Your Mid-Week Update for 07/25/18

I regret not travelling more as a young woman – and let me tell you, wanderlust is still a thing no matter your age.

Oh my god, I’m that woman I hate. The one who always talks about “women her age”. I refuse. I am ageless, I am whatever maturity I want to be today (within the limits of adulthood, I will not go through puberty again; I’d absolutely pull a Carrie and kill everyone. Publicly). Today, I want to be a 20-something who can take the time off from her part-time job, spend money she doesn’t have, and just fly to Europe for a few weeks.

It’s not that I couldn’t now. There are many books and movies about women with stable jobs who just fuck off to explore the world and “find themselves”, but I’ve never really been one of those women. I found myself in college when I discovered a way to do what I love and not go to jail so I never had the need to wander.

One of the Temps in the office was talking at lunch about how she and her girlfriend are spending three weeks in Italy before she goes back to school. All of the places she’s going to and the things she has planned – it made me want to go. Not Italy but…somewhere.

I may have been looking up flights to England on my lunch break.

There’s nothing stopping me. I have some banked hours and Jason is perfectly capable of looking after the house for a week – he’s barely home as it is. I don’t think he’s avoiding us, I just think he’s outgrowing us. I was younger than him when I moved out, not that there’s anything wrong with staying at home. I’ve seen the news, I know how shitty it is out there. I just think Jason is ready to move and I’ll support him when he tells me that.

Maybe I will go. I’ve never really been on a vacation when I didn’t need one. I’m not a 20-something who needs to go into debt just to explore beyond the city limits. I can go whenever and wherever I want. Because I’m an adult. An ageless adult.

Let’s do it; let’s go somewhere new. Any suggestions?

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 07/18/18

God damn, mother fucking shit!

It’ll be fine.

It actually doesn’t matter in the long run.

I was just looking forward to killing her.

Mary is dead.

Her boyfriend said it was ruled an accident. Supposedly, she was crossing the street when she was hit by a car – a good place to do it, if you are going to be hit by a car. Sadness makes me joke. They haven’t found the driver but the police said there wasn’t much else they could do.

I just really wanted to kill her, you know? I’d been building up to it for months and then she was gone, just like that. I didn’t even get a chance to stab her or pour acid in her eyes. Not even a little blunt force trauma. It just seems so unfair. I called dibs on killing her and the universe just scoops her up. Rude.

Now I have all this murderous energy and nowhere to direct it except at random people I come across on my way home. I can’t help it, I need a good, dirty kill. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch and it’s been eating at me all day. It just needs to get out of my system and I can go back to my regular kills. Just something ridiculously messy. Like a saw.

Or a lawn mower.

Shit, our lawn mower is broken. I’m calling the repair guy when I get to work. Hopefully he works late hours.

A lawn mower would be really good. Things would get caught in the blades. And it would get everywhere. The back lawn does need some extra help – it’s been such a dry heat lately.

Having a plan does help satiate my needs.

Now it’s just the anticipation. It kind of gets me going.

I might be a little late to work today.

As always dear readers,

Stay Safe

Release Tour for ArrowHeart by Rebecca Sky

About the Book:

Title: ARROWHEART

Author: Rebecca Sky

Pub. Date: June 14, 2018

Publisher: Hodder

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 384

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, TBD

Kiss the boys and make them cry...

The gods are gone. 

The people have forgotten them. 

But sixteen-year-old Rachel Patel can't forget - the gods control her life, or more specifically, her love life.

Being a Hedoness, one of a strong group of women descended from Greek God Eros, makes true love impossible for Rachel. She wields the power of that magical golden arrow, and with it, the promise to take the will of any boy she kisses. But the last thing Rachel wants is to force someone to love her . . .

When seventeen-year-old Benjamin Blake's disappearance links back to the Hedonesses, Rachel's world collides with his, and her biggest fear becomes a terrifying reality. She's falling for him - a messy, magnetic, arrow-over-feet type of fall.

Rachel distances herself, struggling to resist the growing attraction, but when he gives up his dream to help her evade arrest, distance becomes an insurmountable task. With the police hot on their trail, Rachel soon realizes there are darker forces hunting them - a group of mortals recruited by the gods who will stop at nothing to preserve the power of the Hedonesses - not to mention Eros himself, who is desperate to reverse the curse . . .

Rachel must learn to do what no Hedoness has done before - to resist her gift - or she'll turn the person she's grown to love into a shadow of himself ... for ever.

********************

Excerpt:

Hi everyone!

I’m stoked to be here and share this excerpt of my debut novel Arrowheart: which is about the strong female descendants of Greek God Eros who have the power to take the will of any boy they kiss…dun dun dun… check it out and read through to the bottom for your chance to win an Owlcrate subscription box and your very own blue Arrowheart lipstick.

Boys were disappearing. Sometimes weeks passed before they turned up dazed and confused wandering in the park, down the street, on the rooftops of tall buildings. When asked about it, they had no clue how they got there, where they had been, and what happened while they were gone. Sometimes, if they thought hard enough, they'd have vague memories of a girl. But I know what happened. I know the girl.

I turn up the volume on the media screen in the taxi's back seat as a reporter sticks his mic in the face of the latest victim – an eighteen-year-old boy found sitting under the bleachers in Times Square a few hours ago. He'd been missing for two weeks.

'I . . . I don't know,' he says. 'I was biking to the store and then I woke up here.'

The reporter pats his shoulder then turns back to the camera. 'Three boys are still unaccounted for in the latest string of disappearances. Police are asking anyone with information of their whereabouts to call in to the hotline.'

A phone number appears in a thick, flashing font, followed by headshots of each of the missing boys, with their names, dates, and what they were last seen wearing. I turn off the screen and stare out the rain-streaked window, preferring a soggy New York to their faces. Besides, there's nothing I can do about it and right now I have more pressing matters to deal with, like coming up with an excuse for being late.

...

Be sure to grab your copy of Arrowheart to read more! And for a limited time receive a Rockstar tours exclusive Blue Arrowheart Lipstick as a thank you gift.

…

Thanks so much for checking out my Arrowheart excerpt today on the Writer of Wrongs blog! I’d love to connect and hear what you think. You can always find me on Twitter or Instagram. And as an added thank you, I’ll be giving away an Owlcrate subscription box. 

Check that giveaway out here!

xo

Rebecca Sky

PS. Here’s a picture of me and my best fur friend, Winston. We’re basically supermodels.

About Rebecca:

After graduating high-school, Rebecca Sky set out on a five-year, 24 Country exploration to find herself. She slept in a hammock in the Amazon Jungle, skinny-dipped off the West African Coast, ate balut and climbed the chocolate hills in the Philippines, and fell in love in Cuba (then again in Brazil, and a final time to a Rocker from Canada). Rebecca returned home to the West Coast captivated by the world and ready for another adventure.

So she did what every wanderer does when standing still—began writing. Her work has since garnered over 20 million reads on Wattpad, and she’s had the opportunity to partner with some really great brands. She was featured in The New York Times and The Boston Globe, (check out those articles here). Her debut Arrowheart, book one in THE LOVE CURSE series is published by Hodder Children's Books a division of Hachette Book Group.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Wattpad | Goodreads

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will win an Owlcrate Book Subscription Box.

Rafflecopter link:

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/441692971/?

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

7/16/2018- BookHounds YA- Interview

7/16/2018- Writer of Wrongs- Excerpt

7/17/2018- CoffeeCocktailsandBooks Blog- Review

7/17/2018- For the Love of KidLit- Guest Post

7/18/2018- Do You Dog-ear?- Review

7/18/2018- Fall Into Books- Excerpt

7/19/2018- Here's to Happy Endings- Review

7/19/2018- The Cover Contessa- Interview

7/20/2018- Wonder Struck- Review

7/20/2018- The Cozy Reading Corner- Guest Post

Week Two:

7/23/2018- Lauren is Reading- Review

7/23/2018- Rhythmicbooktrovert- Review

7/24/2018- Nerdophiles- Review

7/24/2018- Christen Krumm- Interview

7/25/2018- The Heart of a Book Blogger- Review

7/25/2018- Book-o-Craze- Review

7/26/2018- Snark & Squee- Review

7/26/2018- To Be Read- Review

7/27/2018- Belle’s Book Blog- Review

7/27/2018- Daily Waffle- Excerpt

Week Three:

7/30/2018- Buttons Book Reviews- Review

7/30/2018- The Reading Corner for All- Interview

7/31/2018- Adventures in Literature- Review

7/31/2018- Confessions of a YA Reader- Excerpt

8/1/2018- The Desert Bibliophile- Review

8/1/2018- Book Dragon Lair- Review

8/2/2018- Sincerely Karen Jo- Review

8/2/2018- Don't Judge, Read- Review

8/3/2018- Two points of interest- Review

8/3/2018- Eating Between The Lines- Review

Your Mid-Week Update for 07/11/18

My darlings, never meet your heroes.

Or people who work in the same profession as you.

According to the FBI, there are dozens of active serial killers at any given moment but the actual number is impossible to know because that random number is based on DNA evidence and patterns of behavior which suggest sequential murder. Thanks to people like yours truly, the authorities will never have completely accurate information. Given the ratio of murderers to victims, it’s very unlikely that two serial killers will ever meet.

Which is why, of course, I met one this weekend.

James had the day off on Saturday so we went out for dinner and then a drive, hunting for a victim. Standard date night. There was a man on the side of the road trying to flag down a car so we stopped to let him in. He was frantic, kept thanking us for saving him - though he wouldn’t say from what. We offered to drive him to a hospital or police station with the intention of pulling over near our destination and killing him, but he said he needed to meet up with a friend and would be okay if we got him there. So, we drove around, following his directions until we pulled into an alleyway connecting a convenience store and run down duplex.

That’s when he pulled out a knife and held it to my throat.

With his other hand, he aimed a gun at James and told us to give him any valuable possessions. We tossed our wallets and wedding rings, unconcerned because we were obviously going to get them back. Then he told me that if I offered him “compensation for his trouble” he would let us both go unharmed.

James figured it out before I did: The Roadside Rapist - their name, not mine. He was a rapist and thief who had been travelling across the country by hitchhiking and taking advantage of vulnerable people who were nice enough to pick him up.

People like us - though we did have ulterior motives.

So James figured it out because his signature and description had hit all the police stations in the area. He recognized his demand for compensation and told him that we knew who he was. That seemed to startle RR long enough for James to elbow him in the nose, knocking him back.

He kind of lost his mojo after that. He couldn’t get back the same overconfidence and menacing tone so James just locked the door and took off.

We drove around aimlessly, avoiding stop signs and street lights so he wouldn’t be tempted to escape and we had a chat with our new friend in the backseat.

His name was something super simple, like Brad, and he was originally from the other side of the country. He just enjoyed making people feel small and scared. He said people are their most “authentic” when they’re facing death.

He’s right but what we was doing was just self-indulgent and wrong.

He was a kid who wanted to feel bigger than he was, nothing more.

And I am using past tense for a reason. He cried when I slit his throat with his own knife. Of course, that was after two hours of hits and cuts that let him know I was actually threatening his life. His authentic self was to beg and bargain for his life.

I always look forward to meeting fellow serial killers, to learn from them and assert my dominance. But sometimes they’re just whiny little brats who stick a knife to your throat. It’s just disappointing.

It does make me question the strength of the police force, and the actual skill of multi-murders. Are they actually good, or are the people hunting them just very bad?

Fucking Brad. Making me rethink my own talent.

Never meet your heroes. Or people who work in the same industry.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 07/04/18

I may have to move up the timeline with Mary. We’ve been friends for several months, she’s met James, I’ve met most of her conquests and we’ve been on several outings that would absolutely pass the Bechdel test. And then she tells me that she wants to move away. “Make a fresh start.” What bullshit. She is running away from her problems because she can’t find a descent relationship to save her.

And in this case it might have actually saved her life.

Let me be clear, I am not slut shaming. She can sleep with whoever she wants; but she is not handling it in a mature, professional manner. Granted, neither am I. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about I have to kill Mary months earlier than I wanted to because I waited this long and if she moves away, I will miss out on a great kill. The look of betrayal on her face is going to be amazing.

It just sucks when things don’t work out exactly the way I wanted them to. Why is the universe not in sync with my personal desires? Yes, that was sarcasm. Some days it’s all I have left.

That’s the big news this week: someone is going to die a lot sooner than they were meant to. Which, if you’ve read this blog more than once, you know is a daily occurrence.

Although, do any of my victims die before they’re meant to or am I enacting some self-fulfilling prophecy in which they were always supposed to die by my hand?

It’s questions like these that remind me why I should be in bed instead of getting up early for work. The beauty of someone in my high-ranking position is that I can, occasionally, change my work hours to suit my needs. This month, I decided I wanted to leave earlier to avoid summer traffic. Tourists. Good for killing, bad for my patience. Of course, in order to leave early, I need to start earlier.

I’m going to be cranky for a little while.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe