RACHEL CAINE BOOK TOUR!

GHOST TOWN (NAL Hardcover; October 26, 2010; $17.99) is the next exciting book in Rachel Caine’s New York Times bestselling Morganville Vampires series, and the first to be published in hardcover.

October 26: Murder By the Book at 6:30 PM

2342 Bissonnet St.

Houston, TX 77005

October 27: Mystery Bookstore at 7:30 PM

1036-C Broxton Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90024

October 28: Books, Inc. at 7:00 PM

Not Your Mother's Book Club

Town & Country Village

855 El Camino Real #74

Palo Alto, CA 94301

October 29: Powell's (Cedar Hills Crossing) at 7:00 PM

3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.

Beaverton, OR 97005

October 30: Third Place Books at 6:30 PM

17171 Bothell Way NE

Lake Forest Park, WA 98155

October 31^st: Uncle Hugo’s at 4:00 PM

2864 Chicago Ave South

Minneapolis, MN 55407

November 1^st: Anderson’s Book Shop at 7:00 PM

5112 Main Street

Downer’s Grove, IL 60515-4601

November 2^nd: Borders at 6:00 PM

Exton Square Mall

298 Exton Square

Exton, PA 19341

 

November 4^th: Barnes & Noble at 6:00 PM

*With Heather Brewer, author of the Vladimir Tod series!

1442 Turner-McCall Blvd

Rome, GA 30161

November 6^th: Barnes & Noble at 2:00 PM

1430 Plaza Place

Southlake, TX 76092

November 20^th: Borders at 2:00 PM

2190 N. Rainbow Blvd

Las Vegas, NV 89108

Lives of Characters

Enter to win a copy of Blue Bells in Scotland.


Just comment on this post. You do need to be a member of the Night Owl Reviews newsletter or sign-up today. Leave the first bit of your email address that you used to sign-up along with your comment. USA Shipping only. Contest ends 10/29/2010

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Lives of Characters

Contrasting lives. It is a counter-melody running through Blue Bells of Scotland, a novel about time travel, switching places, and the Battle of Bannockburn in medieval Scotland. The story revolves around two men who are, apart from their identical looks, complete opposites. Shawn is a self-centered, womanizing musician of the twenty-first century. Niall is a devout Highland warrior in the dawn of the fourteenth, ready to sacrifice everything for his country and those he loves. Shawn and Niall, however, switch places and end up caught in one another’s lives. Through the people around them, each learns what the other is like. Neither is impressed. Worse yet, to the dismay of both, they find they have many similarities. They’re both brash and over-confident; both have energy, drive, determination, and a sense of humor, and had they lived the same lives, they might not be so different, after all.

But Shawn grew up in a modern world of opportunities, choices, gentle parenting, and high personal expectations for happiness. In the face of tragedy, he decides to get all he can out of life and live for himself, not selflessly, a trait he associates with gullibility and getting yourself killed. He buries himself in parties, gambling, drinking, women, and pursuing music with passion and energy. He spends sleepless nights in a flurry of activity, arranging music and marketing himself and his orchestra. Through vision, determination, and hard work, he has lifted the orchestra to heights of which they never dreamed. But he largely regards it as ‘his’ orchestra, and knows little about anyone in it, not even his best friends.

Niall, by contrast, has grown up in the harsh world of medieval Scotland: hard work, hard discipline, famine, cold, disease. He takes hard physical punishment and Death is a regular visitor. He has spent his youth being educated in languages, music, and warfare, knowing he will marry the laird’s daughter and one day take on the weighty responsibility of his castle and all its people. He takes his duties to these people seriously. He has grown up with them, knows their lives, their families, their histories, and cares deeply about each one. He remembers the births of the young boys he now trains to fight. When the thieving MacDougalls steal their cattle, he is at the forefront retrieving them so his people will not go hungry. Like Shawn, Niall has lost a loved one to violent death. Unlike Shawn, it motivates him to work harder and sacrifice more to make a better world so that his own children never suffer as he has. He takes his father’s selflessness and sacrifice as a model of how a man behaves.

I have always found the study of lives—real or fictional—worthwhile. An examination of how others live, their choices, and the repercussions of those choices helps us chart our own course more wisely. I have really enjoyed writing Shawn and Niall’s contrasting lives and exploring the way our surroundings and our own choices interact to create who we become.

----------------About The Author----------------

Laura Vosika grew up in the military, visiting castles in England, pig fests in Germany, and the historic sites of America’s east coast.

She earned a degree in music, and worked for many years as a freelance musician, music teacher, band director, and instructor in private music lessons on harp, piano, winds, and brass.

Laura is the mother of 7 boys and 2 girls, and lives in Minnesota.

Her latest book is Blue Bells of Scotland: The Trilogy.

You can visit her website at www.bluebellstrilogy.com.

Scaring the Relatives

Enter to win a PDF copy of Shadow Fox by Ashley J. Barnard.

Just comment on this post. You do need to be a member of the Night Owl Reviews newsletter or sign-up today. Leave the first bit of your email address that you used to sign-up along with your comment. Contest ends 10/8/2010

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Scaring the Relatives by Ashley J. Barnard

One of my older sisters recently compared me to Giselle from the movie Enchanted. It’s a fair comparison; I sing when I clean the house, I love animals, I’m a hopeless romantic and I have a bright and sunny disposition. I want everyone to love me so it’s shocking to me when I annoy someone. The biggest difference between Giselle and me is that Giselle doesn’t write dark contemporary fantasy with heroin use, violence, occasional S&M and a liberal sprinkling of the F-bomb throughout. And if she did write it, she’d probably use a pen name and would die before letting anyone read it.

While I don’t use a pen name, I used to be very private about my writing. I didn’t share early drafts of Shadow Fox and its sequels with many people, and when I did give it to them I would worry about offending them or changing their perception of me. These early writings were very much in-your-face; I hadn’t yet learned any subtly as a writer whatsoever, and so nothing was left to the imagination. I would force you to see every tiny detail of a threesome or a homoerotic encounter, whether you wanted to or not. And then I would worry. Uh-oh. They’re going to think I’m this perverted freak. If some of them did think this they were kind enough to spare me their revelation. I think I would have been devastated otherwise. I was 24 and barely had a sense of who I really was, with absolutely no foundation with which to say, Think your worst; I am who I am.

Now, at 36, I am finally seeing Shadow Fox getting published. It’s gone through several drafts, and while it’s still racy and often graphic, I feel like I’ve reached a good balance between tastefulness and edginess. It can always be improved upon, but I’m glad to say that I am proud of it. I refuse to be ashamed of it; so much of it reflects my inner being and I’ve finally allowed myself to love that part of me. I might warn someone that they are probably going to be surprised, maybe even shocked, but I will never again say to someone, “Oh, you can’t read this. You’ll hate it and/or me.” I’ll allow them to make that choice for themselves. The state of being offended is a choice as well. I have no control of this, and I’m finally at the point where I no longer care. If someone chooses to be offended by my books, I won’t hold it against them. I was tested just recently when my mother-in-law read the first chapter on my website. I think I actually felt the earth shift on its axis, and all she could say in response was, “I like the reference to St. Louis [where she lives].” With the F-bomb in the very first paragraph, there’s no escape. But I was okay with this. In fact, I was a little smug. I think I’m ready to show the world that there is so much more to me than singing with a broom in hand or trying to make everyone happy. Now, I’m not entirely reformed. I still can’t think about my dad reading it without squirming. To him I’ll always be his little girl, and it will never be easy for him to reconcile this adult not-so-innocent me to the child me. But if that’s my only hang-up, I’m doing great.

What I hope friends and relatives will discover upon reading my books is that I’m still me, the sweet and happy Ashley they’ve always known, but with many more facets to my personality that actually make me a more interesting person. I hope that they won’t come out of it feeling deceived. I really am sweet and happy. But I’m also very passionate, and delving into the shadow of the human psyche is something I enjoy doing. And just because I write about heroin use or threesomes doesn’t mean I partake in them personally, just like listening to Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson doesn’t make me a Satanist. It’s hard to avoid trying to pigeonhole people. When my best friend from high school and I reunited on Facebook after 20 years, I’ll be the first to admit that her tattoos and her own death-metal band threw me. But she has the one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know, and she routinely calls on angels to help ease the suffering of those less fortunate than she.

By the time this blog posts, my debut novel will be for sale with Champagne Books, and I recently found out they are publishing the two sequels within the next twelve months. I’m ready to shed my chrysalis and let you see the butterfly that was hiding there all along. Don’t worry: that sweet caterpillar that likes to snuggle is still there. But these wings are ready to take you for the ride of your life.

Ashley J. Barnard
www.ashleyjbarnard.com

You can purchase a copy of Ashley's book by clicking here!
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