Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Release Day Blitz and Giveaway with Interview and Sneak Peek for Firebolt by Adrienne Woods



Firebolt

The Dragonian Series, Book One

  by Adrienne Woods


Genre: YA Fantasy 
Publisher: GMTA  Publishing – Mythos Press 
Published: November 20, 2013
ISBN: 13: 978-1491244654
Number of pages: 289  Word Count: 95 000
Cover Artist: Mary Park and Kitty Bullard
  



Dragons. Right. Teenage girls don't believe in fairy tales, and sixteen-year-old Elena Watkins was no different.

Until the night a fairy tale killed her father.

Now Elena is in a new world, and a new school. The cutest guy around may be an evil dragon, a prince wants Elena's heart, and a long dead sorcerer may be waking up to kill her. Oh and the only way Elena's going to graduate is on the back of a dragon of her own.

Teenage girls don't believe in fairy tales. Now it's time for Elena to believe in...herself.




Chapter One

A girl singing her heart out about a miracle boomed inside my ear. A miracle would get me what I needed: a chance at a semi-normal life.

     The bedroom door hitting the wall expelled the thought from my mind. With his hand tangled up in his copper hair and with huge brown eyes, Dad's figure filled the entire doorway. “Pack your bags.” He had that set to his jaw, the one that meant there was no way out of this. He bolted out of the room just as suddenly as he had appeared.


     My teeth ground hard against each other, and the sharp pain behind my eyes, I guessed from the lack of sleep, grew stronger. Every fibre of my being wanted to explode.

     Ever since I could remember my name, Dad and I had been on the run. From what? Beats me.                  

     For the last two weeks, I'd been pacing up and down through the house, struggling to fall asleep at night, waiting for this day.

     For the love of blue berries, no sixteen-year old should live this way!              

     I climbed off my bed, and the first step I took left my toe tangled in the wide leg of my jeans.  I tried to regain my balance as the closet inched closer, but with wildly flailing arms, I came crashing down. The thud reverberated across the wooden floor, and it sounded as if I'd broken something.

     Dad darted back into my room. "Are you okay?" He lifted me back onto my feet as if I weighed nothing.

     Tears lurked in the corners of my eyes, threatening to burst, as I stared up at him.

    "Don't give me that look, Elena. Please, we need to hurry.” He pulled my suitcase from the top shelf and chucked it haphazardly onto my bed. “We need to go. Now.”

    "Dad…"

     He started to grab my clothes from the shelf and tossed them messily inside my small suitcase. Then he paused, sighed, and looked up with soft eyes. He stroked the side of my cheek with his hand gently. “This wasn't the right place, Bear. Please, you’ve got to trust me.”

     His hand reached back to pull everything off my shelf, while my hands curled up into balls of fury. My heart pounded fast as those two words bounced inside my skull. “Trust you, Dad?”

     "Elena, we don't have much time,” he yelled. “Pack your bags! You can ask questions later." He left, and the hollow “doof” sound from his footsteps stomped loudly as he made his way into the hall.

     Ask questions? Yeah right! I’ll only get answers that don’t reveal why we are on the run for the gazillionth time.' “Trust me” and “I'll tell you when the time is right” were the only two answers Dad gave. Guess time with him will never be right.

     It was no use arguing with him anyway. Once, he threw me over his shoulder and carried me out without any of my things.

     So I grabbed the stuff I needed: my mp3 player, a photo of Mom that Dad didn't know I had, and my journal from underneath my bed. I tossed them into my backpack. It wasn't much, but it was the stuff that made my miserable life felt less pathetic. I zipped up my suitcase and took a deep breath. Looking around my bedroom for the last time, I said goodbye to my sixtieth-something room.

     Dad almost ran me over in the hall with his army bag slung over his shoulder. He grumbled, which I assumed was an apology, took my suitcase, and ran down the stairs. He always rented these huge old houses, pre-furnished and near the countryside, and we always left after three months.

     The pickup's horn honked as I shut the front door. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath. Just two more years, then I'll be eighteen and free from this freak show. Huge raindrops fell hard onto the ground. The smell of wet dirt filled the air. It was my favorite smell.

     The water that pooled on the ground covered all the gaps in the driveway, forcing me to hopscotch around all of them. My shoe got caught in one of the gaps and I smacked down hard in a huge puddle. By the time I reached the truck, my jeans and shoes were soaking wet. 

     Warm heat from the vents inside the truck hit me full blast as I jumped in; a million goose pimples erupted across my skin.  As soon as I shut the rusty door, Dad floored the gas pedal. Tires screeched and the truck spun away as if the Devil chased us.  My lower lip quivered softly as he swerved onto the road. The streetlights flew by in a blur as I plugged in my earpieces. The same stupid song about a miracle boomed from my mp3, drowning the sound of the engine and the hard dribbles on the roof, a percussion that became the perpetual soundtrack to my misery.

       A feeling of utter loneliness consumed my heart as I stared out the window. Homes with white picket fences and the convenient store whizzed by in a flash. A tear rolled down my cheek as I said goodbye, and my breath on the glass created a foggy condensation. Reaching out my index finger, I drew a small heart. These were the reasons why Mom had left. She couldn't handle his paranoia, but why she’d left her daughter to deal with it was a mystery. Dad constantly reminded me of the latter, and that was the only time he ever spoke of her. If he ever discovered I had that picture, he would kill me. That was how much he hated her for leaving us.

     The lights of a vehicle in the upcoming lane shone directly into my face. I shut my eyes, waiting for it to disappear. As a little girl, I used to watch Dad as we drove away from yet another house. He would glare into his rearview mirror every five seconds, every muscle in his face clenched, and his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I hadn’t been able to force myself to peek out the window then, as it used to scare the living crap out of me to consider the possible reasons he was fleeing from, or who might be following us. Now, I didn't look at him or care much for what he was going through. He created this problem. With me becoming the luggage. It was a ritual I endured every three months, and nothing over the past sixteen years had ever changed that.

     The “Interstate 40” sign flew by in a whirl, and the pickup slowly moved onto the turnoff lane.

     My eyes started to burn as I stared at the rain running down my window. Each rivet resembled another town, another place I would never again call home. Exhaustion consumed me and my eyelids felt heavy. I laid my head against the window and struggled to stay awake.

     Suddenly, a dark and huge figure flew past me. Dad swerved to the left, which made me crushed into the side of the passenger’s door. My entire body pumped with adrenaline. I jumped straight in my seat and wrenched the seatbelt over my shoulder to buckle myself in. I tore out my earpieces as I tried to process what had just happened.

     “What was that?” I looked at Dad.

      He stared straight ahead with huge eyes. Beads of sweat rolled from his hairline down to the side of his temple. He looked terrified, something that conflicted with his personality. I'd never seen Dad look that scared in my entire life.

     “Dad!”

     “Did you see where it went?” he asked, attempting to inject calm into his voice, but I could hear the fear lacing each syllable.

     “See where what went? Dad what was that!”

     “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

     “For once in your life, just tell me!” I screamed. Sixteen years of frustration exploded from my lungs. I couldn't take the unknown anymore.

    “Fine.” He mumbled something else that I didn't catch. "Do you remember the stories I used to tell you?"

    “Stories? What stories?”

    “The ones about Paegeia, Elena.” He looked in his rearview mirror again with huge, unblinking eyes.

     Vaguely, but I didn't tell him that. "What does that have to do with this?"

     “They're real.”

      I froze and I stared at him.

      “All of it, it’s real. The dragons, the magic, the wall, everything is real.”






   
 
Author Bio:
I was born and raised in South Africa, where I still live with my husband, and two beautiful little girls. I always knew that I was going to be a writer but it only started to happen about four years ago, now I can’t stop writing.

In my free time, If I get any because Moms don’t really have free time, I love to spend time with friends, if it’s a girls night out, or just a movie, I’m a very chilled person.

My writing career is starting with Firebolt, book one with the Dragonian Series, there will be four books in total and two to three books that is about the stories taking place inside The Dragonian Series.

I do write in different Genres, I have a woman’s fiction called the Pregnancy Diaries, but it would be published under another name. And then I have a paranormal series, called the Watercress series. There are about ten novels in that one.

So, plenty of novels to come out, so little time.

I hope you are going to embrace the Dragonian Series as much as I loved writing them.



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Twitter: erichb3 

Goodreads: Adrienne Woods

Google+: Adrienne Woods

Interview with Adrienne Woods:



What inspired writing the Dragonian Series?  Or writing in general?
 I always wanted to become a writer. I started with another series, called the Zodiac Series, when the idea of The Dragonian Series came to me. I don't know what inspired me, it just happened and now I can't stop.
What was your favorite scene or character to write?  
I've got plenty, if I have to choose I would say the first chapter and character was Becky. She's so complicated.

How would you describe your main character's (Elena) personality?
 
She is all sorts of opposites. She's brave, but scared. Strong, but at the same time weak, Funny, but depressed. Doubt herself but she's always the first one to prove herself. I hope that sums her up.

You created a whole new world that Elena soon finds herself in!  
Can you tell us a bit about the world of Paegeia?  
First of all, plenty of readers thought they were going to find a second Harry Potter world, and was left disappointed. This isn't a Harry Potter or something similar to it. Paegeia is like a second earth, but with magic, as in the science term. There is no wands, and no moving pictures or what so ever. It's a world with special people, that has gifts, and can tame dragons. I've created Paegeia through my curiosity of the Bermuda Triangle. I'm very intrigue with the Bermuda Triangle and often wonder where all those planes, ships and people disappeared to. My version is they went to Paegeia, where dragons and magic exist. A world that use to be part of earth, but due to greedy people who wanted to claim magic and to kill all the dragons, they created an  and magical wall that only dragons can exit. Once a human goes into Paegeia and past the wall, they can't come out. It's like buying a one way ticket to Never land.
,


I see  you are working on another series, The Pregnancy Diaries.  
Can you tell us a bit about that? 
The Pregnancy diaries is a selection of novels, almost like an omnibus. The first two novels is a two part story. All of them follows women in some sort of crises, whether it's an abusive husband or cheating boyfriend, how they got out of it, meet the man of their dreams, falling pregnant and their experience dealing with that. Some of them are extremely hilarious, while others are a bit of the sad side. My first novel in this series is called Riptide. It follows Holly, breaking up with her cheating fiance a week before their wedding. Three months later she meets the man of her dreams, Jake, who's coming from a wealthy family of doctors, when she fells pregnant everything went wrong. She ends up dealing alone with her pregnancy of twins, almost died and it ends with her wanting to become a doctor. The second part is called Changing the Tides. Four years later, Holly is an intern near the hospital where Jake works. Will she have the guts to tell them about the twins, or will she end up raising them alone. I sell this as my Nicolas Spark/Grey's Anatomy novel. hehe. I hope I'm as good as Nicolas.

Do you have any routine for writing?  Place, time, music, etc?  
Late at night, I'm a mom of two toddlers, so it's extremely difficult to write when they are around running, needing my attention. I'm used to three hours of sleep, and naps with the kids. So I make it work. I don't write with music, as it's a distraction but I do have a couple of songs. When ever I hear them, it reminds me of one of the stories I'm working on. I can write anywhere, I just need my laptop.

What is your favorite thing about the fantasy genre? 
I love a fantasy that takes me away from the the real world, but at the same time it needs to be realistic. That is why I created Paegeia as a second earth. I like the familiar and hate it when I need to read descriptions twice to form some sort of gadget or place in my head. A successful fantasy in my eyes is after I've put down the book, I need to be able to wonder about it, is this real? hehe, I know it sounds funny, but that's what I love about Harry Potter. If magic did exist, I'm sure it exists in that sort of way. That's what I would like Firebolt to do too. If dragons exist, they would exist inside Paegeia.


Just for fun-

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? 
I've been to plenty of places, but if I have to choose, I love tropical islands. So I choose Aruba. It's gorgeous.

If you could meet anyone in the world and have lunch with them, who would that be?
 I'm a huge Elvis fan, if one day time traveling becomes a reality, I would zap myself back to the sixties and stalk him. hehe. In real life, it would be one of my favorite authors, the one's who got everything, the huge book deal, the agent, and the movie. Probably Stephanie Meyers or Casandra Claire. It would be awesome to dine with them all at once.

Outside of the wonderful world of books, what do you enjoy doing? 
Having a Braai (as they say in South Africa, BBQ in America) with good friends and family. Entertaining my little ones.

What is your biggest pet peeve?
 It used to be people who have no moral standards, now I know they can't help it, it's who they are, and you have to accept them for who they are. Now, because I'm a writer, it's weak writing. I cringe literally at every mistake I pick up, and I usually end up not enjoying the book. I hate the fact that I became that kind of person, because I used to not see mistakes and enjoy the story, now I struggle. I give up on a lot of good stories, told poorly.


And finally, can you tell us a little tidbit about yourself that you have yet to share with your readers and fans.
My first language isn't English, so this was a huge challenge for me. I am grateful for all the people in my life that helped me to grow as a writer. My writing groups, my editor, my beta readers, all of them are from the USA( So if my tenses are wrong, I do apologize.  My editor didn't check this). I couldn't have done it without them. I'm a mom of two little girls, a wife to one man, hehe, hope it's going to stay that way, and an owner to a beautiful Husky pup, named Mila. I treasure my true friends and love my family. I always try to give 150 percent when I'm devoted to a project, although it's extremely hard when it comes to marketing my novel. I'm also one of those people to go the extra mile when someone needs something. I guess it comes from years and years working in the hospitality industry.

I just want to thank you for having me Jamie, love the name, my youngest one is called Jamie-Leigh, and thanks to all of the readers out there taking their time to support our authors.

God bless, and Kind wishes,
Adrienne.

Thank you Adrienne for sharing with us!  

 

 
 
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