The Cat Came Back

Hello!!

If there are any die-hard, faithful Drive readers who have stuck with me over my incredibly long hiatus, thank you!  If not, I hope I get some of you back soon.  I have gained new inspiration and have made new resolutions recently.  So, my plan is that I will write for you all at least once a week.  Posts will focus on a variety of topics, not just what/how I'm writing, but also information I've learned from and about the industry, segments about what I'm reading (oh yes, the return of the one para book review!), and things about general life.  A lot has happened over the past year and a half for me to talk about!

First off, as some of you old readers know, I got married last August (2011) to the absolute love of my life.  The wedding went off with...only the usual stress.  :)  But we had an absolute blast, boogying it up to my stepdad's band in my parents' back yard.  Best way to do a wedding!  (Well, I can say that now, after all the stress of planning!)

After that, we went to Fiji for our honeymoon, which was absolutely amazing.  We stayed on 2 different islands in the Yasawa chain.  Both without roads or vehicles (other than boats).  Each island had just a handful of villages on it, and the money we spent staying at the "resorts" (which weren't the fancy things you normally think of when you hear that word) went back to the schools and other services for the people who lived in the villages.  I would go back in a heartbeat...

...EXCEPT that I can't go back for awhile because, speaking of heartbeats, there's a little extra one beating away in my abdomen right now.  In about two months, her little heart will be beating out of my abdomen and we'll get to see her beautiful (okay, smushed, pink, slimy) face for the first time.  So, I will probably be talking a bit about that in upcoming blog posts, since thoughts about birth and mummy-hood take up 99% of my brainspace these days.  Hormones are powerful, I swear.

So, that's what I have been doing!  Busily creating a family, travelling, and working on my career (unfortunately for my writing, the day-job career as a Speech Pathologist).

But someone commented on my last post, a million years ago, and asked me to write about aliens.  I'm going to side-step that request (but file it away for later!) and instead show you someone else who is AMAZING at writing about aliens...aliens in love, actually. :)

Melissa West's book Gravity is released from Entangled Publishing TOMORROW, people, so go out and buy it.  I've already preordered mine from Chapters, so I know I'll get it pronto.  The book has an amazing cover:

And here is the amazing story to go with:

Seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander just broke that rule and saw the last person she expected hovering above her bed—arrogant Jackson Locke, the most popular boy in her school. She expects instant execution or some kind of freak alien punishment, but instead, Jackson issues a challenge: help him, or everyone on Earth will die.

Ari knows she should report him, but everything about Jackson makes her question what she’s been taught about his kind. And against her instincts, she’s falling for him. But Ari isn’t just any girl, and Jackson wants more than her attention. She’s a military legacy who’s been trained by her father and exposed to war strategies and societal information no one can know—especially an alien spy, like Jackson. Giving Jackson the information he needs will betray her father and her country, but keeping silent will start a war.

If you want to see examples of brilliant plotting and superbly tight language, check this out.

And, with that, first blog post in over a year is complete!  Stay tuned for more, hopefully in less than a few months.

~Amanda