Interview: Tracy Deebs

UFI welcomes Tracy Deebs Author of Tempest Rising. Thanks for Joining us!!

I see from your bio that you like collecting lipsticks, what is your favorite color to wear?

I love lipsticks, all kinds of lipsticks. My favorite right now is MAC Viva Glam IV. But I also love Spitfire and Heroine, and Bare Escentuals Buxom Lipgloss in Tempest (for obvious reasons ;)

What do you enjoy doing on your down time?

I love to shop, read, go dancing, swim, hang out with my writing pals, play with my boys, cook, watch an insane number of movies and spend entirely too much time playing with beauty products.

What can you tell my readers about yourself that they might not know from looking on your bio or reading in another interview?

Oooh, something completely new. Hmmmm, how about even though I love swimming and surfing, I’m deathly afraid of sharks … I’m at least half convinced that I died by shark attack in a former life.

What is your Favorite part of writing?

The possibilities, when a book is just getting started and it’s all bright and shiny and pretty … there are so many ways you can take the story, so many things you can do with it, and there haven’t been any frustrating writing days yet. Everything is good.

Do you have any certain routines you must follow as you write?


Honestly, not really. I can pretty much write in the middle of a hurricane, which is a good thing as I have three boys who bear a close resemblance to a hurricane when they get together. I do like having my iPod around and a large cup of tea/coffee/Izze/Diet Dr. Pepper right next to me.

What are some of your Favorite books or Authors in the Paranormal Genres?

Oh, so many, how do I choose? I love Patricia Briggs’s Mercy series, Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires, Anya Bast’s witches, Kim Derting’s Bodyfinder series, P.C. Cast’s Goddess series and House of Night series (with Kristen Cast), Gena Showalter’s Darkest series. Honestly, the list can go on and on …

How would you pitch Tempest Rising to someone who has never heard of it before?

Tempest Rising is the story of a seventeen-year-old girl who must decide between the life she wants on land and the life she is destined to have in the water .

Which character was your favorite to write about? What about the hardest to write about? 

I loved writing Tempest. Her voice came to me as soon as I thought of the idea for the story and I loved every second of telling her story. The character I had the hardest time with was actually her mother. I started out completely unsympathetic to her, but as I learned more about her in the course of the book, it became harder to hate her, though I still feel that Tempest’s anger at her is justified.

What Other Projects can we look forward to reading from you?

I’m so glad you asked. Two of my good friends and I wrote a YA contemporary novel called, The International Kissing Club by Ivy Adams, where four best friends from small-town Texas kiss and tell their way across the globe in search of life, love and Facebook fame. It’s due out in January 2012. As Tracy Deebs, I’m also writing a trilogy based on Pandora’s Box, where the main character, opens an attachment instead of a box and brings about technological Armageddon. The first book, which is currently unnamed, comes out in Fall 2012.

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Tempest Rising
May 10, 2011

Tempest Maguire wants nothing more than to surf the killer waves near her California home; continue her steady relationship with her boyfriend, Mark; and take care of her brothers and surfer dad. But Tempest is half mermaid, and as her seventeenth birthday approaches, she will have to decide whether to remain on land or give herself to the ocean like her mother. The pull of the water becomes as insistent as her attraction to Kai, a gorgeous surfer whose uncanny abilities hint at an otherworldly identity as well. And when Tempest does finally give in to the water's temptation and enters a fantastical underwater world, she finds that a larger destiny awaits her—and that the entire ocean's future hangs in the balance.

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Find Tracy and her books

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Tracy is also a part of the Chills & Thrills Teen Book Tour 2011

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Follow the Tempest Rising tour

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Review: Mob Rules by Cameron Haley

Mob Rules
Author:Cameron Haley
Release Date: September 1, 2010
Publisher: Luna
Underworld Cycle Book #1
ISBN:   0373803206
ISBN13: 9780373803200
Genre: Urban Fantasy

I'm Domino Riley, an enforcer for Shanar Rashan.  

Like most mob bosses in L.A., he's a powerful sorcerer, battling for control of the city, gathering up the magic of violent and powerful emotions and storing it for his own use. Back in the day, Rashan saved me from the streets and made me his lieutenant. You could say I'm his go-to girl.

When a fellow gangster is ritually executed, I have to find out which of Rashan's enemies was behind it—and why. The cryptic messages I'm getting from the Beyond tell me it wasn't a simple hit.

With the bodies piling up, I need to win an occult gang war, take out the supernatural traitor within our outfit and, oh yeah, deal with the mixed messages I'm getting from the boss's son….

I happened to win a copy of SKELETON CREW Book 2 from Goodreads First Reads so I went to the library and borrowed a copy of MOB RULES so I would be ready to read when my book got here. I thought the world building was creative and engaging. The storyline was interesting and entertaining but the pace at which things happened was pretty slow throughout the whole book. I really wish the pacing wasn't so slow but I found myself loosing interest because of it and wanting to sit the book down and get other things done. The use of juice (magic/power) definitely drew me in to the situations, if someone has juice they can pretty much use it to do anything from ease a headache to kick ass. The explanations in the beginning were a bit lacking. It took me a bit to catch on to what juice was lol maybe I just wasn't paying good enough attention. I liked Domino, she is second in command and commands respect just by being in a room or situation. She uses her magic well and it was fun to watch her do things with it. She gets a neat little sidekick that has no problem telling Domino what she thinks. The romance is light and the ending was a bit of a shock with what happened to the love interest, definitely want to see were that development takes us in book 2. All in all its a neat story with interesting characters, I enjoyed Cameron's writing but the pacing is really slow so be warned that you might get a little mad that things aren't happening as fast as you want them to.  


I gave it 2.5/5

Winners: Unnatural and Chicagoland Vampire Swag

Thank you to everyone that entered!

The winners chosen by Random.org is…

PRIZE: Swag pack of Chicagoland Vampires goodies from Chloe Neill
Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery 

Enigma75

PRIZE: One Paperback copy of Unnatural by Michael Griffo

Erinberry

Congrats!! I have emailed winners who have 48 hours to respond with mailing address or I will pick another.

Guest Post & Giveaway: Jacqueline Paige

UFI welcomes Jacqueline Paige Author of Twice Cursed. Thanks for Joining us!!

Thanks for having me here!!

Someone asked me this question not long ago and it took quite a bit of thought before I realized I had done just that.

How many times can you go back to the dream of doing what you’ve always wanted to?

My answer: as many times as it takes.

When I think back as far as I can remember (we’ll say roughly 9 years old) I was always reading. I was in grade four and flying through everything on the class library shelf, with the encouragement of my teacher I moved on to grade five level reading – and then six. My family moved a lot with my father’s job, so books became my best friends. With a book I could step into a different world and either race through it or take my time and expand on scenes. For years this gave me the label of a dreamer, as my head was always off in some world that I had found on pages.

By the time I was eleven I was writing my own worlds – and believe me when I say I wished I could get back that young mind and work with that mindset now. This was when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I didn’t fit the bookworm stereo-type either, which confused people even more. I was a hard working farm girl, on every sports team I was allowed be on (why can’t girls be on the football team?) and on track day I would always bring home a handful of first place ribbons – what did I do on the bus ride home? Read.

My constant writing and reading drove my family insane. Many times I had to be hunted down, only to be found curled up somewhere out of sight reading. My writing by my late teens mostly ran in the poetry flavour – which to read now was horrifically depressing, even though at the time I thought it was brilliant. (I now understand the mind set as I have teen daughters, life is so dramatic!)

Life got busy in the grown-up world for me and my dream faded into the realities of raising young children and everything that goes with it. I didn’t think about writing again until several years after that, when I sat down and wrote a full length novel, and then another. More changes in my reality had me putting them in a box and having to place the world of writing on hold again.

Many more years passed and I found myself wanting to have the last laugh with a friend. She was going away for a month and leaving me to find things to do all by myself. Who was I going to go book scavenging with? When I asked her what I was going to do without her, she replied “Write a book.” She was joking, and I knew it but I decided to toss something together and give her that book when she returned.

Three weeks later, exhausted and exhilarated I stared at two hundred pages of a story that had come out of my mind. (I literally left fingernail marks in my laptops keyboard) I was shocked that I had actually done this. By the end of the month, when my friend returned, I was a hundred pages into book number two.

I emailed her the book she had told me to write. She thought it was going to be something silly – she knew too well ... she was shocked and exhilarated.

The dream found me again, and this time I think I’ll hang onto it!

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Author Bio:
Jacqueline Paige is a world class multi-tasker. She is a mother to five adventurous and unpredictable children, a cafe manager and a colossal imagination that allows her to step outside of reality into a world of paranormal romance with just a touch of suspense. Her first book was published in 2009 and since then has published six, with the most recent being the first in her Hidden

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Twice Cursed
Feb 2, 2011

Maddy is the oldest witchling to ever attend the Hidden Cove Academy, having been cursed as a teen; she’s forced to have a solitary life outside of her own magical community. With her magic so dangerously unpredictable, she rarely takes the chance on mixing with the general public.

From one harmless trip to a museum she finds herself spellbound yet again by an invisible boundary, caused by a three hundred year old curse, dictating that Maddy must stay close to the stunningly sexy Colin.

Being stuck with a tall, dark, incredibly lick-able stranger can’t be all that bad, right? Until they discover if they get too close the spirits bound with the curse will take over their bodies ... at the same time if they’re too far from one another the curse will kill them both.

Will the curse's secrets be unravelled in time or does certain death await them both?

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Find Jacqueline and her books

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Email

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Follow The Twice Cursed Tour and win a copy of Twice Cursed

One commenter from all tour stops will be chosen

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Review: Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Enclave
Author:Ann Aguirre
Release Date: April 12, 2011
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Razorland Book #1
ISBN:   0312650086
ISBN13: 9780312650087
Genre: Young Adult/ Dystopian

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20's. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters—or Freaks—who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight, in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs. As the two are guided by Fade’s long-ago memories, they face dangers, and feelings, unlike any they’ve ever known.

Deuce is finally trained and ready to face the world of an adult in her enclave. Slowly she starts to see what is wrong and what she wants isn't what she has. FADE is originally from the surface and found his way underground when he was little where he was found and brought into the Enclave, he is pretty much an outcast and doesn't like anyone. As usual with Ann Aguirre's books the world building is awesome. The writing flows perfectly and The plot is unique with plenty of twists and turns, action and danger. I had no problem picturing everything that was described and took place. The ending fell flat for me. It defiantly wasn't up to par with the rest of the book and I hope that the next book in the series makes up for it. I still cant wait to see what comes next and will be grabbing the next book as soon as it hits the shelf.

I gave it 4/5 stars

Guest Blog and Giveaway: Jennifer Estep

UFI welcomes Jennifer Estep Author of one of my favorite series The Elemental Assassins Series. Thanks for Joining us!!

Greetings and salutations! First of all, I want to say thanks for Stacy for having me on the blog today. Thanks so much, Stacy! ;-)

So today Stacy asked me to talk a little bit about the elementals in my Elemental Assassin books.

Basically, there are four main types of elementals in my series – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone. These are the areas that a character has to be gifted in to be considered a true elemental. My heroine, Gin Blanco, is unique in that she can control not one, but two elements – Ice and Stone in her case.

Of course, there are plenty of people running around Ashland who can use other elemental areas, like water, metal, and electricity, that are offshoots of the four main areas. In fact, in the latest book in the series, Tangled Threads, Gin goes up against Elektra LaFleur, another assassin who has electrical elemental magic. Basically, the plot of the book is assassin vs. assassin and magic vs. magic. It was a lot of fun to write the fight scenes for this book. LOL.

So why did I pick elementals? Well, I wanted to do something a little different from the other books out there. Plus, I thought that I could come up with some really cool powers (for both Gin and the bad guys) if I used elemental magic. For example, Gin’s Ice magic lets her create, control, and manipulate Ice, which she uses to form everything from lockpicks to knives. Her Stone power lets her do everything from crumble concrete to make her own skin as hard as marble. Folks with Air magic can use their power to heal – or rip a person’s skin from their bones. And of course you have Fire elementals, who can singe you to a crisp in a matter of seconds. 

I like playing around with all the various powers and seeing what kind of bad guy that I can pit Gin against next and what kind of nasty magic he can have.

In addition to elementals, Ashland is also home to vampires, giants, dwarves, and regular old humans. The giants and dwarves are really tough and strong, and the vamps can be that way too, depending on whose blood they’re drinking. As for the humans, well, they can pick up whatever weapon is handy. One thing is for sure – there are lots of bad guys who have an ax of some sort to grind, often with Gin. ;-)

What about you guys? What kind of magical creatures do you like to read about? Share in the comments.

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Jennifer writes the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket Books. The books focus on Gin Blanco, an assassin code named the Spider who can control the elements of Ice and Stone. When she’s not busy killing people and righting wrongs, Gin runs a bar be cue restaurant called the Pork Pit in the fictional Southern metropolis of Ash land.

Books in the series are Spider’s Bite, Web of Lies, and Venom. Tangled Threads, the fourth book, will be published on April 26, while Spider’s Revenge, the fifth book, will be released in October.

Jennifer also writes the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series for Kensington. The books focus on Gwen Frost, a 17-year-old Gypsy girl who has the gift of psychometry, or the ability to know an object’s history just by touching it. After a serious freak-out with her magic, Gwen is shipped off to Mythos Academy, a school for the descendants of ancient warriors like Spartans, Valkyries, Amazons, and more.

The first book, Touch of Frost, will be out in August, while the second book, Kiss of Frost, will hit shelves in December. First Frost, a prequel e-short story to the series, will be out in July. Visit www.jenniferestep.com for excerpts and more.

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Tangled Threads

Ele­men­tal Assas­sin
Book #4

I’d rather face a dozen lethal assassins any night than deal with something as tricky, convoluted, and fragile as my feelings. 

But here I am. Gin Blanco, the semi-retired assassin known as the Spider. Hovering outside sexy businessman Owen Grayson’s front door like a nervous teenage girl. One thing I like about Owen: he doesn’t shy away from my past—or my present. And right now I have a bull’s-eye on my forehead. Cold-blooded Fire elemental Mab Monroe has hired one of the smartest assassins in the business to trap me. Elektra LaFleur is skilled and efficient, with deadly electrical elemental magic as potent as my own Ice and Stone powers. Which means there’s a fifty-fifty chance one of us won’t survive this battle. I intend to kill LaFleur—or die trying—because Mab wants the assassin to take out my baby sister, Detective Bria Coolidge, too. The only problem is, Bria has no idea I’m her long-lost sibling . . . or that I’m the murderer she’s been chasing through Ashland for weeks. And what Bria doesn’t know just might get us both dead. . . .

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Find Jennifer and her books

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Email

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 US/CAN only

Winner will receive
- One copy of Tangled Threads

 RULES
1) Answer Jennifer's question
2) This giveaway is open to US and Canadian followers only
3) Must leave an email address so I can contact you.

Giveaway Ends 5/10/2011 at 10pm EST

Winner will have 48 Hours to reply to my email or I will pick another

Winner chosen randomly with the help of random.org

New Releases May 1-7

Sun May 1

Demon Hunting In Dixie by Lexi George 

Wickedly Charming by Kristine Grayson

 Mon May 2

Dead Is Not An Option (Dead Is, #5) by Marlene Perez

The Discovery (Ghost Huntress, #5) by Marley Gibson

The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess by Leanna Renee Hieber

Tue May 3

Almost Final Curtain (Vampire Princess of St. Paul, #2) by Tate Hallaway
Always the Vampire (Oldest City Vampire, #3) by Nancy Haddock
Bite Club (The Morganville Vampires, #10) by Rachel Caine

Blood Law (Blood Moon Trilogy, #1) by Karin Tabke

Chosen by Blood (Para-ops, #1) by Virna DePaul

The Council of Shadows: A Novel of the Shadowspawn (Shadowspawn #2) by S.M. Stirling

Darkfire Kiss (Dragonfire, #6) by Deborah Cooke

Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse, #11) by Charlaine Harris

Dragon Bound (Elder Races, #1) by Thea Harrison

Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires, #4) by Chloe Neill

Hounded (Iron Druid Chronicles, #1) by Kevin Hearne

Illusions (Wings #3) by Aprilynne Pike

Jace (Shadow Wranglers, #3) by Sarah McCarty

The Royal Treatment (Princess for Hire, #2) by Lindsey Leavitt

Shift (Shade, #2) by Jeri Smith-Ready

Spellcast by Barbara Ashford

The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons (Light Dragons, #2) by Katie MacAlister

Warrior Betrayed (Sons of the Zodiac, #3) by Addison Fox

Please contact me if you see something is missing and I will add it. :)