Between the Grammys and Les Miserables and adding new songs to my playlists to help me through Consume's revisions, I've got music on my mind big time this week. And speaking of...if you'd like a sneak peek at Consume's playlist, I'm a guest post at the Teen Librarian's Toolbox blog today with a post on the Power of Music, how it plays into writing (at least for this author!), and how it's definitely driving the Clann Series (including that sneak peek at Consume's playlist that I mentioned).
The cover for Consume, the third book in the Clann Series and the conclusion to Tristan and Savannah's love story, is now officially up!
To see a larger version, you can check out Harlequin Teen's Cover Thursday post at Facebook at http://on.fb.me/11b5gV0
Look for Consume to be released in the US this coming September!
One of the major conspiracies woven throughout my new YA thriller is GMOs, or genetically modified organisms.
Think this is a non-issue? Think again! Check out this excellent video below for the real story on GMOs and how America is being made sicker by the year because of them:
Today is the last stop of the Covet Blog Tour and your last chance to enter the Covet and Harlequin Grand Prize giveaways! Included in this blog stop at A Soul Unsung is an interview I did with Suz about writing tips and getting published, as well as questions about the Clann Series. Suz also included a rather embarassingly glowing review of the series and Covet that still has me blushing!
Harlequin Grand Prize Giveaway Package includes: - 2 copies of Covet - 1 copy of Speechless - 1 copy of Alice in Zombieland - 1 copy of Dark Kiss - 1 copy of Beyond the Grave - 1 large Harlequin notebook - 1 small Harlequin notebook - and 3 bookmarks
Thank you Suz for having me at A Soul Unsung today!
Today is the second to last stop in the Covet Blog Tour, and your second to last chance to sign up for Harlequin Teen's Covet giveaway and grand prize giveaway!
Today's blog stop is at Reader Girls Blog, where the Reader Girls Meghan, Caitlin, and Laurie were super sweet and allowed me to do a guest post in answer to their question "What is the allure of writing about forbidden love, especially for the YA market?"
Also while you're there, be sure to sign up for both the Covet giveaway and the Harlequin Grand Prize giveaway, which includes the following:
- 2 copies of Covet
- 1 copy of Speechless
- 1 copy of Alice in Zombieland
- 1 copy of Dark Kiss
- 1 copy of Beyond the Grave
- 1 large Harlequin notebook
- 1 small Harlequin notebook
- and 3 bookmarks
Thanks Reader Girls for having me on your blog and for the awesome review of Covet!
For day three of the Covet Blog Tour, I'm guest posting at the Two Chicks On Books blog. Today's post is on the playlists for Tristan and Savannah. The ladies at Two Chicks On Books also added a few music videos for some of the songs featured on the playlists. You'll also find info on how to sign up for the day's giveaway!
The Covet Blog Tour begins today at the Harlequin Paranormal Blog with chances to win great giveaways!
Here's the link to learn more: Harlequin Paranormal Blog
9/11's lasting debate of security vs. freedom is at the center of The Source. Set in the United States in the year 2015, a rise in strange and terrifying new human abilities pushes the U.S. towards a second Civil War, where “normal” humans are taught to fear their friends, neighbors, co-workers and fellow students who might secretly be Sorcerers, an underground terroristic organization the government claims is behind a wave of attacks on Washington, D.C. However, the situation quickly turns from black and white to a very muddy gray when certain Sorcerers step forward to explain the real source of their abilities and the long running conspiracy to stop their development. As the confusion grows and the government's struggles to regain control over its citizens spreads, will the world learn to embrace the wondrous possibilities of human evolution or fight to eradicate all that is unknown and potentially threatening to us?
Caught in the middle of this war on “different” are senior high school students Hayden Shepherd, son of an ultra conservative Texas senator bent on wiping out all Sorcerer abilities, and his former childhood friend Tarah Williams, daughter of a genetics scientist. Both Hayden and Tarah hide dangerous secrets from each other and everyone else, secrets made still more explosive as the world around them divides and anyone could be a spy. When one's freedom is based on whether you are pro or anti-Sorcerer, can Hayden and Tarah's actions make a difference to help others also caught within the vortex of chaos and fear? Or will they become the latest victims of the widespread terror?
Click here to read an exerpt!
Dangerous to be together. Painful to be apart.
Savannah Colbert knows she broke up with Tristan Coleman for the right reasons. Most of all, to keep from killing him with her new vampire abilities. But try telling her heart. Now, lost in a sea of hostile Clann faces, Sav tries to come to terms with what she's becoming and what that means for her future. And that someone is doing their best to bully her into making a terrible mistake.
Tristan can't believe Sav won't even talk to him. If being apart is her decision, fine. Just don't expect him to honor it. But even as he prepares to fight for the girl he loves, forces beyond their control take them both in directions neither could have foreseen or prepared for. A reckoning is coming…and not everyone will survive.
Click here to read an exerpt!
Frequently Asked Questions from Readers of The Source by Melissa Darnell...
Question: Where did you get the idea for The Source? Answer: When I first began to write The Source in the spring of 2009, it originally began as a YA fantasy similar to the Clann Series, where some of the characters were gifted with the ability to do magic, and others could not. This difference became the reason for a second American civil war that breaks out in the year 2015.
But then an interesting series of events occured in my personal life that ended up taking The Source in completely unexpected directions. It began when my husband learned about a book called Ask and It is Given by Jerry and Esther Hicks, which taught that your mindset and emotions have the power to attract people, things and events into your life. Kind of crazy sounding, right?
Then my husband picked up the book The Science Behind the Secret by Travis S. Taylor, PhD. We read it and were blown away by the scientific theories that supported this belief in the ability to draw into your life what you think about based on your emotions.
At first, I really struggled with this idea, even with the scientific basis to it. As a southern girl, I had been raised to believe that if tragedy hasn't happened today, just give fate a few minutes to throw something at you (and my crappy childhood certainly seemed to support this view as well). However, I also knew that, having been diagnosed with lupus since my senior year in high school, I certainly felt better and had far fewer lupus symptoms when I thought in positive ways and tried not to stress out about things. And while I couldn't see how just hoping for good things would bring them to you without some hard work of your own (i.e. God helps those who try their darnedest to help themselves), it was easy to see how having a positive outlook can affect your decision making, confidence and motivation to work towards higher goals. So I agreed to give the power of positive intention a shot and try it out.
Right after my husband and I both started to think positively, my husband lost his job. This seemed like the opposite of attracting good things into our life!
But we vowed to keep trying to think positively. And a few weeks later, I received an email from the editor of Harlequin Teen asking if The Clann Series #1: Crave was still available. I had been in the process of getting ready to self publish it after not hearing anything from them for 6 months. But I was all too happy to tell her that it had not yet been self published and was still available. She said Harlequin Teen was interested in buying it, but it would be several weeks before their meeting to make a decision on it.
And so the long wait began. During that wait, I tried very hard to stay positive and focus on what I wanted to happen with this book. And I didn't just want to find a home for it. I really wanted to get a 3 book deal for it and two sequels in the Clann Series! This seemed a pretty far fetched dream considering I had yet to be published by any New York publishers. But I held onto the dream and even took a risk and sent the editor a short summary for the possible two sequels.
The end result? Harlequin Teen offered me a 3 book deal for Crave and two sequels, which eventually became Covet and Consume! This, along with building an ebook and book formatting freelance business, supported my family financially and allowed my husband to stay at home for two wonderful years, during which he got to enjoy being a closer part of his youngest children's lives and watching them grow up. Essentially, what seemed a scary event (losing his job) became a true blessing for our family.
And then something else happened...while writing a particular scene in The Source (spoiler alert: the bus scene where a little girl has a seizure), my own youngest son Alex had his first grand mal epileptic seizure. Let me be very clear here...I wrote the scene in The Source FIRST. And then a few days later, my own child had his first seizure. Furthermore, not a single person in my or my husband's family has ever had a history of epilepsy that we know of, and Alex had never shown any signs of having this condition either.
Needless to say, I was more than a little freaked out. It was a coincidence, but boy, what a coincidence!
Do I believe my writing somehow caused my child to develop epilepsy? I sure hope not! And on the surface, the very idea seems a tad bit nutty (not to mention more than a little egomaniacal!). But it did spur me on to consider taking The Source in a different direction where, instead of magic, the human species as a whole begins to evolve and develop the ability to not only use the power of thought to attract things into their lives, but even develop what could be considered superhuman abilities. While these superhuman abilities are completely fictional for story purposes in The Source (no, no one in my family can throw fireballs or direct the wind with our thoughts), the lesser abilities in The Source do have quite a lot of scientific basis, which was carefully researched and painstakingly explained as well as a nonscientifically trained person like myself could manage when aimed at the average reader.
Question: Do you really believe the government is conspiring to use genetically modified foods and pollution of America's water supply through hydraulic fracturing (fracking)? Answer: LOL No, not really. I am emphatically against fracking, and I do believe anything containing genetically modified organisms should be labeled so consumers can make up their own minds about what they want to purchase and consume, as well as give their families to eat. But I actually believe any mistakes our government makes is probably due more to a lack of education among the politicians, bipartisan animosity, their belief that the average citizen can't handle the truth, and good old fashioned greed from their receiving kickbacks from companies who stand to profit from otherwise harmful legislation that gets passed by corrupted politicians.
However, I do get a delicious thrill when I think about some conspiracy theories, so in The Source I wanted to play with the possibility of a huge series of government conspiracies that could be hiding the human evolution that is the premise of The Source. When I started looking up historical events that could possibly be used to support this fictional premise, my only problem became choosing which ones to use because there are so many! I had a lot of fun finding ways to fictionally tie in as many conspiracies as I could into The Source, including one alluded to on the cover but not discussed within the story itself!
Question: And that "hidden" conspiracy reference would be? Answer: If you look closely at the center of The Source, you might recognize the carved stone as the Mayan Calendar. However, unlike many doomsdayers out there who believe this calendar points to the end of our world, I prefer to side with the more positive view that instead the calendar is indicating an age of enlightenment all over the world. And I really think we're in it! Take a look at how the belief in the power of intention and positive thinking has reached every area of the world in all walks of life, from scientists to religious leaders, professional poker players, lottery winners, sports athletes, celebrities like Oprah, Will Smith and Jim Carrey, and so many more! Now more than ever, people are waking up to the fact that how we think and feel really does affect every area of our daily lives. If that's not an age of enlightenment, I don't know what is!
Question: In The Source, you begin with a Fact page that states several facts used throughout this novel. You also include a References section at the end, which is unusual for a fictional story. Why did you decide to include these nonfiction elements in an otherwise fictional story? Answer: My two all-time favorite authors are Dan Brown and Michael Crichton. Both excelled at taking real facts and building fictional stories around them in such a way that as a reader I was completely sucked in. Nothing helps suspend belief like threading in true nonfiction elements into a fictional story. But a lot of that suspension of belief can be lost if as a reader you start to wonder which parts of the story are true or not. The Source is such a fantastical story that I didn't want readers to ever stop and wonder this same question. So I decided to include the Fact and References sections so readers know right off the bat what is true, what has been made up, and where they can learn more about the real world research that forms the basis of The Source.
To that end, below are several references to hopefully spur on your own journey in exploring more about the human mind and the power of thought and emotions!
(Please note that I am not affiliated with or friends with any of the following authors and experts listed. I do not know these people personally, nor will I make any money whatsoever if you click on any of these links or check out any of these sources! They are provided for your education only.)
The Science Behind the Secret by Travis S. Taylor, PhD At Amazon Author's websiteHow a U.S. District Court Revealed the Unsoundness of the FDA's Policy on Genetically Engineered FoodsBaseball MagicDouble-blind Test of the Effects of Distant Intention on Water Crystal Formation
To celebrate Covet's U.S. release on Sept. 25th, I'll be doing a two week, 7 stop blog tour soon that will include book giveaways and an awesome Grand Prize Giveaway from Harlequin Teen! Look for daily reminders with links to each blog stop during the tour, which will be from Oct. 8th through the 19th. For now, here's a list of the stops scheduled!
Digital advance reviewer copies of The Clann Series #2: Covet are now available to reviewers signed up at NetGalley.com. If you are a reviewer and would like to review Covet, check out their website for details on how to sign up for free and get a free digital copy of Covet!
The official cover for The Clann Series #2: Covet has been announced! Still no release date on it yet (it's still in the editing phase, so the date probably won't be set till we get the final edits done). But I'll be sure to post the official release date as soon as I hear it.
Also, the UK version of The Clann Series #1: Crave is now available here:
And to celebrate Crave's UK release, I'm doing a blog tour! Here's the dates and blogs below (click on the image for a larger version):
For everyone waiting for Crave's sequel Covet... Covet's official cover will be announced tomorrow!
Also, if you or anyone you know is waiting for the UK version of Crave, please spread the word that it's coming out April 6th (more details and links soon!). There will also be a blog tour with lots of questions answered, a character interview, and more!
The German version of Crave is also being translated now, with official pub dates to be announced when we know them.
The official website for the Clann Series is up! TheClannSeries.com features...
preorder links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble
interactive online music playlist so you can listen to the "soundtrack" for Crave
review quotes
the book trailer video
links to the official Clann Series Facebook and Twitter pages
map of the Jacksonville High School
printable Crave bookmarks in 5 styles (that can also be worn as fun bracelets!)
links to the actual Jacksonville and surrounding area websites
info about the Clann and the hybrid vampires featured within the Clann Series
with character bios and headshots coming soon!
Please let me know if you'd like to see something else added to the site, and be sure to check the site for updates as character bios and more fun things are added over the next two weeks leading up to Crave's release on Tuesday, Oct. 25th!
I finally finished writing the rough draft for Covet, book #2 in the Clann Series, last night! It was weird...I finished writing the final words, looked at my watch and it was exactly midnight, then I realized the song playing on my iPod was perfect for the last scene (Coldplay's Til Kingdom Come)!
Crave, the first book in what has been renamed the Clann Series, was recently featured at the Harlequin booth at the Book Expo of America! The working cover was set up as a framed, backlit poster. And I have got to say the cover design team at Harlequin are AWESOME! This is just the working version, too...I can't wait to see how the final version turns out!
It's official and okay to announce now...the Crave Series (soon to have a new series name) has a home. Harlequin Teen offered a 3 book deal for this series, with the first book to be released in November 2011, and books #2 and #3 to follow on its heels, each 9 months apart (which seems appropriate considering writing them feels like giving birth! lol). Editing has already begun on the first book in the series. I'll post the cover and more details when I have them to share!
