Catch Me When I Fall, by Vicki Leigh
Genre:
young-adult, urban-fantasy, paranormal-romance
Publisher:
Curiosity Quills Press
Date of Release:
October 23, 2014
About Catch Me When I Fall:
Recruited at his death
to be a Protector of the Night, seventeen-year-old Daniel Graham has
spent two-hundred years fighting Nightmares and guarding humans from
the clawed, red-eyed creatures that feed off people’s fears. Each
night, he risks his eternal life, having given up his chance at an
afterlife when he chose to become a Protector. That doesn’t stop a
burnt-out Daniel from risking daring maneuvers during each battle.
He’s become one of the best, but he wants nothing more than to
stop.
Then he’s given an
assignment to watch over sixteen-year-old Kayla Bartlett, a
clinically depressed patient in a psychiatric ward. Nightmares love a
human with a tortured past. Yet, when they take a deep interest in
her, appearing in unprecedented numbers, the job becomes more
dangerous than any Daniel’s ever experienced. He fights ruthlessly
to keep the Nightmares from overwhelming his team and Kayla. Soon,
Daniel finds himself watching over Kayla during the day, drawn to why
she’s different, and what it is about her that attracts the
Nightmares. And him.
A vicious attack on
Kayla forces Daniel to break the first Law and reveal his identity.
Driven by his growing feelings for her, he whisks her away to Rome
where others like him can keep her safe. Under their roof, the
Protectors discover what Kayla is and why someone who can manipulate
Nightmares has her in his sights. But before they can make a move,
the Protectors are betrayed and Kayla is kidnapped. Daniel will stop
at nothing to save her. Even if it means giving up his immortality.
Find
Catch Me When I Fall Online:
About The Author:
Adopted at three-days-old by a
construction worker and a stay-at-home mom, Vicki Leigh grew up in a
small suburb of Akron, Ohio where she learned to read by the age of
four and considered being sent to her room for punishment as an
opportunity to dive into another book. By the sixth grade, Vicki
penned her first, full-length screenplay. If she couldn’t be a
writer, Vicki would be a Hunter (think Dean and Sam Winchester) or a
Jedi. Her favorite place on earth is Hogwarts (she refuses to believe
it doesn’t exist), and her favorite dreams include solving cases
alongside Sherlock Holmes.
Vicki
is an editor for Month9Books and Curiosity Quills Press, an intern at
TriadaUS Literary agency, and is represented by Sarah Negovetich of
Corvisiero Literary Agency.
Find
Vicki Leigh Online:
Guest Post by Vicki Leigh: On Writing from the Male POV
When I first sat down to write Catch Me When I Fall and had to decide on point-of-view, I only knew one thing: I didn’t want to follow the trend of girl-discovers-paranormal-world-gets-involved-over-her-head. Now, don’t get me wrong: Those stories are great. I’ve read—and loved—many of them!
But I knew I wanted to write something different yet stay within my favorite genre. My solution: Write from the POV of someone already in the supernatural world, and make it a guy.
And that’s when I realized I had my work cut out for me.
First: I’m a girl, and, in case you didn’t already know, girls and boys are completely different species. Second: Most (not all) paranormal is written from a girl’s POV, which made it really hard to read the genre through male eyes. I knew I needed to research—and, thankfully, most of my friends are guys.
Here’s three things I learned from my guy friends. (Note: There are always exceptions. No guy is created equal!)
1) Boys don’t cry. Okay, they do, but it’s really, really rare. When they’re frustrated to the point when girls often cry, they beat things up. When someone hurts them to the point where girls often cry, they beat that person up. When they break a bone, they swear profusely and whine but somehow find a way to keep the tears in place. You get my point.
a) But there is a time a boy might cry: When someone they love dies. And this needs to be someone they really love. Not just a buddy on their baseball team, but a best friend, a parent, a sibling. The loss of someone that close to them will make them tear up.
b) How this effected my writing: Daniel rarely cries. In fact, I don’t think he does in my book, period. Do I have him beating his knuckles to a bloody pulp? Yes. Do I have him punching people? Yes. Do I have him getting emotional? YES. But you have to reign in the actual tears when it comes to boys.
2. Boy humor is a different breed of comedy. I mostly hang out with guys, so this wasn’t too hard for me. But boy humor really is different. It’s not just witty and comical but often gross, morbid, and sexual. If you want to make your bromances read realistically, you need to let yourself tap into boy humor.
3. Boys can have bromances with girls. I really had fun writing the friendship between Daniel and Tabbi, not just because she’s the total opposite of him, but because they have that friendship that’s almost a bromance. It’s familial. They’re “brothers.” And it really is possible for guys to think of girls this way—and not romantically—even if the girl is as gorgeous as a model.
Though writing from a male POV was challenging, it was exciting and eye-opening, and I’m so glad I chose to write Catch Me When I Fall through Daniel’s eyes. Not only did it fit the story, but I think the task of writing as a boy forced me to develop his voice more deeply and strengthened my writing. I couldn’t just have him cry in every scene; I had to show his emotions in different ways. And that definitely made my book stronger.
All in all, I love writing from the male POV, and I will definitely do so again. And if you have a chance to give it a try, I suggest you do so! You might be surprised how much fun it is—and how it can improve your writing.
My Worst Nighmare
I have always been prone to having either bad/stupid dreams or no dreams at all. It has been a rare occasion when I dream about flowers or pretty horses, I will rather dream about wars, ghosts, rabid animals, suffocating underwater, or some messed-up version of a cartoon. I don't know why, it's not like I lead a dangerous life or I'm terrorized, though I was bullied and it still haunts me daily. Either way, I'm seldom frightened by my nightmares anymore. However, there was one, just a few months ago that had me sleepless for the remaining of the night, praying for the sun to finally rise.
I've been afraid of ghosts since I was 11. One of my friends showed me this site, full of horrible and even more horrible ghost stories. I used to get scared very easily at the time, but as all children, I wanted to seem big and bold and I read all of them with her. I wish I could go back and tell myself to get my wits together. There are better ways to display maturity. To be accurate; there are ways to display maturity and this was not one of them. But it happened and I can't help now, but live with the consequences. The phobia has faded a lot over the past few years, but deep down I'm far from being over it. It hops in to say hello at the best times. Like, when I sleep at my friend's place, at their aged flat that tends to treat us with the oddest
clicks and
thumps. My friend topped it by saying how much she hated it and she was sometimes afraid alone. Now, this friend of mine is not the chicken type. She sits through the heaviest psycho thriller without so much as batting an eye. So I don't think I need to tell you how I felt at the comment. I even dreamed with it. I dreamed about a fuzzy, black spirit possessing me and coercing me to do things I didn't want to. To hurt other people, people I loved. He also terrorized me, talked to me about nasty stuff and threatened me. The whole nightmare is rather vague though, mostly I remember how terrified I was.
I woke up drenched with sweat and lay with open eyes for three hours - the longest three hours of my life -, until dawn, then fell back asleep for another half an hour.
I broke two records that day:
1) I endured my worst nightmare ever
2) and drank my grandest cup of coffee.
Haven't slept there ever since.
Amy Engel was born in Kansas and after a childhood spent bouncing between countries (Iran, Taiwan) and states (Kansas; California; Missouri; Washington, D.C.), she settled in Kansas City, Missouri, where she lives with her husband and two kids. Before devoting herself full-time to motherhood and writing, she was a criminal defense attorney, which is not quite as exciting as it looks on TV. When she has a free moment, she can usually be found reading, running, or shoe shopping. The Book of Ivy is her debut YA novel. Find her online at http://amyengel.net/ or @aengelwrites.
