Announcement

My Column Racer fantasy series was originally planned to be two books, but I have changed the number of books in the series to three novels.  Look for the second volume to come out late 2013 to early 2014!

What a Savagely Bad Movie

So, okay, we just watched the movie Savages just a few days ago, and man . . . what a terrible, terrible movie.  I think we pretty much knew it was going to bad from the get-go, because when we checked it on rotten tomatoes, it was at 51% and the audience had given it 55%.  With two rotten scores this movie was far from fresh.  It was bad almost on every scale.  The acting wasn't great, especially Blake Lively, whose character was always teetering on the edge of annoying, and the editing was choppy as the movie decided to skip making a more coherent piece and instead settled on a world controlled by editors with massive ADD.  My firm recommendation for this movie, is to buy it, take it out of its case and smash the living heck out of it. Smash it until it turns into dust particles.  Then wipe the sweat off your brow, put the particles back in the case and recycle it.  That is the only way you could possibly find any entertainment out of the movie.

Kirkus Review for The Column Racer

I have just received the review for my first novel, The Column Racer, by Kirkus Reviews.  Here is just a glimpse:

A dark, well-plotted fantasy adventure.
- Kirkus Reviews

For the full review, please check the link below and enjoy!

The full review for The Column Racer by Kirkus Reviews

Announcement

Look out for the review for The Column Racer, coming out December 11th by Kirkus Reviews!

Sample Pages of The Column Racer Available!

I have left links to both Amazon and Barnes & Noble where you can look at sample pages of my book online!  Enjoy!

The Column Racer on Amazon

The Column Racer on Barnes & Noble

The Column Racer - Book Trailer

Q&A - The Column Racer

What’s the Story?

The story is about a fourteen-year-old dragon rider named Areli Roberts who earns a spot on the Abhi Hall column racing team after having an undefeated season.  Meanwhile, the Empire is plunged into dark and horrific times as the Emperor is tearing apart each sector of Areli’s homeland for a man named Degendhard the Great.  A man who the Empire slanders as a ruthless criminal and immoral fiend, but in reality 

Degendhard is a hero of the people, and now those people are paying the price for Degendhard’s actions. 

Once in Abhi, Areli is given two options by the Emperor for the upcoming season.  She can ‘win and live’ or she can ‘lose and die.’  Areli finds support in her best friend Fides and her new boyfriend Yats, whom she deeply loves and cares for even though she struggles with unresolved feelings for a different boy back in her hometown, a boy she truly thought was her soulmate.

As the upcoming season fast approaches, Areli has a confrontation with the Emperor’s niece, who threatens to destroy Areli’s season.  This threat, along with a deadly secret Areli soon learns regarding Degendhard the Great, pits her in a race both inside and outside of the racing coliseum to protect her life and the lives of everyone she cares about.

Why I wrote the book?

I wrote the book for my soulmate.  I actually plan to write a story for all my immediate family members.  She is the one who helped me find my passion for writing, so I wanted the first book I published to be for her.

So, I don’t exactly quite remember the chronological order in which the idea was formed, but I can give you an insight into how it happened.  I know that I wanted to write a story for the love of my life, and she just happens to be a barrel racer.  So, first I thought to write a story about a barrel racer and her season in barrel racing, which involves barrels and horses (it will be explained later).  But I quickly scratched that idea.  I am such a fan of Harry Potter that I wanted the story to be fantastical.  I wanted it to big.  So, I replaced the barrels with columns and the horses with dragons.  It’s also very cool to point out that her Chinese Zodiac animal is actually a dragon.

Then I remembered a specific instance when we were out at the barn and doing the typical morning chores of cleaning the stalls (which is very nasty business mind you), and there was this big junk of excrement from this big horse, and I quickly thought of that scene from Jurassic Park, where there is that Triceratops dropping and he is like “that is one big pile of ‘you know what.’”  And I had this vision of a dragon, in a stall.  A little girl watching from distance.  She had blue eyes.  She couldn’t have been older than twelve.  There was dirt on her face, and she was clinging to an old and rotting wooden fence.  The dragon was stubbornly fighting its owners to leave the stall and blew flames out at them.  And then I could see people flying these dragons.  I could see people doing a form of barrel racing on these dragons.  And then the story just kept on building from there.

In the end, it is a story written with all the love in my heart, for the love of my life.

Who is Areli Roberts?

Areli Roberts is just a girl who has always wanted to be a Professional Column Racer ever since she laid eyes on her first dragon.  She is aggressive and bold, and extremely competitive.  She is honest, but likes to withhold her feelings from people.  And column racing comes naturally to her, as if she was born to do nothing else except race dragons.

What is column racing?

Here is a video to help you understand what barrel racing is.  And after you are done watching it, picture giant columns instead of barrels and dragons instead of horses.  And a coliseum made of limestone, marble, and gold.

Look for The Column Racer on 11/6/2012 on Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook!