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#wordmongering for the win! :) And Seeds of Discovery is free!
I know I’m supposed to be putting up a Twitter Tuesday blog. It hasn’t been the week for blogging for me, though. I have been busy writing — the rough draft of Thorns of Decision is complete, and I am in the process of finding beta readers to help me begin the hard work of shaping it into something actually readable. 🙂
In the meantime, for today and tomorrow (March 13 & 14), Seeds of Discovery is free on Amazon! Grab a copy for your Kindle, or Kindle App on your computer or smartphone.
If you happen to have a different kind of e-reader, please know that Seeds of Discovery is DRM-free, and can be quickly adapted to a different format for free, using a program like Calibre (which is also free). Once you convert it, you can download it onto your Nook, Kobo, Sony Reader, or whatever you have. 🙂
If you need help figuring it out, please let me know.
Roots of Insight will be available for sale in all formats sometime in mid-April, and Thorns of Decision will also be on all formats from the first day it’s released, on June 1, 2012.
If you are interested in being a beta reader/early reviewer for Thorns of Decision, please leave a comment or e-mail me! 🙂
Sample Sunday (#SampleSunday)
Happy Sunday everyone! If you’re looking for new and entertaining reads, head on over to Twitter, and search for the hashtag #SampleSunday. You’ll find all kinds of interesting stuff every week. 🙂
Here’s my first February contribution. 🙂 An excerpt from Seeds of Discovery, which is on sale for just 99 cents through Valentine’s Day at Amazon!
Don’t forget, during the month of love, to spread some love to your favorite authors by leaving them reviews on any review site you frequent, especially Amazon, Shelfari, and Goodreads. Authors appreciate every single review, even if it seems like they already have many.
When she reached Maggie’s house that afternoon, Zander’s familiar truck was sitting next to the curb. When she pulled up behind it to park, she could see the outline of Zander’s head through the rear window; he must have arrived just before her. She pulled her keys out of the ignition and then hesitated, suddenly nervous about seeing him. She took an unnecessary minute to check her cell phone for text messages she might have missed. Small words flashed in the corner of the screen, “NO SERVICE.” Quinn sighed. One bad thing about living in a small mountain town was the unreliable cell phone service.
Finally composed, she took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the door opened on its own. Zander was standing there, grinning.
“Hey, Quinn,” he said, reaching for her hand to help her climb out.
“Uh, hi, Zander. Thanks.”
“Sure,” Zander smiled cheerfully, but he didn’t start walking to the house. He stood there for a long moment, looking like he wasn’t sure what to say.
The nervousness that Quinn had started feeling in the car was growing.
Finally, Zander spoke.
“Quinn?”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“O….kay?”
“Will you … I mean, would you like … would you like to go to the Valentine dance with me?” he said the last part in a rush, in a hurry to get the words out.
Quinn was stunned. Did she want to go to the Valentine dance? With Zander? Maybe she did. “Um, I can’t dance, you know,” she stalled, trying to regain her composure.
Zander chuckled, “Neither can I. It could still be fun, though.”
“Um, okay…” shoving her hands in her pockets so he wouldn’t see them shaking, she choked out her answer. “Sure.”
She watched Zander’s eyes widen, “You’ll go with me?”
“Yes, I’ll go with you.”
Zander’s face lit up with a smile that did strange things to her insides… She had to work to catch her breath as she walked with him up to the porch.
Sample Sunday (#SampleSunday)
It’s Sunday again, and today I’m sharing another excerpt.
This time, it’s from Seeds of Discovery, which is the first book in the Dusk Gate Chronicles. This scene is the first moment that Quinn actually decides to go for it — she closes her eyes, and steps into the nothing over a broken bridge.
Quinn gasped. The broken end of the half-missing structure was no longer broken, and it no longer ended. Instead of the disintegrating, broken concrete-and-stone edge, a wide stone walkway arced across the entire river. Cautiously, she put her other foot forward. The stone and mortar that should not have been there held firm. She spun around, ready to run back down the stone steps, but the sight stopped her cold.
The sun that should have been directly in front of her had moved, and now dipped below the tree line far to her left, casting strangely long shadows that cut obtrusively across the landscape. Even in the fading light of the irregular dusk, she could see that everything was different. Where the rocky riverbank should have sloped up to the highway, there was now a vast expanse of trees and open fields. Lights from unfamiliar buildings glimmered and sparked to life in the distance.
Slowly, Quinn let her eyes scan the area around her. The river was no longer a rocky, mountain creek underneath the bridge. Now, a wide expanse of water flowed lazily between the bush-covered banks on either side. Downstream, the river continued uninterrupted to the southwest but seemed to widen significantly just past a break in the tree line. The view upstream was the most shocking. Instead of sloping up into the familiar peaks of the mountains she had seen all her life, a long valley spread out before her, sparsely populated by stands of trees and varieties of grass and wildflowers. In the distance where the horizon began to merge with the night sky, Quinn could just make out the outline of a thick forest.
“Now you’ve done it.” The sound of the voice below her jolted her like an electric shock. In the same instant that she registered the frowning face of William Rose, Quinn stumbled and fell down the steps at the end of the bridge, right into the bushes.
In case that interested you, Seeds of Discovery is on sale at Amazon right now, for just 99 cents. You can also read the first three chapters of this book by clicking on the Dusk Gate Chronicles link at the top of this page. 🙂
Sample Sunday (#SampleSunday)
Happy Sunday, everyone. 🙂 Thanks for reading and following along. For those who don’t know, on Sundays, on Twitter, you can follow along with the hashtag #SampleSunday as authors post samples and excerpts of their work. It’s a great chance to find some new authors you like and find fun new things to read.
I’ve decided I’ll start participating in a new way, too, by posting #SampleSunday excerpts on my blog. 🙂
Here’s the first one …
An excerpt from the middle of Roots of Insight.
She stood there, still as a statue, consumed half by a paralyzing mixture of terror and anger, and the other half by another emotion entirely. Though she was rigid and unmoving, his arms still wound around her back, holding her tight. “We can’t think like that, Quinn. We don’t know what’s going on; let’s not make this worse by jumping to conclusions. Let’s assume, for now, that we’re okay. That she’s hidden us only for our safety, and we’ll find out what this is all about later.”
She swallowed, trying to get past the fear and aggravation. Her fingers trembled. It wasn’t working, trapped here in the dark and silence.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured against her hair.
She snapped. “Since when are you so Susie Sunshine about everything?”
He was absolutely still for just a second, before his entire body started shaking, in great, heaving motions coming from his chest. She was startled, confused, and then the silence was broken by his snorting, and the laughter overtook her, too.
Once she started laughing, she couldn’t stop, and it was clear that neither could he. They both stood there shaking, trying to keep quiet, trying to stop, but every time one of them calmed down enough to take a breath, the other would snicker, and it would start all over again. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, her stomach was aching, and she could hardly breathe, but the laughter kept coming.
Finally, finally, she managed to pull in a breath at the same time he did. They clutched each other’s arms tightly, trying to regain control. They hysterical giggles kept threatening to break through, but at last they were calm.
William softly cleared his throat. “Only one of us can freak out at a time.”
She nodded. “Agreed.”
And then, somehow, his lips were against hers. Softly, at first, his bottom lip grazed her top one. She knew, in the part of her brain that was still capable of rational thought, that she should have been surprised by this, but it wasn’t thought that drove her now. Her mouth responded on its own, as did her hands, reaching around him, clutching the back of his thin shirt.
He pulled her body closer with one hand, the other finding the back of her neck, under her hair, his fingers gently caressing, twining in her hair …
There was a loud thud directly overhead. They jerked apart, as if shocked by a jolt of electricity. After an eternity, his hand found hers again, squeezing it tight as they listened to the footsteps crossing the floor above.
Don’t forget, you can always check out more samples from the Dusk Gate Chronicles by clicking on the menu bar above. You can also check out the books on Amazon by clicking on the pictures of the book covers to your right. Happy Sunday! 🙂
Launch Day Celebration!
It’s January 9th, which means Roots of Insight officially releases for Kindle today! 🙂 (If you have a different kind of e-reader, make sure to read my previous post.)
You can check out Roots of Insight at Amazon by clicking here.
If you haven’t yet read Seeds of Discovery, it is free at Amazon today only!
To celebrate, I am going to be hosting a week-long scavenger hunt with lots of great prizes. Each day, there will be more questions in the hunt, and each day there will be new prizes.
Today’s prize is a $5 e-gift card to Amazon and a surprise e-book gift pack! 🙂
To enter, find the answers to the following questions by clicking on the links. Then e-mail (don’t comment!!) the answers to breeanap@gmail.com.
Everyone who answers the questions correctly will be put into a drawing for today’s prize. You can enter every day for the new prizes. On Friday, there will be a grand prize drawing for participants who have answered EVERY question in the hunt. 🙂
Bonus entries into the drawing will be awarded for those who comment on this post and share it with others (but only if you e-mail the questions, too — they’re bonus entries!) 🙂
Here are today’s questions! (Click on the blog name to visit!)
- From Kristy K. James’ blog: Who are my three favorite bad boys-in order of favorites? Answer in “It’s a Bad Boy Thing,” published on Dec. 5th.
- From Megaword Journey: Who is the main character of the Snapshots storyline?
Find the answers to these two questions, and e-mail them to breeanap@gmail.com with “Scavenger Hunt” in the subject line for your chance to win! 🙂 Don’t forget to comment below and share for bonus entries.
To My Nook and Other E-Pub friends…
For a number of reasons, at this time I am releasing Roots of Insight only on Kindle at this time (paperback will be released in a couple of weeks). Seeds of Discovery is also currently only available in Kindle format.
You do not need to have a Kindle in order to read a Kindle-format book. You can also read it on a FREE Kindle App on your smartphone, iPad/iPod or on your Mac or PC with either a Kindle App or the Cloud Reader.
The Dusk Gate Chronicles books are also DRM-free, which means you can choose to convert them to a different file format (there are free software programs that will do this) and load them onto any kind of e-reader using the USB cord.
Loading the book using a USB cord is known as side-loading, and is extremely easy. Once your e-reader is plugged into your computer with the USB cord, it will show up as a drive or storage device. You need only to drag and drop the book file into the right file on your e-reader, and it will show up in your library with all of your other books.
Finally, if you don’t want to convert it, or can’t figure out how, you can also contact me, by e-mailing me at
breeanap at gmail dot com
If you forward me a copy of your e-mail receipt from Amazon showing your purchase of Roots of Insight, I will be more than happy to e-mail you back with an .epub version of the book that can be loaded on your Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, or other .epub-based reader using the USB cord (again, you can do this yourself, but this way, you won’t have to figure out how to convert it.)
At the current time, Seeds of Discovery is under an exclusive distribution agreement with Amazon, so I cannot send you the .epub file, but you can convert it yourself.
If you need any other help or assistance, please feel free to comment here or to e-mail me.
I appreciate the support of ALL of my readers, regardless of what type of device you own, and I will do my best to keep my books accessible to all.
Five More Days! :)
To celebrate today, I invite you to pop over to Better Read than Dead, where Kristin has posted an awesome review of Seeds, and you can join the giveaway, too!
If, by chance, you already have a copy of Seeds of Discovery, and that giveaway wouldn’t do you any good… leave a comment on Kristin’s review mentioning that fact, and I will put your name in a hat to win an ARC of Roots of Insight! 🙂
Also, don’t forget to enter the drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card by clicking HERE.
I’m still looking for a few good bloggers to help me out with the scavenger hunt that begins on Monday — and a few authors who might be interested in donating e-copies of their fantastic books as prizes.
So far, we have some great hunts lined up! You can join the party, too!
Happy New Year! 8 More Days, and More Happy Hunting! :)
Happy New Year everyone. I hope you’re all as excited as I am about starting a new year fresh.
I’ve decided this year that resolutions are a bad idea. Most of them are about taking some part of yourself that you currently see as “bad” and trying to change it. For me, the new year is going to be about taking what’s good, and growing it.
2011 was monumental for me. It was the year I finally stopped buying into the myth of “security,” or doing “what I’m supposed to do.” The year I stopped believing in should be, and started asking what could be.
My dream for 2012 is that it will be a year of exploring that further, and really coming to terms with what it means, and then, just living it.
One dream that came true this year was finishing a book and actually allowing people to read it. That has been more fantastic than I ever imagined it could be, and I am so grateful for everyone who has shared that with me. The writing community is AMAZING.
If you are a writer, and it’s part of your “could be” to see where that journey takes you, then something you NEED to check out is Cara Michael’s #WIP500. I will be doing this, starting today. Every day, growing at least 500 words closer to my writing dreams. 🙂
Tomorrow, starts my first ever blog tour! And you’ll be able to party right along with me!
Starting tomorrow, check back right here for a blog to visit, and a question to find an answer to! I’ll be giving away fun prizes to those who can answer the questions! 🙂
Speaking of prizes, don’t forget to enter the contest for
a $10 Amazon.com e-gift card by clicking here.
And, if you are a blogger or an author, don’t forget to comment below or send me an e-mail to participate in the upcoming blog hop scavenger hunt for the release of Roots of Insight! Bloggers … all I will need from you is a few questions about content you ALREADY HAVE POSTED on your blog, and I’ll be sending people over. Authors … I could use e-copies of your books or anything else you might like to give away (and links to your blogs, too!) 🙂
10 Days and Counting (Calling all Bloggers and Authors)
With ten days to go until the launch of Dusk Gate: Roots of Insight, I’ve decided to have a little fun with it! 🙂
With a little help with some friends, especially Kristy K. James, and Tonya Cannariato, we are going to have a fun release party! 🙂 Starting on release day, January 9, 2012, we’re going to have a blog hop scavenger hunt. You’ll be able to go to various blogs to find and answer questions and win prizes!
If you’re a blogger (of any kind!) or an author, I’d love to have your help and participation! Just leave a comment below, or send me an e-mail at breeanap@gmail.com
I need blogs willing to post questions and answers for the scavenger hunt, and authors who are willing to give out e-copies of their books as prizes.
There will also be other awesome prizes like Amazon e-gift cards, and e-copies of Seeds of Discovery and of Roots of Insight! Hopefully it will mean some extra visibility for your awesome books and blogs, as well.
If you’re a blogger, and you might also be interested in hosting a guest post, a Dusk Gate character interview, a review of one of the books, or anything else, I’d also love to have you! (And, we could work out some other awesome prizes for any of those). Any blogger willing to host ANY of this, will receive free e-copies of both Dusk Gate Chronicles books (including Roots of Insight before release day).
breeanaputtroff 