Middle Grade Writing projects

I suddenly find myself writing stories aimed more for Middle Grade compared to my normal New Adult and Young Adult works. I don't know what exactly happened. One day I was writing vampire tales, the next i had writers block, and now I have a short Middle Grade done and I'm working on the next. This is the oddest turn of events.

A fresh story sometimes is what the doctor calls for.

The first Middle Grade story I wrote and have set off to the side until I can figure out what to do with it is, 'The Adventures of Kyle and Jordan' book one, My Neighbor's a Vampire. And yes, I said book one. :) I can easily see this as being a series and have already written out a couple of different plot ideas for the next books. If I go anywhere with those I'll let you know.

My next work is the Series Clover Honeysweet, following a girl, turned business owner, turned ghost after drinking tea made by her business partner, Voodoo Mama. It's a funny and charming story with a cast of characters that will keep you coming back for more. My favorite character so far is the werewolf boy Izzy who has to wear a hair net. Yes, the cast are young and going through some very serious matters, such as loan sharks, spirit police, rabbit slime pest control, and much more as they try and keep the Sweet shop up and running.

Two very different stories with characters I adore. I wonder what they will do by the end of today. ...Most likely they will get in trouble and give me a heart attack, but you gotta love them.

Book 1: A Steady Pulse

Book 2: Barely Beating

---------------------------------------

Brenda Franklin

Purchase my products from the links below

The Pulse Trilogy

(Paranormal Romance Trilogy)
A Steady Pulse Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

Barely Beating Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

Flat Line Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

Book 3: Flat Line

Guardian, a Fated Pairing

Guardian, A Fated Pairing
(Paranormal Romance)
Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

More to come:
Adventures of Kyle and Jordan
(Middle Grade)
Clover Honeysweet
(Middle Grade)

Book Review: Checkmate by Diana Nixon

Title: Checkmate

Author: Diana Nixon

Rating: 5/5

(18 and Above)

Synopsis:

Smart, beautiful and ambitious, Scarlett Wilson never thought that trouble could be that irresistible. After she wakes up in a handsome stranger’s bed, with nothing but the vague memories of the night they spent together, her life changes tremendously. What she thought was the biggest mistake ever, turns out to be the only thing her body and mind would never let her forget. 

Who would have thought that the only witness to Scarlett’s night adventures would become the new head of her father’s company that she had been dreaming to head for years? The owner of the most gorgeous face and the most impossible temper ever, Dominick Altier will make the wildest of her fantasies come true…

Is falling in love with the devil worth giving up dreams and betraying principles?

Will setting the rules help retain dignity?

Or will losing a match become the only way to win the game?

----------REVIEW----------

Nothing gets the blood pumping more than a devilishly handsome man speaking French and a couple of drinks. J Let the games begin!

Scarlett Wilson wasn’t planning any of it when she walked into The Black Rose (club) with her best friend. Needless to say she ended up alone until Mr. sleek, charming, and dangerous stepped up to the table. He couldn’t resist this vivacious woman and after a few drinks Scarlett wakes up in bed with the man and not the best memory of the night before. Talk about a nightmare!

She leaves and tries to return to her normal life of work until she meets the new man working for her dad’s company, Dominick Altier. Oh, she knows this man; he’s the same one from the night before. Now, with the world crashing down around her, Scarlett has to play Dominick’s mental and physical game.

These two were opposites and so similar with their determination and how hard they worked. The tension at times was dipping off the pages and then Diana tosses in these fun side characters and situations that are so humorous. Again I find myself naming one of her characters someone in my life. It would have to be Dominick’s brother, Oliver. Yep, I’ve got a BFF with his personality and I think that’s what draws people to Diana’s writing. To turn and look at the people in your life and see them reflected in Diana’s writing means the lady knows her stuff and how to bring that real world connection into her writing. Her characters make you smile, laugh, and get frustrated. They make you lust, crave, and desire in ways only a good book or a great lover can do. :) Man, I love a good romance.

Diana has put together another great plot building a relationship between two characters that I thought would become volatile, but in a way it worked. The characters grew to love one another with such intensity. Haha I think I probably would have burned Dominick’s office with him in it after he threatened her with blackmail. Yeah, you heard me. He tried to black mail our leading lady! Team Scarlett supporter here. But by the end I was so glad she didn’t. He really was made to be her equal.

I am never disappointed when reading your books Diana and I continue to wish you the best of luck in all your future works. Keep bringing the same passion and love to everything you create.

---------------------------------LINKS-------------------------------

Read chapter one of Checkmate:

http://diananixon.blogspot.com/2014/07/checkmate-cover-chapter-1-release.html

Buy Checkmate:

Amazon

itunes

About the author:

Diana Nixon is the author of fantasy and contemporary romances. She was born in Minsk, Belarus, where she currently lives. In 2008 she graduated from Belorussian state University. She has a Master of Law degree and speaks several foreign languages, including English, Polish, and Spanish.

To learn more about Diana Nixon or to buy her works:

Main website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pintrest,

Love Lines:
Ebook or Paperback

Songs of the wind:
Ebook or Paperback
From Scratch:
Ebook or Paperback
Diamond Sky:
Ebook or Paperback

The Souls of Rain (Heavens Trilogy 1)
Ebook or Paperback
The Prisoners of Dreams (Heavens Trilogy 1.5)
Ebook or Paperback
Hate at First Sight (A Contemporary Romance)
Ebook or Paperback
Love Undone
Ebook

-Brenda Franklin, Author of the Pulse Trilogy and Guardian, A Fated Pairing

Book Review: Warm Bodies

Title: Warm Bodies

Author: Isaac Marion

Rating: 5 out of 5

About

R is a young man with an existential crisis--he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse. Just dreams. 

After experiencing a teenage boy's memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim's human girlfriend. Julie is a burst of vibrant color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that R lives in. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world...

Scary, funny, and surprisingly poignant, Warm Bodies is about being alive, being dead and the blurry line in between.

-----------------REVIEW------------------

I hate zombie movies and books and I get very bad nightmares when I think about them, but this story was nothing at all of what I expected. I was taken into a world I wouldn’t want to enter and forced to endure a life as a Zombie as R’s companion. I endured much with him. I slowly remembered how to do the most basic of things and take joy in them. To connect. To smile. To laugh. To love. To fight. And the most important one of all, to live.

Warm Bodies is a spectacular journey of a broken world regaining life. Staring two of the most unlikeliest of allies, a human and a zombie, who grow to be more and will change the world.

R isn’t your average Zombie. He eats people, sure, but he also looks at the world differently and wonders about things that used to be though his memory isn’t what it used to be and he can’t recall anything of his past or even what his name was. He lives his day to day life stumbling around and enjoying what little of humanity has survive, such as riding a conveyor belt or sitting in the front of a car. He understand the basics of gassing up a car, perhaps what buildings used to be, listening to music, or watching a movie…even though it’s usually not the best movie, but he’s a zombie. He doesn’t care about ratings on a movie or the amount of clothing for that matter. They are all just walking rotting meats that will one day rest and never awaken. Enjoy life how it is, because death really is the end of all things… but is there more?

After a hunt into the city R and a small group of zombies hunt down the hunters (humans) and feast like any normal event, but something is different about the brain R is consuming. He feels different he knows things that the sweetest part of the body, the brain, allows him to catch glimpse of as if he had become human and lived them himself and he loves it. Zombies’ love that euphoric feeling they get when eating the brain, but this one is strong, the strongest. R is left with a girl’s name in his mind and that very girl happens to be in front of him.

R can’t help the feelings surging through him and decides to save the girl’s life from his fellow zombies and takes her back to his place, a plane, where he can keep her safe.

Slowly Julie and R begin to bond and something changes. R is changing and he’s not the only one affected. What could this mean? And is it a good thing?

I’ve never fallen so much in love with a zombie before, but this is definitely one relationship I won’t be forgetting. I highly recommend this book.

Book 1: A Steady Pulse

Book 2: Barely Beating

---------------------------------------

Brenda Franklin

Purchase my products from the links below

The Pulse Trilogy

(Paranormal Romance Trilogy)
A Steady Pulse Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

Barely Beating Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

Flat Line Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

Book 3: Flat Line

Guardian, a Fated Pairing

Guardian, A Fated Pairing
(Paranormal Romance)
Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

More to come:
The Middle-Lands
A Young Adult Fantasy series

Review: Grave Illusions by Lina Gardner

Grave Illusions

Lina Gardiner's website

I really loved the concept of your leading lady, Jess, being saved by her brother through baptism. It was a completely different take on the world of vampires than anything I've read recently--something I found so refreshing. Though her outfit is a bit ridiculous for fighting, and I mean more so the six inch heels with the built in spike, who doesn't like having a woman in leather kicking butt? I would have gone with cotton because it breaths, but we all have our different tastes.

You’re leading man, John Britain, is like any other man who was kicked off the force for having ‘accidently’ killed his partner, never going to prison because the body went missing, sends money to his dead ex-partners grieving widow anonymously, divorced from his cheating wife, drinks too much, and lives in a crummy apartment working as a night taxi driver. I think that just about covers it all! But he’s a hell of a man that begins to straighten up his life when Jess offers him a job after almost seducing him at the beginning. The down side is that for the first twenty percent of the book you are going back and forth between Jess trying to recruit John as a vampire hunter and John unable to make up his mind about it because he not only wants to know more information but doesn't feel he deserves a second chance to work with the police.

As an added plus to the book, there were plenty of moments with sexual tension--though I was rooting for more in that department. Not to mention enough fights and surprises to keep you coming back for more. I know I did!

It was a fast read and easy to follow until you got to the last fifteen percent. Things began to not add up in conversation and some actions I wanted to ask the characters themselves, “what about that made sense” or “where’s the other guy”.  Though a few started to not add up, and the battles seemed lacking at the very end, I found it to still be a good and enjoyable read.

I give this book a four out of five and I would recommend this to several people.

By Brenda Franklin author of the Pulse Trilogy. Twitter, FB, and goodreads to learn more about me and my works.

Review Sherrilyn Kenyon’s book Devil May Cry

I just finished reading Sherrilyn Kenyon’s book Devil May Cry from the Dark-Hunter series for the second time and I couldn’t get enough of it! After reading several of her works it dosen’t surprise me in the least to learn that she has appeared on the Top Ten list of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today.

Devil May Cry 5 stars

Sin is an ancient Sumerian god whose powers were taken away by Artemis, who he has sworn to destroy if their paths ever crossed again. But he has bigger fish to deal with as the demon known as Gallus are hungry for humans. He is only one who has a chance to stop them, but when a mysterious woman looking like Artemis appears before him what’s a man to do other than hold her hostage and demand his powers back?

Now he has to decide whether he can shove his craving for revenge against Artemis aside long enough to accept her help, but the road of trust and betrayal is all too familiar to him. Before he knows it not only does the woman have his heart in her hands, but she may be just what he’s looking for to save his life when things get rocky, but can he trust her? Or will she abandon him?

I couldn’t put the book down. Even after reading it a second time I still feel like I can go back and read it again. Kenyon really puts you there in the moment. She tugs at your heart and as her characters struggle and come to realize you’re there bedside them feeling their pain or happiness. She really does know how to keep you wanting more, from her dashingly stunning characters, to her use of the Greek Gods and Goddesses; she leaves out no expense in depth.

Just read any of her books and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Brenda Franklin
find me on twitter, Facebook, my Pulse Trilogy on Amazon or Smashwords. :)

Wednesday Reviews: The Skin Map by Stephen Lawhead

Lawhead has a unique way about writing that I find hard to match with other writers. No matter where he is writing about you can guarantee he will get there. With his detailed descriptions of places such as Prague or London, no matter the year, you don’t have to go there to experience what his characters are seeing, smelling, and feeling. All you have to do is read his works.

The Skin Map, like his other works, isn't lacking is the details. He has done his homework on this masterpiece. The first of five in his Bright Empire series it takes you on an adventure that is sure to keep you reading till the last page where the fun doesn't end there.

Follow a long lost relative on an adventure to recover the pieces of a human skin map, avoid the bad guys and try not to tamper too much with the past while your at it. Then add a dash of humor and wallah! You have a fun field adventure I would recommend anyone to read.

I give it 5 out of 5.

 

Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

Stephen R. Lawhead is an internationally acclaimed author of mythic history and imaginative fiction. He is the author of such epics such as The King Raven Trilogy, The Song of Albion Trilogy, and The Dragon King Trilogy. Lawhead makes his home in Oxford, England, with his wife. Visit StephenLawhead.com to learn more about him and his works and follow his Bright Empire series with the next book, The Bone House.

Brenda Franklin

To learn more about me you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter. To read my works just go to amazon or smashwords.