Shadow Slayer Tour: “The adventure Roxie goes on is fast-paced…” More reviews & Giveaways too!

The sword of Sandonian steel from Shadow Slayer (Shadow Series #2)

Tomorrow is the day I’ll be answering all of your questions. Thanks for commenting with yours here on Laurasmagicday. And thanks for joining the tour today. I’m so happy you’re here Today on the tour there are some great blogs I hope you visit over and over again. Cristy’s Love of Books features a review of 13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1) — FREE on Amazon & B&N & everywhere you buy ebooks. Click here to read Cristy’s wonderful review. A Dragon’s Love reviews the series, click here to check out her take on Roxie’s story. Megan Talks Books features the series today too, click here to check out an excerpt from Shadow Slayer. I’d like to say a BIG thank you to all the wonderful blog readers and reviewers who are helping to spread the word about the Shadow Series.

Shadow Slayer Tour: Win a copy of the Shadow Slayer Audiobook & hear the playlist!

Shadow Slayer (Shadow Series #2) audiobook now available!

It’s Audio WEEKEND on the tour today! Woot! GiveawayS & yesterday’s winner are at the end of this post

“I loved the way this story was written, you can tell that Roxie has matured a bit since book one.  This was an action filled entertaining novel, I can’t wait to see what happens next!” -Bookworm Babblings, 5-star review

“This is a great series for young adults. Clean, fun, and super action-packed.” – Realms of an Open Mind, 4-star review

The great escape, measuring time & The San Francisco Book Review

I’m back home after unplugging for a five day vacation with the family up to a lake in the Sierras. We had a blast. It’s so good to travel up to the mountains again. That lake is like a second home to us and a place my hubby’s family has been going to for generations.

My daughter and I were able to sneak away from the pack for a while and we started to write a little fairy tale about the lake. It’s the first time I’ve ever written up there. We were sitting on the docks, looking out at the water and she wrote a paragraph and then I wrote a paragraph and before you knew it, we had a wonderful little story brewing. It incorporated a lot of the mythology of the lake, or what we imagined the mythology to be , and includes some of our favorite spots too. I can’t believe I haven’t written there before. I guess maybe it’s not what my brain wants to do at 7000 ft? It’s been years since we’ve vacationed there. We keep asking ourselves why it’s taken so long to travel back to the cabin. A place we’d once gone to two or three times every summer. And then it became so obvious. It hit me at unexpected times. In my search for the table extensions, I opened the wrong closet and found his coats still hanging there. Groggy, on an early morning I opened a drawer in the bathroom and found his razor and overnight bag. Ray’s been gone for about six years now. I can still hear his voice up there. I still expect him to come around the fire at night. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure his spirit does. Ray’s been a big inspiration in my writing. He finds his way into many of my books. So, when I returned home to find the 4.5/5 star San Francisco Book Review of Transfer Student. I smiled. What author isn’t pleased that her writing is well received, right? But my happiness doubled because it came from a different place. It brought more memories of Ray and made my smile grow. See, years ago when I was writing the first drafts of the story, I was trying to come up with the language of the Rethan people. I was having a terrible time trying to come up with how Rethan’s measure time. Specifically, I was hung up on inventing their word for year. I ended up calling it a ray. Here’s a link to an interview where I talk more about the behind-the-scenes inspiration for the story. 

I hope you all are getting a chance to escape to a favorite spot this summer. Whether it’s sneaking away to your favorite spot in your garden to read or write or plant something beautiful or just walk around your neighborhood or hang out with friends. Escaping sure is fun.

Forbidden Territory Blog Tour stops here! Love & Terror in the bush!

I am thrilled to host Melissa Pearl and Brenda Howson on The Forbidden Territory blog tour today! If you love romance and adventure this is a great read for you:) On with the REVIEW! [But first can I just say how cool the cover is? Yeah. Really creepy, huh? Way to rock it ladies!]

4.5/5 stars!

Lexy and Mica are sick of their town and old boyfriend drama. They decide four days in the bush Geocaching is the perfect cure for their boredom especially since the plan includes the two hotties they’re seriously crushing on––Tom, an exchange student from Oxford, England and Eli, Lexy’s brother. The backpacking/camping trip of their dreams gets steamy almost immediately when love and terror bring the couples together in ways they never imagined. Lexy and Mica will discover a courage they never knew they had and that Tom and Eli are hotter than they dreamed. Love and terror––the perfect combination for a summer read. Set in the bush of New Zealand, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this part of the world and love stories that take place in settings that are unique for YA fiction. At least the YA fiction I read.

I have to say that I struggled with Tom’s character and didn’t really get him at times, but I totally dug the relationship between Lexy and Mica. I’m a sucker for gal-pal stories and this delivers. I love how Lexy and Mica’s relationship grows. Apart from Lexy & Mica and Mica & Eli I felt the other relationships weren’t developed as fully. I look forward to learning more about them in the next books. I felt that the terror in the bush was dialed back a bit too much for my tastes. Fortuitous events seemed to get the characters out of trouble more than their abilities or character development. Call me crazy, but I would have liked to see them suffer a little more. But, that’s just me. And, well, I know people who’ve been kidnapped, so…there’s that.

I love Lexy & Mica and can’t wait for their next adventure. Pearl and Howson do a fabulous job of taking the reader to a beautiful part of the world. Nail-biting at times, you will enjoy this story of adventure and romance.

Buy on SMASHWORDS

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Transfer Student Blog Tour | Behind The Scenes : Wish Upon A Star

Congrats to @Jwitt33 winner of today’s TRANSFER STUDENT EBOOK! Good luck to today’s tweeters To read a review and get the scoop on today’s EBOOK/SWAG Giveaways visit the next stop on the tour, the wonderful Epilogue Review!

Over the next few days I’m blogging about the inspirations/challenges of TRANSFER STUDENT.

I wrote the first draft in 2006 after my father-in-law died. It was a crazy, sad time. I was working at The Los Angeles Times on the re-opening of the Griffith Observatory [it had been closed for five years for renovations] and we were back-and-forth between LA and Fresno [a four hour drive from LA], more and more frequently as my father-in-law got worse and worse, eventually ending up on life support. His name was Ray. I named the Reathan word for “year” in his honor. After Ray passed, just hours after, it was late at night and my husband Joe, his mom and I all sat out on my mother-in-law’s patio and looked at the stars. She said she knew Ray was up there, one of the stars. And that’s all it took. I had the beginnings of a story about souls that traveled, that starjumped, through space. And I wanted to explore the idea of a parallel planet similar to Earth, a sister planet. Retha is that planet and an anagram for Earth.

Tomorrow I blog about why I decided to write the story from Two POVS, that of a teen girl Earthling and a teen boy alien from the planet Retha.

An unusual Christmas & an unexpected present!

Greetings! Hope you are having a wonderful Holiday Season! We had an unusual Christmas here because our oven is broken. And so, we BBQ’d. It was kind of funny. I mean, we live in CA and the weather was perfect for BBQ, but I fought it at first. I was really disappointed. I mean Christmas has always been a certain way. With a certain meal. But, as it turned out, we just started a brand new tradition around here! The food was fabulous! [Thanks to Renee, a gal I met who recommended this fantastic butcher & of course HUBBY who has MAD BBQ skills] AND I had a lot more time to write & hang out & play games with the family:) SQUUUEEEE! I love new traditions:)

So here’s why I’m touched today. Once upon a time, way, way, way back in 2008, when Kindle was new and most people hadn’t heard of it, I wanted to see what it was all about. In previous years on my blog I hosted a 13-day countdown ’til Halloween where I posted short ghost stories. Kindergarten Ghost is the most popular of my Halloween short stories. So, I decided to publish it for the Kindle. I didn’t promote it at all. I’d forgotten about it. Until I decided to go Indie this year. People usually find Kindergarten Ghost around Halloween. But this year it’s been a steady seller. Anyway, I have a soft spot in my heart for the story, because it was my first Indie story. Today I noticed that one of the two reviewers of the story revised his Amazon review and here’s what he said:

Editing my review… 
Almost 3 years after reading this book, I still think about it…. it was that interesting to me. 
I also needed to edit my review as this was my first review and I felt my rating was unfair. 
True, I wanted to know more about how everyone managed, once I knew what the situation was…. that is not the fault of the author. That is the praise of the author for a good little book.

So, I thought I’d share what he said with you. I am truly touched that a reader would care enough about one of my stories to let people know that it’s one that stuck with him for years. And even more touched that he felt strongly enough to edit his Amazon review because of it.

This is a sweet story and I wanted to share it with all of you who have been so encouraging this year! Thank you:)

Sunsets, coincidences, turkey feathers – Laura’s Word Sauce Interview & Review

Cheerio! Today, I received my first five-star review on Amazon UK for Winnemucca. I’m very excited about it. It’s cool to see your book for sale in British Pounds [£2.14]. I never checked out the UK site before. Sophie has just posted an interview with me on her Word Sauce blog where I was asked to write my life story in 25 words! Eeeek. It was a blast. I had so much fun answering her questions. Swing by and let me know what you think, if you have a sec. On this Thankful Thursday I have so much gratitude for everyone who’s helped to spread the word about Ginny and her story.

Here’s Sophie’s review: