New Release - Reaping Me Softly

Whew!! We are keeping busy here at Omnific so you can have lots of new books to curl up with as the days start to turn colder!

This week we have an amazing YA release, Reaping Me Softly by Kate Evangelista and we so excited!

 Ever since a near-death-experience on the operating table, seventeen-year-old Arianne Wilson can see dead people. Just as she’s learned to accept her new-found talents, she discovers that the boy she’s had a crush on since freshman year, Niko Clarke, is a Reaper.

At last they have something in common, but that doesn’t mean life is getting any easier. All while facing merciless bullying from the most powerful girl in school, Arianne’s world is turned upside down after Niko accidentally reaps the soul of someone she loves. This sends them both into a spiral that threatens to end Arianne’s life. But will Niko break his own Reaper’s code to save her? And what would the consequences be if he did? 

 

 

We were able to catch Kate and ask her a few of our questions, which is lucky since she is being kept very busy these days with her book release and all...

Omnific: Reaping Me Softly is your first novel with Omnific Publishing, tell us about what inspired you to write and write this book in general.

Kate Evangelista: I believe inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere, you just have to be ready to run with it when it comes. For Reaping Me Softly, inspiration came while watching Deathly Hallows Part 1. The animated scene with Death captured my imagination. This is when D came to me, an overworked supernatural creature who created the Reapers to lighten some of the load. I started writing his story the second I got home.

Omnific: Can you share a little of your writing process with us? Are you a plotter or do you write as a scene hits?

Kate Evangelista: My process consists of starting a novel at the beginning of a month. Then I write a chapter a day until by the end of the month I have a completed novel with approximately thirty chapters—give or take a couple of chapters. I don’t create outlines because I never follow them, and they make me feel like I have to follow them, which restricts the creative process for me. I like to go where the character’s story takes me.

Omnific: The holidays are right around the corner, what is on your list this year? Any books you want Santa to leave?

Kate Evangelista: My major item on the list is a new laptop. Books I can buy at any time, but my Fred needs to retire. He’s done a great job putting up with me through the years, and when I first got him, I said, “Fred, we will get published someday.” Four contacts and several novels later, he’s hanging on by a thread for me. He needs the rest.

Omnific: Since Omnific is all about the romance...what is your favorite romance scene in a book?

Kate Evangelista: My favorite scene happens in Niko’s Inbetween. This is when he first takes Arianne there. I don’t want to describe it much because it will spoil the story, but every time I think about that scene, I get all mushy.  *giggles*

Omnific: Now, if they made that into a movie who would you want cast in that scene? (Or if they have already made a movie, would you recast it?)

Kate Evangelista: I actually have no idea who I want to cast for each of the characters in Reaping, but I would definitely love to attend the casting process. I would sit in that chair, look at the head shot of the guy standing a few feet away, and asking him to remove his shirt. What? Don’t judge me. *laughs*

Omnific: And the dreaded question after months of editing…do you have anything that you are working on next?

Kate Evangelista: I just finished writing the companion novel to Taste called Savor. Once the craziness that is October is over and done with, I will begin writing the sequel to Reaping. It’ll be my NaNo offering for November. I’m actually very excited.

 And if you aren't already chomping at the bit to read this one...here is a little excerpt and a glimpse of Niko and Arianne.

“What shall we toast to?”

“To more than friendship.”

With fire-engine red cheeks, she asked, “What?”

Bumping his glass with hers, Niko took a sip of the sweet, bubbly liquid. He added extra warmth to his mile. Arianne continued to stare.

“You have to drink or it’s bad luck,” he encouraged.

She brought the rim of her glass to her lips and took a tentative swallow of grape soda. She put down the flute as if it would break.

“About the kiss…” She picked up her dinner fork and moved a meatball around the plate. “I’m sorry.”

Niko leaned in. “Why?”

“I didn’t mean to…I mean…actually, I don’t know what I mean. The part of my brain that makes rational decisions switched off, and the next thing I know, I’m kissing you.”

“Are you saying you didn’t want to kiss me?”

“No!” She sat up straighter, almost dropping the fork. “I mean…”

“Ari,” he reached out and closed his hand over hers, “I liked it.”

“You liked it?”

The shock on her face almost made him laugh. He had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from embarrassing her. He squeezed her hand instead.

And if you haven't seen the beautiful trailer for this book, check it out!

 

Thank you so much Kate! I know that your readers will love this new one...I know that I did! Congratulations and much success!

If you want to find Kate here's where you can!

Kate Evangelista

Facebook

Goodreads

Twitter

Author! Author! Blog Bounce

Thursday means BLOG BOUNCE!!

Make sure to check out Omnific's great new releases this month. We have everything from YA to Suspense to Paranormal releasing this month!

And don't forget to look at all of our FREE reads! We have several of our Omnific authors with free offerings for you to check out!

Let's BOUNCE!

Here's how this works:

If you are an author, click on "Get the Code Here" to get the link. Copy and paste that link in your blog post. Then hop right on and add your blog url to get added to the list.


If you are a reader, you get to bounce from blog to blog and meet some great new authors and maybe find some new books to read.

New Release - Between the Lies

Week three in October and Omnific has our third release of the month! And you know that the holidays are just around the corner...so this is one to add to your list for Santa!

This week, Omnific author, Alison Oburia's Between the Lies will be available. Alison already has  one book with Omnific, a collaboration with Jessica McQuinn, Passion Fish, but Between the Lies is her first solo endeavor, and we are all very excited for the release.

Doctoral student Cari Lopez’s academic life is in a rut, but when she comes home to discover a stranger asleep on her doorstep, her personal life becomes immediately more interesting. British accountant Tristan Saunders is a kindred spirit—with a fantastic accent—and there’s a connection kindling, but Cari soon learns he’s made an enemy of the Bulgarian mafia. His trip to the US is far from a vacation.

The enemy is hidden, yet ominously present and always watching. And though they’ve known each other merely a few days, Cari and Tristan are soon on the run for their lives.

Alison Oburia’s layered storytelling reveals a tale of international intrigue and complex relationships, which is distilled to its essence in two hearts. Not everything is as it appears, and people are not who they seem to be. Faced with deception at all angles, Cari must sort out what’s real. If she’s to stay alive—and possibly fall in love, she has to find the truth…between the lies.

Alison was so kind to take time out of this busy week and answer some of our crazy questions...

Omnific: Between the Lies is your second book, but your first time writing without a co-author, was the editing process easier or more difficult when it was all on you?

Alison: It was…different. I thought I’d learned a lot from the first book – how to write cleaner sentences, eliminating the unnecessary words and phrases and, in some cases, entire scenes. I imagined the editor this time would return my manuscript with a “Wow! That was easy!” But, alas, I found I had a LOT to fix (for one thing, I used the word “that” way too often). It was nice to work one-on-one during each editing process. The Omnific editing staff is really good about maintaining as much as possible of the author’s work while streamlining, re-ordering, and tweaking to make the finished product much better. My editors were my first readers; they convinced me to move a few plot twists, thus strengthening the story tremendously.

Omnific: What was your inspiration for your Between the Lines?

Alison: The premise of money laundering was based on two real-life situations. I met Dmitry Vovk, a Ukrainian who became my Tristan Saunders character, about ten years ago. He was an accountant who was beaten severely by the mafia when he discovered millions of dollars were missing from his company. Around the same time, my brother-in-law was working in Asia, leading a team of accountants investigating money laundering that lead to the downfall of a country’s president. They were on the run within that country, the mafia out to stop them, a price put on my brother-in-law’s head. I blended the incidents of Dmitry and my brother-in-law, and added an element of romance, to become Between the Lies.

Omnific: Can you share a little bit about your writing process with us? Are you a planner/outliner or do you just write as it comes?

Alison: I’m definitely a planner – once I’ve got some of the story written. Between the Lies has multiple scenes going on simultaneously so I had to keep track of when each scene was taking place so when I had various characters in the same scene, it all made sense. I really need to get myself a little recorder for my car, though, since so many scenes or bits of dialogue would come to me while I was driving (I travel a lot by car). When I have time in front of my laptop, I’ve often forgotten some of what I wanted to include. I tried keeping a notepad and pencil IN my bed so I could write snippets as I was falling asleep. That failed miserably; I would wake the next day to discover disjointed phrases about penguins and a “nose hair murderer.” I still don’t know what I meant when I wrote that.

Omnific: Since Omnific is all about the romance...what is your favorite romance scene in a book?

Alison: I enjoy writing the slow romance…the little scenes that show each character discovering an interest in the other: the flirtatious comments, shy looks, inadvertent touches, and the internal dialogue (and self-arguing) that build up to that first kiss. By the time that happens, readers will know it’s true love.

Omnific: Now, if they made that into a movie who would you want cast opposite you?

Alison: Oh, I get to be Cari? ~giggles~ I’d have to have an actor who looks like Tristan, because his eyes are mentioned so often. It would have to be an actor with really light blue eyes. If I had my say as the author helping with the casting of Cari and Tristan, I’d want someone like Emmy Rossum and a younger version of Clive Owen.

 

Omnific: Finally, are you already looking forward to your next project, and is it anything that you want to share with us?

Alison: I’ve got three projects I’ve been working on. The first would actually be better suited as a drama on television. In writing, I’d make it a trilogy as if follows four people who have experienced tragedy. The second involves a child custody case, a plane crash, modern day pirates, and lots of plot twists. The third, whose characters have been very active in my head lately, will likely be my next book, tentatively titled Waiting for Mercy. It’s a story based on true events with an addition of a little bit of paranormal: a young journalist writing a human interest story on an old man discovers through his dementia that he possibly witnessed a woman’s murder fifty years earlier but never reported it. Soon the ghost of the woman visits the journalist, providing clues as to what really happened. I’ve asked for opinions from a few friends about each of these projects, and Waiting for Mercy is the clear winner. If, however, a movie studio wants to do Between the Lies, I’m okay with that too!

Thanks Alison! I know that all of your readers are excitedly awaiting the release of this one and am sure they will love it when they get their hands on it.

If you want to find Alison to ask her any questions of you own, here's where you can do that:

Alison Oburia

Facebook

Twitter

 

Blog Bounce!

Once again we find ourselves at a Thursday, and that always means BLOG BOUNCE around Omnific!

Before we get to the BOUNCE, I wanted to remind you to check out Omnific's FREE reads. That's right, if you go to Omnific Publishing, you can find some free reads from several of our great authors including Clarity, the prequel story of Patty Leever's newest release Divinity.

Is there an Omnific author that you wanted to check out? This is the perfect way to do it. We have stories from Debra Anastasia, Carol Oates, and Sarah Glover just to name a few. Just check out all of the free reads available and pick anything from sweet to sexy!

Okay now...Let's bounce!!

Here's how this works:

If you are an author, click on "Get the Code Here" to get the link. Copy and paste that link in your blog post. Then hop right on and add your blog url to get added to the list.


If you are a reader, you get to bounce from blog to blog and meet some great new authors and maybe find some new books to read.

New Release - Iridescent

I warned you all that October was going to be a busy month here are Omnific...we have another new release tomorrow!

The second book in Carol Oates' Ember Series, Iridescent will be available tomorrow. And Carol was so nice to share some of her very busy time with us to answer some questions about her new book!

Candra dreamed of saving the world one person at a time. She never expected to become an angelic weapon and the last hope in a battle against ultimate darkness.

Falling for a Nephilim wasn’t part of Sebastian’s plan. Distraction is something he can’t afford when his rival, Draven, wants what Sebastian has.

Lies, manipulation, and corruption are twisting the lives of the citizens of Acheron. The Arch is missing from heaven, and a demon is intent on claiming the city. At a time they should be growing closer, grief and paranoia are driving Candra and Sebastian apart.

Soon, Candra must face a terrible choice. If the price of restoring heaven is a human soul, who deserves to be saved?


 

So excited...and even more after reading what Carol had to tell us!

Omnific: Can you share a little bit about your writing process with us? Are you a planner/outliner or do you just write as it comes?

Carol: I’m a bit of both. I start with a plan, although I rarely stick to it, and tend to write long hand first. The scenes usually aren’t in order. I write as the story comes to me and change things as I go.  The second draft is typed up with all the scenes in order and from there it’s re-write and revise several times over.

Omnific: What was your inspiration for your Ember Series?

Carol: You know, it’s so long since I starting writing it that it’s hard to remember where a singular spark of inspiration came from. I’m not religious but I’ve always had a deep interest in theology. The story of the fallen angels who fell in love with humanity is something that particularly interests me because it has come in so many forms over generations and through many civilizations. It’s not always referring to angels, but the possibility of Alien life forms or beings from another dimension.

I don’t necessarily hold that the angels in Ember are angels as we know them from stories or that heaven is the traditional heaven. Maybe it’s another dimension existing alongside ours, where our essence passes to when we are no longer corporeal.  They believe they are angels and they believe they came from a place called heaven and were created by a supreme being, but as Candra discovers in Iridescent, it may not necessarily be that simple.

Omnific: So many authors have “soundtracks” that they wrote to, is this something that you used as a way to help you write?

Carol: It’s something I’ve done in the past but not so much on Iridescent. The characters tackled so many difficult emotions and so often that I found it hard to concentrate with a soundtrack. I preferred absolute quite when I could find it. A couple of tracks that did resonate with me during the process but not while actually writing were Dante’s Prayer by Loreena Mckennitt and Divenire by Ludovico Einaudi.

Omnific: What is your favorite romantic scene in a movie? Would you have written it differently?

Carol: The scene from The Notebook when Ali is leaving Noah after they’ve briefly been reunited, and he’s asking her to think about what she really wants her future to be. To me, that is such an honest scene because Noah’s pain jumps off the screen. He doesn’t promise hearts, flowers and a happy life because real love isn’t like that. Real love can be painful, unpredictable, and lonely at times. It’s challenging and it’s hard work but the rewards can be amazing for two people willing to fight for it. 

I tried hard to bring that sort of realistic love to Candra and Sebastian.

Omnific: Would you have cast that scene with different actors?

Carol: No, there isn’t anything I would change about that scene.

Omnific: Iridescent is the second in the series, will there be more? And I have to ask about one of my favorites, Shades of Atlantis?

Carol: Iridescent is finished in such a way that the characters appear to get what they deserve. However, should readers want more, there are another two books outlined. One follows on from Iridescent and another is a prequel. The prequel tells the story of Payne and Candra’s mother.

The first draft of Shades of Atlantis is finished and has been for a while. I plan to dive into revisions as soon as my current project is complete.

Check out the amazing Iridescent trailer!!

  Thanks so much for taking some time to share you story with us, Carol. Congratulations and wish you so much success!

If you want to find out more about Carol here are some places to find her:

Carol Oates
Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads