Vote For A SHARD OF ICE Cover!

Voting Time! 

Not too long ago, I asked on my Facebook what you guys wanted to see more, the cover to the final Illumine novel, or the covers I wanted to put to vote for A Shard of Ice, the debut to my new upcoming series, the Black Symphony Saga. By just a teeny-tiny inch, you voted to see the Shard of Ice covers. I'm guessing it probably has to do with all those itty-bitty teasers I keep sharing without giving you any real information as to what this series is about. 

Well, no more fretting. Once this gorgeous cover contest comes to an end, I'll be announcing the winning cover, the blurb, AND a chance for a signed ARC. Oh yeah, baby, I'm going all out on this one. 

So here's how this works- out of the three below, vote for your TWO favorite. That's is, piece of cake. When you're done, feel free to share the vote to your friends! Or leave a comment on which one was truly your favorite of the three. ;)

Voting closes on February 28th, and the winning cover will be announced around mid-March. Now go, vote! 

EDIT: The lovely model in ALL of these covers is Maria Amanda. If you're free for a minute, please check out her Facebook here or her Deviantart here. <3

VOTING HAS NOW ENDED, THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO TOOKT THE TIME!

CHECK OUT THIS POST FOR SIGN-UPS TO REVEAL THE WINNING COVER IN APRIL.

Special Updates On TIS!

Hey everyone! 


I know it's been a little bit since I've done a full-fledged dedicated post, so I kind of need to cram you all with a huge overload of updates and information and myth dispellers (curse those Mythers!) on a whole bunch of stuff going. Super promise it won't be heavy on the brain. 


1- Obumbrate is still locked for its July 7th release. This hasn't changed! What HAS changed is where the online festivities will be taking place to celebrate. Originally, I had planned a Facebook party on several pages, but with Facebook's new fan page promotion policies, I can't unless I risk having the pages removed. 


So we're going to make this super-easy and super-fun by simply making a Twitter party! All day on July 7th, use the hashtag #obumbrateday in your tweets, and you're in! I'll be posting from my user @aliviaanders and doing a series of flash giveaways including signed bookmarks, a couple signed paperbacks, and even some other sweet swag! Trust me, you do NOT want to miss this! 


2- I am trying, desperately, to include a snippet of my next book, Unwanted, which is slated for a tentative Summer 2013 release. BUT I may not make the cut in time to include it. I may, however, have the ability to include a snippet of A Shard of Ice in the back, which is something I've been carefully working on and is slated for a Winter 2013 release. 


3- The cover for A Shard of Ice is NOT the final cover. It's been dancing around online and a couple of people asked me if it was the final cover, but sadly, it isn't. I won't know the final cover of ASoI until this fall/winter. But, in case you haven't seen what I'm talking about, here's the idea of the cover I've been tinkering with: 

(credit to istockphoto for the, uh, stock.)

That's all she wrote for the moment, but until my next post (which is for a MEGA giveaway hop I'm in that goes up in... 2 hours) see you all soon! 

COVER REVEAL: Obumbrate

It's finally here! That's right, it's time to quit hiding the cover for book two of The Illumine Series and reveal the cover for Obumbrate! 

Following a neat little trend on quoting the dictionary, here's the definition of Obumbrate-

ob·um·brate

 [ob-uhm-breyt]

1. to darken, overshadow, or cloud.

And without further ado...

Oooh, sound sneaky, huh? And check it out- Essallie's pendant is right on the cover! The cover in all its entirety, from photos taken to digital editing, was done by your truly! One of the coolest things I love is show you the imagery in my mind when I write, and creating covers from scratch does just that. 


Later on next week I'll be sharing with you all the ability to pre-order a signed copy of the second book with a whole mix of goodies right from this blog. But until then, you'll just have to keep checking off the days until July 7th! (I promise, it'll be here before you know it. -insert wink here-)

Paperback Cover for Illumine!

SQUEE! (I feel like I've been saying that a lot recently.) Have you guys seen the front-and-back paperback cover for Illumine yet?!

All I can say is wow. And a whole bunch of other words like, "Flabbergastingly-wholy-moley-pickled-bacon-tongue AWESOME!"

Everything has been moving so fast since the 7th, I can't even explain it. Obumbrate, book two of the Illumine Series is already underway (yes Mom, that means you can read the draft soon) this week I'm popping up on a  couple of blogs, and from there it's only going forward! I'm still in shell-shock at how many bloggers have been kind enough to agree to read my book, given the no-name status. Book bloggers, you all rock!

I will keep you all up to date with where I'll be stopping at online, so check back often! These next few months are going to be one heck of a doozie.

Illumine has been added to Goodreads!

Check out the final cover and synopsis here!

I don't know about you guys, but I love this cover! Sure, it may have taken roughly seven hours (along with the synopsis) to complete but hey, it was worth it in the end. 

This is insane- it'll be three years ago on the 7th that I first came up with the concept of Illumine. Looking back I never would have thought I would be here right now counting down the hours until my book is released into the wild. Kind of nerve wracking, honestly. Anyone know a good paperbag wholesale guy? 

Hyperventilation aside, the link up top will take you to the new tab on my page that includes the full description and also has a link to Goodreads for making the book as 'to-read' on your digital shelves!  

And now I'm going to return to looking for that paperbag guy.

ILLUMINE MAY HAVE ITS COVER!!

EDIT: The final cover of Illumine is posted right here!

Sorry to interrupt our first days of insanity-promoted-by-NaNoWriMo, but I think for the most part you'll all forgive me when you see this.

I'm really, really, REALLY pleased to show you what could very well be THE book cover for Illumine! It isn't official by any means, I have to double check a few things and I may want to play with the cover a little bit more, but it feels so right to me to see this that I think this will be the one.

Tell me- what do you think of the cover?

awesome vacation + awesome friends + awesome determination = awesomesauce.

The title is just for you, Steph. <3



Hey everyone! Sorry I've been gone so long, I think I'm still suffering from a small case of brain lock from inhaling too much Hollister body spray and finding sand in places I thought I cleaned it out. Twice. But all is well, and I'm working to make everything stay on the timeline I'm dedicated to completing. Vacation was flat out AMAZING, and I think the best part (aside from getting some of the best cuddly sleep ever with my boy) was the fact that I put on next to nothing weight wise. Tim says it has to do with the fact that we walked a typical eight hours every day. Well, no wonder I slept so well. Too bad my couch here at home isn't the same.



I think I'm still stuck in beach-mode. I keep looking for a boardwalk to pour quarters in to win red tickets to save for a new pair of headphones, and I keep expecting to find fried calamari at every food place I stop at (come on PA! I miss my fried seafood!). Don't even mention lobster to me unless you have a box of Kleenex nearby. Tim took me to this cute little place called Red's Losbster Pot not even ten minutes from where we were staying, and I got the most delicious pound and a half of steamed lobster. If I keep talking about it I'm going to ruin my keyboard with drool. Ew.



But the whole trip wasn't exactly sunshine and daisies. Tim's Dad had a huge habit of calling... every two hours. Asking for cigarettes. Really? Tim even bought him a pack when I showed up, and we had just checked in to the room when he called asking for another pack. I have nothing against people who want to smoke because my parents do it, but going through a 20-count pack in less than two hours is a smudge excessive and left me a little jaded.



Then there was the rain. No, I don't mean the cutesy drizzle you run out to kiss each other in just so you can brag to your girlfriends that you were smooched under showers. I mean hurricane worthy storms (actually, it wouldn't have surprised me if it had been a tropical storm that had passed through. That bad, guys, that bad) that made it impossible to see two feet in front of you or your car. We had been making our way to Six Flags on Wednesday when the sky just cracked, lit up, and opened a faucet on us. People were actually pulling over it was so nasty.

That umbrella wouldn't have lasted two seconds.

So Wednesday's plans were tossed out the window. Tim spun around and treated me to the small mall in Tom's River, where I picked up my Hollister splurge I'm still sniffing addictively every thirty seconds. Hint; if anyone at Lehigh Valley Mall wants to hire me for the Hollister store, ahem. Hai. I live in their clothing, right down to the sweatpants when PMS bloating kicks in.

Overall, though, the week was just mindblowingly amazing. I won so many ticket jackpots in the arcade that I really thought I would go home with a second iPad, until I realized I only had 50k points and the iPad was 1.2million.

But enough about my wildly mild vacation! I want to hear about your recent vacations, good or bad! Or maybe you share a Hollister addiction like me? Or even better; maybe you love lobster! Either way, I want to hear about it.

And if any of this post didn't get your blood pumping with a little excitement, I'll give you one last ultra-super piece of information. A really good friend of mine, Amanda, said she would love to design the cover of Illumine for me! I'll be posting the synopsis here on the blog under the Illumine tab on July 6th, and the faster I edit this baby, the sooner I'll start the awesome haul of ARCs and teasers. Now come on, doesn't that make you happy?