Goodreads Giveaway

I'll be handing out four copies, so get on this now!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Mirror of Souls

by R.J. Duperre

Giveaway ends February 05, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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RELEASE DAY! The Mirror of Souls

Guess what day it is? That's right, it's Thursday!

Er, wait a sec...

Oh, that's right. It's actually the day "The Mirror of Souls", the first book in the new Covenant series, is released! To say I'm a little excited about this series is an understatement. I've been thinking about this plot, and these characters, for so long that it's a little surreal that there's finally words on a printed page for everyone to read. It's been a labor of love and pain, but well worth it. Jacqueline Talbot's live, people!

The book can be purchased in e-book form at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobobooks. Google Play is in the process of uploading, and let's just call ITunes a work-in-progress. For the time being, the paperback is only available at Amazon (all countries).

So please, read and enjoy, and make sure you write a review! As always, I can be contacted via email at rjduperreauthor@gmail.com.

LONG LIVE BOOKS!

THE MIRROR OF SOULS (COVENANT BOOK 1)

Fifteen-year-old Jacqueline Talbot's boyfriend Mal lives in the mirror of her makeup case. But then there's never been anything normal about Jacqueline, nor it seems her new hometown of Mercy Hills.

With rumors of actual monsters in the woods, the popular kids taking an unhealthy interest in her, and the revealing of her own dark past, all Jacqueline wants to do is run away forever with Mal. Too bad he's trapped in the mirror.

But when she learns the ancient forces of the town want to destroy everything she loves, the race is on to free the boy in the mirror, because he just might be the only one who knows how to stop them.

COVER REVEAL: THE MIRROR OF SOULS

Three years ago, I wrote a book called Silas. In that book was a young girl named Jacqueline Talbot, whose character I've been thinking about for a long, long time. I said then that I would one day write her story, and a few months ago, I began to do just that.

That's right, folks. The first book in the Covenant series, The Mirror of Souls, is soon to be published. For the first time ever, here's the cover:

Product description:

Fifteen-year-old Jacqueline Talbot’s boyfriend Mal lives in the mirror of her makeup case. But then there’s never been anything normal about Jacqueline, nor it seems her new hometown of Mercy Hills.

With rumors of actual monsters in the woods, the popular kids taking an unhealthy interest in her, and the revealing of her own dark past, all Jacqueline wants to do is run away forever with Mal. Too bad he’s trapped in the mirror.

But when she learns the ancient forces of the town want to destroy everything she loves, the race is on to free the boy in the mirror, because he just might be the only one who knows how to stop them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The book is currently on pre-order over at Amazon, and I plan on making it available across most platforms come its January 22nd release. This book (and series) is Young Adult with a horror slant. It'll be my first solo new release in over two years, and I'm quite excited about it. (Writing all those books with David Dalglish sure took a lot out of me!) Currently, I'm working on the 2nd book (The Chalice of Desire), with a tentative publication date at the end of April.

In the meantime, there will be another announcement coming in the next few weeks to add even further excitement! I will also be posting the prologue to The Mirror of Souls shortly. So until then, read a good book, dammit! Preferably one of mine!

THE MIRROR OF SOULS PRE-ORDER (CLICK TO PURCHASE)

Review: The Legend of Witchtrot Road (Spirit Guide #3) by E.J. Stevens

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Man, do I love E.J. Stevens. She has such a pure innocence in her prose, as if she’s capturing just what it means to be young and in love and also, at the same time, have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

In The Legend of Witchtrot Road, the third installment in her Spirit Guide series, Stevens steps back a bit. The far-reaching story arch that encompassed the first two books is still present, but it is allowed to linger in the background, to heighten naturally. As a storyteller she reins herself in, focusing on the tale at hand rather than building her world outright.

In many ways, The Legend of Witchtrot Road is very similar to a midseason “event episode” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yuki, our main character who smells the dead, has her own Scooby gang, and together they must solve the mysterious death of a classmate, whose untimely end came on the Witchtrot Road of the title. The road itself is steeped in myth, superstition, and dark history, and if the always stalwart Yuki is going to have a semblance of peace from her classmate’s lingering ghost, the answers to the mystery need to come quickly.

This is a tale of social conscience and, just like the great television show I mentioned earlier, takes some of the more pressing concerns facing our nation’s youth (bullying, eating disorders, the proliferation of drugs in the community, etc.) and presents them in a fantastic manner. It’s a type of storytelling that’s pure in intention and beautiful in message, especially when presented in a professional manner, which E.J. Stevens does with every book she puts out.

Now, even though the specifics of Yuki and company’s world aren’t explored in-depth, as I already stated, they are still there. There are some interesting developments when it comes to Simon (perhaps the best character in the series), and also certain events that made me, the reader, question whether or not Yuki and werewolf boyfriend Cal will indeed have the happily ever after they’ve seemed, until now, destined to live.

Yes, The Legend of Witchtrot Road is a fantastically naïve, touching, and thoughtful novel. Stevens continues on her journey as a writer, and you can plainly tell when you read the words she puts on the page that she continues to grow. The author has a wonderful story to tell, one that I thoroughly enjoyed and will certainly be passing down to my own daughter. To me, this is a coup of the YA genre, one that shouldn’t be missed.

Purchase The Legend of Witchtrot Road in Ebook format:

Review: Jenny Pox by J.L. Bryan

Rating: 4.9 out of 5

The teen years. A time of awkwardness and confusion, of inner turmoil and the search for one’s self. Throw into this the pressures of school, the chaos of personal and family relations, and the conflicting messages when discovering of one’s own sexuality, and the stress multiplies. This is hard enough on a normal child, but imagine being someone who has a problem – a real problem such as a deformity, mental handicap, or social deficiency. Then the stress involved with simply growing up becomes that much more difficult.

In a lot of ways, this is the root of the conflict J.L. Bryan explores in his amazing horror yarn, Jenny Pox. He takes the pressures and cruelties of youth, adds in a dash of the supernatural, and what comes out on the other side is beautiful in its viciousness and odd innocence.

Jenny is a lonely child, growing up without a mother, with her alcoholic, depressed father the only loving adult in her life. Jenny is a troubled child, born with a striking physical deficiency – she can’t touch any living thing, lest they die a horrible death as a bane of sickness infuses their bodies…the Jenny pox. So she grows up in solitude, left to imagine what life would be like if she could only be like normal kids, playing, holding hands, kissing, knowing at least the first budding flutter of love.

Her life is spent avoiding people at all costs, and she at all times wears clothes that cover up the majority of her body – including gloves for her hands – that make her an object of ridicule. And when, as a younger child, she has a run-in with the ironically named Ashleigh Goodling, the daughter of the local preacher and a girl who will grow up to be her main foil, the resulting confrontation leads to her being an object of ridicule and fear.

For her part, Ashleigh is the mirror image of Jenny. Strong where Jenny is weak, outgoing where Jenny is introverted, Ashleigh embodies everything Jenny sometimes wishes she could be. Once they reach high school, Ashleigh becomes (of course) the head cheerleader, leader of the student body, and mouthpiece for abstinence and virtue. And this is where the not-so-subtle brilliance of the story lies, for though Ashleigh seems to embody all of the cherished Christian values, her purity is purely surface-level; a disguise to hide her quest for power and domination.

It seems Ashleigh has a “special talent” just as Jenny does – the ability to make people love her. As does Ashleigh’s boyfriend Seth, who can heal most any wound, superficial or mortal. It is in Seth that Jenny eventually finds a like-minded soul, and when she is able to get him out of Ashleigh’s scope of influence, she is allowed to grow as a character, to experience the exhilaration of physical contact and the joy of finally belonging.

The novel is set up much like Stephen King’s Carrie, with the cruel school children – and the rest of the townsfolk – pushing Jenny’s buttons until the final confrontation, when Jenny pretty much loses her mind. The carnage that follows is disturbing yet understandable, not the least of which reason being that Bryan successfully entrenches us in Jenny’s brain, allows us to feel her longing, pain, happiness, and confusion. So when she flips the switch and the story takes a turn down the path of ultimate darkness, though we scream out, no, don’t do that, we completely get why the poor girl goes down the path she does.

Jenny is the perfect metaphor for the everyday lost soul. Even those of us who were in places of popularity in our youths can relate to her much more than the malevolent Ashleigh. Yet this is not the only metaphorical device the author uses. His portrayal of Christian morality as a means of control and subterfuge is inspired; in a way, he’s saying that experimenting while growing up is natural, and that placing false restrictions on ourselves is done not by the ones experiencing the growth, but those wishing to capitalize on the confusion of youth, a way of building an army of likeminded individuals sympathetic with a certain cause, complete with all the prejudices, hatred, and influence that have been passed down through generations. Given the state of our culture today, this is downright frightening.

I think this aspect of the plot may be misconstrued by readers. In presenting us with the iniquity of fanatic belief, Bryan isn’t saying Christianity in itself is bad, but that the way the doctrine is warped and beaten into the heads of our children is dangerous. As a reader I appreciated the message, as a human I wished more people would take a deeper look and understand that diversity and individuality are what drives culture to accomplish great things.

Jenny Pox takes all the tropes of young adult fiction, tosses them in a pot, shakes them up, and then reorganizes them into something meaningful, a novel written for adults using children to explore the deeper reasoning behind our own intolerance. The kids are kids, acting in a way we all did in our youths, not presented as ideals but real people. You will find no damsels in distress here, no characters that derive their meaning from the opinions of the ones they’re infatuated with. Abusive relationships aren’t puffed up as being more than what they are, each character is in charge of their own self-discovery, and misogyny isn’t glorified. Even Jenny, in her weakest state, is a strong individual, one we all can sympathize and grow along with. Even the mystical aspects at the end of the book that set up the rest of the series, and the somewhat clunky execution of the final confrontation (the only reason this book didn’t get a perfect score) don’t take away from this.

Pick up this book. Read it. Enjoy it. Think on it. It’s a great example of horror with heart, of a story that goes against the norm and uses the fantastic to heighten real events, real emotions, real experiences. Yes, I will say that I adore J.L. Bryan’s writing. This is the second book of his that I’ve read, and it seems with each experience, my enjoyment and appreciation for his style and message only grows along with the dazzling characters he’s created. He’s a writer to watch out for, to dive into, to explore.

This certainly won’t be the last book of his I’ll read, and it shouldn’t be for you, either.

Purchase Jenny Pox in ebook format at the following outlets:

Review: Spirit Storm by E.J. Stevens

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

It looks like my newfound love of paranormal romance will continue, and I can pretty much blame it on one of my new favorite authors, E.J. Stevens.

A couple months ago, when I read She Smells the Dead, the first book in her series, I wrote that the innocent and almost ideal aspects of the relationships between the characters appealed to me the most. It reminded me of my own youth – actually, reminded me how lacking in sincerity my own youth was – and left me grinning by the end.

Well, with Spirit Storm, Stevens has raised the bar…in that category and just about everywhere else.

We start out where SStD leaves off. Yuki, our heroine who receives “smell impressions” from the dead, is busy preparing herself, in both mind and body, for Samhain (aka Halloween), when spirits enter the world in overwhelming numbers and could potentially drive her crazy, or worse. She is assisted by her werewolf boyfriend Cal, Simon, Cal’s werewolf mentor, and Emma, Yuki’s best friend/vegan/animal rights activist/all around spitfire.

It would be all well and good if all this group had to do was prepare for the horrors of that night. But no, fate intercedes with a tragedy: a member of Cal’s pack has been murdered by a werewolf-hater and the ghost of the dead man now haunts Yuki, urging her to help put his soul to rest. And then another werewolf is kidnapped, potentially by the same person. The small group of four is put on the case, future obstacles be damned. Can’t a girl get a break? It’s not like she doesn’t have enough to deal with.

Add to this to the stresses between Emma and Simon (they really don’t get along, though the text makes you wonder if there might be a hidden attraction that slips between the cracks during their fights) along with the pressure Cal is under now that it’s been revealed to his hidden society that he is the alpha male, and therefore leader of the pack by birthright, and we have a recipe for potentially overwhelming these poor, loveable young people.

Luckily, they’re up for the challenge.

The plot of this book is really quite simple and straightforward. As with SStD, the dialogue is impeccable and the story flows as smooth as any you’ve ever read. There are no dull moments, and even the dream sequences, which in the first book seemed to come from left field a couple times (which is appropriate, actually, seeing as that book served as an introduction, and those dreams ways to extrapolate on the functionality of the mythology presented), serve to heighten the tension this time around. The characters are idealized versions of teenagers yet completely believable, especially if you allow the language to take you on the magical ride it has to offer. Also, the author has curtailed her penchant for inserting Yuki’s thoughts into the story. Instead of being redundant this time around, they’re funny and poignant, which is a great improvement.

Perhaps what Spirit Storm does best, however, is something more mundane, more easily overlooked, especially when dealing with teenage romance. Stevens drives home the point that Yuki and Cal are soulmates throughout the story, and yet there are subtler tones there as well that bode well for future conflict. The author, while at times idealizing their behavior, doesn’t allow that to make them caricatures of young love. Instead, she inserts a rather brilliant thread involving the dangers of being too close, too young. In this way, she’s telling us that although these two wonderful creatures belong together, things don’t always end up the way we think they should. She’s careful to let her audience know that these are still children, that there will be other choices, other paths, other dangers, presented to them as time goes on. The risk comes from obsession, from thinking a situation to be too good to be true. She warns against holding on to this love, even if it might hurt to let go, because in life, when things go bad, the hurt and pain will do nothing but drag you into a deeper well of despair, the full cost of which may actually be a loss of self or identity.

As I said, this point isn’t preached about, but it’s there. And this line of reasoning is pressed up against the more surface themes of the work – responsibility, morality, and loyalty. This is illustrated wonderfully when the characters finally come face-to-face with the werewolf killer, himself. I won’t get into the particulars, but it was quite refreshing to see that a simplistic tale such as this, which often can veer into absolute shades of black and white, took the opportunity to splash massive amounts of gray on the landscape. What makes us who we are, the story asks. And who is to blame when we discover that those we’ve judged have reasons beyond our capacity to understand for acting and thinking the way they do, that their lives, and their actions, are the result of a cacophony of unfortunate life experiences? The book offers no answers to this question, only begs for forgiveness, for patience, for perspective. In this regard, I’ll even go out on a limb and say that this book may not only be an outlet for entertainment, but a teaching tool for the young, as well. It has something to say, after all, and it states its message with class and respect.

Now I have to be honest here and say that I was this close to giving Spirit Storm only the third perfect score

I’ve ever handed out. By the time I reached the last page, however, I discovered that I couldn’t. For as wonderful as the first ninety percent of the book is, I found the last bit a little…unsatisfactory. Again, I won’t go into detail, but there is a huge buildup to a climax that never seemed to come. I’ll leave this open to interpretation by the rest of you readers out there, because I’m only one man and perhaps I’m saddled with a need for action and resolution. Perhaps others will see the ending differently, perhaps they’ll find it perfect for the story it has to tell. But for this reviewer, it was slightly disappointing.

However, with that being said, the points I dock for this are minimal. The rest of the book is fabulous. More than anything, it is beautiful in both style and substance. It’s a quick read, and I continued to fall in love with the characters and root for them to succeed, both at the tasks at hand and at love, as the layers that make them who they are get pulled back. The romance between Yuki and Cal is refreshingly innocent yet needy, and it’s interesting to think about whether they’ll be able to grow as people or if they’ll find their only distinguishing characteristics are each other. This is a story of perseverance and devotion, both to loved ones and community, and still makes sure to let you know that there are pressures, both internal and external, that wish to rip apart everything they’ve built.

What else can I say? I adored this book, ending be damned. It deserves to be up there in the pantheon of new PR releases, right alongside Amanda Hocking, another of my favorites in the genre. I know I will be passing both Spirit Storm and She Smells the Dead down to my daughter, and I will feel confident in doing so; confident that the messages she receives from the words Stevens has put down on paper will enlighten, amuse, and most important of all, make her think.

That’s really all you can ask for.

Plot - 10

Characters - 10

Voice - 9

Execution - 7

Personal Enjoyment – 9

Overall – 45/50 (4.5/5)

Buy Spirit Storm in the following formats:

Paperback








Ebook

JOA Book of the Day

JENNY POX
by J.L. Bryan

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Jenny has a secret. Her touch spreads a deadly supernatural plague. And she can't turn it off.
She devotes her life to avoiding contact with people, until her senior year of high school, when she meets the one boy she can touch, and falls in love.

But there's a problem--he's under the spell of his devious girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all.

Now Jenny must learn to use the "Jenny pox" she's fought to suppress, or be destroyed by Ashleigh's ruthless plans.

***

The sequel to Jenny Pox will be available by summer 2011.

Winner of a Red Adept Indie Award: #1 in Horror for 2010.

Selected by Geeks of Doom for Top 10 Urban Fantasy and Horror Books of 2010

If you enjoy Jenny Pox, you might enjoy books by Stacey Wallace Benefiel and Amanda Hocking.

Purchase Jenny Pox in ebook format at Amazon or Barnes and Noble

REVIEW SNIPPETS

This is one of the best novels of the year I’ve read so far, and I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. The ending has a satisfying resolution, and I think that Bryan is one of the most talented writers I’ve had the privilege to read. - Hellnotes.com

This book has it all: teenage angst, sex, drugs, hiding an evil agenda disguised as a religious quest, evil cheerleaders. - Bewitched Bookworms

This story is intensely emotional, brilliantly told, and absolutely worth reading. - Supernatural Snark

NOTE FROM THE JOURNAL

This is a book that's been on my "wish I could read if I had the time (or if the author submitted to me)" list for a long time now. I'm a sucker for horror and Buffy-esque stories, and everything I've heard about this book is that it's very close to emotionally perfect. Friends whose opinions I trust have told me it's one of the best, if not the best, book of the recently departed 2010. So to say that I'll eventually be getting around to reading it would be a severe understatement. It should be on your list, too.

Review: She Smells the Dead by E.J. Stevens

Rating: 4.3 out of 5

I’ve said before that I have no love of paranormal romance as a genre. It’s too girly, too gushy, too intrinsically self-absorbed and flighty, to be worth my while. I mean, who wants to read about some young girl with “special talents” who falls head-over-heels in love with some otherworldly creature?

Uh, apparently I do. So color me a liar.

I received She Smells the Dead by E.J. Stevens as a review copy, and honestly I was excited to dive into it. No matter my previous statements on the matter, the truth is I’ve had a long and enduring love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and trashy romance novels. It’s the inherent impracticality of the stories that draw me in; how can you not feel affection for a story told about youngsters who want nothing more than to be naïve and free, yet have massive, mythical responsibilities heaped on their shoulders? It offers us a chance to explore adolescence without having to relive it, in many ways offering up an idealized version of teenagers without ever losing sight of the inborn selfishness and idiosyncrasies that come with being a teen in the first place.

She Smells the Dead introduces us to Vanessa Stennings, a girl who likes to be called Yuki (we’ll get into my trepidation over the popularity of Japanese culture among today’s youth another time) and who possesses a very quirky paranormal talent – like title of the book suggests, Yuki can smell the dead. As she says in the prologue, this isn’t like smelling rot or something of the like. Instead, what we have here is an actual haunting; a ghost wants to tell Yuki something, and so gives her clues through her olfactory senses. Think The Sixth Sense with nothing but your nose to guide you (and minus one creepy little boy). I found this to be a very original innovation on a somewhat overused theme, which made it stand out.

Yuki is a senior in high school. She has all the shortcomings of any girl her age – indecisiveness, doubtful of her future, obsessed with clothes, falls in love with the wrong guys – and yet she is still almost idyllic in the way that she has this (recently discovered) power and makes it her goal to help those wayward spirits haunting her find their way back home.

For support, Yuki has the prerequisite quirky cast of friends – Emma, a brilliant vegan with a tendency to seek out and expose oppression against the animal (and insect) world, and Calvin, her scruffy bff-for-life (who might also be something more than that). Just as in shows like Buffy and Smallville, this little group bands together to help Yuki solve the “spirit problems”, researching at the public library and going on (sometimes not very well thought out) investigative ventures. Many times the solutions are outrageously easy (not to mention unexplained), but that’s okay. This isn’t a book intent on bending your mind.

It is all pretty formulaic, but She Smells the Dead gains its wings with dialogue (conversations flow without a hitch, which takes copious amounts of talent) and an imaginative reclassification of standard tropes. As an example of the latter, I must bring out a plot point that may be a spoiler (and some may roll their eyes at): Calvin is a werewolf. However, author Stevens has created a fresh perspective on werewolvery by doing the unthinkable – going backward. She fastens their existence to the root of the original (Native American) shapeshifter myth; a spiritual partnership between creatures of the wild and man, beneficial to both with nary a mention of curses or evil deeds. When I read this I wanted to stand up and say, “Bravo!” Very well done, indeed.

There are quite a few customary themes to the work, with those of self-discovery and duty climbing to the forefront. As you might have been able to tell, I appreciated Yuki’s steadfastness when it comes to her obligation to the dead (as well as the difficulty with figuring out their problems with only something like, say, the smell of vinegar to go on). But the scenes where she trains with Calvin, trying to harness her power, are truly well done. We get to see her weak – both with a burgeoning love for her old friend and the doubt of her capacity to channel her abilities – and strong. She is a young girl facing seemingly insurmountable odds, yet she never once really hesitates.

There is an innocent quality to the work that I appreciated, as well. I think, at the end of it all, that’s the most appealing facet. Like with the Harry Potter series, we see young people (who could be any one of us) grow up before our eyes. They think and act like the teenagers they are, but hold an almost preternatural sense of honor. Looking back on my own life, when reading material such as this, I sometimes wish I could have as sturdy a head on my shoulders as they do.

On the minus side, Stevens has a strange habit of interjecting Yuki’s thoughts into the text, even though they are directly preceded by information that makes those thoughts repetitive. And redundant, too! (See what I mean?) At first I found this quirky and even a bit funny, but as the story went on I started to roll my eyes whenever something like that came across. A slight drawback, but a bearable one.

Other than that, there really isn’t much to complain about. Not that I would want to. I had a lot of fun reading She Smells the Dead. It’s nostalgic in a wish-you-were-here sort of way, and the mushrooming young love between Calvin and Yuki is something like a bunch of kindling teetering perilously close to an emotional firestorm. It’s well-written and it flows, it’s not too violent, and surprisingly original. And it’s also very short, as it is basically the introduction into a series that continues with the second book, Spirit Storm, a book I’m itching to dive into, which will undoubtedly reveal the solution to the rather ingenious cliffhanger of an ending.

Yes, I recommend She Smells the Dead. This man fell in love with it, and I think women of all ages will, as well.

Plot - 8

Characters - 10

Voice - 8

Execution - 8

Personal Enjoyment – 9

Overall – 43/50 (4.3/5)

Purchase She Smells the Dead:

Paperback

Ebook

Video Review: Amanda Hocking's "Hollowland"

This is a JOA first, and a bit of an experiment at that. I took the review I wrote of Hollowland by Amanda Hocking, pared it down a bit, added images in imovie, and dubbed over it. It's not perfect, and there are some definite changes I'll make in the future (such as making them shorter), but I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out.

Enjoy.

On youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sJn-6KGxe8

Interview with Amanda Hocking

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This interview with Amanda Hocking was conducted via email over a span of three days. Amanda is the author of seven books and is one of the highest-volume independent booksellers. To read more about Amanda, her books, and her life, visit her website, My Blood Approves.

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Journal of Always: Hello, Amanda, and thank you for taking some time out of your obviously packed schedule to spend some time with us. Let's get started, shall we?

You've had great success self-publishing your books (currently seven books out there right now, soon to be more). My question is, how did you approach marketing your writing before you decided to go it on your own, and what was the final straw that caused you to forgo the traditional route?

Amanda Hocking: It was a bit of luck, actually. I think it was a tweet from DA of Chester French, who I’ve said for a long time is the smartest man on Twitter. He’d posted a link to an article about self-publishing, and it mentioned Joe Konrath and his success with it. After years of hearing horror stories about self-publishing, vanity presses, and Publish America, I was wary of the idea at first.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had nothing to lose. I had done everything I could think to get published traditionally.

Besides that, I had an absurd goal to be published by the time I was 26 because that’s how old Stephen King was when he first published, so I knew had to do something to get going.

I didn’t do much marketing before I uploaded my first book. I mentioned it on Twitter and my blog, but I didn’t have any real followers there. When I’d had them on sale for a few weeks, I made an announcement at Kindleboards, and I mentioned them a few places on the Amazon forums. That was about it for promotion.

JOA: Can you give us a brief overview as to your sales progress? Did they start slow, or simply take off immediately?

AH: What I didn’t realize then and do now is that my sales were always a little above average, and I have no explanation for this. The first day I think I sold 1 or 2 books, and I’ve never sold any less than that. I was averaging 3 sales a day after the first two weeks they’d been out.

My sales really began to take off in June, and I think that was in large part because I began contacting book bloggers in May, asking if they would want to review my book. A few of them did, and that has been tremendously helpful. I went from averaging 20 sales a day in May to 137 sales a day in June.

My sales continued to grow each month, but not super dramatically from that. In October, I actually sold fewer books than I did in September. But then in November, for reasons I don’t really know, my sales exploded. They jumped from 157 a day in October to 704 per day in November.

JOA: Has your success changed the way you look at yourself as a writer? How has it altered your lifestyle?

AH: I think, in a really weird way, I actually had more conviction in my writing ability before I was published than I do now. And that opinion hasn’t changed because of negative reviews or anything. It’s because I realized that people are actually paying to read what I have to say, and it makes me more aware of how good the story needs to be to entertain them.

Before, I was my only audience, and I always entertained myself. So it was easier to believe that what I did was good.

My lifestyle hasn’t really changed, other than the fact that I don’t have a day job anymore. This has all happened so fast, it hasn’t had much of a chance to change. My bills are all caught up for the first time in about three or four years, though. So that’s nice.

JOA: Do you in any way worry that your distinctive voice could be tainted by the need to remain a top seller?

AH: Not really. I think anything I write sounds like me, if that makes sense. If you give me any topic to write about – be it Nazi’s or aliens – I would still write it the way I write. My stuff tends be character driven with a lot of dialogue and pop culture references. So even if I do follow trends to stay on top, I’ll still be writing an Amanda Hocking book that sounds like me.

JOA: Your success has brought about a lot of attention, as well. Your name constantly pops up in blog articles, and in a way you are looked at as an icon in the independent community. How do you feel about this? Is it in any way uncomfortable for you?



AH: It’s a little strange.

JOA: Of all the books you've written, which is your favorite? Why?

AH: My favorite to write is probably Ascend, the third book in the Trylle Trilogy. And I’m not just saying that because it’s coming out soon. The Trylle Trilogy is something I really believe in. I had a lot of fun writing it.

The best book I’ve written, though, I think is Hollowland. That was actually the hardest for me to write.

JOA: As you well know, I read and thoroughly loved Hollowland. Why do you say it was the hardest to write?

AH: Having a female lead that strong was difficult. Remy is really tough, like super bad ass, and I juxtaposed her with a male lead who is less so. That dynamic was hard to write. Usually, even if you have a strong female, the male is at worst as strong as her, and he’s often stronger. But Remy had to be hard and world weary without being a bitch or cold, and her suitor had to soften her and humanize her, but he couldn’t be weak. Finding that balance was very hard.

It really made me think about stereotypes and roles of men and women in general. It was kind of eye opening in the way I thought them, and the way I feel like society thinks about them.

JOA: It's interesting that you should mention stereotypes. Not to get too far away from the subject of writing, but what is your opinion on the state of women's rights in this country? Personally, I see trends backsliding, as if people have forgotten what the purpose of feminism was in the first place. This scares me. Do you see this, as well?



AH: What drives me nuts about feminism is the idea that women have to be certain things or they’re not strong. That certain types of strengths and abilities are exalted and others are frowned upon.

My mom only ever wanted to get married and have kids. That’s it. But sometimes people treat that like it’s a bad thing. Like, “Oh, that’s all you wanted to do with your life?” Raising kids is hella hard. That’s why I don’t have any. And I don’t have a husband, either. I’d rather focus on my career than a family. But I don’t see either choice as being less than the other.

The idea of feminism is that women are equals and free to do things as they choose. And they should be, but it’s not fair to take away half of a choice because it’s stereotypically feminine.

I’ve never thought I couldn’t do anything because I was a girl. And no girl should. If you want to go out an save the world, more power to you. If you want to get married and be a secretary, equal power to you. That’s what it should be about.

But in all honesty, I think equality in general has taken a massive back slide.

JOA: There’s so much I could ask in response to this, but I think that would make this interview stretch into eternity, so let’s keep with the writing theme.

The majority of your work falls under the umbrella of paranormal romance. What is it about this sub-genre that appeals to you?

AH: I saw Dark Crystal for the first time when I was two, and it scared the hell out of me. Like nightmares terrified. Even some of the goblins in Labyrinth scare me, even as an adult. And yet this is my favorite stuff.

Well-done fantasy should scare you. You’re not afraid if you don’t believe in it, and it’s the belief that gives fantasy it’s magic. Fear and wonder are separated by a very thin line.

Romance, I think, is the other side of fantasy. You don’t fall in love if you don’t believe, and that’s all part of the same wonder as fantasy. I’m equally as in love with Jareth as I am frightened by the goblins in Labyrinth.

Good fantasy should scare you and make you fall in love. That’s all paranormal romance is, the blatant combination of the best parts of make believe.

JOA: Speaking of romance, do you see a difference in the ways male and female writers depict intimacy? If you do, what kind of things can we learn from the opposite sex by exploring these contrasting aspects more deeply?

AH: I don’t read a lot of romance by male authors, which I just realized, so it’s hard for me to get a clear comparison. Books by male authors I read tend to be satirical and political, like Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palahniuk. They don’t address intimacy in a big way, and if they do, it’s more clinical and blunt. In the case of someone like Bret Easton Ellis, it can be downright graphic and violent.

Books I read by female authors are more romance, like Richelle Mead and Claudia Gray. Their YA intimacy is very nuanced and subtle, but Mead’s Succubus books are very graphic, and frequent.

The differences I can see from men and women, from that random sampling, is that the men wright about it more instructionally, as in, “We had sex,” and the women right about it more emotionally, “It felt amazing when we had sex.”

But I am comparing books that are written in two very different styles. In general, the men’s books are written that way. It’s more “This happened,” and with women, it’s more “How I felt when this happened.”

So that’s my really long answer.

JOA: Your work (especially the My Blood Approves series) has been compared to Stephanie Myers' series. How are your books different?

AH: The My Blood Approves series does have similarities to Twilight. I knew that going in. I think it branches way off in its own, especially as the series goes on.

The biggest differences I think from her books in mine is that I wanted my characters to have fun, at least sometimes. Yes, there’s peril and heart ache and all that. But I wanted flawed characters who made mistakes and laughed and were sometimes silly and sometimes immature, but they were real. They were what people are, not ideals of what people should be. Some people don’t like that, and that’s fair. They are reading fantasy.

But it’s important to me that a seventeen-year-old girl acts like a seventeen-year-old girl. Like many (but not all), teenagers, she thinks she knows more than she does, that she doesn’t need high school, and the first time she falls in love, it consumes her. I’m not saying she should be a role model, but she was never intended be. She was simply supposed to be real.

My other books I don’t think are like Twilight. The Trylle Trilogy still gets compared to it, though, which doesn’t make much sense to me. Yes, there is romance and it is paranormal, but it’s much more similar to Labyrinth and The Princess Diaries than Twilight, but nobody has made those comparisons.

So I think part of that is because she’s become the definition of this genre now. Regardless of what books came before her with similar themes.

JOA: What are you reading now? What new authors out there excite you?



AH: Right now I am reading Third World America by Arianna Huffington and Palo Alto by James Franco. Arianna’s book is very interesting. It’s about the decline of the American dream. Palo Alto is a collection of somewhat bizarre stories by actor James Franco.

I recently Land of Ash, which I really dug. It’s gotten me into shorty story collections. I like reading, but my mind’s always on about thirty things at once, so short stories are working really well for my attention span right now. I also really loved JL Bryan’s Jenny Pox.


But honestly, lately, I haven’t been reading that many new books. I’ve just been reading books I’ve read before. I’ve worked my way through most of Vonnegut’s stuff this year, and I reread Survivor and Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahnuk recently. I really want to reread Good Omens but it’s not available on the Kindle, so I’m pretty bummed. 



JOA: What does the future hold for you? Are there any exciting events or new releases on the horizon? Inquiring minds want to know.



AH: I can’t even begin to speculate what the future holds. My life feels so bizarre right now, and I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

As for future projects, I have two more books coming out in the next couple weeks. The final book in the Trylle Trilogy Ascend, and a novella spinoff from the My Blood Approves series.




JOA: Thank you for spending some time with me over the last few days, Amanda. I rather enjoyed myself, and I hope others will find this interview informative and entertaining. Good luck to you, and we'll chat soon.



AH: Thank you for having me. And I enjoyed myself too. :)