I remade the cover. The old one was bugging me. I like this one better, but what do you guys think? (previous cover is here: http://lifeisinexpressible.blogspot.com/2013/05/cover-reveal-on-midnight-streets-my.html)

Attribution: Cover design by me. Girl silhouette made using stock image courtesy of liam-stock on dA. Boy silhouette made using stock image courtesy of CathleenTarawhiti on dA Background texture courtesy of Lost and Taken. Gear brushes made using stock images courtesy of mossi889 and n-gon-stock on dA.

I absolutely LOVE all of these stock artists. dA stock just makes my day :D

Erm. Now I suppose I owe it to all of my lovely readers to describe this new novel. (Especially the wonderful Anorastar, who specifically commented "I WANT TO READ IT" on the previous post. This one's for you, Anora! I will be posting the novel on Figment this summer as I get more and more into it.)

Hmm, where to start?

The novel is narrated in first-person present tense, with most chapters being from my heroine's point of view but once in a while you'll get a supporting character chapter. It's the first in what I plan on being a quartet, called The Bloodlace Quartet.

So I guess first we have our heroine, Chantilly Rosewater. I suppose she's fairly introverted, has a really weird internal conflict going on just now, seventeen years old, slightly depressed, bookish, writerly (YES SHE'S AN AUTHOR JUST LIKE YOU AND ME), sarcastic when she needs to be, plain-faced, purple-eyed, etc. I think I kind of like how she's turning out.

The book's a fantasy with steampunk elements. The setting is loosely based off of Victorian and Regency England. (I read so much steampunk and Jane Austen and it's finally getting to me.)

The thing is, Chantilly is just a middle-class girl working in a small bookshop. AT FIRST. But then...

Okay, you know what? Since I'm here, why don't I try my hand at an official summary?

A girl and her notebook, a boy and his hat, thievery, love, clockwork, corruption, the rich and the poor, and rebellion seething in a divided city.

Chantilly Rosewater thinks she's been thrown out of her element when her family inherits a massive estate in the wealthy sector, the Upper City. However, she finds that inheritance is nothing compared to being kidnapped on her wedding day. By the most notorious thief in the city of Peralton.

But the Midnight Hatter is not all that he seems, and soon Chantilly is working with him and his band of strangely likable cohorts. What starts out as a series of simple "acts of defiance" begins to escalate until the friends find that they have a host of angry citizens who are looking to them to light the spark of revolt...

Short, admittedly, but Figment summaries are better when fairly short, I've found.

What do y'all think?

Read More

The second in that series I mentioned earlier today. A bit on the creepy side. I like how it turned out, though, with the two kind of staring at each other. This is the steampunk artwork in the "Dressing by Genre" series.

CREDITS:
The girl in the dress (same stock artist as the previous dress girl, incidentally):
http://lilystox.deviantart.com/art/Red-Dress-Ball-Gown-149415357
The skeleton:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Skeleton-Grasping-2-55484818
The background texture:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Texture-10-17913434
The gears from which I made the brushes:
http://n-gon-stock.deviantart.com/art/tech-03-gear-9117277
http://mossi889.deviantart.com/art/Gear-png-347981098

YAY. Which genre do you think I should do next?

Read More

I think this one turned out okay. :)

It was just a little spontaneous thing I did in Pixlr Editor and PicMonkey. I was experimenting with how to use Pixlr Custom Brushes.

Credits!
The girl in the dress (lovely cutout, yay):
http://lilystox.deviantart.com/art/White-Dress-Ball-Gown-149415373
The background texture:
http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Dream-texture-86290571
The hexagons used to make the brush:
http://epicalnerdybunny.deviantart.com/art/Free-Hexagon-pattern-02-371945610

That's all, I think, since I made the binary brush using text.
This might make a nice book cover. :3 It's the first in what I hope to make a series, called "Dressing by Genre".

The series would be pretty dresses representing different book genres. This would be the "science fiction genre" artwork. Sound good?

Read More

In New York City, 1897, life has never been more thrilling-or dangerous Finley Jayne and her "straynge band of mysfits" have journeyed from London to America to rescue their friend Jasper from the clutches of a devious criminal demanding a trade-the dangerous device Jasper stole from him...for the life of the girl Jasper loves. One false move from Jasper, and the strange clockwork collar around Mei's neck tightens and tightens. From the rough streets of lower Manhattan to elegant Fifth Avenue, the motley crew of teens follows Jasper's elusive trail. And they're about to discover how far they'll go for friendship. More than ever, Finley must rely on powerful English duke Griffin King to balance her dark magic with her good side. Yet Griffin is at war with himself over his secret attraction to Finley...and will risk his life and reputation to save her. Now, to help those she's come to care for so deeply, Finley must infiltrate the criminal gang. Only problem is, she might like the dark side a little too much....

The sequel didn't disappoint. :) *spoilers of Steel Corset, read at your own risk*

The Girl in the Clockwork Collar provided an intriguing, steampunk-ified picture of late-1800s America. I've always perked up at any mention of Tesla, and his "inventions" also play a role. Irish gangs, handsome and dangerous criminals, MORE EPIC AETHER STUFF, the undeniable genius of the incredible Emily, betrayal, love, a lot of fighting, I mean, what else do you need from a steampunk novel?

Finley's internal conflict isn't as interesting now that her two halves are merged. Sure, there's a bit of "Will she choose the good?" "Will she choose the bad?" but we all know that she's going to come back to the good (not that we didn't in Steel Corset but not the stakes aren't as high since Finley's dark side is definitely under control) so it was meh. Darn, I wish Emily was the MC. So much. You wouldn't even believe how much I like her. She is smart and sassy and EVERYTHING. You know? She is the kind of person I would want to be friends with.

Jasper's backstory was very neat. It was very logical (and also there was the mention of Mei's past, which immediately made me think of Daughter of Fortune, which made me happy) and provided a pretty good conflict for him. I must admit that I love the name Jasper. No particular reason.

Mmm... I don't know about Griffin. For him, now EVERYTHING IS SUDDENLY ALL ABOUT FINLEY. Only he gets all CONTROLLING. I know some people think "controlling is totally hot" or whatever, like Tobias/Four from Divergent, but personally I don't like controlling guys. And now Griffin is all,  "You cannot do anything without telling me to. Because you might DIE. Okay?" He should give Finley a little independence - after all, he's fully aware that she can manage just fine. Along with Emily. EMILY CAN MANAGE AWESOMELY.

The thing that gets me about the writing style for these two books is that it's very into-the-historical-period, perhaps a little too much so. Things like tarnation, bloody hell, etc. pop up a little too much for them to be easily readable. Then it will suddenly switch to a more modern term, which was vaguely irritating.

Anyhow, I'll see how soon I can get my hands on Iron Touch and review that for everyone. BECAUSE IT'S EMILY, GUYS.

Bye now :)

Read More

When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D.J. can't help admitting, maybe he's right. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn't so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won't even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league. When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D.J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.

Some really sweet contemporary fic to wind down my whole intense steampunk obsession.

I loved D.J. She was so candid and funny that it was really easy to step beside her and sympathize. She wasn't perfect, but she wasn't annoyingly flawed, either. She was just a person, which really got me. She had grievances and issues just like anyone. 

Brian Nelson... meh. He wasn't totally sweet or anything, nothing really special, but he had honesty to him, too. You could see that he and D.J. were cute together, although Brian as a person is somewhat doubtful.

The cow theme throughout the book was very apt and nice. D.J. becomes ambitious because she doesn't want to be like a cow, constantly doing the work that everyone tells her to do without complaint. She wants to be more important and open-minded than that.

D.J.'s family tensions were set up very nicely. Her dad, her mom, Win, Bill, Curtis - all of them had meaningful traits and failings, which was strangely likable. The secrets that they keep are logical yet hold some actual significance, which I really loved.

I know that a lot of stories set in small towns end up with the protagonist breaking out of their shell and leaving the town, but what I liked about Dairy Queen was that the MC broke out of her shell without leaving her beloved town. There's a kind of truth to that.

You can tell this review really isn't that great, but it was a nice book, even for personally-football-hating me, about finding one's family against age-old odds like gender discrimination. I would say read it. The next book is called The Off Season, but I don't know if I'll read it. Dairy Queen just ended so perfectly...

But here's a cover and summary anyways:

Life is looking up for D.J. Schwenk. She’s made it to eleventh grade, she’s reconnecting with her best friend, and she’s got kind of a thing going with Brian Nelson. Best of all, she’s playing for the Red Bend High School football team—as the first girl linebacker in northern Wisconsin.

But then the season goes suddenly, horribly wrong: her brother Win is put in the hospital by a devastating blow during a game. Once again, D.J. is forced to step up and be there for her family. As her life turns completely upside down, she discovers she’s a lot stronger than she – or anyone – ever thought.

This hilarious, heartbreaking, and ultimately triumphant sequel to the acclaimed novel Dairy Queen takes D.J. and all the Schwenks from Labor Day to an unforgettable Thanksgiving Day game.

The author describes it as "weightier in subject matter" than Dairy Queen, so I may or may not give it a shot. :)

Read More

In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one...except the "thing" inside her.When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no "normal" Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch....

Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of "them." The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her own special abilities and an unrequited love for Sam, who is part robot; and Jasper, an American cowboy with a shadowy secret.

Griffin's investigating a criminal called The Machinist, the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help--and finally be a part of something, finally fit in.

But The Machinist wants to tear Griff's little company of strays apart, and it isn't long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she's on--even if it seems no one believes her.

Recently, I've become a bit obsessed with all things VICTORIAN or STEAMPUNK (because of my new novel, which yes, I do have to get around to posting about). And this was very much both. Which made me very happy :D

Contrary to my expectations, I liked Finley (although I have to say I liked Emily more). She was basically in a Jekyll-and-Hyde position, only the change was part of her blood, not caused by potions. Her inner conflict was interesting and she wasn't a total Mary Sue, thank goodness. It was a refreshing change from the recent increase in bad MCs in popular YA, which is very disheartening. I'm actually working on my own MC's inner conflict, and I'm really not sure if I'm doing it right.

However, Emily is completely brilliant. She's all Irish and smart and strong and doesn't let boys get her down. Her accent is totally cool, too, and she creates these awesome gadgets. CLOCKWORK CATS AND STEEL CORSETS. WHO DOESN'T LOVE THAT?

The boys in this book were... interesting.

So the friend who introduced me to this series is, like, OMIGOODNESS JACK DANDY IS SO AMAZING. But I don't know about him. There's really no character development, only a smooth-talking, arrogant, sarcastic criminal, who is admittedly very handsome. Therefore by default I like Griffin better, because with him I got a whole backstory that made me care about him and HE CAN ACCESS THE AETHER. He cares so much about Finley, too. It's sweet.

Sam Morgan I didn't particularly like, though it'll be really cool to see how he and Emily develop. Jasper was pretty chill, too, and I'll be looking forward to seeing more of him in The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, book 2 of the Steampunk Chronicles.

The third book, The Girl With the Iron Touch, came out a few days ago.

So here's summaries for the next two books:

In New York City, 1897, life has never been more thrilling-or dangerous Finley Jayne and her "straynge band of mysfits" have journeyed from London to America to rescue their friend Jasper from the clutches of a devious criminal demanding a trade-the dangerous device Jasper stole from him...for the life of the girl Jasper loves. One false move from Jasper, and the strange clockwork collar around Mei's neck tightens and tightens. From the rough streets of lower Manhattan to elegant Fifth Avenue, the motley crew of teens follows Jasper's elusive trail. And they're about to discover how far they'll go for friendship. More than ever, Finley must rely on powerful English duke Griffin King to balance her dark magic with her good side. Yet Griffin is at war with himself over his secret attraction to Finley...and will risk his life and reputation to save her. Now, to help those she's come to care for so deeply, Finley must infiltrate the criminal gang. Only problem is, she might like the dark side a little too much....

I think this is my favorite cover in the series :) That clockwork collar is scary, but sooo pretty...

In 1897 London, something not quite human is about to awaken.

When mechanical genius Emily is kidnapped by rogue automatons, Finley Jayne and her fellow misfits fear the worst. What's left of their archenemy, The Machinist, hungers to be resurrected, and Emily must transplant his consciousness into one of his automatons—or forfeit her friends' lives.

With Griffin being mysteriously tormented by the Aether, the young duke's sanity is close to the breaking point. Seeking help, Finley turns to Jack Dandy, but trusting the master criminal is as dangerous as controlling her dark side. When Jack kisses her, Finley must finally confront her true feelings for him...and for Griffin.

Meanwhile, Sam is searching everywhere for Emily, from Whitechapel's desolate alleyways to Mayfair's elegant mansions. He would walk into hell for her, but the choice she must make will test them more than they could imagine.

To save those she cares about, Emily must confront The Machinist's ultimate creation—an automaton more human than machine. And if she's to have any chance at triumphing, she must summon a strength even she doesn't know she has....

Looks like this one will be about my favorite character EMILY! *squeal*

Read More