Monday, October 27, 2014

The King’s Scrolls Cover Reveal Signup

I am happy to report that The King’s Scrolls is nearing its final phase of editing before publication. I sent it off to my beta readers on October 1st and am getting ready to go through their feedback starting next week. That will begin my rigorous final edit to iron out all the wrinkles. I’m hoping and praying I can have it done, or close to, by the end of the year.

Now, while the publication of the book may still be a few months away, I feel it’s time to finally reveal the cover. :) I’m very excited to let everyone see it and get it up on Goodreads. I am setting up the cover reveal day for Friday, November 14th. If you have a blog and would like to participate, I would be thrilled to have you join in. I will also be hosting a fun giveaway of one of my handcrafted necklaces that matches the cover as well as a $5 Amazon gift card. If you would like to be part of the reveal, just fill out the form below! And if you have any blogging friends who might like to join in the fun, be sure to let them know! The more the merrier. :)

Signups are now closed.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Be Thou My Vision Blog Tour

Be Thou My Vision by Faith Blum-jlk (1)

You may remember the cover reveal for Be Thou My Vision by my friend Faith Blum. (After all, it is only two posts down. Just shows how bad I am at updating my blog lately.) Well, today I get to be part of the fun blog tour to promote its release on October 26th. As part of the tour I get to share a couple interview questions and my thoughts on the book. First, however, a little about the story.

The church was empty when I dragged myself out of the pew and headed out the door. As I opened the door, the corner of my eye caught a flicker of movement which I chose to ignore. I walked down the steps and was nearly bowled over by two wild boys. With arms grown strong and quick from man-handling two brothers growing up, I grabbed the two boys before they had a chance to escape me.

Anna Stuart is comfortable with her life. She may be a 30 year old spinster, but she has her routine and enjoys taking care of her father and older brother. One letter shatters all her routines, comfort, and enjoyment. After learning of her brother’s death, Anna feels like her life will never be the same again.

Then she meets two motherless boys. Did God place them in her life to lead her to a new vision of life? Can she trust God to give her the desires of her heart before she even knows what they are?

My Review

I had the privilege of beta-reading Be Thou My Vision. Since that was a couple of months ago, I admit the story is a little foggy (I should know better than to not write reviews right away), but I did very much enjoy it. I enjoyed Anna’s journey of faith, and while I don’t mind a good fairytale romance, I appreciated Faith’s more realistic approach to the subject. It was also interesting to read a historical novel in first person. There aren’t many written that way, at least not many I’ve read. I look forward to seeing what comes next in Faith’s Hymns of the West series. (And I love how she incorporates hymns into each book’s theme!)

Interview Questions

Q7: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

God’s wisdom is so much greater than ours and we should lean on Him, not ourselves.

Q8: How much of the book is realistic?

I hope all of it is realistic since that is one of the reasons I wrote a romance novel the way I did. I wanted it to be realistic rather than an ushy-gushy, if-we’re-attracted-to-each-other-we-must-be-in-love romance.

Make sure you visit the other stops on the tour (which you can find here) to read the rest of the interview and see what others are saying about the book! Faith is also having a special 99 cent pre-order sale until the book’s release on the 26th, so be sure to take advantage of it!

And don’t forget to stop by the Be Thou My Vision Facebook Launch Party on November 1st at 7-8:30 PM (CST)! Not only will it be great fun, but there will be a bunch of book giveaways!

About Faith

An avid reader, Faith Blum started writing at an early age. Whether it was a story about the camping trip that summer or a more creative story about fictional characters, she has always enjoyed writing. When not writing, Miss Blum enjoys reading, crafting, playing piano, moderating on the Holy Worlds Historical Fiction Forum and playing games with her family (canasta, anyone?).

As a history enthusiast who has been fascinated for years with the Old West, Faith has endeavored to create a clean, fun, and challenging Western story. Faith lives with her family on a hobby farm in the Northern Midwest, where she enjoys the many cats they have.

You can find Faith on her Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Assassins, Costumes, and Updates

I thought it was time for a bit of an update of sorts since my blog has been very quiet as of late. After my crazy busy writing schedule over the summer and then editing The King’s Scrolls, which I sent to my beta readers on October 1st, I’ve sort of taken a vacation the last couple of weeks. I’ve been really bad about doing any kind of updating or keeping up with emails. But I suppose I’ve needed the break. Especially since I’ll be diving back into editing TKS at the beginning of next month after I receive all my feedback. I keep telling myself every day that I should be working on book five. And a have . . . a little. But I keep procrastinating. It’s like when you go on vacation and then really hate going back to work afterwards . As much as I love writing, I kind of feel that way at the moment.

So what have I been doing in my downtime? Video games. I don’t really consider myself a big gamer because I just don’t have the time for it, but I do really like playing sometimes. I spent a couple of afternoons in the last couple weeks playing Minecraft with my brothers. We always have a great time doing that together and munching on gluten free chocolate chip cookies, which have become our official Minecraft snack. :)

I also played through Assassin’s Creed III, which I had purchased a while back but didn’t have a chance to truly play until now. (This is what happens when you grow up with only brothers and no sister. You get into all the action/adventure type games.) It’s probably my all-time favorite video game. I LOVE the historical aspect of it. As most probably know, colonial is one of my favorite time periods. And it actually filled my imagination with inspiration for the new trilogy I briefly mentioned on Facebook. The very first Assassin’s Creed game my brother played years ago was actually the first inspiration for this story that has been in my mind for years now. ACIII gave me all kinds of new ideas. I hope to work on it after I finish Ilyon Chronicles (which is why I should stop procrastinating and get to working on book 5 *sigh*).

l15770-connor-kenway-assassin39s-creed-iii-5173Not only did ACIII provide some excellent story inspiration, but I completely fell in love with the outfit worn by the game’s (totally awesome) protagonist, Connor Kenway, and I’ve decided to recreate it. It has been years since I’ve put together a new costume, and I’m terribly excited about this one. It’s completely different from my usual fantasy costumes. I love the fact that it’s colonial inspired. And since I’ve always had a thing for Native American culture, I love how those aspects are incorporated into the outfit. I’ve got my pattern all printed and put together and all the buttons (about 50 of them!) ordered. Now I just need to get the fabric so I can actually start putting it together. I hope to go shopping sometime this week. This is the first time besides my reenactment clothing that I will really go all-out on a costume. I intend to put it together from head to toe. So we’ll see how it goes. I’ll definitely post some pictures when I finish it. That will probably take a while, but hopefully not too long. It’s really fun to do something creative beyond writing and jewelry. Now if only I had a nearby Comic Con to wear it to once I’m finished. I will end this post with a video because the violin music is awesome and it’s really cool to see another female version of this costume. :)