Category: Happy Dance

Happy Book Birthday to HAUNTED CHEMISTRY

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Entangled Publishing, Happy Dance, Haunted Chemistry, Horror, Salt In the Cupboard, Sequels, The Grave Winner, What Gifts She Carried

Two summers ago, when I should have been writing the sequel to The Grave Winner, I saw the open call from Entangled Publishing for romantic horror novellas. I was having a hard time with the sequel, and romantic horror is kind of my thing. Sequel or no, I had to write something, so around the first of July, I started what would become Haunted Chemistry. At the end of the month, I sent it in and geared up for the waiting.

 

Last October, I finally heard back. I remember reading that email again and again in a shock-induced fog. Entangled, publisher of fantastic, best-selling books, wanted…me? Uuuhhhhhh. And that’s when I started hearing colors, bright, happy colors that sounded kind of like a steady squeal.

 

So, yeah, Haunted Chemistry. Here’s the fantastic cover designed by Taria Reed, the blurb, and the buy links:

 

Haunted Chemistry 500

 

When bookish college co-ed Alexis heads to the laundry room in her new apartment, she runs into Ian Reese, the chem lab partner she crushed on all last semester. And the guy who stood her up on their first date. But she’s down for an awkward reunion, and no better place than her creepy laundry room.

 

Ian has every intention of making amends, but just when Alexis begins to trust him again, a new threat calls more than their future together into question. A ghost from the apartment’s past is hellbent on revenge, and if he wants to get his girl, he’ll have to get the ghost first.

 

Amazon

 

Barnes & Noble

 

I’ll be going on a blog tour all week with some other fab authors and their romantic horror novellas, too! One of the tour prizes will be a $50 gift card to the book retailer of your choice! I’ll post the tour schedule soon. Until then, happy haunting!

 

P.S. That sequel that was giving me trouble? It’s finished. I sent it to my publisher last week and they sent me a contract that very same day! My squeals have turned purple!!

 

Dear Book I Wrote…

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Book Birthday, Crescent Moon Press, Happy Dance, The Grave Winner

Single tree in field during winter 2

 

Well, today is your big day! How does it feel? Are you nervous? Excited? Are you going to spew? Please don’t.

 

I’m proud of you even though you’ve prevented me from sleeping for about two months. I really wish I was exaggerating, but no. How many hours have I spent thinking about you, plotting you, getting feedback from you, worrying that you suck? Plenty, and I did most of that while I should’ve been sleeping. Sleep is for wusses though, right?

 

With my eyes half-open, I still think you look so pretty in your gorgeous cover. People tell me you look creepy all the time, and some even give me weird looks that I’m even associated with you. They’ll never understand our love. But some people won’t love you. In fact, some will hate you with a capital HATE. It’s cool, though. We’ll always have each other. Just keep being your gorgeous self.

 

I sometimes talk about the people living inside you like they’re real, which also elicit weird looks from some. That won’t stop me from doing it, though. To me, they are real, and if that makes me sound like a nut case, then maybe that store called Whaty-Whats really does sell straight jackets. Remember the smell of that store? Yum.

 

Anyway, I’m done rambling. Enjoy your book birthday. 🙂

 

Lindsey

 

The Grave Winner releases TODAY from Crescent Moon Press. As of this writing, it’s only available on Kindle, but will be available in paperback and other formats soon.

 

I have a lot of events coming up, so maybe you’ll see me around! Here’s the schedule:

 

Also, have you seen the trailer yet? I plan on doing a ‘making of’ post in the near future.

 

Best Online Fiction of the Week

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Happy Dance

My short story Alpha Female Office Wolf was named one of the best online fiction stories of the week by Full-Stop.net. You can see their review of it here. They spelled my name wrong, but I can live with that. I appreciate the review and making the list!

Award Happy Dance

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Awards, Happy Dance
There’s been a lot of happy dances this week! This one is for my first blog award! Mysti Parker from Unwritten awarded the Fair Dinkum (good buddy) Award. Thank you, Mysti!

With this award, I am to share informational tidbits about myself and award five other bloggers. Here I go with the tidbits:

1. I’ve thought about going to clown school.
2. I’m addicted to crack-ERS. HA! Crackers, not crack.
3. In high school, I co-wrote and performed in a play, and received a standing ovation.
4. I once wanted to be an FBI agent, but then decided I was too goofy. (See number 1).
5. My biggest fear, more than anything else in the world, is throwing up.

Now it’s time to award five bloggers. All you have to do is what I just did. And the awards go to (in no particular order):

1. Sarah Ahiers at Falen Formulates Fiction
2. Demitria Lunetta
3. Ryan Sullivan at The Dark Corner of the Mind
4. Deboarah Burns
5. Trish at Adventures of Molly Mavis Gumnut

That was fun! Let’s do that again!

Honorable Mention Happy Dance

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Contests, Happy Dance

I entered the first 500 words of The Grave Winner into a contest hosted by Lydia Sharp over at http://lydiasharp.blogspot.com/ and received an Honorable Mention! Yay! My insides are all fluttery! Every entry received a critique; here’s mine with Lydia’s comments in red:

We stood rooted in place after Mom’s funeral, just the three of us. The weight in my chest threatened to suffocate me if I looked at the lid of her gleaming casket any longer. I focused on the sky instead, at the black birds cutting across the wisps of clouds in a sharp V formation. The dull thump of my heart echoed the rhythm of their beating wings. They pressed on until the clouds took them from me. {love that description. Saying they “took them from me” feels like comparative imagery with the loss of the character’s mother. Very well done.}
            A different flutter out of the corner of my eye pulled me back to Earth. The movement took a few seconds to penetrate my numb brain until I realized I was staring at a girl. She crept in and out of the crumbling tombstones, her body thick with mud and grime. A dress, or the torn remnants of one, hung loosely from her scrawny frame. Her mouth sagged open as if she was about to scream. {ew, for real? That would make me scream. Good descriptions, though. You got a physical reaction out of me.}
            Darby, my little sister, stood next to me, and I reached out to touch her. I wasn’t sure anymore if any of this was real, if I was completely losing it, but Darby was real. Her ache was real. My hand slid over her bony, quivering shoulders and squeezed her closer to me.
            Inky black footprints followed the girl like a trail of burnt breadcrumbs. She stopped beside a tree and leaned her back against it.  More darkness pooled at her feet and crept up the tree trunk behind her. {I love that you got to this weirdness so quickly, no messing around. I’m definitely hooked.}
            Sweat trickled down the back of my dress. A sudden breeze brushed spring air over my arms and sent a faint smell of rotten hamburger meat past my nose. My stomach rolled, but the breeze and stink faded to nothing as quickly as it had come.
            The girl turned her head and looked at us. The whites of her eyes blazed behind the mud that covered her face. Her open mouth held the same black gloom that fell at her feet.
I gasped as recognition hit me.
            I knew the girl. Knew of was more like it. Her social circle was my social nightmare. Her name was Sarah, a popular cheerleader who committed suicide one week ago. {ack!} Poor Sarah, everyone said. She couldn’t handle the pressure of popularity and performing kicks and splits in front of everyone anymore. She’d sliced her wrists open to release her from those horrible demands.
            So how could she be here when she should be in the ground? I had to be hallucinating. My grief, the unbearable weight in my chest, was climbing up to press on my brain.
            But if Sarah really was standing over there by the tree, I couldn’t let Darby see her. That would be too much to handle in one day. I wanted to fold her into me or flip her glasses off her face. Instead, I willed Sarah to go away.
            Her darkness crawled up the earthy brown bark to the tips of the tree’s branches and ripped away the silky song of its leaves, leaving it empty and naked.
This is a big mess of awesomesauce. I love it. Sorry if my comments aren’t very helpful, but I honestly don’t see much to improve upon here. You’ve effectively pulled me into this very quickly. You have great voice and excellent description and a whole lotta intrigue. Superb.
Thanks again, and best of luck with this!

Thank you so much, Lydia!!