Friday, January 1, 2016

TBR and fav reads

A little bit of my TBR and fav reads. Also, I need a bookcase for a nightstand.
Also, I'm way, way, way behind on my reviews...


Saturday, December 19, 2015

A year in review: high-highs and low-lows


This past year was a bit of a whirlwind, filled with high-highs and low-lows. 
There were lots of changes to my personal and professional life. 

In April I won a Kindle Scout campaign for LET HER GO.

I was welcomed into the KindleScout winners circle, which is filled with some amazing, talented and supportive authors. This is one of the best groups of authors I've worked with. Love them all :)

In June I wrote the sequel to Sparrow Man (Titled Nightingale Girl) in about 4 weeks. That was the fastest I've ever written a full-length novel, however there were many editing sessions afterwards. I hope to have Nightingale Girl out this Spring/Summer 2016

I finished the 6th and final book in The Phoenix Project Series. Writing an end to this series was bittersweet but lots of fun. (I had to change the publication date to late January 2016 due to the projects listed below)

Throughout the first half of the year my husband was suffering from Crohn's disease (an already 4yr struggle) which resulted in 9 surgeries over 1yr time span (2014-2015). We spent a year with him lying in bed, uncomfortable and visiting a doctor 2 hours away from our home. (Finding this surgeon was a 2 year search and the fourth surgeon we consulted with). I had been working as an RN an hour away from our home in the opposite direction and was spending a lot of time on the road. During this time I felt like our lives were falling apart. I was afraid of losing my husband and I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. In august, after many days spent rushing to the OR, ED, and emailing his surgeon, we finally agreed to a final surgery that would help my husband be more comfortable but was a major risk and would result in a drastic change to our lives.

Famous authors started saying "Yes" when I asked to interview them!! Authors like Andy Weir and Peter Heller and more. Find links here

My friends, family, and editor stuck by my side even though I became quite withdrawn and miserable. I was not handling the stress of life very well. I left a job a loved and a group of nurses I loved to work closer to home. As an introvert who doesn't like change, this was hard.

I finally got the chance to write in a KindleWorld and borrow the romantic world of a fellow KindleScout winner Sariah Wilson. Look for FORGOTTEN PRINCESS, a novella about a princess masquerading as a gypsy, in January 2016.



In November I received a message from the super awesome author Samuel Peralta with an invitation to write a short-story for one of his Future Chronicles endeavors titled THE ILLUSTRATED ROBOT. He read a portion of my book SPARROW MAN and was impressed! This was a dream come true. I'm super excited to be part of this project and can't wait to see all of the stories come together. Look for ILLUSTRATED ROBOT in the spring/summer of 2016.

Now that it's December, I'm happy to say that the husband is on the mend and adjusting to life after his most recent surgery. It was difficult watching everything that we worked so hard for trickle away, but we have each other. Seeing him up and moving around and living life again negates everything that we went through and everything that we lost.

I think the next steps of our life together might just be the best, we get to rebuild everything all over again. I may even get him to trim that majestic thing on his face.



And that is my year in review. 
Happy New year and Happy Reading. 
See you in 2016!









Sunday, November 29, 2015

The Future Chronicles - A review


I'm not one for short stories. I like to lose myself for hours - or days - on end, get really deep in the drama for 200 pages or more. Last week that changed. 
Last week I read The Future Chronicles.
This group of authors serve up a variety of futuristic stories that will  get the gears of your brain turning. The forward by Hugh Howey brought me back to the tiny goat farm I grew up on and Peter Cawdron's #DontTell stole the crown. Samuel Peralta's Humanity was a close runner-up. Overall, a must read for fellow sci-fi lovers.

 



Blurb:

The Future Chronicles - Special Edition includes fifteen stories, selected and new, from some of today's best writers in speculative fiction.

It includes ten selected stories from some of the Chronicles' popular titles - Robot, Telepath, Alien, and A.I. - to give new readers a taste of the series; and includes five completely new stories, first published in this Special Edition.

The Future Chronicles has grown, from a single collection of robot stories, into a series whose unique take on major science fiction and fantasy themes - A.I., aliens, time travel, dragons, telepaths, zombies, immortality, galactic battles, cyborgs, doomsday - has made it one of the most acclaimed short story anthology series of the digital era.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Girl With all the Gifts by M R Carey




NOT EVERY GIFT IS A BLESSING.


Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius."


Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.


The Girl With All the Gifts is a groundbreaking thriller, emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end.




Book Review:

There's a moral code I live by when it comes to buying books: If you want to read it, it will eventually go on sale. I got this sucker for $1.99! 

I've had TGWATG on my TBR list for most of the year, and the hum around this book made it even more enticing to read. When one of my bookish friends told me how amazing it was, I had to get my hands on The Girl With All the Gifts. I wasn't expecting a zombie apocalypse setting, with the title of this book I was expecting more of a superhero vibe. But, this was a pleasant surprise. The first half of this book was definitely intriguing. Eventually it turned into the typical run-for-your-life-the-zombies-are-coming apocalyptic novel. But the zombie origins storyline made this unique and wonderful. I really loved the underlying story of a motherless girl and her beloved teacher. Our main character, Melanie is super smart, a lover of greek mythology, and intuitive when it comes to figuring out what she really is. There were more great storylines, the mad scientist wanting to cut children's brains apart, and the stone faced soldier trying to hold shit together. Overall, this was a great read. The ending was a bit gloomy, but what do you expect with the zombie apocalypse? 

5/5 stars


What comes with every great book... a movie.

Tor.com released this announcement:

Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton to Star in The Girl with All the Gifts Movie

M.R. Carey will adapt his 2014 novel The Girl with All the Gifts for film, The Hollywood Reporterannounced today. Retitled as She Who Brings Gifts, the movie will star Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton, and Paddy Considine, and will be directed by Colm McCarthy (Sherlock, Doctor Who).
These stars will likely play the three central adult roles in the film: We’re assuming Arterton is idealistic young teacher Miss Justineau, who must teach special children in the wake of a worldwide fungal infection; Considine will bring the muscle as Sergeant Ed Parks, terrified and disgusted by his charges; and Close must be Doctor Caroline Caldwell, who will sacrifice as many test subjects as she needs to in order to find a cure.
But what about Melanie, the girl who will bring gifts? The casting directors will probably be looking for an unknown to play the precocious Melanie, who knows that something is wrong with her but also yearns for love and acceptance. In a press release, producer Angus Lamont talked a little bit about the film’s emotional core:
Melanie’s story is a completely unique take on a much loved genre, seamlessly blending together a lonely child’s search for love and family with a terrifying journey where she controls the fate of the last adult humans on earth.
Filming will begin in the UK in May 2015; no release date has been announced yet.





Saturday, October 31, 2015

Bow to the King of horror Josh Malerman!



Interviewing Josh Malerman awakened the frightened 80's child within me. So many things that I had tucked away, never to think of again because they scared the crap out of me, Josh reminded me of during his interview. I mean, it's been nearly 30 years of me telling myself Freddy Kruger wasn't real, and I almost had myself convinced. 

Let's see what Josh had to say about reading, writing and zombies!


1. It’s the zombie apocalypse and writers have got to stick together to survive. Pick 3 authors to be on your zombie apocalypse killing team and tell us why you’d choose them.
Josh says: Jonathan Maberry is a no brainer. He’s an expert in the field and I’ve got a feeling he actually acts these scenarios out at home. You know how there are Civil War re-enactors? Jonathan might be like that… only with a war of the future… a zombie war. I’d also try to stick close to Brian Keene. The Rising was brutal, so he’s probably imagined scenarios equal to or worse than those that we’d encounter out there. He might be scary to team up with. Like, he might hand me a weapon and say, “Do it.” And I’d be like, “Do what?” And he’d shake his head and say, “Never mind. I’ll do it.” And what about John Russo? Fella wrote Night of the Living Dead, for crying out loud. I met him recently at a horror convention here in Michigan. Super nice guy. I think I’d like that; a kindhearted zombie aficionado on my team. That would make me feel… human.



2. If Stephen King and J. K. Rowling were drowning in a river, who would you save first? And now you have to tell us why.
Josh says: You said “first,” so that means I get to save Stephen King and then valiantly leap back into the river and save J. K. Rowling. I think we gotta go with Stephen King first. He’s older than her. And he hurt his leg or hip, you know. So yeah, save him, then dive back in. Then after I saved her I’d probably fall back exhausted and you would need to ask them this: “So you were both just saved from drowning in a river by Josh Malerman. But he got so tired from the heroic experience that he needed saving himself. Which one of you saves him?”
Meredith says: Thank you for picking up on that! Most skip over the "first" part and leave one of my favorite authors to the murky waters.


3. We authors are voracious readers. My TBR list is approximately 8 miles long. What are you currently reading?
Josh says: I’ve made the mistake of beginning a few books at once. I usually like reading one whole, moving on, etc. But as it goes, I’m reading Kathe Koja’s Bad Brains. It’s mountaintop brilliant. Strange, nightmarish, very realistic in a fun way, and refreshing. Jon Skipp’s The Art of Horrible People is an incredible short story collection that sums up his enormous personality and brain. And Richard Laymon’s Blood Games is a thrill ride. And yeah, my TBR pile is frightening, too, but I’m kind of making a dent recently. Philip K. Dick’s Ubik is next.



4. What is the one book that you could read a million times and never get bored with?
Josh says: A book that I’d love to read again is Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. She pulled something off with this one akin to a magic trick. Sleight of hand.



5. Last year my favorite read was The Martian by Andy Weir. What was your best read of 2014?
Josh says: I had something of a tie between John F.D. Taff’s The End in all Beginnings and Stephen Graham Jones’s After the People Lights Have Gone Off. Both of these are collections, and they inspired me to write one of my own. I can’t say enough about these two authors. If you have a single horror bone in your body, they’ll both tickle it until you’re blue. Then purple. Then dead. Then undead. Then, when you rise up out of the casket at your funeral you can say (to everybody in attendance): “Where are my books? Who has my books?”



6. This year my favorite read has been The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2015?
Josh says: The Casualties by Nick Holdstock. I got an early look at this one with a chance to blurb for it. It’s magnificent. I’ll say no more. Check it out.



7. You’re a writer by day and a superhero by night. (Take off those geeky glasses Superman) What’s your superpower?
Josh says: You ever see “The Four of Us are Dying”? It’s a great Twilight Zone episode where this fella can change his face to look like anybody else. So… if a man just died, say, this guy can assume his identity straight off, and so on. I’d love that. I’d love to see how different my interactions with people might be if I wore different faces. And I love to see what doors I could slip through if I was the spitting image of somebody else. Man, you could go on for years like that. Think of it like a wild road trip. But instead of being away from home for a long time, you’re away from your true self.




8. I have writing spots all over my house: my desk, my couch, the patio, and my bed. Where’s your favorite spot to write?
Josh says: I’ve got a great office. Sweet scary posters. News clippings about Bird Box, letters from Mom, photos on the wall. But, for no good reason, I always end up writing somewhere else. The front porch is great. Especially if there’s a storm. The problem with coffee houses is that usually it’s poppy modern music and it’s hard to write a gripping freaky scene when kids are singing lullabies on the radio.
Meredith says: I can see how that would be a problem.



9. We’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but there are some scenes I’ve written that really stick out in my mind. Tell us your favorite scene from one of your books.
Josh says: I wrote a book called Pest in which a fella senses that he’s losing his zest for life, then decides it must be a “monster” that is doing this to him. So… he sets out to catch the thing. That’s one of my favorites; watching Edgar arm his apartment, essentially trying to catch depression in a bear trap. I’ve got another one called A Mix up at the Zoo where this fella Dirk works at both the slaughterhouse and the zoo in town. His job is to give tours and his mind is all muddled so one day he accidentally confuses his jobs; slaughters all the animals at the zoo. It’s a colorful scene. And the attic birth scene in Bird Box rolled out of my fingertips like sand. One of the smoothest writing experiences of my life.



10. Sometimes a little too much of myself slips into my characters. Which one of your characters most resembles you?
Josh says: I’ve got a novella out there called Ghastle and Yule about warring horror filmmakers who try to outshine one another (to a bad end.) Gordon Ghastle is a somewhat flashy old-school fella who is going for the Spielberg holy-cow movie making. And Allan Yule is a bearded rogue who loathes industry of any kind and makes movies that features no human beings at all. As I say on my instagram, I’m equal parts Ghastle and Yule. The guy who’s going for an undeniably shiny work of art and the guy who doesn’t care if he fails in that, as long as it’s art in the end.



11. I’ve always got tunes rocking while I’m writing. Tell us five songs that are on your playlist.
Josh says: I love horror movie soundtracks. I listen to them all the time, not just while writing. We’ll have guests and I’ll say, “Tell me, Bruce and Donna, have you ever heard… Chopping Mall?” As goes a playlist, here are five of my favorites (try them out yourself): Creepshow, Under the Skin, Vertigo, Friday the 13th, and Cat’s Eye. But really, I love a hundred of them. The horror movie soundtrack plays like a bad kid who got his hands on classical music. “What does it sound like if I do this to it?”
Meredith says: I made the mistake of listening to Isaac Marion's playlist. But I said to myself, "this is Josh Malerman! I must listen to his playlist and get a taste for it." And then the soundtrack to Friday the 13th starts playing, and I'm reminded why I still have to sleep with a light on at night when I'm home alone. So I skip on over to Cat's Eye soundtrack... Let's just say my power bill significantly increased for a few weeks.



12. If you could tell an aspiring author one tiny tidbit of information, what would you say?
Josh says: I’d tell them not to be afraid of writing a bad book. Start it, explode with it, throw up all over yourself, and finish it. Worry about it being “good” or “bad” some other time. Think of it this way: would you rather have a crappy rough draft that you can fix? Or have no draft at all? I’d warn a young writer about Inspiration. Inspiration is a monster. It makes you wait for him. I’m just outside! It says. I’m close! And in the meantime you wait so long you end up with nothing on the page. So let’s all forget about Inspiration and just write whether or not we feel like it. Talk about what you write, talk about it too much, talk about it all the time. Give yourself phantom deadlines; I gotta get this story done on THIS date. OR ELSE! And meet those deadlines. Interview yourself. Hold conversations with imaginary editors. Place your own invisible books on an invisible shelf. Live delusional. But write yourself into existence, book by book. And remember that all books are words, and that all words are letters first.
Meredith says: nothing, I have nothing to say. That was the best advice ever.


Get your copy of Birdbox

Connect with Josh





About Josh:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Josh Malerman is an American author and the lead singer for the rock band The High Strung.[1][2] Malerman currently lives in Ferndale, Michigan.[3]

Malerman first began writing while in the fifth grade, where he began writing about a space-traveling dog.[4] Since then he has written several unpublished novels and his debut novel Bird Box was published in the United Kingdom and United States in 2014 to much critical acclaim.[5][6][7]