RADIATE by Marley Gibson

HAPPY RELEASE DAY TO MARLEY!!!! For those of you who don't know Marley Gibson, she's the fascinating author of the GHOST HUNTRESS series, Christmas collections with Cecil Murphy, and more. She's also the real-life inspiration for her new book, RADIATE:


Marley's celebrating with an online pep rally on her website. You can join the party (and win prizes!) here: http://marleygibson.com/2012/04/02/online-pep-rally-for-radiate-release-day/

Party with Marley Gibson

Marley Gibson will always have a special place in my heart. Not only is she a genuine, open, and caring person, she is also the one who gave me the referral to meet my fabulous agent, Elaine.

She has the most fascinating life. She calls Boston home, but most of the time, she lives and travels in an RV with her significant other, filmmaker Patrick Burns, and they chase ghosts. Really. Which is how Marley brings the authenticity to her YA series, Ghost Huntress. Book four, The Counseling just hit the shelves in September.

Here's the back cover blurb for Ghost Huntress: The Counseling:

Kendall has just discovered who Emily really is, lost her boyfriend, and nearly died doing the thing she loves most--ghost hunting. It's time to take a break and try to reconcile all the changes she's going through. So Kendall heads to the Sierra Mountains, where there's a camp especially for young people with gifts such as hers. It's a time for reflection and self-discovery.

But when she gets to California, she once again finds restless spirits--and the boy in her last vision. It may be the end of one chapter of her life and the beginning of a new one.


Her Reading and Reaction:

Your compound number values are ten, sixteen, and twenty-one.

Ten is a number of honor, of faith and of self-confidence. Ten is a fortunate number that indicates that one’s plans are likely to be carried out – however, it is symbolized by the wheel of fortune, which can signal a rise and fall in success.

This is pretty cool because last year was a rough one for me. I went through a divorce and a job loss and two moves, so there was definitely rising and falling in my "success." However, through that, I gained self-confidence and my plans from then have definitely been carried out!

Sixteen is a warning to guard against the defeat of one's plans. It should be carefully noted and plans made in advance to avert its fatalistic tendency. Sixteens should trust their intuition in order to avoid hardship.

Good advice! I tend to be a smidgety bit of a procrastinator. Goes back to my college days of cramming the night before the test. But, I always get things done. So I'll try to trust my intuition more and plan ahead more.

Twenty-one signifies an initiation to a new level of wisdom and stature that appeared impossible before. It is the number of ad­vancement, honors, and general success, though victory generally comes after long initiation and tests of determination.

Oooo! I like advancement, honors, and general success! LOL!! If there's one thing I'm made of, it's certainly determination. I recently sold a YA book called RADIATE which is fictionalized version of my experience with cancer when I was a cheerleader. This number points this everything I had to overcome and everything I hope to share in the book.

Your name number vibration is one.

The number one indicates someone who is creative, independent, original, individual. Ones are good self-starters and natural leaders. Ones show interest in the arts, such as singing, acting, writing, painting, and love to curl up with a good book.

Wow...is there a picture of me next to that definition in your book? LOL!! I'm a self-starter, alright, and I do have a love of the arts. I like this reading. Very cool and very much who I am.

You can read more about Marley at ghosthuntress.com or marleygibson.com.

Today's daily freebie is a signed copy of Mara Purnhagen's Past Midnight. Because of the lateness of the posts today, this drawing will remain open until Friday, October 8.

GHOST HUNTRESS - THE AWAKENING

This is the week of contests and celebrations! One you won't want to miss is for Marley Gibson's GHOST HUNTRESS - THE COUNSELING.

In this fourth installment of Marley Gibson's popular GHOST HUNTRESS series, THE COUNSELING finds heroine, Kendall Moorehead at a crossroads in her life. Kendall has just discovered who her spirit guide really is, lost her boyfriend, and nearly died doing the thing she loves most–ghost hunting. It’s time to take a break and try to reconcile all the changes she’s going through. So Kendall heads to the Sierra Mountains, where there’s a camp especially for young people with gifts such as hers. It’s a time for reflection and self-discovery. But when she gets to California, she once again finds restless spirits–and the boy in her last vision. It may be the end of one chapter of her life and the beginning of a new one.

Marley is hosting giveaways to celebrate the release of THE COUNSELING. Check them out:

Stop in to Books, Boys, Buzz all week (August 29th - September 5th) for chances to win.

And don't miss the Awesome Giveaway for GHOST HUNTRESS - THE COUNSELING on Marley's website. That one will run through September 15.

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Be sure to stop back tomorrow for lots more celebrations, including:

The winner of SABOTAGED by Margaret Peterson Haddix
The winner of the $160 CSN cash TRANCE Countdown Kickoff prize
The announcement of September's TRANCE Countdown contest
A puzzle piece for Gena Showalter's UNRAVELED Hunt.

Freebie Friday with Marley Gibson and Cecil Murphy

It's snowing! Yipeee!!!

Pardon the excitement, but this is the first snow of the year. My window looks out to the woods behind our house where the branches of the trees are beginning to be outlined in white. Sigh. It's so pretty.

Today is what a lot of people in the States call Black Friday. Not sure how that name originated; I think it sounds ominous. When I worked in retail, we used to call it Frantic Friday. Not much of an improvement, but at least it didn't sound like a stock market crash or something.

ANYWAY, today, to kick off the holiday season, I'm pleased to bring you my friend Marley Gibson and her co-author Cecil Murphy to talk about how their new book, CHRISTMAS MIRACLES, came about. I love this because it shows how serendipitous life can be:

Marley: I’ve had a lot of questions from folks wanting to know how we met, what brought us together, etc. So, I thought we’d do a back and forth on how it all came to be. Of course, I have to give props to our amazing agent and friend, Deidre Knight, for bringing us together. For those of you who don’t know, Cec co-authored the runaway New York Times bestselling hit 90 Minutes in Heaven with Don Piper.

Cec: I have to say thanks to Deidre Knight as well. Between Deidre and my assistant, Twila Belk, I've been able to sell quite a few books. 90 Minutes in Heaven has been my big book. I'm also proud of a book I wrote in 1990 called Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. The book has never been out of print and has hit close to four million in sales. Early this year, Cuba Gooding Jr. starred in the made-for-TV film version.

Marley: That’s amazing! You are truly prophetic and definitely “the man behind the words.” Now, people ask how we teamed up. Sadly, there was a personal tragedy that brought Cec and me together as friends.

Cec: True. In early 2007, our house burned and our son-in-law died. Aside from the grief over Alan, we lost everything. Deidre and Jan, my-then-assistant, sent the word out of our tragedy without telling me. I'm immensely grateful for every gift people sent, but I probably wouldn't have admitted I needed help and wouldn't have asked. They taught me how much we need other people.

Marley: Deidre put out a call to other clients of The Knight Agency, to help Cec and his family out in any way in their time of need. At the time, my company was moving and we were cleaning house. We had a ton of office supplies that we were either going to throw away or give to some of the charities the company worked with. I got my boss’ permission to send a large care package to Cec…full of office supplies for him to re-stock his writer’s office. You name it…post-its, staples, paper clips, pens, pencils, markers, white out, ruler, scissors, paper, notebooks, notepads, envelopes, a laptop case, tape, glue, folders, binder clips…etc. A veritable potpourri of office delights. I was hoping that it would help Cec have a sense of getting his office back so he could keep working.

Cec: Marley's gift was the most unexpected I received. We hadn't met, although Deidre Knight had spoken of her many times and kept telling me she was wonderful. I wonder if you can imagine what it was like for me to open that box from someone I didn't know. I saw all those practical things for my office and yelled for my wife. I felt as if I were reading a first-grade book. "Look! Look and see! Oh, look!" I was overwhelmed by the gift and even more to receive it from a stranger. Those supplies were the most practical gift anyone could have given me. I'm still using black paper clips and red folders from Marley.

Marley: Awww…thanks, Cec! I didn’t have to think twice about doing it. Writing is such a solitary “sport,” but the writing community always astounds me with how they help their own. Not long after that, over plates of spinach and Gouda omelets, Deidre introduced me to Cec in person and I was thrilled to finally meet the man behind the words. Deidre knew we needed to work on a project together and thus began our brainstorming. What did you think of that first meeting, Cec, and cooking up the idea to work together?

Cec: Deidre and I had already spoken about a Christmas book and I had some idea about what it should contain, but nothing had come together. One day Deidre told me that Marley was coming to visit her and she wanted us to work together on a Christmas project. Marley and I talked before we ate and again during the meal. Everything felt right to me. I knew my strengths and Marley knew hers (and Deidre knew both of us). Everything clicked. Marley, a far better networker than I am, immediately sent out the word for submissions. Within days she had almost four times more than we could use. (She read every one of them!)

Marley: I was truly impressed with the submissions we received and it was hard narrowing it down to the ones we chose for the book. We’re fortunate to have such a go-getter agent in Deidre Knight. Cec, can you share how the whole idea of Christmas Miracles came about and what you thought of the project originally?

Cec: For me, it actually started while I was on the rapid-rail train from the Atlanta airport when I listened to teens talk about Christmas and it was mostly about gifts. I had the idea then, but nothing really came together. Months later when Deidre I and had a meeting, she brought up the idea of a compilation and mentioned my working with Marley. I've been Deidre Knight's client since 1997 and I've learned to listen carefully when she comes up with an idea. I said yes before she gave me all the information.

Marley: That’s the truth about Deidre! Getting back to those submissions, Iwant to say we got more than two hundred submissions for Christmas Miracles. So many wonderful stories to read through and select for the book. It was a challenge to pick and choose which ones were right for the book, but I loved every minute of it.

For today's freebie, I want to hear about serendipity in your life. Have you ever had a chance encounter that led to something big? Did you make what you thought was a small decision and it had a greater impact? Tell me about it to be entered to win.

Since I know that not all my readers celebrate Christmas, this week's freebie will be your choice of either a copy of CHRISTMAS MIRACLES (which, aside from being a great read, would make a perfect gift or stocking stuffer!) or a $15 Amazon gift certificate.

This drawing will remain open until Wednesday, December 2.

Ghost Story - Marley Gibson

Today's ghost story is extra cool... Agency sister Marley Gibson is going to be on the Biography Channel tonight will actual film footage of hers! You'll want to keep an eye on Marley - the first book in her GHOST HUNTRESS series comes out next year. This story happened while she was researching for the series.

When the sale of my upcoming series, GHOST HUNTRESS, was announced, I was blown away by how many people wanted to tell me their ghost story. Who knew? This person's grandmother had a ghost, that one's uncle had a spirit in his office, another one saw an apparition on a dark road, and others reported angels and deceased relatives in hosital rooms and during raging storms.

I love hearing people's ghost stories and love learning of their experiences. I have to say that I didn't necessarily believe in or think about ghosts before I started doing research for the GHOST HUNTRESS series. Sure, I liked the paranormal movies and books and such, but I hadn't really considered the possibilities of having contact with another dimension.

Over the past year and a half, my husband, Mike, and I have gone to a lot of haunted locations in the name of research for my book. We've had a lot of personal experiences, gotten a lot of unknown voice recordings on our digital recorder, and we've each been touched when no one else was present. However, the most compelling evidence we have to date is that of our "ball
video" from Waverly Hills Sanitarium in Louisville, Kentucky that we captured this summer.

Waverly Hills was a tuberculosis hospital from 1929 through the early 1960s. Over 63,000 (yes, you read that right) people died there over the years. Men, women, and children. See, when a family member contracted the disease, the whole family would have to move into the sanitarium because of how contageous the disease was. Because of this, many well children came down with tuberculosis, as well, and eventually died. Very sad.

Mike and I were on the third floor of the sanitarium. It was a hot, hot July night in Kentucky. The only sounds were that of our fellow investigators, the chirping cicadas outside, and the UPS planes overhead. The place has no electricity and there was no wind or breeze that night. As we were walking down the hallway, we encountered two balls on the floor. A red one and a blue one. Much to our surprise, the larger blue one was rolling around the smaller red one. We had heard stories that visitors to the place would bring balls for the spirit children to play with. Who knew we'd actually see it move?

For fifteen minutes, we sat there and watched this ball move freely between Mike and me. It would roll to him, change directions and then roll to me. Then, it would roll around me and bump up against me. Clearly this wasn't just the wind blowing it, because there was no wind. Additionally, the floor was completely level and there was no way it was causing the ball to
move around. Finally it hit me! Turn the video camera on! Which we did. And we got twenty minutes of footage of me talking to what we believe was the spirit of a child as this ball moved around and back and forth between us.

At one point, the ball goes shooting into another room. I get up to retrieve it and as I'm bring it back in, I can feel something literally tugging it out of my hand. I mention that on the video and when I played my audio recorder back (a week later), I heard a disembodied voice that
said, "Hey, hey, let go."

Through some networking in the "paranormal community" and a lot of people hearing of our experience, we were recommended to a producer for a new TV show that A&E was putting together called MY GHOST STORY. It's a show about real people, not ghost hunters, and their paranormal experiences that have been caught on video. They were really impressed with the ball video and they flew us out to LA to interview us for the show. Fortunately, we made the cut for the premiere (7 stories out of 22 were chosen!) and TONIGHT the show will air on A&E's Biography Channel at 10:00 p.m. ET. If you'd like to see the ball video, please tune in then and check out our interview and footage. It's pretty amazing!

So, this Halloween season...do you have a ghost story to tell? What's yours?

Hope you'll watch MY GHOST STORY tonight!! Drop me a line and let me know what you thought of it.

Hugs,
Marley = )

LATTE DAY 2 - MARLEY GIBSON

Give it up for SORORITY 101 author, party girl (and agency sistah) Marley Gibson! You're going to want to watch for Marley's upcoming GHOST HUNTRESS series, too!

Thanks soooooo much to my pal, Linda Gerber, for inviting me to blog along with her and so many other wonderful young adult authors to celebrate the release of Linda's new book DEATH BY LATTE! I hope you rush out to the store and scoop up a copy for yourself.

In DEATH BY LATTE, Linda's heroine, Aphra, lies to her Dad about going to visit a friend in South Carolina, but she's really headed to Seattle to find her mother. Which brings up the question...is it okay to lie sometimes when it's for the greater good? We'll certainly find out when we read Linda's book.

I'll admit that I've told "white lies" before. Most often, it's because I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings or didn't want to explain myself too much. Who among us hasn't been over to a friend's house to eat and the food is just...blecky. You don't tell them that. You politely eat it and wash down the uncooked vs. charred parts down with your iced tea. LOL! Or perhaps you told your employer that there was an accident on the Interstate on your way to work...when you really accidentally hit that snooze bar one too many times. I think in these instances, it's not lying to hurt anyone, but just stretching the truth to make a situation easier...like Aphra.

And yes...I'm currently lying to someone. One of my bestest buddies, Rebecca, is moving from Boston to Southern California. She and her hubby need to get away from everything they've known all of their lives and spend some time on their own taking a chance and exploring a new part of the country...away from their families who seem to control sooooo much of their calendars. In all honesty, this completely breaks my heart as Rebecca is one of the best people I know. We go to lunch together every day and she makes me laugh and makes work fun. What am I going to do without her? I'm soooooooo sad...but I can't make it about me. It's about her and her hubby having a fresh start and an adventure while they're still young and don't have kids. And man...it's LA...it's sunny California. Why would I deny her that? So, to keep a stiff upper lip on the emptiness I'm feeling with her impending departure to the Wrong Coast, I keep quiet and tell her I support her 100% (which I do...again...not about me.) But, I'll admit there will be a giant hole in my heart when my buddy leaves me.

Is it wrong for me to lie to her? I don't think so. She needs the support and I'm glad to give it. I know that her future is bright and there are bigger and better things for her out there to discover...and I know we'll always stay in touch. Life is full of challenges and we have to grab them by the horns and go for it...just like Aphra does in DEATH BY LATTE.

Do you agree?

Thanks again to Linda and HUGE CONGRATS on the book release!!!

Leave a comment below to be entered to win a copy of your very own Sorority 101 book!

Note from Linda - This post makes me want to reach through the screen and give Marley a big hug. (((((((((((Marley))))))))))

It's BIKINI Day! #5 Marley Gibson

Huge congrats to Linda for her new release DEATH IN A BIKINI! I have it ordered from Amazon.com and can't wait for the mail room guys to deliver the package to me. What a fun book!

There's nothing more fun that going to the beach...right? We've all had beach adventures that helped form a part of our lives. I know when I was in high school, everyone went to Panama City Beach, Florida for Spring Break. If you were a lowly freshman or sophomore, you usually had to have a parent, older sibling, or guadian as a chaperone. But back in those days, if you were a junior or senior, you were usually allowed off by yourselves for your beach adventure.

Such was the case my senior year. My friends Maree, Scarlett, Chris, and I loaded up in my mother's 1982 Pontiac Grand Prix and headed for Panama City...a short three-hour drive from where we were in South Alabama. Of course, all the cute boys we had our eyes on were going to be at the beach. Not just the guys from our high school, but the guys from the other two high schools in town. Jackpot! We could lay out on beach towels, drenched in Tropical Blend suntan lotion (no sunscreens back then...don't you dare do that now!) and wear sunglasses so none of the cute guys could see us checking them out while they played volleyball.

My adventure was one that memories are made of. You see, for the longest time, I had a major crush on a younger guy at the other high school. We'll call him John Doe. (What? You think I'll admit his real name? LOL!!) John was a doll and only two years younger than me. I did everything I could to get his attention, but alas, he only thought of me as a friend. The dreaded friend catagory.

Well, one day during Spring Break, John's playing volleyball (and providing me with ample eye candy) and the ball comes over and lands on my towel. I play coy and won't give it back to him. I know...how bold of me, eh? Soon, he gave up the game and asked if I wanted to go swimming. He wanted to race (are you kidding me?) out to the sandbar. Okay...anything to get attention from John and spend time with him. We raced out to the sandbar (I stayed pretty even with him, despite the fact that my hairdo was now ruined) and hung out in the shallow water of the sandbar. He was all doing the splashy-splashy thing and I was doing it back in a most girlish teasing way. It was heaven under the sun in the big blue ocean.

Lo and behold, not twenty feet away from us, we see a menacing fin. Holy crap! We were really far out and this was Not Good. John told me not to panic, although panic definitely painted his voice. "Just stand still," he said. Are you freaking kidding me? With a possibly shark nearby? This was when I took the opportunity to launch myself onto him. Literally jumped on his back and wrapped my arms and legs around him. What? I was scared out of my wits! He held onto me, sort of putting himself between me and the fins that were getting closer.

This was it. I was a month shy of graduating from high school, I finally had the attention of my crush (although not exactly as I'd planned it), and we were about to be an afternoon snack for Jaws and his two friends.

I could feel John shake as I was draped on him like a cheap suit in the water. We clung to each other trying to figure out what in the world to do. A secret, insane part of me never wanted to leave that sandbar...but, hello...gray fins at eight o'clock!

That's when John turned to me. "You're a really fast swimmer. We could make a run for it."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah." His blue eyes were so confident and hypnotizing that I would have swam TOWARDS the sharks if John had asked me to.

"Okay."

"You sort of have to get off me, though," he said with a laugh.

I did, but he held on to my hand. I could tell the brave little toaster wasn't as couragous on the inside.

He looked at the fins. He looked at me. "On the count of three...we swim like hell."

"Okay," I said, trying to steady my heartbeat.

"One. Two. Three."

John dropped my hand and took off like a scalded dog. I followed immediately, not turning back to see if our sudden splashing had caught the attention of the sharks. I swam like Satan himself was chasing me...to the point where I passed John and nearly left him in the dust. But we'd made it back to the shore, each of us crawling on our hands and knees into the sand, coughing and gasping for breath. He crawled over to me, pulled me into an embrace as we both collapsed to the sand. "We're safe."

Oh boy...was I.

Then I heard my friends run up, interrupting my delicious moment following a near-death experience with the boy of my dreams.

"Did y'all see them?" my friend asked.

John let me go and moved away. "Yeah...there were sharks out there."

"No," my friend said. "They're dolphins! A whole school of them. They're so cute."

John and I turned to each other and laughed our butts off. Yeah...we'd just run from Flipper. Ah well...

Needless to say, that was the extent of our beach adventure, but all these years later, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Now, I'm much more relaxed at the beach. I'd much rather curl up on the towel, far from the sharks...or dolphins...and sit next to my wonderful hubby while I read a great book...like Linda's DEATH BY BIKINI!

Congrats again on the release, Linda! I wish you all the best with the book!

Hugs,

Marley = )

To be entered to win a signed copy of ZETA OR OMEGA or THE NEW SISTERS, all you have to do is reply to this post! BONUS!!! TWO winners will be selected!

Six Random Things Meme

(Note: contest winner announced a couple of posts down...)

It's meme time! I've been tagged by Jenny.

The rules:
a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Okay, here goes... Six random things about me:

(1) I used to work for the U.S. Senate. My boss was the Labor and Human Resources Committee's Special Investigator, who was investigating a certain nominee for Secretary of Labor. Um, I think that's all I can say.

(2) I grew up at the base of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah and never learned to ski until I moved to Ohio!

(3) I love musicals. As in watching/listening to, not singing/acting in. Last visit to New York, I saw Wicked (for the second time), Spamalot and Sweeney Todd and I was in musical heaven! I've seen Les Miz and Phantom about five times each. I even saw Cats, Phantom and The Lion King in Tokyo. In Japanese. Don't ask me how much I understood.

(4) I'm a terrible procrastinator. Fortunately, I work well under pressure... which is good because I create pressure situations constantly by not managing my time well. Like right now...

(5) My grandpa was a painter and I always wanted to be an artist like him, but I didn't have the "skillz". My brother is a phenomenal artist, though, and his daughter is unbelievably gifted, as is another niece of mine, so it does run in the family... just not through me.

(6) I drive my kids crazy by having a song for every occasion. When bits and pieces of lyrics seem to fit the moment, I can't help belting them out. And I know a lot of songs...

I hereby tag:

Wendy Toliver
Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Marley Gibson
Melissa Walker
Teri Brown
Lisa McMann