Corruption by Nick Wilford

I'm happy to be hosting Nick Wilford today as part of his Corruption blog tour. Corruption is the second book in his YA dystopian series. Welcome, Nick!!


Hi Julie! Thanks for hosting me today. I'd like to share the opening of Corruption with your readers.

*

Wellesbury took his lunch out of the food production unit and followed Ezmerelda through the newly installed double doors to the grass area outside the canteen. Grass. A concept that had been alien to him until a few months ago. So many things were new, it was making his head spin. But in a good way. Everyone seemed more relaxed. He and Ez sat down on opposite sides at one of the tables that had been placed in the picnic area.

“Taste good?” he asked as his girlfriend took a bite of the steamed trout on her plate. He’d chosen a vegetable lasagne. Okay, so the food was still synthetic, but they were working on that and at least there was a choice of menu options now. 

“Mmm,” she said. “Yeah. I wonder what the real thing will be like.”

Newly recruited teams were at that moment exploring coastal areas, to see if any fish still lived there. Early reports had been encouraging.

“It’s weird to think there could be actual animals here,” said Wellesbury, slicing into his lasagne. “Like the ones we saw in Fusterbury, but a bit cleaner, hopefully.”

She laughed. “Yeah, we need just the right amount of dirt to be healthy. I really hope George gets his expedition together soon. People are still dying over there.”

“I hope so, too. I mean, we don’t even know how many family members Mal’s got left. They need to set up the communication system.”

Ezmerelda skewered a potato with her fork. “I suppose we’ve just got to trust he knows what he’s doing. I know there’s a lot of things to do here, but we’re not the ones in dire need.”

“He’s getting there. The immunity potion is a big thing. No point him and his team dying of the same disease they’re trying to save people from.”

She sighed. “I know, I know.”

The sun peeked out from behind a cloud, and she closed her eyes, a smile lighting up her face with pleasure. Wellesbury wasn’t going to get tired of seeing that smile any time soon. And real weather was so much more interesting, now they’d got rid of that atmospheric cloud that only permitted a watered-down outline of the sun to peek through.

“Well, let’s go and see what Mal’s up to before we go back.” Wellesbury rose from his seat and put his empty plate in the outside vaporiser. That was one piece of technology that was certainly worth keeping. Not everything the Reformers had done was bad.

Wellesbury’s long-lost twin brother, Mallinger, who had come to their country looking for help but instead had only narrowly avoided an agonising and lonely death in a jail cell, had enrolled in Magnificence High School. Ability groups had been organised for the first time, and while he was obviously at the opposite end from Welles and Ez due to his lack of any previous learning, he’d picked up reading and writing remarkably quickly. His practice sheets were bordering on legible.

Mal was sitting at a table at the opposite end of the grass area, chatting and laughing with his classmates. He’d settled in well, picking up his own set of friends. A far cry from his arrival, when he’d been callously labelled a demon by a closed-minded mob. Welles was glad people had become more accepting since the curtain had fallen on the government’s activities.

“Hey Mal, what’s up?” said Welles, playfully punching him on the shoulder.

“Oh, hey bro,” said Mal. “Just chilling with the guys.” About ten of them were squeezed round the small table, and the rest continued with their boisterous conversations. Welles saw a lot of himself in Mal; what he might have been like if he had been raised in a less constrictive environment, and had more love from his parents. They were twins, after all, but separated from the moment they were born.

“What you doing after school?”

“Got a big football practice with my team here.”

Football was the game that Mal had brought over from Fusterbury, and it had proved wildly popular. It was simpler and less elitist than gravball, the version that had been invented by the Reformers. Welles used to be the star of the school gravball team, but had lost interest since his friendships with his former teammates had gone awry. He’d washed his hands of them. Somehow, they seemed to prefer the old, regimented way of life. He enjoyed a kickabout with Mal now and then, but these days that was as far as his sporting activities went.

“I’ll see you at home after, then.”

“Not got a hot date?” asked Mal, grinning at Ez, who rolled her eyes and tutted affectionately.

“Oh, you know. Don’t want to get sick of each other,” said Welles, looking at Ez and winking.

She shook her head and said, “Right, that’s enough of you silly boys’ antics. Time to get back to class.”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Mal, raising his hand to his temple in a mock salute.

“See you later,” said Welles, waving at Mal and going after Ez.

At first, his parents had resisted having Mallinger live with them, even after the truth of Fusterbury had been exposed. It was just such a culture shock having more than one child in the house, they said. But as Dr Tindleson had explained, Mal was their child too, and if it hadn’t been for Wellesbury, they would never have known he even existed, let alone have had the chance of a relationship with him. And, thought Welles, Mal had softened them a little bit. There was still something about him that seemed so innocent, and he was so trusting and eager to please, in spite of everything he’d been through. Amazing, really.

The three of them hung out in Welles’s room often, and this might also be a beneficial factor for his parents; with the scientists slowly working on people’s biological make-up to effect a return to a previous, primitive state, Mal could act as a sort of chaperone.

Title: Corruption

Author: Nick Wilford

Genre: YA dystopian Series: Black & White Series #: 2 of 3

Release date: 11th February 2019

Publisher: Superstar Peanut Publishing

Blurb:

Wellesbury Noon and Ezmerelda Dontible have found themselves in a position where they can make their native land somewhere that lives up to its name: Harmonia. However, they’re setting their sights further afield for their number one task: eradicating the disease that has plagued the neighbouring country of Loretania for generations and allowed the privileged Harmonians to live in a sterile environment.

After dispatching a team of scientists to Loretania, armed with cratefuls of an antidote and vaccine and headed up by their friend, Dr George Tindleson, Welles, Ez, and Welles’s brother Mal – who grew up in that benighted nation – start to worry when they hear nothing back, despite what they had agreed. Commandeering a fishing boat to follow the science team over the sea, they soon find that, while the disease may be on the way out, a new kind of infection has set in – the corruption they thought they had stamped out in Harmonia.

Can they get to the root of the problem and eliminate it before even more damage is done to an innocent people?

*** Warning – this book contains themes that some sensitive readers may find upsetting. ***

Purchase Links:

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Smashwords / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / iBooks

Add it on Goodreads

Meet the author:

Nick Wilford is a writer and stay-at-home dad. Once a journalist, he now makes use of those early morning times when the house is quiet to explore the realms of fiction, with a little freelance editing and formatting thrown in. When not working he can usually be found spending time with his family or cleaning something. He has four short stories published in Writer’s Muse magazine. Nick is also the editor of Overcoming Adversity: An Anthology for Andrew. Visit him at his blog or connect with him on Twitter, Goodreads, Facebook, or Amazon.

Elaine Kaye Interviews the Witch!

Hello, all! I've been on an unplanned blogging break but I'm excited to jump back into the fray today  to help spread the word about the latest release from Elaine Kaye, Halloween Ride! Elaine is here with an interview with Halloween Ride's very own witch, Bertha.

Take it away, Elaine!

Elaine Kaye: Hello, Bertha. It’s nice to talk to you today. Our readers are very interested in you. The first thing they want to know is…where do you live?

Bertha, the Witch: I live in a cabin in a magical forest that no human knows about, with my ten cats and hundreds of brooms.

Elaine: What are your cats’ names?

Bertha: Puffball, Monkey, Doodle, Coal, Scratch, Merlin, Casper, Shadow, Jinx, and Onyx.

Elaine: Why do you have so many brooms?

Bertha: Because they're magical, dear.

Elaine: We know that the broom Gregory and Sammy find can fly them anywhere in the world. Does each one have a special magic?

Bertha: Some are for flying and some are for cleaning. The cleaning brooms visit people who need their houses cleaned, like the elderly. And the flying brooms go out every Halloween to give special individuals one ride. Except one of my brooms befriended a magical teddy bear, and the two of them go all over.

Elaine: I know just what teddy bear you’re talking about.

Bertha: How much longer are we going to be doing this, dear? I have some soup to eat.

Elaine: Speaking of which, was that really pea soup that Gregory and Sammy saw in your pot?

Bertha: Of course, it was. I make really good pea soup.

Elaine: What’s all in it?

Bertha: Peas, carrots, potatoes, onions, but it’s really the dried ants, worms, toadstool, and spiders that give it flavor and substance. Would you like a taste?

Elaine: Thanks, but I’ll stick to my recipe. It was a pleasure talking to you, Bertha.

Bertha: You, too, dear. Goodbye!

*And Bertha disappears in a poof of green smoke*

NEW RELEASE:

BLURB: One Halloween night, Gregory and his teddy bear Sammy go trick-or-treating, hoping for lots and lots of candy. But Sammy is scared of everything and is constantly asking, “What’s that?” Gregory gets annoyed until one of those things turns out to be a flying broomstick. And this broom wants them to go for a ride. Where will it take them? 

*Story picture book Ages 4-8.

EBOOK 99 CENTS:

Amazon / Nook / Kobo

Print:

Amazon

ALSO ON SALE FOR 99 CENTS!

Pea Soup Disaster: Amazon / Nook / Kobo

Doctor Mom: Amazon / Nook / Kobo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Elaine Kaye is the author of A Gregory Green Adventure series. She first created Gregory Green after her son, who loved her homemade pea soup.

Kaye has worked as a library assistant and teacher's assistant in elementary schools in the Sunshine State. She currently lives in Florida, but she has called Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Okinawa, Japan home.

She is a grandmother of three boys.

Website / Goodreads / Amazon / Instagram / Facebook

GIVEAWAY:

Enter here to win a signed paperback copy of Pea Soup Disaster, a hand-stitched bookmark, and a pea pod key chain! Open to all from September 16, 2018 – October 1, 2018!

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A Visit from Witch of the Cards author Catherine Stine

I'm happy to have Catherine Stine here today to talk about her latest book Witch of the Cards and its setting, the beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey. She's also hosting a great giveaway to go with her release tour, so be sure to check out the rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Welcome. Catherine! 

The allure of creepy, ramshackle beach towns as settings for dark fantasy

What is it exactly that makes edgy beach towns the perfect setting for sinister fantasy and historical suspense? I’ve always been attracted to the dark side, and particularly to strange beach towns. So far, I’ve set two of my novels in them.

When I first moved to New York City after college and a stint out west, you couldn’t tear me away from the nefarious boardwalks of Coney Island. This was back before the arcade was renovated, back when the sideshow by the sea with its sword swallower and human pincushion were on full display. It was when a hungry, dirty capybara was caged in a box that read: Only $1 To See the Biggest Rat in the World! This poor critter was a plot point in Dorianna, my paranormal twist on Dorian Grey. And no surprise, I set Dorianna in Coney Island, and installed my sexiest villain ever, Wilson Warren, an agent of the devil disguised as a videographer who prowled the beaches, making girls into Internet sensations.

Fast-forward to my new novel Witch of the Cards, set in 1932, about Fiera, a sea witch who has a special talent with Tarot (and not just reading the cards). Of course, I set it in a shady beach town, in this case, Asbury Park, NJ. You see, I’ve been coming to this gentrifying beach town for years and know it well—in its sunny moods but also in its spooky, moody shades.

Around the turn of the century, and up until 1940, Asbury Park used to be the stomping grounds of the glitterati. There were grand concerts in the art deco Convention Center, and people dressed to the nines would stroll on the boardwalk at night. Then came the race riots of the 1960s and the economic crash, and the place fell into major disrepair. Its only remaining claim to fame was The Stone Pony, where Bruce Springsteen rocked into the limelight.

When I first ventured into the convention center, there was a hole in its roof that seagulls flew in and out of, and only one lonely saltwater taffy store on the boardwalk run by an ancient lady who seemed to have stepped out of a Stephen King novel. Of course in Witch of the Cards I made her into a fabulous, dangerous witch, who sold magical taffy. And I turned the paranormal museum on Cookwell Avenue, the main shopping lane, into a place to hold séances that often went horribly wrong. I installed an illegal speakeasy in the taffy store basement. In my novel, Witch of the Cards, even the ocean hides terrible secrets.

There’s something about the scent of saltwater and hotdogs, the splintered, salt-dried boardwalk and the scream of people hurtling down on the arcade rides that gets my blood charging and my imagination firing. What about you?

Here’s a snippet of a scene when Fiera and her date Peter went down to the basement speakeasy in the taffy store:

“Perhaps I was far too gone, but I didn’t care. Peter and I danced and danced. The room filled with the overflow from the convention hall dance—young lovers, bootlegger types with wide ties and cigars, older women with twinkling earrings and heavy bosoms, even a prostitute or two. I thought so anyway, because they wore way too much rouge and came alone to sit brazenly up at the bar with the gin rummies.

This time I couldn’t say whether or not I stepped on Mr. Dune’s polished wingtips. This time, he probably couldn’t be sure if he knocked his bony legs into mine. We had many more nips of absinthe, and I wolfed down another green-swirl taffy and before I knew it, I was leaning provocatively against Peter and laughing like a wild banshee.

I remember gaping up at him to see his black hair all disheveled and him mumbling indistinctly. And I, thinking that he was the most gorgeous human being I’d ever seen. I remember Dulcie grabbing one of my arms, and Peter grasping the other. I remember all of us howling at the crescent moon over the ocean, and the shocked sideways glance of the hotel proprietor as we all stumbled in.

I recall pulling out the Tarot he’d given me, and laying them out on the bedroom rug. I recall babbling at him—about a witch and a swindler and a boat—not necessarily in that order. I can still picture his expression of shocked surprise but not at what.

And I remember Peter’s lips branding my forehead—how could I ever forget that—while shocks of his lush black hair dangled deliciously on my burning cheeks. The last thing I recall before things went dark was kicking off my shoes.”

Book Description:

Fiera was born a sea witch with no inkling of her power. And now it might be too late.

Witch of the Cards is historical, supernatural romantic suspense set in 1932 on the Jersey shore. Twenty-two year-old Fiera has recently left the Brooklyn orphanage where she was raised, and works in Manhattan as a nanny. She gets a lucky break when her boss pays for her short vacation in Asbury Park. One evening, Fiera and her new friend Dulcie wander down the boardwalk and into Peter Dune’s Tarot & Séance, where they attend a card reading.

Fiera has always had an unsettling ability to know things before they happen and sense people’s hidden agendas. She longs to either find out the origin of her powers or else banish them because as is, they make her feel crazy. When, during the reading, her energies somehow bond with Peter Dune’s and form an undeniable ethereal force, a chain of revelations and dangerous events begin to unspool. For one, Fiera finds out she is a witch from a powerful sea clan, but that someone is out to stop her blossoming power forever. And though she is falling in love with Peter, he also has a secret side. He’s no card reader, but a private detective working to expose mediums. Despite this terrible betrayal, Fiera must make the choice to save Peter from a tragic Morro Cruise boat fire, or let him perish with his fellow investigators. Told in alternating viewpoints, we hear Fiera and Peter each struggle against their deep attraction. Secrets, lies, even murder, lace this dark fantasy.

Buy links:

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01COACFVU

Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/hze9ekh

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1091149257

Kobo:https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/witch-of-the-cards

B&N/Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/witch-of-the-cards-catherine-stine/1123499606?ean=2940152837797

Inktera: http://www.inktera.com/store/title/f9bcdfce-e947-4cc0-a5e7-d19d681acb49

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Witch-Cards-Catherine-Stine-ebook/dp/B01COACFVU

Amazon AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/Witch-Cards-Catherine-Stine-ebook/dp/B01COACFVU

Giveaway:

 One $40 gift card, two hand-painted heart-boxes (by Catherine) with secret treasure inside, one signed paperback of Dorianna by Catherine Stine, one signed paperback of Witch of the Cards by Catherine Stine, one brand new collector Tarot deck along with an envelope full of special swag!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Guest Post from Guilie Castillo and the "Who Roams Here?" Grand Prize Winner

I'm thrilled to welcome Guilie Castillo to the blog today and honored to be part of her tour for The Miracle of Small Things.

Before I get to her post, I also want to congratulate Guilie for winning the Grand Prize in my "Who Roams Here?" game for the Realms Faire. Congratulations, Guilie! And thanks again to everyone who came by here and visited my ghosts and me throughout the week. We all had a great time.

And now I will turn this over to Guilie, who is sharing a post about a subject dear to my heart, dogs and animal rescue.

Can I have a round of applause, please, for hostess extraordinaire Julie Flanders? Julie, what an honor to be hosted here at your space. Today is the (sort of) halfway point of the MIRACLE tour, and this deserves an extra-special post.

The subject of Al, the 100-lb dog that gets rescued by main character Luis Villalobos, has come up often on the tour, but as a sideline. I thought it was time to give Al the spotlight. What better place to do that than here, at a fellow animal-rescue advocate’s blog?

Al and his eleven siblings were born behind a shed in the yard of the family his mother belonged to. The children discovered the puppies a week later. They weren’t cruel, the children, but they were rough, and their little hands sometimes grasped too tightly. They laughed when the puppies cried, and the bigger humans kicked at the mother dog when she tried to protect her babies.

The puppies went fast. The mother had passed on her regal size and bearing, and her blue-black coloring, to all twelve; people thought they’d make good breeders. Here in Curaçao black dogs inspire a special kind of fear (bonus points for size). Which translates to a tidy side income.

Al was the last to go. He became very close to his mother. She taught him to hunt lizards, to cross streets, and to dodge the big male human’s kicks.

Eventually, another big male human came and took him away in a crate. He felt the scent of his mother fading along with the sound of her desperate yapping, and knew helplessness for the first time.

For days he refused to leave the crate. Different people peered in at him, offered things that smelled incredibly good, pleaded with him. But there was no violence, even when he growled. He couldn’t help himself. It was fear, but also despair. Where is my mother?

But she, too, faded. And so he forgave, and forgot, and came out of the crate to discover a dreamland of lawns and soft beds, of endless, delicious food, and a child that played with him not as a toy but as a friend. And never hurt him.

The family, in the military, was reposted to Holland. And the dog had to stay behind.

At first the neighbors fed him, but then he was forgotten. Hunger drove him to the streets; he was eight months old, huge but still growing. He hunted lizards, and remembered his mother. He would go back to her.

He was big, but not savvy. Gangs of dogs bit and tore and chased him away. He grew thin, then skinny, then mangy. Ticks infested his ears. Humans threw rocks and firecrackers, tried to run him over with their cars.

He lost all sense of direction, and of purpose.

And so it was that, a year later, he chased an iguana over a wall and into a chalkstone patio. He almost had her, could almost taste her, when someone shouted and threw something and he had to escape. He waited, just outside the wall, and when it was quiet he jumped over again. That iguana would be his first meal in days. But she was gone. And he had no energy left.

That’s how Luis found him. Sitting on his patio. A monster of an animal, so rangy his head looked huge, malformed. But a dog, nonetheless. And Luis, who’s never had pets (never wanted any, really), will take him in and give him a name: Al, after Alfred Prufrock. (That’s another story.)

Al’s story, for all its wretchedness, isn’t unique. In a place like Curaçao, with so many temporary residents and little culture of animal welfare, abandonment is our daily bread. It’s such a disconnect for me that so much suffering should exist in places we tend to think of as “paradise”… How can our paradise be a hell for others?

Several organizations are at work to make Curaçao a paradise for humans and animals. These are some of them, in case you want to check them out (and a follow on Facebook goes a long way):

Stichting DOG

Stiching Dierenhulp

Dierenbescherming

Curacao Animal Rights Foundation

I-Animal

Are you involved with animal advocacy in your area? What challenges do you face that you feel are specific to your community? Do you have a rescued animal at home?

Julie, thank you so much for your warm hospitality! Al sends his love. (He actually sent liverwurst treats, which I tried to explain probably wouldn’t mean to you what they mean to him, but… His heart is in the right place.)

ABOUT THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS: Mexican tax lawyer Luis Villalobos is lured to the tiny island of Curaçao anticipating a fast track to the cusp of an already stellar career. But the paradise we expect is so rarely the paradise we find.

Truth Serum Press, Aug 2015

Available as paperback, and in Kindle, epub, iBook, and Kobo formats. Find it on Goodreads and Facebook.

ABOUT GUILIE: A Mexican export who transferred to Curaçao “for six months”—and, twelve years later, has yet to find a reason to leave. Her work has been published online and in print anthologies. THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS is her first book. Find Guilie on Facebook and Twitter, at Quiet Laughter where she blogs about life and writing, or at Life in Dogs where she blogs about… well, dogs.

ABOUT THE TOUR: To celebrate the e-book release, THE MIRACLE OF SMALL THINGS is going on virtual tour. Several blogs are hosting Guilie throughout November to talk about writing, the book, its island setting and its characters — including a 100-lb. monster dog rescued from the streets — and some of the issues MIRACLE touches on, such as the role of large and small things in the realignment of our values, and the power of place in our definition of self.

Guest Blogger M. Pax: Misadventures of a City Gal in the Wilderness

I'm thrilled to be hosting my friend M. Pax today as part of her blog tour to promote her new book The Backworlds.  If you haven't already checked out the Backworlds, don't wait any longer! It's a wonderful book and Mary is a great writer. Thank you for being here, Mary!

Misadventures of a City Gal in the Wilderness

By origin, I’m an East Coast city gal. I grew up in Western New York near the border of Canada. I lived many years in New York City and Washington, DC.

Then I met the Husband Unit whose origins are in Colorado. We moved out west to Oregon. A decision I don’t ever regret. Portland is still a city, but once you leave the urban boundaries … well, I was in shock the first couple of years.

Places where there aren’t any people? Roads without pavement and cars? Trees taller than a skyscraper? Sea lions, otters, bald eagles, elk, and antelope. Seriously? I thought antelope lived in Africa. Now that Home on the Range song makes sense.

We moved to Central Oregon four years ago. The wilderness starts two blocks to the left. Honest. I’m talking about vast stretches of sage and brush, and few signs of civilization.

I volunteer at an observatory every summer, which is thirty miles east of town. Really out in nowhereville. A place where there are no other cars on the road. Where you can see no other people. There are no street lights. Places that are so quiet (because there are no other people), you can hear the Earth hum.

One night up at the observatory, we had a troop of boy scouts. Two of the boys forgot their flashlight, so I volunteered to walk them back to their tent. After all, it was only across the road. STUPID! City people should never walk around in the wilderness and especially not in the dark. I couldn’t find my way back … yeah, just across the road. The trees blocked the lights from the observatory, and I quickly got turned around. I knocked on a camper’s tent and asked for help. They kindly walked me to the outhouse. From there I could find the observatory.

Last year (my 4th summer at the observatory), we were hanging out in the residence as usual. It was a cloudy night, so we never set up. We had no visitors. No chance of seeing a star. I’ve walked between the manager’s house and the parking lot hundreds of times and it’s maybe 30 yards at the most.

Because of the cloud cover, there was no moonlight, no starlight. You have no idea just how dark that is. My flashlight was in the car with the rest of my gear. Doing me no good. I thought I was walking straight. Yeah, straight into a tree. Ow. Then I found myself in bramble. In desperation, I beeped my car. It was amazing to me how far off course I was in just a few steps. Dark like that is really disorienting.

Have you had any wilderness misadventures?

The Backworlds After the war with Earth, bioengineered humans scatter across the Backworlds. Competition is fierce and pickings are scant. Scant enough that Craze’s father decides to hoard his fortune by destroying his son. Cut off from family and friends, with little money, and even less knowledge of the worlds beyond his own, Craze heads into an uncertain future. Boarding the transport to Elstwhere, he vows to make his father regret this day.

Available as an ebook from: Available from: Amazon / AmazonUK / Smashwords / Feedbooks

Free on Smashwords & Feedbooks. Will be free on Amazon in a few weeks.

Sign up for M. Pax’s newsletter to be notified the moment The Backworlds goes FREE on Amazon, and when it becomes available from other retailers.

About the author:

M. Pax’s inspiration comes from the wilds of Oregon, especially the high desert where she shares her home with two cats and a husband unit. Creative sparks also come from Pine Mountain Observatory where she spend her summers working as a star guide. She writes mostly science fiction and fantasy, but confesses to an obsession with Jane Austen. She blogs at her website, www.mpaxauthor.com and at Wistful Nebuae. You’ll find links there to connect on Twitter, Goodread, FB and other sites.

Guest Post at My First Book

I am excited to be guest posting at Misha Gericke's My First Book today. If you already follow Misha, you know she is generous enough to open her blog to guest posters every Friday. This year, Misha set up a theme for each month, and the January theme is Beginnings. If you want to see my take on this theme, please join me over at Misha's. You can find my post here.

Also, if you want to see the themes for the rest of the year or learn more about Misha's Guest Post Friday feature, you can read all about the details here.

Thank you, Misha for this fun and rewarding opportunity!

I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead!

Guest Post at Carol Kilgore's Under the Tiki Hut!

I'm hanging out Under the Tiki Hut with Carol Kilgore today for my first ever guest post. Carol is a fantastic hostess, and I'm so grateful to her for having me as her guest.

I signed up to do a guest post back in June, when August seemed very far away. I can't believe it's here already!

Carol asked all guest bloggers to use this Tiki theme for our posts:

"You brought your laptop to the Tiki Hut for some peace and quiet.
What drink do you order? Any snacks?
You're writing away when something catches your eye.
What is it? How do you stay focused on your writing."

To see my take on that theme, come visit me here, and join Carol and me for some Mojitos on the beach Under the Tiki Hut! :)

Hanging Out Under the Tiki Hut

I want to give a shout-out to Carol Kilgore, who has graciously opened her blog, Under the Tiki Hut, to guest bloggers every Wednesday this summer. I'm signed up to be her guest on August 3, and I'm really excited about the opportunity. August 3 was the only Wednesday left when I asked to participate, so I'm glad I e-mailed Carol in time and made it in just under the wire.

Carol is a great writer and has published numerous books and short stories. She is also a big dog lover and supporter of animal rescue. If you are not already familiar with the Tiki Hut I would highly recommend visiting there! I always enjoy Carol's posts, and she has a lot of great writing advice to share.

Also, the photo at the top of the blog always brings a smile to my face. I imagine myself sitting on the beach under that umbrella, and I can almost hear the ocean in front of me.

This is the Tiki Theme that Carol set up for the guest bloggers to follow this summer, copied from her blog:

"You brought your laptop to the Tiki Hut for some peace and quiet.
What drink do you order? Any snacks?
You're writing away when something catches your eye.
What is it? How do you stay focused on your writing."

I think this scenario provides tons of possibilities, and I'm excited to have the chance to share my take on the theme. I'm also glad I have some time to get something written, the August date worked out perfectly for me. I'm looking forward to reading all of the guest posts over the summer, as it seems like a great chance to discover some new bloggers and writers, and I'm curious to see what other bloggers come up with for the theme. 

So thank you again to Carol, and be sure to visit the Tiki Hut. You won't regret your trip! :)