Lisa M. Cronkhite's mystery is guaranteed to haunt you the way the death of Bianca “Bee” Thompson’s brother, Jimmy, haunts her.
It's been ten months since the car accident that took Jimmy's life, but Bee still feels his presence lingering. And she still wonders: Was Jimmy’s death an accident?
Probing into the events on the night of Jimmy’s death,
Bee hears strange voices. The voices lead her to a blood-splattered
room, a terrifying threat, and a deadly trap. Is Bee on the trail of her
brother’s murderer, or is she entangled in a totally different and much
more diabolical plot?
Watch for DEEP IN THE MEADOWS. Coming in January 2014.
To be sure to get your copy, you can pre-order now from the Leap Bookstore.
For the month of April 2013 only, Leap Books will accept both agented and unagented submissions for our new e-novella line, SHINE.
Novellas must be between 35,000-40,000 words. We're looking for high-concept books for young adults, preferably with romantic elements. We're open to any genre.
Send novellas as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment to submissions@leapbks.com. Email header should say: SHINE SUBMISSION. Entries will be accepted from April 1, 2013 until midnight on April 30, 2013.
Leap Books is excited to announce two Frolic titles leaping in 2013.
The first title in this new line for tweens is by New York Times Bestseller Maria V. Snyder. Maria is known for her Poison Study and Magic Study books as well as for Inside Out and Outside In. She is also a contributor to the anthology Spirited.
In STORM WATCHER, the youngest son in family of search-and-rescue dog trainers, Luke Riley, must
face his deadly fear of storms to prove that he and the dog he's
training belong in the family business.
STORM WATCHER will be be debuting October 2013. Fans can pre-order a copy now in the Leap Bookstore and have it shipped as soon as it comes out.
Our second 2013 Frolic release is by another Leap author, Patrice Lyle. She is the author of Lethally Blonde. Her new release, THE CASE OF THE INVISIBLE WITCH, is part of the Poison Ivy Charm School series.
In THE CASE OF THE INVISIBLE WITCH, thirteen-year-old Tulip Bonnaire, Witch PI, runs Spells & Spies out
of her dorm room at Poison Ivy Charm School, a school for polite witches
and warlocks. She has only 72 hours to figure out her latest case, or
her classmate, Missy, will never be seen again. Literally.
When Missy shows up in Tulip’s dorm room around midnight, she’s
invisible. As in not even x-ray vision could spot her. The mean triplets
who call themselves The Belles have cast an invisibility spell on poor
Missy. But if Tulip can’t break the spell in 72 hours, Missy will remain
invisible forever.
It’s a case Tulip can’t resist — between her mom’s annoying new
boyfriend and her own secret crush at school, Tulip understands how much
it stinks to feel invisible. Luckily for Tulip, her two best friends
and her cute, techy guy friend help dig up clues on a case that turns
out to be her freakiest one ever.
THE CASE OF THE INVISIBLE WITCH can also be pre-ordered in the Leap Bookstore.
Leap Books connected with Casey Sokolovic when she wrote to tell us how much she enjoyed Bonnie Doerr's book Stakeout, about endangered sea turtles. (That's Casey with the book). But when we heard about what Casey has done to help sea turtles, we asked if we could feature her on our blog. This is Casey's remarkable story:
A third grade school field trip to the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in 2005 sparked a passion within me to want to help the sea turtles. Coming home that day, I talked to my mother about the visit and how sad I was for the sick and injured turtles and wondered what I could do to help and “make a difference”. I developed a plan and, like many others my age, decided to hold a bake sale and sell lemonade. Science fairs, school open houses, farmers markets, civic events and most anywhere I could sell cookies and lemonade and talk about sea turtles, you would find me. A couple dozen cookies have turned into more than ten thousand cookies baked and sold.
I wanted to help the sea turtles “last” and from that my mother and I came up with Help Them L.A.S.T. - Love A Sea Turtle. My passion for sea turtles has grown from baking and selling sugar cookies into a thriving local grassroots organization with passion, purpose, a strong non-profit, collaborators and community support.
The mission statement of Love A Sea Turtle is committed to saving the world’s sea turtle population, inspiring young people to get involved, and providing hands-on environmental educational experiences and summer camps to underprivileged youth.
My work with the sea turtles has opened my eyes that there is a genuine need to get every student involved in volunteerism. I developed and filmed an educational video and in the last two years, have spoken to more than 5,500 students - showing the video (click here or see below) and speaking to them about sea turtles and getting involved.
In late summer of 2007, coffee was added to go with the sugar cookies in an effort to attract adults to the cause. A visit to the roasting facility for Joe Van Gogh Coffee in Hillsborough, North Carolina, led to the creation of a Fair Trade Organic “Sea Turtle” blend of coffee. Joe Van Gogh agreed to donate 10% of net profits of the Sea Turtle Blend to the Sea Turtle Hospital every year.
In the spring of 2008, Joe Van Gogh took notice of my sales of Sea Turtle Blend. The marketing team at Joe Van Gogh created an exciting logo and custom label. The big “public” launch for Sea Turtle coffee was in May of 2009. I was asked to set up my information display at several locations in Chapel Hill. The Sea Turtle Blend was a top seller in the Whole Foods Stores in NC/SC for Joe Van Gogh during the spring and summer. This fall, Fresh Market began carrying the Sea Turtle Blend in stores nationwide, and it continues to be a top seller.
In May of 2010, I co-founded The Great Bake for Oceans’ Sake, a coast to coast grassroots bake sale initiative, to raise money for ocean causes. The initial idea was an effort to help raise money for the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies after the Gulf oil spill. The Great Bake has raised awareness and resulted in thousands of dollars being donated to multiple ocean related efforts. Love A Sea Turtle will be promoting bake sales for ocean conservation groups during National Week of the Ocean, March 31 – April 6. It’s simple: hold a bake sale and donate the proceeds to your favorite ocean conservation group.
Another of my fundraisers is a trail run that includes a 5K and 10K along with a nature walk. The run will be March 2nd and it is the 4th annual event.
From now until the end of April, schools around the country are working on going green. If you want information on a start-up kit for your school, you can contact GEF, the Green Education Foundation. The site also offers lesson plans and ideas. Be sure to share your results with GEF to be entered in a drawing for a Green in Action award. Winners get $250 for their classrooms.
Here's what one school did:
Leap Books supports environmental action in many ways. We've gone green in our book printing and office practices. And we publish authors who not only write about environmental themes, but are active in helping the planet.
Bonnie J. Doerr researches endangered animals, but she doesn't just get the facts. She helps the organizations by participating and doing fundraising. A portion of the sale of Doerr's books have gone to assisting the National Key Deer Refuge and the Turtle Hospital.
Doerr was recently featured as a green author on Linda Martin Andersen's blog and enjoyed this opportunity to promote "green" writing / living and National Green Week. To find out more about Doerr, vist her at Bonnie Blogs Green or read all about her the Girls Scouts website, where she is a featured author. Bonnie's books include Stakeout and Island Sting. She's researching in the Florida Keys right now on her next eco-mystery on pelicans.
Watch for Judith Graves appearing at the following venues: January 28, 2013: Family Literacy Night Dr. Bernard
Brosseau School, Bonnyville, Alberta, Canada
Presentation on “How Inspiration Strikes”, and a reading from her steampunk short story, The Steadfast Steam Soldier, published in Winter Wonders, a charity anthology that supports literacy.
THE BONES OF THE STORY: Screenwriting and FICTION TO DIE FOR workshops
Graves will talk about writing scripts for film and television
and offer tips on the craft of screenwriting. Learn how
to plot a script using her outline structure, The Bones of the Story.
From gripping logline to epic showdown, she’ll provide students with the
foundation they’ll need to create their own dreadfully cool scripts.
The brilliant blogger, Amy, from A Simple Love of Reading is
celebrating Canadian Freedom to Read Week with guest posts by a number
of authors. Graves will be kicking off the week with a post on censorship both as a library technician and a young
adult fiction author.
We're thrilled with our new website design. We hope you will be too.
To celebrate the launch of our redesigned website as well as Leap Books' third anniversary, we're offering free books.We'll be drawing 3 names (one for each year we've been in business). Just leave a comment
here about our new site, friend us on Twitter and/or Facebook, and let us know. You'll get one entry each time you spread the word.
Be sure to mention
which of our books you'd like to receive and whether you'd prefer a print or ebook. If you don't mind waiting, you can request a future release, such as Maria V. Snyder's book, Storm Watcher, coming in the fall of 2013.
Winners will be chosen at midnight on January 31, 2013.
We also have some terrific new releases, giveaways, and special plans for this year. So watch for more exciting news later this month.
