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Tuesday 15 October 2013

Blog tour: Finding It by Cora Carmack (Guest Post, Giveaway!)


Cora Carmack's FINDING IT is being released and we are so excited to join the blog tour for it. Don't miss out on this exciting tour and all the stops. Check out what we have for you today and then enter to win in the blog tour giveaway!


FINDING IT Blog Tour Schedule

October 13th
K-Books-Author Interview

October 14th
A Bookish Escape-Review Only
Reviews by Tammy & Kim-Review Only
Romance Addict-Excerpt

October 15th

October 16th
I Heart Big Books-Character Interview (Jackson Hunt)
BookGoonie-Review Only
Rumpled Sheets Blog-Review Only

October 17th
The Book HookUp-Author Interview
Jenuine Cupcakes-Review Only

October 18th
Stuck in Books-Excerpt
Putting Pen to Page-Review Only
Book Loving Mom-Review Only

October 19th
Mean Girls Luv Books-Review Only
WhollyBooks-Review Only
Martini Times-Guest Post

October 20th
The Story Siren-Author Interview
Live Read and Breathe-Review Only

October 21st
I Read Indie-Dream Cast
A Book Lover’s Review-Review Only
Stuck in YA Books-Review Only

October 22nd
Whirlwind Books-This and That
SMI Book Club-Review Only

October 23rd
Scandalicious Book Reviews-Review Only
The Bookish Babe-Author Interview
Books Over Boys-Excerpt

October 24th

October 25th
Love Between the Sheets-Review Only
Love N. Books-Review Only

October 26th

October 27th

FINDING IT Synopsis:

Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find where you truly belong...

Most girls would kill to spend months traveling around Europe after college graduation with no responsibility, no parents, and no-limit credit cards. Kelsey Summers is no exception. She's having the time of her life . . . or that's what she keeps telling herself.

It's a lonely business trying to find out who you are, especially when you're afraid you won't like what you discover. No amount of drinking or dancing can chase away Kelsey's loneliness, but maybe Jackson Hunt can. After a few chance meetings, he convinces her to take a journey of adventure instead of alcohol. With each new city and experience, Kelsey's mind becomes a little clearer and her heart a little less hers. Jackson helps her unravel her own dreams and desires. But the more she learns about herself, the more Kelsey realizes how little she knows about Jackson.


 
GUEST POST STOP
Behind the Book: What Kelsey’s Story Means to Me

 

From the moment I decided to write a book about Kelsey, I knew it was going to be about her traveling. It’s something I love to do and my own travel experiences were a defining moment in my life.

 

I grew up in a miniscule town, and while I can now appreciate that upbringing, as a teenager I only dreamed about getting out. As soon as I was able, I wanted to escape Texas for New York. More than that, I wanted to see the world.

 

Now, I’m a very determined person. When I want something, I go after it full force, which is why in the months before I published Losing It, I found myself working three jobs, getting my Masters in Creative Writing, and running a book blog. My travel dreams were the same. I kept at it until my junior year of college when I snagged a study abroad scholarship that would allow me to go to school in the Netherlands for roughly the same price it cost to attend my Texas university.

 

So, at twenty-years-old, having never been out of the country (and only having left Texas on a handful of occasions), I left for a semester abroad in Maastricht, Netherlands. I went to classes four days a week and traveled on the weekends. And after my classes ended, I backpacked with a new friend for a month.

 

At the time, I fully believed it would be my only chance in my life to travel. I was readying myself for a life in the theatre as a starving artist, and I thought of that trip as my one chance to do something memorable that I would always be able to look back on with pride. I was still resenting the small town I grew up in, and I thought traveling abroad would be my way of proving that I was more than a small town girl. That I was special.

 

So, it’s no wonder that the very first lines of Finding It are, “ Everyone deserves one grand adventure, that one time in life that we always get to point back to and say, ‘Then… then I was really living.’”

 

Of course, now I’ve gotten older and learned a bit more, and I’ve realized that traveling to new and exotic places can’t make you special. Checking destinations off a map doesn’t do jack for your self-worth. It’s not where you go, but what you do that matters.  Ironically, I don’t think I really learned that lesson until I sat down to write Kelsey’s story.

 

In the end, I got so much more out of that trip than just a memory to pull up when I was feeling small.

 

Sure, I came home with a ridiculous number of Facebook photo albums and some fantastic stories. But more importantly, I gained a very dear friend who challenged me to be more open and to really own who I was.

 

I learned that I could survive out in the world and that being from a small town didn’t mean I was small.

 

And perhaps most importantly, that trip was when I started writing. As a actor, I’d always felt more connected to the text than anything else. So, I had contemplated and even tried my hand at playwriting. But in my first week overseas, during a trip to Istanbul, I received news that my grandmother died.

 

I’d been unreachable for days so by the time I found out, it was too late to contemplate going home. I wouldn’t make it in time for the funeral. Worse still, I got the news in a room full of strangers as they waited for their turn on the one computer that our hotel had. My adventure of a lifetime wasn’t turning out quite like I had hoped.

 

That night, I retreated alone to my room, while my classmates when out to explore Istanbul. And when sleeping proved too difficult, I started to write. Not a play, as I had always thought, but a book about a girl whose life was spinning out of control and she could do nothing to stop it.

 

That book has never been published and probably never will be. But it set a precedent for me.

 

Writing is how I react to the world, how I process the things that I feel and the things that I don’t. It took me a long time to deal with my grandmother’s death, but when I did, it began through a character. As I helped her puzzle out my grief, I became acquainted with my own.

 

And I learn something about myself with each new book that I write. And my biggest hope as an author is always, always that I’m not the only one to learn a lesson or two from my characters. 

Cora Carmack Bio:

Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She's done a multitude of things in her life-- boring jobs (like working retail), Fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too. Her first book, LOSING IT, is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.

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