Guest Post: The Golden Hour by Margaret Wurtele

I am pleased to have Margaret Wurtele, author of The Golden Hour, to do a guest post here at Melody's Reading Corner today. I enjoyed reading The Golden Hour, which has a WWII setting and if you haven't read my thoughts on it, here's the link.

Without further ado, please give her a warm welcome.

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I’ve been asked to share a little about my writing life and to talk about the process of becoming a published author. My first two books were non-fiction (memoirs) and The Golden Hour is my first novel.

First, let me say that I’m afraid I’m the opposite of a writer. I am an extroverted, action-oriented person, who is loath to sit still at a desk. I am easily distractible, and any available alternative to writing will do: a ringing phone, accessible email, a hunger pang, and the neon to-do list that flashes in my brain. I say yes to far too many community projects, lunch and bridge invitations, and social events. Still, after a day spent writing, I feel more satisfied and complete than after anything else I do.

So writing three books required wrestling myself to the ground, and the novel was the toughest of all. In fiction, the blank page is especially daunting. While writing the memoirs, I had journals and the raw material of my own experience to draw from. In writing The Golden Hour, the characters and their interaction had all to come from my imagination. Finally, I came up with a firm personal rule: Nothing could be scheduled on Mondays – nothing at all. I would begin the day with cups of coffee, wandering about the house, going through mail – anything that attracted me. But all the while, the story was brewing in my head. Finally I would sit down about 2 or 3 pm and write furiously in longhand for a couple of hours. Whew! Then, the rest of the week, I could type, edit, and fiddle with it to my heart’s content. Then, I would wait in dread for the next Monday. It took me three years to complete a draft of the novel I could live with.

I sold my first book, Taking Root, without an agent. It was a spiritual and gardening memoir, and (with the help of a friend who owned a bookstore) I chose five or six publishers of spiritual and religious material and sent them the manuscript. St. Mary’s University Press called and wanted to publish it! I was lucky.

For my second book, Touching the Edge, I did find an agent, one who worked both in my home state of Minnesota and in New York. The manuscript was a memoir about parenting and the recent death of my 22-year-old son in a mountain climbing accident. It took at least a year of receiving one turndown letter after another, but finally John Wiley & Sons bought the book. My editor there had a beloved aunt who had lost her son, and he felt a particular resonance with my story.

That same agent was enthusiastic about the draft of The Golden Hour, and he eagerly offered me a contract. But after a few months, he disappeared. Something troubling must have happened in his life, because he was unresponsive and out of communication for many months. At last, reluctantly, I severed our contract. I took advantage of the break to hire an independent editor, who worked with me on the manuscript for several months. She was excellent, and it was the right thing to do. The revised manuscript was accepted by the first new agent I tried. She has Minnesota roots like mine, and I know a few of her other clients.

This is a terribly difficult market, and my agent kept my expectations very low. Her in-house editor made a number of suggestions, and finally they sent the manuscript out to a first round of five or six publishers. She was more skilled than lucky. The interest was there, and NAL/Penguin was chosen to publish The Golden Hour.

In the last few years, the world of marketing books has changed. This time around, it’s a new ball game: a website, a Facebook page, a blog tour. I am excited to have people begin reading The Golden Hour.

Margaret Wurtele is the author of two memoirs. She and her husband split their time between Minnesota and Napa Valley, where they are owners of Terra Valentine Winery. Visit her online at www.margaretwurtele.com.

Long-Awaited Novel: Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

For all the Haruki Murakami's fans out there, his much long-awaited new release, 1Q84 would be published in October (Yes, I'm so excited and I'm sure many of you do too!). I also checked out the covers from the UK and US publishers and think that both editions look absolutely gorgeous! What do you think? Which edition would you buy?

(US edition)

Book 1 & 2
(UK edition)

There is another cover for Book 3 under the UK edition so click the link below (Haruki Murakami's site) to view it.

Blurb from Haruki Murakami's site:

The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo.

Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment and, with the traffic at a stand-still, the driver proposes a solution. She agrees, but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission, and her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult.

Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences and moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true?

Both Aomame and Tengo notice that the world has grown strange; both realise that they are indispensable to each other. While their stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, the two come closer and closer to intertwining.

Guest Post: Jean Kwok's Biking through Life

Jean Kwok is the author of Girl in Translation (my review here) and I was thrilled to have invited her to write a guest post on my blog through the help of her publicist (Thanks, Erin!). Without further ado, please join me in welcoming Jean to Melody's Reading Corner and I hope you enjoy reading the post as much as I did!

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Photo credit: Hielco Kuipers

One of my earliest memories is of riding on the back of my brother’s tricycle in Hong Kong. We were speeding along and I was urging him to go faster and faster when we crashed into a fruit stand. Mangos, lichee nuts and star fruit flew everywhere. One of our servants found us and dragged us home to our parents, after paying for the fruit peddler’s losses. Not long after that, my entire family would move to New York City. I never imagined how much my life would change.

I was five years old at the time, younger than my heroine Kimberly Chang in my novel Girl in Translation, and I did not understand a word of English. Like Kimberly and her mother, we lost our money in the move to the United States. My family started working in a sweatshop in Chinatown. My father took me there every day after school and we all emerged many hours later, soaked in sweat and covered in fabric dust. Our apartment swarmed with insects and rats, and in the winter we, like the characters in my novel, kept the oven door open day and night because there was no other source of heat.

Fortunately, like my heroine Kimberly, I also had a talent for school. As I slowly learned English, I started doing better in my studies, even though I was still working at the factory with almost all of my free time. Most of my homework was done on the subway, traveling to and from the factory. Years later, I was accepted to Harvard and it was there that I made the decision to risk following my true calling, writing. I paid my own way through Harvard, working up to four jobs at a time to do so. I graduated with honors, then started trying to be a writer.

At that point, I was already quite surprised at how far my life had taken me from first Hong Kong and then my childhood in the Chinatown clothing factory, but life had a few more twists waiting for me. I fell in love with a Dutch guy. He was studying to be a clinical psychologist and his main possession was his second-hand bicycle. When I visited him in Leiden, the Dutch town where he was studying, he took me on tours of the city. I would balance on the tiny luggage rack of his bike while he peddled us through the cobblestone streets. As we bounced along, he would wave his arms around and say, “This wall is very old. And this house, it is also very old.” At least that’s what I remember of his tours. Somehow I was charmed enough by him (and his accent) to move to Holland after finishing my MFA in Fiction at Columbia.

I didn’t think of it as a permanent move. We were trying things out, I thought, and since I was a teacher and a writer and he was a psychologist whose degrees weren’t valid in the United States, it made more sense for me to go to Holland first.

The first thing I noticed about Holland were the bicycles. They are everywhere and if you don’t look both ways before stepping onto the street, you are likely to be run over by one. Lawyers in suits ride on bikes with their briefcases strapped to the back. Mothers balance one child in front and one behind. People haul their groceries, pets, and walking aids on their bikes, while eating an apple and chatting on their cell phones at the same time. During the Christmas season, I saw bicycles whizzing by where the riders were holding their trees under their arms or balanced on their shoulders. Since the Dutch often start biking without side wheels at the age of four and then spend the rest of their lives on the bike after that, they can do anything on a bicycle without breaking a sweat.

Unfortunately, that means they tend to assume that my biking skills are just as good as theirs, which is not true. I first realized this when I was riding my own little bike to my new job teaching English at Leiden University. My building was located on the banks of the lovely Rapenberg canal. I went past a group of students who were relaxing outside their house, and as I passed them, one enormous male threw himself onto the luggage rack of my bike. This idiot and I wobbled for a split second and then crashed into a tree. Thank goodness because if we hadn’t hit the tree, we would have gone right into the canal. In Europe, unlike America, they don’t tend to protect you from your own stupidity so there was no guardrail. If you kill yourself by riding into the water, well, that’s too bad for you.

As we lay there in a tangle of limbs and twisted bicycle parts, I glared at this hulking guy. He was over a foot taller than me, and must have weighed twice what I did. “What were you thinking?” I demanded.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, red-faced. “I wanted to come along.”

After I managed to close my mouth that had dropped open in astonishment, collected my bike and the shreds of my dignity, and stalked off, I realized that I had unwillingly participated in a Dutch courting ritual. You see a likely-looking candidate biking by, you hurl yourself onto their luggage rack, and the two of you ride happily into the sunset. A Dutch girl would have kept her balance, and probably been able to wink at him at the same time.

Now, years later, I too carry our kids and groceries and cats in my own bike – but mine has three wheels. The factory I worked in as a child is still as vivid as ever in my memories but my life is now quite far from that reality. My trying-out of Holland has turned into a second immigration experience. My debut novel’s been published in 15 countries and translated into 13 languages, and when my husband and I drive somewhere in our car, he waves his arms around and says, “This is old, very old.”

Jean's website / Facebook

Book Blog Tour-Fallen, by Karin Slaughter

I am pretty jazzed to be participating in my first ever book blog tour.  I tend not to accept too many review requests here at Book Addict Reviews (I prefer to read on my whim and schedule, I suppose), but I was thrilled to be asked to be a stop on the tour for Karin Slaughter's new audiobook, Fallen, which was released on June 17, 2011.  (For those of you who prefer the paper version, it came out June 21!)  While the audiobook is not my usual format of choice (and the review post for this book will explain why), Karin Slaughter's name was enough for me to be interested.

Fallen is a book in the Will Trent/Faith Mitchell series.  Followers of the series will know that Will has severe dyslexia, and is exploring the idea of leaving his emotionally abusive marriage to Angie and taking a chance on Sara, but he is truly feels that someone as smart as Sara could never want someone as stupid as him.  Here's what Karin Slaughter had to say about Will's dyslexia and how it relates to Will and Sara's relationship:

Q) Will is dyslexic and yet very intelligent. He even mentions in Fallen that he listens to audiobooks! What made you decide to make him dyslexic when you introduced him? He passes very well, but will we see a point where he gets official treatment or help for this problem?

A) First, let me say that many dyslexics are not just intelligent, but highly intelligent.  Einstein, Michelangelo.  Richard Branson isn’t the only CEO who has dyslexia.  In my experience, dyslexics tend to be driven, smart and fascinating people.  It’s as if they excel because of, not in spite of, the disorder.  Think about it this way: dyslexics use five times the brain area to perform language tasks. Five times!  Their default programming was to give up on language, yet their brains found a way to rewire the pathways so they could communicate.  This is not the work of a stupid brain.

So, to your question: Some writers use literacy as character development—so, much in the way that Hollywood shows “bad” characters smoking and wearing black hats, writers tend to paint their good characters as booklovers and all the bad ones as semi-literate Neanderthals.  With Will, I wanted the challenge of writing about someone who can’t read well.  (I should say here that he can read, it just takes him longer)  Will’s dyslexia is something that holds him back, but only because he lets it.  He won’t get help.  He won’t tell people he has it.  He is ashamed of it, like it’s something he can control.  Now, not many people know this, but when I wrote the character of Will Trent, I knew that he would eventually meet Sara Linton.  Sara looks at Will’s dyslexia the same way she looks at the color of his eyes; it’s something genetic, it’s wired into him and can’t be changed.  She’s the first person in Will’s life who’s ever looked at him this way, and that’s something of a revelation to him.  Now, as for getting occupational therapy, Sara is the exact wrong person to help him with this.  And she doesn’t want to help him, because she knows that he has to reach that point on his own.  Unlike Angie, Sara is very good at relationships, and she knows that there are lines you don’t cross.  She wants to give Will his dignity.  As for what Will ends up doing—they call it a “mystery” for a reason!

Book Blogger Hop-The Hunt

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word!  This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books!  It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!  Hosted by Crazy for Books.

This week's question:

 "If you find a book you love, do you hunt down other books by the same author?"

Well, this seems like it should be a no-brainer.  If you love one book by an author, chances are pretty good that you will also love their other books.   I have read authors where the one book I read as a fluke, however.  Anne Rice comes to mind.  I read Interview with a Vampire and thought it was interesting.  Then I read Feast of All Saints, one of her historical fiction books, and LOVED it.  But when I tried to read the rest of the vampire and witch books I was so disappointed.  

The only time that I have actively avoided a book by an author who's other book I loved was Audrey Niffenegger.   The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my favorite books of all time, and when Her Fearful Symmetry came out I was afraid to read it.  Not because it is about ghosts (though it is), but because I was so afraid that it couldn't be as good as TTW.  I finally told myself to put my big girl pants on and give it a try.  And I was right, it wasn't as good.  But it was good, and had I persisted in my avoidance I would have missed out.

 

Top Ten Tuesday Rewind-My Favorite Authors

This week's Top Ten, hosted by the gals at The Broke and the Bookish, is specially designed for those of us that occasionally miss a week of the action.  It's rewind time-a time to go back and create a post on a past topic that you didn't participate in when it was first posted.  After looking at the list of past topics for what felt like an inordinate amount of time, I rejected Favorite Best Fictional Couples and Best Villains, having posted on those for a different meme.  I finally settled on Favorite Authors, since I've mentioned them a lot but I'm not sure if I've ever actually written a post devoted just to them.  After each author I will list their books of theirs I have read and loved.  So, in no particular order, may I present...

1.  Toni Morrison-The Bluest Eye, Jazz, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Paradise, Love, A Mercy

2.  Alice Walker-Temple of My Familiar, The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy, Warrior Marks

3.  Octavia Butler-Fledgling, Mind of My Mind, Wild Seed, Patternmaster, Clay's Ark

4.  Barbara Kingslover-Animal Dreams, The Bean Trees, Prodigal Summer, The Poisonwood Bible, Pigs in Heaven, The Lacuna

5.  Chris Bohjalian-Midwives, The Double Bind, Before You Know Kindness, Transister Radio, Buffalo Soldier, The Law of Similars

6.  Margaret Atwood-The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride, Cat's Eye, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Lady Oracle, Surfacing, Life Before Man

7.  Stephen King-Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, Dead Zone, The Stand, Firestarter, Cujo, Roadwork, The Dark Tower series, Christine, Pet Semetary, Cycle of the Werewolf, The Talisman, The Bachman Books, The Eye of the Dragon, Misery, Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, Needful Things, Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, Rose Madder, The Green Mile, Desperation, Storm of the Century, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Black House, From a Buick 8, Cell, Lisey's Story, Duma Key, Under the Dome, all of his short stories

8.  Sheri S. Tepper-The Gate to Women's Country, Beauty, Gibbons Decline and Fall, The Visitor

9.  Neil Gaiman-American Gods, Anansi Boys, Good Omens, Interworld (YA), Stardust, Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book (YA)

10.  Roald Dahl-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The BFG, The Witches

Welcome Book Blog Hoppers!

Welcome to Book Addict Reviews!  I hope you find everything to your satisfaction!  This great meme is hosted by Crazy-for-Books to give bloggers a chance to find each other.


Tangent:  Does anyone else think it's strange that the editing program used by Blogger does not recognize "blogger" as a word?  But I digress...


This week we have a question to answer, and that question is...

Tell us about some of your favorite authors and why they are your favorites!



Well, this is a tricky question!  There are so many authors I like for so many reasons.  There are my favorite authors from when I was a kid, my favorite science fiction authors, fantasy authors, etc...My favorite authors for serious literature and my favorite authors for popcorn book (books that, like popcorn, don't have much substance but are still oddly satisfying).  So, I'm going to be completely random and select the first three that pop into my head...

Margaret Atwood-I love her because her books are always full of poetry.  Her use of language is so fluid and descriptive.  She really just finds the perfect turn of phrase.  Also, the whole feminist literature thing is pretty much a turn on for me.  Reading The Handmaid's Tale in college literally changed my life, not in some corny self-help way, but just in the way I looked at the politics of marriage and reproduction.

Stephen King-His books are the best brain candy EVER!  I started reading him in high school, and when I read Carrie and Pet Semetary I found out how delicious it is to be scared by a story.  I really think that his characters are some of the best written in popular fiction, and way more relateable than some characters in books considered more high-brow.  Even if he'd only written The Stand and the Dark Tower series, he'd be my hero, but the fact that he is so prolific makes him a great writer to love!

Jen Lancaster-Jen is the only non-fiction author who's books make me squeal with glee!  I love her sense of style, her sense of humor, and her sense of self.  Bitter is the New Black made me laugh so hard I wet myself (I won't tell you if I mean that literally or not!).   Like my other friend crush, Kathy Griffin, I am just sure that Jen and I are destined to bump into each other on the streets of Chicago and become fast friends and she will invite me back to her house to meet Fletch and the animals and we will trade witty, sarcastic remarks about pop culture all night long (OK, I know that sounds stalkerish, but I promise there are no restraining orders in my future).

Guest Post: Diana Spechler, Author of Who By Fire

Diana Spechler is the author of Who By Fire and I am very happy to have her to feature a guest post on my blog today.

Please welcome Diana Spechler to Melody's Reading Corner!

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When I was a child, my father wanted me to grow up to be a comedian. He used to tape Margaret Cho specials and make me study them. “Watch,” he would say, pausing the tape to show me one of her facial expressions, then rewinding to show me again. “She’s hysterical.” He would wag his finger at the television screen. “You could do that. You could do that!”

Years later, when Sarah Silverman hit it big, my dad was disappointed. “That could have been you,” he said, since, like Sarah Silverman, I’m Jewish and female, and (in his opinion, although not in the opinions of some other people…like, you know, those imbeciles who don’t love me unconditionally), I’m the funniest person ever.

But alas. I chose instead to be a writer, one who’s only kind of funny sometimes.

The closest I’ve come to “doing comedy” is dating a comedian. My boyfriend Chris does stand-up all over New York City. Every night, he goes from comedy club to comedy club, doing the thing that, if I were to do it, would make me vomit from self-consciousness: He climbs up on stages and tells jokes.

When we first started dating, I told him, “My dad always wanted me to be a comedian.”

“Try it some time,” he said.

“I should,” I said. “I’d be funny.”

“Everyone thinks they’d be funny,” he said. “Please try it?”

I was flattered. Did he, like my dad, think I could make it as a comic? “I couldn’t really,” I said coyly, glancing at him from beneath lowered eyelashes. But could I? I mean, could I? Oh god, maybe, just maybe, like my elementary school teachers said, I could do anything I set my mind to!

“Please? I want to watch you bomb,” he said. “It would be so, so, so funny.” He held my face in his hands and kissed me. “Please?”


When my first novel hit the shelves in September, my publisher sent me on a national book tour.

“I’m so scared,” I told Chris before I left. “What if people are mean to me?”

He tried to give me tips. “You’ll need to think of some stock comebacks. You’ll need to do crowd work.”

“What if some guy raises his hand and says, like, ‘I think I got dumber from reading your book’ or something?”

“Then tell him we all take risks. You took a risk by writing a book, and he took a risk by wearing that shirt in public.”

“What shirt?”

“If he’s wearing an ugly shirt.”

“I can’t tell a stranger he’s wearing an ugly shirt!”

“Baby,” Chris said solemnly, “yes you can.”


And then something amazing happened: After my book launch in New York, an audience member approached Chris and me. “You’re so funny,” she said, touching my arm. She turned to Chris. “She should be a comedian!”

When she walked away, I said, “You see? You see?”

“See what? That the general public has no idea what it takes to be a comedian? Just because one person, one random person, tells you that you should be a comedian--”

“She’s not one person. My dad says it, too.”

“Right, right, your unbiased father.”


But it wasn’t just a random woman and my dad. On book tour, every time I gave a reading or a talk, someone would approach me afterward and say, “You should be a comedian!”

“That’s fabulous!” I would say. “I can’t wait to tell my boyfriend!”

I would run outside as quickly as I could, and call to tell him the news. He was consistently delighted.

Just kidding. He wanted to kill me. And I kind of understood. His annoyance was like the annoyance I feel when people belittle the difficulty of my career. “Have I got a story for you,” some people tell me. “If you knew my life story, you’d make a million dollars. You’d be on Oprah.”

Right, I always want to say. Your life story is to my career what the Clapper is to a desk lamp. Thank god for you.

I mean, people should know how I suffer. People should feel sorry for artists. We are, after all, artists. By which I mean sensitive and fragile.

But because I’m a terrible person, I started to enjoy tormenting my boyfriend. “Three today,” I would call from the road to tell him. “Three new people who think I should become a comedian. And one asked if I was funnier than you.”

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I said yes,” I said.


Thus began my identity crisis. Maybe I was a comedian in the body of a writer. Maybe my inner comedian was screaming to be let out. Maybe my mean comedian boyfriend was repressing my inner comedian, like a hand pushing down on a jack-in-the-box lid. Maybe I needed to reassess my career path.

I was thinking like this by the end of my book tour because, in medical terms, I had lost my shit. The month and a half of travel had done me in. Being constantly “on” had contorted my face into a strange simulation of a smile, like the smile of an infant with gas or of a person who has undergone a frontal lobotomy. My insomnia, which had once been a condition, was now a lifestyle. My thoughts were coming to me in jumbled messes, like silly string.

When I was signing books at one of my last events, a woman approached me. “You know,” she said, “you should really do something with your sense of humor.”

“Do something?” I said stupidly.

“In your career,” she said.

I brightened. “Like be a comedian?”

She squinted her eyes into slits and shook her head. “No,” she said. She patted my hand. And then she uttered the sentence that made my whole book tour, my whole year, my whole life, the sentence I have since repeated to Chris approximately seventy-six thousand times (as in, Have I told you about that woman who said…): “You’re too smart to be a comedian.”

*****

Diana Spechler’s fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, Moment, Lilith, and elsewhere. She received her MFA degree from the University of Montana and was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University. She lives in New York City, where she is at work on her second novel.

Please visit Diana Spechler's website and say hello and be her fan on Facebook.

Read what other readers say and/or buy her book at Amazon.

Blog Tour: Christine & Ethan Rose, Authors of Rowan of the Wood

Today I am thrilled to be hosting authors, Christine and Ethan Rose on their virtual tour of Rowan of the Wood. This is a fantasy novel for pre-teen and teen readers that adults will enjoy too. The book, which is the first for spouses Christine and Ethan Rose, is an engrossing story of magic, timeless love, and tragedy. Rowan of the Wood was recently named a 2008 National Best Books Award Finalist in the young adult fiction category.

Please welcome Christine and Ethan Rose to Melody's Reading Corner!

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After a millennium of imprisonment in his magic wand, an ancient wizard possesses the young boy who released him. When danger is nigh, he emerges from the frightened child to set things right. Both he and the boy try to grasp what has happened to them only to discover a deeper problem. Somehow the wizard’s bride from the ancient past has survived and become something evil.

Excerpt from book:
A quick set up for this section. Cullen is trying to bury his last remaining book in a safe place so he mean foster father won't take it from him. The safest place he can think of is in his special tree-cave, so he digs and digs and finds something buried there already...

“A magic wand!” he exclaimed, as he examined the strange knotty piece of wood. It was about as long as his arm from fingertip to elbow.
The wind died down as suddenly as it had picked up, and the clouds moved away from the moon. The wind didn’t fully stop, however. It whispered. All the trees were whispering in harmony with the wind and the stars and all life around him. They whispered, “Seann.”
“What?” Cullen asked out loud, in spite of himself.
They whispered again, “Seann, Seann, Seann–Daonnan Seann.”
“Daonnan Seann?” Cullen asked.
Was he hearing things? That didn’t make any sense! But as soon as he spoke the words aloud, the wind whipped into a frenzy around him, blowing much more fiercely than ever. A huge bolt of lightning cracked directly above the grove. He jumped out of the tree and screamed, opening his hand to drop his wand; but it didn’t fall. It stuck like glue. He tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t budge. Terror filled him, body and mind.
The wand in his hand began to grow. First, it sprouted vines and wrapped around his hand, then it began to crawl up his arm. Cullen fell to the ground in utter terror, thoughts of alien invasion throttling his senses. His mind raced and he screamed inside his head, but it didn’t reach his mouth. He was too scared to even scream. Up and up his arm the vines grew. They felt cool and warm at the same time, as they snaked through Cullen’s jacket. When they reached his throat, they spread out down his chest and back and around his neck. Now Cullen really panicked. He would choke to death! He would die out here, alone! No one would find him. He would rot here alone. He desperately clawed at the vines around his throat with his free hand, feeling them squeeze the breath out of him.
Then they were gone.
The wind stilled.
The sky cleared.
The forest was silent.

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An interview with Christine and Ethan Rose:

Melody: What inspired this story?

Christine: Our inspirations began decades ago, and this book is the culmination of a lifetime of reading and dreaming. I found more immediate inspiration in my nephews. They were just 5 and 3 at the time I had the initial concept for this book. I found so much joy through their joy of discovering magic wands and playing as if they were superheroes, that I wanted to create a magical superhero to add to that magical joy.

Ethan: Christine came up with the basic storyline, but since I grew up in the redwood forest in a home for unwanted kids, it inspired a great deal of my own contributions.

M: What is most challenging while writing this story?

C: Making the time to write! Then when I made the time, getting into the zone of writing... unfortunately, it's not just a switch you can turn on, although it does get switched off pretty quickly with the slightest distraction! Finding the patience to let the entire process unfold was (and continues to be) a huge challenge for me. It's a long, long process. From conception to publication was three years...and now comes the promotion!

E: For me it was finding time to write. I run a small construction business, which is like having two full-time jobs, so I really had to schedule time off from that to get any writing done at all.

M: Tell us more about the protagonist. What factors of the protagonist do you think will influence the young readers in particular?

C: The name of the protagonist is Cullen Knight. He's 12, and he's having a rough time in life. Like many of us experience in school (I certainly did), he's an outcast. He doesn't really fit in with anyone other than his own two misfit friends. He has a difficult home life, so he prefers to be anywhere else other than home, even school! His favorite thing is to spend time reading in the redwood forest. Even though Cullen thinks he's a coward, he finds strength and courage through his fear.

E: We really tried to make Cullen a real person. He is not anything spectacular, like an unknown prince awaiting his appointed place as a person of consequence. He doesn't have anything particularly special about him, except maybe that he is a good person who tries to do his best. He is just someone who got his wish and is trying to deal with the consequences.

M: What do you think are the pros and cons of co-writing?

C: I had a great time writing with Ethan! We wrote the book together with deep respect for each other's process and ideas. Ethan's strengths compensated for my weaknesses and vice versa. Instead of composing together, which I could see many more problems arising if we were to have written it together that way, our "co-writing" took place in the revisions, which is the bulk of the writing process. Rowan of the Wood was my concept, my story; so Ethan deferred to my vision in this case.

E: The best part is having someone with whom to bounce ideas back and forth and also having someone to expand or clarify one's writing. I can't think of anything negative about the experience of writing with Christine.

M: Finally, are both of you currently working on other novel(s)?

C: We are currently working on the sequel to "Rowan of the Wood." It will be a series of five books in all. I also have another story or two working in the deep corners of my mind. Ethan has been working on his own hero's journey novel for about ten years, and he continues to work on that when time permits.

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Christine and Ethan Rose have marvelous imaginations. Often finding their inspiration among the trees, they write as they lead their lives - with plenty of adventure, magic, and love. Ethan grew up in foster care in Northern California reading every fantasy book he could get his hands on (and still does), while Christine holds her M.A. in Medieval/Renaissance Literature & Folklore. Their premiere novel, Rowan of the Wood, follows the magical adventures of a young boy after his life merges with that of an ancient druid. They enjoy traveling and relaxing with their family: three dogs and a cat named Shadow.

The authors are also hosting a contest on YouTube and giving away a digital camcorder just for following four simple steps. Check it out!

The authors will be available all day today and tomorrow to answer your questions. Every comment on this blog is an entry to win a signed, limited edition print of Christine's Green Man II painting. The authors are also giving away autographed books and over $600 in other prizes through their website.

Rowan of the Wood’s Geekalicious Yuletide Blog Book Tour Dates:

Thursday, 12/4: YA Book Realm
Friday, 12/5: Bookluver
Saturday, 12/6: Free Book Friday TEENS
Sunday, 12/7: Dejah View Book Review
Monday, 12/8: Harmony Book Reviews
Tuesday, 12/9: Bookish Ruth
Wednesday, 12-10: Flamingnet YA Book Blog
Thursday, 12/11: Midnight Twilight
Friday, 12/12: Free Book Friday TEENS
Saturday/Sunday, Dec 13/14: Tweeting
Monday, 12/15: Someone’s Read It Already
Tuesday, 12/16: Fresh Fiction

Blog Tour on Dec 3rd: Christine and Ethan Rose, Authors of Rowan of the Wood

Melody's Reading Corner is excited to host Christine and Ethan Rose, authors of the new, award-winning YA fantasy novel Rowan of the Wood during their Geekalicious Yuletide Blog Book Tour! The authors are stopping by here on Wednesday, December 3rd to answer some questions and post an excerpt of their new book Rowan of the Wood:

An ancient wizard possesses a young boy after a millennium of imprisonment in a magic wand. He emerges from the child in the face of danger and discovers Fiana, his new bride from the past, has somehow survived time and become something evil.

The authors are also hosting a contest on YouTube and giving away a digital camcorder just for following four simple steps. Check it out!

Come back and visit on Wednesday, read their blog, and post comments. The authors will be available all day Wednesday and Thursday to answer your questions. Every comment on this blog is an entry to win a signed, limited edition print of Christine's Green Man II painting. The authors are also giving away autographed books and over $600 in other prizes through their website.