Visualized Reality - Promotional Discount for November

From November 1st - 18th, Visualized Reality will be available as a $0.99 ebook on most platforms.  Please take advantage of this limited time sale.  I would also be grateful for honest reviews that you can provide on Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords.

Promotions are always exciting times for authors.  I wanted to run something in November to celebrate election season, the start of hockey season, and the opening of the new Fantastic Beasts movie.

Have a beautiful November, all!

Visualized Reality - Available Now on Kindle and Paperback!

I'm so terrified excited to announce the release of my new young adult dystopian novel, Visualized Reality!  It is available now on Kindle and paperback (through Amazon) and will soon be available on Nook and iBooks. 

After five years of publishing under a pseudonym, I no longer get to hide behind a fictional name.  It is truly a horrifying experience.  Friends and family smile and talk about how proud I must be to see my actual name on the cover of a novel.  Nope.  Mostly I'm just terrified. 

But I hit the "publish" button and watch in agony as sales begin reporting.  And now I sit, painfully awaiting reviews to validate myself and to quiet that voice of self-doubt.

I genuinely hope you enjoy this one!

Inspiration for Visualized Reality

I am in the final editing stages of Visualized Reality and hope to publish the ebooks sooner than anticipated.  If things go well, I'll be able to release the paperback version early this summer.

Driven by the anxiety that my daughter and students experience with the unending and profit-motivated standardized tests in American schools, I began to shape the idea of an Academy more concerned with the profitability of children than their own emotional and mental welfare.  It is an issue that I have come to care deeply about as federal and state government officials continue to require the repetitive testing of children at the expense of the children, their education, and even their emotional health.  Tests, pre-tests, test booklets, and testing tutorials are provided ad nauseam—for a nominal fee.  And while our kids lose sleep over their ability to correctly fill in bubbles, these corporations are patting themselves on the back for building a multi-billion dollar industry that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon.  Government officials have preached the need to collect data to evaluate the broken educational system, but its necessity is a fallacy.  (And multiple investigations have revealed testing corporations lobbying and donating to any number of political officials.)  Any teacher with a couple of years experience can tell in short time whether a student is falling behind grade level or working far beyond it.  For the professionals who are tasked with the responsibility of educating these children, they don’t need the data.  They only need an opportunity to work with these kids in an educational setting.  Consider that other nations with proven educational systems are out-performing ours and only require a single standardized test at the end of high school.  The only real benefits of standardized testing are the billions of dollars flooding the corporations who have cornered the market and demonstrate ironically absolutely no concern for the education and health of our children.

And these frustrations and feelings of being powerless have prompted me to create the world of Pierce Academy, an institute responsible for building an empire to create billions of dollars off of the creativity and imaginations of children.

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In an age ruled by technology and money, an elite group has put a price on the imaginations of children.  High above a demolished and deserted Los Angeles sits Pierce Academy, an institute that serves as the factory of America's imagination, using captive children as the fuel to make films and billions of dollars.  Finlay is approaching her 18th birthday and eagerly awaits her graduation and release from the Academy and the terror they've used against her for fourteen years.  But as her day of freedom approaches, she learns that the Academy sees her as a threat to their future.  In fear for her life and sanity, Finn escapes and scours the hills in search of the mythical cave people, a group rumored to be building forces in an effort to take down the Academy and free the innocent children imprisoned inside.  But the Academy isn't willing to let her leave quietly.  They have their own plans for Finn and anyone unfortunate enough to join her.

New Novel - Coming Soon!

I am so excited to release my first young adult novel this summer.  (My goal is to release it no later than June 1, 2018.)

I am not yet ready to release a full blurb or excerpts, but I'm happy to share my cover as a teaser.  (As usual, a special thanks to Laura Moyer on her graphic design.  (Check out her other work.)

Other teasers will be pending...