Kama Falzoi Post's Blog

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Title: InHuman

Author: Kama Falzoi Post

Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi

Release Date: December 13, 2016

Publisher: BookFish Books

Cover Artist: Anita Carroll at Race-Point

About InHuman

Mira’s mother sizes up bodies at the morgue like she’s rifling through the sales rack: this one’s too big… this one’s too small… ah, here it is. Just right. The perfect vessel for the one they’ll call Adam.

Since Adam’s survival is the key to drawing out the Conduit—a slippery sort bent on evacuating souls from their human bodies—Mira must help him pass for a typical teenage boy. That means showing him how to talk right, walk right, chew with his mouth open… blend in.

Ironic, because blending in is has always been a challenge for Mira, especially with hair the color of a Dorito. But at their small, secluded prep school, blending in is a matter of life and death.

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Check out A Sky Filled With Stars, hosting my debut!

A Sky Filled With Sparkling Stars Blog

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Kama Falzoi Post for the release of her Young Adult sci-fi thriller, InHuman!

Keep reading for a chance to win $25 Amazon Gift Certificate!

Title: InHuman



Author: Kama Falzoi Post


Genre: YA Sci-Fi


Release date: December 13, 2016



Publisher: BookFish Books

Cover Artist: Anita Carroll at Race-Point

 


About InHuman

Mira’s mother sizes up bodies at the morgue like she’s rifling through the sales rack: this one’s too big… this one’s too small… ah, here it is. Just right. The perfect vessel for the one they’llcall Adam.

Since Adam’s survival is the key to drawing out the Conduit—a slippery sort bent on evacuating souls from their human bodies—Mira must help him pass for a typical teenage boy. That means showing him how to talk right, walk right, chew with his mouth open… blend…

View original post 183 more words

Today, I have the distinct pleasure of revealing the cover for InHuman, a sci-fi thriller by me, Kama Falzoi Post! Without further ado, here’s the amazing cover!

Title: InHuman
Author: Kama Falzoi Post
Genre: YA Sci-Fi
Release date: December 13, 2016
Publisher: BookFish Books
Cover Artist: Anita Carroll at Race-Point

Mira’s mother sizes up bodies at the morgue like she’s rifling through the sales rack: this one’s too big… this one’s too small… ah, here it is. Just right. The perfect vessel for the one they’ll call Adam.

Since Adam’s survival is the key to drawing out the Conduit—a slippery sort bent on evacuating souls from their human bodies—Mira must help him pass for a typical teenage boy. That means showing him how to talk right, walk right, chew with his mouth open… blend in.

Ironic, because blending in is has always been a challenge for Mira, especially with hair the color of a Dorito. But at their small, secluded prep school, blending in is a matter of life and death.

Because the Conduit is watching.

Pre-Order InHuman Now!


Add InHuman to your Goodreads TBR list

(Substitute any word with any other word)

Adam: Mommy do you want to see a magic trick?

M: Sure.

A: You have to turn around and look.

M: I can’t turn around. I’m driving.

A: But mommy you have to look!

M: Okay, do it quick. (cranes neck)

A: (hides card behind his back) It disappeared.

M: Oh, wow! That’s clever.

A: Mommy why did you say that’s clever.

M: Because it was.

A: What does clever mean?

M: It means really smart.

A: Mommy that wasn’t really smart.

M: Oh.

A: So why did you say it?

M: I don’t know.

A: But you said it.

M: Yup.

A: But why did you say it?

M: (sighs) …

A: Want to see another trick? Watch this.

M: Okay bud.

A: You’re not watching.

M: I can’t turn around. I’m driving.

A: But you turned around before!

M: There’s lots of traffic now, I have to concentrate.

A: But when can you turn around?

M: I don’t know. When I’m not driving anymore.

A: But that will be forever!

M: It might be.

…ad infinitum

Check out the Swanky 17s Meet the Author post featuring yours truly! Click the link below to learn more.

Kama Falzoi Post is a part-time introvert, a pinnacle of contradictions, mother, step-mother, and author. She enjoys drinking red wine and listening to music that moves her. Her stories have appeared in Inkwell, SmokeLong Quarterly, and most recently in the anthology Outliers of Speculative Fiction. Her debut novel, IN HUMAN (BookFish Books, originally scheduled for release in […]

About IN HUMAN:

Seventeen-year-old Mira wants no part of her mother’s shopping excursions. Those late-night trips to the morgue to pick out the perfect body feel a lot like rifling through the sales rack: this one’s too big, this one’s too small, this one’s just right. Lately, the whole thing makes Mira shudder. Yeah, she’s the key to saving all of humanity, but since her father disappeared, she’s pushed that untapped part of herself so deep down inside you’d need the jaws of life to free it.

However, when her underground network receives word of a potential threat, Mira must infiltrate a remote boarding school in order to flush out the evil. It’s hard enough to blend in with a massive nest of Dorito-colored hair, but it’s even harder when you’re the sole protector of a tall, dark-haired Initiate too gorgeous not to be a distraction. Throw in a nefarious entity bent on evacuating human souls, and graduating high school should be the least of Mira’s worries.

Fueled by stubborn determination and a maddening attraction to the wrong boy, Mira must find a way to unearth her buried talent and vanquish her biggest enemy. If only she can figure out who that is.

 

via Meet the Author: Kama Falzoi Post — the swanky seventeens

I was lucky enough to join the ARC tour for Aften Brook Szymanski’s new novel, KILLER POTENTIAL (July 2016, BookFish Books). Here is my five-star review, also on Goodreads:

This book kept me reading well into the night. It alternates between Yvette’s dysfunctional past and her drug-hazed present, slowly building in intensity as both worlds spiral downwards.

It’s easy to see how someone’s past informs their future, as Yvette–beginning as a small child— is an innocent victim to her mother’s withdrawal into depression and prescription drugs and her father’s constant absence. Lacking any type of guidance and support, she is left to her own devices in an attempt to protect her brother from falling in with some bad influences.

We know from the beginning she has been placed in a psychiatric hospital for mental instability and possible murder, but the slow reveal of how she got there keeps you reading. As Yvette’s world slowly crumbles, her sanity goes with it, and it’s not until the very end that you learn the story even Yvette isn’t privy to.

Interested in the downward spiral into psychosis? How our pasts influence the person we become? How about straight up, hardcore revenge? Then this is the book for you. It pulls no punches, and may leave you laughing maniacally at the end.

Today, I have the pleasure of revealing the cover for BookFish Books’ July 19 release, Killer Potential!

Title: Killer Potential

Author: Aften Brook Szymanski

Publisher: BookFish Books

Genre: YA Psychological Thriller

Release Date: July 17, 2016

About Killer Potential

Seventeen-year-old Yvette Gibbs was just admitted to the hospital psych unit in handcuffs as the main suspect in a murder case, which she refuses to talk about.

Drugs and depression claim her family—leaving Yvette to fight her own demons alone. Adopting the skill of master of passive-aggressive vengeance lands Yvette in the psych unit with no family support, unless she cooperates with her therapist to clear her name, also a convicted murderer.

Yvette wants revenge on the world that taught her to be afraid, claimed her mother to depression, hid her father in a fog of job hopping, turned her brother to dealing drugs, and swallowed her sister whole, but to achieve this she must lie, manipulate, and most of all survive. Pitting her dead sister’s shady friend whom she fears against the man who reminded her she’s not immune to victimization, is her perfect solution to all life’s hassles, even if that means she ends up with blood on her hands. Until everything backfires.

About Aften Brook Szymanski

Aften Brook Szymanski, at the age of five, once fell on her bum looking out a large picture window while eating a pickle and people laughed. She thought she was funny, life has never been the same. She’s obsessed with LEGOs, cozy reading nooks, and over-the-knee socks. A graduate of the College of Southern Idaho with an Associate of Arts degree, Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science degree, and the University of Utah with a Master of Education degree. Learning is more fun than testing, sometimes we have to endure both.

She lives in a very cold Wyoming valley with her husband, three kids, and one unhappy cat, where they are being cryogenically preserved for all time—thanks to how cold it is.

Find Aften Online

Blog: http://aftenbrookszymanski.blogspot.com/

Tumblr: http://aftenbrook.tumblr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aftenbrook

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aftenbrookszymanski/

Preorder Killer Potential or Add it to your TBR!

Goodreads

Amazon Preorder

The boy at 2 months, always crying.

Everything has to be done differently now.

He’s put to bed in our room because he doesn’t tolerate his crib for more than two hours. So I bought this expensive swing contraption (something I said as a cluelessly indignant pregnant lady that I’d never do) because now I know I’ll do anything that’s going to buy me forty-five scream-free minutes.

Me, perpetually sleep deprived.

When even those gaudy bright and loud plastic toys start jumping off the shelves into my arms with the promise of his precious attention, of advancing his development, of evoking that guilt, the voice that nags inside my head, he’s not rolling over yet and that baby on the Internet is…

And on and on.

Until I sink back into a fierce dependency on my intuition. It is like sinking into a warm, familiar chair. Everything is going to be just fine. Take a breath. He is a precious, precious boy, and his purity is heartbreaking and perfect. The screaming will stop. Eventually, the screaming has to stop.

My husband comes into the bedroom and reminds me of the meteor shower. It is nine o’clock at night on a Friday and he says there are screech owls in the trees. I am pulled between wanting him to keep his voice down–the baby swings in his contraption next to the bed and hikes his breath, not fully asleep–and wanting to see and hear what I am so desperately missing.

My perpetual sleeplessness has a dulling effect on my curiosity.

The star show goes on without my audience. The screech owls too. Sleep is hard to come by, and soon the baby will be at my side, placed gently all aswaddle next to me, and all night my fear for his safety will keep part of me awake: the lioness part. The mother bear part.

That other me doesn’t matter anymore. She’s like the stars, the screech owls. Going on in some other place, put off for another time.

-Written in August, 2011

The boy at five, always smiling.

 

“How is your book going?”

This question often comes up while I’m standing in a crowd of people I don’t know very well. It’s one of those needle-scratching-across-the-record moments, all eyes on me, waiting to hear what the writer has to say. Beads of sweat form at my hairline, I shift uncomfortably and take a long gulp of whatever poison I’m drinking, the fake smile plastered on my face hangs there just a beat too long while I search through my catalog of responses.

What can I say without sounding self-important, or boring, or unwittingly eliciting that dreaded follow-up question, So, what is it about?

Here are some techniques I’ve employed in the past:

Deflection

Q: How is your book going?

A: Oh, pretty good. Hey, do you think there’s meat in these stuffed mushrooms?

Inspect stuffed mushrooms until everyone loses interest, then eat stuffed mushrooms regardless of findings.

Self-Deprecation

Q: How is your book going?

A: Like a turd on a conveyor belt. Terrible. Let’s talk about something else.

Token Polite

Q: How is your book going?

A: Really well. How is your wife/husband/kid/pet?

Drunk

Q: How is your book going?

A: Sumpthin’s uppin my whatnow?

Fall over and/or vomit.

Confrontational

Q: How is your book going?

A: What’s that supposed to mean?

Swashbuckling

Q: How is your book going?

A: Make way, ye soul-sucking scum o’ the sea, fore I take me cutlass and feed the fish!

Not recommended.

Soap Opera

Q: How is your book going?

A: How dare you, Timothy. You think you have the right to ask me such things after what you did with my twin sister? I trusted you!

Splash wine in his/her face then turn on your heel and depart dramatically. 

Honest

Q: How is your book going?

A: Some days I think it’s going well. Other days I wonder when everyone is going to see through it all and call me out for the intruder I am. Thanks for asking.

Q: So, what’s it about?

A: Fall over and/or vomit.

Dear Mr. King,

I’ll never forget when we first met.

Me: an awkward fifth-grader in a peach shaker-knit sweater pulling CUJO off the shelf of my father’s horror collection.

You: black print on a white page introducing yourself with a Once upon a time.

Starting CUJO–my first impression of you–I thought, so where’s the freaking dog?

I’m sure you did it on purpose. Started with Frank Dodd, moved to a creature in a little boy’s closet, created that first prick of terror with such mastery that right away this dark, inner horror wrapped its tendrils around my heart and squeezed. Didn’t stop squeezing. Even when I put the book down in a cold sweat, quaking and cringing under my Doritos® bedspread, praying for morning light.

Clearly, it was love at first sight.

I devoured your books: CARRIE, CHRISTINE, PET SEMATARY, SALEM’S LOT, IT, THE STAND, even your Bachman stuff. Everything I could get my hands on, the day they came out. Cracked the spines, dog-eared the pages, bit my nails to the quick, slept with my light on.

Now, I have to admit I wasn’t always faithful. This may be hard for you to hear, but once (only once! okay maybe twice) I turned to Koontz. Hey, it was a moment of weakness, and I regret it to this day.

It may help you to know Koontz has nothing on you.

Coming back–The Tommyknockers, I believe–was like coming home to a friend. (A really fucked up, homicidal, sociopathic friend, but a friend nonetheless.) Something about the cadence of your words struck such a chord with me—you had a bop in the step of your prose that reminded me of my artist father trying to march in formation in the Marines. It set you apart from everyone.

Your books made an impression on me. I’m not just talking about being scared of the dark. Or scared of being alone in my room. Or wary of cherry red Plymouth Furys staring at me with their big-ass headlight eyes.

(Don’t worry. I don’t blame you for any of that. My father loved you first, so it’s all his fault. He called you Steve like you two were friends, when really he should have come after you with a baseball bat, or an ax, or lured you into a stormdrain. Anything to protect his daughter. Cause I had it bad.)

As a teenager I bought a black and white postcard from a spinning rack at a bookstore: you at your messy writing desk next to an antediluvian computer, feet up, pen in hand making notes. A glimpse into your world–a world where walls could seep blood and madness lurked behind the most mundane of faces.

You know how when you’re a little kid you think of God as this white-bearded colossus dictating from atop a puffy cloud? Then you grow up and realize everything you believed had been grossly misrepresented?

Well, with that postcard suddenly my perception of you changed. It went from this image of a writerly genius sitting straight-backed and serious at the far end of a gloriously spacious writing room, a beam of light shining down on your head, to something much more real.

You know what that postcard did? That postcard took the magic out of you.

I realized, looking at that image, that you were a normal (adorably messy) human being who worked very, VERY hard, and THAT’S why you were so good. I realized I could be that person too. Or at least, my own version of it.

Knowing that made me appreciate you even more. Because writing is ugly and difficult and simultaneously beautiful and necessary, and sometimes it’s just a giant rolling ball of suck.

So thank you, thank you Mr. King, for doing what it took to get yourself there. For putting down all those words. That awkward, fashion-backwards fifth-grader thanks you once upon a time and always.

-Your Biggest Fan (but not in a creepy or threatening way I swear)