The Books In My Life - Suzy Turner

The gorgeous and super-talented author, Suzy Turner, has very kindly agreed to write a guest post for Someone Wot Writes! I'll be following it up later with a review of her amazing YA novel Raven.

The Books in my Life

Books have always been incredibly important to me. I remember reading so many different kinds as a child, anything from Arthur C Clarke's Islands in the Sky, Robert O'Brien's Z for Zachariah, some of the Nancy Drew series, a whole load of Mills and Boon and many others before I eventually moved on to Jilly Cooper, Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins. I tell you, I learned a lot from those women!

There are some books that were so powerful to me when I first read them as a young teenager. At that age I guess I was easily blown away. Probably because I needed to be taken away into other people's worlds after I lost my mother when I was just 13.

Some that I remember with fondness are Queenie by Michael Korda, Lace by Shirley Conran and Destiny by Sally Beaumont. I also loved the Lucky Santangelo series by Jackie Collins. There was something about all of those books that really touched me at the time. I ought to read them again and see how I am affected now, as a grown woman.

A little later, I remember my dad recommending Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. A huge book, I know, but boy... what a story! It was fantastic. The TV series, although good, just didn't do it justice. Jean M Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear was another book I read soon after,and it certainly wowed me!

Since those days, I've become a true Harry Potter and Twilight fan. I know I will read these books over and over. The only other book that I've ever read twice is Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden and that is an amazing tale - much better than the movie.

But now, since the advent of ebooks and the kindle, I am thoroughly enjoying reading books written by authors in the same situation as me. Self-published authors who have decided to go it alone. And here I am, being blown away yet again by the sheer talent out there. Some firm favourites include Shalini's Hidden, Johanna Frappier's Fairy Circle, Patti Roberts' Paradox... there are so many, I could easily list tons more!

I haven't given up on traditionally published books, of course. I would never do that, although I do prefer to read on my kindle these days as it's so much more convenient than lugging around books around in my handbag!

Thanks so much, Suzy. I loved reading about your book history. I think we must have almost identical reading tastes!

http://suzyturner.com
http://suzyturner.blogspot.com

Guest Blog by Tore Sinding Bekkeval, NORWAY SURVIVOR - Linked from Hannah Warren's Blog

My thoughts are with the survivors of this truly awful event. I can't begin to imagine what they must have gone through and are yet to endure.

Norway survivor, Tore Sinding Bekkeval, has written a guest post for Hannah Warren's blog:

"I wrote a Norwegian post explaining my experience at Utøya. I had taken this blog for dead, and had entirely forgotten that it was syndicated on Planet Debian. I don’t want to let Google Translate make this disaster any worse than it is – the translation of “bullets” into “balls” being particularly bad – so the international attention the massacre has garnered in consideration, I am writing an English translation of my experiences. I feel somehow duty-bound to make people aware of what happened, but I don’t want to get into anything else but a sober description of the events and some very brief reflections. There are many details I have chosen to omit.

"Others have written their experiences of the events at Utøya. I wanted to write mine down as well, and “get it out there”. Partly, I want to write this down because I’m unsure if I will remember all the details at a later point in time, although I think I’d prefer it if I couldn’t. I’m also writing this because people are asking about my experiences and it’s much better to have an URL to give them, lest I have to keep going through the same spiel over and over again ..."

Read more

Selling Ebooks for the Nook from Barnes & Noble

Yesterday I discovered that my young adult novel, Hidden(Marchwood Vampire Series), was in the Barnes & Noble Nook Top 100 list. And not just in the top 100, but it’s reached the vertiginous heights of number 27!
How did it happen? And what does it mean?

I published to B&N via Smashwords, which is great, but unfortunately it means I have to wait until next month to find out what this chart position represents in terms of sales – NO-O-O-O-O!!! How can I wait that long? My mind is on overdrive wondering how many people have bought my book.

Nearly all my previous sales have been through Amazon. In fact, in June I only sold 6 copies of Hidden via B&N and it was ranked in the thousands. So how has it managed to leap from that, to number 27? I’ve been featured on a few blogs and had some great reviews, but apart from that … I’m stumped.



I’m not complaining, just curious and itching to find out how many I’ve sold. Anybody care to take a wild guess???

Doing Nothing, Part 2

So a while ago I set myself the challenge of doing nothing. I don’t often get the chance to do nothing, but I had a window of opportunity and I took it. It was a dismal failure. See here: http://someonewotwrites.blogspot.com/2010/10/doing-nothing.html

And now, nine months later, I've had the time and opportunity to give it another go:

I tidied up the lounge (monumental event) and turned off my laptop (super-monumental event). Then I leaned back into the sofa and tried not to get annoyed by the traffic noise outside. The worst bit was the fidgetiness - the thought of all those things I could be, should be doing. But when these intruders came into my head, I kicked them out and tried to think of beaches, mountain streams, forest glades … I was flitting to all kinds of places of outstanding natural beauty, finally settling on the shore of a lake with my toes in the water.

My shoulders relaxed, my fingers tingled, my toes felt light and fluffy. The coloured energy bars in my body began to power up, multiplying and changing from red to go-girl-green. The cells in my body sighed: ‘We like this. We like this a lot’.

I managed this for a whole ten minutes, but it felt great and I know I should do it more often. I’ll try not to wait another nine months before revisiting the shores of my lake.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

Hope you have a lovely day!

Love from Shalini and Neil

xxxx

Author: Shawn Maravel

Shawn Maravel was born in a small New Jersey town parked right smack dab in the middle of farm country. She has a twin sister and two kid sisters. When her husband joined the Army and was stationed in Germany she packed up her things and moved to Germany to be with him. Making the most of the Army life Shawn has traveled around Europe as much as possible and considers Germany home after spending the last two and a half years there. She spends most of her time reading, writing books, and spending time with her husband, faithful Rottweiler, and ninja cat.

In the book Volition Joel seems to enter Charlotte's life at just the right time, or just the wrong time, depending on who you ask. His easy charm and good looks are assumed by her friends to be Charlotte's biggest distraction in seeing him for who he really is. But the question isn't who he is, it's what.

His bright green eyes match Charlotte's exactly; his hair is the same chocolate brown. Are these just a coincidence or is there a reason for their similarities? Are they connected somehow? Well...that would be absurd...wouldn't it? Charlotte doesn't even know Joel. He's charming and sweet and has the air of innocence, yet he seems to know maybe just a little too much.

There's a fine line between mysterious and dangerous. But where does Joel fall? And why won't he tell Charlotte anything more than that he's "here to protect her." Well that definitely clarifies nothing. Sure she had a close call at the club a few nights ago and things could have ended badly but they didn't...right? Well, that's when Charlotte met Joel and she did happen to meet him in a dark hotel room after she'd passed out at said club. Wait. Now everything is just beyond confusing.

Joel seems honest and something in Charlotte's gut says that he's telling the truth...but what exactly has he told her apart from nothing?

What will readers like about your books?

I think that readers will like my characters and find them very relatable. In book one, Volition the story is built up, the characters developed, the plot and suspense begin, but in book two the action, romance, and suspense really take off. And in book two you really get a feel for the characters even more, discovering what they are willing to do for love and in some cases, revenge.

What inspired you to write them?

The first story I wrote, With Eyes That See I wrote when my husband, then boyfriend, enlisted in the Army. It was something to focus my attention on. That story was inspired by my grandfather who was diagnosed with glaucoma when he was in his early twenties. I am actually re-writing it now. Volition and Severance were similar, I started writing Volition when my husband deployed to Iraq for a year. It started off as one book, inspired by a question that I had asked myself one day, “Who loves you more than anyone else, puts you first, loves you for all that you are and has known you your entire life, putting their love for you before all else.” I developed characters and a plot from there. And soon one book became two books!

Do you have any new works in the pipeline?

I actually have one book called The Wanderer that I will be releasing in January. It is a story about a recently retired Army Veteran. It was originally inspired by my love for a man in uniform and how fabulous I think they look riding a motorcycle in uniform. Seriously…I cannot get enough of it. The main character, Landon Bradley is the kind of man who is not used to sticking around for too long in one place. He packs up his motorcycle and heads North West in search of peace and maybe even a place to finally settle down. But what he finds in a small Wyoming town scares him.

Maxine Abrams, more affectionately known as Max makes him think that maybe he is the kind of man that can be loved, after so many years of thinking otherwise. In the end he must chose which call to heed, his heart or the open road. It really was a very fun story to write. It only took me two months actually. And I love Landon just as much as Max. I think that I created two very strong and believable characters, and a love story that will melt the hearts of my readers.

The story I am working on now, the re-write of With Eyes That See, is arguably my favorite, just because it is my first and re-writing it is something I kind of thought I had lost hope of ever doing. I mean, I wrote three books in between! You can read more about all of the books of course in greater detail on my blog.

Who are your favorite authors?

My favorite authors vary. I read mostly YA books and literary fiction. Those are the two genres that I write as well. For literary fiction I like Nicholas Sparks and Jodi Picoult, though I’ve only read one of Jodi Picoult’s books as of right now, Salem Falls which honestly blew me away. Very well written. And for young adult I like Stephenie Meyer the most, at this point in time. I’m not a crazy Twilight fan by any means but as a writer I envy her easy flow and her ability to write a story that is so fluid.

I didn’t read at all until I finished a book called The Wild Girl by Jim Fergus (I honestly read it just because I loved the cover so much) and it was really good though it was hard, as someone who didn’t read, to get through it. The next book I picked up was Twilight and by that point all four were already out and as someone who found reading difficult…I have never read a book so fast in my life, let alone four, even as someone who enjoys it now. In fact…I can thank those books in part for picking up writing again in the first place.

Tell us something about yourself that not many people know.

I don’t drink, at all. Not for any religious reason or family issues or anything like that. My twin sister and I just grew up very stubborn and just about anything that “everyone did” that was considered "cool", we rebelled against. So even to this day, at age 23 neither of us drink. Everyone I know personally knows this of course but it’s kind of a strange thing about me that always surprises people.

Thanks so much, Shawn!

You can find more information on Shawn and her writing in the following places:

Author Blogspot

Goodreads

Facebook

AmazonAuthor Page
Twitter