Freedom Hop Giveaway!

The Literary Imaginarium 

brings you two great giveaways!

This is your chance to win two great books!


A Secret in the Attic

Amy has two best friends. Emma is her best friend and rival, Jonathon is her childhood sweetheart.

But then she meets Jake, and everything changes.

When Amy finds an ancient book in an old steamer trunk in her grandmother’s attic, her world is turned upside down.

The book contains an old gypsy curse; a curse so powerful it’s called The Curse of the Widowed Bride.

Amy’s secrets could destroy all of them, but what’s a few secrets between friends?

Only one can break the curse.

Which one will walk down the aisle?

Find out in this urban fantasy

by Samantha Jillian Bayarr.

Called Home

Emma Benson's view of life was crafted as a child by the death of her brother, the abandonment by her father and later, the man she trusted she would marry. A teacher by training, she forgoes her chosen path to save the Wisconsin farm she calls home from financial ruin. A tornado threatens damage, but David Schlosser—back in town after years in New York writing best-selling novels—could ruin her neatly tended life. He's looking for the charms of the small town he once rejected and finds more than he bargained for. He risks everything to get what he wants. The storms of life throw Emma and David together and into the world of a criminal determined to ruin their plans by any means necessary. Robbery and near death connect Emma and David to their nemesis and during the throes of securing life and limb they make every effort to resist falling for one another.

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And the winners are...

The winners have been chosen using Random.org

$10 Amazon Gift Card: PrincessCooks

Grave Robbers: Darlene

The Ruin: Carol Thompson

Thanks to everyone who Entered!

See you for the Freedom Giveaway Hop July 1-7

Welcome to the Midsummer's Eve Blog Hop!

Giveaway # 1

$10 Amazon gift card!

Giveaway # 2

Kindle copy of Grave Robbers

By: Samantha Bayarr

Grave Robbers

Twelve-year-old Charlie had no idea what she was getting herself into when she devised a plan to outwit her father, an experienced grave robber, and steal the jewels from the Widow Taylor’s casket just before burial. When the widow’s murderer comes looking for the jewels, Charlie must come up with a new plan to keep her and her father from becoming the murderer’s next victims. But what is it that has her so frightened?

Giveaway # 3

Kindle copy of The Ruin, by: Kenneth Fenter

The Ruin

The Ruin takes place in rural Southwestern Colorado in the summer and winter of 1954-55. It is a time when corporal punishment is common at school and at home. boys faced with school yard bulleys are expected to "man up". The contemporary portion is set in the year 2000 after successive years of school shootings caused in part by disturbed boys who have been persistently bullied.

The Ruin is a story about bullying, damaged lives, and the tragic consequences that too often end in suicide or even the ultimate tragedy: school shootings.
The Ruin begins with retiring English teacher Clifton Kelley caring for his class during a school lock down, because across town a boy is shooting classmates in the school cafeteria. Kelley flashes back 40 years to himself as a 14 year old boy, who after years of school-yard bullying, is driven to make the decision whether to aim his rifle at the boys who have bullied and beaten him or seek refuge from his rage by fleeing to the wilderness.

The Ruin then becomes the story of his survival using the knowledge he has gained from his parents and the Museum at Mesa Verde National Park. For the next year he takes shelter in a cliff dwelling in the foothill canyons of Mesa Verde. He finds the strength to overcome fear of the dark, hunger and the severe climate on the 7,000-foot foothill plateau. There he gathers food, learns to hunt using a primitive weapon, stores food for the winter, and devises clothing to protect himself from the harsh mountain climate.

The boy connects with the spirits of the long departed Ancient Puebloans whose dwelling he finds home. Spare time in his long days of solitude become a time of introspection, communing with nature, and creativity.

Nearing the anniversary of his disappearance the lessons of the experience are put to the test.

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Pick Your Poison
Of the thousand and one reasons not to write--and trust me, I know 'em all--the one that lies at the base of most of them is fear. Fear of failure, fear of success )I've heard of this one, but I'm still not sure I believe it), fear of confronting whatever personal demons and issues your writing may elect to address. Do you tell it like it is, of do you sugarcoat the truth? Do you keep you aspirations small--letters to the editor, fillers for the local paper, jokes for Playboy--or do you kick out the jams and take on an epic novel? Do you stop complaining about trying to work at the kitchen table, surrounded by family commotion, and take the bold step of renting a small office somewhere?
For all its rewards, spiritual and otherwise, writing is a scary business. I wouldn't lie to you. You're facing more than the blank page every time you sit down to work: You're facing a silent challenge, even a reproach. Go ahead, that damn page says, give me your best shot--throw some words at me and let me show you just what I think of them! I've faced down bigger opponents than you, and I ain't scared.
Whether you like it or not, you have now entered what is commonly called a no-win situation. 
If you give in to your fears and let the blank page remain unsullied, you will have simply traded one negative feeling--fear--for another--regret. You'll not only feel bad about yourself, for cowardice in the face of composition, but you'll always wonder what you might have been able to accomplish if you'd just forced yourself to blunder on ahead. Every time you go into a bookstore, you'll be looking at the new titles with a hint of envy in your eye, wondering how your own book might have stacked up to all these others and what it might have looked like--would it, too, have had a glossy cover, or something more discreet and tasteful? Even worse, one day you'll find on the shelf some book that reminds you of the one you were planning to write and it just won't be as good as yours would have been. That's a real killer. You'll want to yell at the top of your lungs, "Hold on! I had this idea! I can show you how this sort of book is really supposed to have been written!"
But of course you won't (not least of all because the security guard would throw you out of Barnes & Noble) but because it's too late--you had your chance and you didn't take it. That taste of ashes in your mouth is regret, and it's something even Listerine can't get rid of. But fear, on the other hand, why that evaporates with every word you write. Just do your work, and--mirabile dictu!--the fear will dissipate altogether and the regret, of course, never materializes. With any luck, the only thing you'll have left to contend with at the end of the day is your fear of success. (Write and tell me what that's all about).


Excerpt from: Robert's Rules of Writing
Writer's Digest Books, Copyright 2005

Buy the Smoking Jacket.
One of the sticks with which aspiring writers are most of hit over the head with is, "Do you want to write...or do you just want to be a writer?"
You're supposed to chastised by that. Real writers, you're to understand, want to write; they need to write. Phonies just think about sitting around in comfy armchairs, being interviewed about what they've already written, surrounded by leather-bound collections of their work, a faithful dog, and a worshipful spouse.
To which I say, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with having a picture in your head of yourself as an accomplished and successful writer?
We all have to have some goal we're striving for, some idea of what we're aiming at, and the image of yourself basking the glory and accolades is as good as any.
What, pray tell, is the alternative?
Should you imagine yourself, day after day, year after year, toiling over a cluttered desk, or wrestling a new ink cartridge into your printer? What kind of fantasy is that? How is that supposed to get, and keep you motivated?
No, I say go right ahead and dream away. Color in every square inch of your private fantasy. Savor every detail. No writer focuses on the image of himself writing any more than a bus driver dreams--except in his nightmares--of driving a bus.
Yes, you have to do the work, and yes, you will do it; that's a given. Writing--though it can be rewarding and even on a good day, fun--is hard work, and no one would want to dwell on it too much.
Consider this fantasizing as a kind of self-actualization. (Now you're talking!) By concentrating on the end, not means, you may be able to keep some of the troubles and doubts at bay. Thinking about your writing tends to become thinking about the problems in your writing. Thinking about syntax and structure will keep you up at night. 
And nothing will help you write better than a good night's rest.
Excerpt from: Robert's Rules of Writing
By: Robert Masello
Writer's Digest Books
Copyright 2005