Karen Metcalf Guest Post!!! and 2 ebook Giveaway :)

My obsession with thunderstorms started at a very youngage.  Most of this I attribute to growingup in the Carolinas where we are fortunate to get numerous storms each year.  When I wrote In the Storm I was in college in South Carolina and one found me alone at night.  Just like when I was akid, this meant no sleeping.  It stillmeans propping the curtain open and finding a semi-comfortable position asclose to the window as possible and watching the lightning until I can’t keep my eyes open.  In all honesty, very fewthings are as comforting to me as these storms. I want the electricity to go out so I don’t have to hear the airconditioning.  I want the windows toshake and my neighbors to squeal in terror. I don’t want them to end.  Thiswas 100% of the influence for my stormworld and what I would want to be mysanctuary.  They say to write about what you love.


Growing up, my parents’ house was surrounded by fields and Iwas able to watch the storms roll in from miles away.  They way the energy in the air changes and the wind gets all spastic is pure bliss to me. I’ve sat on a porch getting drenched more than once into my adulthood,and wouldn’t change it.  To this day(especially when I was in Arizona which rarely ever stormed) my parents call or email me during storms back home.  Though my dad and I used to sit watching them for hours together, since my novella was released he thinks about it more.


This is what he took away from my book.  It’s interesting as an author to get to hear all the different perspectives on what each reader takes away.  For my mother, it was all about the lovestory.  For my brother it was the injustices of evil Richard.  For some reviewers there has been a lot of emphasis on some of my ideas on fate and loss, which I hadn’t realized were all that original at the time.  I think that is all that an author could ever ask for.  There are so many millions of other authors, and so twice as many books to compete with.  Some will change a readers life and some will be forgotten the moment it is closed.  All I ever hoped was that something about my book would stick with my reader.  Accomplishing that in only 89 pages adds a great deal more pressure to that challenge. I only hope that you, the reader will take that challenge and let me know how I’m doing.  If it means a few more people take the time to enjoy a good storm, I could die happy.

And now for the giveaway :) To enter, leave a comment for Karen with your email and GFC follower name-if GFC is down, follow on networked blogs instead.  This contest is INTERNATIONAL-a giveaway of 2 ebooks of In The Storm.