. I love their music, and they’re just the sweetest little cupcakes. Really, the nicest people in show biz.
Cindy: If you want to follow Rebecca on twitter here is her link https://twitter.com/rchristiansenYA What is the hidden jewel that one should visit when they go to Vancouver?
Rebecca: Stanley Park is a must-see — it’s a huge wooded park just steps from downtown, surrounded on three sides by the ocean. It’s home to the Vancouver Aquarium, acres of parkland, a lot First Nations art, and horse-drawn tours. It’s also home to the best concert venue in the city, an outdoor amphitheatre called the Malkin Bowl. Every show I see their ends up being one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Cindy: I have never been to Vancouver but hope to visit there one day soon. Thanks once again Rebecca for sitting down and doing this interview with me.
The totally amazing and incredible Sheila from Book Journey is once again organizing the First Book of The Year 2018 edition. This is the fith year that she is hosting this.
Rebecca Christiansen tried to study creative writing at university, but kept skipping classes to write YA novels in the library, so she decided to pursue that instead. She loves boy bands and diet soda and suffers from incurable wanderlust. Rebecca lives with her boyfriend in a house packed full of books in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
