Friday 29 September 2023

Review of Forbidden Tides by Kyla Stan

Some would say I look like a mermaid, the essence of nautical beauty. I looked in the mirror and saw a monster....

Astrid Murphy, born with strange webbed hands and a thirst for saltwater, feels like a freak. She desires to look and feel normal, just like her family. But Astrid doesn’t realize that she’s meant to be the next ruler of the Deep Clan, a race of merfolk who are dying from pollution and overhunting. She is the only one who can save them.

Zander’s mission was to find Astrid and bring her home. Not fall in love with his target. Surrounded in a web of danger, a forbidden love between clan daughter and warrior blossoms. Zander knows they can’t focus on each other, and the Deep Clan must come first. But it’s the one enemy Astrid never expected who will tear it all down. Her father. The one person who was supposed to love and protect her, will do anything to keep her from fulfilling her destiny with Zander. Even kill.

As Astrid and Zander fight for their world, they learn the true depth of what it means to love, the power of hope, and what it means to be free.

Amazon

My Review: 5 STARS

I picked this up because of the title, and the blurb. I was dragged into the pages and into the story, needing to continue with it like it was oxygen. I loved Astrid and Zander, loved watching their story come to life in the words. The world was beautifully crafted and excellently told. I was hooked from word one til the very end and adored the ending. The characters were so life like and the many twists and turns the story took just made you hungry for more. A very enjoyable read with an excellent message, and one that I highly recommend!

Join Joey here on the blog on Fridays for interviews, reviews and guest bloggers. If you'd be interested in doing any of those, you can contact Joey here

Tuesday 26 September 2023

#TeaserTuesday

Jonah's not sure there's anyone coming to help them...

PRE-ORDER NOW: http://www.books2read.com/INVISIBLE01

PRE-ORDER SWAG:  https://forms.gle/Dna7gZbj8v7576TW8

[ID: A blue double helix background with the title INVISIBLE at the top and Coming November 14th 2023 just below the title. The except reads:

Blinking three times to pull up the emergency menu, I left the line on speaker just so that everyone could hear. I don't know why it mattered to me that all of them heard I was taking a step for help, but it did. The line rang, it actually rang! All my life, I'd heard my mother tell me how proud she was that the emergency number never rang, you were always immediately connected. That gave me some idea of how bad things were.

At the bottom is Joey Paul and just below that the website www.joeypaulonline.com,and in the bottom right corner is the logo for Bug Books. END ID]

 

Monday 25 September 2023

Writing Characters: Jonah & Co

WRITING CHARACTERS: JONAH & CO

Last week I gave you an insight into the other POV for my upcoming release, Invisible. You can find it here. This week I thought I would talk to you more about Jonah, and what part he plays in the story.

To recap for those who might have missed it last week, Invisible, which is the first in a young adult dystopian quartet, is set in England in the far distance future. The country is split into nine self-governing segments, all of which trade and work with each other to become sustainable. Jonah is in North-West, and completely abled. He's at school with his best friend, Jackson, and the two of them don't think anything's wrong, beyond some weird emails that Jonah's been getting.

Jonah and Jackson are one of the first to escape the school when bombs are dropped all over the segment. It soon becomes clear that there's something in the air that is not just killing some students and teachers, but making others very ill. While the two of them, with help from other students, manage to get off the campus and towards the hospital, neither have escaped the gas and the virus from the bombs.

By the time Jonah wakes up, his whole world has changed. He's gone from being with his parents, and completely abled, to having chronic pain and fatigue that doesn't have a name. He's lost his family, lost his home, and is, at seventeen, having to jump into a working role to be able to afford to live. While he has Jackson alongside him, who has developed his own conditions, despite having been perfectly healthy and abled before the bombs, but with such a massive loss of life and the world changing, it's hard to adapt even though they pretty much have no other choice.

Writing Jonah allowed me to showcase just how weird things were in both segments. Having abled characters becoming struck down with a new disability meant that they could be the eyes that some readers would use to see themselves in the story. Jonah's view of life in the segment before, and life afterwards is startling as a way to showcase just what a new disability is like.

I loved writing him, and I think his viewpoint was sorely needed to present some kind of mirror to what Zya was experiencing herself. Both of them were loud in my head when writing this story and the other books in the series, and both were very much valid protagonists if just for different reasons. Like I said last week, this whole series is written and was done so way before COVID happened, but I can see the fact that some people will not know that or even see the similarities in the way things are dealt with.

While Jonah and Zya have never met, they do make contact, but that's through Jonah's connections rather than anything she does. The two of them grow close, they rely on each other even though they're not in the same segment, and the chances of leaving are very slim. While Zya's worries about Further Training and the Exit Exam are pivotal to her story, Jonah's lack of worry about them to begin with are just as important, showcasing the disabled experience and the abled one.

I love this book, love this series, and can't wait to share with you more as we go along towards release, and the second book which should come out in 2025. If this all sounds interesting, you can pre-order Invisible here, it's out on November 14th, and if you do pre-order, you can sign up for the SWAG here which is open internationally.

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

Follow Joey here on her blog, or on Facebook or Tumblr to be kept up to date with the latest news regarding Joey and her books.   

Friday 22 September 2023

Review of Brainstorm by Nissa Harlow

What's worse than nearly puking in front of a cute guy? Zombies. Definitely zombies.

I’m not feeling so great. I don’t know if it’s something I ate, or if it’s from flipping through one too many teen paranormal romances, trying to find inspiration for an obnoxiously backward creative writing assignment. (Seriously. What kind of teacher asks their students to write a story in their least favourite genre?) But I’m determined not to barf in this stupid vampire book I’m holding, especially not in front of the cute guy who’s checking out the library’s pitiful selection of DVDs. So I make a run for the bathroom… only to have the guy follow me in there. Can you believe it?

But that’s just the first unbelievable thing that happens. When we come out of the bathroom, the library appears to be closed. Weirder still, it’s surrounded by a strange, supernatural storm that definitely wasn’t there a few minutes ago.

Being trapped in a library with a new friend (or enemy—I haven’t decided yet) might not be the worst thing in the world. But it might not be the best thing, either… especially once that weird storm starts spitting out characters that are only supposed to exist in stories, and we find ourselves trying to figure out how to take on a horde of zombies with nothing but our wits, the Dewey Decimal System, and some very strange bookish magic.

Amazon

My Review:  5 STARS

I picked this up because the cover and blurb sounded interesting, and I was not disappointed. A quick read, but you’re thrown into the action from the first page and you can’t help but get hooked on Sadie’s adventure. From the strange happenings to trying to get out of it unharmed, it’s just a whirlwind of a ride and one that’s pretty easy to get lost in and finish in one session. I’ve got the second book and plan to dive right back in because I want to know all the details, and pick up and spend more time with Sadie and Lincoln. Highly recommended!

Join Joey here on the blog on Fridays for interviews, reviews and guest bloggers. If you'd be interested in doing any of those, you can contact Joey here

Tuesday 19 September 2023

#TeaserTuesday

Zya just wants to get her and Lena away from the carnage...

PRE-ORDER NOW: http://www.books2read.com/INVISIBLE01

PRE-ORDER SWAG:  https://forms.gle/Dna7gZbj8v7576TW8

[ID: A blue double helix background with the title INVISIBLE at the top and Coming November 14th 2023 just below the title. The except reads:

Lena was quiet beside me, only upright as she clung to my chair. She was still moving, so she had to still be alive, right? I didn't have the breath to ask her, to make sure that I wasn’t carrying literal dead weight.

At the bottom is Joey Paul and just below that the website www.joeypaulonline.com,and in the bottom right corner is the logo for Bug Books. END ID]

 

Monday 18 September 2023

Writing Characters: Zya & Co

WRITING CHARACTERS: ZYA & CO

November 14th, my next book, Invisible, releases (pre-order here). It's the first in a young adult dystopian quartet that deals with a lot of disability and has a whole heap of disabled rep. I thought that this week and next, I would take a bit of a deep dive into the characters that make up the book. The story is dual POV and so this week I'll start with Zya and her friends and the things she and they bring to the story and then next week I'll delve into the other POV.

So what's the book about? The UK is split into nine self-governing segments. South-West, where Zya is based and has lived her whole life is pretty much similar to the other eight segments with how they deal with things. Zya was not born disabled, but she did have a stroke when she was a baby that paralysed the left side of her body. She's been in a wheelchair, and mostly segregated schools every since.

With the book set in the far distant future, it allowed for some tech advances like wheelchairs that were charged by solar power, and were able to be steer by the user's torso movements. Zya's is like this and it gives her more independence than a different kind of chair would. She's seventeen, about to face the Exit Exam, which should, hopefully, allow her to be placed into a working position. Of course there's always the risk of Further Training, something that's painted as a way to help those less able to learn skills that will one day help the segment. Zya, being disabled, is terrified on F.T. It's usually disabled teens who fail the EE and end up there, and they are usually never heard from again.

Zya has her best friend, Lena, who's completely abled, and looking forward to the EE herself. The day the book starts, they're both just at school, in lessons, and then all hell breaks loose when several bombs are dropped in the segment, decimating the population, and leaving many injured or sick with an unknown virus. Going from pretty sure she'll never see the working world, to being thrown into the aftermath of the attack, seeing new diagnoses comes from seemingly nowhere, Zya can only watch as one by one every one of her abled friends becomes disabled in some way.

And that's when the real work begins. That's when everything starts to slot into place and we follow Zya through her navigating this new and strange world. When I was planning this novel, I had a different kind of plot in mind, but once I got to know Zya, and got to know the world better, I knew it could only go a certain way. Zya was a loud voice in my head telling me what she expected from me and where things were going to go and there was little I could do to disagree.

Writing Zya, writing her friends, those disabled before the bombs, and those who became so because of them, was a delight for me. I've had sensitivity readers, editors and the like, all point out the mirror this book holds up to society and the way they view disability and disabled people. I didn't write it with that intent, and this book was written long before COVID became a thing as well, but it does seem fitting to be releasing it into a world that has somewhat experienced the feeling of terror that comes from the unknown.

Zya felt like a character that would look at our world and realise that a lot of things were the same as in hers, only hers had gone more extreme in another way. I wanted to tell this story because it wouldn't leave me alone. I'd sit there and think about other plots, and there would be Invisible just demanding to be told. I adore the story, I adore the characters, and while the next three books are written, I'm itching to get started on revising them because I know where this story goes, and know how it ends and I want people to be able to go along this journey with Zya and the others as well!

If you want to pre-order Invisible, you can do so here, and if you do pre-order, you can sign up for the pre-order SWAG here, which is open internationally.

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

Follow Joey here on her blog, or on Facebook or Tumblr to be kept up to date with the latest news regarding Joey and her books.  

Friday 15 September 2023

Review of Code Word For Chaos by E.C Farrell

Cal (14) and Sephrim (16), are rejects on the run. Tailor-made in The Lab as genetically perfect, their “undesirable” traits leave them without the families they hoped for. Together, they escape a life sentence to the horrid workhouses. Their lab-created survival skills allow them to avoid capture but also attract unwanted attention from rival gangs eager to provide “protection”—for a price.

Then one such group captures Cal and implants her with mind-control technology. A code word is all it takes to make her their mindless murder puppet. If Sephrim can’t overcome crippling anxiety to rescue Cal, he risks dooming not only her, but all rejected Designer Kids to the same horrific fate.

Amazon

My Review: 5 STARS

I picked this up because the blurb sounded like an interesting book and I was hooked from the first page. Cal, and Sephrim were engaging characters that pulled you into the story and made you want to know more about them. I adored them both, as well as the side characters we met along the way. The story was perfectly crafted leading you into a sci-fi/dystopian feel of the world, and just how easy it would be for that power to corrupt. This was a book that I ended up reading in one sitting and adored from start to finish. Highly, highly recommended!

Join Joey here on the blog on Fridays for interviews, reviews and guest bloggers. If you'd be interested in doing any of those, you can contact Joey here

Tuesday 12 September 2023

#TeaserTuesday

Someone is targeting Jonah, and he has no idea why...

PRE-ORDER NOW: http://www.books2read.com/INVISIBLE01

PRE-ORDER SWAG:  https://forms.gle/Dna7gZbj8v7576TW8

[ID: A blue double helix background with the title INVISIBLE at the top and Coming November 14th 2023 just below the title. The except reads:

“Same stuff?” Jackson asked, before carrying on eating.
“Pretty much. They tried a different line of course, but it was all the same. Click this link, give us your details, blah blah. Of course I click the link and it logs me into the black net and then they forward those details onto the segment school board.”
“And we both know where that leads,” Jackson said with a shake of his head. “I don't get why you'd be targeted though. You don't exactly have enemies."

At the bottom is Joey Paul and just below that the website www.joeypaulonline.com,and in the bottom right corner is the logo for Bug Books. END ID]

 

Monday 11 September 2023

The Trials Of An Indie Author: Fitting The Writing In

THE TRIALS OF AN INDIE AUTHOR: FITTING THE WRITING IN

One thing you learn quickly as an indie author is that it's a lot of hard work. That's not to say that the traditional route is easy either, but since I've only ever been an indie author, it's the only one I can reliably talk about. When it comes to being indie, you've got to write the books, revise/edit the books, publish the books, and do all the marketing for the books That's a lot even if it doesn't sound like it. And a big way to be successful and stay successful is to keep writing and publishing.

Now when I first starting writing seriously, I didn't have any publishing plans beyond the usual, get an agent, get a publisher and boom off we go. This was 2001, so there wasn't anything like social media and indie publishing to the degree there is now. The only real option for me as to go the traditional route, and there was little help in getting there. My point isn't to show you how old I am, but to point out that for a lot of that time, I kept writing. I don't mean that I banged out as many books in a year as I do now, but I did keep plugging away at my stories and seeing where they'd take me.

Because of that, I ended up with a bit of a backlog or buffer zone when it came time for me to actually start publishing. As it stands now, I have written double the amount of books I have published, so there's little for me to be worried about in running out of books, but that doesn't mean that working to fit the writing in, isn't something that appears on my schedule and the like.

If you follow me on other social media, or you've been around for a while, you'll know that I do manage to fit the writing into my schedule consistently and continually throughout the year. I am, at the moment into my third set of two books for the year. I won't finish these until January time, but I think almost six books in a year is a pretty good place to be, especially as I've also managed to fit in revision, editing and the release of book twenty-one coming in November (pre-order here!)

So I thought that today I would give you a few tips on how to make time for the writing, when you have all those other things to get done as an indie author. After all, without the books, and without writing new ones, then you're not going to have much of a career.

#1 SCHEDULE WRITING TIME
I know this isn't possible for everyone, so don't worry it won't be my only tip of this kind. I know that for some people, their lives are not conducive to scheduling and planning the way that I do it. Though if you are able to set aside an hour here and there, then I really do find that it works well and allows for me to get my head in the right mindset for sitting down and just writing. I've found that knowing when I'm going to be writing lets me set myself up for a successful writing session, same as knowing when I'll be revising and the like. So if this is something you haven't tried and think will work for you, then go ahead and do this. It can be a life changer when it comes to organising your time.

#2 AIM FOR X WRITING SESSIONS A WEEK/MONTH

This might sound like scheduling but it's really not. This is more fluid and allows you to fit things in when you're able without the pressure of knowing it has to be at a certain time of day. If you're able, then think about a certain target to hit, whether that's words, or pages, or chapters, or whatever. This was something that I used to do before I got into planning, and while I didn't always have consistent success with it, that doesn't mean that it won't work for you. It feels, to me, more like setting aside time when you have it, to sit down and write for x amount of time, and x amount of times a week or month.

#3 A MIXTURE OF THE TWO

Sometimes things change, and sometimes you can be working one way and all being fine, and then life happens and things have to be switched around. The point of all of this is to ease your stress, not add to it, so if you find that one works and then for some reason it doesn't, don't be afraid to do a mixture, or to change things around. The idea is to give you time to write and create and if the only way you can do that is by doing it one way for one week or month, and then moving things around to do it another way a different time, that's completely okay! Find what works for you, that's the important thing here.

So yeah, those are the ways I've used over the years to fit my writing into my busy schedule. I may have leaned more to the first than the second these days, but that's just how my brain works. I like to know what I'm going to be doing and when, but I have, at times, done a bit of the second to be able to get back on track. Good luck with your writing!

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

Follow Joey here on her blog, or on Facebook or Tumblr to be kept up to date with the latest news regarding Joey and her books. 

Friday 8 September 2023

Review of Sorcery Of Words by Moa Eriksson

Words are the strongest magic of all...

All I want is to get through high school, but apparently the universe has other plans. Now creatures straight from the Scandinavian folklore are appearing in my hometown, and a masked man shows up, offering to teach me to use my unusual gifts.

As it turns out, my sister and I were picked by the gods - yes, the actual freaking Norse gods - to save the world from someone hell-bent on destroying it. If we fail, the world as we know it will end in snow and fire. But where do two teenage girls like us even start when they have to stop the apocalypse?

Amazon

My Review: 5 STARS

I picked this up because the cover and the blurb called out to me, and I was so glad to dive into it and find myself lost in the world Eriksson had created. Lia and her friends were perfectly written, the magic unique in the way it cam to be, and the story neatly dotted with bits of backstory and lore so that you never felt overwhelmed or that you were missing something. I adored the mental health rep, the way it was so nicely entwined with the characters, and the twists and turns of the story kept you guessing and hooked until the last page. This is an author to watch and a series I will be following. Very much recommended!

Join Joey here on the blog on Fridays for interviews, reviews and guest bloggers. If you'd be interested in doing any of those, you can contact Joey here

Thursday 7 September 2023

Author Tag: The WIP Tag [CC]


Doing another tag today! Talking about my current WIP and all the ideas! #Authortube
 
 THE WIP TAG!
THE QUESTIONS:
1. What is the working title?
2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
3. What genre is your work-in-progress?
4. Choose the actors for your movie rendition.
5. One sentence synopsis of your book.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
8. What other books would you compare the story to?
9. Who or what inspired you to write the book?
10. What else about your book might pique the readers’ interest?
 
GRAB THE PRE-ORDER SWAG: https://forms.gle/Dna7gZbj8v7576TW8
SIGN UP TO BE AN ARC READER: https://forms.gle/PXsuW4DDoRchKXgVA
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Tuesday 5 September 2023

#TeaserTuesday

Nothing could have prepared Zya for this moment...

PRE-ORDER NOW: http://www.books2read.com/INVISIBLE01

PRE-ORDER SWAG:  https://forms.gle/Dna7gZbj8v7576TW8

[ID: A blue double helix background with the title INVISIBLE at the top and Coming November 14th 2023 just below the title. The except reads:

As I steered myself to the door, the emergency alarm blasted for all to hear, and everyone froze. Time seemed to slow down, and then speed up the moment the explosion rocked the outside.
It looked like we weren’t going to lunch after all.

At the bottom is Joey Paul and just below that the website www.joeypaulonline.com,and in the bottom right corner is the logo for Bug Books. END ID]

 

Monday 4 September 2023

Spoonie Writer: Avoiding Flares & Other Things

SPOONIE WRITER: AVOIDING FLARES & OTHER THINGS

I don't really know why, but when the warmer months hit, my pain flares up something horrible. I spend the time between like May and September really struggling with the levels of pain. I also get the same during the winter months, but that, at least, makes more sense to me. I don't stop writing and working during the summer. It would be next to impossible for me to do so, but I do find that avoiding a flare is a lot harder than it is during spring and autumn.

So how do I manage to keep going? A lot of it is good old stubbornness, deadlines creeping up and just not wanting to spend all my time in bed. Another part is that I have, thankfully, a pretty good team of doctors who've made sure that I'm medicated to a certain level to allow me to stay on top of things even when it feels next to impossible to manage.

I know that makes me very lucky, because I know that most spoonies don't have that, it sucks, and it's wrong, but I wanted to give you some tips that might help you both manage any flares, of any kind, I talk about pain because it's the very big constant right now, but it can apply to any kind of flare, and also keep going with whatever else you're trying to manage.

#1 TRY AND TRACK THE BAD DAYS
I put it like this because there are, usually, some reason behind why pain or whatever are getting worse. Not always the case I know, but sometimes by tracking things you're able to see that if the weather does a certain thing, or if you eat a certain food, or if you do this or that, then you have exacerbated symptoms. Tracking them in some way allows you to see a pattern. Now this pattern might not, in the end, be something you can do anything about, after all, no one controls the weather, but it might give you some forewarning of the bad days so that you can adjust your schedule and do what works best for you.

#2 DON'T PUSH THROUGH NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING

When I started to really get into a routine with my writing, and really got very organised with it, I would still have days when everything was just too much, and I would be tempted to just push through. I'd think, well tomorrow's going to be a bad day anyway, why not make it count? Do not be like me, do not make this mistake. Tomorrow might be a bad day anyway, but it can be so much worse, and why put yourself through that?

#3 TAKING A BREAK DOES NOT MEAN YOU'VE 'FAILED'
You all probably guessed that I'd say something like this. I am, always have been, always will be, a big advocate for taking time off when you need it. When it comes to deadlines and writing and publishing, it can be tempting to push through, like I said above, but it can also, if you don't meet that deadline or whatever, be tempting to beat yourself up, and feel like taking that break means failure, and it just doesn't. You've got to rest, recharge, and you're already playing life on super hard mode, don't allow yourself to get caught up in trying to achieve more than you are currently capable of.

#4 OVERLOADING DOESN'T EVER WORK WELL
This one applies to the healthy writers as well. There's this temptation in our society of productivity being tied to worth, that you have to always be doing a million things and if you don't, then you're somehow doing it wrong, and that, my friends, is complete crap. When you overload yourself, you're going to end up with more pain, more fatigue, more anxiety and all the more risk of a massive flare. You don't have to be doing everything possible to be valid, to succeed. Take the time you need to do the things, and you will be so much happier for it.

So there we go, those are my four tips when it comes to avoiding flares. I'm in the midst of one, like I said at the start, and have been parcelling out my work into much smaller chunks than I usually do, but that's not a bad thing, and it's something we all need to remember.

Good luck, and happy writing!

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

Follow Joey here on her blog, or on Facebook or Tumblr to be kept up to date with the latest news regarding Joey and her books.

Friday 1 September 2023

Review of Hunterland by Dana Claire

Grab your stakes and your rock salt. Monster hunting class is in session.

Hunter has warded off hungry vampires, slayed monstrous beasts, and put agonized spirits to rest since he could hold a stake. When trouble comes through the Hunterland message board, alerting them that nurses are dying at high schools across Wisconsin in a string of fishy “suicides,” the Hunter family hits the road to save the day.

The trail leads to Falkville Falls, where Liam clashes with Olivia Davis, whose maddening family seems inexplicably embroiled in this haunting mess. Olivia has always mothered her little sister, Pepper. But when the Hunter family opens her eyes to the hidden underworld of real monsters prowling the dark, she realizes she can’t protect Pepper from this newest threat by herself. Can the two families work together to uncover who or what is responsible before the next murder, or will this vicious death cycle have no end?

Amazon

My Review: 5 STARS
I picked this up having read other books by Claire and loved them, and this one did not disappointed. I adored Olivia and Liam, loved watching the story unfold and the romance pick up. The whole book had me hooked from the first page and I was left hungry for more. With all the twists and turns and reveals, I couldn’t help but hope that the book was longer than it was just so that I could stay in that world for longer. An amazing start to a series, and one that I will be continuing to read and follow. Recommended for all who love the paranormal with romance sprinkled in!
Join Joey here on the blog on Fridays for interviews, reviews and guest bloggers. If you'd be interested in doing any of those, you can contact Joey here