Summer Blog Promo Tour #3: Flo from Book Nerds Across America

So, today is the second week of the Summer Blog Promo Tour, hosted by the wonderful blog, The Book Bratz (seriously, they're awesome). This tour is exactly what it sounds like--bloggers promoting other bloggers! Every Sunday of July and August, a different blogger will be stopping by with a fun post to let you get to know more about them! And, of course, every week I will doing fun stuff on other people's blogs, so make sure to give them a gander.

Today, I'm excited to be interviewing Flo from Book Nerds Across America!

Hey Flo! Welcome to my little corner of the internet. I'm super stoked you're stopping by!

I'm not gonna ease into it. I'm gonna start with the most important question of all—are you right- or left-handed?


Whoa! You were not kidding! That was from zero to sixty in less than .5 seconds. Slow down there, partner!

Anyway, I am right-handed, which means I can sit anywhere I want at the dinner table and still worry about hitting people with my elbows because I'm just clumsy.

Do you have a pet dragon? If so, what is its name? If not, what would you name a pet dragon if you got one?


I don't have any pets, because I travel too much so anything living in my care would likely starve....except a dragon! You are giving me all kinds of ideas, Lefty. Dragons are pretty self sufficient, aren't they?! Do dragons eat alligators? I live in Florida and we have a lot of alligators around here. If I could convince my dragon to survive on a diet of lizards and gators, I think he'd be just fine.

What is a song lyric (or a few) you feel really speaks to you?


Wow, so many! I'll go with the first two that popped into my mind. From one of my most favorite songs, The Dance by Garth Brooks: “Our lives are better left to chance: I could have missed the pain, but I'd of have to miss the Dance.” When I moved away to college, a good friend of mine made me a picture with the lyrics from “When You Come Back Down” by Nickel Creek: “Take every chance you dare, I'll still be there, when you come back down.”


If you could be a character on any TV show, which TV show would you pick?


Hmm...I don't actually watch a lot of TV, so this one is a bit harder for me to think of....I'm legit blanking right now. Let me come back to this later.

According to your blog, you're a fan of quirky fictional YA guys (aren't we all??). Care to tell me a few of your favorites?


So, so many! Some of my quirky favorites are Cricket from Lola and the Boy Next Door (Stephanie Perkins); Levi from Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell); Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars (John Green). Those are the three quirkiest guys I can think of off the top of my head.

How did you start blogging?


I wasn't involved in any fandoms until The Hunger Games. When I got into those books, I discovered forums and expanded my Twitter account to include new book-loving friends. I became super close with a girl named Mary. One day Mary created a book review blog for us on a whim, and I immediately set to work on decorating it. The first iteration of Book Nerds Across America was born.


What is the last book you purchased?


I believe it was Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine.

If you could meet any one author (dead or alive) what would you say to them or ask them?


Ooo...J.K. Rowling. I would ask her how she held on to hope when she was living in her car and writing Harry Potter on napkins. It takes a strong person to persevere, to believe in something so much to see it through when the chips are down, and I admire that so much. I'd love to talk with her more about it and hear stories about what she was thinking when she came up with certain people, spells, scenes, etc.

If you could pick the next novel/series that got adapted into a movie, what would you choose?


I think the Gallagher Academy series by Ally Carter would be a cute Freeform-type show. The Lunar Chronicles would be great if it was done right, but I would be so scared to see it. Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer's Between the Lines would also be a good cheesy TV fantasy movie. Unbreakable by Kami Garcia might be cool on the big screen.


Okay, now it's time for our lightning round!


Contemporary or fantasy? Both! (Depends on my mood!)

Boots or sandals? Sandals! (I live in Florida!)

Llamas or alpacas? Llamas! (Llama, llama, duck!)

Crayons or colored pencils? Crayons! (As long as they don't revolt!: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16101018-the-day-the-crayons-quit?ac=1&from_search=true)

Favorite emoji? ;-p


Song stuck in your head at the moment? Llama llama duck! (See above. I blame you, Lefty!)



Currently reading? Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare! (And loving it!)

Thanks so much for stopping by, Flo! I hope you enjoyed this interview! I did! Thanks so much for having me!

Live and Let Psi Book Blitz: Giveaway & Interview with D.R. Rosensteel

Hi everyone! I'm really thrilled that Entangled TEEN allowed me the opportunity to participate in the book blitz for D.R. Rosensteel's Live and Let Psi. This is the second book in a lesser-known series that I believe deserves much more attention than it gets. Here's the schedule, so you can follow along with the rest of the tour!!

Live and Let Psi by D.R. Rosensteel

(Psi Fighter Academy #2)

Published: July 11, 2016 by Entangled TEEN

Genre: YA superhero/romance

Pages: 340

Summary: 
Rinnie Noelle would rather kick some creepy villain butt than go on a date. As a Psi Fighter trained in the Mental Arts, she can’t be distracted by emotion. Her nemesis, Nicolaitan, is manipulating students from her school, using them as puppets to carry out his new plan to find the infamous Morgan Girl, and he doesn’t care who becomes collateral damage in the process. People’s lives are depending on Rinnie’s ultimate focus.

But Mason Draudimon keeps slicing into her soul sharper than a Thought Saber, and her feelings for him knock her off her game with the strength of a psionic War Hammer. Mason insists on helping Rinnie take down Nicolaitan for his own reasons—to avenge his mother—and the closer they get to the truth, the more dangerous the dance between mind and heart, life and death, logic and love.

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo

You can find an excerpt on the Entangled website!

INTERVIEW

Welcome, D.R. I'm so excited to have you on The Left-Handed Book Lover today!

Thanks, it’s a pleasure to be here!

First thing's first: Are you right- or left-handed? 

Depends. I use a sword in my right hand and a shield in my left.

Now, word on the street is that before writing this series, you were a research consultant. I'm not exactly sure what that entails, but it sounds a lot different than writing a YA novel. What was it like to transition from technical papers to YA adventure stories? Did you face any major challenges?

The transition from writing boring, technically-abundant facts and figures to exciting, action-filled battle scenes and snappy dialogue was invigorating, revitalizing, inspiring, and all those other synonyms for “WOW, this is a blast!” The major challenge was learning a different form of writing. A well-written technical paper has tight sentences with clear, concise wording. That’s necessary for writing YA adventure, but I also had to learn how to put a story together, how to create characters that people could relate to, and how to write dialogue that doesn’t suck.

Bullying is a major element of your series. What do you hope the teens reading will take away from this?

My message to kids who feel different is simple. Stick together. We have the rest of the world outnumbered. Bullies are cowards. They don’t like it when their victims stand together. My message to bullies is also simple. You have a choice. Use your powers for good, not evil. Stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves.

Can you tell us a little bit about what the Psi Fighters and Mental Arts are?

The Psi Fighters are a secret society of protectors. They wear high-tech masks and armor to keep their identities secret and their bodies unharmed (usually). Over the years, the Psi Fighters have taken on covert missions against dictators, evil organizations, and crime lords. They operate from a training complex hidden hundreds of feet beneath the city in a section of the abandoned mines which, according to official records, doesn’t exist. It requires years of intense training in the Mental Arts before a Psi Fighter is awarded a mission. Rinnie Noelle is the youngest Psi Fighter ever to achieve a black belt and take on a mission.

The Mental Arts are the source of a Psi Fighter’s power. Unfortunately, they are also the source of a Walpurgis Knight’s power. They can be used to hurt or heal. Kung fu, aikido, jujitsu, yoga, acupuncture, shiatsu, reiki, all have their origins in the Mental Arts. Sad to say, so do black magic and voodoo. The real power of all these arts comes from the mind. As the Kilodan says, “The ability to break inanimate objects is irrelevant. It requires nothing more than a bit of brawn. Breaking an opponent who is physically superior to you requires quite another talent.” Masters of the Mental Arts make weapons from their thoughts and emotions. Each Psi Weapon is unique. Some disrupt the opponent’s perception. Others affect their memory or distort their reasoning. All tug at emotion in one form or another. The Psi Fighters have invented a technology to help them form Psi Weapons. They call it the Amplifier. It looks like a fountain pen or some other ordinary, everyday object. Easy to carry, easy to hide, completely undetectable. For a long time, only Psi Fighters who had mastered the Mental Arts could turn their thoughts into physical weapons. But with the invention of the Amplifier, the fledgling black belt has the ability as well. The technology behind it is very intricate, from the silver and gold encephalographic electrodes to the resonating core, which amplifies the Psi Fighter’s thoughts. Pure Emotions form Psi Weapons that are used for good. Dark Emotions are the choice of the Walpurgis Knights, the Psi Fighters’ fiercest enemy. Psi Fighters don’t do Dark Emotions.

Once this series is finished, do you think you'll be working on more YA fiction? 

The manuscript for the third book in the Psi Fighter series, titled The Psi Who Loved Me, is scheduled to be completed by October 1. The book will be released in early 2017. That’s the final book in the trilogy, but I have three more Psi Fighter stories in the works.

I’m also working on a totally new series tentatively titled “Geek Wars.” It’s a modern-day sci-fi thriller romance series for teens, where the main characters are absolutely brilliant with science, but totally clueless when it comes to boy-girl relationships. A top-secret government agency called ORDER asks three brainiac brothers to team up with three girl geniuses to help fight a war of the minds. A group of equally intelligent teens known as HAVOC has stolen sensitive US government information to invent a machine capable of destroying a city. Plenty of action, romance, and comic relief. Imagine The Big Bang Theory characters with James Bond missions.



LIGHTNING ROUND!!
Salsa or guacamole? Guac. I just like the sound of it.

Pet dragon or pet unicorn? Unicorn. Better magic.

Gif: soft 'g' or hard 'g'? Potato, potawto

What was the last book you read? Touching Fate by Brenda Drake

Do you have any pets? Yes, I have a tank full of minnows.

What are your plans for world domination? 

Once the Psi Fighter Academy series is on the Big Screen, the villains of the world will turn themselves in willingly for a chance to star in one of the films. After they play the part of a Psi Fighter, they’ll understand why Good will always conquer Evil. Then they’ll fill their social media with messages to the other bad guys who haven’t seen the movies, and evil will finally go the way of the dodo bird.

That's all I've got! Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to more Psi Fighter awesomeness!

Thanks for having me!

D.R. is such a funny, entertaining guy, and that definitely shines through in his books. I'm currently read the first book in the series Psi Another Day and it's a lot of fun. Quick, witty, and fun! 

Live and Let Psi Gift Basket Giveaway, featuring: a signed copy of Psi Another Day, a Psi Fighter tshirt, a Psi Fighter hoodie, a Psi Fighter backpack, and a Psi Fighter Amplifier, a device that allows Psi Fighters trained in the Mental Arts to create weapons out of their thoughts!

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