Spring Fling Blog Hop with Sibel Hodge!

What’s your favorite thing about spring? 

New beginnings and endless possibilities.

What’s the best thing about being a writer? 

Being able to make stuff up for a living. If I was in any other job I’d get the sack for lying!

What’s the worst thing about being a writer? 

I can’t think of a single thing.

Tell us more about your books. 

I write an eclectic mix of genres from YA and middle grade to chick lit, new adult romance, cozy mysteries, and psychological thrillers. I love writing about inspirational journeys, overcoming pain and trauma, and tackling women’s issues that don’t get spoken about enough.

I’m the author of No. 1 Bestseller Look Behind You. My Amber Fox Mysteries and romantic comedies Fourteen Days Later and The Baby Trap are International Bestsellers on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks.

My work has also been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Prize 2008, Highly Commended by the Yeovil Literary Prize 2009, Runner Up in the Chapter One Promotions Novel Comp 2009, nominated Best Novel with Romantic Elements in 2010 by The Romance Reviews, Runner Up in the Best Indie Books of 2012 by Indie Book Bargains, Winner of Best Children's Book by eFestival of Words 2013, and Winner of Crime, Thrillers & Mystery | Book from a series in the SpaSpa Book Awards 2013. My novella Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave has been listed as one of the Top 40 Books About Human Rights by Accredited Online Colleges.

Tell us something interesting about your main character. 

Jazz has many problems: the loss of her mother in a fatal car accident and the horrific scars which deface both her body and spirit. Jazz also blames herself for her mother's death, and she has sunk into a deep depression. Her journey leads her though conflict, controversy, drama, heroism, and life altering events, which all come together to bring in a suspenseful love story. Love for a leopard, love for wild animals, love for the environment, and ultimately love for oneself.

I’m giving away copies of my inspirational, coming of age novel The See-Through Leopard for the YA Spring Fling!

"Compelling, inspiring, magical" -- Ruth Harris, New York Times Bestselling Author 

From the No. 1 bestselling author of Look Behind You, The See-Through Leopard is an inspirational coming of age novel...

Most sixteen-year-old girls are obsessed with their looks, but Jazz Hooper's obsessed for a different reason. After a car accident that kills her mum, Jazz is left with severe facial scars and retreats into a dark depression.

Fearing what will happen if Jazz doesn't recover, her dad makes a drastic decision to move them from England to a game reserve in Kenya for a new start. And when Jazz finds an orphaned leopard cub, it sets off a chain of events that lead her on a two year journey of discovery, healing, and love.

"A percentage of the royalties from the sale of this book will be contributed to Panthera, a leading international conservation organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the world's big cats, plus other wildlife conservation groups." -- Sibel Hodge, Author

Coffee or Tea? 

Both.

Plotter or Panster?  

Panster!

Are there any books involved in the YA Spring Fling that you’re secretly lusting after? 

Too many to mention!

What was the last YA book you read?

The Fault in our Stars by John Green. 

  

What are your top tips for surviving a bad review? 

Lots of wine! No, seriously, not everyone is going to like your work. Even mega bestsellers get bad reviews so it’s natural. If there’s something constructive that gels with you, then that’s great, if not, just be pleased someone has taken the time to read your book, even if it wasn’t for them.

What are your top tips for surviving a zombie apocalypse?

Can I choose wine again?

What inspires you? 

Everything and anything. It can be a snippet of conversation, a film, a book, a magazine article. Ideas come from everywhere.

Where can readers find your books? 

They’re available from all retailers. You can find out more at my website: http://www.sibelhodge.com/

Now that you've read up on Sibel Hodge and her books, jump on over to http://www.sarahdaltonbooks.com to read about Faith McKay, another author involved in the YA Spring Fling! 

For more information on the YA Spring Fling Giveaway, check out the information below! 

The YA Spring Fling giveaway runs from March 20^th to April 3^rd and gives readers the opportunity to win ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks and swag from some of the most awesome YA writers around.

To be in with a chance of winning head over to Sarah Dalton Books after the giveaway opens.

If you sign up for the mailing list before the 20^th you’re guaranteed at least one free ebook of your choice!

Over 70 authors are participating, with over 100 books up for grabs. From contemporary romance to ghostly gothic, all kinds of YA books are covered. Find new authors to follow or grab a free book from your favorites. One thing is for certain, this spring is going to be epic for YA books! 

Thanks for swinging in.

Until next time,

Ciao.

JET

Dishing it up with Sibel Hodge

Today, I have the pleasure of dishing it up with Sibel Hodge. Sibel is an author of chick lit romances and mysteries (with the odd thriller thrown in). In her spare time she’s Wonder Woman! Sibel has proven not once, but multiple times that Romance can be funny, exciting and rather crazy at times. You’ll love her quirky characters and the situations they get themselves into.


JET: Can you tell us about Be Careful What You Wish For?

Sibel: Be Careful What You Wish For is the second book in my chick lit mystery series. Think Janet Evanovich meets Gemma Halliday…

Armed with cool sarcasm and uncontrollable hair, feisty insurance investigator Amber Fox is back in a new mystery combining murder and mayhem with romance and chicklit…

Three deaths.

A safety deposit box robbery.

The boxing heavyweight champion of the world.

Somehow, they’re all related, and Amber has to solve a four year old crime to find out why.

As she stumbles across a trail of dead bodies and a web of lies spanning both sides of the social divide, it’s starting to get personal. Someone thinks Amber’s poking her nose in where it’s not wanted, sparking off a game of fox and mouse – only this time, Amber’s the mouse.

Amber’s forced to take refuge in the home of her ex-fiancé, Brad Beckett, and now it’s not just the case that’s hotting up. So is the bedroom…

All Levi Carter wanted to be was the boxing heavyweight champion of the world, but at what cost?

All Carl Thomas wanted was to be rich, but would his greed be his downfall?

All Brad Beckett wants is to get Amber back, but there’s a reason for the ex word.

Be careful what you wish for…you might just get it.


JET: What drew you to romantic comedy?

Sibel: I think my personality dictated that I write chick lit. I’m fun-loving and I’ve always loved to make people laugh. I’m a big fan of screwball comedy so my books have a lot of quirky, slapstick comedy in them.

JET: What’s been your most challenging hurdle on the road to publication?

Sibel: Getting people to notice your books. Considering there are over 900,000 books on Amazon Kindle, it’s pretty daunting. Unless you’re very lucky, it won’t happen overnight. I think patience is the key, and it takes a lot of time and effort to market yourself and your books.

JET: What was your favorite moment in the journey?

Sibel: Seeing my books on sale for the first time. It was scary, exciting, rewarding, and mind-blowing all in one.

JET: Which authors had the most influence over you growing up?

Sibel: When I was younger I read things like Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers series. But are far as influences on my writing; that would have to be authors like Sophie Kinsella, Janet Evanovich, Marian Keyes, and Catherine Alliott.

JET: When did you know you wanted to take the plunge into the writing world?

Sibel: Ever since I was old enough to scrawl my first word, which was Halibaaaaa, I knew I wanted to write books. OK, so the word didn’t actually make sense, and it might take a little longer for me to actually string a whole sentence together, but that didn’t put me off. I was going to write books and no one would stop me…

JET: What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of book research? Most interesting fact you uncovered?

Sibel: I worked for the police for ten years so I actually use a lot of my experiences in my chick lit mystery series. But the most interesting and scary facts were when I was researching for my novella, Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave. It was inspired by the story of victims’ of human trafficking. It is estimated that 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year – 80% of these are women and girls. (Source: U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report: 2007) - pretty scary, huh? But even scarier is that it’s going on right under your nose. Trafficked is about as far away from chick lit as chocolate is from the moon, but I wanted to raise awareness in a subject that is all too often forgotten about.

JET: Of all the novels and stories you’ve written - which one is your favorite? Why?

Sibel: Aw, that’s so hard. They’re all my babies and I love them in different ways. Nope…I just can’t choose!

JET: Any advice (from a writer’s standpoint) for the novices out there?

Sibel: First off, they need to make sure their work is as good as it can be. You need to hire a professional editor – this is a must! After I wrote my first novel Fourteen Days Later I sent it off to two literary consultancies and the Romantic Novelists’ Association to be critiqued, and had it edited professionally, because I didn’t have a clue how to actually write a novel! I’d never done any creative writing courses, I just knew I wanted to write. Yes, it costs money, but if you’re serious about writing, you need to know what you’re doing right or wrong to improve your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

You need to read as much as you can so you can recognize good writing.

A good cover and blurb is essential for hooking a reader. When I put up my first two books through Amazon I had covers that I’d made with a Lulu cover creator. They were OK, but they could have been better, and I’ve since published them with new covers. The cost of getting a cover done can be cheap or expensive. I now get my covers from places like iStock Photos and cost around $50 dollars to produce, but it’s definitely worth it.

Authors should definitely read blogs like Writers Guide To Epublishing: www.thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/
And join forums for authors and readers like Kindleboards: http://www.kindleboards.com/
The ebook Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran is a must read, too: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/lets-get-digital/

JET: All right - now that I’ve hammered you with the big questions, let’s tackle my favorite (and geeky) quick ten...starting with…Paper or Plastic?

Sibel: Paper

JET: Steak or Tofu?

Sibel: Tofu

JET: Beach or Mountains?

Sibel: Beach

JET: Country or Rock-n-Roll?

Sibel: Neither!

JET: Leather or Lace?

Sibel: Both!

JET: Angels or Demons?

Sibel: Angels

JET: Paper or Digital?

Sibel: Oooh, digital!

JET: Silent Film Classics or Cheesy B Rated Horror?

Sibel: Cheesy B Rated Horror

JET: Twilight or True Blood?

Sibel: True Blood.

JET: Coffee or Tea?

Sibel: It used to be iced coffee, now it’s green tea.

JET: Thank you for indulging me. Before we wrap this up, can you tell us what you're working on now? What's next?

Sibel: Thanks so much for having me! I’m working on my fifth chick lit novel called The Baby Trap. When Gina turns 33, her body clock starts ticking in her ear with annoying persistence. The only problem is, having a baby isn’t as easy as she always thought. As Gina becomes more and more obsessed with the B-word, her quest to conceive takes her on a rollercoaster journey and threatens to destroy her marriage. Because it’s about a couple going through infertility problems, it’s obviously got a good dose of sadness mixed in with the humor. A lot of it is based my own experiences with infertility.

JET: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat on my blog. Folks, you can find out more about Sibel Hodge and her work at the following places: her Website, her Blog, or her Facebook page.

Next week I’ve got J.R. Tomlin and Harper Alibeck on tap! Swing in and say hi!

Until then,

Ciao

JET

First Friday - and April Fool's Day to boot!

Happy April Fool’s Day!


April 1st and I’ve survived a month of my daughter’s driving. The weather is poised to warm up this month – or so they say. As I write this blog it is freezing outside and I’m itching for the warmer New England weather. So light a fire and curl up with one of these books until spring shows her warm face…

J.E. Taylor - Hunting Season - Available Now!

When Kyle Winslow escapes from custody and targets everyone Special Agent Steve Williams cares about, a turn of fate brings Steve face to face with Ty Aris – a criminal mastermind topping the FBI’s most wanted list. Torn between justice and vengeance, Steve must make a decision. Join alliances with Ty, or arrest him and lose his best chance to catch the bastard who destroyed his family.


"Unstoppable, breath stealing, and terrifying all at once." - Cat Connor, author of killerbyte, terrorbyte, and exacerbyte.

"Hunting Season goes where few venture, mixing a compelling crime thriller with supernatural forces. The action and drama is thick and fast and I guarantee you will not be able to put this book down." - Poppet, author of Seithe and Darkroom.

Jonathan Maberry – The King of Plagues – March 29, 2011

Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Joe Ledger meets the this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.

Ty Drago- The Undertakers – Rise of the Corpses – April 1, 2011

"On a sunny Wednesday morning in October, a day that would mark the end of one life and the beginning of another, I found out my grouchy next door neighbor was the walking dead. When you turn around expecting to see something familiar, and instead see something else altogether, it takes a little while for your brain to catch up with your eyes. I call it the 'Holy Crap Factor.'"

Forced to flee his home and family, twelve-year-old Will Ritter falls in with the Undertakers-a rag-tag army of teenage resistance fighters who've banded together to battle the Corpses.

Brett Battles – The Silenced – April 5, 2011

Professional “cleaner” Jonathan Quinn has a new client and an odd job: find and remove the remains of a body hidden twenty years ago inside the walls of a London building, before the building is demolished.

But Quinn and his team are being watched. Suddenly caught in the cross fire between two dangerous rivals, Quinn must unravel the identity of the body and why it still poses so great a threat even in death. Because a plot stretching from the former Soviet Union to Hong Kong, from Paris to London, from Los Angeles to Maine, is rapidly falling apart. And Quinn hasn’t been hired just to tie up loose ends—he is one.

Jael McHenry – The Kitchen Daughter – April 12, 2011

After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning (“do no let her…”) before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish.

A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.

Various Artists – With Love – March 22, 2011

A short while ago, when the news and images of the Japanese earthquake found its way into our homes through that same internet and on our TV screens, we watched bodies being recovered. We watched homes being swept away. Some of us shed tears, some were stunned, but we all wanted to do *something*, anything, something....

We wanted to reach out, to help.

But we're not wealthy, we're not trained in search, rescue or other emergency services. We have families and jobs that we can't just leave...

But we can write. We can edit and we can publish.

We are a group of talented writers and some of us have donated our words, someone donated a cover, some have donated time, some have donated editing skills, Ethics Trading has donated the publishing portal, and we have pulled together this ebook of a selection of our work.

While working on this project we realised that although Japan was the trigger and the inspiration, we wanted to establish an ongoing project to aid disaster relief and aid across the globe - so proceeds from sales of this project will be offered to Medecins Sans Frontieres, (Doctors without borders) to support the work they do.

Thank you for your support. It really does mean a lot.
Sarah Barnard
Freelance Author and Publisher.

Sibel Hodge – Be Careful What you Wish For – April 2011

Armed with cool sarcasm and uncontrollable hair, feisty insurance investigator Amber Fox is back in a new mystery combining murder and mayhem with romance and chicklit…

Three deaths.
A safety deposit box robbery.
The boxing heavyweight champion of the world.

Somehow, they’re all related, and Amber has to solve a four year old crime to find out why.

As she stumbles across a trail of dead bodies and a web of lies spanning both sides of the social divide, it’s starting to get personal. Someone thinks Amber’s poking her nose in where it’s not wanted, sparking off a game of fox and mouse – only this time, Amber’s the mouse.

Amber’s forced to take refuge in the home of her ex-fiancé, Brad Beckett, and now it’s not just the case that’s hotting up. So is the bedroom…

All Levi Carter wanted to be was the boxing heavyweight champion of the world, but at what cost?
All Carl Thomas wanted was to be rich, but would his greed be his downfall?
All Brad Beckett wants is to get Amber back, but there’s a reason for the ex word.

Be careful what you wish for…you might just get it.

Georina Young-Ellis - The Time Baroness - April 2011

It started out as such a simple experiment: time-travel to Jane Austen’s England, live a quiet, rural life as a woman of independent means, observe and notate. I never thought I would fall in love or... end up planning a prison break! When did everything go so terribly wrong?

October 24, 1820 - Dr. Cassandra Reilly



 

 

Susanne Dunlap - In the Shadow of the Lamp – April 12, 2011

It's 1854 and sixteen-year-old Molly would give anything to change her circumstances as a lowly servant in a posh London house. So when she hears of an opportunity to join the nurses who will be traveling with Florence Nightingale to the Crimea, she jumps at the chance. The work is grueling, the hospital conditions deplorable, and Miss Nightingale a demanding teacher. Before long, the plight of British soldiers becomes more than just a mission of mercy as Molly finds that she's falling in love with both a dashing young doctor and a soldier who has joined the army to be near her. But with the battle raging ever nearer, can Molly keep the two men she cares for from harm? A love story to savor, and a fascinating behind-the-scenes imagining of the woman who became known as “the lady with the lamp”.

Next week, I have Susan Helene Gottfried here to talk about her latest book.

Until then,

Ciao

JET