RELEASE DAY BLITZ - Center Ice by Cate Cameron (Interview & Giveaway) @crushcraveep

Center Ice (Corrigan Falls Raiders)

by Cate Cameron

Release Date: 05/19/15

Entangled Crush

Summary from Goodreads:

The hometown hockey hero won’t know what hit him…

Karen Webber is in small-town hell. After her mother’s death, she moved to Corrigan Falls to live with strangers—her dad and his perfect, shiny new family—and there doesn’t seem to be room for a city girl with a chip on her shoulder. The only person who makes her feel like a real human being is Tyler MacDonald.

But Karen isn’t interested in starting something with a player. And that’s all she keeps hearing about Tyler.

Corrigan Falls is a hockey town, and Tyler’s the star player. But the viselike pressure from his father and his agent are sending him dangerously close to the edge. All people see is hockey—except Karen. Now they’ve managed to find something in each other that they both desperately need. And for the first time, Tyler is playing for keeps…

Buy Links:

Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Kobo Books│iBooks

What one thing should readers know about your hero?

Hmmm… I think readers should know that Tyler is an excellent hockey player! He’s insecure and has good reason to be – he knows he could get injured before he makes the big league, he knows how competitive it is, with people from all over the world coming to play hockey in the NHL. And because half the book is from Tyler’s perspective and he’s insecure, and the other half is from Karen’s perspective and she knows nothing about hockey, it really might seem as if Tyler is a struggling player. 

But he gets drafted in the coming June, absolutely. He goes first round – maybe even first pick. He’s a really good player! 

What one thing should readers know about your heroine?

I think readers should know that Karen at the start of the book isn’t the Karen who existed a couple weeks earlier. She and her mom were really close, and her mom’s death has left her angry and confused and miserable. So she’s not super-sympathetic at the start of the book, but I think there’s good reason for that! 

What authors and/or books have inspired you? 

I’m a voracious reader and get inspired by practically every book I pick up, but the stories I know have had lasting impact are the ones I read when I was younger. The Outsiders, with all those tragic boys on their own, trying to solve life’s problems without any guidance… and A Separate Peace, with… all those tragic boys on their own, without any guidance… huh. And now I’m writing about OHL players, taken away from their families at sixteen and trying to make sense of life without any guidance… I think I may be noticing a trend. 

What are you working on next? 

I’m actually working on the sequel to Centre Ice! This one’s called Playing Defense and it’s about Chris Winslow falling for his tutor, Claudia. I really loved writing Chris in Center Ice, so it’s been totally fun to get to spend a whole book with him. Claudia is really uptight and serious, and Chris has been great for getting her to relax a little and just have some fun. 

Speed Round

Love Triangles…Love ‘em or Can’t stand ‘em? – they make me anxious. I don’t like them 

Peanut M&Ms or Plain? plain 

Pizza or chocolate? PIZZA! 

The Vampire Diaries or Game of Thrones? Game of Thrones 

Matthew Macfadyen Mr. Darcy or Colin Firth Mr. Darcy? Colin Firth. I thought Macfadyen did a good job, but Colin Firth IS Mr. Darcy. 

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About the Author:

Cate Cameron grew up in the city but moved to the country in her mid-twenties and isn't looking back. Most of her writing deals with people living and loving in small towns or right out in the sticks - when there aren't entertainment options on every corner, other people get a lot more interesting!

She likes to write stories about real people struggling with real issues. YA, NA, or contemporary romance, her books are connected by their emphasis on subtle humor and characters who are trying to do the right thing, even when it would be a lot easier to do something wrong.

Author Links:

   

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Book Blitz Organized by:

Diana Nixon - Authors interviewing authors

First thing's first - here is a little info about Diana before we look at her interview:

Diana Nixon is a fantasy author, known for the Love Lines series. She was born in Minsk, Belarus, where she currently lives and works on her books. In 2008 she graduated from Belorussian State University, in 2009 – got a Master of Law degree. Diana speaks several foreign languages, including English, Spanish and Polish. Her first book, named Love Lines, was published in May, 2012.

Links:
Official page / Facebook / Twitter / Buying books

And here are the books (so pretty)

Love Lines series:

The traces of supernatural powers have always been crossing the world of human beings. Many people know about the existence of healers, mind readers, oneiromancers and wizards. But for centuries their lives have been kept secret and no one has ever heard about one special place, where those gifted people studied.
Neither has Eileen Clark, whose life has never been different from the one other teenagers have.
But one day everything changes. Eileen finds out that she belongs to the mysterious world of unnatural and the destiny leads her to Dever - a closed university for the people like her.

Nothing will ever be the same again...

New life, new friends, new enemies...

But the true love will never let her down. It will help to go through everything....

1. Love Lines (a novel)

The story begins with a strange dream, which has been torturing Eileen for nights. Trying to find out its hidden meaning she leans on her best friend Amanda for help. The two of them go to a fortune-teller, who predicts changes in Eileen's life. 
Eileen and Amanda, whose family is one of the seven founders of Dever, go there to start new life and get education. Coming to the university Eileen meets Christian, Amanda's brother, whom she falls in love with from the very first sight. But, as it turns out later, Christian is in love with her too. 
They couldn't even imagine that many years ago their lives were bound by magical spells. But now they have to find out why...





2 Songs of the Wind (a novel)

Losing Christian hasn’t been easy for Eileen. But she’s not going to give up. Now she has to find a way to bring him back from the magical dream, where he was taken by Eric Lanster. Together with her friend Evan, Eileen goes to France – Meridin’s motherland, where she hopes to find out the mysteries of the dream’s magic. In a small town named Fontainbleau they meet a wizard, who turns out to know a lot of their secrets… 
Determined to help Eileen, Evan agrees to complete some special dream piercing training. But he can’t even imagine what he has put himself into. The magic of dreams keeps a lot of secrets. The spells are dangerous and their consequences no one is able to predict. 
Friends can become enemies…
The ones they used to call their family can become traitors…
But the ones they love will always be there to help…




2.5 From Scratch (a short story)

Our lives are a cascade of events that pass faster than we would like them to. Time changes everything. Our habits, our views, our circle of friends. But there is one thing that remains the same over the years. 
Our memories.
Through them we cherish the most unforgettable moments of our history. And they also retain some things that can't be forgotten….
But one day you realize that yesterday should be left in the past. Because tomorrow your new life begins, and you go back to the drawing board. 
A love story of Evan Murray and Tara Mackenzie.
A story that should last forever….But no one knows when forever ends….

All Blurbs taken from Goodreads.

INTERVIEW

1. What's the hardest part of writing your book?

- I work in a fantasy genre, so the hardest part here is to make my books different from other books of the same genre. Sometimes it seems that everything has already been mentioned: angels, vampires, wizards. Personally I think that if a person likes some specific kinds of books, he will keep reading them, no matter how many authors write about one and the same thing. That’s why the most important thing is to make a book unique and memorable. There are a lot of writers working in a fantasy genre, but I still think that every new story can be special in its own way. One of the things I used in my Love Lines series was the language of flowers; their meanings and messages that people could send using different combinations of them. Flowers were combined with the meanings of dreams, magic, numerology, legends and adventures. I called it A Recipe For A Good Plot:)

2. What current projects are you working on?

- At the moment I’m working on four different books. The first one is a book of poetry that I write together with one of the most outstanding Indian authors, Abhishek Leela Pandey .  It calls The Blurred Vortex. Another book is the third part of the Love Lines series, named Diamond Sky. And there are two more new projects: one is a contemporary romance, named Hate at First Sight, and the second one is a trilogy in my favorite fantasy genre, named Heavens.

3. What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing your book to life?

- The main challenge I faced working on my first book was the translation. Love Lines novel was originally written in Russian, so it took many sleepless nights, tons of coffee and God only knows how much of my nerves to polish its English edition. Now I write my books in English, so I have one problem less. Though I still do some researches about the aspects I want to be magical, and not just trivial.

4. Give us the title and genre of your book and a 30-word or less tagline:

Title: Love Lines
Genre: Paranormal romance
Tagline: They couldn’t even imagine that many years ago their lives were bound by magical spells. But now they have to find out why….

5. Who is your intended audience and why should they read your book?

- I write books for young adults. My stories have everything that fans of fantasy are looking for: mysteries, adventures, characters that will make you swoon, beautiful love and magic of course. If you open the first page of Love Lines, you won’t be able to stop reading this book, until you get to the last page, that will make you rush to the nearest bookstore to buy the next part of the series:)

6. How did you come up with the title of your book or series?

- It was supposed to show the main idea of the book – the beauty of love. And I thought that if I added a part of mystery hidden in the book, the title would sound good. So it turned into Love Lines.

7. Who did your cover art?

- Love Lines has two covers. The Black & White one was designed by me, and the colorful one – by one of the most amazing graphic designers I’ve ever met, Jennifer Munswami.

8. In 50-words or less, describe your latest book?

The next book to be published is Diamond Sky. It’s a new page of the Love Lines story that will reveal new secrets and mysteries buried in the walls of Dever University. It tells about the new challenges in Christian’s and Eileen’s life. And nothing about it is going to be easy. There will be more challenges; new friends and new enemies.

New! Authors interviewing authors post

Hey guys!

So I have a new exciting post idea. I have some awesome authors who are going to take part to let you get to know them better.
So first, what is it?
Well, I've noticed that some bloggers find in difficult (myself included) to come up with new questions or questions they think the author will want to answer and the readers will want to hear. So, I thought why not ask the authors what they want to be asked and then - being the evil person I am - pose those questions to another author? Now I'm left with authors interviewing authors and it just seems like much more fun, because lets face it they're a lot more creative than me. :P
I had originally intended to start this in July but I'm going to do one today so that you can all get a taste for what's to come. So keep close and you'll get to find out some interesting facts about the authors you know and love. :)

-Tia