Midsummer Dream Fair: J.L. Bryan Giveaway

Hey Everyone!

I'm just doing a quick post today to let you know about a fantastic giveaway as part of the Midsummer Dream Fair. Author J.L Bryan has organized a month-long event featuring a variety of indie authors, with interviews and fun giveaways galore. And possibly unicorns if you believe the poster.

The fair is drawing to a close, but J.L. is hosting one last amazing giveaway on his blog, and you really don't want to miss it. For all the details, visit J.L. HERE.

You're Invited to the Fair!

MIDSUMMER DREAM FAIR

So, I'm a little late. Many of you may have seen a myriad of posts similar to this one go up yesterday – which was when it was supposed to – and though it gave me a nervous tick to not post this on time due to my review schedule (being late is my number one pet peeve), I suffered through and am posting today ;-) *pats self on back*

For those who didn't see the posts yesterday, the Midsummer Dream Fair is very cool event running the entire month of June that will feature a variety of indie authors and fun giveaways. There will be books. There will be games. The flyer says there will be unicorns, but I'm not sure I believe that. If there are though, sign me up.

You can see the full schedule for the fair HERE as well as the blogs hosting each daily event. I will be sponsoring the amazing J.L. Bryan on June 23rd, so be sure and stop back then to see what we have in store for you!

Guest Post and MEGA Giveaway: J.L. Bryan

Today I'm thrilled to welcome author J.L Bryan to the blog! Mr. Bryan wrote one of the most memorable and fascinating books I read last year, Jenny Pox, and I'm very excited to be a part of the blog tour to kick off his newest release, The Haunted E-Book. In addition to this guest post, Mr. Bryan is hosting an unbelievable grand prize giveaway for the tour as well as individual giveaways on each of the tour blogs. You'll find all the details for the giveaway at the end of the guest post!

HOW TO HOST YOUR OWN SÉANCE PARTY
By J.L. Bryan

A séance party is the perfect way to get together with friends and family, enjoy a pleasant evening with wine and hors d'oeuvres, and summon the souls of the dead for some lively conversation.

The focus of a séance is talking with departed spirits, but your guests will be the ones departing early if you haven't provided for their comfort and entertainment. The following helpful hints, compiled by the editors of that wonderful (if nonexistent) periodical Ladies’ Haunted Home Journal, will make your séance party a spectral success instead of a spooktacular failure.

Invitations: Every party begins with the invites! You can go old-school with faded parchment and fine Gothic calligraphy—maybe even a gruesome blood color!--or ghostly white text on a black background. Avoid the temptation to use cartoony ghosts, as these can be insulting to your guests from the Other Side. If you absolutely must use lace-fringed invitations, old yellow lace is preferred. The dead enjoy things that are in a state of decay, like themselves.

Decorations: White, billowy window curtains and tablecloths are preferred. You'll want something lightweight, since it's easier for the ghosts to puff them out like a cold wind to let you know they've arrived. Candles are a must! Black or white, and occasionally red, are acceptable, but avoid bright spring colors. These could remind the ghosts of the lives they've lost, and next thing you know, you've got a nasty haunting going on. Your guests will run away screaming, ruining your party.

In general, keep your lights dim. Spread around a few plastic tombstones and skulls if you like, but don't go overboard. A scowling jack-o'-lantern by the front door lends a nice ambiance—and it can do double-duty by helping guests find your home!

Music: Build your music selections around the tastes of those you're trying to contact: Beethoven if you want to attract 19th-century Viennese intellectuals, David Allen Coe if you're summoning your dead Uncle Jeeter. (Tip: Mix in a little Hall of the Mountain King, and Mozart's Confutatus, as these songs make any ghost feel right at home!)

Refreshments: No séance party would be complete without spirits, and we think nothing says “ghostly” like a fine white wine. Consider serving lady fingers and other foods named after dismembered body parts. Ghosts themselves like to taste the blood of the freshly killed, so put in a call to your local slaughterhouse and make arrangements. Don't bore the ghosts back to death with chicken or pig blood—treat them to something a little more exotic, like goat or lizard blood. This could be a little more difficult to obtain, but those big, skull-like grins on your guests' faces will be worth the extra effort!

Entertainment: The main event of your party is calling up the dead, so your choice of a medium might be the most important one you make. An old gypsy woman is the classic medium, and always in fashion, but don't be afraid to branch out. It's critical to make sure your medium does look and act the part. Interview several, and whether you go with a voodoo woman from the bayou or a long-bearded old wizard, you need a medium with personality and people skills. A brusque, rude medium, or one who's always falling into speechless drooling trances, can turn off your guests, living and otherwise, and you'll be struggling to resurrect your dying party all night long.

Speaking with the Dead: The dead will be the life of your party—if you remember to treat them just like the living, and don't make them feel inferior just because they're disembodied. Keep the conversation light and moving. Avoid touchy subjects like: how they died, whether they have unfinished business on the earthly plane, and whether they feel a need for blood vengeance against any of the living. More pleasant topics include: their favorite memories from life, who they've met and mingled with on the Other Side, and how their living descendants are doing.

Wrapping up: After the séance, be sure that all of the dead have been thoroughly banished from your home. A séance can leave undesirable hauntings that only grow worse if you don't deal with them promptly. The medium should take care of this, but if you hear a lot of bumps in the night, chains in the attic or screams in the basement in the days following your party, be sure to call a parapsychologist or the religious leader of your choice to clear out those guests who just won't leave.

If you follow these simple guidelines, your séance party is sure to be a success! However, these tips can always be improved. In the comments below, let us know what you would do to make your séance party a fun and memorable experience. Don’t forget that commenting enters you to win today’s prize of a pair of ebooks (Dark Tomorrows and The Haunted E-book), plus it enters you for The Haunted E-book Tour Grand Prizes!

J.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on the English Renaissance and the Romantic period. He is the author of five novels and one short-story collection. His new novel is The Haunted E-book. The sequel to his novel Jenny Pox will be available by summer 2011.

GIVEAWAY

As Mr. Bryan mentioned above, there are e-books of both The Haunted E-book and Dark Tomorrows up for grabs for one lucky commenter! Be sure and include your email address in your comment along with your response to the seance party prompt so I can contact you if you win. Every person who comments on the post today will also be entered in the grand prize giveaway which includes a KINDLE! There are tons of ways to get extra entries for the grand prizes, so be sure and check out Mr. Bryan's tour launch post HERE for additional details. Contest will run through midnight EST on January 27th. Good luck everyone and thank you so much Mr. Bryan!

Review + Giveaway: Jenny Pox

JENNY POX
J.L. Bryan
Paranormal Young Adult
e-book
CreateSpace
Available Now

THE STORY
Everything Jenny Morton touches without a clothing barrier dies a horrible death. She learned this the hard way, picking up a snake when she was little thinking it would be a suitable toy only to watch in horror as bloody sores broke out all over it's body. She's never had extended skin on skin contact with anyone, forced to wear long sleeve shirts and gloves even in the balmy weather of the South.

Now starting her senior year of high school, Jenny is as alone as ever. Forever an outsider due to her quirky habit of wearing gloves to school and the lingering rumors of an unbelievable elementary school battle with popular-girl Ashleigh, she's just waiting for the moment she graduates and can get a local job away from the probing stares of her classmates. Senior year proves to be anything but easy, however, as all the past years of flying somewhat under the radar come to abrupt halt when fortuitous circumstances cause Ashleigh's boyfriend Seth to take notice of Jenny.

While wanting to avoid confrontation with Ashleigh at all costs, Jenny can't help but want to get close to Seth, having learned he possesses the ability to heal and is thereby immune to her curse. Finally she gets to experience physical contact, but her euphoria is short-lived as Ashleigh too has a unique ability, and no one will take what's hers without consequence.

MY THOUGHTS
Jenny Pox is a darkly fascinating story, Jenny's ability to spread infection seeming to seep through the pages themselves, searing an everlasting mark on our hearts and minds as permanent as the scars she leaves on those she touches physically. Only instead of leaving pustules in her wake as she embeds herself firmly under our skin, Jenny creates a thriving conduit through which her overwhelming loneliness, misery, and constant longing for even the briefest of touches is transferred, forever linking us together as fiction and reality come together to share a story of forlorn beauty and haunting circumstance. This tale highlights both the inspiring strengths and the abhorrent cruelties of human nature, forcing us to run through the full gamut of emotional responses and refusing to let us return to reality until everything Mr. Bryan wants us to experience has been felt, seen, and fully absorbed.

Jenny is a beautiful heroine; strong of mind and spirit, and born with a curse no human being should have to endure. Her desolation emanates from the story in thick waves, hovering around us like a suffocating cloud through which we struggle to breathe, while the torture of her necessary solitude invokes a devastating sadness in us as we wish with all our strength for a shift in her situation. Her relationship with Seth is characterized by both an undiluted elation at her moments of shared contact with another person and a scorching pain when we realize Ashleigh will retaliate for Seth's change of heart with an unparalleled vehemence. Their attempt at happiness makes us smile through a sheen of tears, but a prevalent sense of dread is our constant companion as we know the pleasure will be fleeting, replaced swiftly with a venomous attack delivered under the guise of good intention.

Ashleigh is monstrously despicable, a girl absolutely devoid of any emotional attachments and someone around whom the dangerous tentacles of blind ambition have strongly coiled. Perhaps most disturbing is her outward appearance of purity, the mask of beauty and perfection so impeccably maintained not even the faintest wisp of villainy escapes it, her true identity buried far below a dazzling smile and hypnotic eyes. Even without her added ability to create love and desire with a simple touch, it's clear the world would still fall prey to her charms, enslaving all those she meets with an expert bat of her eyelashes and a practiced sway of her hips. She is a true master of manipulation, a girl who causes bile to rise in our throats as we choke on her sickeningly saccharine public personality.

The ending is a bit of a departure from the tone of the rest of the story, the paranormal element ratcheting up a drastic notch from it's more subtle presence in the beginning, and culminating in a truly gruesome display of the extent of Jenny's capabilities. This surprisingly graphic turn of events is a bit disconcerting after the mental anguish and quiet conniving leading up to the final showdown, but Mr. Bryan adds a little twist once the horror subsides that provides a viable resolution and believable reconciliation between the events of beginning and end. Though the ages of it's characters might suggest a young adult story, it does contain several scenes that extend beyond a mere implied sexual relationship and are a bit more explicit in detail, therefore better suited to an older audience. There is also some casual drug use that is a bit bothersome at times due to its lack of necessity to the plot, but despite that shortcoming, this story is intensely emotional, brilliantly told, and absolutely worth reading.

Rating: 4/5

GIVEAWAY: Mr. Bryan has agreed to provide an e-book of Jenny Pox to one lucky commenter. If you wish to be entered to win, please leave an email address in your comment so I can contact you. Contest will run through Friday, November 26th after which a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog.