Author Guest Blog & Contest with Alex Hughes

So I just read this amazing book. I only finished it this morning so I haven't added my review to the blog yet but it was an extremely good debut. So it is only fitting that my author guest this week is the writer responsible for this spectacular read!

Alex Hughes contacted me about his debut book, Clean, and I asked him to be a guest. I will admit I was a little sceptical about the book. Clean is a futurustic paranormal but to my relief it is not the over the top 'everyone has a robot' kind. It is actually a thrilling mystery which involves telepathy, addiction, a lack of computers and some flying cars. I loved it!

Clean, the first in the Mindspace Investigations series and my review will be coming soon. Until then there is a nice blog post from the author which I hope you all will enjoy. Then make sure you enter the contest for your chance to win a copy of the debut!



---------------------------


How I Got Into Writing

A blog post by Alex Hughes

I actually wrote my first novel when I was very young – too young to know better  I was reading a book one day and decided I wanted to write one. I went to my mom and said, “I want to write a novel.” God bless her, she didn’t even blink. Instead, she said, “Then you should write a novel. Let’s get you a document on the computer.” I think she was surprised when she came back to several scenes a few hours later. After that, one of her answers to me complaining about being bored was, “why don’t you go work on your novel?” My parents never made a big deal about it, but they always made it very clear they thought it was completely within my capabilities.

Meanwhile my favorite grandfather handed me a copy of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight. I was hooked and read everything she wrote - a whole new world opened up for me, with dragons and heros and heroines, with death that rained from the sky and harpers who changed the world. Then I found The Ship Who Searched at the library, and the book touched me so deeply and brought me such joy that I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life – this novel thing. I decided then and there I wanted to be a writer.

Of course learning how to be a writer, how to write good books complete strangers would want to read, takes a very long time. For me, it took fifteen years, multiple teachers, hundreds of rejections, and more than one crisis of faith. But I stuck with it, and I didn’t give up. I kept getting better, and after many years, my hard work paid off. The Call from the editor arrived.

I went to the bookstore this last week and saw my name – my name! – on the shelf next to big name authors. My childhood self – and my grandfather – would be so, so proud.

This one’s for you, grandpa.

---------------------------

Contest Time!

I am giving away a copy of CLEAN to one lucky person!

How To Enter

Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter the contest.

Keep the contests going by using the Bookdepository.com and Amazon.com links/Banners below and around the site.

Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

↑ Grab this Headline Animator