Unexpected Suprises!

Hey Bookies!

Received an unexpected surprise this past Thursday ... a ARC from one of my professors!

Okay, so let me backtrack. This semester one of the classes I am taking is Ghosts in American Culture (does that not sound cool or what?!) and my professor, get this, is a New York Times Bestselling author! Oh, and apparently she is related to Elizabeth Howe and Elizabeth Proctor from the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Crazy right?!

Katherine Howe is the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, The House of Velvet and Glass, and Conversion. She has hosted “Salem: Unmasking the Devil” for the National Geographic Channel, and her fiction has been translated into over twenty-five languages. A native Texan, she lives in New England and upstate New York, where she teaches at Cornell and is at work on her next novel.

Author photo copyright Laura Dandaneau.
Click Here to download a high resolution version.

You can check out her website: HERE


Anywho, Tuesday during class she asked if anyone was a YA book blogger. Being the private person I am, did not raise my hand but instead, spoke to her after class was over. It was then that she offered to give me an ARC of her latest work and you can guess what my answer was. The rest is history. Last night I finally cracked the cover and stayed up 'till 4AM, droopy-eyed and all because it is so good.

Take a look for yourselves:

"Smart, compelling, exciting, and completely absorbing. Katherine Howe is stunningly deft at blurring the lines between the emotional and the supernatural. I recommend clearing your calendar before you start reading this novel."

—David Liss, bestselling author of The Twelfth Enchantment

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together.
Until they can’t.
First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.
Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . .
Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s?

Happy Reading!

Calling All Fellow Fans: #However Long It Takes!

Greetings, Bookies!

If you don't know now you know ... I love The Originals and The Vampire Diaries. But let me be a tad more specific:

KLAROLINE RULES!

 OR

CAROLAUS RULES!

Whichever you prefer. Having said that, although I hate Klaus for the evil man he is, I absolutely love Caroline and Klaus together. And now that Klaus is doing his own thing on The Originals -- trying to conquer the world whilst killing everyone and everything in his way without a single bat of his eyes and his daughter baking in werewolf Hayley's stomach -- I panicked when he visiting Mystic Falls to gloat over Katherine's seemingly impending death. why? Because of what he promised Caroline. Although I am overwhelmingly ecstatic that Klaus and Caroline finally did the deed ... he promised her he would never return.

Bittersweet Klaus' farewell was. On the one side, it proves how much Klaus is in love with Caroline (he totally pulled a stupid Dear John!). And on the other, bitter, side, it was a smack in the face. Because, like WTF?! He's never coming back for Caroline? Does that means they are never going to be a thing ... a permanent thing as fate wrote it to be? Or could it mean not right now -- for a long while -- but rather when everything settles and Caroline finds her way to him?

NONONONONONO! I refuse to believe Klaroline is over!

Julie will never convince me that "He is your first love,

I intend to be your last, however long it takes" will end

like this. Nope, call it denial but there will be more of

Klaroline.

- MaaiaMrsSunshine, YouTube

Depressed, I found myself scouring YouTube for videos of Klaroline and low and behold what I found:

KLAROLINE PETITION

We, or at the very least, I, know that the petition will not change anything in the immediate future. however, if signing this petition means that CW knows how us Klaroline Shippers feel and stands as a reminder not to forget the merging fate of Klaroline then I am okay with that. So ...

 COME ON FELLOW KLAROLINE SHIPPERS, DON'T LET THE CW FORGET!

Absolutely. This was not casual sex. Klaus let's
Caroline love him on her terms. He's patient. That's
powerful stuff. Tyler loves Caroline when it's
convenient for him. Loser.

- Malteseheart, YouTube

Let us start a revolution! Spread the word! We must fight for Klaroline

#HoweverLongItTakes

Happy Reading!

Spotlight Saturday: Agents

Hey Bookies!

For this week's Spotlight Saturday, since I am doing a Spotlight miniseries on what I am learning during my journey to getting published, I will be talking about literary agents. And for those of you who have not already heard, I recently finished my #WIP2, titled CRIMSON which I plan to make the first in a series, The Grimm Chronicles, of fairy tale retellings.

What I have learned about those who are also on the path of getting published often ask "Do I really need an agent?" Well . . . In my personal opinion, ABSOLUTELY. Literary agents are literary agents for a reason: They know what the hell they are doing. Whereas, us amateurs as just that, amateurs. The publishing business is stormy waters and literary agents are the captains that can navigate and get us where we need to be so that our beautiful bundle of manuscript gets into the right publishing hands.

Or into any publishing hands for that matter!

In case you did not already know, a literary agent is:

a professional agent who acts on behalf of an author in dealing with publishers and others involved in promoting the author's work; represent writers and negotiate the writer's contract with a publishing house.

- Google

The Need to Know about Literary Agents:

1. Common Interest: Find an agent who has an affinity for what you wrote; YA? Thriller? Romance? All three?

2. The Hook: Your query letter should get the literary agent hooked; they read hundreds of queries each week so you want to stand out.

3. Listen: No two agents are the same; each agent has their own preferences so remember #1 and pay attention to what they want to see in your query letter (going back to #2, submission guidelines)

4. Polish: Just as you would polish yourself up for a job interview expect to do the same for your manuscript even before you land an agent. *Think about passing your manuscript through Critique Partners and Beta Readers before you begin the querying literary agents.

5. Hope: DO NOT LOSE HOPE! Even the greatest writers in history got shot down so keep your head up. There is always room for improvement so improve and keep the hope alive.

Having said all of that, keeping tracking of the agents you queried and what they want when you query them is no small feat. Luckily, I stumbled upon a site where you can do just that. And so more! Check it out: QueryTracker

Anything you would like to add? Advice when querying agents? Any secrets that would boost chances of landing an agent? ;)

Happy Reading!