NEW RELEASE and Giveaway Galore!

RISE has risen! For all those who've wondered what exactly is the deal with that Timothy character in RENEGADE, here's your answer.  RISE is the creepy and thrilling new novella in the Elysium Chronicles. It's a first-hand account of the events that lead up to the opening of RENEGADE from Timothy's perspective.

Timothy has lived his entire life in darkness, under the oppressive rule of Mother in the underwater city of Elysium. As part of the Underground, a rebel group opposing Mother’s dictatorship, he has one role: get close to the Daughter of the People, Miss Evelyn, in order to obtain enough information to take her and Mother down.

He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Evie.

He wasn’t supposed to care.

And now he has a choice: risk everything – his life, his mission, his people – to protect her…or sacrifice her for the justice of all.

RISE is a chilling prequel to RENEGADE, an Elysium Chronicles short story.

I'm so excited for everyone to read this one. Timothy was originally a character that was meant to catapult the story forward, but to my surprise there was a lot of people who wanted to know more about him. And once I got writing his story, I found out there was actually more to his story than even I know. It was an extremely emotional story for me, knowing what I know about him. I spent many hours writing and editing his story through blurry vision from tears, so I really hope that everyone likes this one.

In celebration of this story, I'm hosting a Facebook virtual launch party here from 7:30pm EST (4:30pm Pacific). I'll be giving away books, gift cards, fun Halloween things, and whatever else I feel like giving away, so I hope you'll join me there tonight! 

Ginormous Book Signing!!

A few months ago, I mentioned on Facebook that my local Books-a-million wanted to do a giant book signing with a bunch of authors. I'm happy to say that this event is in the final planning stages and more information will be sent out shortly. However, I need to judge the amount of interest of readers in attending the event.

 The event will be held December 6th in Orlando, Florida. So, yay, warm weather! And awesome authors--I can't confirm at this minute who exactly is coming, but let me assure you, you're NOT going to want to miss them. And most importantly BOOKS!!!

 There will be a hotel block reserved for those that need it and transportation provided to and from the hotel for those that are coming from far away. To judge initial interest for both Books-a-Million and for me to make sure I have a the right size venue for the signing, please fill out the form below. There is absolutely NO OBLIGATION to go if you fill out the form, it is solely to judge the possible interest, so if you even remotely think this might be interesting to you, please fill out the form below. And feel free to tell anyone and everyone you can about it, the more people we have coming, the more authors we can convince to join us. :P

Skip a Starbucks Day Adoption Fundraiser + Giveaways Galore!

As you've probably guessed by now, I'm a huge advocate of helping out wherever I can.  And I'm honored to say that I'm able to do just that by supporting my good writing friend, C.J. Redwine, and her awesome decision to adopt another beautiful baby girl named Isabella Grace (there are no words for how much I adore this name.) by helping with her fundraiser/giveaway to raise the funds necessary to bring Isabella home from China.
Here's a brief snippet of their story:

In November of 2010, my husband Clint and I were in China finalizing the adoption of our first daughter and preparing to bring her home. During the two and a half weeks that we were in China, we both came to the realization that we had to go back. We knew there was one more little girl waiting somewhere in China who belonged in our family. We also knew that this time around, we wanted to adopt a child with some medical needs.

We turned in our dossier to China in the beginning of February 2014, and we figured, based on the average wait time for special needs families, that we had about an 8 month wait to get our referral. (A child’s picture and file matched to a family.) But there are two ways to be matched to a child through the special needs program. One is to wait for China to get to your file, translate it, and then search for a child who matches your medical checklist (the list of things we’ve said we’d accept). The other is to be matched to one of the Special Focus kids whose files are sent to our agency each month. Special Focus children are those who are considered hard to place with a family. They have multiple medical conditions, and many families sign on for only one need.

Clint and I early on felt that we needed to be open to multiple needs. I kept seeing us with a girl who had a cleft palate and a heart murmur. Clint kept seeing us with a girl who had minor hearing loss and a missing or extra limb.

Two weeks after our dossier arrived in China, our agency called us with a Special Focus child to consider. Her file arrived to us on her second birthday. She had cleft palate, congenital heart disease, minor hearing issues, and an extra thumb.

In other words, she is everything Clint and I kept seeing for our daughter. *cue the moment we started weeping*

To read the rest of the story and see how adorable Isabella is check out C.J.'s post.
Needless to say she's needs our help to bring Isabella home and that's where SKIP A STARBUCKS DAY comes in. An awesome group of C.J.'s friends have banded together to ask our readers to skip whatever daily (or weekly) luxuries we enjoy (like my beloved KitKats) and donate the money you would have spent and instead help C.J. bring her newest little girl home.

In return, you'll be entered into contests to win many fabulous donated prizes!

C.J. is hosting a HUGE giveaway, so pop on over to her blog to read all about it (and of course the rest of their amazing story). It starts today and continues through the weekend until Monday morning at 9am CST.

To sweeten the pot, I'm also adding my own personal giveaway of the following items:

1. Starbucks giftcard, so you can have your cake (coffee) and eat (drink) it too. ;) (to five generous people) Open Internationally.
2. A signed set of the first 2 installments of The Elysium Chronicles (RENEGADE; REVELATIONS) + the novella A DARK GRAVE (to three wonderful people) US/Canada only-unless you're okay with e-copies.
3. A Bath and Body Works gift set (to one fab. person) US only.

And here's how to enter:

Visit C.J.'s blog and donate money to help bring Isabella home.
For every $5 you donate, you are eligible for 1 entry in my contest.***
You can also earn 1 additional entry by promoting the Skip A Starbucks Day fundraiser. (Only 1 extra entry total though. NOT 1 per time you promote.)
 Come back here and tell me how many entries you qualify for. (Example: If you donate $10 to the cause and then promote the fundraiser you get 3 entries.)
You can either leave your entry number in the comments here on this blog, or you can EMAIL your number of entries to me at: j.souders AT jasouders DOT com.
Please title your email: Skip a Starbuck's Day

***Entries will be verified with C.J. Redwine's donation receipts, so please be honest!

Valentine's Day Spreading the love charity giveaway!

Happy Valentine's Day!!! I hope everyone gets to spend some awesome quality time with your loved ones today.

I don't normally celebrate V-day myself, because of all the materialistic attitudes about the day, however, I do usually find a way to celebrate it in my own way. This year, I've adopted a new tradition. One that I hope you'll help me with.

I've scoured the Internet looking and finally finding a charity that I really believe in and I'm donating the money I would have spent on materialistic things, to them.

It's the Ian Somerhalder Foundation or ISF. More info. can be found out about them at here.

In honor of spreading the love, I'm also asking for your help (with incentive, of course. ;P). If you make a donation, ANY amount, please email me ( j.souders (at) jasouders (dot) com ) the address on my website and let me know.

At the end of the month, I'll take the list of names and enter them into a contest to win a box full of books (including signed copies of my own and my favorite authors), a query and 50-page critique (if you're a writer), and a gift card for even more books. (Depending on how popular this is, I'll add in more prizes and possibly do a Grand prize, 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place award.)

Every single person that makes a donation (and lets me know) will also have special mention in my next e-short in the Elysium Chronicles and exclusive SWAG sent to them as a special thank you from me for helping me support my favorite charity.