I couldn't be more excited to be a part of Kristie Cook's latest release The Space Between Blog Tour!!! We've got a giveaway for a $5 gift card to Amazon...fill out the form at the bottom of this post for your chance to win. Second we've got Kristie Cook hosting her own giveaway, and this one is just too good to pass up you guys! Head over to her site at the end of the tour for a chance to win a $200 gift card or a swag bag full of goodies! Can't help being excited over that one right? So get pumped and hit as many tour stops as you can along the way because you won't want to miss out on all the fun and great content these bloggers have put together with the help of Kristie and the tour coordinators!
And now I'm passing the torch over to Kristie who was kind enough to stop by and give us some insight into where the inspiration came from for The Space Between!!!
On a warm October Saturday in 2011, The Man and I and some friends went on a long-distance/overnight motorcycle ride. We live on the West Coast of Florida and there’s a highway called Alligator Alley, which is the part of I-75 that connects the West Coast with the East Coast. It runs through Big Cypress, the Everglades and an Indian reservation, but you don’t see much from the road because it’s, well, highway.
But the old Alligator Alley is a two-lane road a little farther south, lined by marshes, swamps, saw grass and amazing wildlife. You can definitely see alligators from the road and during mating season, they’re actually on and crossing the road. Not the best time to be riding a bike, but October isn’t mating season, so we were fine.
We headed to an Indian casino at the far end of Alligator Alley in Homestead (where Hurricane Andrew hit, for those who remember). I was at the tail end of writing Devotion, Book 3 in the Soul Savers Series, and really looking forward to the ride. I sit on the back of The Man’s bike, which allows my mind to wander to wherever it wants to without having to pay attention to the road. There is a major scene in Devotion that takes place in the Everglades, so I was excited to soak in some detailed imagery to use in the book. The ride was beautiful, with lots of alligators far enough away to be cool but not scary. It had served me well for Devotion.
What I hadn’t expected on this trip was to be slammed with an idea for a totally new book that had nothing to do with the Soul Savers. We spent the night at the casino’s hotel, and the room was decorated in Native American décor with bright reds, oranges, yellows, blues and turquoise in Aztec designs. On Sunday morning, I’d taken my shower and gotten dressed and everything and came out of the bathroom to find The Man standing next to the bed, pulling his shirt over his head.
Yes, I remember this all very clearly, because he declared with great enthusiasm, “I had the coolest dream!”
He excitedly told me about it, but as happens with dreams, the details were already fading. We were the main characters and he couldn’t remember the why of what we were doing, but I wrote everything down that he did remember. After the ride home that let my mind play with the idea more, I had the inspiration for what became The Space Between. You’ll know when you get to the place in the book that gives it its title – that scene was The Man’s dream with the pool, the clicks and the ultimatum, but not the explanation.
Over the next few days, the characters began coming to me, one-by-one. And then the why, which The Man hadn’t known but I had begun to work out on the ride home, came clearer and clearer. The hardest part was figuring out the best way to write it, knowing that the 1980s story needed to be told just as much as the present-day one. But I sat down to write, figuring it would work out as it was supposed to.
I had to put the book to the side several times, though, so I could finish the next book in the Soul Savers Series. For National Novel Writing Month in November 2012 (yes, a full year later), though, I decided I was going to put everything on hold and write it for my first-ever NaNoWriMo project. Because by that point, it was all I could think about. The Soul Savers characters would just have to wait – I couldn’t focus on them anyway.
So now we have The Space Between, the first part in The Book of Phoenix series, all because of a dream my husband had in a strange hotel. And it’s even cooler than his dream. He even said so. *grin*
***Thank you so much for taking the time and stopping by Kristie! You're the best and I couldn't be more excited for you and your new series....and for all the readers out there who have been eagerly anticipating the next series you'd put out there on the shelves.
So don't forget guys, hit up Kristie's site for the HUGE giveaway she's got going on at the end of this tour, fill out the form below for the Amazon gift card giveaway, and last but not least...my review of The Space Between...I'm warning you now...I enjoyed it so much I couldn't resist gushing a little more than usual...enjoy!
After a month-long dance tour through Italy, 20-year-old Leni Drago returns to Georgia to care for her great-uncle, only to find him gone, the home they shared empty and any evidence he ever existed wiped out. All that’s left is a journal she can’t open.
Jeric Winters has been searching for a piece of his past for over a year, only to reach a dead-end in Georgia. When an urgent and magnetic pull draws him out of his hotel room, he comes face-to-face with the beautiful dancer who’s been haunting his dreams day and night.
Jeric’s one to stay away from—a bad-boy, hit-it-and-quit-it type—but Leni can’t escape the fervent feelings between them. As their own existences begin to crumble around them and shadowy forms that are more monsters than men attack, they realize there’s more to the connection between them than physical fascination.
To solve the riddle their lives have become, they must embark on a journey that requires them to face their pasts and release their true souls. And they must do it fast—dark ones from another world are closing in, intent on killing them. Permanently.
Some books just pull you in right from the start. I should have come to expect this type of opener from Cook's work, but each and every time I crack one of her books open I'm still excited all over again when I find myself immediately pulled into the worlds that she's created with each new title she puts on the shelves. Not really knowing what to expect out of this book, when asked to check it out for review before it came out to the public I figured why not? I've loved all of her work in the past, and was looking forward to seeing her venture into a new series filled with new characters and scenarios to follow along. I'm so grateful now to have been given the chance to see for myself what this new title and series would be like, because as always, Cook has come up with something fantastic!
Completely unique and like nothing I've read before or probably will again, I had no doubt that even though I had only made a little headway into the book, that there was no going back....it was just that good! I was thrown off course so many times while reading that I couldn't believe Cook was able to keep up the high level of excitement and anticipation from start to finish. Leni and Jeric are two characters with so many layers that there was never a chance to get bored with them, or even feel like you've known them enough to anticipate what they'd do next. They were fresh, unpredictable, easy to relate to on some levels and intriguing on others. Just when I was starting to feel like I'd gotten into the flow of their story, Cook switched things up and introduced two additional main characters...I was skeptical. Again, I'm not sure why I continue to even have a shred of doubt where Cook is concerned. It only took minutes and a few pages of their story to fall in love with them just as much as Leni and Jeric. And wouldn't ya know...Cook would change things up at that point too.
Her writing and the stories she weaves for her readers are fun, fresh and impossible to resist. Put aside some solid quality reading time when you pick this one up....because you're not going to want to put it down...it's just that good! I can't wait to see what Kristie comes out with next and this time around I'm promising myself that there will be no hesitation or worry that it won't live up to her high quality work already out there. I'm already predicting this series is a smashing success, because I just can't imagine anyone not loving it. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the second installment brings to the table.
I gave The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix, #1) 5 shamrocks!!!!
Thank you for the fabulous review! I'm so glad you enjoyed The Space Between. :) Thanks for being on the blog tour, too. (Sorry for the delay - I was on a tour in the UK and still trying to catch up.)
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