• You pick six (6) sentences from anything you’ve written–a work in progress (wip), something under submission, something sold; something new, something old.
• You sign up at the Six Sunday website Tuesday starting at 6PM EST.
• You post it on Sunday (along with posting a link of suxisunday.com)! Such as I have below.
• And then you enjoy.

Last week we saw Lawson, Zoe’s brother, notice something was wrong at the market. There shouldn’t have been any royal soldiers int heir small city. But there were. So, he made the quick decision to get himself and his friend Catherine out of harm’s way. I said he’d find out his city was being dropped this week, but he doesn’t. I haven’t written that yet. :) But I do have this!

Hurriedly, he led Catherine away from the market and toward the business side of town. Other people were still shopping, some moving toward the growing soldier force to find out what was going on. And while they did that, he hoped to get Catherine far, far away.

He didn’t get half as far as he needed to when the first person was shot. A swarm of balloons was released into the air, their colorful shadows decorating the cobble in a sickening kaleidoscope as the screams started. When the stampede crushed around them, he lost Catherine’s hands in seconds.

Thanks for stopping by and make sure to check out all the other great snippets here.

Hi, and welcome to my second #SFFSAT. #SFFSAT, summed up concisely, is:

On the surface, it’s a web ring of authors who post snippets of their work for comment. In reality, it’s a close-knit group of friends and colleagues working together to support and encourage one another and promote the science fiction and fantasy genres.

- JC Cassels, 2012

I was very sad to miss out on #SFFSAT last week, but this week I’m not schedule for any reviews, so I happily present my second offering. It picks up where we left off last time–in the interrogation room with what could be a murderous android.

He stood on one side of the table, leaning his hands against the chair in front of him. She sat with her hands in her lap now, staring at him with an expression of polite detachment.

“State your designation and purpose,” he said.

“I have already told you and five other officers both my designation and purpose.” Her voice was warm, but it lacked the inflections that all humans had in their speech. Her tone was clean, as if digitally scrubbed of every nuance that could hint at humanity.

“Then, humor me and state it again.” He gripped the chair. He’d lived around robots, androids, cyborgs all of his life. But this one rubbed him the wrong way.

That’s it this go ’round! Thanks for stopping by and make sure to browse the other speculative wonder by clicking the link above!

Miriam Black knows when you will die.

Still in her early twenties, she’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name.

Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

Be forewarned: Blackbirds in a dark tale with vulgar language and visceral descriptions. As such, my review will be littered with more colorful language.

When I described Blackbirds to a fellow reviewer/reader I said it was disastrous and gritty. I said it was the most lovely train wreck. And that I hadn’t been able to put it down since the first page of the sample. It’s the kind of read that if I had balls, it would have grabbed me by them from the first sentence and kept a viselike grip until the last. I didn’t regret it. I relished it.

Wendig’s style is ridiculously plain-faced, made up of short, sharp punches and bright-knife-flash descriptions. You can’t help but be mesmerized. But if you’re into flowery settings dripping with page-length descriptions, this isn’t the book for you. The settings are a backdrop (just the way I like it): you’re given an impression, a glimpse to put you in the scene before you’re plunged back into the stomachache that is this plot. (That sounds bad, but it is so good.)

A breathless, side-stitich inducing, dull roar of a headache. That’s Blackbirds.

Miriam, our main character and a microscope for us to dissect the darkest bits and pieces of humanity, leads us from one nameless motel to another, strung between a handful of states. We follow her aimless roaming until she runs into Ashley, a man with a girl’s name and the heart of a true pansy. Meeting Ashley changes everything for Miriam, because for once, someone’s fate tangles enough with hers to derail her couldn’t-care-less vagabond life. Nail-biting story made short: his bad shit collides with hers and she’s determined to escape it and do the one thing she’s never done: save someone from the fate she’s foretold. Because Miriam can see how you die. If she touches you.

I’ve never read a character like Miriam. She’s done and continues to do bad things, even to innocent people. She’s got a mouth like a gutter tripe and a mind just as vile, a mind that is broken like a mirror that reflects the delusions of all of the wrong choices she’s ever made. But I root for her. Her life was/is one big, bubbling cesspool and the harder she struggles to get out of the it, the faster and the deeper she sinks. Her supporting characters range from the void of mortality that is the ultimate-oh-shit bad guy Ingersoll to the rare pinpoint of brightness that is Louis.

All in all, Blackbirds is a tightly clenched fist just waiting to sock you one. In the solar plexus. Which is apparently a bundle of very sensitive nerves to untrained fighters readers. And I give it big, fat A+. Read it. As soon as possible. Go, now.

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Learn more about the book and Chuck Wendig at Terrible Minds. Tweet him about how psyched you are to be reading his work. You’ll be happy you did.

One more pushpin on the cork board. :)

#ThursThreads is a flash-fiction (100-250 words) composed based on a prompt that’s a line from the winner’s piece of the week before. It’s due by 10 PM EST/ 7 PM Pacific Time and hosted by Siobhan Muir on her site and blog.

The prompt this week: It was so long ago, but the memories hadn’t faded. You can tell I wrote this quickly. I said, “ducky.” Pfft.

Faded, blue crib. Dusty sea creatures mobile. Peeling ducky wallpaper. He ran his hand across the back of a still rocking chair, so still—like the crib, like the room, like the house.

He pulled his hand away, rubbed it on his jeans. The dust gave him the chills. It seemed like he had just bought that rocking chair. And Sienna had almost started crying, just sitting in it with her hands on her stomach. She had glanced around the room, nodding. It was exactly what she had dreamed. Exactly what she had wanted. And he was the one to give it to her.

He had felt so happy he thought he felt the slightly sting in his eyes.

Later that sting that turned to a burn. Then, there was fire. And him on his knees, retching with the misery that permeated every room of the house. The emptiness grew larger every day until he had to leave it. Eventually he’d pieced something like a life back together, but the house remained untouched. He closed the nursery door.

It was so long ago, but the memories hadn’t faded.

Another pin to my flash-fiction cork board–a #55WordChallenge piece. The #55WordChallenge competition (hosted by Lisa Hollar):

 …begins at noon Eastern time every Wednesday and ends at noon Thursday. The story is based on one of three photo prompts and can be written in any genre you choose. The story is to be posted in the comment section [of the post], along with your twitter handle or email address, so [Lisa] can contact you if you are the winner.

What I got from this picture?

“Get Closer”

She wrapped around him like a vine, arms and hands constricted like a metal dodder: relentless and  hungry. He was rooted to the spot, paralyzed long ago by the sweet spores that burst from her flowers when prey was near. And he was so near.

Her would only get closer, eventually absorbed into her essentia.

Jessica Sorenson’s DARKNESS FALLS started off with three essential rules.

Rule #1—Never go out after dark.
Rule #2—Always carry a weapon.
Rule #3—No matter what, never EVER get bit.

Sorenson had my attention from there. Following this, there was a dark tale involving a vampire-ridden world that required a compound to made, which is where the main character Kayla lived. There was an interesting set-up as far as the world and settings were concerned, but it was plagued by an abundance of scenes cut short and reasoning stopped shorter. I thought this to be a writing mechanism, sort of include the reader in the character’s confusion, but when it continued, I finally had to admit it was simply a flaw of the book. I honestly can’t (and refuse) to count how many scenes ended in the main character being unconscious.

The characterization was, for the most part, nonexistent. I got a sense of the main character, but she doesn’t have much to her and her supporting characters can only be so effective with a main character as…lackluster as Kayla. But it was the plot that really sucked this book down. And I mean sucked like a Hoover. I was scrambling to hold on, because honestly, the author’s style is neat–I enjoyed her use of details, her to-the-point descriptions, but it wasn’t enough to resurrect this plot, one that was a dead as the vampires (and random other characters?) that riddled it.

The bottom line is: despite what could have been thematic excellence and an enjoyable style, Sorenson’s DARKNESS FALLS was tempered by an overindulgence for mystery. The novel was like a fish out of water–at first, it flops about in a lively manner, but as time progresses, the flopping digresses to a pitiful flipping, which diddles to nothing but a gasping gurgle.  

But it has a rating of 4.02 on Goodreads, so I’m in the minority. Read a few more re

I posted this a few weeks ago (I think) as a flash-fiction piece for one of the three (or four?) contests I frequent regularly. But it’s come in handy again. Becca Campbell is hosting a contest on her blog Inspiration for Creation in celebration of her soon-to-be-published (and genre-bending) novel Foreign Identity. Since her novel throws in elements of multiple genres, the contest is to do the same: write a flash-fiction piece of less than 300 words that combines the elements of science-fiction and thriller. I happened to already have something I wanted to tweak a bit. It got the vote of confidence from my most trusted reader Sarah W. (@earfulofcider) who has wonderful taste, so I squeezed in 50 more words and voila!

“For What It’s Worth”

The AMOLED flyers danced from the Tram’s wind as it screamed by. The naked women normally didn’t catch Nikki’s attention, but today—when she was so close to homelessness, to starvation, their slick bodies undulating in a permanent loop was poignant. They could be her tonight.

She was second in line at the Exchange. The man in front of her dropped his handful of tokens into the metal tray before him. The Rater held the vessels under his glowing visor, then dropped them into a chute behind him.

“55,” he boomed. The man bowed repeatedly, scraping together his credits, flimsy digitally-printed cards, as he rushed away. Most who traded their vessels were in dire straits.

She was no different. She stepped forward.

“Present your vessels.”

She dumped the tokens, some in the shapes of people, some in the shapes of animals, others indescribable (amorphous shapes with nothing to recognize)—all the only value she had left.

The Rater brought them to his visor and dropped them back into the tray. “These vessels are not redeemable.”

The words were simple, clearly spoken, but her mind simply refused to grasp them.

It couldn’t be. This was all she had in the world, and it was worth nothing.

But the Rater was final. Arguing never helped. She took her vessels back. How could they not be redeemable?

She had done everything right, had earned the vessels in the Rightful Tournaments with her registered ID. What could have gone wrong?

Nikki was jostled aside as the line progressed: forgotten, as usual.

But she’d rather die than starve another day.

She grabbed at the next person’s credits and her ears had barely registered the hiss of lasers when she felt her chest explode. The credits fell as she did.

And she had gotten her wish.

Yuna’s most recent and self-titled album released April 24. Of course I bought it and fell in love instantly. The first song I heard was “Lullabies” and it has stuck with me since I first heard it. It’s sweet and gentle and woven with tendrils of regret and wistfulness and…well, it’s just beautiful, which is why it’s today’s Music Monday.

Enjoy.

It’s Six Sentence Sunday again and I’ve got a different POV to share today. But first, the rules. Six Sentence Sunday is when:

• You pick six (6) sentences from anything you’ve written–a work in progress (wip), something under submission, something sold; something new, something old.
• You sign up at the Six Sunday website Tuesday starting at 6PM EST.
• You post it on Sunday (along with posting a link of suxisunday.com)! Such as I have below.
• And then you enjoy.

Last week Zoe had finally escaped her prison and was looking for a safe place to rest. But today we’re taking a look at what’s happening back home in Zephyr City, the town designated for decommissioning that Zoe is trying to save.

Zoe’s not the only terribly altruistic member of the family. Her little brother is too, and in this snippet he notices something wrong while at the market with a friend.

He was able to see the trouble as it showed up instead of when it was upon them.

They were clearly royal soldiers, and they were there in force: dozens sifting from their ranks into the milling, crowded market. No, not sifting—shoving. Now, they were grabbing. Ordering.

Lawson took Catherine’s hand now, her left in his right; it was time to go.

Next week Lawson finds out what we already know: that his city is being dropped from the sky. Make sure to check out all the other great snippets here.

Julianne counts the days until she can pack her bags and leave her old-money, tradition-bound Southern town where appearance is everything and secrecy is a way of life. A piano virtuoso, she dreams of attending a prestigious music school in Boston. Failure is not an option, so she enlists the help of New England Conservatory graduate Isaac Laroche.

Julianne can’t understand why Isaac suddenly gave up Boston’s music scene to return to the South. He doesn’t know her life depends on escaping it before she inherits her mother’s madness. Isaac knows he must resist his attraction to a student ten years his junior, but loneliness and jealousy threaten his resolve.

Their indiscretion at a Mardi Gras ball—the pinnacle event for Mobile’s elite—forces their present wants and needs to collide with sins of the past.

Will Julianne accept the help she’s offered and get everything she ever wanted, or will she self-destruct and take Isaac down with her?

When I initially “picked up” Want, I assumed it would be a hot and heavy read about the taboo relationship between two people separated by age. Which I was totally psyched about. It is so much more than that, so much better that I feel ashamed to have thought that.

I’m a genre kinda girl–specifically Fantasy and Science-Fiction, but one thing that transcends genre is good writing. And Stephanie Lawton has that in spades. As tantalizing as many of the situations and settings are, it was her imagery, her stark descriptions, and colorful comparisons that were the star of her novel. Her style is nothing short of beguiling, wavering between matter-of-fact details and affecting inner monologue. I couldn’t put it down. I read it at lunch, snuck it in between class changes, before bed, when I brushed my teeth. My husband had to remind me he was there several times–the classic sign that  the book is good. And it is a damned good book.

A large portion of this has to do with Lawton’s characters: they move from the words on the page to your office, or classroom or grocery store. What I mean is, they are real people, people you grew up with, have in your family, people you loved. And some you hated. She paints a candid picture of the dynamic nature of us all with equal attention.

Juli, our main character, is at once the hero and the villain. At moments, I hated her for doing what she did to herself and to those that cared for her the most. At others, I pitied her, because I felt her pain. Lawton made sure of that.

Isaac, the main “love” interest, was a lover in name only. I don’t think he had the love necessary to be healthy all by himself, let alone with a girl who was growing into a woman between broken, glass petals, scratching all the way.

She shows the endless hope we can have in characters such as Dave and Mr. Cline, sweet love and caring mentor, respectively.

An all this in settings that are an exquisite complement to Lawton’s style. Her Alabama flair laces  the depiction the city of Mobile expertly. In fact, she portrays the city so well, I wanted to visit and stay away at different turns in the book. She gives Boston a dreamy, but crisp look-over. You’re transported effortlessly.

The plot is not only well-developed, but fulfilling. While there isn’t a happily ever after, there’s a realism and weight to the ending that leaves one more than happy that they made the trip. It’s a coming of age story. It’s just not the every day version. But that’s what makes it so wonderful. It’s a mature YA title and it’s an A+ novel without a doubt.

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Find out more about Want on Stephanie Lawton’s site; purchase the beautiful novel here. And follow Stephanie on Twitter. The gal’s a gem. Oh, and if you want a good idea of what a great read it is, the free short story “Aftertaste” does more than whet the appetite. A big thanks to Stephanie and Enchanted Book Promotions.