GUEST POST and GIVEAWAY
Lake of Sins Series
by L. S. O'Dea
The Lake of Sins series currently consists of two books: Escape (ON SALE for $0.99 to 30 October) and Secrets in Blood. Author by L. S. O'Dea is on tour with Goddess Fish Promotions. The tour stops here today for a guest post by the author, an excerpt, and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
In a world where class distinction means the difference between imprisonment and freedom and even life and death, being chosen to stay in the encampment and breed is the only way to guarantee survival for a teenage Producer.
Every year after harvest, the finest examples of teenage Producers are assigned mates; the rest are loaded onto carts and hauled away, never to be seen or heard from again. Trinity, a sixteen-year-old Producer, knows that she has no chance of being chosen to stay. She isn’t even full-blooded Producer. Her father is a House Servant and she’s spent her entire life hiding her differences, especially her claws and fangs.
She has one week to sneak into the forest and discover what happens to those who are taken. Her plan is simple, but she doesn’t count on being hunted and captured by predators long believed to be extinct. Can she elude her captors to uncover the fate of her kind and return to camp before her escape is discovered?
She ran blindly away from the sound of the Guards, her backpack slamming against her spine with each stride. If they catch my scent, they will find me. She skidded to a stop. The forest had ended. A rock wall loomed in front of her, stretching to both sides as far as she could see. Little crevices and divots peppered the wall, but it was too steep to climb. She had to make a choice. The wrong one would cost her freedom, maybe her life.
The trees rustled behind her. Too late. They found me. This had all been for nothing. Now, the best she could hope for was to be taken with the others. Her chest tightened. She had to make sure that her mom and Remy weren’t punished because she escaped. She raised her hands to her shoulders and slowly turned. Her breath caught in her throat. A Tracker, the deadliest of predators, stood on its back two legs, towering above her, front legs hanging down like arms. Brindle fur covered its body and its eyes glowed yellow in the shadowed forest. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth, exposing a row of sharp teeth on the other side. Someone should tell it that they no longer exist in the wild.
Praise for the Series
"I haven't been this hooked on a story since The Hunger Games." ~ M. Cassidy
"What a great plot! This story swept me in and kept me entertained from beginning to end." ~ Peyton Siruski
"I thought it was impossible to like this book better than the first, but I was wrong." ~ M. Cassidy
"The different species or classes are something utterly new and remarkable to me in the genre. They never cease to amaze me." ~ Ana Silva
Guest Post by the Author
Critique Groups
I think critique groups are extremely helpful, if you get the right one. I took most of my writing classes in an actual classroom. We would read each other’s work and then critique it in class. When it was your day to have your story discussed, you had to sit and say nothing. The story had to stand on its own. This was very hard to do especially when your classmates weren’t "getting" it. It took a while to learn that if most of the class didn’t "get" the story then I didn’t do my job. If only one or two were confused then it was probably just them, but it was still worth the time to revisit that section and see if I could clear it up.
In order for a critique group to be useful, it needs to be somewhat large – at least five or six people. It also helps if they don’t all come from the same background. This is not easy to find. I have my beta readers which I’d consider my critique group, but most of them are family so we have the same background. I have branched out and found a few beta readers/reviewers on line and they are very helpful.
I would love to be able to get all my beta readers on the phone at the same time so that I could almost re-enact my college classroom. They could discuss the work and point out thing to each other. I’m still working on setting up a phone line for this. There are companies who do this and I don’t’ think it’s that expensive. The problem is all my beta readers have different schedules. It’s annoying when two of my beta readers who live together talk about the story with each other when I’m not there. I want hear this discussion. I won’t chime in. I was taught better than that.
So, to sum up, I love critique groups and would like to expand mine.
About the Author
L. S. O'Dea grew up the youngest of seven. She always wanted to do what her older siblings were doing, especially reading stories.
Ill at a young age, she immersed herself in books. Her life changed when she read a short story written by her older brother and realized that normal (somewhat anyway, since her brother was a bit weird in her opinion) people created these amazing stories. From that day forward, she wanted to write.
However, as with all good stories, obstacles rose in her path (mostly self-created obstacles) and it took her many years to put finger to keyboard and type her first book.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $50 Amazon or B&N gift card.
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