Haunts at the End of the Road

Sketch from Marie's England journal

The Drawn Blog Ghost Tour is on its final week, and what a week it is! Posts filled with passion (hey, Valentine’s Day is approaching, right?), giveaways, writing advice, excerpts from my paranormal Drawn and tons of book reviews, too!  And everywhere you will discover more tidbits about Christopher the ghost from the past who has been labeled by reviewers as extremely “swoon-worthy!”

The reviews the book’s garnered so far are so amazing, it’s spooky! Reviewers have praised the novel’s setting, characters, plotting, romance, its ending. It’s really been a thrill for this little writer to see the responses from seasoned book reviewers.  You can see reviews by clicking here (I update this page as the reviews come in).

Haven’t ordered your own copy of Drawn yet? Um, why not?  The ebook sale (just 99 cents) is going on for just a few more days, and the paperback is priced at $12.99.  That’s lovable, right? All the book and ebook purchasing links can be found by clicking here.

So, without further ado, here are the highlights from our final Drawn Blog Ghost Tour week!:

February 13th: Is it love? Is he a prince or a frog? Ever have a crappy boyfriend? Ever spent Valentine’s alone? Well, check out this post.  It just might restore your faith in love! Get in the spirit of Valentine’s Day over at I Just Wanna Sit Here and Read, with my guest post “Caught in a Bad Romance,” plus a Drawn eBOOK GIVEAWAY!

February 14th: Here’s one for those writers out there: Author Janice Bashman features my guest post “Just Because You Can…” which explores a bunch of no-no’s for writers.

February 15th: IB Book Blogging features my guest post “Not All Bad” about creating villains you’ll love to hate.

February 16th: Eve’s Fan Garden hosts an interview with me, plus their review of Drawn, PLUS an ebook giveaway to one lucky winner.  Act fast! It runs Feb. 16-18th.

February 17th: Author Jo Ramsey closes out our amazing tour by featuring an interview with me, plus a red-hot excerpt from Drawn

Missed any of the past tour dates? No problemo.  Just visit the Drawn Blog Ghost Tour page and follow the links.

Thanks, again, to all the awesome bloggers and reviewers who have made this tour so phenomenal, and to you, the readers, who are helping to spread the word about Drawn.

❤

Marie

New Beginnings

It’s 2008, and I’ve sort of recovered from my extremely crazy booksigning/appearance schedule of the past few months.

I don’t know about you, but for some reason, this year I’m more ready than ever for fresh starts. I’ve seriously cleaned out my office, trashing old files, and even windexing my desktop. I’ve filed away the old, and pulled out the new, namely two new novels to move ahead on.  So this seems like the perfect time to start a brand new blog!

For my older postings, you can go to my myspace page Marielamba, and click on my blog. There isn’t a ton there, but it does chronicle some of my experiences with marketing my first young adult novel, WHAT I MEANT… (Random House YA). 

Here, I’m hoping to relate more of the writing experience. 2008 should prove interesting. For one thing, my second YA novel, which I call OVER MY HEAD, is just starting to make the rounds to publishers via my wonderful agent. How quickly will anything happen? What responses will we get from publishers? Will I chew all my fingernails and toenails off while I wait? These and other burning questions may or may not be answered over the next few weeks or months. Suffice it to say that I’ve done all I can with the writing of the manuscript, and now it’s on to the part I hate: the it’s all out of my hands part. I really really really like to be in control of my own destiny. Too bad I never am!

And while this manuscript is out trying to find its perfect match, I’ve got to somehow put it out of my mind while I escape into the world of my next book, which I call DRAWN.  I’m actually really looking forward to writing DRAWN. It’s about a teen artist who moves to England with her father in hopes of finally fitting in and seeming normal. But when she gets there, she discovers she’s unwillingly carrying on her family’s freaky psychic tradition.

Among the fun things I’m looking forward to in this book are exploring the artist’s mindset, exploring the castles and countryside of England, and exploring what it would be like to be in love with a really fantastically sexy ghost.  Good times for me!  

I’ve always been an artist, sketching, doing linoleum prints, pen and ink drawings, photography, ATTEMPTING to oil paint. But when I had kids, I kind of put my art supplies aside, devoting myself to raising my daughters and to writing. There simply wasn’t time for art, too. Can you tell I really miss it? I’m hoping that by traveling along with my character Michelle De Freccio as she sees the world through her artist’s eyes, that I will start to see things that way again too. 

As for England, when I was a senior in college, I spent a semester living in the Cotswolds with a British family. So writing about Michelle as a student there will be just like traveling there without having to pay the expensive airfare.

And as for getting involved with a sexy ghost? Sigh. What can I say? I never have. I envy Michelle’s future adventure, except for the whole her boyfriend is already dead part. Hey, no relationship is perfect, right?  

I’ll keep checking in with updates on DRAWN, and on OVER MY HEAD for you guys here, along with any news about my first novel WHAT I MEANT… 

Also keep your eyes peeled for a series of book reviews on this blog. I have about 30 advanced reader copies of new YA books that will be coming out in 2008 spring and summer. As I read through them, if I like them I’ll post a review. If I don’t like it, I’ll keep my mouth shut.  I’ll leave the negative crud to others. Suffice to say, if I write about a book, it’s because I really think it shines. 

Later!