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Megan Cashman

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The Dark Proposal – 50% Off on Smashwords!

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Megan in My Books, The Dark Proposal

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abusive relationships, authors, book characters, book promotion, books, eBooks, explicit content, fiction, graphic content, NA, New Adult, New adult books, promotion, reading, Smashwords, urban fantasy, vampire books, vampires

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Click here to purchase on Smashwords

I’m a little late in Smashwords’ summer promotion sales, but hey, better late than never!

My book, “The Dark Proposal” is 50% off the eBook site. This promotional sale will run until July 31st, before it goes back to its original price of $2.99.

If you’d like to purchase it on Smashwords, here is the promo code: SSW50

As you may know, “The Dark Proposal” is about a college graduate who thought she met perfect boyfriend, until he reveals to be a malicious vampire with a sinister proposal.

The book begins at the end of the summer, so this may be good timing!

Happy reading!

Character Interview: Samantha DiCarlo and Monica Alejandrez

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Megan in My Books, The Dark Proposal

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book characters, fictional characters, interviews, New adult books, paranormal books, urban fantasy, vampire books, vampires

When my book was released in September, I went on a blog tour via Dark Mind Blog Tours (now Dark World Books) One of the stops I went on, KY Bunnies, requested that I do a character interview. At first I wasn’t sure how to do it because of the dark overtones in my book. But then I decided to interview two secondary characters – Claire McCormick’s roommates and close friends, Samantha DiCarlo and Monica Alejandrez. Good choice because it avoided to potential gloominess if I had interviewed another character.

I ended up having a lot of fun with this interview, especially since those two have distinct personalities that are fun to watch/read.

So, without further ado, here is that interview:

Q: Great to meet you Samantha DiCarlo and Monica Alejandrez! Okay, tell us about yourselves, and how you became friends with Claire McCormick?

Samantha: Claire, Monica and I met during our first year at Richmond College, which is on Staten Island in New York City. The three of us hit it off right away, though I’m not so sure how.

Monica: (slight giggle) I think it’s because our personalities simply clicked. Even though we’re different in a lot of ways, we also benefit and learn from each other.

Samantha: Yeah, Monica is the quiet one, Claire is in-between, and some people say I can be loud. Anyway, we became friends in college and right before we graduated, we three realized we didn’t want to go back living with our parents and regress into children. We wanted to be adults so we got ourselves an apartment not far from the college and moved in together.  It was really awesome that our landlords took us in because we were college graduates without full time jobs, but I guess they needed whatever help they could get to pay their mortgage.

Q: Signs of the times, I suppose?

Samantha: You’re not kidding. Neither one of us could get a full time job after we graduated. Monica substituted a lot, but she was going for her master’s in education at Richmond. But Claire and I could not get real jobs for the life of us. I studied finance, but I got stuck bartending four days a week. Claire majored in English Writing, but kept working part-time in the English department that had lousy pay.

Monica: She also did some freelancing, but it wasn’t easy for her.

Samantha: We argued so many times. There was so much stress going on.

Q: When the fall semester began, Claire met Daniel Bertrand, who was an adjunct professor at Richmond. It began with him helping her getting more freelance work but then it turned into something more.

Samantha: Yeah, we thought it would be cool for her to go out with him. He was hot looking, rich and successful. Why not?

Monica: He was a really cool guy when they first dated. He was friendly and a real gentleman. He also made her smile a lot back then.

Samantha: (rolls eyes) Back then.

Q: When did you notice something was wrong with their relationship?

Monica: Thanksgiving Day. Claire was all dazed and withdrawn. She said she got into a nasty fight with Daniel the night before. She also even asked me a weird question about vampires.

Samantha: It was all downhill from there. First they broke up, and then she accused Daniel of assaulting her before their break-up. He didn’t seem to be the type who would hurt someone, but you never know.

Monica: Then she got back with him which didn’t make any sense to us.

Samantha: We tried to talk sense into her, but she wouldn’t hear it. She even said she made up the part about Daniel hitting her, which was bizarre.

Q: It wasn’t long after Claire got back with Daniel that she moved in with him.

Samantha: Boy, did that come without warning! I mean, we knew they were talking about moving in together before they broke up. But after they got back together, almost right away did she begin packing up! I got the impression Daniel made a “my way or no way” type of deal, and for some reason, Claire went along.

Q: Was this normal of her?

Samantha & Monica: No!

Monica: She actually was never that strong. She was never a doormat, but she did have weaknesses that she needed to work on. I also think there was something about Daniel that we couldn’t put our finger on.

Samantha: Well, we kind of did. The night he came to get Claire’s things was like seeing the real Daniel, or part of it. He came across as cold and calculating, nothing like the nice guy we knew before. He and I almost got into an argument, but I outsmarted him.

Monica: I was really worried about her when she left that night. It was like she was afraid to say no to Daniel, and was heading for something we couldn’t get her out of.

Q: Have you spoken to her since?

Samantha: We’ve spoken once or twice on the phone. She sent us a few emails, sent us photos of her in Paris, where Daniel took her for some romantic vacation. But we have yet to meet up.

Monica: It’s really sad that our friendship came to a sudden end like that.

Samantha: Sad? I’m pissed. But I don’t know what to do. It’s Claire’s life, her decision. We told her we would be there for her. I hope she never forgets that.

Q: Thank you ladies for giving this interview.  I hope everything works out for Claire.

Samantha: Don’t worry. I don’t think this is the end of everything for her. Really, I just don’t.

Wednesday Interview: E.J. Wesley

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by Megan in Author Interviews

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Tags

authors, books, eBooks, indie authors, interviews, New Adult, New adult books, novels, vampires, writers

As promised, every Wednesday I will feature a Q&A session with an Indie or Self-Published author right here on my blog.

My first subject is E.J. Wesley, author of Blood Fugue, the first book in the Moonsong series. If you are familiar with the rise of the New Adult category in the book industry, you might know E.J. is active in making New Adult a reputable category and even hosts the weekly Twitter chat #NALitChat

Megan Cashman: What first inspired you to get into writing? 

E.J. Wesley: I’ve been a dedicated reader since my early teens. But that’s all I truly aspired to be in terms of fiction–a consumer. It wasn’t until I’d graduated from college and began working in mental health that I really got interested in creating. We were using Harry Potter as a counseling tool (working with troubled teens), and I saw first hand how a great story could not just entertain, but change a life. Simply put, I wanted to do that. I’m still trying! 😀

Megan Cashman: So many paranormal books out there have a romantic storyline to them. Why did you choose to write one that had an action-suspense-horror angle to it?

E.J. Wesley: I’ve read a number of YA para-rom stories, and enjoyed my share of them. So I’m not anti-romance by any means. I just wanted to write a certain kind of story, with a certain type of character. Jenny, the mc, is not a romantic person. She’s a little selfish (a lot?), somewhat abrasive, and is probably more interested in sex than romance. (She is 21, after all, and that kind of thinking isn’t reserved to men of that age.) The romance just didn’t feel right for this story, if that makes sense.

That being said, I DID set out to create something a little different. Like Sookie Stackhouse without so much of the smexy. Mostly because I’m a new-ish author, and wanted to bring my unique storytelling voice to the table, give readers a clue of what kinds of things they can expect from me as an author. But also because these are the types of stories I enjoy the most: lots of action, characters behaving in their own flawed fashion, and a whole bunch of crazy $#!% on the side. 🙂

Megan Cashman: Why did you choose the title “Blood Fugue” (BTW, what does fugue mean?)

E.J. Wesley: Not going to lie, the title was the most difficult aspect of the final editing process. I had to pick SOMETHING. Including the name ‘Moonsong” was a given, because it is at the heart of who the main character is, and what the overall story is about. So, being a series of novelettes, I decided the series should be titled ‘Moonsongs’. Taking a cue from the musical nature of the series title, I wanted each story to have a musical theme to it in name.

So I decided to go with major themes, movements, etc. in classical music (I’m a fan of that, too). A fugue is a compositional technique where two or more sounds (voice, instrument, etc.) are built on a subject or theme that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and recurs frequently in the course of the composition.

Blood Fugue is all about Jenny (the main character) learning about her family (blood) and potentially following in their footsteps–sort of repeating the pattern of her ancestry. So I thought there was a nice symmetry there.

Megan Cashman: How has South Texas influenced the setting of your book?

E.J. Wesley: If you live in Texas for any amount of time it just kind of soaks into your bones. The culture here is way more diverse than most people know. Latino, Native American, German–all have settled in the state. Probably because it is enormous, so there’s plenty of land to go around. Yet despite that cultural diversity, there are common attitudes amongst the natives. Texans tend to be black and white thinkers (which is not to be confused with non-thinking)–you either are or you aren’t, you will or you won’t, and so on. So there’s lots of that in my characters.

This story has a major Native American element to it, which is something I’ve grown up around. (I’m not a native Texan, btw. But did grow up about 20 minutes from the state line in Southwest Oklahoma.) A couple of my great grandparents were Native American, and the culture is everywhere in Oklahoma, as you might expect.

As far as physical setting, the story takes place in West Texas, which is more of a plains area. The weather comes in extremes (can get really hot, but also really cold because there aren’t as many trees, etc. to stop those northern winds from whipping around). The weather is usually referred to as a person in those areas, because it’s so fickle and changing. I definitely tried to use that unpredictability to build suspense into Blood Fugue.

Megan Cashman: Some reviewers didn’t like the use of swear words in “Blood Fugue”. How do you explain your need to use profanity in your writing?

E.J. Wesley: I think there was something of a misunderstanding with the profanity, meaning a few people might’ve gone into reading the story thinking it was YA in the vein of Twilight, etc. (because it has ‘paranormal’ in the description is my guess). Blood Fugue was written for adults–New Adults, actually (18-26 year olds). While there is some language, it is there because the main character speaks that way.

I believe anything you find in the story is true to the characters. Some swear, some don’t. In the end, it definitely doesn’t break any records for curse words on a page or anything. In fact, you’d likely hear worse walking down the halls at most high schools.

Megan Cashman: How did you find out about the New Adult genre?

E.J. Wesley: I wrote Blood Fugue as New Adult before I even knew there was a category for it! lol Basically, I set out to write a story my 20-something nieces and nephews would find entertaining. That happened to be a story with video games, energy drinks, and lots of transition angst involved in moving into the ‘adult’ world. I just felt there weren’t stories for THOSE people, and with the accessibility in publishing these days, I figured I could put it out there even if a traditional publisher couldn’t/wouldn’t classify it.

Then I stumbled upon the NA Alley Blog. It was this collection of awesome authors dedicated to writing and promoting exactly the kind of story I’d written. Then I learned there was this swelling movement to get NA out there. Basically, I discovered I wasn’t alone.

Megan Cashman: Why do you think the word needs to get out about NA? Does it really have a potential audience?

E.J. Wesley: 20 somethings are some of the most devoted readers I know. I’m not sure what yahoo decided college students wouldn’t, or didn’t, read fiction, but I just have to tell them they’re wrong. Maybe we’re not giving them enough to read. Maybe they aren’t all omnivorous readers who will devour YA books written for people 10 years younger than they are, or the latest Norah Roberts and Nicholas Sparks books written for people 10 years older. Perhaps they prefer to read stories written for them, about them. That would be my guess as to why that demographic hasn’t ticked the right boxes in market research. Because they definitely read. And if they read, authors should be writing for them. (See my Harry Potter example in the first question–stories can change lives.)

Megan Cashman: “Blood Fugue” is the first book of your Moonsongs series. When can fans expect the next installment?

E.J. Wesley: Moonsongs Book 2 should land in December! All I’ll say, is if you like witches and magic, this one will be for you. 😀

Check out Blood Fugue at these sites: Amazon – B&N – Smashwords – Goodreads

Contact E.J. Wesley on these sites: – Twitter  – Facebook – Goodreads – Blog

 

 

Warning: This Book May Offend You

13 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by Megan in On Writing, Storytelling Musings

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book ratings, content ratings, content warnings, graphic content, graphic scenes, NA, New adult books, offense guaranteed, offensive material, sex scenes, violence, violent scenes

I was just participating in the weekly Twitter chat #NALitChat this evening and we discussed content in New Adult books and what is appropriate or not. I pointed out that readers should always be warned about a book’s content, because some may not be all right with what is written.

No matter the age of some people, book scenes that have swearing, violence, explicit sex, disturbing or controversial events are not everyone’s cup of tea. I truly believe it is best to give your potential readers a heads’ up on what they are getting themselves into. The last thing you would want is a reader complaining about being uneasy with certain content in your book.

Image via Wikimedia

Now, some might say, “that’s their problem” and ignore complaints. I find that attitude to be arrogant, which could turn off your audience. Yes, you are writing what works for you, but it is your audience that will read and potentially praise your work, making all those long hours worth it. I think a good writer has to be a good listener, though not necessarily a slave to their readers’ demands. There is a thing called compromise, and writers have to do that with their audiences.

Now, others might say, “many adult oriented books are R rated these days anyway”. The may be true, but that doesn’t make it an excuse. Not everyone is pleased with the increasing violence, profanity and sex in not just books, but movies, music and TV. Even a 20-something may be uncomfortable with such content and they could be fairly open-minded. So don’t get cynical and assume everyone will okay with four letter words in every sentence or sex scenes that have far too much TMI, because many are not.

This is why I believe it is a good idea to put warning boxes on all book blurbs. Ratings like G, PG, NC-17 and everything else is not necessary. But a heads’ up is important. You warned anyone interested in your book and then it is their decision to read it or not.

Now of course, seeing a warning about gore, explicit sex or disturbing scenes may entice someone who loves that stuff to read your book just for that content, forget about the storyline. If that’s the case, well, laugh your way to the bank! You can’t control the reason why someone is buying and reading your book, so just count the number of sales you have in the meantime.

Then again, you may want someone to truly appreciate your plot and characters, so laughing to the bank may not be the solution. But that’s a different topic for the future 🙂

Furthermore, if you do warn potential readers about the content of your work and they still complain about it, then I would agree that is their problem. You made it clear that your novel is not for everyone and they still chose to read your book. It was up to them to ignore the warning signs, so I would say they have no right to complain about what they came across. You can only just shrug and carry on. You did what you could

So that is what I have to say about addressing graphic content in novels. Now, I am going to readjust my book description so everyone who reads them would understand what they will be reading…and they better not bitch and moan about it either! 🙂

 

 

 

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