Monthly Archives: January 2013

YA Rocks! Young Adult Giveaway Hop

 

Welcome to our stop on the Young Adult Giveaway Tour! Heather Doherty and I write fast-paced YA paranormal/horror. While we each have our own solo writing careers (I write romantic suspense and adult paranormal romance and Heather writes literary and child lit), we do love love our YA. So here it is – 10 things we love about well-written Young Adult/New Adult literature:

 

  1. It’s wide open! (Almost) anything goes.
  2. It appeals to a wide range of readers, not just teens. I think that’s because our teenage years are seared into our psyches. We read a coming of age novel and we’re teens again.
  3. Well-written YA lit is engrossing, compelling and above all honest!
  4. It’s written expressly about the challenges experienced by teens/young adults.
  5. It’s wide open!!!
  6. All fiction gives us life lessons, but we think YA fiction helps the young reader mature. They have a chance to “live” multiple scenarios, watch the characters make choices, suffer the consequences of bad ones. They see the character get knocked down and get back up again. They struggle and triumph. Or at least come to a kind of clarity.
  7. It provides escape (not to be underestimated in this troubled world).
  8. It can confirm the legitimacy of your own experiences to see characters undergo the same kinds of experiences/feel the same emotions.
  9. YA lit has always pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable, sometimes dealing with very difficult or taboo subjects. Adults don’t always like that, but the fact remains that lots of young adults live with domestic violence, incest, etc., and why shouldn’t young adult literature reflect that? If not in literature, then where can we bare our souls, shred our screams and claw our way through?
  10. Did we mention that it’s wide open?

 

 

 

Three girls from completely different walks of life come together when their parents send them to a last chance boarding school. The only thing they have in common is the soul-deep pain each of them holds inside, from very different wounds. Each wants to find a way to escape the pain. A way out. And they do.

In the attic of the old Victorian house that serves as their residence, they’ve found an old diary that gives them the key to escape their pain, escape their very bodies. But that kind of reprieve always carries a price…

Coming soon: 

 

 

What do YOU love best about YA? Tell us in a comment below to qualify to win one of our two prizes:

 

–        A signed copy of our latest YA Comes the Night (Book 1 in the Casters series)

–        A $10 Gift Certificate from your choice of Amazon, B&N or iTunes.

 

NOTE: Comments on this blog are moderated. Don’t sweat it if your comment doesn’t show up immediately.

 

Though not required, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.

 

If you want to join Norah Wilson’s newsletter mailing list, she often has special giveaways and free book offers for her newsletter subscribers only. Note that while her newsletter talks about our YA projects, she might also talk about our jointly written cozy mystery or her solo-written romantic suspense or paranormal romance. You can subscribe here if you’re interested.

 

Once you’ve commented for your chance to win our prizes, click this link to get back to the Linky list to continue hopping. Good luck to you!

 

Oh, and if you’re so inclined, take a look at this cool video we commissioned from Jeffrey Somers. He’s doing some awesome book trailers.

 

I Heart Grump Cat (Part II)

by Heather Doherty

 

Okay, I swear, last grumpy cat meme I’ll ever pass along on this blog (this week, cough cough).

 

But how better to introduce some more very cool cat superstitions than with a picture of a cat smacking a superhero? Pffft… right. Rhetorical question. There is no better way.

These are kind of fun:

  • One Indian wedding superstition is that it’s good luck if a cat eats from the bride’s or groom’s left shoe one week before the wedding.
  • Cats draw lightning.
  • It is good luck to hear a cat sneezing.
  • Cats will steal the breath of a sleeping person, particularly babies.
  • In Japan the Maneki Neko or beckoning cat is common figurine in businesses and homes, sure to bring good fortune and money to the owner.
  • If a cat is cleaning its face by the door, company is coming.

And my personal favorite:

  • The girl who finds a strange cat in her bedroom at night will be lucky (biting tongue very sharply right now).

See, told you superstitions were awesome! I really love and respect these bits of wisdom, whimsy, brilliant old wives tales. There is so much more to the world than what’s right before our eyes. Do I believe in every superstition I come across? No. Do I have superstitions of my own (asks the woman wearing green – always wearing  green – as I write)? Absolutely!

More on wisdom, whimsy and brilliant old wives tales next week.

In the meantime, want to share some of your superstitions?

 

I heart Grumpy Cat

 

By Heather Doherty

I’m a dog person (shout out to Chloe!) but I have fallen in love with the grumpy cat meme that’s been all over Facebook lately. Best cat EVER. Seriously, if I owned a cat (not happening people, don’t send me your cats) this would be my kind of feline. Screw chasing mice, I plan your untimely demise!

 

Okay, some of the grumpy cat captions are (cough cough) inappropriate for all audiences. But most are snort-worthy funny. Like this one…

 

 

So, in honour of grumpy cat and its uncanny, mind-bending ability to make me click share, here’s a few cat-meeting superstitions to start this SUPERSTITION SUNDAY weekly blog post. (Did I just write weekly? Oh yes, I did … see you next week).

  • Black cat about to cross your path? Change your path. At least in North American cultures, this is an advisable course of action. Yet, in Scottish superstition, a black cat on the porch is a sign of good luck to come.
  • White cats? They come with a little better rep. Dreaming of one is a foretelling of good luck, as is seeing a white cat on the road before you (um, unless the cat has met its untimely end on said road; that couldn’t be a good thing). However in England, seeing a white cat on the way to school was a sign of trouble to come.
  • Cats by the water? Sailors are notoriously superstitious, which isn’t surprising considering how precarious the profession was decades ago. If a cat scooted in front of a sailor on a pier, good luck was his. But if a cat cut across his path, the reverse fortune was in store.
  • One-eyed cat? If you see a one-eyed cat, spit on your thumb, press it to the middle of your palm, then make a wish. Oh oh oh, the wish is sure to come true.

 

More on cat superstitions next Superstition Sunday. In the meantime, here’s Ruckus, Norah’s cat along with the lovely and powerful Labradorite sphere we are giving away IN JUST TWO DAYS!

 

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