Guest of the Month #3

Have you ever wished you knew more bloggers? Do you want to have the chance to guest post on other people’s blogs? Would you love to have a break and have a post written for you? You are in the right place!

What is Guest of the Month club?Guest of the month club is a monthly opportunity to collaborate with different bloggers! Every month you will be paired with a different blogger. You will each plan a guest post for the other’s blog (topic suggestions will be provided every month!). Then all of the club members will post on the same day of the month to make blog hopping easier. This event is hosted and organized by Emily @ Emily Reads Everything.

This Month's Guest is Cyra from Rattle the Pages

Beyond the Blog: Top 5 Books I Want to Read in 2016

Hello everyone! I’m Cyra (Sear-ah) from Rattle the Pages! I’m happy to be hosted today by Emily for the Guest of the Month Club! Today I’m going to be talking about the top 5 books I can’t wait to read in 2016!

First of all, this topic really isn’t fair because there are SO many amazing books coming out this year, I don’t know how I’m supposed to pick just five! So I cheated a little bit!

First, here are the top five books that I want to read this year that are NOT debuts!

1. The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson - I absolutely adored The Kiss of Deception! I really liked The Heart of Betrayal as well! After the ending of HOB, I think that things were as bleak as they could possibly be for Lia and things can literally only go up from there. I can’t wait for this one!
2. Remembrance by Meg Cabot - I was SO excited when I heard about this book! I used to have EVERYTHING by Meg Cabot, but when I was running out of bookshelf space, I gave them to the used bookstore. So I can’t even reread this series in anticipation of this book! I need to get these books again because these were my absolute favorite of her books! Even if I can’t get them soon, I heard that this one can be read as a standalone so that’s awesome!
3. Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard - After that HEARTBREAKING betrayal that SUNK MY SHIP TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, I need to know what happens next. I am SO excited for this book!
4. A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas - I loved A Court of Thorns and Roses. I loved Feyre and Tamlin. I’m excited to read this book, but also scared because if there’s going to be a love triangle and Rhysand is one leg of it, this is quickly going to become a book that I really don’t care for. I HATED Rhysand!
5. Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys - I love WWII historical fiction! This one sounds like it’s gonna be really sad, but really good! I can’t wait to dive into this one!

Now for top five debuts that I want to read this year!

1. Burning Glass by Kathryn Purdie - I have heard nothing but good things about this one and fantasy is my favorite genre. So I think that this one will definitely be a hit with me!
2. Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan - I don’t think that this is the author’s general debut, but I think it’s her YA debut. Not sure if that’s right or not, but that cover is literally the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever been fortunate enough to lay my eyes on.
3. The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye - This one just sounds really good. I just really want it. I don’t even really have a reason except that it sounds fantastic.
4. The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi - This one sounds so good! The idea of a fantasy inspired by Indian Mythology really excites me! 
5. After the Woods by Kim Savage - The summary of this book reminds me of an episode of a crime drama like Criminal Minds or something! Crime dramas are my favorite so I’m really excited for this one!

Those are just a few of the many, many books that I am anxiously awaiting this year. I need them all like, yesterday!!

Guest of the Month #2

Have you ever wished you knew more bloggers? Do you want to have the chance to guest post on other people’s blogs? Would you love to have a break and have a post written for you? You are in the right place!

What is Guest of the Month club?Guest of the month club is a monthly opportunity to collaborate with different bloggers! Every month you will be paired with a different blogger. You will each plan a guest post for the other’s blog (topic suggestions will be provided every month!). Then all of the club members will post on the same day of the month to make blog hopping easier. This event is hosted and organized by Emily @ Emily Reads Everything.

This Month's Guest is Heather from Based on a True Story

Beyond the Blog: Favorite Holiday Traditions

Hi! I'm Heather from Based on a True Story. Emily is hosting me today for the Guest of the Month Club. The topic this month is:

Favorite Holiday Traditions

As soon as I read that I knew I was in trouble. My family doesn't have any. We are entirely free-form around the holidays. In fact, we are so flexible that our major holiday tradition is sitting down sometime on Thanksgiving to decide when Christmas is going to be this year. You'd think that would be an easy answer but it turns out that it isn't. I'm lucky in that my husband's family is far away so we only have to visit my family on holidays. Other people in my family have to balance several celebrations. I have a stepdaughter and so if we want her to be involved in my family's Christmas we need to take her mother's family into consideration. To make that easier, we've decided that Christmas can be anytime. This year the get together for my father's family was December 13. That party has been held as late as February in previous years to make it easier for everyone to get there. The celebration for my immediate family is actually happening today (December 26). That's fairly close to actual Christmas day for us and I'm a little disappointed. If you push it back to New Year's you can hit the after Christmas sales for all your Christmas shopping.


What do we do on December 25? Actually, I'm sort of nervous about that day. A few years ago there was a huge ice storm here and all the power was out for several days including Christmas. It highlighted how truly everything is closed on Christmas. You can't buy food except for at gas stations and that was slim pickings. We ended up finding a working movie theater and eating popcorn and nachos for our meals because we couldn't cook anything. Ever since I stock up for Christmas eating like we might starve to death any minute. We also go to movies every Christmas which horrifies my mother because she thinks that everyone should be home with their families on that day but she's going to be going with us this year. Welcome to the dark side, Mom!
 

 I also like driving around on Christmas morning and looking at all the abandoned parking lots. It is so quiet outside that it feels like a scene from a movie about life after an apocalypse.
 
 It is very peaceful.

Does Your Family Have Any Holiday Traditions?

Guest of the Month #1

Have you ever wished you knew more bloggers? Do you want to have the chance to guest post on other people’s blogs? Would you love to have a break and have a post written for you? You are in the right place!

What is Guest of the Month club?Guest of the month club is a monthly opportunity to collaborate with different bloggers! Every month you will be paired with a different blogger. You will each plan a guest post for the other’s blog (topic suggestions will be provided every month!). Then all of the club members will post on the same day of the month to make blog hopping easier. This event is hosted and organized by Emily @ Emily Reads Everything.

This Month's Guest is Charlotte from Charlotte's Library 

Beyond the Blog: What do you do when you aren't blogging?

I have been blogging for almost eight years now, and have gotten to a point where blogging, qua blogging, doesn't take up too much time. Which is good, because there are little things like work (I'm an archaeologist for my state's preservation agency) and children (although they are older than they used to be, as is the case for so many of us) and home renovations, which never end, to keep me busy. There is also my hobby, which is "picking up books and trying to find places to put them down again."

At the sane end of the scale, such as one could talk about in public, there's checking books out of the library and getting books in the mail or buying them. But even here, my sanity is stretched fairly thin; I have a bad habit of placing library holds to soothe myself at work, and I seem to require lots of soothing, and they all seem to come in at once, and I end up with more books on hand than I can possibly read. I spend considerable time stacking books at home, or moving books from stacks that have gotten too big, or picking them up to actually read them, and then getting distracted, and gently shedding books wherever I go, only of course to scurry around afterwards looking for them all again!

Recently I read, with great interest, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (the Japanese book that tells you, to gather all your material things in huge heaps by category and keep only what gives you joy). Clearly, the book tidying method suggested in this book is neither prudent or feasible; if I were to put every book I own in one room, the floor would collapse (it is an old and tired house). But I was able to successfully dump the contents of my dresser drawers on to the guest room bed. This freed up considerable drawer space, and at last I have a nice place to keep the books I have on offer at Paperback Book Swap! (Although of course I currently have no nice place for houseguests to sleep....)

But the books I have at home don't seem to offer enough scope for moving them around, so I expanded my range. I run the booksales at my local library, and this involves considerable book moving, up from the donation area, where every day I find more bags of donations, into the sorting closet, and then I must squirrel the sorted boxes away as efficiently as possible...

I am trying to cut down on the number of books I move around. I try hard to find them permanent places to live, like the pantry shelves (the Japenese method of tidying up cleared up lots of good book space there too!). But it just doesn't seem to be happening.....

Thank you so much Charlotte for writing this guest post for my blog, it was super fun being your partner. 

Timekeeper Rising Blitz - Guest Post and Giveaway

Book & Author Details:
Timekeeper Rising by Allyssa Painter
Publication Date: August 1st 2015
Genres: Dystopia, Fantasy, Young Adult

Amazon | B&N

Synopsis:Fifty years ago, the sky cried acid and the earth vomited poison, all due to human destruction. Desperate for a savior, the people called out to the Shunned, a group of Fallen angels on Earth, and allowed them to take over. Now the Shunned rule with unspeakable cruelty, manipulating and torturing the humans in every possible way. Marked for death, Iris Ankea will do anything to end their tyranny and rescue her brother and best friend from their clutches. When she learns that she is God’s chosen Timekeeper and has the power to defeat the Shunned, she sets out with the only man who can help her, the one she thinks just might kill her. With a prophecy about her drawing ever near, Iris must race against time to discover her powers before the world, and her life, end. Can Iris force herself to embrace her role and sacrifice herself to save everyone she loves, or will she lose it all?

Guest Post

What I Wish Young Writers Knew

Age Doesn’t Matter

Yes, you read that correct. I said (or typed) “Age doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t, okay? Let me back up. Of course age matters in some things. I’m not saying it’s a good idea to drink at fourteen. I’m not. Please don’t do that. But in writing, age does not matter. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, but I think I really started becoming serious about it in middle school. I started writing this story that ended up filling up three or four notebooks. Yeah, it was ridiculous. But that’s not the point. I stopped writing that story after a while and moved on to other things. In high school, maybe ninth or tenth grade, I wrote my first full-length novel. It’s a little short, but nothing too crazy. After that, I couldn’t stop. I loved writing and I was determined I wanted to publish my book. I wanted to be an author.

So I started researching. I read blogs from authors and advice for writers and all sorts of stuff. And occasionally, someone would address the issue of young authors. And they’d always say things like, “You need to wait to publish until you’re older.” “You’re writing isn’t good enough.” “You’ll look back at those stories later and realize they suck.” And that was so disheartening. Everywhere I looked, everyone said, slow down, wait, you’re not old enough, you’re not good enough. At first, it was enough to make me stop researching. And then the anger seeped in. And the stubbornness. I’m notoriously stubborn. And I decided that I was going to publish my book. I was going to be an author, and I wasn’t going to wait fifteen years just because there was some sort of age requirement.

I started querying my first novel when I was 17 or 18 I think. And I actually had a decent amount of interest. I even had an offer for publication. In the end, I turned it down due to moral/creative differences between myself and the company, which is a perfectly fine thing to do, let me add. You don’t have to take the first contract offered to you. It’s important to find the right company to work with, because you’ll have to work very closely with them.

Anyways, around that time, I finished the Timekeeper, which is what the Duo started out as. I then learned it was way too long and still needed more detail and scenes, so I broke it into two books and finished editing Timekeeper Rising. I queried it for a while, but the idea of angels and demons seemed to turn everyone away. I believed in my book, though, and in myself, so with a lot of support, I decided to self-publish it anyway.

Here’s the part that applies to my point. I am twenty years old. I just turned twenty in May, actually. And I am publishing a book. I am an author. Now, does that suddenly mean all those authors and professionals were wrong, and my book isn’t crap? Well, I guess not technically. Not many people have read it yet, and you can publish anything these days. So, technically speaking, it could be absolutely dreadful. But I don’t think so. Several people have read it for me so far, and they all seem to love it. Is it the best book ever written? I sincerely doubt it. But is it good? Yeah, I think so.

I don’t doubt that one day I’ll look back at this book and think it could be better. But let me tell you a secret. I know of several authors who do that. They look back at the early books and it’s amazing to them to see how far they’ve come. And some authors won’t even look back at them, because they know their new books are way better (at least in their opinion). And these are real adults, guys, not fake adults like me. These people are thirty, forty, fifty years old, and they still do that same thing that people said teens would do. They look back at their early work and know it’s not as good as it could be. Why? Because they’ve grown. We all grow, especially as authors. The more we write, the more we read, the more advice, reviews, and comments we see, the more we learn, and the better our books become. So if this is true for adults, why can’t it be true for teens? Why does age have to matter?

It doesn’t. Age doesn’t matter. Maturity? Sure. Writing ability? Most definitely. But if you’re mature enough, dedicated enough, strong enough, and you have the writing ability, you can be an author. I don’t care if you’re fifteen or a hundred and fifteen. If you can write a good book that people enjoy, and you have tough enough skin and enough dedication to stick through all the unenjoyable businessy stuff of being an author, you can publish a book too, no matter your age. The point is a simple one: Age doesn’t matter. Ability does.

AUTHOR BIO:Allyssa Painter is the author of Timekeeper Rising, the first in the Timekeeper Duo. She graduated from Sissonville High School and attends Concord University for elementary and special education. She dreams of becoming an elementary teacher and continuing to touch the world around her through the novels she writes. In her free time, she enjoys reading fantastical adventures, spending time with her family, and capturing the world around her in photography and writing.

Blog | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

GIVEAWAY

Blitz-wide giveaway (INTL)

                                    1 signed copy of Timekeeper Rising
                                    2 ebook copies of Timekeeper Rising

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Legend of the Light Keeper (Guest Post, Giveaway, Blog Tour)

Author: Kelly Hall
Title: The Legend of the Light Keeper
Series: The Light Keeper Series
Publication Date: March 25, 2015
Publisher: Booktrope
Tour Schedule

Summary: After a hurricane destroys her home, Lily Jordan is ready for life to get back to normal. That would be easy if her mother’s recent engagement hadn’t landed her in a house along Southeast Texas’ most haunted ghost road.
The secluded scenic road is steeped in rich history and legends, but when Lily is given an old diary on her birthday, will she find that those legends hold more for her future than she’s bargained for?
With the help of new friends, Hunter and Owen, and forbidden love, Talon, will she uncover dark secrets from the past and find the key to her own gifts? Is it fate or circumstance that brought her to her new home?
Normal gives way to the paranormal in book one of the Light Keeper series where mystery and suspense will keep you guessing until the very last page.

Guest Post

Tips for Choosing the Right Names for Your Characters

One of my favorite parts of writing is choosing my character’s names. I love creating characters with strong, distinct personalities who are memorable. I love the names I chose for my characters in The Legend of the Light Keeper, but I will admit, those choices taught me a thing or two. So here are some things to consider when naming your characters.

Spell Check: My first issue was spell check. I had chosen names like Lily, Hunter, and Talon that would not pick up on spell check since lily, hunter, and talon are nouns and perfectly acceptable not capitalized. I had to keep a close eye on those words. What I finally did was use my Find feature in Word to go through and double check and make the corrections. I’m glad I kept the names I did, because after writing four more books using those character names, they’ve kind of grown on me. I couldn’t imagine them named anything else, but choosing differently from the start would have saved me a ton of trouble.

Spelling: Choose common spellings. Throwing in a ton of extra letters, changing the common Y to EE or adding in a strange Z and a silent G, H, or X is only going to create more work for you and your reader. I’ve read so many books that had some really memorable names that were spelled ten kinds of crazy, and I didn’t ever, not once think they were awesome names or that the author was extra clever or creative. I thought it was unnecessary and too much of that in one book makes me give up and move on to another. Consider your readers. Give your characters that beautiful name that suits them, but keep it simple.

Avoid confusion: One thing I did with The Legend of the Light Keeper, that didn’t survive past the editing process, was name Lily’s grandmother Grammy. That alone would have been great, but with Owen and Hunter’s grandmother being named Granny, it kind of made for confusion, not only for me, but for my readers. So in the end I changed Grammy to Gram. Make sure that your readers can distinguish who you are talking about with ease. Having to pause to figure it out only slows a reader down.

In closing, I’ll remind you to write what you want. These are only suggestions to help you make easier decisions. The most important advice I can give you is to simply write.

About the AuthorKelly Hall was born and raised in Southeast Texas, and lives in a small town just a stone’s throw from the ghost road where her Light Keeper series is based. When she’s not busy writing, or spending time with her husband and two sons, this self-proclaimed creative junkie dabbles in many different forms of art, including cake decorating and mixed media.

Author Links:
Pinterest | Website | Facebook | Twitter

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Seize Me From Darkness: Book Blitz + Guest Post + Giveaway

Seize me From Darkness by Cari Silverwood

(Pierced Hearts #4) - Can be read as a STANDALONE!
Publication date: September 23rd 2014
Genres: Erotica, Romance
Amazon | B&N | Smashwords | iTunes

Synopsis:This book is part of a dark erotic fiction series and may disturb some readers.
In this dirty, bloody world we live in, the answers to prayers aren’t always pretty angels.
Retaken by human traffickers, Jazmine’s one hope is ex-cop, ex-mercenary, Pieter, a man with a glower that stops lesser men in their tracks.
She prays he can save her.
But this savior is far from perfect and his flaws may prove as devastating to Jazmine as the torture of her captors.
The fire of dominance never dies.

Guest Post

My Writing of Dark Erotic Romances

I was asked why I write this genre by one of my beta readers and to be honest it’s for two reasons. The first is that I’ve always been enthralled by dark scenes in stories – the serial killer tying the heroine to her bed and torturing her before he thinks about killing her, the ancient Gor series where Earth women are kidnapped and taken to another planet to be enslaved in a Swords and Sorcery type setting, Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart series (swoon), and many more.

Second reason? I always knew I loved these but writing a contemporary book with this sort of depraved story as the WHOLE PLOT? I’d not have thought to do it without having read Bianca Sommerland’s Deadly Captive and partially read C.J. Robert’s Captive in the Dark.

Though I didn’t finish reading the latter, it inspired me. I know it’s a great and well-written series but the man in it just never appealed to me. I don’t like bad men as the hero in most books unless I can see a lot of good from square one. Captive in the Dark made me wonder if I could write a book where the man began as a good man.

I planned a story where I could slowly reveal my hero’s inner monster – the part of him that was ecstatic to be a sadist and a Dominant. That story became Take me Break me, a book that featured in the #16 New York Times bestselling collection called Make Me.

Since then I’ve continued my trend of having the man a good person at the beginning of each book. Although Chris in Make me Yours Evermore was a bad guy from the start, his accomplice, Andreas, my Good Samaritan cross happy kidnapper, kept the trend alive.

If making the man good at the beginning is one thing that sets my stories apart from most dark books, another feature might be my settings. I often show off the Australian landscape. All our wonderful beaches and rainforests deserve some attention. In this latest book, Seize me From Darkness, I’ve set most of the action in Papua New Guinea, which is a deeply tropical country, across the sea, to the north of Australia.

However, because much of Seize me From Darkness takes place inside the House, a place designed for the housing and training of sex slaves, I didn’t get to describe much of Papua New Guinea. I did get to show a tropical island though, with gorgeous white sand beaches and assorted sea life. One reader has told me that reading my Pierced Hearts series is like taking a beach holiday. Amusing, considering what happens in the books. I dearly hope her holidays don’t feature torture and abduction. Fiction will always be far more consensual and safe than real life, unless someone glues the eReader to your hand and props open your eyelids.

So there’s some of why and how I write dark fiction. I love it, and it’s my sexual fantasyland too. Enjoy your fiction. Don’t let anyone take it away from you.

About The  Auhor

Cari Silverwood is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer of kinky darkness or sometimes of dark kinkiness, depending on her moods and the amount of time she's spent staring into the night. She has an ornery nature as well as a lethal curiosity that makes her want to upend plots and see what falls out when you shake them.

When others are writing bad men doing bad things you may find her writing good men who accidentally on purpose fall into the abyss and come out with their morals twisted in knots.

This might be because she comes from the land down under, Australia, or it could be her excessive consumption of wine.

Freaking out readers is her first love and her second love is freaking out the people living in her books. Her favorite hobby is convincing people she has a basement...though she really doesn't. Promise. If it existed it would be a terrifying place where you would find all the dangerous things that you never knew you craved.

Own me Until Forever, Book 5 in the Pierced Hearts series, will be out late 2014

My website, if you're curious about my other evil pursuits: http://www.carisilverwood.net/

To find out about upcoming releases, please join Cari's mailing list here carisilverwood.net/about-me.html

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Love and Leftovers: Book Blitz, Giveaway, Guest Post

Love and Leftovers by Sarah Tregay
Paperback Re-Release: 05/13/14
Katherine Tegen Books
Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Kobo * Book Depository

Summary from Goodreads:
My wish
is to fall 

cranium over Converse
in dizzy, daydream-worthy 
love.
(If only it were that easy.)
When her parents split, Marcie is dragged from Idaho to a family summerhouse in New Hampshire. She leaves behind her friends, a group of freaks and geeks called the Leftovers, including her emo-rocker boyfriend, and her father. By the time Labor Day rolls around, Marcie suspects this "vacation" has become permanent. She starts at a new school where a cute boy brings her breakfast and a new romance heats up.
But understanding love, especially when you've watched your parents' affections end, is elusive. What does it feel like, really? Can you even know it until you've lost it?

Guest Post: What is your character reading?

Throughout Love and Leftovers, Marcie, leaves hints about what she has been reading. Marcie is on a quest for love and acceptance—despite her parent’s current relationship troubles—and some of her reading choices are little side trips in her journey.

Early on, she finds comfort—and answers—in the happy endings of the romance novels that her Aunt Greta leaves behind at the summerhouse, even though her mother doesn’t approve. (Her mom is both a feminist and an author who doesn’t think much of genre fiction.)

Other reads on Marcie’s nightstand are Sonya Sones’s verse novel, What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know; Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series; Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; and classics like Charlotte Brontë’s Jayne Eyre and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. There’s a little Shakespeare left over from English class. Sam, the Goth girl at Oyster River High School, also loves classic literature and can’t live without Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Marcie’s haphazard pile of books on her nightstand mirrors the types of books I read when I was sixteen—books my mom thought were good, YA reads, and classics I read to impress my English teacher.



About the Author
Raised without television, Sarah Tregay started writing her own middle grade novels after she had read all of the ones in the library. She later discovered YA books, but never did make it to the adult section. When she's not jotting down poems at stoplights, she can be found hanging out with her "little sister" from Big Brothers Big Sisters. Sarah lives in Eagle, Idaho with her husband, two Boston Terriers, and an appaloosa named Mr. Pots. Her next book, Fan Art, will be released in June.

GIVEAWAY

Win a signed paperback copy of Love and Leftovers and a guitar-pick necklace. (USA and Canada)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Blitz Organized by:

Book Blitz + Giveaway + Guest Post: The Only Boy

The Only Boy by Jordan Locke
Publication date: December 17th 2013
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult

Amazon - B&N

Synopsis:

Mary is stuck in Section One, living with three hundred women in a crumbling hospital. She wonders what life was like two centuries ago, before the Cleansing wiped out all the men. But the rules—the Matriarch's senseless rules—prevent her from exploring the vacant city to find out.

Taylor's got a dangerous secret: he's a boy. His compound's been destroyed, and he's been relocated to Section One. Living under the Matriarch means giving up possessions, eating canned food and avoiding all physical contact. Baggy clothes hide his flat chest and skinny legs, but if anyone discovers what lies beneath, he'll be exiled. Maybe even executed.

Mary's never seen a boy—the Matriarch cut the pictures of men from the textbooks—and she doesn't suspect Taylor's secret. If she knew, she might understand the need to stop the girls from teasing him. If she knew, she might realize why she breaks the rules, just to be near him. Then again, she might be frightened to death of him.

Taylor should go. The Matriarch is watching his every move. But running means leaving Mary—and braving the land beyond the compound's boundaries.

Author Bio

Jordan Locke lives in Connecticut with his wife, two lively daughters and a well-behaved whippet. A graphic designer by trade, his creativity spilled over into the literary world. After years of writing, reading and learning the craft, his fifth novel, The Only Boy, brought him offers of representation from two well-known agents. Now, after the dog is fed and the kids are in bed, you will find him tapping away at the keyboard.

Guest Post

How I Came Up With the Idea for The Only Boy

Usually, soon after I finish one novel, the idea for another comes, as if my mind automatically kick-starts in a new direction.

The concept for The Only Boy came a few weeks after watching the movie Children of Men. If you haven’t seen it or read the book, the gist is that babies have stopped being born, for some inexplicable reason, and the youngest living person is now an adult. This got me wondering what a world with only women would be like. How would they reproduce? Could they develop a technique to combine DNA from women to make more women?

After many years, centuries even, perhaps the women would no longer want men around? Maybe they would blame them for the disease that nearly wiped out humanity.

Introducing a boy into the mix would make the story more interesting, make the plot more complicated. Some of the women would want him dead. He would have to hide his identity.

I needed characters. Taylor, the only living boy, has just lost his family and friends, everyone he knew. Mary is an inquisitive girl with a yearning to learn more about life before the disease. The Matriarch, the figurehead for the group, is obsessed with making sure men never return. I tossed them together to see what would happen.

Of course, I thought the idea was totally original, but soon after I finished The Only Boy, I learned that the concept (just one living male) had been done before, in a comic book and a made-for-TV movie. It seems there are no new ideas, or at least very few of them. How many vampire books have been written? Avatar follows the same basic plot as Fern Gulley. Cinderella has been rehashed countless times.

A fresh take, however, can bring new life to the story. I haven’t seen the aforementioned comic book or made-for-TV movie, but I’m fairly sure The Only Boy is unique. Hopefully, my novel stands on its own.

GIVEAWAYS

Blitz-wide giveaway

Prizes - open INTL:

-A $50 Amazon gift card

-A signed copy
-10 e-book copies 

a Rafflecopter giveaway