Have I got some great reads to share for your Halloween reading!
Make sure you check out the author’s interview.
Feast your eyes on the thrilling cover art for these books.
And don’t forget to enter the giveaway!
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An interview with Author L.S. O’dea
Do you have any tattoos? Where? When did you get it/them? Where are they on your body?
No, but I would like to get one. I’d love to get the comedy/tragedy drama symbols on my shoulder.
Is your life anything like it was two years ago?
Besides for me squeezing in writing instead of watching TV, it is exactly like it was two years ago. I hope to one day support myself with my writing, but as of yet, that has not happened.
How long have you been writing?
I have been actually, sitting down and working at the craft since April of 2012. I have wanted to write since I was a child and read a story that my brother wrote for one of his classes. That was when I realized that stories were written by real people.
What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?
Don’t get hung up on getting it right the first time. That’s why we revise and edit. The first time, just get it down. If you find yourself stuck on a scene/chapter then summarize what you want to happen there and move on. You can always go back.
Also, don’t fall in love with your own words/scenes/chapters. They could be excellent, witty and wise, but if they aren’t necessary in the story then cut them.
Tell us something about your newest release that is NOT in the blurb.
You’ll be seeing some of those characters in later books, but remember that just because they are antagonists in this story does not mean that they will retain that role. Just like in life, no one is completely bad or good.
Thanks so much for the fun interview. Best of luck with your tour!
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Lake of Sins:
Escape
and
Secrets In Blood
Genre: YA, paranormal, dystopian, sci-fi/fantasy
Synopsis
In a world where class distinction means the difference between imprisonment and freedom and even life and death, being chosen to stay in the encampment and breed is the only way to guarantee survival for a teenage Producer.
Every year after harvest, the finest examples of teenage Producers are assigned mates; the rest are loaded onto carts and hauled away, never to be seen or heard from again. Trinity, a sixteen-year-old Producer, knows that she has no chance of being chosen to stay. She isn’t even full-blooded Producer. Her father is a House Servant and she’s spent her entire life hiding her differences, especially her claws and fangs.
She has one week to sneak into the forest and discover what happens to those who are taken. Her plan is simple, but she doesn’t count on being hunted and captured by predators long believed to be extinct. Can she elude her captors to uncover the fate of her kind and return to camp before her escape is discovered?
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Enjoy the excerpt!
“Something’s following us,” he whispered as he unsheathed his knife.
The quiet rustle of vegetation behind them signaled that night was not the only thing approaching. He pointed to a large tree. She scurried up it and stopped on a limb high off the ground. He signaled for her to wait and then walked several yards farther before climbing another tree. He crouched on a low branch, knife in hand.
The woods were gray, the shadows growing wider as time passed. She waited, scanning the forest below, her heart pounding in her ears. What was hunting them, besides Guards? She pulled her knife out of the sheath and adjusted her position. Gaar always said that predators had to have patience, so the smart prey would too. She was still working on that. She shifted around again for a different angle. So far, she hadn’t seen anything dangerous in the forest, but she had traveled mostly with Mirra. She tried to relax her breathing, but it was coming in short pants. She had to calm down. Fear could be smelled. Fear attracted predators.
There was a soft whisper in the vegetation and a pair of glowing red eyes appeared in the brush. A few feet away were two more eyes and then another set. There were at least ten pairs, shining in the darkness.
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Author L.S. O’dea
S. O’Dea grew up the youngest of seven. She always wanted to do what her older siblings were doing, especially reading stories.
Ill at a young age, she immersed herself in books. Her life changed when she read a short story written by her older brother and realized that normal (somewhat anyway, since her brother was a bit weird in her opinion) people created these amazing stories. From that day forward, she wanted to write.
However, as with all good stories, obstacles rose in her path (mostly self-created obstacles) and it took her many years to put finger to keyboard and type her first book.
Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter
The first book of the series is on sale for $0.99 until the end of the tour.
Click on the banner below to follow the tour and comment.
The more you comment, the more chances to win!
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A great interview thank you. Yes, real people write.
Hi Mary, glad that you liked the interview.
Really enjoyed reading the entire post today. This is a new author for me but I would love to learn more! Thank you for the reveal!
Hi Nikolina,
thanks for following and I’m glad that you enjoyed the post.
Great interview!!
Hi Melissa,
Glad that you liked the interview. It was fun to write.
Thanks for hosting!
You’re welcome and thank you for this wonderful tour.
Thanks for hosting this stop on my book/series tour. You site looks great! Love the “please feed me” fish.
You’re welcome. I love sharing. And thanks for stopping by and commenting! Looks like a lot of people are stopping by!
Yeah, I call them my zombie fish. They’re always hungry. LOL
Who would you want with you if you were stranded on a deserted island?
Hi Mai,
that’s a tough one. at first, I thought that I’d want family but why would I want my family to be stranded on a deserted island. I love them. I don’t want anything bad to happen to them. So, I guess I’ll have to go with MacGyver. He’d make the place an oasis in no time.
I really enjoyed the interview!
Hi Betty,
Glad you liked the interview. I always feel a little weird answering those questions. I mean, I am just me. Who wants to read about me? So, I’m glad that you found it interesting.
Hi L. S. O’Dea,
I know what you mean. It’s like when you meet someone or on a job interview and they say “tell me a little about yourself”. Hmmm…
You are exactly right, Betty. I am never sure what to say at that point in an interview either.
These look yummy. I always wonder how much input an author has in their cover. I am loving these.
sherry @ fundinmental
Hi Sherry,
I’m not sure how much input an author with an agent/publisher has, but since I am an indie author and I pay for everything, I get all the say. I do ask some of my beta readers for input but I have the final say.
A most interesting feature and interview. Thanks.
Hi Anne,
Glad you like the excerpts and interview. Hope you’ll like the books. If you read them, let me know what you think.
Very informative interview!
Hi Trix,
Glad you liked the interview. I try to be honest, yet entertaining.
What a good interview! I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you.
Hi Ree Dee,
Thanks. The interviews are fun to write but a little weird too. I’m not used to people asking me questions except how to fix computer stuff.
Writing is much better than TV, if you ask me. 😉
Hi Elisabeth,
I agree. I may be the only one, but I find my stories much more entertaining than most of the stuff on TV. I hardly watch television anymore. Thanks for following and commenting on the tour.
Thank you to fuonlyknew for hosting this stop on my blog tour.
You’re most welcome! And thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments and questions!
Great interview and excerpt – thanks for sharing.
Hi Victoria,
Glad you liked the interview and excerpt and thanks for following the tour.
Do you ever suffer from writer’s block and, if so, how do you overcome it?
Hi Peggy,
I have not (yet) experienced writer’s block, or at least what I consider writer’s block. I never sit and stare at the screen, unable to write. What I experience is more of a writer’s ramble. When I don’t know what to write, I just – well -write. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say I’m going to write a story about Billy Bob. I have a vague idea of who he is and I know that in the story he is going to meet a woman who ruins his life, but I don’t really know anything else. So, I start with what I do know and go from there. I know that Billy Bob has to meet this woman but how. At this point, I let old Billy tell me a bit about himself. He is in his early 40s, never been married (not sure why, he isn’t ready to tell me that yet), lives alone, is lonely, and is a bit over weight. So, how is this guy going to meet a woman who will turn his life upside down? Well, Billy isn’t the type to frequent bars, at least not ones with single woman. He does go down to the local pub and have a few drinks with friends on the weekends, but that bar doesn’t have too many woman and the few that it does have know Billy and think of him as a friend (that has always been his problem). So, now I trudge through Billy’s day-to-day life to see where he can meet this woman. This is boring stuff. Billy’s life is not exciting. This stuff will never make it into the story but I need to get it down. I need Billy to open up to me.
So, I think I don’t experience writer’s block because I don’t wait for the writing to be perfect or even good. I’m fine with pages and pages of stuff that will either be deleted or summarized into a sentence or two.
Now, if anyone wants to know, here is what I came up with for the rest of Billy’s story. Billy goes to the grocery store on his way home from work or maybe after a drink at the pub. The store has potato chips on sale and Billy has a hankering for some chips. Well, the store is sold out of the kind that he likes. Being a frugal man he gets a rain check (not sure if that is important or not, but it is what Billy would do). Then he heads home. Now, he really wants some chips. He tells himself that he doesn’t need them. He needs to lose a bit of weight anyway. He passes a couple of gas stations. At the last one before his house, he’s convinced himself that he will go to the gym tomorrow (Saturday) so tonight he deserves some chips. He pulls into the gas station and inside he sees a woman. She has a kid of about ten. She is at the register and she doesn’t have enough money for milk and bread and a candy bar for the kid. Billy pays her bill. He has now met the woman who will ruin his life.
She tells him she’ll pay him back, but he says not to worry about it. She leaves and Billy goes home. The next night at the bar he bumps into his high school friend, Trevor. Now, Billy was on the football team but he was just a minor player, Trevor was the quarterback. Trevor has no problems with the ladies. Billy wears a ring, high school, that he has a nervous habit of twirling on his finger. He’d been going to give it to a girl who he’d liked but she’d told him how he was like a brother to her.
Anyway, Trevor convinces Billy to go to the strip club with him and guess who Billy sees there. The woman from the gas station.
So, that is how my mind works. I plotted that out in about ten or twenty minutes. That’s why I don’t (as of yet) get writer’s block. I just type away until the character tells me his/her secrets.
Sorry this is so long — like I said, writer’s ramble.
Where do you find your inspiration and what’s your favourite season of the year?
And yeah, the interview was short, but nice.
Hi Maida,
I find inspiration in every day things. I question everything – always have. Why do we eat some animals and not others, why are most of us okay with letting our children watch violence on TV but not sex. I’m not saying there is a right or wrong answer to these questions, I’m just saying that I question them and others. I think it stems from my childhood, but I answered that in another blog, so I’ll wait until the end of the tour to ensure that I don’t leak the answer.
My favorite season has to be the fall. I’ve always loved it. I used to live in Indiana and the change of the tree leaves was beautiful. Also, I tend to think forward (for example: Thursday is my favorite day of the week because the weekend is coming and Sunday is my second least favorite (Monday tops the list) because the weekend is over), so the fall is the start of the holiday season for me.
Glad you liked the interview and thanks for following.
Great interview.
I know. I had fun reading it too:)
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
Hi Jennifer, glad you enjoyed the interview.
About how long does it take you to finish writing a book? Do you set yourself a deadline or just go with the flow? Oh, and now I want to know what that woman does to poor Billy Bob!
It takes me about a year to write a book. I wish I could do it faster but with working fulltime (not writing), a year is rough. I pretty much do nothing but work at my day job and write my book. I don’t really have a deadline but I aim for a season. Like, I’m am planning on having book 3 done in the spring. I’ve really got to get a move on in order to make that deadline, but I’ll try very hard to do it.
I’m not sure what she does to Billy Bob. That was just an example that I fleshed out while walking my dogs to give on this blog – although I might turn it into a short story because I’m curious too. For me, (it’s weird, I know) but I let the characters tell me their story. I think poor Billy Bob is a good guy but lonely and he may not be able to break out of that rut (not all my stories have happy endings although I really try – I like most of my characters, even the bad guys/gals).
thanks for reading. If you send me your email or following me on FB or Twitter, I’ll let you know if I ever finish Billy Bob’s story.
Thanks for replying! I’ve enjoyed reading your interview and answers to everyone’s questions. I’ll be sure to follow you!
Terrific post and I’ve really enjoyed reading the questions and answers!
This was a blast, Betty!
Hi Betty, glad you are enjoying the tour. It readers and commenter like you that make these tours fun.
I would love to win this! Thanks for the chance.
I love sharing!
Thanks for the author interview! Really enjoyed it!!
It was fun to read, wasn’t it?!
Thanks Angie. I must be weirder than I thought if people enjoy reading my interviews 🙂 I consider myself pretty “beige” but maybe I have some weird streaks. :)Thanks for reading.
Looks like an interesting series.
I really want to read them!
Hi Stormi,
Glad you are interested in the series. If you do read it, I hope you’ll like it, and let me know what you think.
And to fuonlyknew,
Glad you are enjoying this tour, I know I am. This one a great stop. A lot of comments and questions. If you do read the books, please let me know what you think. I love feedback from readers.
I’d love to read these! And I love all of the people who take the time to chat on my blog. They are awesome and make this venture worthwhile:)
These books sound very interesting. Thanks!
I know. And I love the cover art too!
Thanks Rebecca. If you read them let me know what you think. They are dark, but (I think) fun.
I really enjoyed reading the interview and the excerpt. This book series sounds very interesting and intriguing!
I’m so happy to share all of this!
Hi Lilallykitten,
I’m glad that you enjoyed the interview and excerpt. Hope you’ll read the book and like it even more.
Love your screen name.