Thank you for visiting here today! I want to give a thanks to ABG Reads Book Tours, for letting me participate! For this stop, I will provide the synopsis for this great read, and the Author's info. In addition, I have the Guest Post from the Author, so you will see that below! Thank you Olivia! :)
Also...go check out the other Tour Stops as there are Reviews,Guest Posts, and Giveaways so CLICK HERE. :)
Synopsis:
Journalist Memphis Zhang isn’t ashamed of her Wiccan upbringing—in fact, she’s proud to be one of a few Chinese American witches in San Francisco, and maybe the world. Unlike the well-meaning but basically powerless Wiccans in her disbanded coven, Memphis can see fairies, read auras, and cast spells that actually work—even though she concocts them with ingredients like Nutella and antiperspirant. Yet after a friend she tries to protect is brutally killed, Memphis, full of guilt, abandons magick to lead a “normal” life. The appearance, however, of her dead friend’s sexy rock star brother—as well as a fairy in a subway tunnel—suggest that magick is not done with her. Reluctantly, Memphis finds herself dragged back into the world of urban magick, trying to stop a power-hungry witch from using the dangerous Flower Bowl Spell and killing the people Memphis loves—and maybe even Memphis herself.
Guest Post:
Hi everyone! I want to thank TK for letting me guest blog today. What a cool opportunity to introduce myself to all of you. I’m Olivia Boler, author of two novels, The Year of the Smoke Girl, and my newest novel, The Flower Bowl Spell. I’m currently working on a young adult (aka YA) prequel as well as a sequel to this latter book, which is about a San Francisco witch named Memphis Zhang, who has tried to banish magick from her life, but just can’t shake that crazy world of spells and danger. As an entertainment journalist, Memphis gets to rub shoulders with creative types, including a very sexy and possibly devious rock star on the rise, Ty Belmonte. Never mind the fact Memphis has a boyfriend—could her attraction to Ty be real or just some kind of magickal trap that will put her and those she loves in danger?
Speaking of, I saw a bunch of comments somewhere online recently—maybe it was Goodreads.com or BookBlogs.com—about listening to music while writing. For me, my office needs to be as silent as the G-R-A-V-E, save the fairly frequent barked alerts from my dog Audrey and the city bus that chugs on by every 15 to 30 minutes. But those things are white noise, and don’t really break my train of thought. (What does break my train of thought, you ask? Why, that would be the sudden need to do the dishes, eat, get a drink of water, blow my nose—you name it, I will do it.) Every now and then, when I’m working on a non-creative freelance project and setting up my document—doing the grunt work—as I like to call it, I can have some nice instrumentals in the background. There’s a local musician, Teja Gerken, who produced an album Postcards, a few years back that I wrote about in an article for The Noe Valley Voice. I like listening to that while grunt working.
Still, despite my aversion to it while writing, music is kind of a big part of The Flower Bowl Spell. Memphis interviews Ty, whom it just so happens, is a person from her past, for an article in a San Francisco newspaper. She’s invited to travel with his band and write more stories, which affords her the chance to hear more of his band’s music. I had a lot of fun imagining what it would be like to be a singer/songwriter, and coming up with titles and lyrics for Tyson’s band, which is, by the way, called Arsenic Playground. That name was born from an article I wrote—again, for the Voice—about older equipment in San Francisco’s public playgrounds that contain arsenic-treated wood. I kept referring to them as “arsenic playgrounds” in my head or out loud to my husband. We agreed that Arsenic Playground sounded like a cool band name, so that was that.
Some of the song titles and lyrics of Arsenic Playground reflect the fact that I was rereading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby while writing the book. One line in the song “Cry Gatsby” refers to something Daisy says about being a “little fool.” Another song interprets “The Tyger” that famous poem by William Blake in Songs of Experience. Clearly, Arsenic Playground is a very bookish band.
Since Arsenic Playground shows up in the sequel to The Flower Bowl Spell—I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t read the book yet what becomes of Tyson—I’ll probably be channeling my inner rocker in the near future. Until then—read on!
Author Bio:
Olivia Boler is the author of YEAR OF THE SMOKE GIRL, a coming-of-age novel published by Dry Bones Press in 2000. Gary Snyder called it a “dense weave in the cross-cultural multi-racial world of complex, educated hip contemporary coast-to-coast America...It is a fine first novel, rich in paradox and detail.”
Her second novel, THE FLOWER BOWL SPELL, is available as an ebook on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com. It's a paranormal adventure, a bit of a departure from her earlier work, but addresses the same themes of multi-racialism and self-acceptance. Plus, it has cool urban witches in it, so that's fun.
I'm totally the same as you, Olivia. I can't write fiction with music on. I can do busy work, sure, but no creative writing. Although I don't need total silence -- I think if I waited for total silence, with a house full of kids, I'd still be waiting. :) Great post!
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