This virtual book tour is presented by Reading Addiction Virtual Book Tours.
Welcome to The Wormhole and my stop on the tour.
It is my pleasure to feature Kendra C. Highley and her Matt Archer series.
Kendra C. Highley
Kendra C. Highley lives
in north Texas with her husband and two children. She also serves as staff to
two self-important and high-powered cats. This, according to the cats, is her
most important job. She believes chocolate is a basic human right, running a
10k is harder than it sounds, and that everyone should learn to drive a
stick-shift. She loves monsters, vacations, baking and listening to bad
electronica.
Contact
information:
Website: www.kendrachighley.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/kchighley
Twitter: www.twitter.com/KendraHighley
Blog: www.matt-archer.com
Guest Post from Kendra:
Kendra’s Favorite Writing Tools
1. Music: I have a really hard time writing if I don’t have my playlist loaded up. Sometimes my characters refuse to show up until I assign them a few special songs.
2. Laptop: I’ve been typing since 9th grade, and it’s gotten to the point that I type faster than I write longhand. While I can write a story down, it’s much harder for me to keep up with the flow of words trying to claw their way out of my brain. Plus, I tend to edit a bit as I draft, so writing on a laptop gives me an advantage there, too.
3. Road Trips: I do some of my best writing in the car. I have a 30 minute commute to work, and I often work out scenes in my head while going to and from the office. I also like to visit the places I set my stories in, if it’s feasible. I mean, I’d love to go to Australia, but that may not be in the cards. 4. Multi-Round Critique: I’m really big into critique and beta reads. I go through three rounds of beta reads (all with different people!) and a formal editorial review with each manuscript. I want to make sure the work is resonating with lots of different people before publishing it.
5. Chocolate: It’s fuel, pure and simple. Some people need coffee to function—I need chocolate. Particularly dark chocolate. I have an unhealthy addiction to dark chocolate M&Ms. Hey, whatever works, right?
6. Write-cations: Sometimes getting away from it all is exactly what you need, especially when faced with big rewrites or a deadline. I try to go away one or two long weekends a year and write 12-14 hours per day. Last year I scrapped 9000 words and wrote 18,000 new words on Bloodlines during my write-cation. I’ve written on cruise ships, in hotel rooms during business trips and on airplanes. Like #3, traveling somewhere new just seems to wake up my muse. And speaking of muses….
7. Tinkerbell: I have a character named Tink in the Matt Archer series (I won’t spoil who that is for new readers), but in a way, she’s Matt’s muse…and so Tinkerbell has become mine. I have figurines, pins and a poster in my office to pay homage, hoping she’ll cooperate when I sit down to write!
Bloodlines (Book 4)
Synopsis:
When
seventeen-year-old Matt Archer set out on his last mission in the Australian
Outback, he thought it would be like every other hunt.
Not
even close.
After
only two days on the ground, his best friend is possessed, a long-lost family
member has returned and hidden truths have come to the surface. Add in a coven
of witches bent on bringing about the end of the world and, well, this trip has
started to suck. Badly.
As
his power and strength continue to grow, so does Matt’s concern that he’s
becoming more and more like the creatures he’s been charged to hunt: a monster.
Faced
with some of his biggest challenges to date, Matt has to decide what he needs
to protect most—his family, his team…or himself.
When I was fourteen, I picked up a knife and started a fight
that was named mine long before I was born. When I was fifteen, I was forced
into a war against creatures the rest of humankind should never know about—and
they won’t if I have anything to do about it. When I was sixteen, I became a
slave to my destiny, and the spirits who guided it.
Excerpt:
Now I’m seventeen, and the fault, a man once said, is not in
our stars, but in ourselves. or in my case, my blood. Which is why I was
chosen. And why I have to fight.
My name is Matt Archer. And I am my father’s son.
* * *
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you and drink your blood!”
My best friend was in rare form this evening. Will had been
ranting like that ever since he managed to spit out the bandana we’d gagged him
with. No one felt like dealing with him, though, so we didn’t bother shoving
the gag back in. Still, I felt responsible for his well-being, even if Will was
possessed by a demon and not his usual happy asshat self. I grabbed an MRE—a hamburger
patty for the entree—and ducked inside the command tent, one of the few left
standing after last night’s monster attack. The interior smelled like sweat,
piss and…burned bacon?
“Gross, dude,” I told not-Will. “You smell like a prison
latrine.”
Not-Will spit at me. His face was pale in the dim light, but
his eyes glowed a brilliant jade green. “You’ll beg for mercy before the end.”
“That’s getting really old. Why don’t you give your voice a
rest, okay?” I held up the MRE.
“I’m guessing that even demons have to eat. You hungry?”
Not-Will shut up for a moment, but his muscles still
strained against the towing cable keeping him tied to his cot. My best friend,
at six-four and two-hundred-forty pounds, was pretty strong on his own. Add in
a little dark magic, and he was like a tank with legs. It had taken three guys
to tie him up, and the Humvee’s towing cable—one end still attached to the
vehicle—had been the only thing hefty enough to keep not-Will chained.
“I would appreciate a meal,” he said in a formal, polite
voice.
That wasn’t like the real Will, either.
“Okay. I’ll feed you and bring you some water, if only to
keep your mouth full so you can’t scream at us for a while.”
I opened the MRE, discarding anything not-Will could use as
a weapon if he got loose. Because his hands were tied behind his back, I had to
feed him.
“Seriously, man, if you remember any of this after we
exorcise you, you’ll never live it down,” I muttered as not-Will chomped up his
food like a rabid dog.
“I’ll kill you soon, so none of that matters,” not-Will
said, smiling and showing me bits of carrot in his teeth.
In any other situation, I’d have laughed. This evening, I
had too much on mind to find any of this funny.
Badass Aunt Julie poked her head in the tent while I
attempted to shovel applesauce into not-Will’s mouth. She wrinkled her nose at
the stench. “Poor Will.”
“Hello, gorgeous.” Not-Will leered at my aunt, and his eyes
roamed every part of her body. Even wearing desert print battle-dress uniform,
Aunt Julie was gorgeous…and no one but my Uncle Mike had license to look at her
that way. My fists clenched as he said,
“Think I’ll keep you around a while after I’ve killed all
the men. We could have a little fun.”
Aunt Julie gave not-Will a dangerous smile. The demon must
not know who he was dealing with. “I’d like to see you try. I could kill you
with a nail. Or a spoon.” Her smile faded into a scowl. “Or a tire-iron. I’m
not picky.”
“Captain, did you need something?” I asked, not in the mood
to break up a tent brawl. When in doubt, interrupt.
“Sorry,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “The major got worried
so I came to check on you.”
I shrugged; Major Tannen—also known as my Uncle Mike and
Aunt Julie’s husband—had reason to worry. Right now, it seemed like this day
would never, ever end.
I’d gotten most of the food into not-Will’s mouth and I was
ready to escape. “Will, if you’re in there, kick that demon’s ass, okay? See
you later.”
We’d barely cleared the tent before he started screaming
threats again. Every muscle in my back tensed up. “Tell the major I’ll be at
the other end of camp.” I jabbed a thumb at the command tent. “I don’t think I
can handle listening to that anymore.”
Aunt Julie patted my shoulder. “We’ll fix it. Agent Archer
thinks his contact with the local Nocturna Maura coven can help displace Will’s
demon.”
Agent Archer…maybe if I called him that—instead of Dad—this
whole situation would be a little less weird. I doubted it, though.
“I need some air.”
I stalked to the far end of camp and settled down facing
west. The sun was beginning to set, and I needed its warmth and protection for
as long as it lasted. Night would bring horrors, and I had to be prepared to
fight them. I reached into my left jacket pocket and pulled out the St.
Christopher medal my girlfriend had given me more than a year ago. I turned it
over and over in my hand. I missed Ella like crazy, and the medal gave me hope
that I’d live to see another dawn.
Dad came striding out of the HQ tent and headed my
direction. He didn’t see Uncle Mike step out behind him, his right arm bound up
in a sling. Not-Will had dislocated Uncle Mike’s shoulder in addition to
breaking my nose last night. Mike watched Dad’s progress with narrowed eyes. I
let out a long breath. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with; now I was
caught in a tug of war between the guy who fathered me and the man who raised
me. My life could easily be a three-ring circus for all the chaos and drama going
on around me.
“Tink, think you could, I don’t know, teleport me
somewhere?”
No answer.
“Crap, now I’m missing you and Ella. How’s that for irony?”
Still nothing. Yeah, Tink was well and truly gone. Our
knife-spirits had been banished somehow. Not-Will had told us his mistress had
sent them away. As angry as I’d been with Tink when we left on this mission,
the absence of her presence in my head left an echoing emptiness. And despair,
too. How could we complete this operation without the spirits’ help? I had to get
her back somehow, if not for me, for Will. I’d seen Tink save someone else from
a demon possession—maybe she’d be able to help Will, too.
If only I could find her.
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Angela Scott hears voices. Tiny fictional people sit on her shoulders and whisper their stories in her ear. Instead of medicating herself, she decided to pick up a pen, write down everything those voices tell me, and turn it into a book. She’s not crazy. She’s an author. For the most part, she writes contemporary Young Adult novels. However, through a writing exercise that spiraled out of control, she found herself writing about zombies terrorizing the Wild Wild West–and loving it. Her zombies don’t sparkle, and they definitely don’t cuddle. At least, she wouldn’t suggest it. She lives on the benches of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains with two lovely children, one teenager, and a very patient husband. She graduated from Utah State University with a B.A. degree in English, not because of her love for the written word, but because it was the only major that didn’t require math. She can’t spell, and grammar is her arch nemesis. But they gave her the degree, and there are no take backs.
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