


Title: Flawed (Perfection #2)
Author: J.L. Spelbring
Release Date: August 12, 2014
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
In a world where Hitler won the The War, and perfection is constantly sought, Ellyssa has broken free from her austere life and has found another meaning for her existence.
Family, friendship, and love.
But her happiness is short lived. Ellyssa finds herself on the run, again. Her father’s work didn’t die with him, but lives on in her siblings, Aalexis and Xaver, and they are determined to complete his unfinished dream.
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J.L. Spelbring lives in Texas, where she wanders out in the middle of the night to look at the big and bright stars. Besides knocking imaginary bad guys in the head with a keyboard, she enjoys being swept away between the pages of a book, running amuck inside in her own head, pretending she is into running, and hanging out with her kids, who are way too cool for her.
Her novel, Perfection, released in July 2013 and the sequel, Flawed, releases August 2014.
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I’ve always been a dreamer. Daydreams. Night dreams. Dreams of grandeur and dreams of escape. If I were an onion and you peeled back the papery outside, you’d find layer after layer of eye-watering dreams. And in the center, where there’s that little curlicue of onion heart? There’d be a puff of smoke from the dreams that burned away. It was all just brain waves, I thought—disconnected, like the notebook that my friend Talon keeps. She draws a line down the middle of the page; on the right she writes everything she remembers about a dream, and on the left she puts notes about the stuff that’s happening in real life, things that might trigger her subconscious. Reality on one side, dreams on the other—a clear line between the two. But it turns out there are no clear lines, just a jumble of what is and what might be. And all of it is real. ~ Keep reading! You can check out the first three chapters here.
Mary Crockett likes turtles, licorice, and the Yankees. Madelyn Rosenberg likes cats, avocados, and the Red Sox. Luckily they both like the weirdness of dreams (and each other) enough to write novels together. The friendship has survived three moves, six kids and countless manuscript revisions. Madelyn lives just outside of Washington, D.C. Mary remains in the mountains near their hometowns in southwestern Virginia.
In the few years since I began reading young adult novels, I’ve taken a shotgun-blast approach when choosing what to read next. Rather than focusing on one author’s work to fully explore, I’ve tried to get my hands on as many different ones as possible. So, though I’ve only read one or two books by some of these authors, they wrote the books I most enjoyed within the genre, and am looking forward to reading more and more of their work. Three of them I only discovered this year while traveling to book conferences, and all three of their books (Whaley’s Noggin, Lockhart’s We Were Liars, and fellow debut author Leslye Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender) are among my favorite books overall that I’ve read in the past couple years.
(The Orion Circle #1)
Kacie Ramsey sees ghosts—and it’s ruining her life. Her mother left, her father blames her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t keep the ghosts away. Now a new power has emerged. Nightly visions of grisly murders and a relentless predator draw her to the brink of insanity.
When the phantom appears at a party, Kacie’s longtime crush, Logan, saves her. He invites her to join the Orion Circle, a group of supernatural hunters with chapters in schools all over the country. Through the Circle, Kacie learns to embrace her spiritual powers, and for the first time in her life she feels in control rather than a victim.
But the Foxblood Demon will not give up so easily. A demented serial killer in life who trapped the souls of the thirteen children he murdered, imprisoning them within the walls of his mansion. Now in death, he plots his return while drawing power from the pure souls of the children. He recognizes something in Kacie he’s never seen before—a medium powerful enough to provide a vessel for his tainted soul.
Kacie can’t ignore the tortured souls of the children crying out to her every night. With Logan at her side, she will fight the Foxblood Demon. But can they banish this powerful phantom, or will Kacie lose not only her body, but her eternal soul to the monster.
Deafening music shakes the walls, vibrates the floor, and pounds a rhythmic beat in my skull. Gyrating bodies turn every bit of space into a dance floor. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and my heart races. Strobe lights flash, teens dance with wild abandon. Shrieking laughter bubbles around me.
“Gotta take a leak!” my dance partner shouts over the music.
He races off, weaving through the thick wall of bodies. Mike or Mick or something—I didn’t catch the name he yelled when he asked me to dance. Doesn’t matter, he wasn’t my type at all. I mean, the guy guzzled beer while dancing. After grabbing a diet soda from a nearby cooler, I’m about to search for my friends when a dark feeling washes over me. My feet refuse to move, and I stand rooted in place.
The once loud music is now hollow in my ears. I gasp for breath, choking on the lack of air around me. Tiny hairs on the nape of my neck rise to attention. Something wicked is behind me. I know I’m the only one here who feels a difference in air pressure. An oppressive weight presses against my skin, making me feel as though I’m underwater. I blink a few times, watching the people around me continue their manic dancing—oblivious to the bogeyman that just entered the room.
Afraid to turn around, I stand my ground, sipping my soda. I pretend I’m unaware of the shuffling noises behind me, sounds I shouldn’t be able to hear over the blaring music. Swaying my hips, I hum along with the music, trying to ignore the ominous presence crushing me.
Whatever it is, I can’t let it know I sense it. Evil pours off it in waves, blanketing the entire room. I close my eyes, willing the creature to go away, return to whatever mausoleum or grave it calls home. Malevolent spirits feed on fear. I must control mine at all costs.
When I open my eyes, I’m gazing into the face of an angel. Not literally, but he may as well be in my book. Logan glances behind me, and I know he sees the spirit. He doesn’t gasp or scream or faint dead away. His golden eyes narrow as though he’s in a staring contest with the specter.
“You’re not welcome here,” Logan says to the presence behind me. He meets my gaze again. “You know it’s there.”
It’s not a question but a statement. I nod, a weak bob of my head, unsure whether this intimate moment with my dream guy is a good thing or not. Meeting over a nasty phantom is not my idea of romantic. And yet I can’t stop staring at the way his blue t-shirt hugs his broad shoulders and chest—how his light brown hair curls around his earlobes. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. For six weeks I’ve wanted out of the friendship box with Logan, but I was hoping for girlfriend, not crazy girl.
“Kassandra,” a voice rasps behind me.
Kimber Leigh Wheaton is a YA/NA author with a soft spot for sweet romance. She is married to her soul mate, has a teenage son, and shares her home with three dogs, four cats, and lots of dragons. No, she doesn’t live on a farm, she just loves animals. Kimber Leigh is addicted to romance, videogames, superheroes, villains, and chocolate—not necessarily in that order. (If she has to choose, she’ll take a chocolate covered superhero!) She currently lives in San Antonio, TX but has been somewhat a rolling stone in life, having resided in several different cities and states.
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Hi there,
I feel I must warn you. If you survive the heart-pounding drive up the haunted thirteen curves, avoiding the clutches of roving brides and armed recluses, you better be ready for what awaits at the top.
I found out the hard way when I demanded my sister tell me where she disappeared to for days on end. I wasn’t willing to back down until she shared her secret escape. Little did I know she would actually drag me up the stomach-churning curves, blindfolded, with her boyfriend at the wheel, driving a million miles an hour. What they revealed to me in the winter of my seventeenth year…transformed me forever.
Surviving the treacherous drive to the abandoned armory was merely the start of my death-defying adventure. Navigating Elias Hawk’s sneaky manipulation became my task when I was introduced to the castle in the sky and its unique cast of dwellers. The more Elias evaded my questions about the place he called home, the more I knew he was covering up something big. The striking boy drove me wild with his clever smokescreens and well-timed kisses. Until I stumbled on his nemesis…a waiflike, ghost-bride waiting to collect me on the thirteen curves.
Trust me when I tell you to hold on tight. You’ll need more than a seatbelt to ride this ride.Consider yourself warned.
Sincerely,
Marcella Jackoby of Pennywright
Jeanne Arnold is an author of young adult romance. At a young age she found her creative outlet in art, and for years her fictional characters came to life in drawings and paintings, until they demanded a voice. Now they grace the pages of her stories. Jeanne shares her time with her fictional teenage counterparts and her human family in Central New York. STUBBORN is available in ebook, print and audiobook at all major online retailers. Look for THE HAUNT OF THIRTEEN CURVES in July 2014 and JUST AS STUBBORN, the second installment in the STUBBORN series, in January 2015.
$20 Amazon Gift Card
What if psychic warfare is real???
Dr. LeMercier’s Personal Journal – June 29, 2002 Day 1:
The children are assembled, selected from a pool of more than a thousand recruits. It’s exciting to have so many of the former participants’ offspring in this group. I expect Jennings and Harrison to provide strong recruits. We agreed it best if I didn’t know their identities to avoid tainting the experiments in any way. Avoid favoritism. I expect them to pass the weeding, especially with their genetics.
Training begins in the morning. Dr. Tate and I have redesigned the protocols. They are more grueling than the previous tests, designed to push not only the candidates’ physical and mental stamina but also their emotional development. The new program measures every aspect of their supernatural potential, from telekinesis to telepathy and more.
We anticipate better results this time. These children are younger, stronger than their predecessors. Their abilities, unmatched. But will it be enough? I can measure their ethics, but I can’t guarantee their willingness to do everything their country requires.
We’ve run out of time. Global terrorism has reached unfathomable heights. The attacks have increased since 9/11. It’s worse than before, worse than during the Cold War. I fear another Hitler. We should’ve acted swifter when we first discovered Hitler and Stalin’s early research into the supernatural. Instead, we let our fear supersede our responsibilities to keep our nation safe.
Never again.
There will be no safety until we find a better way to train our special forces. Our country will not be free from the terrorism that threatens us until we resume our goal of new, advanced weaponry. These experiments are the key. We cannot fail this time as we have before.
The younger recruits offer something we haven’t had in the past, a way to shape and train their morality. We will be able to push the experiments beyond the confines of humanity. We will bypass ethical concerns and find the recruits we can train to use their gifts in new ways.
We will teach them to kill.
When Christine isn’t crafting her next book and working with kids,
she can be found sipping too many skinny vanilla lattes at her favorite coffee
house or exploring the world with her family.
Senior year is almost over, and Jamie Peterson has a big problem. Not
college—that’s all set. Not prom—he’ll find a date somehow. No, it’s the worst
problem of all: he’s fallen for his best friend.
As much as Jamie tries to keep it under wraps, everyone seems to know where his
affections lie, and the giggling girls in art class are determined to help
Jamie get together with Mason. But Jamie isn’t sure if that’s what he
wants—because as much as Jamie would like to come clean to Mason, what if the
truth ruins everything? What if there are no more road trips, taco dinners, or
movie nights? Does he dare risk a childhood friendship for romance?
This book is about what happens when a picture reveals what we can’t say, when
art is truer than life, and how falling in love is easy, except when it’s not.
Fan Art explores the joys and pains of friendship, of pressing boundaries, and
how facing our worst fears can sometimes lead us to what we want most.
Guest Post by Sarah Tregay
I listen to a lot of audio books, and from time to time I’ll read something on a Kindle. While both are convenient ways to get immersed in a story, I miss seeing the book itself. Because I am a graphic designer in my day job, I enjoy the little details in a printed book, such as the typeface, an illustration, or a beautiful chapter heading. Hardcover books are a treat because you can peek under the jacket and see the art on the binding.
So, in case you borrow a copy of Fan Art from your library or read it on your iPad, here is the art under the cover:
Also, Melissa DeJesus did an amazing job illustrating the graphic short story within Fan Art: