Medeia's Cover Reveal, a Snip, ROW80, and Wishing I Were at Surrey

over reveal! Very excited to be featuring Medeia Sharif today:

VITAMINS AND DEATH by Medeia Sharif

YA Contemporary, Prizm Books

Release Date December 10, 2014

Deidra Battle wants nothing more than to be invisible. After her mother, a public school teacher, engages in an embarrassing teacher-student affair at Lincoln High, they relocate to a different neighborhood and school. Being her mother’s briefcase, Deidra joins her mother at her new workplace, Hodge High.

Since her mother has reverted to her maiden name and changed her appearance, Deidra thinks no one will figure out they’re the Battles from recent news and that they’re safe. Neither of them is. Hodge brings a fresh set of bullies who discover details about the scandal that changed her life.

Feeling trapped at home with an emotionally abusive, pill-addicted mother and at school with hostile classmates who attempt to assault and blackmail her, Deidra yearns for freedom, even if she has to act out of character and hurt others in the process. Freedom comes at a price.

Find Medeia

Blog   |    Instagram</ a>   |   Twitter   |   Add VITAMINS AND DEATH on Goodreads

I've also got the promised longer snip from my paranormal romance, Druid's Moon:

From the moment she'd been accepted to join Professor J. Ronald's team on his much-publicised dig near Afanc Cave in Cornwall, Lyne Vanlith had secretly hoped for an exciting, mysterious find that might earn her a co-writing credit on the Professor's paper. But the manuscript that turned up in the first week of excavations was not quite the type of puzzle she had allowed herself to daydream about.
"'The Curse of the Octopus,'" she read out loud, translating the Middle English script as she went. Octopus?
A sudden gust of wind shook the printout in her hand. She'd taken high-resolution images of the original vellum and put off her other assigned tasks that afternoon to linger in the cave entrance, where they'd set up their makeshift office and storeroom, and work on a translation of the text. She held the paper closer and reread the first line in the grey afternoon light filtering through from outside.
The Professor gave her one of his trademark try-harder-lowly-student looks from over the top of his glasses. She'd rather not consult the dictionary -- or ask his advice -- so soon, though, and moved on to the next two lines.
"Beast brought forth by man's blood / the mound-keeper repays the sacrifice, but shall sense the wind."
A thrill went through her at the words. There was violence inherent in their tone, even if she had no idea what the phrases could mean. Images came to her mind, of warriors raising a cairn, robed men circling a low mound, a gleam of yellow eyes in the dark under the ground. The breeze came again, fluttering the corners of the paper.
She'd been continuing her excavations near the well at the far end, closest to the wall dividing them from the Cockerell Manor gardens, when she'd uncovered the crumbling manuscript, suspiciously close to the surface. Both she and the Professor had been baffled by the lack of other objects, whether at a shallow level or even a few tiers down -- not even so much as a lead case that might have held the lone sheet of vellum.

Those are the first 25 lines, but the first five pages are up on the Forum right now for the third part of the October writers' exercise. Let's say that participation in the exercise counts as part of my ROW80 goals for this week because I've really procrastinated on typing up Larksong. I did go through my notes for the NaNo story -- "notes" refers to scribbled bits of dreams and ideas from the past couple of years -- and learned that the male protagonist's name is Peter. Now I need to find out what the female protagonist's name is...

I wanted to say thank you all over again to everyone who came by during the Blog Blitz! Still slowly working my way through blog visits. And have you visited Dan Koboldt lately? He's the winner of this year's WRiTE Club. I had a great time volunteering as one of the preliminary judges this year - I'll bet next year's event will be even bigger!

And now, please join me in a toast...raise a glass or a bar of chocolate or a wedge of cheese...to all of those at Surrey and to all of us who wish we were there but are participating in spirit.

Many other authors are presenting, too, of course. Have you ever had a one-on-one with an author or agent? I've always wanted to try one of those "blue pencil" sessions where they go through a part of your manuscript.

My other wish for this week is a very happy birthday to Lenny!