Monday, January 25, 2016

Fiction Feature: Landry in Like!

Ahoy readers!


Hope this chilly weather hasn't been keeping you down! It is the perfect excuse to curl up with a new book, though, and I just so happen to be giving you another great read on today's Fiction Feature!


Krysten Lindsay Hager and her lovable character Landry aren't strangers to my blog, and I'm happy to say that Landry's third story, recently hit the e-shelves! Time to get wrapped into another great YA self-esteem drama with Landry in Like!





Things seem to be going well in Landry Albright’s world—she’s getting invited to be on local talk shows to talk about her modeling career, her best friends have her back, and her boyfriend Vladi is becoming someone she can truly count on…and then everything changes. Suddenly it seems like most of the girls in school are into hanging out at a new teen dance club, while Landry just wants to spend her weekends playing video games and baking cupcakes at sleepovers. Then, Yasmin McCarty, the most popular girl in school, starts to come between Landry’s friendship with Ashanti. Things take a turn when Yasmin tells Vladi that Landry is interested in another boy. Can Landry get her relationships with Ashanti and Vladi back or will she be left out and left behind?



Looks like Landry's third story is just as full of drama, friendship, and growing up as the others, no? Well, don't take my work for it! Here's an excerpt to really get you hooked!



***


I wanted to call my friends and tell them about being on the talk show, but Mom said we had to be at the TV station super early — even before school started. She said I could text them, but I had to turn off my phone and go to bed.

“I’m waking you up at four a.m.,” she said. “You have to be there at five-thirty.”

“Can I just call Peyton and Ashanti? Please?”

“Fine, but you have five minutes and then that phone is mine and you’re in bed.”

I dialed Peyton, but her mom said she was in the shower. I told her mom about the show tomorrow and said my mom wouldn’t let me stay up any later to call Peyton back.

“How exciting! I will make sure Peyton knows, and I will be watching you tomorrow. Good luck, honey,” Mrs. Urich said.

I called Ashanti next and told her.

“Get out. Get. Out. No way. This is so exciting!”

“I’m so nervous. My stomach is already doing cartwheels. I can’t do one, but my stomach can. Seems unfair. What if I throw up before I go on? I did that right before I went on at the statewide IngĂ©nue modeling competition in Detroit, and my mom had to give me a cough drop to cover up the smell.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, but… just in case, take a cough drop with you,” Ashanti said. “Good luck. You’ll be great and I’ll go set the DVR now.”

I hung up and sent a text to Vladi, India, Devon, Thalia, Tori, and Ericka, so no one would be mad and feel left out. Then I shut off my phone. Mom poked her head in the door to make sure I was in bed.

“Night, hon. Try to get some rest,” she said.

Easier said than done. I stared at my ceiling while thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong tomorrow. Seeing as the show was on in the morning, I never got to watch it, so I had no idea what the set was like — did it have super high chairs and I’d struggle to get into them? And what if it had those higher stools that were kind of tippy and my rear overshot the seat and I fell off? Or what if the prep questions got lost and the interviewer asked me random things like my feelings on nuclear war or asked me about some foreign political leader who I had never heard of before, and I appeared stupid? Why did I say I’d do this? I tried to get comfortable and it felt like I had just dozed off when I felt my mom shaking my shoulder.


“Rise and shine, TV star,” she said.

***




You can find Landry in Like at these e-retailers below:


Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Landry-Like-Landrys-True-Colors-ebook/dp/B01AL6AUA2/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Landry-Like-Landrys-True-Colors-ebook/dp/B01AL6AUA2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453196883&sr=8-2&keywords=krysten+hager

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/landry-in-like-krysten-lindsay-hager/1123253456?ean=2940157767242

Nook UK: http://www.nook.com/gb/ebooks/landry-in-like-by-krysten-lindsay-hager/2940157767242

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/landry-in-like


Itunes/ibooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/landry-in-like/id1076225388?mt=11




And, since it's been a minute, let me re-introduce our lovely author, Krysten Lindsay Hager! She's got a super cute new author pic, too!





Krysten Lindsay Hager is the author of the Landry’s True Colors Series, a clean reads young adult series and the new ​Star Series. Krysten writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, middle school and high school, frenemies, modeling, crushes, values, and self-image in True Colors, Best Friends…Forever? And Landry in Like, as well as in, Next Door to a Star (Star Series). Her sequel to Next Door to a Star will be out March 22, 2016.


Krysten is a book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like. She’s worked as a journalist and writes YA, MG, humor essays, and adult fiction. She is originally from Michigan and has lived in Portugal, South Dakota, and currently resides in southwestern Ohio where you can find her reading and writing when she’s not catching up on her favorite shows. She received her master’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint.




You can reach out to Krysten at the links below:

Website: http://www.krystenlindsay.com/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/krystenlindsay

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Krysten-Lindsay-Hager/e/B00L2JC9P2/

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/krystenlindsay/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KrystenLindsayHagerAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KrystenLindsay

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8298036.Krysten_Lindsay_Hager

Author talk show interview: http://wdtn.com/2014/11/06/true-colors/




And that's it for this Fiction Feature! Stay tuned for some sneak peaks of Reverie and all things Lucid! 

Until next time, keep readin' and dreamin'! 

-Fred

Monday, January 4, 2016

2016 is the year of the dreams!

Ahoy, wonderful readers!

I hope you are all recovering swimmingly from a lovely holiday season! 2015 is behind us as a shining new year awaits!

I apologize for the brief hiatus during the busy holiday season. A bout of sickness threw me for a loop and resulted in a forced period of hibernation. All is well now, however, and I'm ready to jump on into the new year with good writing, reading, and of course dreaming!

Edits for Reverie are going swimmingly, and you should expect the next installment for Devon & Co's adventure this coming Spring! I'll be posting excerpts, photos, and other cool stuff to keep y'all satiated until the release date, so stay tuned!

I'll also be posting more fiction features about YA fantasy and sci-fi that I've read. My goal is to read 60 new books this year, so I'll be passing along the good ones so y'all can enjoy them, too! I'll also be promoting my fellow indie authors as well, but I really want to focus on the YA sci-fi/fantasy genre, so I can write passionately about what I promote.

I'm also going to challenge myself to write every day. Some of those words will never make it into a book, but it's crucial to crank out words outside of the month of November. NaNoWriMo is great, don't get me wrong, but it'd be nice to have some words in other months to tweak and critique.

I want to draw my characters more. I love my characters, and I have an amazing picture of what they look like in my head, but I wanna show y'all what I think they all look like. I've some pretty nice ones of Devon, Mitch, and Kyle, but I'm gonna elaborate and show those off alongside some Dreamer sketches. Hopefully y'all will enjoy seeing them..or at least get a few good laughs at my attempt at being a visual artist.

Anyway, what are your New Years resolutions? Are you gonna take that Spanish course at the rec? Gonna run a marathon? (Major props if you do that one...I'd die) I hope whatever you decide to tackle will be tackled with finesse, power, and makes you a better person once it's done!

Let's go after 2016 like never before!

And as always, keep readin' and dreamin'

-Fred