Showing posts with label Cryer's Cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cryer's Cross. Show all posts

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Winner

I'm late!

My sincere apologies. It's been one of those weeks. Without further ado, the winner of this week's freebie is:

Jessy, who chose CRYER'S CROSS

Please send your mailing information to gerb (@) lindagerber (.) com and we'll get that sent out to you.

Everyone, no Freebie Friday tomorrow as I try to get on top of this latest wave, but I'll see you here Tuesday. Have a great weekend!

Friday, October 01, 2010

Party with Lisa McMann

Kicking off the TRANCE countdown party is author extraordinaire, Lisa McMann.

Lisa is the award-winning author of the NYT bestselling WAKE series. She was born and raised in Michigan, but moved to the Phoenix area with her husband and children in 2004. I've had the pleasure of meeting Lisa on several occasions, and I can tell you, she is as genuine and funny in person as she appears online. She was kind enough to read an early version of TRANCE and give me a quote for the front cover. How cool is that?

Lisa' next book, CRYER'S CROSS, hits the shelves in February. Watch for it! Here's the official blurb:

The small town of Cryer's Cross is rocked by tragedy when an unassuming freshman disappears without a trace. Kendall Fletcher wasn’t that friendly with the missing girl, but the angst wreaks havoc on her OCD-addled brain.

When a second student goes missing - someone close to Kendall’s heart - the community is in an uproar. Caught in a downward spiral of fear and anxiety, Kendall’s not sure she can hold it together. When she starts hearing the voices of the missing, calling out to her and pleading for help, she fears she’s losing her grip on reality. But when she finds messages scratched in a desk at school - messages that could only be from the missing student who used to sit there - Kendall decides that crazy or not, she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t act on her suspicions.

Something’s not right in Cryer’s Cross - and Kendall’s about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried.


Lisa's reading and reaction:

Your compound value number are twelve and twenty-two.

Twelve is a higher octave of the number three. It is considered to be the ancient number of completion and is an indicator of great understanding and creative capacity. Twelve can also foreshadow one being sacrificed for the plans or intrigues of others.

Lisa: Okay, so how cool is this? All this time I thought I was clueless but it turns out I have great understanding. I can dig it. But the best part: I totally want to be sacrificed for the plans or intrigues of others! And I'm totally writing that book.

Twenty-two is a master number. It is a powerful number and often known as the Master Builder. Twenty-two’s are idealists and visionaries with the ability to manifest dreams into reality through vision and faith. It can also be a warning number, however, indicating a good person, a dreamer of dreams, who can become stuck in a fool's paradise.

Lisa: You've GOT to be making this up. All this dream talk is pretty dead on, no? "Manifest dreams into reality through vision and faith?" Right on. "Dreamer of dreams?" If I'm in a fool's paradise, don't tell me! Cuz it's awesome here.

Your name number is three. The number three indicates someone who is artistic, social, friendly, but in some cases, wasteful. Threes tend to be creative, sensitive, ambitious and intuitive.

All of the above. Including wasteful.

Fun times, Gerb!

Thanks for partying, Lisa!

You can read more about Lisa at her website, lisamcmann.com.

Today's party prize: An advanced readers copy of WAKE UNTO ME by Lisa Cache.

Friday, March 05, 2010

FF - GONE by Lisa McMann

Today's Freebie Friday format will be a little different.

We're celebrating Lisa McMann today. Lisa's a friend I met through the Backspace writers' hangout. She's as funny, genuine and real in person as she is online. And she's a New York Times best selling author. All the books have hit the NYT, USA Today and Amazon bestseller lists and her WAKE series is sitting pretty at #10 on the NYT series list (huge! Yay, Lisa!)

Besides admiring her writing and really liking her as a person, here's another reason why I think Lisa rocks. (Remember I said I'd tell you later?) At the risk of being really presumptuous, I asked Lisa - as she was gearing up to go on tour with GONE, no less - if she could read TRANCE and possibly give me a blurb for the cover. I have to tell you, I was really hesitant about asking her because she has sooo much going on. But Lisa was very gracious about it (as always. I've never known her to not be completely supportive and generous with her time). So here's the blurb as she wrote it:
A fast-paced, heartwrenching paranormal thriller co-starring
a sexy
motorcycle-riding guy who plays piano?
This is seriously my kind of
book. TRANCE is addictive.
Woot! She liked it! Now as these things go, the publiser condensed the blurb a little for the front cover. So this is what you'll see:
BUT - this post isn't about TRANCE. Back to GONE!
Here's the official blurb:

Things should be great for Janie--she has graduated from high school and is spending her summer with Cabel, the guy she's totally in love with. But deep down she's panicking about how she's going to survive her future when getting sucked into other people's dreams is really starting to take its toll. Things get even more complicated when she meets her father for the very first time--and he's in a coma. As Janie uncovers his secret past, she begins to realize that the choice thought she had has more dire consequences than she ever imagined.

Seriously, this book is sooo good.

AND, you're going to want to pay attention to Lisa in the coming year because her next book - a standalone called CRYER'S CROSS - sounds like it's going to be filled with shivery goodness, too. You won't want to miss it.

And, all you MG fans, watch for her MG series (2011) called THE UNWANTEDS. It's one of those fabulous concepts that, when she was telling us about it, I was like, man! I wish I'd thought of that!

In short, Lisa is brilliant.

Okay, now for the interview: Instead of the regular format, I'll share some of the questions/answers from the signing on Tuesday:

What's up with the timestamps in the books?
Although it isn't spelled out in the books, this is because when Janie is sucked into a dream, she would be very aware of the time she was "out" and as such, checking the time. (Which is exactly what Ashlyn does in TRANCE! But again, this post is not about my book...)

Why did you decide to write about dreams?
The books actually grew from a dream Lisa had one night where she was inside her husband's dream. She woke up and thought it would be an interesting concept for a story and wrote it down on the little notepad she keeps on her bedside table.

Are any of your characters based on people you know?
Captain and Sir in particular as based on people Lisa knows. She also said that there's parts of her in both Janie and Cabe and that her son was a big inspiration for Cabe.

Why did you choose that social class for Janie and Cabe?
Lisa covered this in depth on Holly Cupala's 'story secrets' a little while ago. Basically, she loves to root for the underdog so she gave them underdog challenges.

What books are you reading now/ what books to you recommend?
HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN ROBOT by Natalie Standiford
FAT CAT by Robin Brande
JUMPING OFF SWINGS by Jo Knowles
20 BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler
THE MARK by Jen Nadol

Up for grabs this week: a signed copy of GONE! To be entered to win, leave a comment below telling me either 1.) why you love Lisa McMann or 2.) how much you want to read GONE. This contest will remain open until Wednesday, March 10.