Epic Summer Giveaway Hosted by 9 YA Authors!

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Summer is officially here! I’ve teamed up with 8 Young Adult authors to host this amazing summer giveaway that will run the entire month of June.

Here’s what one lucky winner will get:

  • 9 Signed Paperback books + swag from these authors:

Linda Budzinski – The Boyfriend Whisperer
Natalie Decker – Rival Love
Jennifer DiGiovanni – My Senior Year of Awesome
Cassandra Giovanni – Out of Beat
Deirdre Riordan Hall – Chasing Days
Rebekah L. Purdy – Incriminating Dating
Amy Sparling – Natalie and the Nerd
Patricia B. Tighe – Life in the No-Dating Zone
Cheyanne Young – The Breakup Support Group

  • A $10 Starbucks Gift card + a bottle of nail polish (donated by Natalie Decker)
  • A $10 Amazon Gift Card (will be emailed to the winner)
  • A Cute Heart Books tote bag for all your summer book needs
  • A signed poster by Rebekah L. Purdy
  • Lots of swag!

 

Click this link to enter

Compicpalooza 2017 Wrap-up

Houston’s largest comic event is now over! This was my second year as an attending author, and I had a total blast! I was on two panels, and one of them was this year’s first ever “YA Roundtable”. We all sat around (a suspiciously rectangular table) and talked about YA books. That was probably the fastest hour of my life, because when I talk about books, there’s never enough time! But I met some awesome people, some readers and some aspiring authors and I was happy to share my (questionably insightful) wisdom.

Then I was on the panel called Not Another Love Triangle – Tropes in YA Fiction. I had some amazing panelists with me:


Jennifer Yen 
Margo Bond Collins
Emily Evans
Mari Mancusi

Please click the links above to check out these authors’ books!

      

Despite the Houston traffic, Comicpalooza is so much fun. Where else can you get free donuts, talk about YA books, eat nachos for lunch, and see Chuck Norris all in the same building?

See you next year, Comicpalooza!

 

You can now read Motocross Me on Wattpad

After not really knowing what it is for a few years, I’m finally diving into the fun of Wattpad! If you’re not aware, Wattpad is a website where people share their original stories chapter by chapter. People can read them and vote on the chapters and leave comments for the author. It’s a fun social way to read books and since my daughter is addicted to it, I’ve recently checked it out myself.

(As if I needed more books to read than my already HUGE stack of TBR books? *sigh*)

The best part about Wattpad is that it’s all FREE! And I’ve recently decided to upload all of my self published books on there as I transition my work into traditionally published books. My books will still be available at booksellers in ebook and paperback, should you want a real copy. As always, I would be THRILLED if you read any of my books and decide to leave a quick review on Amazon or Goodreads (or both!)

Up first is my debut YA novel, Motocross Me. It’s a contemporary teen romance about a girl who moves to live with her dad on his dirt bike track for the summer, only to fall for two of the fastest dirt bike racers in the state.

Read it on Wattpad here: Motocross Me

 

Stay tuned for more books as I release them! As always, you can sign up for my 6 times a year newsletter to get links to all the fun bookish stuff in my world. (Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/bO3qgb)

 

 

Cover Reveal for TIDE by Deirdre Riordan Hall 🌊

Today is the cover reveal for Tide by Deirdre Riordan Hall! Deirdre is one of my dear friends and she’s also one of my favorite authors. This cover reveal is especially fun for me because I actually designed the cover! Deirdre gave me her ideas and we worked hard to come up with an awesome concept. You’ll also love the cover for the sequel which will be released soon!

(This cover reveal is organized by Lola’s Blog Tours. The cover is designed by Nova Book Covers — That’s me!)

TideTide (The Sea & Sand series #1)
By Deirdre Riordan Hall
Genre: Fantasy
Age category: Young Adult
Release Date: May 16, 2017

Blurb:
Never trust a mermaid’s kiss.

Tyler McColdrum has a bright future on the professional surfing circuit until his father tragically dies at sea. Unable to pay the bills, Tyler and his mother leave California and move to his late grandfather’s cottage in Land’s End, Maine—a world away from the life he’s known. Not even the stormy Atlantic can douse Tyler’s surf stoke, but when mariners go missing off the coast, legends as old as the sea itself suggest something lurks beneath the surface. As the police investigate, his friend Kiwa—the only female surfer for miles—indicates there’s more to the McColdrum family history than blood and bone.

Amara is a beautiful mermaid, a mero, who wants a life on land away from her sinister sisters. As charming as mero are, with musical voices and a tempting gaze, they’re also brutal and cruel, stealing the souls of sailors. As Initiation nears, Amara learns Poseidon selected her as consort and her desperation for freedom increases. When Tyler encounters Amara, he falls hard for her. The ocean is no longer safe for him, but he trusts their love can overcome her mero nature. As locals and officials wage war against the sea, trying to keep mariners safe, Tyler and Amara struggle with how to protect each other.

With one foot in the sand and the other in the sea, Tyler must choose love or the surf as the tide quickly rises.

You can find Tide on Goodreads

You can pre-order Tide on Amazon

Share the love!
Please share the Tide love with your Twitter, Facebook, & social media friends:

Copy and paste to Tweet:
Never trust a mermaid’s kiss. Tide #youngadult #fantasy available 5/16 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34796931-tide

Copy & Paste for Facebook:
When sailors go missing off the coast of the Atlantic, Tyler learns alluring and beautiful doesn’t mean harmless, leaving it up to him to stop the mero or lose more souls to the sea. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y1JZFD9/

Deirdre Riordan HallAbout the Author:
Deirdre Riordan Hall is the author of the young adult bestsellers, Sugar and Pearl along with women’s fiction. When she’s not writing, she’s probably surfing or in pursuit of magic. She also has a healthy case of wanderlust, loves chips and salsa, and dreams about learning no less than three languages. Join her monthly newsie.

You can find and contact Deirdre Riordan Hall here:
– Website
– Blog
– Facebook
– Twitter
– Goodreads
– Amazon
– Instagram
– Pinterest
– Tumblr
– Newsletter

Giveaway
There is a cover reveal wide giveaway for the cover reveal of Tide. One winner will win a copy of Tide by Deirdre Riordan Hall. This giveaway is open international as long as the Bookdepository ships to your country.

For a chance to win enter the rafflecopter below:
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https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js


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💙📚 City of Legends is on sale now! 📚💙

 

I just got word from my editor that the entire City of Legends eBook series is going to be on sale for the month of May! Normally $3.99 each, you can now get them for $1.99 each!

City of Legends is a teen superhero series about Maci Knight, a Super who has trained her whole life to become a Hero. But when she’s finally old enough to take her Hero exam, she discovers a terrifying secret that she might actually have been born with villain blood.

Sound interesting? You can get your copy on Amazon!

Already read City of Legends? I would LOVE it if you leave a quick review of the book (and the sequels!) on Amazon, since reviews really help an author out! You can also help me spread the word by tweeting the message below! (Just click to tweet!)
Tweet: Maci has trained to be a hero. But she just might be a villain. City of Legends by @NormalChey is on sale! https://ctt.ec/1z5bR+

Novel Aesthetics for The Last Wish of Sasha Cade

Today I’m sharing some novel aesthetics for The Last Wish of Sasha Cade! My new book releases over a year from now, but until that glorious day, I want to share some insight and behind the scenes info about this book that is so close to my heart.

[All of the images were taken from Pinterest, and you can view my inspiration board here to see more photos and where I got the ones from this collage.]

Fun fact: I haven’t always used inspiration boards. I’ve only recently started this past year,  and I’m really loving what having some great photos can do to the writing process. For example, if I know I want to use an old church in a scene, I’ll look up old churches and pick one I like the best. Then I use that photo when I’m describing it in my writing. I think it makes for more authentic writing and descriptions when I’m not just pulling everything out of my brain. (Let’s face it, my brain is about 75% coffee by now, so it could use some imagery help.)

Now, my favorite part of the outlining process is finding images that fit the tone and vibe of the story in my mind and making them into a collage. I then set the image as my computer’s wallpaper so I’m seeing it all the time and keeping the story fresh in my mind.

Psst: If you’d like to add Sasha to your Goodreads list, you can find it here.

Here are the aesthetics for Sasha:

I’d love to know what you think! As a writer, do you use inspiration photos? As a reader, do novel aesthetics get you excited to read the book? Let me know in the comments! 

Announcing my new book deal for The Last Wish of Sasha Cade

Eek! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to tell you all about my new book? It feels like forever, but it’s really been a few months. I am so unbelievably thrilled to announce that my new YA novel, The Last Wish of Sasha Cade, sold to KCP Loft for publication in the fall of 2018! I am honored to join the team at KCP Loft, which is the fairly new YA imprint of Kids Can Press, a publisher who just this week won the Publisher of the Year award from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. I’m working with editor Kate Egan, who edited The Hunger Games series. (I mean, WHOA!)

From Publisher’s Marketplace:

SASHA is a book of my heart. It is a book born from a random thought that spiraled into a fully plotted novel before I could even write down the first word of my idea. It only took me 27 days to write the novel because the words just fell out of me and onto the computer. That has seriously never happened before, and I knew the book was special because of it. (I’ve sense hoped lightning would strike twice, but my next two novels are back to being difficult to plot. Such is a writer’s luck.)

I started calling it my “perfect YA book” or PYA for short, because from the moment Sasha Cade and her best friend Raquel Clearwater came into my mind, I knew it was The One. The book I’d been waiting my whole life to write. And now I am still dancing around, unable to stop smiling, because Sasha and Raquel (and swoony Elijah!) will be in a bookstore near you next year!

Until then, I’ll be sharing weekly behind-the-scenes info on The Last Wish of Sasha Cade, and looking forward to working on edits and having a cover reveal! This book publishing thing is an absolute dream (disguised as a ton of hard work). Totally worth it.

PS- If you’d like to add it to your TBR on Goodreads click here.