The Next Big Thing Blog Hop!

Hey Leigh, whatcha workin' on these days?

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that question...I'd have a few bucks to buy some coffee!

Last week, the amazingly talented Claire LaZebnik tagged me in her Next Big Thing Blog Hop post.  Claire writes super fun YA and adult fiction. Lots of romance and humor in her books which I totally appreciate.  Because seriously, you need some love and light when life gets you down, you know?  When that happens to you, I hope you'll grab a copy of Claire's Epic Fail and get all feel-good-y.  I can remember very distinctly how I happened to meet Claire. I had read one of her adult novels and absolutely FELL IN LOVE with it! I found her on on Goodreads, connected with her there and as luck would have it, she was about to read at a bookstore near me so I got to meet her in person!

So thanks to Claire, I'm about to answer some questions about my next big thing...

1. What is the title of your work-in-progress?
"The Mystic Chords of Memory."

2. Where did the idea come from?
I am a ballet instructor and dancer and I wanted to write something with a ballerina protagonist. I also love speculative fiction!

3. What genre does your book come under?
Steampunk.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?
For Asya, the ballerina, I would love to see Taissa Farmiga. For Jay, her soldier, I think Evan Peters.  Both are actors from "American Horror Story" and they would be perfect!

5. One sentence synopsis for your book?
A ballerina from a Russian circus meets and falls in love with a Confederate soldier during the Civil War.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
I am represented but the book has not been sold yet.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Well, I'm still working on it! Hence the phrase, "work-in-progress"! I finished the 30K word novella in about 3 months but I'm still working on making it a full-length novel.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Hmmm...if you like Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, I think you'd like this.  Or Gail Carriger!  I love both Cherie and Gail!

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Good writers like Cherie and Gail, actually.  I love the chances they took with their stories and I wanted to do the same with mine. It's a big risky thing, writing a book that is in a different genre than the one you are known for, but I love it!  Bring on the new and different!

10.What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Romance and Civil War.  Automaton ballerinas.  Horses with steam engines. A soldier who has lost everyone and everything.  And dirigibles!  Lots of dirigibles.

And now, who's next?  First is my friend, Mina Javaherbin, the author of award-winning picture books (a brand new one is coming soon but that's hush-hush! shh....!). She's also a lover of dance, which is how we connected, as well as a screenwriter and a YA writer.  What can't this woman do?  She is very funny too and super smart and a genius at sizing up a situation and making the most of it.  Love that in a person.  Check out her blog here! 

I'd also like to introduce you to Rachel Olivier, a wonderful writer and friend whom I met when my second novel All About Vee came out. Like me, Rachel loves funny cat videos and "Doctor Who" and unusual fiction but she also loves, well, love!  Romance figures very prominently in her stories which is one reason they resonate so strongly with me and her many readers.  One of my very favorite pieces of her fiction is her Christmas-themed novella, The Holly and the Ivan. Her blog is here!

Thanks again for the tag, Claire and now, Mina and Rachel, you're it!  Happy reading, everyone~

Review: "Needs Must When the Devil Drives" by Rachel V. Olivier

Full disclosure: Rachel Olivier is a friend of mine and the copy editor of my upcoming novel, "The Rise of Ginny."  However, that doesn't mean she's not also supremely gifted as a writer as well.

First of all, the title.  It's a paraphrasing of a quote from Shakespeare's play, "All's Well That Ends Well" and refers to the kinds of things people do when they are desperate. Particularly appropriate for this novella.

Second of all, the subtitle. "An Apocalyptic Romance." Who has time for romance during the Apocalypse? Yes, this too is appropriate.

The main character, Kelly, is a bit of a sad sack who has been feeling sorry for herself and her current life situation.  She left her small town in Washington state to be an actress in Los Angeles but never made the splash she'd hoped.  When her mother needs a caretaker, Kelly promises herself it will only be temporary, that her move home will be just for her mother.  But instead, she stays a lot longer than she ever intended and even takes a local job.

Kelly is at a crossroads in her life: does she stay in her small hometown and acknowledge defeat in the acting world or does she plunge back into the movie scene and feel guilty about her mother's worsening condition?  She packs her dog Jake into her car and heads out on a camping trip to clear her head.  While she's out communing with nature, something very strange occurs but she doesn't realize how devastating it will turn out to be until she begins investigating the next day.

No cell phone service.  No electricity. No living humans.  Only the charred remains of people and animals and a weird black soot on everything.  She is determined to go back home and see her mother; on the way, she meets Dan, another survivor. Together, they travel back to her small town and fall in love along the way.

Most stories that deal with end times are grand epic things.  The characters are often heroic on a big scale and we have interaction with the thing or things that caused the end times to occur.  Not so with Olivier's novella.  Her Kelly is no action hero.  She is just an average person dealing with the aftermath of a major event, but in her own small way.  She doesn't join a traveling group of survivors, a la Stephen King's "The Stand."  She is all alone, thankful to meet Dan and to have her loyal dog with her. But it's all the stuff that she thinks about, the pettiness she feels from time to time, the guilt she suffers from, that makes this story truly enjoyable and relatable.

I love that Kelly worries about bad breath and drinking warm beer in the morning.  I love that she is snippy and tired and on edge.  I love that she is sometimes selfish and often squeamish.  And I love her voice.  She is not snarky or too self-deprecating. She is an imperfect human and she is all of us. She is how many of us would be during a situation like this.

Currently, I am writing a novella so it was a great time for me to read Rachel's new one, her third published.  A novella is not a long short story, nor is it a short novel.  It is its own art form.  Many famous literary figures wrote novellas, classics like John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and Joseph Campbell's "Who Goes There?" Yet often novellas are treated like a novel's poor relations.  Writers themselves kind of say, "Oh, huh, this isn't big enough for a novel but I have more to say than in a short story."  Many reluctantly go forth with the novella and say, "Market, be damned."

"Needs Must..." is the perfect story for a novella. It is a personal tale with an apocalyptic backdrop, a very human story. Buy your copy at Sam's Dot! And to learn more about Rachel, check out her blog and follow her on Facebook. 

Rachel Olivier's "The G.O.D. Factor"

Rachel Olivier's novella, "The G.O.D. Factor," reminds me of some of my very favorite science fiction: a little Ray Bradbury, a little Isaac Asimov, a little Robert Heinlein. It all adds up to a really fun story with a main character you want to spend more time with.

Monica is part of a small crew on a ship in deep space. While she tends to the ship's controls, the rest of the crew (including the captain she crushes on as well as her ex-boyfriend) rests in their stasis chambers. All by herself, enjoying her solace yet a little bit lonely, Monica talks to her plants and to the ship's controls, completely unaware that someone is listening - the ship itself. She's shocked when the Artificial Intelligence that she'd thought had been turned off by the ship's engineer begins communicating with her. It calls itself G.O.D. - Galactic Orbital Dreadnaught - which is a holdover from a long ago war. Monica soon realizes G.O.D. doesn't want to be her friend; it wants to control her and the rest of the crew.

Monica is a clever and funny protagonist who would rather sleep in her flannel pjs on a sofa with a crocheted pillow than in her high tech stasis chamber. There is a sweetness to this story that much SF misses: even in the midst of the crisis, Monica can't help but admire the nude physique of the captain when she awakens him from deep sleep - and then she admonishes herself for doing so! I love the oh-so-low-tech methods she and the crew use to outsmart G.O.D.

The author told me she was thinking about fleshing the novella out more, perhaps examining the earlier relationship between Monica and her ex. I think this would be a great adventure in a larger story and would definitely enjoy reading more about the ship, the past war, and Monica herself.

The slim and easily portable paperback of "The G.O.D. Factor" can be purchased online at Sam's Dot Publishing.