Fire by Belle Manuel (VNBtM, guest post, excerpt and GIVEAWAY) GFT

Happy Martin Luther King Day to all of you!

It is my pleasure to share a guest post from author Belle Manuel, who answers the question:

What do you think is the strongest attraction about the genre(s) you like to write in?

 Belle's answer:     

I prefer to write in dystopian, post-apocalyptic and fantasy genres, and I prefer to read those as well. There are many things that draw me to it, I suppose, but the main thing is that anything is possible. Vampires, werewolves, elementals, fairies, etc. are real if I want them to be, all because I imagined it. There’s nothing like that in the world, except drawing maybe. Writing about these fantastical things, makes so many more things more powerful just dreaming or thinking about them. The writing brings them to life, all through words that cause you to think about the things I’ve created. It’s not like I feel powerful, so much as that I have a creative outlet for my ridiculous ideas and thoughts. I can create a universe where the colour green is non-existent just because I wanted to, and then maybe people will also want it and they read it then recommend it.

            Dystopian lets me imagine the ramifications of the way people think these days. What would happen if racism was still as drastic today as it was in the 1920s? How would that deconstruct our normality in our lives? It makes me wonder how life would be under governments that don’t want their citizens happy, or that hold them back from things that seem like rights to us.

            Fantasy lets me imagine if we had dragons roaming the Earth, witches casting spells and vampires drinking from people on a daily basis. Could you imagine a world where those fantastical creatures were commonplace? It would truly be something to see.

            In suffice, I read what I like and like what I write. My writing is an expression, an extension of myself let go into the world for people to be a part of. I can only hope that people enjoy my imagination and keep reading the strings of words that I bring together for them, and a little for myself.

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Fire

by Belle Manuel

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GENRE:  YA (Fantasy & Magic)

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BLURB:

Chelsea and Chad are twin fire and water elementals, humans born with the ability to control the elements. Chelsea struggles to control her flames, while Chad finds himself under the control of dangerous people. War draws near, and brother and sister must choose a side, even if it’s against each other.

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EXCERPT

I watched as West sized me up, and I tried to do the same. Maybe his bulk could be his weakness, I told myself. With as much muscle as he had, there was no way he could run as fast as I could. I kept that in the back of my mind as I lit myself light up entirely. West laughed and lit up, too, but he burned hot, bright blue-white flames while I stood in cooler yellows and oranges. I didn’t let it shake me.

He charged, ready to tackle me. I looked quickly and saw an opening for me to run past him. I did, and as I passed him, our flames brushed together, and I pushed my fire through his. He groaned loudly and growled, pushing his flames out further. This time, I charged at him, taking advantage of his anger. He tried to grab at me, but I was too quick as I slipped through his opened arms. I had to leap up and back, fitting right up through the gap of his closing arms and beyond. As I was in the air, flying away from West, a knife thin tendril of fire lashed at my side. I hit the ground hard, but immediately shot a continuous stream of fire up at him. His flames may have been hotter, but mine were easier to control.

I didn’t let up as he ran at me and finally a breach in his flames appeared. I rolled over and kicked him with a fireball to increase the chances of doing damage. A cracking sound echoed as my foot met his rib cage and then West let out a horrible yell. He fell to his knees on the ground in front of me, his pained eyes shooting over to Blaze. I pushed myself away from him, worried that he was somehow faking the pain.

Blaze whistled loudly, signaling the end of the first round.

Buy Links


Amazon paperback
(note by ELF, when I checked AMZ on 1/17/16, the paperback version was a special low price!)
Amazon Kindle

B&N

Kobo Books

Amberjack

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Born in Louisiana, Belle Manuel spent her early years learning to be a good Cajun girl before moving to Texas. She visits Louisiana often, enjoying the quiet break from the active Texas life. When not writing, Belle enjoys crochet and crossword puzzles. Her debut novel, Fire, was released July 1st of this year.

Belle first began writing in middle school, where her first writing job was getting paid by other students to write stories for them. She enjoyed turning their random requests into interesting stories, and the money she made helped fund her reading habit.

Fire began with an idea, but quickly took on a life of its own and changed as Belle wrote it. With all the adjustments and improvements, it eventually evolved into The Elemental Series.

Links

Author Facebook

Goodreads

Amazon author page

Publisher

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GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway


The tour dates can be found here