Guest Post + Giveaway: JL Bryan and The Paranormals Series

Today is the last day of the promotional tour for JL Bryan's beautifully dark Paranormals series and I'm honored to be the very last stop! If you haven't been following the tour, you can find all the details and previous tour stops listed on the tour page at Kismet Book Touring. JL is offering up some pretty unbelievably fabulous giveaways for this tour, so be sure and check the bottom of the post for all the specifics on how to enter! Without further ado though, I'd like to welcome JL back to the blog to share with you some thoughts that have reminded me exactly why I love being a book blogger so much.

A LONG, STRANGE, PARANORMAL TRIP

So, this is the last day of the Paranormals tour. This has been a fantastic celebration of the release of the third book in the trilogy, and I want to thank all of the tour hosts for their generosity in sharing their blogs. I also want to thank Danny and Heather from Kismet for making things easy, and for putting together all the great prizes and trick-or-treater characters!

It's fitting that the tour began on Bewitched Bookworms and ends here on Supernatural Snark. I first released Jenny Pox in July 2010. I queried lots of bloggers to review it, but as an unknown indie author, I initially got few responses.

The few bloggers who featured the book back then included the Bewitched Bookworms, Darkeva, the Caffeinated Diva, and Supernatural Snark. The response from these bloggers gave me the sense that the book might be something valuable that would eventually find lots of readers. The Bookworms actually featured me several times in 2010, back when nobody had heard of Jenny Pox and nobody was reading it.

Over a year later, the book has grown into a trilogy, and they often show up on the Horror and Contemporary Fantasy bestseller lists on Amazon. It's always stunning to me how many book bloggers are eager to help spread the word about the books! Countless bloggers have helped make this happen (including The Bookish Brunette, who even made Team Seth and Team Alexander buttons).

The first two books enabled me to take a couple months of leave from work when my son was born on June 2. I can't begin to describe what it meant to me that I was able to spend so much time with him. Now, I'm leaving my day job altogether to focus on writing and baby care, so expect a lot more books from me!

As a writer, you spend huge numbers of hours alone, creating and refining your stories. The biggest surprise about going indie is that I'm not doing this alone at all – I've met so many amazing, intelligent, funny, and generous book bloggers who are so helpful. This doesn't even begin to mention the great community of indie authors I've met, which would take a whole other post!

This journey has been fun, exciting, mysterious, and full of surprises. Sometimes everything just comes together at once, spontaneously, in a way you never could have planned. Sometimes, it's kismet.

So this post is just a big “thank you” to all the bloggers and readers who have made this amazing process unfold over the past fourteen months. I appreciate every one of you, and I look forward to years of adventures to come! Thanks for being there.

You're so very welcome JL! Finding authors like you has been one of my favorite parts of running the blog, and I'm thrilled to be able to promote the Paranormals series to any and all who will listen:)

GIVEAWAY #1

I've got two very special giveaways on the blog today! The first is my tour stop "treat" which includes a signed set of all three books in the Paranormals series: Jenny Pox, Tommy Nightmare and Alexander Death. To enter please just leave a comment on this post with a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and will run through midnight EST on Friday, November 11th after which time a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog.

*please note that the Paranormals series is recommended for older young adult readers as it contains more graphic sexual content and some drug use*

GIVEAWAY #2

Your eyes are not deceiving you my friends, this giveaway is for a Kindle Fire! YAY! The winner will receive a Kindle Fire skinned in the their choice of Paranormals artwork and loaded with an AMAZING indie library. Simply fill out the form below (just once during the course of the tour, so if you've already filled it out at a different stop, you don't need to enter again) and you're entered to win the latest and greatest from the biggest name in eReaders. Open to US and Canadian residents only, see full contest rules HERE.



A huge thank you to JL for offering up such amazing giveaways and to the wonderful girls of Kismet Book Touring for putting together a fantastic tour:)



Alexander Death week:
Monday, October 31st - The Slowest Bookworm
Tuesday, November 1st - Buried In Books
Wednesday, November 2nd- Paranormal Opinion
Thursday, November 3rd - Belle Books
Friday, November 4th - Supernatural Snark

In My Mailbox 32 + Winners

In My Mailbox was created by Kristi over at The Story Siren and is a great way to see what other bloggers are reading and reviewing. I always love seeing what everyone else got for their week!


FOR REVIEW:
Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey
Rip Tide (Dark Life #2) by Kat Falls
Class Collision: Phoenix Rising by Annette Mackey

WON:
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer

BOUGHT:
Supernaturally by Kiersten White
Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep

A huge thank you goes out this week to Teen Book Scene, Scholastic, Annette Mackey, Tara from Fiction Folio and Carissa from Preternatural Primer for sending me so many great books to read!

I also want to extend an enormous thank you to JL Bryan and Jennifer Estep for allowing me to host giveaways of their books this past week, Random.org chose the winners and they have both been emailed!

TOUCH OF FROST

Winner:
Carissa from Preternatural Primer

JENNY POX/TOMMY NIGHTMARE


Winner:
Lori

Guest Post + Giveaway: JL Bryan and The Paranormals Series

Today I'm super excited to be one of three blogs revealing the cover for the third book in JL Bryan's deliciously dark and fascinating young adult series focusing on a young woman named Jenny and her unusual ability to spread disease at the barest touch. As you can see, this newest installment is titled ALEXANDER DEATH and will be releasing in October. JL is joining me on the blog to talk a little bit about how he came up with the title for the series itself, and be sure and check the bottom of the post for details on the giveaway and the other participating blogs!

A PARANORMAL PREDICAMENT

When I finished Jenny Pox, I realized there was much more room to explore Jenny's story and her background, but I wasn't sure whether I would actually get around to writing follow-up books or not.

The reviews for the book often said that they would like to see a sequel and learn more about Jenny, and I also heard from a number of readers by email and social media asking whether there would be a sequel. Since I was interested and the readers were interested, I decided to build onto the story. I didn't just want to do a sequel, or an episodic series, but a deeply integrated trilogy where everything was woven together in a satisfying way.

The clearest place to begin was the question of Ashleigh's opposite. If Seth and Jenny were opposites, with their powers to heal and to spread plague, then Ashleigh clearly had an opposite, whose touch had the opposite effect from making people feel love.

Some people have asked why Tommy's touch spreads fear instead of hate. My thinking is that hate is not necessarily the opposite of love. Our strongest hates are personal and often originate in love—we hate the friend or lover who betrays us, for example. That kind of hate is powered by the previous feelings of love that existed.

To me, fear seems like the most direct opposite of love. Love draws people together, while fear separates us from each other. This can be fear of people who are different from you, which can often be alleviated just by getting to know an individual from the feared group. There is also the way fear affects our personal relationships. Fear of getting hurt can stop a relationship from ever forming, or lead to jealousy and conflict within a relationship. So we have love pulling people together in an affectionate, positive and helping way, while fear pushes people apart, divides them, and even makes them willing to use violence.

So, there was Ashleigh's opposite. A couple of other paranormals, Alexander and his opposite Esmeralda, came into the story to shed some light on Jenny's past lives and to move events forward. In Alexander, we have a second person Jenny can touch, so this is the first time in her life she's had relationship options. She can be with Seth or with Alexander, and there are some pros and cons to each of them...

Finally, the series itself needed a name. Jenny and Seth aren't an established kind of paranormal being, like a vampire or werewolf, so this was a challenge. They are fragments of the original chaos that reigned before the universe was created (fellow ancient mythology geeks, you know what I'm talking about). Appropriate words might have included “djinn,” “demons,” “gods,” or the simple Lovecraftian “Old Ones.” These all had connotations that I didn't want to deal with, however. These characters repeatedly reincarnate among humans, but they are not human souls. They're sort of the creatures that snuck in under the cracks in the door to our world. They don't belong here.

In the end, I decided the best word was a general one: paranormals. This makes their supernatural nature clear, but it also points to one of the central conflicts faced by Jenny and Seth, which is their endless struggle to be like “normal” humans, when it is impossible for them to do that.

This is why the trilogy that begins with Jenny Pox is now known as The Paranormals, Book One through Three. Because when you've written more than a quarter-million words about a certain group of characters, it's nice to have an actual word to call them.

Thanks so much for stopping by JL! For more information on both JL and
The Paranormals series (highly recommended, though definitely for older YA audiences as there is some more explicit sex and violence in both published works) you can find him here:

Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter

GIVEAWAY

As today is the one year book birthday of JENNY POX (Happy Birthday Jenny!), JL has generously offered up e-book copies of both JENNY POX (book 1) and TOMMY NIGHTMARE (book 2) to one lucky winner. To enter, please just leave a comment with a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. Since these are e-books, this giveaway is international and will run through midnight EST on Friday, July 29th after which time a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog.

Be sure and check out the other two participating blogs as they will have fun guest posts and birthday giveaway celebrations as well:

The Slowest Bookworm
Bewitched Bookworms

Review + Giveaway: Tommy Nightmare

TOMMY NIGHTMARE
(Jenny Pox #2)
J.L. Bryan
Paranormal Young Adult
e-book
Available Now
Received from author for review

Warning: Contains mild spoilers from Jenny Pox

THE STORY
Tommy, like Jenny, has a touch that repels those around him. With the briefest contact, Tommy instills fear–so much fear that when he's not in control of it he literally scares people to death.

Escaping from a miserable foster home at a young age, Tommy grows up and begins to understand his power and how he can control and manipulate those he touches. After seeing a television interview with Ashleigh Goodling, Jenny's nemesis, Tommy makes for the small town where Jenny recently unleashed her power in all it's gruesome glory.

While Tommy searches for Ashleigh, feeling drawn to her for reasons he doesn't understand, Jenny struggles with the aftermath of her actions and her growing insecurities with Seth as he prepares to head off to college. She's also beginning to remember some of her past incarnations, making some startling discoveries as to just how she, Seth, Ashleigh, and Tommy, as well as two new individuals are all connected.

MY THOUGHTS
Tommy Nightmare returns us to a world that causes anxiety and dread to curl up and make themselves at home in our guts, any brief moment of happiness overshadowed by a tangible sense of unease as we know Mr. Bryan has no qualms with putting his characters through physical and emotional turmoil. We plunge forward, blowing through pages held tightly with knuckles gone white from strain, fearing what's in store next might just be worse for Jenny than what she's already experienced, and we emerge from the story with worry lines etched into our faces where there were none before as evidence of our involvement with the story. Tommy Nightmare is not an emotionally easy read, instead it's one where we know things will only get worse before they get better, but Mr. Bryan gives us a flicker of light just when the darkness starts to consume us, and we cling to its tiny brilliance as we hope for Jenny to find the happiness she so deserves.

The reappearance of Ashleigh–a character so detestable we will our hatred of her to be strong enough to singe every appearance of her name from the pages so we don't have to see it any longer–causes us to groan in disgust while begrudgingly admitting to an appreciation of a character who can inspire such an intense reaction. Every word out of her mouth and every action she takes ratchets our apprehension up a notch, knowing her every move is calculated and planned in order to inflict the most pain on the object of her wrath. She's hauntingly villainous, her ability to inspire love with a touch warped beyond all recognition as she uses it to enslave and manipulate, and we read every page hoping someone will share our immunity to her grotesque charm.

Despite being the title character, Tommy's role in this story is surprisingly small, his opening scene enough to raise our hackles and bring forth our protective instincts, but his actions after those first few pages skew our perception of him so we are left in an emotional limbo as to whether or not he's deserving of our affection. We want desperately to believe in him since he's Ashleigh's opposite and therefore capable of resisting her touch, but his easy compliance to her every suggestion without that coercion keeps us wary and defensive. In addition to Tommy, we are introduced to several new characters, each with a unique ability that piques our curiosity and makes us want to read faster in order to find out how they fit into the magnificent puzzle Mr. Bryan has so painstakingly developed.

Tommy Nightmare is highly recommended for older young adult audiences as the sexual content, though not hugely prominent, is a bit more detailed in nature, and the suffocating darkness at times threatens to overwhelm. Luckily for us however, this story, though often a heavy burden to bear when Jenny is mistreated and betrayed again and again, ends by bringing a hesitant smile to our lips as Ashleigh's plans for Jenny are temporarily interrupted by the appearance of a new character. Though we know inevitably the smile will fade as quickly as it came when we get our hands on the next book, it's enough to mildly relax the muscles we've held rigid in reaction to the emotional maelstrom into which these characters thrust us.

Rating: 4/5

GIVEAWAY

Mr. Bryan has generously offered up a signed paperback copy of JENNY POX to one lucky commenter! Please note this is a copy of the first book in the series, not the second which is reviewed above (you can read my review of JENNY POX here). To enter, just leave a comment with a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. Giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and will run through midnight EST on Friday, June 3rd after which time a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog. Good luck everyone!