X is For XVI, by Julia Karr

A little note for everyone stopping by for the A to Z challenge:

First off, hi! Welcome! Look around, have fun. My posts will be short this month, but they'll be following a theme: Books and Authors. I'll be showcasing some of my favorites within those categories. But I'll also be having some special posts regarding the release of my debut novel, Elemental, from time to time.    


Oh, I know what you were thinking, dear readers. You thought there was NO way I'd find something for "x." Well, let me tell you something. 


You are, thankfully, wrong. ;)

Summary (taken from Goodreads):

Some girls can't wait to be sixteen, to be legal. Nina is not one of them. Even though she has no choice in the matter, she knows that so long as her life continues as normal, everything will be okay.

Then, with one brutal strike, Nina's normal is shattered; and she discovers that nothing that she believed about her life is true. But there's one boy who can help--and he just may hold the key to her past.

But with the line between attraction and danger as thin as a whisper, one thing is for sure...

For Nina, turning sixteen promises to be anything but sweet

I really liked XVI, by Julia Karr not because it was necessarily different from a lot of the other dystopians out there, but because the characters were very realistic. And the story was good! The MC irritated me a little in the end, but here's the thing; I like characters who do that from time to time because that makes them real people. The MC here isn't perfect. She makes mistakes and she suffers the consequences of them. I like that. Often, I read books about MCs who make mistakes but everyone forgives them, they forgive themselves, and life carries on. And while that's a great message to send sometimes to teens, I think it's also a great message to share the one where people suffer consequences from bad decisions.

So, I think you should check this one out! Enjoy!

V is For Victoria Schwab

A little note for everyone stopping by for the A to Z challenge:

First off, hi! Welcome! Look around, have fun. My posts will be short this month, but they'll be following a theme: Books and Authors. I'll be showcasing some of my favorites within those categories. But I'll also be having some special posts regarding the release of my debut novel, Elemental, from time to time.  


What's this? I'm actually remembering to post something before half the morning is gone? I know, it's amazing. :P

Bio (taken from her official website):

Quick Facts! Books: THE NEAR WITCH (2011), THE ARCHIVED (2013) Literary Agent: Holly Root at Waxman Literary Film Agent: Jon Cassir at CAA Publisher: Disney*Hyperion

I am the product of a British mother, a Beverly Hills father, and a southern upbringing. Because of this, I have been known to say "tom-ah-toes", "like", and "y'all". But since this is about what I write and not how I pronounce my a's, I will say that I tell stories.

I love fairy tales, and folklore, and books that make me wonder if the world is really as it seems. I love writing about doors, and places between, and the cracks where reality slips into something darker, stranger, and invariably more interesting.

I grew up on the west coast, but went to high school in the south, an all girls' prep school complete with plaid skirts I used to doodle on during math.

I went to Washington University in St. Louis, where I changed course SIX times (and would have done it a seventh time, but my family and advisors said you couldn't switch majors in your last semester). I went from Physics, to Film, to Set Design, to Art History, to English, to Communication Design.

Job-wise, I have been a clerk in a department store, where I met a very nice Erotica writer while re-hanging bras. I have been an assistant caterer and a personal chef. Because of this, I bake some mean chocolate chip cookies, can plate hors d'oeuvres, and know how to make twirling napkin towers. I was a dog daycare attendant for a few summers, and have the scars to prove it. In college, I worked in a bookstore, where I never made ANY money because I spent every check feeding my book-buying habit.

And now, I am an author. That's still really fun to say, and I feel like I need to fact-check myself just to make sure it's true.

I read Ms. Schwab's first book, The Near Witch, a couple months ago and I was blown away at her beautiful writing. It was like walking into a painting. I can not wait until her second book, The Archived, comes out. 


If you haven't heard of Victoria Schwab, I highly suggest you check her out. 

O is For Orson Scott Card

A little note for everyone stopping by for the A to Z challenge:

First off, hi! Welcome! Look around, have fun. My posts will be short this month, but they'll be following a theme: Books and Authors. I'll be showcasing some of my favorites within those categories. But I'll also be having some special posts regarding the release of my debut novel, Elemental, from time to time.  

Bio (taken from his official website):


Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools.

Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy (Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys), biblical novels (Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son), poetry (An Open Book), and many plays and scripts.

Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs plays. He recently began a longterm position as a professor of writing and literature at Southern Virginia University.

Card currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, and their youngest child, Zina Margaret.

Card is one of the greats. I think it's kind of a requirement to like him if you're going to call yourself a sci-fi writer. ;) 

If you've never read anything of his, check him out!

M is For Michael Crichton

A little note for everyone stopping by for the A to Z challenge:

First off, hi! Welcome! Look around, have fun. My posts will be short this month, but they'll be following a theme: Books and Authors. I'll be showcasing some of my favorites within those categories. But I'll also be having some special posts regarding the release of my debut novel, Elemental, from time to time.  

Bio (taken from here):

Michael Crichton was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. His latest posthumous novel, MICRO, was released on November 22, 2011. 

Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT. Crichton's 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, acknowledged the world was growing warmer, but challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios. He predicted future warming at 0.8 degrees C. (His conclusions have been widely misstated.) 

Crichton's interest in computer modeling went back forty years. His multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090 computer at Harvard, was published in the Papers of the Peabody Museum in 1966. His technical publications included a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma, in Metabolism, and an essay on medical obfuscation in the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Crichton's first bestseller, The Andromeda Strain, was published while he was still a medical student. He later worked full time on film and writing. One of the most popular writers in the world, he has sold over 200 million books. His books have been translated into thirty-eight languages and thirteen have been made into films. 

He had a lifelong interest in computers. His feature film Westworld was the first to employ computer-generated special effects back in 1973. Crichton's pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him a Technical Achievement Academy Award in 1995. 

Crichton won an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Writer's Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered ankylosaur was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini. He is survived by his wife Sherri, his daughter Taylor and his son, John Michael. 

Yup, I was a huge Michael Crichton fan in my teen years. While everyone was watching Jurassic Park or Sphere, I was reading them (actually, I read Sphere LONG before the movie came out--it's still one of my favorite reads ever).

If you haven't read his books, or seen any of the movies based on his books, I'm going to assume that you have indeed been living under a rock. It's okay. But welcome out! The sun is nice and warm out here. :P And if you haven't done either of those things and you don't consider yourself having lived under a rock, what are you waiting for?? :D

Have a great weekend, everyone!

K is for Karsten Knight

A little note for everyone stopping by for the A to Z challenge:

First off, hi! Welcome! Look around, have fun. My posts will be short this month, but they'll be following a theme: Books and Authors. I'll be showcasing some of my favorites within those categories. But I'll also be having some special posts regarding the release of my debut novel, Elemental, from time to time. 

Bio (taken from here):


Author of WILDEFIRE, coming July 26, 2011 from Simon & Schuster. 

Karsten Knight has been writing since the age of six, when he completed his first masterpiece: a picture book series about an adventurous worm. In the two decades that have followed, Karsten worked as a proofreader, a bookseller, and a college admissions counselor before finally deciding that his true calling was as a volcano goddess biographer. He resides in Boston, where he lives for fall weather and football, and is on a far-too-successful quest to visit every restaurant in the city. 

To experience Karsten in social networking surround sound: 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/KarstenKnight 
Blog: http://www.karstenknight.com 

His book:

Isn't that gorgeous??

Karsten Knight is not only an amazing author capable of writing a very diverse cast of characters, he's also pretty great to follow, too. You should check him out!!