Djinns For the Love of Mytholgy

***WINNERS!!!***

Sorry, I was out of town attending my first Boas & Tiaras in the DFW area. It's a fabulously fun event. And author Nalini Singh was the keynote! SQUEE! Anyhoo, that's why the winner announcement is a wee bit late  and I'm sorry for that. To make it up to you, I picked TWO winners instead of one:

Vanessa N. & Kamla L.

Also, the winner of the grand prize I donated for the blog hop is RACHEL!!!

WooHoo! Congrats! Thanks to everyone who hopped along & left comments!

So I saw the theme and the amazing art work for this blog hop and it was love at first meet. I write about dark and dangerous djinns (often called "genies") and so it seemed perfect to jump on board the 

Love of Mythology Giveaway Hop. 

My djinn stories are inspired by childhood tales of djinns based on Asian and Middle Eastern mythology. In those stories, djinns are not demons but beings similar to humans, except they are made from smokeless fire and are prone to stronger emotions and have power to grant wishes, change forms and create havoc (that's the dangerous part.)

They live in a parallel dimension and have their own cities, politics and culture. The only time you'll find them in a lamp or bottle (or other inanimate objects) is when they have been trapped there. So in my stories I like to explore the djinn world and pit djinn against djinn, and sometimes throw in a human as well. But yes, they also fall in love because, to me, that's what makes life worth living.

When you say genie, most people imagine

or

The djinn of my imaginations looks more like Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan

Thanks so much for joining me on the blog hop! Leave a comment and your email address to win a signed copy of A TALE OF TWO DJINNS and genie lamp key chain! 

Make sure to check out the different posts on the hop. There's lots of giveaways as well as a rafflecopter entry.

This giveaway hop is running from June 1st to 8th .
The Grand Prize Consists of the following:

$45 Amazon GC or $45 worth of books at TBD.

ebooks from Patricia Bates

a prize from Lisa Beth Darling 

an ecopy of Sunburn by Rosanna Leo

an ecopy of Ain't No Bull by Danica Avet

an ecopy of Remedy Maker by Sheri Fredricks

a Rafflecopter giveaway

5* For DEAD: A Ghost Story

My one and only NON-romance, DEAD: A GHOST STORY, received another 5 * review and left me feeling warm and fuzzy and giddy.

Writing outside of your usual genre takes courage. You are afraid of disappointing your readers, you are afraid that your writing may not be up to the new challenges, and you are afraid of taking a leap into the unknown. However, DEAD was inspired by the immigrant women who often live and die in the shadows, it's about abuse and heart break, and it's about freedom and hope.

That's a lot to put into a story and I wasn't sure if I'd accomplished it. Then I received reviews, like the most recent one from a E.P. Beaumont:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real ghost story
February 27, 2013

By
E. P. Beaumont - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)This review is from: Dead: A Ghost Story (Kindle Edition)

I discovered this work by recommendation of Grace, who knows the writer. Never discount the word-of-mouth referral, because this is one of the best stories in any genre or any language that I've read in the last six months or so. Worldwide, ghosts are unfinished business, and Nasreen is no different. Without spelling it out, Mina Khan teases us with many expected ghost-story tropes (the jealous first wife, the murdered innocent, the heartbroken ghost forever bound to its place of death) before unraveling the knot into an unexpected sensation of lightness and liberation. Meanwhile, back in the world of the living, an implied noir tale unfolds after the credits roll.

Brilliant work, all around, with a storyteller's voice that is simultaneously invisible as water (or wind) and a personality of its own. Brava! I look forward to more work from Mina Khan, and right now am off to buy all her other books!

***

I don't know who you are E.P. Beaumont, but thank you. Your reading my stories and taking the time to share your reaction is priceless. Your words made my day. All those hours spent agonizing in my head and sweating blood onto paper as I try to pull a coherent story from the vivid chaos that is my imagination is worth it when I know my stories are connecting with readers. So thank you for sharing.

What Inspires Author Nadia Lee as a Person and a Writer?

If you like retellings of fairy tales as much as I do, you should check author Nadia Lee out ....

Trying to be upbeat and give my best to everything isn't easy when I'm overwhelmed and frazzled. There are times I want to do "just enough" because I don't want to bother anymore. But whenever I feel that way, these days I think of my baby son to inspire me as a writer and person.

I not only want to set good examples, but I want him to be proud of me for doing my best at all times. He is only 17 months old, but he's already trying to be a good, helpful baby the best he can. For example, after each meal, he throws away dirty napkins, brings his dirty plates and drops them off in the sink and wipes his tray and floor with a wet wipe, instead of running off to play with his toys. (He's been doing this for several months actually.) 

Given this, there's no way I can let the momentary distractions and so on get in the way of doing my very best in all I do.


So what does Nadia do? She writes some awesome fairytale-inspired fantasies....

Nadia's Latest Release:

Ever After Bundle: Books 1 & 2

Save 33% compared to purchasing each separately!

A Happily Ever After of Her Own
Melinda Lightfoot, a preschool teacher with an unusual ability to flit in and out of fairy tales, never thought she would get into trouble...

...until the Fairy Tale Police arrest her while she is in Beauty and the Beast. They offer her a deal: Find Beauty, who left the story when Melinda trespassed into it, or be charged with the ultimate crime -- Fairy Tale Killer. If that's not bad enough the Beast tags along in search of his true love, and Melinda starts falling for the fairy tale prince. She must choose between doing the right thing and having her own happily ever after.

One Kiss

He is a legend...

Robert is a royal prince cursed into his current predicament: remain a frog until he can get someone to kiss him...willingly. After years of searching, he finally finds a suitable royal princess.

She is but a humble maid...

Practical maid to the royal princess, Molly promises to help Robert in return for gold enough to fund her retirement. She doesn't want to waste her youth waiting on someone as capricious and shallow as the princess, instead of living her life.

But love knows no boundaries...

Unexpected problems unravel Robert's plan. The princess thinks frogs are disgusting, and his evil cousin shows up to steal both the princess and the throne that rightfully belongs to Robert. To compound matters, all he can think about is the quick-witted Molly.

But to undo the curse and inherit the throne, Robert must have a kiss from a royal princess and marry her.

What's a cursed prince to do?

Want to know more about Nadia?

Bilingual former management consultant Nadia Lee has lived in four different countries and enjoyed adventures and excellent food around the globe. In the last eight years, she has kissed stingrays, been bitten by a shark, ridden an elephant and petted tigers.

She shares an apartment overlooking a river and palm trees in Japan with her husband, baby boy, winter white hamsters and an ever-widening pile of books. When she's not writing, she can be found digging through old Asian historical texts or planning another trip.

Sign up for Nadia's Newsletter to be the first to know when she has a new book out! http://www.nadialee.net/newsletter/

You can also follow Nadia on Twitterhttp://www.twitter.com/nadialee/ or like her on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/nadialeewrites/ 

Author Jeannie Lin Shares The Inspiration Behind Her Amazing Romances

Sometimes there's nothing more inspiring than other people. So I have decided to occasionally invite other creative sorts I admire to share what inspires them. For my first guest we have Jeannie Lin, she of the amazing Asian stories and gorgeous covers.

(Released Sept. 20, 2011...Woot!)

So what inspires Jeannie Lin?

I think this answer changes every time I think on it, but when I get down to the root of it, I'm inspired by my mother.

Of course, Mum is getting extra points right now because I'm back in southern California for a brief visit and she's been feeding me home cooked meals.

When I was in third grade, Mum told me how if you write down your stories and they were good enough that people liked them, they'd make your story into a book and pay you for it. Money for stories? I became absolutely enamored with the idea and wrote so much that summer that my hand seized up and I got a writer's callous that I can still feel to this day. It's my badge of honor (Writer's callouses -- do people get those anymore?)

So when people ask what inspired me to write, I like to say the money, but the truth is it was my Mom.

 

 

Her real inspiration for me was her attitude about getting things done. I think her response to my sister's lament of writer's block sums it up: "I guess you're not creative enough." This may come off as cruel and Tiger Mom-ish, but it's not. In my mother's universe, every problem has a solution and if you know that, then it's just up to you to find it.The answer is within your own grasp. When I was submitting BUTTERFLY SWORDS and facing rejection after rejection, I told myself one thing and it kept me going more than any words of encouragement ever could: "I guess the writing's not good enough...yet." 

 

JEANNIE LIN
grew up fascinated with stories of Western epic fantasy as well as Eastern martial arts adventures. When her best friend introduced her to romance novels in middle school, the stage was set.

Jeannie started writing her first romance while working as a high school science teacher in South Central Los Angeles. After four years of trying to break into publishing with an Asian-set historical, her 2009 Golden Heart® Award–winning manuscript, Butterfly Swords, sold to Harlequin Mills & Boon. With two releases and four more upcoming titles all set in the Tang Dynasty, she's keeping her fingers crossed that this hard-sell genre will one day be hard to resist.

As a technical consultant, backpacker and vacation junkie, she's traveled all over the United States as well as Europe, South Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam. She's now happily settled in St. Louis with her wonderfully supportive husband, and she continues to journey to exotic locations in her stories.


Visit Jeannie Lin online at http://www.jeannielin.com

Thanks for visiting Jeannie! And your stories are better than good enough...so glad you keep writing and showing that different or difficult stories can still find a place. You are inspiration.

Any questions for Jeannie? Who inspires you?