#BeforeTheyFindUs Blog Tour- Day 4

Posted on March 27, 2014 by michelle

Day Four? How did I manage to miss posting about days 2 and 3?

My daughter broke her leg and I spent ten hours in the ER in the very same week that my in-laws returned from a two year mission in Ecuador AND two families of cousins came to visit. EEK!

You know, I scheduled this blog tour on my spring break from school. My week was supposed to be WIDE open.

No matter. If you missed any of the posts from the previous days, you can follow them on the links below.

Day 2- March 25th

–Sweet Southern Home >> Review
–YA Story Teller >> Review
–Mythical Books >> Guest Post
–Shattering Words >> Review
–A Book Addict’s Bookshelves >> Top 10 List
–Istyria book blog >> Review

Day 3- March 26th

–Mom With A Kindle >> Interview
–Between Printed Pages >> Review
–Addicted Readers >> Excerpt
–Fic Central >> Review
–Romance Schmomance >> Review
–Book Lovers Life >> Guest Post
–My Full Bookshelf Reviews >> Review

Day 4- March 27th

–Literary Nook >> Review + Excerpt
–All in One Place >> Review
–Beauty and the Bookshelf >> Interview
–Living in a Bookworld >> Review
–Read More Sleep Less Blog >> Review + “Behind the Scenes”
–Gabic Reads >> Review
–We Live and Breathe Books >> Review

Don’t forget to enter the giveaways at any of these blog stops. Up for grabs: $25 Amazon gift card, autographed paperback of Before They Find Us, ebooks of Before They Find Us and Painted Blind, and this cute charm necklace plus BTFU swag:

You still have a few more days to enter to win the cute book-lover shoes! The raffle ends March 31st.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don’t forget, if you sign up for my newsletter, you will receive the UNPUBLISHED EPILOGUE in your inbox!

Thanks for following the blog tour. I’d love to hear your comments about it.

#BeforeTheyFindUs Blog Tour- Day 1

Posted on March 24, 2014 by michelle

Today kicks off the Before They Find Us Blog Tour with Xpresso Book Tours! I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such an awesome group of book bloggers. Make sure to hit every stop. And, don’t forget to register for the giveaway!

March 24th
–Hopelessly Devoted Bibliophile >> Review
–We Do Write >> Interview
–Lose Time Reading >> Review
–StarAngels’ Reviews >> Review
–From the Shadows >> Top 10 List
–Pink Fluffy Hearts: Diary of a Coffee Addict >> Review
–TNT Reviews >> Review
–Pieces of Whimsy >> Review

The Unpublished Epilogue

Posted on March 24, 2014 by michelle

I like happy endings. I don’t try to hide it. I figure there is enough tragedy and suffering in the world, and while we do often read fiction to learn about life, we also read as an escape from the things that bring us down. I write what I want to read, and I want to read something that ends with happiness, hope and the promise of a brighter future.

Hope is a common theme in YA, while “happily ever after” is frowned upon. A lot of people don’t believe in “happily ever after,” but I’m still a believer.

When I was work-shopping Before They Find Us with my MFA program, I knew how it would end. I wrote the ending Beck told me to write, even though I knew it would be unpopular with my professor and probably most of my writing peers. Still, I felt like I owed it to Beck to write the end of her story.

My professor came back to me and said, “It’s not that I don’t like it. I think it’s unnecessary. The book should end with the last chapter.”

Knowing that the Epilogue would probably get trashed when I sent the book out on review and with this insight from my professor, I decided to leave the Epilogue out of the final draft, much to the dismay of some of my beta readers.

I’m not ashamed of the ending. I know these characters. I know how they wanted their story to end, so in a way, I felt like I was protecting them by keeping the Epilogue out. But, I figure anyone who connects with the book well enough to head over here to my website deserves to have those final few pages.

So, I’m going to send the unpublished Epilogue to everyone who subscribes to my email newsletter. To subscribe, enter your email into the “Subscribe” box in the widget on the right. Subscribe before March 31, 2014, and you will receive the file, too. (I’ll be perfectly honest here. To date I have only sent one newsletter. You don’t have to worry about his clogging your inbox—I’m just not that persistent.)

When you read it, I hope you’ll come back and tell me what you thought. Should it stay out? Or does it deserve to be put back in? Leave a comment and let me know!

Book Lover Shoes #Giveaway

Posted on March 17, 2014 by michelle

Have I mentioned I’m a DIY junkie? Yes, I’m sure I have. Well, Pinterest feeds the addiction, which is why I should stay off Pinterest.

But, I don’t.

I came home from the AWP conference with the itch to do book crafts. I’m not sure why I had the book crafting bug, but I went to Pinterest for ideas and I found these:

They are made from comic books. Said I, “Why should the comic book peeps have all the fun? I can make those from real books.”

Well, I didn’t want to ruin a pair of my own shoes before I knew the project would work, so I went to Goodwill and found this cheap pair of pumps. They looked brand new.