Blog Hop + Giveaway: A Whisper in Time by Elizabeth Langston

Welcome to my stop on the Whisper in Time blog hop! Today I have a guest post by the author to share with you and don't forget to enter the MEGA giveaway at the bottom of the post!!

A Whisper in Time (Whisper Falls #2)
Author: Elizabeth Langston
Genre: Young Adult
Release Date: April 8, 2014
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Paperback, 360 pages
ISBN: 1937053814
 
Description:

"I have never been useless in my life"

Rescued from a life of servitude by the boy she loves, Susanna Marsh escapes across two centuries, only to be plunged into a world she's ill-prepared to face. Unable to work or go to school, Susanna finds herself dependent on others to survive.

Immersed in the fun and demands of his senior year of high school, Mark Lewis longs to share his world with the girl who's captured his heart. But first he must tackle government bureaucracy to prove Susanna's identity.

Overwhelmed by her new home, Susanna seeks refuge in history and in news of the people she left behind. But when she learns that danger stalks her sister, Susanna must weigh whether to risk her own future in order to save Phoebe's happiness. 

Write Where You Know

Several years ago, I read a book that was set in Alabama. My first job after college was in Montgomery AL, and I lived there for four years. The book felt like it had been written by someone who had either visited in winter or had actually never been there. (People in Alabama do not jog in sweat suits in August.) I put the book down after a few pages. The author had captured the setting so badly that I didn’t trust the rest of her research.

This is one of the reasons I chose to set Whisper Falls in North Carolina. I've lived here twenty-five years. I know this place. The little nuances and Raleigh-isms just flow. Writing my debut series was going to be hard enough without being tripped up over getting the location wrong. 

That’s why it is so good that I was assigned an editor from Connecticut. His region of the country is different from mine, more than I realized. The weather, culture, and terrain of Raleigh are second nature to me, but they didn’t always make sense to Mr. Editor.

Here are a few examples.

Parks: Parks in Raleigh can be huge. Our hero Mark bikes around Umstead Park. It is 5500 acres, 7 times larger than Central Park in NYC. We’re talking BIG. To Mr. Editor, a park is a few wooded acres with a playground. He made me put a few words into the book to make sure that all readers could get a sense for how big Umstead is.

Greenways: I thought greenways were everywhere, but I was wrong. Mr. Editor did not know what a greenway was. (It’s a trail that bikers or walkers can use to travel from one of Raleigh’s huge parks to the next.) I added a definition of greenway to the book.

High schools: Every state, region, or city has a unique set of high schools. So I expected differences like calendar (NC starts in late August) or bell schedules. What I didn’t expect were general attitudes. When my daughter attended high school, we didn’t worry too much over absences. Interactions with teachers tended to be somewhat relaxed. Mr. Editor (as it turns out) is a middle school teacher in CT. Schools there appear to be more rigorous and formal. Fine, then. To keep things the way I wanted, Mark attends a private school—and they (well, the author) can set up any rules they want.

There are plenty of other things that are different, such as mass transportation (we don’t have any), weather (we have a long, hot summer with hurricanes), and variety in our terrain (I live 100 miles from the beach and 100 miles from the mountains.) And I took them all for granted, which is why I’m so glad that I had someone who asked questions—and made the setting of the Whisper Falls series easier to understand for all readers! 

Elizabeth Langston lives in North Carolina, halfway between the beaches and the mountains. She has two teen-ish daughters and one husband (a geek like her). When she's not writing software or stories, Elizabeth loves to travel with her family, watch dance reality TV shows, and dream about which restaurant ought to get their business that night.

Elizabeth's debut novel WHISPER FALLS released in November 2013. Its sequels, A WHISPER IN TIME and WHISPERS FROM THE PAST, release in 2014. Learn more about her at http://www.elizabethLangston.net.

Author Links:

Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook | Blog | Website

Links:

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

1st Prize

• One red "Metro" picnic basket;
• One picnic blanket;
• Two "Country Drinking" picnic jars;
• Two "Sip-N-Spoons" (yellow and green);
• One yellow star spoke reflector;
• One North Carolina Museum of Art map and postcard;
• One copy of FIREBLOOD by Trisha Wolfe;
• One copy of SWAMP ANGEL by Colleen Boyd;
• One copy of THE DOLLHOUSE ASYLUM by Mary Gray;
• One copy of SING SWEET NIGHTINGALE by Erica Cameron;
• One copy of THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND by Elizabeth George Speare (inscribed by Elizabeth Langston);
• One copy of DAIMON by Jennifer L. Armentrout;
• One (signed) copy of CURSED by Jennifer L. Armentrout;
• One copy of PERSUASION by Jane Austen (inscribed by Elizabeth Langston);
• One (signed) copy of DARE YOU TO by Katie McGarry; AND
• Various swag (some signed).

2nd Prize

• Signed copy of WHISPER FALLS (book #1) or A WHISPER IN TIME (book #2)

3rd Prize

• WHISPER FALLS series Swag Pack