Take a Look, It's in a Book

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

We're closing in on the last few excerpts I'll be sharing from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Lots has happened since last week's snippet. Jada made a new friend on the school bus, a mousy little bookworm named Annalee, and Jada is surprised to find out how much she wants Annalee to like her. Annalee talks her into going to the school library (a place Jada has never been in until then) at lunchtime and gets her to check out To Kill a Mockingbird. In chemistry class the next period, Jada's plan is to pretend to read after their quiz in hopes that it will make an impression on Lew Stanton, the nerdy guy she's crushing on who can't stand her. But she gets two big surprises: the story grabs her and won't let go, and she has suddenly become a speed reader—another "super zombie power" she doesn't quite understand. Here's the exchange that takes place when Lew asks Jada about the book.

Ben May Main Branch, Mobile Public Library My beautiful home library!

“Hey, the bell rang,” Lew said, "didn’t you hear it?”

I looked around and realized everyone was leaving the room, then I said, “Oh, guess I got distracted by this crazy book. That little Scout chick is a trip.”

He narrowed his eyes and said, “What part are you on?”

“They just found out the hole in the tree is filled with cement.” I stood up and dropped the book into my backpack. “Pretty lousy thing to do if you ask me.”

A slow transformation took place on his face, and I knew he hadn’t believed I was really reading it until then. He was looking at me as though he were seeing me for the first time, and my knees actually got weak when he smiled at me.

And to think it was all because I finally went into a library.

Yep, libraries are magical places for sure. ;-) Next week Jada again gets to use her one zombie power so far that's not quite so nerdy. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


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You're the Peanut Butter to My Jelly

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Here's another snippet from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) As promised, this scene shows Jada meeting her new bestie Annalee, who is nothing like any of the friends she had before her untimely demise.

When I got on the school bus the next morning, the guy I'd tossed across the yard the day before stuck his foot out in the aisle in front of me and said, “Better watch your back, bitch.”

I smiled at him and said, “How’d you get that lump on your head, Tree Boy? Unless you want some foot pain to go along with that headache, you better move that smelly cross trainer outta my way.”

One of his hands wandered up to the back of his head and he muttered something about how I’d be getting mine, but he took his foot out of the aisle and didn’t meet any of the curious looks from the people around him.

“Yeah, I thought so,” I said before walking away and sitting in the first empty seat I came to. I was still snickering to myself when I noticed the girl across the aisle—a mousy little thing wearing clothes that had to have been through at least two previous owners—looking at me curiously. I opened my mouth to ask her what the hell she was looking at, then I changed my mind and smiled at her instead, and she looked startled for a second before smiling back at me.

I tilted my head in Tree Boy’s direction and said, “Hope that guy’s not a friend of yours.”

“Dougie? No way,” she said, frowning at the back of his head, then she leaned toward me and whispered, “You should’ve stomped on his foot.”

Next week we'll see how Jada's new friendship with Annalee affects that crush she has on Lew Stanton. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Dang, I Was Hoping For X-Ray Vision!

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

My two-week vacation across the USA was fabulous, but it's great to be back home so I can read and comment on all the other WWW and SS blogs I've grown addicted to! Here's another snippet from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Last week Jada found out from Flo about the addendum to her termination agreement that's making her ga-ga over Lew Stanton, math whiz and the captain of the school's chess team. Here's how she discovers another one of her "super zombie powers." Well, maybe not so super.

Since the transdead weren’t immune to accumulated grime, I still had to shower and wash my hair like everyone else, so I got my pajamas and went into the bathroom. While I was standing under the pulsating stream from the massaging showerhead, I realized I missed little things like how good it felt for a hot shower to pound away the tension in sore muscles. I could feel the water hitting me, but I couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold. Apparently, the neurons and synapses of the transdead didn’t continue to transmit the way they did in the living.

Wait, what?

How the crap did I know anything about neurons or synapses? And not only that, I realized I suddenly understood how the whole nervous system operated. Great, my transformation into nerd girl obviously involved more than just crushing on chess players. I was turning into some kind of freaking brainiac myself. The super zombie strength was cool, but this had to be the lamest superpower ever.

Next week Jada meets the new best friend that Flo warned her about in the e-mail. Big surprise—she's nothing like the friends Jada had in her previous life. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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You've Got Mail

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Happy Sunday, snippeteers! I'm on my way back home from vacation, but here's the snippet I scheduled before I left from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here. Last week, Jada found out that she has "super zombie strength." She thinks that's pretty sweet, but it doesn't explain the weird attraction she feels for Lew Stanton—computer whiz and crazy math watch wearer. According to the Transdead Trustee guidelines, she's not supposed to be feeling any emotions. She e-mails Flo, her Afterlife Advisor, as soon as she gets home (with the subject line: What the hell?) and this is the response she gets. I didn't count the addresses or signature as sentences so this may put me over the limit. So sue me. ;-)

FROM: florence@blueyonder.net
TO: dead_girls_do_it_better@gmail.com
SUBJECT: RE: What the [redacted]?

Dear Miss Gayle:

Apparently, an addendum to your termination agreement was inadvertently left out of your paperwork, and the new objectives were just uploaded today. In addition to your prime directive of finding the man who killed you, you must also learn to handle normal human emotions, since you did not experience them while you were alive. This explains your feelings for the young man you mentioned. Don’t be surprised if you also feel a strong desire to befriend another girl your own age. These things are not negotiable. So, in the vernacular of yourself and your peers, you need to “deal.”

Don’t forget to change your e-mail address to something more appropriate.

Regards,
Florence

Next week Jada discovers another one of her "super zombie powers." Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


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A Particular Set of Skills

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Happy Day-Before-Independence Day! I'm on the road with my family, but I scheduled my snippet posts for the next two weeks before I left. Here's another one from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) This week's scene takes place after a jerk named Matt Winston has spread the word at school that "Gwen" used to live on the streets. A guy on the school bus decides to harass Jada about it when they both get off and she discovers her newly acquired "particular set of skills."

He looked me up and down and laughed. “Just trying to make up my mind how much to offer you.”

I put my hands on my hips and said, “Give it up, jerkwad. You wouldn’t have enough if you robbed Bill Gates and won the Nigerian lottery.”

His face lost its smirk, and his hand shot out to grab my wrist as he said, “Don’t get uppity with me, you little tramp!”

Maybe it was because it was the same thing BOSSMAN had called me on the night I died, but his words echoed in my head as though they were being broadcast from a loud speaker. It suddenly seemed like I was looking through some kind of red film or at a TV with the tint turned completely to red. I snatched my arm free and pushed him in the middle of his chest with both my hands, and he went flying backward at least ten feet to thud against a sycamore tree in the yard behind him.

I stared at my hands in amazement and said, “Sweet. Super zombie strength.”

Wonder what other cool things she can do? Stay tuned to find out. And next week you'll get to see what Flo has to say about all of this. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


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Crushing on a Nerd

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

I'm continuing for a few more weeks with my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Last week Jada arrived at her new foster home in Coconut Grove. This week she's started school in her new persona, but instead of hanging with the A-listers like she did in her former life, she's decided to befriend a group of nerdy guys that she thinks may be able to help her with the online search for her killer. All but one of them are pretty much in awe of her since she looks like she stepped out of a graphic novel. And wouldn't you know it, the one who clearly doesn't like her turns out to be her chemistry partner, Lew Stanton.

I tried to pay attention to what Mr. Forrester was saying about the chapter we were about to start, mostly to keep myself from looking sideways at Lew, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t resist checking out his short blond hair with its razor-sharp part, the way his blue Oxford was buttoned all the way up to his neck, the ring on his left hand with the strange black stone, and the almost manicured look of his fingernails. And instead of wanting to laugh at any of it, I found it all weirdly appealing.

What the crap was going on?

At one point, while I was trying to figure out what the weird numbers and symbols on his watch meant, he looked up from his note taking and said, “What are you staring at?”

“What kind of crazy watch is that?”

He glanced at it and said, “They’re square roots—instead of twelve, it has the square root of 144. They’re the same thing.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to take your word for it on that, guess it's a math thing or something, huh?”

He rolled his eyes and went back to taking notes.

Once again, I need to warn you not to make any assumptions about this guy. Things in my books are not always as they appear at first. For instance, if you think this scene means the book is morphing into contemporary high school drama, next week's snippet will change your mind about that. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Looking for a Loser

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Happy Father's Day! Here's some more from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Jada has made it to her new foster home in Miami's Coconut Grove, and (surprise!) she doesn't hate it. Today's snippet shows how she starts the search for her killer. BTW, I decided to create a fictional social network since I figured the real one probably wouldn't like being associated with online predators.

I logged off the blog and opened my FaceSpace page to check for new friend requests. With a name like Cherry Licious and a profile picture of legs clad in lacy thigh highs, I’d been getting plenty of requests and private messages from guys of all ages, but none of their names or personal info sounded like the one I was looking for: BOSSMAN. What a joke. I bet that pathetic loser wasn’t the boss of anything but his favorite video game.

I shut down the browser and lay across the bed. I still wasn’t used to all the things that were different about me now, and I only had a day and a half before I started school on Monday. Like the Transdead Trustee guidelines had said, I hadn’t felt any emotions since I came back, but at least I could still appreciate a good joke. Flo probably hated that.

Next Sunday we'll see if Jada can blend in with the other kids at school. I'm thinking she'll probably stand out just a little, what about you? Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


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Adventures in Shoplifting

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

I'm continuing with my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Last week was Jada's first blog entry about her first week as Jada the Pervert Slayer. So how does she get from the abandoned warehouse she woke up in to her new foster home? She tries shoplifting in three convenience stores, but all she gets are three offers to trade sex for the stuff she's trying to steal. Finally, she goes into a liquor store with a old woman behind the counter and hits paydirt.

Artist: http://teelamb.deviantart.com/

Thirty minutes later, I was in the back of a Miami patrol car, sobbing my poor misguided little heart out. I guess the two cops felt a little sorry for me, although that didn’t keep one of them from feeling me up when he searched me before putting me in the car. Anyway, they took me to the juvie center, and after convincing my case worker that I’d had enough of life on the streets, I got sent to a group home while I waited for a foster family to take me in.

I’ll skip the sordid details of the group home except to point out that if I’d been there any longer, I’m sure a couple of the male workers would’ve been my first victims. And I couldn’t help feeling bad for real girls like Gwen who had to live on the street or in places like that. My life before had really sucked, but this was a lot worse.

Luckily, after only three days in the group home, I got the good news that a family who was willing to take a teenaged girl had contacted the agency. The next day I met the Shermans, my new foster family. Brad, Karen and twelve-year-old Nathan—yuppies with a heart of gold, determined to save the world, one teenaged delinquent at a time. Gwen’s a lucky girl for sure.

Lucky for those guys that Jada hasn't yet discovered the new skills she's acquired since her recent untimely death! Find out next week how she starts her search for the man who killed her. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Dear Dead Diary

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Here's a little more from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Despite all her protests, Jada knows she can't get out of her obligations. As we join her this week, she's gotten all her instructions from Flo and has assumed her new fake identity. One of her requirements is to periodically check in with Afterlife Admissions by entering a journal record of her activities on a special blog accessible only to Transdead Trustees. Here's a little from her first entry.

PAYING IT UPWARD Blog
Saturday, October 5, 2013

Okay, so here’s my first week as Jada The Pervert Slayer.

I woke up in an old warehouse somewhere in Miami, surrounded by empty Thunderbird bottles, syringes, and used condoms. I couldn’t resist testing what Flo had told me, so I broke one of the bottles and stuck the jagged edge into my palm. Nothing—no blood, no pain, and the cuts started to close up almost immediately. It would’ve been kinda cool if not for the whole being dead part.

I found a purse beside me (a hideous pink sequined thing) that held my new ID cards but no money. The character profile for Gwen said I had been living on the streets and prostituting myself to pay for my meth habit, and once I got outside in the sunlight, (which neither fried me nor made me sparkle) I realized they’d dressed me in my work clothes—a black shirt tied in a knot between my boobs, hot pink booty shorts, and silver stilettos. Actually, the purse matched the shorts perfectly. Gwen was color coordinated at least.

Next week we find out how she gets to her new foster home. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please do also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Balance Due

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Here's a little more from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Last week Jada discovered that she has to stay among the living until she finds and stops the man who murdered her. As you might expect, Jada's not too happy about having to be "some kind of psycho zombie chick," but here's why she's obligated to do it.

"You had a verbal contract with us that must be honored, Miss Gayle.”

“What contract?”

She typed something then looked at the monitor and said, "This one.”

I watched the screen go black, then I saw myself when I was thirteen, kneeling on the floor next to my bed with my eyes turned heavenward. Flo turned up the volume on the monitor, and I heard myself promising that I would do anything to keep my best friend Cassie from dying of leukemia.

“But that’s not fair,” I said. “Yeah, Cassie went into remission, but look what happened to her later. I shouldn’t have to keep a promise for that.”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t argue semantics here. You said you would do anything, and now it’s time to pay up.”

Oh, snap! Don't you hate when a promise comes back to bite you in the butt? Find out next week how our heroine handles her first week as Jada the Pervert Slayer. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Your Mission, Miss Gayle...

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Here's a little more from my YA paranormal thriller After Me. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Last week Jada discovered that she won't be going on to The Great Beyond just yet because there's an administrative hold on her Afterlife Account. She has to serve time as a Transdead Trustee in order to clear her account, and here's what she has to do.

(Photo from iZombie, The CW)

I took the papers she handed me and scanned the one on top, then I looked at her as if she were crazy and said, “I have to track down predators until I find the one who killed me? Are you kidding me?”

“Another pointless question, Miss Gayle.”

I threw the papers down on the counter and said, “Okay, then here’s a question for you. Why do I have to go back as some kind of psycho zombie chick as punishment for what that sicko did? He’s the one who should have to pay for it, not me!”

“Oh, he will, make no mistake about that. Your job is to bring him to justice sooner than he expects, possibly putting others like him out of commission along the way.” She pointed to a yellow box of text at the bottom of my assignment page and said, “And you’re not being punished, you’re paying an early termination fee. As are all Transdead Trustees, you’re being sent back to complete what was left unfinished in your life.”

Next Sunday Jada finds out exactly why she's obligated to clear her account. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Heavenly Red Tape

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

I'm continuing with snippets from After Me, my YA paranormal thriller. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) When last we left Jada, our dead heroine, her Afterlife Advisor had just explained that the Afterlife Admissions department was reserved for people who had no sense of humor when they were alive. Flo was just about to check Jada's account in the LIFESCORE 6.2® program. We pick up as she discovers an unfortunate snafu. (Creative punctuation utilized to fit the sentence limit.)

“Okay, so what’s my assignment, scrubbing floors for being a slob while I was alive?”

Flo looked at her monitor and said, “No, I’m afraid you won’t be staying with us at all, because there’s an administrative hold on your account.”

“A hold—who put it there?”

One of her eyebrows went up and she said, “It’s an administrative hold, so do you really need an answer to that question?”

“Okay, fine," I said, "so what does it mean exactly?”

“It means, Miss Gayle, that in order to clear your account, you’ll have to serve time as a Transdead Trustee back on Earth.” She typed something else then said, “I’ll print out your instructions and answer any questions you may have before you’re sent back.”

“Sent back?” I sat up in my chair and leaned forward to say, “You mean I get to stay alive?”

“Not exactly, you'll be among the living and will appear to be one of them, but you won’t be alive, per se.”

Hmm...how exactly does that work? Next Sunday Jada finds out the first part of why she got the hold in the first place and why she's obligated to clear her account. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Keeper of the Golden Paperclips

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Happy Mother's Day! It's a gorgeous day here in the Heart of Dixie, I have three kids and three bonus kids (I like that better than step-kids!) so I feel truly blessed today even more than usual!

Thus far in After Me, my YA paranormal thriller, Jada has made it into the inner sanctum of the Afterlife Admissions Office and has been admonished by Tablet Guy not to touch anything while she awaits the arrival of her advisor, a no-nonsense woman named Florence. (You can catch up on previous snippets here.) This is what happens when Flo tells Jada that they need to take a look at her account.

“My account?” I almost laughed. “You mean I was supposed to be saving money to bribe my way in here or something?”

“No, it’s your Afterlife Account, and it’s what determines whether or not you’re admitted and where you’ll be assigned.”

“Oh, jeez.” I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. More angels. With harps. “If you’re gonna put me someplace like this, I’d rather just burn for eternity.”

“No, this department is reserved for people who had no sense of humor when they were alive,” she said. “For the most part, we’re staffed by IRS agents and high school English teachers.”

My apologies to all the English teachers out there. ;-) Next Sunday Jada finds out exactly where she's going and why. Can't wait? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


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Welcome to Death Detention

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Welcome to the first snippet for May! Last week you saw Jada's reaction to finding out that she's dead. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) Hope you weren't worried about how traumatic that must have been for her. Thanks to the happy pills her mother put her on after finding her in a tub of bloody bath water with her wrist slit, Jada hasn't felt much of anything.

We pick up this week right after a white-clad guy with a tablet comes to collect Jada from the waiting area of Afterlife Admissions and takes her to the inner office filled with cubicles.

Tablet Guy stopped at an empty cubicle about halfway down the aisle and turned to look at me. “Have a seat here. Someone will be with you momentarily. Don’t touch anything.”

I gave him a salute. “Gotcha. No hacking into God’s e-mail while I wait.”

He frowned and took a silver stylus from his jacket pocket to enter something on the tablet. “Impudence doesn’t help your case any, young lady. If anyone in this department had a sense of humor, we wouldn’t be assigned to this office.”

Next week you'll get to meet Flo, Jada's Afterlife Advisor and keeper of the Golden Paperclips. Can't wait for more? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Stairway to WHERE?

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Last week you met Jada just as she was realizing she wouldn't live to see another sunrise. She decides that if she's going to die, she'd rather not hang around for all the jolly festivities the psycho has in mind. She says something sure to piss him off so she can bow out of the party early.

After a brief flash of pain when the butt of the gun smashed into my skull, I welcomed the darkness.

But my oblivion didn’t last long.

When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting on an upholstered chair in a room that almost looked like the guidance counselor’s office at Tallahassee Premier Academy where I was a senior. But here everything was painted such a bright white that it almost hurt my eyes, and the sign on the door to my left leading into the inner office was lettered in some kind of glowing gold paint.

When I got up to read the sign, I realized I was wearing some kind of weird white dress. Where had that come from? Had somebody found me and taken me to a hospital?

I knew that wasn’t the case when I read the sign on the door:

AFTERLIFE ADMISSIONS OFFICE.

“Oh, crap. I’m dead.”

Can't wait for more? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Dead Girls Do it Better

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

I'm starting a new series of snippets this week from my YA paranormal thriller, After Me, the first book in my UNFINISHED series. (If you missed the last snippet from Shades of Blue, you can read it here.) I shared snippets from this one before when it was just a WIP and had a different title, so it's a lot different now. Here's a blurb to set it up.

After she’s murdered by a sexual predator, 18-year-old Jada Gayle must stay among the living until she finds and stops the Internet stalker who killed her. When the Afterlife Admissions Office assigns the now “transdead” Jada to a foster home back among the living, she assumes the identity of a homeless teen and is expected to simply fit in as she hunts down her killer, but that's not so easy when you’re a hot zombie chick channeling Chuck Norris. Then she meets Lew Stanton—captain of the chess team and computer whiz who makes her dead heart beat phantom rhythms in her chest. As if it’s not bad enough to have the hots for a nerd, Jada’s new friend Annalee likes him too. While Jada deals with all this unwanted teenaged angst, the man who murdered her is closing in on more foolish girls. Jada thinks she has plenty of time to handle her predicament until the night she gets a terrifying message: I HAVE YOUR FRIEND.

This scene is from the beginning of the book, right after Jada's killer gets into the Ferrari he lured her with.

“Drive!” he said and jammed the nose of a freakishly big pistol into my ribs. “Go to the intersection and make a U-turn. Keep going until you get back to where you picked up the car.”

If I’d still felt emotions like normal girls, I probably would’ve been scared shitless, but the best I could manage was irritation that he’d tricked me.

“Look, you don’t need the gun,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

“You sure as hell will.”

Even more than his words, the laugh that came from behind the bandana was the second thing that told me I wouldn’t live to see nineteen. Dang, I’d need my fake ID for all eternity. And it wasn’t even a good picture.

Get used to that snark—it's Jada's trademark. Can't wait for more? You can buy After Me here. And please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!


~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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My Friend Carrie is Back!

Look who dropped in to celebrate her SECOND book release this year! My friend Carrie Dalby (AKA Wonderwegian) is always welcome here because I love her and her books so much, because she usually brings me some gluten-free cookies, and because she doesn't make me clean up for her visits! ;-) Carrie has written another wonderful, insightful guest post that I'm thrilled to share with you. Here's a little bit about Carrie and her new book.

Born and raised in California, Carrie Dalby has lived in Alabama for nearly two decades but still has trouble with the humidity of summer. When she’s not writing, Carrie homeschools her three kids and splits her time between family, reading, knitting, concert going, and volunteering. Sharing her love of literature for young adults and children is one of her favorite things to do, and her volunteer hours reflect that. Her local church congregation, the Mobile Writers Guild, SCBWI, and the Metro Mobile Reading Council are where she loves to spend her “free time.”

Fifteen-year-old Mary Lou Weber is suffocating in her sister's shadow. Though she struggles to break into the light and claim her own identity—and the attention of the cutest guy in school—something always seems to pull her right back down into the role of Barbara's little sister.

Down the street lives seventeen-year-old Ben Thomas, a lonely introvert who is captive to a sensory condition that makes it nearly impossible for him to stand in sunlight, much less talk to people whom he thinks could never understand his difficulties.

A new year kindles the friendship between a guy who pushes away a world and the girl who’s striving to find her place in it. Can the relationship help Mary and Ben find balance in a world that frequently seems too much to handle?

(Buy Corroded here)

Take it away, Carrie!

*Hands Carrie the sparkly blue microphone again.*

Hopefully you’ve heard by now, but April is Autism Awareness Month. As BLUE is the official color, Joyce Scarbrough is always a great sport in supporting the cause, whether by wearing a blue streak in her hair or dressing in blue—usually both. One of the goals of Autism Awareness is to spread acceptance for people living with autism. Since Corroded touches on some of the peculiarities of life on the Autism Spectrum, I’d like to share a few of the key points in main character Ben’s experience. *Note: Autism is called a spectrum disorder because each person is affected in a different way, to a different degree. Everyone is an individual, and no two journeys are exactly the same.

Sensory issues can be a big deal for people on the spectrum. Many experience heightened reactions to touch, sight, sound, taste, and hearing. While main character Ben Thomas has all of these issues, the main one is his sensitivity to light. Because of this, he doesn’t like to be in direct sunlight and chooses to venture out only at night. Light bulbs are also problematic. Harsh, bright lights like florescent and LED cause headache, eye fatigue, and emotional meltdowns. Avoiding these types of lights is part of Ben’s coping strategy.

In relation to sensory issues, therapeutic pressure and deep tissue massage are often used for calming reasons. Some people on the spectrum are in such an over-sensitive state that they need something strong/heavy to help them feel their own bodies and keep grounded. When Ben gets over-whelmed, he uses a weighted blanket to help calm his central nervous system. This is something we use in my family as well. It’s a simple, drug-free way to quickly relax your whole body.

Routines rule. Unexpected changes to the calendar, uninvited guests, and emergencies that alter the day can be catastrophic to someone with autism. When your senses are often over-loaded and you’re living with near constant stress from everyday situations that don’t bother neuro-typical people, routines are what keep you from falling apart. Ben has a set time he wakes up each day and has his day planned, right down to the nightly walk he takes on the beach. When he meets Mary, a whole new level of chaos enters his world. From deciding when to contact her, to choosing if he’s willing to switch his schedule to hang out with her, Mary is the catalyst for the next step in his self-acceptance and growth.

Chances are you know someone with autism. Reading is a great way to broaden your understanding of different lifestyles and experiences. Please keep Corroded in mind when looking for your next read. It may help you relate better to a peer, cousin, or neighbor. Thanks for hosting me today, Joyce. Catch you in the wild blue yonder!

Thanks so much for stopping by, Carrie!

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