Alyssa gets her cowgirl on...

 

Splintered and I are hitting the Texas Tour Circuit this Friday!

 

My heroine Alyssa and her skater-boy Jeb are actually already accustomed to Texas things. They're from a fictional Texas town named after Alice Liddell (whose middle name happened to be Pleasance). But rodeos and bowls of piping hot chili are all foreign concepts to the winged and wild Morpheus. Maybe Alyssa will lend him her hat to make him feel at home. It's not exactly her style anyway. ;)

 

I'm posting my event schedule below in hopes any of you living in or visiting the Lone Star State can come by and say "Howdy". I'd love to meet you and chat about reading and writing!

 

 

Houston Events:

Friday, April 19

 

6:00pm                                
Event @ Murder by the Book

 

7:00pm                          
TeenBookCon Welcome Reception @ Blue Willow Bookshop

 

Saturday, April 20

 

9:00am– 3:45pm
Blue Willow Bookshop’s TeenBookCon

 

San Antonio Events:

Sunday, April 21

 

10am-1pm
International Reading Association Annual Convention

               
2:30pm
Event @ Barnes & Noble

15900 La Cantera Pkwy, San Antonio, TX 78256
 

Austin Events:

Monday, April 22

 

7:00pm
Event @ BookPeople

 

Tuesday, April 23

 

6:30pm
Event @ Book Spot

 

Dallas / Frisco Area Events:

Wednesday, April 24

 

7:00 pm                                            
Event @ B&N
Stonebriar Center Mall
2601 Preston Road, Frisco, TX 75034 

 

Fort Worth Events:

Thursday, April 25

 

2:30-6:30pm
Texas Library Association Annual Conference

 

Friday, April 26

 

12pm-8pm
Texas Library Association Annual Conference

 

Saturday, April 27

 

Back home to good ol' Amarillo!

 

 

**Side note** I will be doing in-stock signings of SPLINTERED at several of the B&Ns in the cities I'll be visiting. So if you don't get to make the signings but would like a signed copy, call around and I'm sure you'll find a B&N that has them.

 

Hope to see some of you very soon!

Girls & Monsters don't always play nice...

Luckily, today they're being downright SWEET!

I'm honored to welcome the ever lovely, ever dark Anne Michaud to my blog! I met Anne via blogger and fell in love with her delectable, seductive, and morbid prose while reading the short stories and poems she would post on her blog. Now at last she has a book coming out and the whole world can savor her terrifyingly twisted tales! Her new YA horror novel is launching in just a few days, so she has stopped by to tell us a little about it.

Anne, you have the spotlight!

***

They hide under the bed, in the closet or in a dark corner of your mind; they want to scare, play with or eat you. Monsters are everywhere, feeding off your screams, waiting for the perfect moment to attack - and sometimes, only girls can kick their butts. A killer mermaid, suburbia, hallucinations, one huge spider and zombies all face their match in this dark horror collection of 5 novellas for young adult. Annoyed by weak and fragile protagonists waiting for boys to save the day? Here's GIRLS & MONSTERS! Death Song, an excerpt:

 

Something catches in the back of my throat. I hide my face in my hands to quiet the sobs. But then, something ain’t right. Air moves around me and I stop. I look between my fingers, but the blur of my tears thickens everything: the bathtub, the towels, and someone on the floor. A woman’s in here with me, door still closed and locked. An exhale, like after a deep swim, and a smell, like the swamp close to my empty home. A chill runs down my back, I wipe my eyes, rub and scratch them to see more clearly. And I do. Two gray hands scratch the floor tiles, nails green with algae, putrid flesh sagging on her legs, arms and torso, hair so long and wet and heavy, it drags her down. Diluted, impossible to focus on, like little waves rippling over her body from head to foot, seaweed in the water. Scales and fins, mermaidlike, little knives, those are. And they scrape the floor, like a fork on a plate. It’s her—Limnade. She opens her mouth of scissor-teeth and the rotten smell of fish wraps around my throat like two hands trying to choke me. "You can’t be…” I don’t finish my breathless thought and jump backward, knocking over the dish of decorative soaps. Blurry waves, vision impaired, out of focus, unreal. She crawls toward me, eyes unblinking, lethal, hands inches from me: my legs refuse to move, as my body feels like stone. Frozen, hypnotized, a statue. Then I hear something coming from within her…A melody, reminding me of something lost, tickles my ears. It drags on until the sweetness turns sickly, vibrating into a full-on super-scream, hyenalike, enough to pop my ears and make them bleed. Her large mouth deforms her face into one gap of black, the cry so high and strident, I scream from the pain. Limnade stares at me, everything but her fades away—Jo’s nice bathroom, Jo’s new life, Jo himself, none of it matters anymore. Her fingers brush my forehead, they’re cold and sticky like clams. And I let the darkness take me away.

 

***

 

 

To celebrate the release of Girls & Monsters on April 30th, the author has handcrafted Skellies, The Monster Collection, each representing a monster of the 5 stories. The giveaway also includes a softcover of the collection, autographed if requested. The grand prize winner will be announced during the book launch's LIVE CHAT with Anne Michaud on April 30th at 9PM (east)! Girls & Monsters will be available at Darkfuse and other retailers from that date on. ♥

 

***

Anne Michaud

 

She who likes dark things never grew up. She never stopped listening to gothic, industrial and alternative bands like when she was fifteen. She always loved to read horror and dystopia and fantasy, where doom and gloom drip from the pages. She, who was supposed to make films, decided to write short stories, novelettes and novels instead. She, who’s had her films listed on festival programs, has been printed in a dozen anthologies and magazines since. She who likes dark things prefers night to day, rain to sun, and reading to anything else.

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And don't forget to add Girls & Monsters to your goodread list ♥