My Kid Reviews Zeppelin Attack!

Disclaimer: I work for Evil Hat, the company that is producing Zeppelin Attack! This is awesome, because I often get an advance peek at new stuff. Although my son likes to give me credit for ALL THE THINGS, I really only worked tangentially on this game--I wrote material for the website and that's about it. So of course he likes it more than the stuff I actually worked on. Yeah. That happened.

Anyway, if you're interested in learning more about the game, you can check it out here. This is definitely a play-at-home family-game-night kind of game, since it takes about an hour. It's a little complicated for my seven year olds, but as you'll see, my ten year old is pretty jazzed about it. If you'd like to pick one up, you can get a copy via the Kickstarter, which is open through March 1st. Buying a copy there gets you some extra cards that won't be available later, and then you can taunt people with them.

ANYWAY anyway. The review:

Hi. I’m 10 and my mom helped to make this game. I like attacking games and this is the best one so far. I like this game because it makes you think what’s in the other player's hand and you build your army of zeppelins and attacks just the same as defenses. I like how you can get the fate points to buy special stuff. I like how the characters look. My favorite character is the Walking Mind because he looks cool and reminds me a little bit of a zombie. I like buying atomic stuff because there isn’t much stuff that can defend against it. So if you’re a kid looking to spend time with your family this game is definitely for you.

ELEVATED cover reveal

One of the best things about being in this business is all the friends, and you bond over the strangest things. For Elana Johnson and I, that thing was bacon. We both love bacon to a really insane degree, and our silly conversation over that led to more silly conversations...and then gradually, some serious ones. When I have a triumph...or a problem...she's tops on my list of writer friends to talk to. And to think that pork products brought us together. That should be a title of a book, don't you think?

Anyway, it's with that in mind that I'm excitedly bringing you a peek at the cover of her latest book! ELEVATED is a contemporary romance, which is quite a departure for her. But the thing is that she can write just about anything. I kind of hate her for that, but it's a loving hate. I've told her this already, so no worries. :)

Here's a little about the book, before we get to the awesome cover!

About ELEVATED: The last person seventeen-year-old Eleanor Livingston wants to see on the elevator—let alone get stuck with—is her ex-boyfriend Travis, the guy she's been avoiding for five months.

Plagued with the belief that when she speaks the truth, bad things happen, Elly hasn’t told Trav anything. Not why she broke up with him and cut off all contact. Not what happened the day her father returned from his deployment to Afghanistan. And certainly not that she misses him and still thinks about him everyday.

But with nowhere to hide and Travis so close it hurts, Elly’s worried she won’t be able to contain her secrets for long. She’s terrified of finally revealing the truth, because she can’t bear to watch a tragedy befall the boy she still loves.

And the new hotness...

Buy Links:

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/elevated

On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18947183-elevated

Praise for ELEVATED:

"ELEVATED will take you on an emotionally gripping journey through the highs and lows of first love."

~Carolee Dean, author of Take Me There and Forget Me Not

"Poignant, raw, and intense, ELEVATED is a novel that will grip your heart and linger in your mind long after you turn the last page."

~Stasia Ward Kehoe, author of Audition and The Sound of Letting Go

About Elana Johnson: Elana Johnson’s work, including Possession, Surrender, Abandon, and Regret, published by Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster), is available now everywhere books are sold. Her popular ebook, From the Query to the Call, is also available for download, as well as a Possession short story, Resist. School teacher by day, Query Ninja by night, you can find her online at her personal blog or Twitter. She also co-founded the Query Tracker blog, and contributes to the League of Extraordinary Writers.

Social Media Links:

Website/blog: http://elanajohnson.blogspot.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElanaJ

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

Tumblr: http://elanajohnson.tumblr.com/

Wattpad: http://www.wattpad.com/user/elanajohnson

League of Extraordinary Writers: http://leaguewriters.blogspot.com/

WriteOnCon: http://writeoncon.com/

Elana on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4044383.Elana_Johnson

Rafflecopter: Enter to win $15 Paypal cash by helping to spread the word about ELEVATED.

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Halloween Excitement! Book Excitement! EXCITEMENT EXCITEMENT!

Too many good things in the world and not enough time to tell you about them fully because I need to go tease my hair. It's Halloween, after all, and since I pretend every day is Halloween, when it's really Halloween, I need to go big to differentiate.

Anyway, let me explain. Or maybe I'll just pull an Inigo.

EXCITEMENT 1: My son turns 10 today! DOUBLE HOLIDAY WITH DOUBLE DIGITS. He's the best. He used to look like this, but now he doesn't. Well, he still makes that face, but it's bigger and with more orthodontia now. Also, he's awesome. I love being a mom in general and his mom in particular.

EXCITEMENT 2: Lots of new Carrie books are coming! The Bad Hair Day paperback releases November 12, and Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate is starting to ship EARLY from the Evil Hat store. WOOP! Ordering there will net you a free ebook copy along with the printed one, so your ereader won't go hungry. The Young Centurions RPG, which will allow you to play in the same world as Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate, is in the editing stage, so you should see that in the early stages of 2014! WOOP WOOP! And I just saw the full book jacket for Demon Derby, which means ARCs should follow soon-ish. ALL THE WOOPS!

EXCITEMENT 3: Furthermore, a NEW new Carrie book will be coming out sometime next year! That's right, peeps! I sold another one, and this is a bit of a new direction for me, so I'm crazy excited. I'm writing a tie-in book for War of Ashes, which is currently a miniature game, will soon be an RPG, and hopefully will go in even more exciting directions after that. The War of Ashes world is "grimsical," and let me tell you--after I heard THAT I pretty much prostrated myself on the floor and refused to move until they let me write a book there. The WoA world is kind of like the love child of Tim Burton and Terry Prachett...populated by Muppets with pointy objects.

It's probably important for me to say that this book will be adult in the same way that Terry Prachett is "adult." In other words, it'll be longer than my other ones, and there might be a few swear words in it. There will likely be jokes in it that kids won't get but should generally be safe as long as they're interested. So what's it about? I'm glad you asked! Here's the pitch:

War of Ashes: Off on a Ylark:

Gicca Nummus is the Senior Ylark Handler of the village of Dumas. It’s a prestigious position, and he’d be thrilled if he hadn’t just left a more prestigious position designing Things That Do Things—machines—for the priests of Ilunui. But his elder brother Ficca is the new priest of Dumas, and someone has to keep that cheese-brain from burning down the village where they grew up.

Elani Usus has a similar problem. She’d much rather be anywhere but Dumas, doing anything other than serving unending drafts of kogg in the inn. But her father, Lukkus, is the town elder, and he deals with things he doesn’t understand by faking it. Badly. The idea that his little fawny-wawny might want to do anything other than pour kogg? It doesn’t compute. After all, the blubber-noggin can’t count past three. And uses phrases like “fawny-wawny.”

When the first wave of the Vidaar fleet appears in the great sea to the south, Gicca and Elani have to step up. If they leave the village’s defense to their relatives, the whole town of Dumas is going to explode. Or be enslaved. Or explode, be enslaved, and then explode again for good measure.

His inventions and her leadership skills turn the tide of battle and save the town despite the bumbling efforts of Ficca and Lukkus. All they manage to do is burn down the inn and cover the enemy with cheese curds. But the defense of Dumas is just the beginning. Someone has to get to Ilunui. Someone has to alert the Houselords. And most of all, someone has to keep those dumbasses from burning Dumas.

****

Exciting, right? This should explain why--despite repeated promises that I'll do it more often--I haven't been blogging. I've been writing books instead, and I hope that's cool with you. :)

I have to send out a thank you to Josh at Zombiesmith, creator of War of Ashes, for letting me live in his world for a while. And to my brothers-from-another-mother at Evil Hat, for recommending me to him in the first place and failing to mention the part where I'm an over excitable diva.

So, in celebration of all this awesome, I'm throwing a party! First, we're going to dance like this...

Then I'm going to give out ALL THE BOOKS. Signed copies of Bad Taste in Boys, Bad Hair Day, and Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate. Enter before November 8th to win!

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