Meet the New Geek Girl in Town!

I'm so excited to present the first book in my brand new young YA spy/mystery adventure series. WHITE KNIGHTS features the new geek girl in town, Angel Sinclair. For those of you familiar with my Lexi Carmichael series, this book is a spin-off. WHITE KNIGHTS released yesterday! Lexi and Slash make an appearance if you need a fix before NO REGRETS releases on January 8! I hope you'll check it out! This book is appropriate for teens, young adults and the young at heart.

Here's the cover blurb:

Geek Girls Rule

My name is Angel Sinclair. I’m the youngest senior at Excalibur Academy for the Technologically Gifted and Talented in Washington, DC. I was pushed ahead a year because of my high IQ and considerable prowess behind the keyboard, making me an outcast even among my own peers.

I’ve been looking for my dad all my life. A brilliant mathematician and cryptographer, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances when I was eighteen months old. Although my mom tells me I must put him in my past, it only makes me more determined to find out what happened to him. When weird accidents start happening at my school and the vice principal is involved in a deadly incident, I don’t see it as a coincidence. After launching my own investigation, with the aid of an unexpected set of allies calling themselves the White Knights, I discover a threat far greater than I ever could have imagined.

I could take my discoveries to the authorities, but my own investigative methods would be at risk. Can anyone say hacking? No, it’s up to me to set things right. My objectives are straightforward: clear the name of the vice principal, learn the truth about my father, and stay alive. In other words, save the day and try not to look too much like a dork while doing it.

WHITE KNIGHTS is available across all platforms AND is available in print, too!! Just in time for Christmas! Yay!! Click HERE for links to the book!

Julie Moffett is a bestselling author and writes in the genres of mystery, young adult, historical romance and paranormal romance. She has won numerous awards, including the 2014 Mystery & Mayhem Award for Best YA/New Adult Mystery, the prestigious 2014 HOLT Award for Best Novel with Romantic Elements, a HOLT Merit Award for Best Novel by a Virginia Author (twice!), the 2016 Award of Excellence, a PRISM Award for Best Romantic Time-Travel AND Best of the Best Paranormal Books of 2002, and the 2011 EPIC Award for Best Action/Adventure Novel. She has also garnered additional nominations for the Bookseller's Best Award, Daphne du Maurier Award and the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence. 

Finding Inspiration

Where do you find your inspiration? What motivates you to succeed and exceed? 

Inspiration is described as a feeling of animation, arousal, or feeling infused with spirit and enthusiasm to do something. So, where do you find your inspiration? Here's where I find mine.

(1)  Exercise. It sounds corny, but a walk outside can clear the mind and refresh it. Yoga, Zumba, swimming, walking, lifting weights, and even meditation can inspire, too.

(2)  Take Photographs. I don’t have a fancy camera, every picture I take is with my phone. But I love taking all kinds of pictures. It helps me look at things through a different lens. Sometimes a new perspective is all you need to be inspired.

(3)  Be Creative. Draw, paint, play music, sing, dance or write. Artistic expression can be very freeing and often opens your mind to a variety of life’s possibilities.

(4)  Give It a Shot. Try something you always thought you couldn’t do, but always wished you could.

(5)  See the World Through the Eyes of a Child. Hang out with a kid for a day. Most children have a straightforward and honest view of the world. Without responsibilities weighing them down, their carefree attitude inspires fun. So, ride that rollercoaster, splash in the puddles, and smell every single flower on your walk.

(6)  Travel. See how other people live, eat and work. Experience the wonder of another world and culture. There is a lot of inspiration to be had there.

(7)  Let Go. Decide to leave behind those people, behaviors or things that don’t work for you anymore. Sometimes things are out of your hands and you have to make peace with that. Spend your energy on reflecting and enjoying your accomplishments and the relationships that are working.

(8)  Stop Being a Perfectionist. Celebrate your messiness, mistakes and flaws. Hooray! You are human. We love you just the way you are.

So, tell me, where do you find your inspiration?

NO REGRET, the 10^th book in Julie's fun, geeky Lexi Carmichael series, releases on January 8, 2018 and is available for pre-order across all online platforms! Her new young adult spy/adventure WHITE KNIGHTS drops on December 14, 2017. Wohooo!

Check out the details on all of Julie's books at her website here.

Embracing Change

I don’t particularly enjoy characters that don’t change. 

I don’t understand the appeal of say, James Bond. There’s not much character growth with that guy and frankly, I find him kind of boring. (Obviously, considering the success of the movie franchise, this opinion of mine is in the minority.)

I like characters that develop along the way. Those are the ones I can’t stop thinking about. Characters who have an internal, emotional journey that is just as compelling as whatever external adventure they’re having.

I suspect that the reason I, and so many others, love change so much in fictional characters is that it can be such a challenge to achieve in real life.

Professionally, there’s nothing more rewarding for me than hearing from readers about how much they love how the characters in my CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN series have developed. It’s something I’m always working on and I just love that their character arcs resonate with fans.

Personally, I’m easily bored when I find myself being stagnant. I’m always working on ways to stretch myself.  I’ll give you two examples of how I’ve changed in the past year:

1) I’ve become a beach person.

I was so NOT a beach person that even when I moved to the city with the Best Beach in the U.S. I didn’t go there for the first ten months.

But after listening to a local friend rhapsodize about their love of the sand and sea, I decided that maybe my long-held prejudices should be reexamined.  I took myself to the beach a couple of times and fell in love. Now if I don’t get to dip my toes in the surf at least three times a week, I feel deprived.

2) Twice a week I have appointments outside my comfort zone.

I’m a quiet, shy, extremely reserved introvert who thrives on constant worry and has a compulsive need to plan ahead. To combat these natural tendencies (not that there’s anything wrong with any of them) I’ve been taking improvisational comedy classes.

Not surprisingly, I’m not a good performer. But surprisingly, I’ve made more progress than I would have thought I was capable of. I’m still quiet and shy and reserved, but the lessons I’ve learned on stage about worrying less and being in the moment more have served me well in other areas of my life.

What about you? What kinds of character change do you love? Have you made any changes in your life recently?

Written by JB Lynn www.jblynn.com

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"If you love series such as Evanovich's Plum and Bond's Body Movers, you'll love Confessions of A Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman."

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To Series or Not To Series...

by Janis Patterson

Yes, that is the question! And a fairly knotty one it is. There are those who say you can’t make money writing today unless you do a series. There are others who say that series are repetitive and creativity-killers. There are still others who bore easily and on the whole find series a great bore.

Then there are people like me who believe a little of all of the above. Of course, like the Red Queen I have been known to believe three impossible things before breakfast!

Seriously, I was never a fan of series since I outgrew my passion for Nancy Drew… though I still enjoy one of her books every now and then. As I bore easily, I always want something new, new people, new places, new situations… All of my novels since the beginning a couple of decades ago have been standalones with no crossover characters.

So why am I now writing not only one, but TWO series?

I have no idea.

I have always been a pantser who has characters walk in and start dictating to me instead of being one of those lucky ones who can outline stories and create personality sheets delineating each character in the book. They are creators; a lot of the time I feel more like a simple scribe.

My first series is about Flora Melkiot, an elderly widow of a jewelry store magnate who likes to live life just as she wants and is convinced that she could be good at anything if she just puts her mind to it. Usually she is, too, despite the fact that others regard her as a menace and a meddler. One police detective called her the ‘dark side of Miss Marple.’

Flora first appeared as a minor character in EXERCISE IS MURDER. Once the book was finished and out, though, she refused to leave me alone and – Flora-like – she eventually got her way. Of course. Her new adventure is profiled in MURDER IN DEATH’S WAITING ROOM, where after what she called a minor traffic accident (only a broken wrist) she has been put by her painfully conventional daughter into a rehab facility… against her will. Of course there are murders, and it’s a lovely romp. Her next book will be called MURDER AT FIVE TO ONE and set in Las Vegas and she is nagging me mercilessly to get started on it.

MURDER IN DEATH’S WAITING ROOM released this week in ebook format at the four major retailers. There will be a paperback version available as well, as soon as I can get past some technical difficulties.

I can’t give in to Flora now, though, because I am halfway through a brand new series start called A KILLING AT TARA TWO. This is about a contract archaeologist named Dr. Rachel Petrie (no relation, as she has to tell everyone, to the famous turn-of-the-last-century Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie) who is currently on the dig of an old plantation house in Alabama. She is much less pushy than Flora, but she too is urging me none-too-gently to get her series going. As a contract archaeologist she can work anywhere, and I already have ideas for stories in Peru, Boston and Bavaria.

In addition to this I am contracted for a couple of romances as my Janis Susan May persona. These are standalones – at least, I think they are. With my demanding characters one can never be sure. Plus, a darling friend of mine is enthusiastically urging me to write my memoirs as I have led such a varied and 'interesting' life. I haven't told her yet that I can't do that because some of the statutes of limitations have yet to run out!

So many stories, so little time. Sigh.

To Series or Not to Series...by Kathy Ivan

Sometimes as a writer, I’ll get an idea for a story, and immediately want to write it.  (Fitting it into my hectic schedule is a whole other ballgame.)  There’s enough of a story for it to be what’s known as a standalone book, meaning there will only be the one book which doesn’t connect with any other books that author has written.  No other books will come from this story idea.  And that is perfectly fine. 

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But other times, I will get a kernel of a story.  When I start thinking about it, and begin writing, there’s so much going on, not only with the main characters (the hero and heroine), but with the secondary characters, I feel the need to tell their stories too.  Some of them have stories that are equally as interesting as the people you are writing about—so much so they almost steal the story away from your hero and heroine. 

When that happens, it almost becomes imperative to write an ongoing series.  Writing a series can be done in many ways, but the two most common are:

1.  The hero and/or heroine will have multiple books about them.  This individual’s story arc will carry across from one book to the next (a perfect example is Julie Moffett’s Lexi Carmichael series).  These books revolve around the main character, i.e., Lexi, and her many adventures, including solving a mystery in each book, as well as surviving the ups and downs of maintaining a romantic relationship.  This works extremely well for cozy mystery series.

2.  Another example would be the series where there are cross-over characters, but each book has a different hero and heroine (or hero/hero, heroine/heroine depending on the genre).  An example of this would be my New Orleans Connection Series.  Each book can be read as a standalone book—meaning you don’t have to have read any of the other books in the series in order to read and hopefully enjoy any single book.  The characters will cross over into other books in the series, and readers seem to love when that happens.  It’s like catching up with old friends you came to care about in other books. 

These are just two examples of writing series versus standalones.  Neither one is right or wrong, or better or worse than the other.  It’s all up to the writer, and ultimately the reader, to decide their reading preference.  And that’s part of what I love about writing (and reading).  There’s a vast amount of choices out there—all you have to do is pick one and dive in. 

Happy Reading! 

Kathy is busy writing her New Orleans Connection Series, a romantic suspense series, set in and around New Orleans.  Her latest release, Deadly Justice, is available now.  Her next book, Wicked Obsession, releases in September 2016.  For more information on Kathy’s books, click on:  www.kathyivan.com/books.html  

New Beginnings

Today is a release day for my latest book, STACKING THE DECK, and I'm nervous. It's my seventh published book, so you'd think this would be old hat by now, but it’s a lot like my very first release day because it’s the start of a brand new series (Redemption Club). 

Something Old, Something New

I feel as nervous and excited as a new bride, committing to this new series. Writing these books was certainly a labor of love. It's a new start, a new commitment to bring the romance and the suspense into my readers' lives. I'm remaining true to my romantic suspense audience and bringing the creepy thrills and psychological twists I’ve promised them, but in a new way. My previous series (The Mindhunters) was centered on an agency that hunted serial killers. In this series, I wanted to get away from that premise and bring something new to the table. So I created a secret, underground club that barters in dark deeds and evil thrills.

Something Borrowed

In this club, bad guys can borrow favors (illegal ones) and must repay in kind at a later date, for someone else who would like an alibi and a despicable favor. There is an old, obscure TV show from the eighties called Stingray, and it involved a man (who called himself Ray) who claimed favors from people he'd helped in the past, in order to help other people. It was the first instance I can remember where I came across the "pay it forward" concept. I loved the idea, except I put an evil twist on it.

Something Blue

Okay, I got nothing here. But did you see the cover? It’s kind of blue-purple. *grin*

How do you feel about new beginnings? Nervous? Excited? Got any tips for dealing with the fear?

STACKING THE DECK

(Redemption Club, Book 1)

In a city built for sin, the Redemption Club is a secret society that exists to fulfill a person’s darkest desires—including murder games—for a price.

Raised off the grid by an anti-government group, Skye Hamilton puts her resourcefulness and survival training to good use taking the dangerous tasks nobody else wants. When a job searching for a runaway teen brings Redemption Club members gunning for her, putting those she cares about in danger, she’ll risk everything to fight the enemy. Including her heart.

Jared Bennigan, Las Vegas bodyguard to the elite, accepted his latest job hoping it would lead to his missing sister. All evidence points to his client as the last person to have seen her, but he’s not the only one looking for a woman who disappeared. Skye’s enticing blue eyes contradict her tough, distrusting exterior, revealing an intriguing combination of vulnerability and intelligence. But those eyes are watching his client—through her rifle’s scope.

To find both missing women, Jared will need to convince Skye—who plays a wicked game of hard-to-get—to be his partner. And with the Redemption Club intent on making Skye the prey in a human hunting expedition, her skills, and her trust in Jared, will be put to the test. It’s the ultimate game of survival of the fittest. But who will win?

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ABOUT ANNE MARIE:

Anne Marie has always been fascinated by people—inside and out—which led to degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Psychology, and Counseling.  Her passion for understanding the human race is now satisfied by her roles as mother, wife, daughter, sister, and award-winning author of romantic suspense.  

She writes to reclaim her sanity.

Find ways to connect with Anne Marie at www.AnneMarieBecker.com. There, sign up for her newsletter to receive the latest information regarding books, appearances, and giveaways.