OMEGA CITY COVER REVEAL

Today we have the AWESOME cover reveal of Omega City by Diana Peterfreund. Check out the exclusive excerpt below then scroll down for the beautiful cover to this amazing sounding book!

OMEGA CITY

Gillian Seagret doesn't listen to people who say her father's a crackpot. His conspiracy theories about the lost technology of Cold War-era rocket scientist Dr. Aloysius Underberg may have cost him his job and forced the family to move to a cottage in the sticks, but Gillian knows he's right, and plans to prove it.

When she discovers a missing page from Dr. Unerberg's diary in her father's mess of an office, she thinks she's found a big piece of the puzzle--a space-themed riddle promising to lead to Dr. Underberg's greatest invention. Enlisting the help of her skeptical younger brother, Eric, her best friend, Savannah, and Howard, their NASA-obsessed schoolmate, Gillian sets off into the ruins of a vast doomsday bunker, deep within the earth.

But they aren't alone inside its dark and flooded halls. Now Gillian and her friends must race to explore OMEGA CITY and find the answers they need. For while Gillian wants to save her dad's reputation by bringing Dr. Underberg's secrets to light, there are others who will stop at nothing to make sure they stay buried...forever.

An exclusive excerpt from OMEGA CITY:

 THE WORLD BELOW

I can’t tell you who started screaming first. Truthfully, it might have been me.

But after a few seconds of shrieking ourselves hoarse, we sort of tapered off. After all, it wasn’t a roller coaster, dropping us down into nothingness. More like . . . an elevator, clanking us down in slow, steady fashion. And who screams in an elevator?

This one apparently came complete with elevator music. A tinny, tinkling melody started playing, and we all quit shouting “Help!” and “Stop!” And “Howard! What did you do?”—that one was Nate and Savannah, combined—to listen.

We were only a few stories down when the music was replaced by words.

“Greetings, survivors!” said a cheery man’s voice.

Survivors? It was tough to see my friends’ faces in the pale running lights. But since we’d all gone from screaming our heads off to shocked silence, I imagined they were making the same face I could feel I was. Eyes wide, mouth wider.

The voice went on, as calm and carefree as ever:

Congratulations on escaping the attack, plague, or natural disaster that has brought you here. Our condolences on the family members and/or appendages you may have lost during the end of the world.

“The end of the world?” Savannah choked out.

“Appendages?” bleated Eric.

Rest assured, you have reached safety.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind you that pets, plague-infected persons, enemy combatants, and firearms are not permitted entrance. Please terminate or discard these items before your descent.

The music started up again, no doubt meant to accompany our efforts to do whatever it might take to . . . discard our pets or plague-infected loved ones. Down and down we went, as the music looped through the speakers and echoed up into the endless tunnel that we could still make out beyond the metal grid at the top of the elevator. We all stared up into the shaft as it receded into shadow and we descended deeper into the Earth.

“What’s happening?” Sav asked. “Where are we?”

We all looked at Howard, but he was staring through the grate above our heads as if it would provide some sort of answer.

“Gillian?” Eric prompted.

I shook my head. This wasn’t in Dad’s book. I don’t think this was even in Dad’s world. And still, we went down.

Finally, with another enormous grinding of gears and screaming metal, the elevator touched the ground. The music morphed into a brassy little fanfare, like we were about to meet a king, and the disembodied voice said:

Welcome . . . to Omega City.

And now... Check out this gorgeous cover!

Awesome cover right? Omega City releases from Balzer+Bray on April 28, 2015. Check out the pre-order links below!

Author Bio:

Diana Peterfreund is the author of many books for adults and chidren, including the critically acclaimed For Darkness Shows the Stars and Across a Star-Swept Sea. She lives with her family outside Washington, D.C. in a house full of bookshelves, and is always on the lookout for lost cities and stray rocketships. Find out more about Diana and her books at http://www.dianapeterfreund.com.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diana.peterfreund
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dpeterfreund

Pre-order links:

Indiebound: http://smarturl.it/indOmegaCity

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/Ocamazon

Barnes & Noble: http://smarturl.it/OCBarnes

Apple iBooks: http://smarturl.it/ApOmegaCity

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18072748-omega-city

Want to Develop Your Own Voice?

Want to develop your own voice?  Steal somebody else's first

For some reason, what is perfectly normal and reasonable in one area of the arts, no, in every area of the arts, seems strange and dirty for many writers. When somebody first learns to play the guitar, they learn to do so by copying somebody else. It might start by having a buddy show you how to play a particular chord but eventually it moves on to, 'I want to learn how to play the Deep Purple Solo' just like Deep Purple did.

Nobody balks at this. Nobody says, 'hey there pal, wait a second...you can't copy the Deep Purple solo because well, it's there's and that would be cheating.'  Nope, instead a famous guitar solo, piano solo, fiddle solo (whatever) is held up as something that people want to copy, are encouraged to copy in order that people can learn to play well.

We need to do this more in writing. Particularly when people are struggling with the concept of authorial voice or style.

So clearly, writing a book about a boy named Barry who wants to grow up to be a Fizard and goes to a school named Bogwarts, is not what I'm talking about. But if you look at how Rowling crafts her dialogue, the kind of humor she uses, the sound of her sentences...and you try to copy the style of that in your own words? What could possibly be wrong with that?

If you've never written a story that sounds like a Roald Dahl story (and you almost certainly have not) then give it a try. If you've never written a story that sounds like Judy Blume, then absolutely give it a try. Take a look at the great authorial solos within the children's book world. Copy their styles, their voices.

And you know what happens? Paul McCartney may have learned to play guitar by listening to the great guitar soloists before him, but Paul McCartney sounds like himself. The Edge from U2 may have learned to play guitar partly by listening to Paul McCartney and yet The Edge sounds like himself. Alison Krauss may have grown up listening to Patsy Cline, and Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, and yet Alison Krauss sounds just like herself.

So if you're struggling figuring out your unique authorial voice and style, try copying a few others first. Eventually, you'll learn to sound just like yourself.

OPERATION TREE ROPER: AN EYE ABOVE By Robert Polk RELEASE BLITZ!

 Operation Tree Roper: An Eye Above by Robert Polk

Adventures, Anaiah Press

Blurb:

Twelve-year-old Declan Parker was only born with one eye, but all he seems to have trouble seeing in proper perspective is himself. All he wants is for kids to see him as normal before he starts a new school in the fall. To that end, he sets out to make money helping with his dad’s tree care business.

Unfortunately, when his dad lands in the hospital after a climbing accident, Declan’s surgery hopes are wrecked. His only hope remains in a neighbor girl and her uncle, a wounded army veteran. Can they help him save his dad’s business, or will Declan’s once-courageous drive turn into total despair?

Operation Tree Roper: An Eye Above is a well-crafted story about a strong, dauntless young man who redefines the value of self-reflection. Declan is a character you won’t be able to forget.

Welcome to your new favorite book...

Release Date:

October 7, 2014

Buy Links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1vyJeX5

B&N: http://bit.ly/1nSSgzj

Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1BCz2OS

iTunes: http://bit.ly/1puyjJT

Book Links:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22388584-tree-roper

Anaiah Press: http://www.anaiahpress.com/

Book Trailer:

Author Bio:

Robert Polk lives in western Nebraska where he shares his love of books and the great outdoors with his wife and seven children. He is a former school counselor, business owner, and tree climbing arborist. Robert participates in his church and local community, currently serving on several non-profit boards.

Website: www.stmercy.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/RobertPolk2
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8286827.Robert_Polk

Rafflecopter giveaway:

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Why I Write Middle Grade – by Jason A. Rust (aka Puddin)

Let’s get something very, very clear: I never intended to write Middle Grade. In fact, when the day came near the end of my 36th consecutive year of breathing to finally quit pretending I was going to start writing books—you know, someday—and instead actually begin writing something that very day, a Middle Grade novel was the very last thing on my mind.

See, I was going to be a King (of the Stephen variety). Or a Robert Jordan. I’d have even been happy to come in as a Weis and Hickman, especially since I figured I already had enough errant thoughts for two people, easy.

The point, though, is that I was going to write fantasy stuffs, and they would be for adults, leaning towards something accessible that even my wife or mother-in-law might enjoy, since they both tend to prefer books grounded in the Real World*. My novels would be about relatively average people (over 25, naturally!) dealing with remarkable, mature problems that anyone could see themselves wrangling over. Sometimes the stories might start with the modern day and spiral into a dark fantasy place with an edge of horror, and other times it would start with the edge of a double-bladed ax. But whatever the concept, the books were always going to be for grown-ups.

You know, because being able to write characters that swear like sailors six miles offshore was important to me. For reasons.

But then, a funny thing happened on the way to International Bestseller-dom. Back in the waning months of 2011, when I was knee-deep in creeping subplots for my first novel, my oldest son, at the time a mere child of 9 years and into reading books of his own choosing for the first time, asked me one night as I was hunched over my laptop, hammering out adverbs (badly), if he could read my fledgling novel.

Unfortunately for him, as that particular novel contains themes beyond the emotional range of most 9 year olds and is also littered with language I’m sure his mother would still prefer he not use when the grandparents come over to babysit, I had to tell him no. Hoping to lessen the blow somewhat, I told him he could read it when he got older, if he still wanted to. But he’s my son, meaning that demonstrating a modicum of patience was never likely to be his Plan A.

So he pitched Plan B.
“Well, if I can’t read that one until I’m older, maybe when you’re finished writing it, could you write one for us?”

Blink Blink

Wait. He wanted me to write a story that he and his 8- and 7- year-old brother and sister (respectively) could read on their own? Why…that was just crazy enough to work.

Maybe. I still wasn’t convinced, but I told him I’d see if I could come up with a good story.

Time past, as it does, and I finished that first novel, and revised it to within an inch of chucking it into the oven and setting the self-cleaning cycle. But by the time another year rolled past, I finally had a novel to query.
Just in time for NaNoWriMo 2012. If you’re not familiar, NaNoWriMo is an abbreviation for “National Novel Writing Month”, which is this thing where caffeine-fueled fiends attempt to pound out a complete, 50,000-word sloppier-than-a-kid-on-picture-day-after-recess-and-spaghetti-lunch draft of a new novel all in the month of November. Before then, I’d always sworn I’d never attempt NaNo because 50,000 words, while indeed a sizeable chunk of text, does not an adult fantasy novel make.

But then I remembered Oldest Son asking me to write a new story, one for them. And hey, look at that, 50,000 words IS enough for a Middle Grade novel. Kind of the perfect number, really, if you write science fiction or fantasy.

cough likeIdo cough

But then, how do you write a middle grade novel?

I didn’t know. Not the foggiest clue. What I did know, though, is that I’ve often been accused through the most recent two decades of my life of acting somewhat, um, less mature than my age would indicate. And as the father of four kids ranging in age from 4 to 10, I also had a very clear daily view into the “He touched me! She called me Cheesebuckets! Dad! Make Him/Her Give Me The REMOTE!” world of the middle grade set.

So when November 1st arrived, I put my fears aside and started hammering away at the keyboard like a squirrel with a full piece of corn. Fast. Much faster than I’d written the novel before. So fast I didn’t have time to think about whether I was hurling up words that made any kind sense, or sounded right or, heck, might someday be read by anyone other than my kids.

And thus my second novel, my first Middle Grade, was born.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  “Puddin”, you say (yes, that’s a nickname of mine because, well, I’m perpetually 12 and uh…it’s a long story), “that’s a great fish tale, but it’s a lot more about how you came to write middle grade. Not so much the why.”

Well, that’s the thing. An even funnier thing happened along the way to reaching that particular “The End”. Somewhere in the mad, almost thoughtless dash to come up with 50,000 words in 31 days, I found something else, too. I found a novel that was funny and fun, full of honest mistakes and the adventures that often accompany them in fiction.

I found the kind of book I had loved reading when I was a kid.

Even better, I found a hunk of prose that sounded like me. That felt like me. And characters that lived and breathed and hoped and feared and bickered like uncertain, just-trying-to-learn-about-the-world-around-them middle grade kids do. Much like the nerdy, unsure 12 year-old from 1985 that still lingers deep inside me, hoping for friends to come over for a game of D&D.

It took me some time to realize it, but that month, I found My Voice, and got back in touch with the light of the youth I’ve never really outgrown. And more important than any of that, I found a new way to communicate and empathize with own my kids. A way to see the world through their eyes, even if the world I’m seeing is one of my own creation.

Why do I write middle grade? Partially because it fits me like a spandex Star Trek uniform from The Next Generation (the first few seasons, duh).

But also because I think it helps make me a better parent. Which I’m hoping will cut down on therapy sessions down the road.
Pud’n

---

*By “Real World”, I mean the one we average folk live in, NOT that farcical TV show with the unlikely arrangement of strangers MTV used to produce in the hopes someone would hook up…and then break up…all on camera.