Hey guy! Happy Monday! I've got an awesome book blitz for you guys today featuring Revelation by Jennifer Carole Lewis! I know I'm adding it to my TBR, because it sounds awesome! Today's post will feature some awesome promo and a giveaway. Check it all out:
Revelations by Jennifer Carole Lewis
Publication date: January 30th 2015
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal Romance
Dani has spent years fighting against her family’s urges to take on the mantle of High Priestess for the lalassu. Stronger and faster than any ordinary human, she has no interest in being a guide for her people. She likes being independent and enjoys her night-job as a burlesque dancer. But a darker secret lurks inside of her, one which threatens everyone around her.
Isolated and idealistic, Michael works as a developmental therapist for children, using his psychometric gifts to discover the secrets they can’t share with anyone else. When one of his clients is kidnapped, he will do almost anything to rescue her. The investigation leads him to a seedy little performance club where he is shocked and thrilled to discover a genuine live superhero.
Michael and Dani must join forces to save those they care about from becoming the latest victims of a decades-long hunt. But the fiery chemistry between them threatens to unlock a millennia-old secret which could devour them both.
The clock is ticking and they will be faced with the ultimate hero’s choice: save the world or save each other?
Jennifer Carole Lewis
She is a devoted comic book geek and Marvel movie enthusiast. She spends far too much of her precious free time watching TV, especially police procedural dramas. Her enthusiasm outstrips her talent in karaoke, cross-stitch and jigsaw puzzles. She is a voracious reader of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction and always enjoys seeking out new suggestions.
*****
Guest Post
5 Right
Lessons Learned From the Wrong Places
When I was
in college, one of my professors told me something which changed my mind about
the best way to learn. He told me that I
would learn more from people I disagree with and experiences I didn’t like than
I ever would from those I enjoyed and agreed with. And he was right.
Everyone
tells you to read good books in order to learn how to write good books. But I’ve learned just as much, if not more,
from books I didn’t enjoy. I won’t share
specific names here, since I’m a big believer in not being sued. But if you want to be a writer, I would
strongly encourage you not to put a book aside because you’re not enjoying
it. Instead, break it down and figure
out why you didn’t like it, especially if it seemed promising at first.
Flat
characters
Dickens is renowned for his vivid characters. With only a few phrases or words of
descriptions, he made them seem real to his readers. But description is only the first part of
making a character seem real.
I was put off with a recent library pickup, a paranormal romance,
because the heroine seemed completely removed from the story. Werewolves attacking? Meh.
Family’s safety threatened? All
in a day’s work. I suspect the author
was trying to demonstrate this young woman’s shock by minimizing her emotional
reaction. But instead, it came off as if
the character didn’t care at all. Characters
are our windows into a book’s world. We
react to stories about people, which is why we care more about one little boy or
girl suffering than statistics about millions dying.
Characters may feel real to the author but sometimes they don’t transfer
onto the page. To feel real to a reader,
they need information sprinkled throughout.
Favorite foods, a nervous habit, souvenirs from childhood, all of these
sorts of details make a character feel real.
And most of all, they need to react to what’s going on. I was told to make sure my point-of-view
character reacted either emotionally, intellectually or physically to every action
in a scene. And it makes a difference.
Another common character challenge is a stereotyped character. Another recent book I picked up felt like the
main characters had been picked up out of a discount bin. There was the Peppy Cheerleader, the Brooding
Poet and the Dumb Jock. Not once did any
of them break with their stereotypes: the cheerleader was enthusiastic and
ditzy about everything, the poet wore black clothes and brooded in corners and
the jock failed to recognize such exotic places as “Mexico”. The concept of the story was interesting but
the flat characters sucked all the fun out of it.
Every person is unique and every character should be, too. Even secondary characters should have
something unique about them to distinguish them from the thousand other gum-snapping
waitresses or awkward tech specialists out there. Main characters should break out of
stereotypes in a dozen different ways, at a minimum.
Failing to Deliver
Nothing ruins a story faster than anticipating something which never
happens. In one small-town romance I
read, the heroine arrives on the run from an abusive stalker ex-boyfriend. Throughout the book, I kept waiting for the
ex to find her. She worried about it
constantly, running away from a local TV broadcast, not giving her real name to
anyone, lying about her background. Halfway
through the book, she sees a news broadcast telling her that the ex-boyfriend
has died in a car accident. That was the
closest he came to playing a role in the story.
I felt incredibly cheated by that novel.
I’d been looking forward to some kind of confrontation, maybe between
the ex and the hero. Or maybe the
heroine would have to decide between staying with the man she’d come to love or
escaping the one who hurt her. I even
held out hope that he’d faked his death to lure her out of hiding (since he was
described as obsessive and manipulative).
Instead, the problem was solved without her having to lift a finger or
make a decision.
Readers will expect narrative promises to be fulfilled. If an author brings something up, then
readers expect it to play a role in the story.
Crises and plot points should never be solved “off camera” away from the
reader.
Too Much Backstory
Personally, I’m obsessive about backstory. If I like a character, I want to know
everything about them. What songs did
their mother sing to them at night?
Where did they hang out in high school?
I like knowing details.
On the other hand, there can be too many details. One rather hefty novel I picked up had a 30
page prologue detailing the hero’s ancestry and his ancestor’s
achievements. None of which ended up playing
any role in the story. Granted, it
helped to establish the world but that could have been done much more
concisely. Details should establish
character, establish the world in the story or create the mood/scene. Otherwise, the pace is bogged down and
readers can’t pick out the significant information from the multitudes.
Overly Developed World
Technically, I suppose this flaw is really an extension of the “too much
backstory” and “flat character” flaws.
Sometimes authors have a real gift for world creation. They can create an alternate reality or a
fantasy world which feels incredibly innovative and real. Setting is supposed to feel like another
character. It isn’t supposed to usurp
the actual walking-talking characters.
I’ve read any number of historical, fantasy and paranormal novels where
the world was fascinating but the flat characters ended up feeling like a
distraction against the backdrop. In one
Victorian romance I read, the author devoted a lot of time to making 1860s
London feel real and substantial. She
explained customs deftly and had done her research on dress and manners. But her hero and heroine remained stilted and
awkward.
One of my friends wants to write novels, but he fully admits he’s much
better at coming up with unique worlds and grand sweeping arches of fictional
history than he is at creating characters that other people want to read
about. I’ve offered him the following
litmus test: if I pulled these characters out of this world and stuck them
anywhere else, would anyone be interested in what’s happening to them?
Too Many Surprises
I like being surprised, but only in a good way. I want to look back at the story and say to
myself “My God, how did I miss that!
It’s so obvious!” as I eagerly flip the pages. I do not want to be sitting there going
“Hunh?” as events play out.
A series I was enjoying ended up completely flipping the expectations
from the first book in the last one.
There was a secondary character who I fully expected to be revealed as a
villain (perhaps a reformed villain trying to mend her ways but a villain
nonetheless). There were all sorts of
hints that she was not what she appeared to be.
But in the last book it was revealed that she was, in fact, exactly what
she appeared to be. Meanwhile, the good
guys had become the bad guys and everyone had changed their minds about what
they were fighting for in this particular post-apocalyptic landscape.
I read interviews with this particular author who admitted that she went
through a major reconceiving of the overall story about two-thirds of the way
through the series. Unfortunately, the
preparations she had done no longer applied.
And so the ending scenario came off as incomprehensibly surprising.
This is where a good beta-reader is invaluable. Someone who has not talked to the author
about the story and who only knows what is on the page. Authors may think they’ve explained something
or set it up perfectly, but the reader is still in the dark. A good beta-reader will tell you if your plot
and character actions make sense based on what you have already established.
No author
can ever indulge in the belief that she or he has learned all there is to
know. To quote Jurassic Park: “Creation is an act of sheer will”. The spark of inspiration is only the
kernel. After that, comes the layers of
sheer will and determination which turn the tiny kernel into a pearl.
So take the
time to indulge in some “bad” stories.
You’ll learn more than you think.
*****
Alright guys, that's all I have for you on the topic of Revolutions by Jennifer Carole Lewis. Doesn't it sound awesome? And that guest post? Great! Be sure you guys enter the giveaway before heading off! Shout out to the author and the team at XPresso Book Tours for allowing me to participate! Until next time, Happy Reading!
-Ethan
Thanks Ethan. :)
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