Avani Darrisaw just wants to lead a normal teen life, but with a father who fights in a secret war and a mother resembling a science fiction goddess, she fears her wish will never come true. At sixteen, her fears become reality when she discovers she is a descendent from Amarka, an alien planet. Horror replaces fear after a Star Warrior choses her to save him. Seth, a prince of the Amarkarue Hierarchy is trapped in a dying sphere. He has come to join the battle on Earth, but needs Avani’s blood to do so. She has to become a willingly participant in a dangerous blood-exchange ceremony—the Blood Melt.
Avani wants no part of this “Chosen One” designation and cannot understand why her parents feel so honored by this awful thing that has happened to her. They sent for an overweight, shape-shifting school counselor to scare her into attending some training school for freaks. Avani rebels and runs away—not knowing that Seth could transport himself on short trips to Earth to peruse her.
With mental exhaustion crumbling her will, Avani gives over to her feelings for the gorgeous prince with the honey-brown eyes. It is after her heart declares her love for him that she finds out there is more to the Blood Melt story than even her parents has told. She knew the Amarkarues had come to help their Earth descendants battle against the Walfarian Spikers. She did not know that consenting to the Blood Melt unleashed an assassin assigned to murder her. The odds of surviving the Blood Melt were slim; the odds of surviving a Walfarian assassin were none. Will Seth and Avani survive the Blood Melt, and if they do, can Seth free himself from his prison in time to save her?
Editorial Book Review - Harriett Reynolds - "A good fantasy novel for mature teens. The author has a wonderfully inventive imagination… Readers will undoubtedly look forward to the next books in the series”
Intimate Conversation with Max W. Miller
Max W. Miller is a writer of Speculative Fiction. She enjoys creating characters with powers that earthlings cannot scientifically explain away—characters challenging traditional reasoning. Although writing for teens and young adults, Max’s SCI-FI / FANTASY books are enjoyed by all ages. Born in Savannah Georgia, Max comes from a large family. Presently, she lives in North Carolina. When she’s not writing, Max enjoys spending time with her husband, children, other family members, and friends.
BPM: What was the deciding factor in your decision to write books professionally?
MAX – In my family, I have always been the go-to person when expressions through words were called upon. Years ago, I’d made an attempt to write for publication—a Self Help book. As always, life kicked in and I began what I call ‘Career Hopping.’ Clearly, I was in survival mode. It took a personal crisis involving my son for me to find the healing effect of my creativity. I believe that every mother who loves their children feels the pangs of frustration when a child is headed in the wrong direction. Mothers know that if they don’t fight to turn the situation around, disaster will visit them.
In this particular situation, I’d come to a point of mental exhaustion— helplessness. What I’d fought so hard to avoid happened despite my efforts. I picked up my pen in frustration, accusing my son, the system, and everything in between. My situation was literally tearing me apart, limb by limb—until I made a wonderful discovery. The elephant lifted off of my chest whenever I used my creative flare to write positive messages to myself. Soon the messages formed into story ideas. That was when I began to feel the power of my own internal healing.
BPM – You said that writing positive messages helped you heal from your personal crisis, but what made you choose Speculative Fiction as your genre?
MAX – Speculative fiction involves the paranormal/supernatural realm. I’m very comfortable creating Science Fiction and Fantasy worlds, Mythology and Ghost Stories because I have had many experiences in my life that I know came from other realms. And no, I’m not a coo coo clock (smile). I have seen and heard and known about situations that are inexplicable to the disbelieving mind. In my books, I take pieces of what’s real (dreams, visions, etc.) and I unleash against that reality, the most powerful imagination I can muster up. Some of my readers have said that my books are different, something that have not been rehashed over and over again.
BPM: I understand that you have self-published several books, why did you not get a literary agent?
MAX – I started out seeking an agent and had several large firms interested in reading Blood Melt, my debut novel. I decided to try and get a platform under my belt when I realized that without a platform new authors might not see their work on the market for at least eighteen months, and that’s eighteen months after the manuscript has been sold by the agent. At my age (I’m a Baby Boomer), I thought it would be in my best interest to kick-it-off myself and then seek literary representation to move me to the next level.
BPM: So tell me about Blood Melt and how it helped you to heal.
MAX - Blood Melt is about a secret alien battle taking place right here on Earth. A sixteen year old girl is unwillingly plunged right in the middle of warring alien nations and she just happens to be a descendant of one of these races. Everybody, including her parents, seems to push her toward saving this alien prince from the planet Amarka. Seth is the gorgeous honey-brown eyes prince who is trapped in a dying sphere in a realm above Earth. Only through Avani’s blood that she’d have to give willingly during a dangerous ceremony called the Blood Melt, could Seth be saved. It’s a saga of sacrifice, intrigue, and love, filled with unusual characters that bring wit and danger to the plot.
I submerged myself into writing and rewriting Blood Melt. I didn't want to sit in a classroom; I wanted to use the internet as my teacher and hammer-it-out. This was my therapy! This helped to stabilize my thoughts and gave me peace at night. I became engrossed in developing the characters and deciding who would die and who would live, who was a traitor and who was a good entity in disguise. Through Blood Melt I realize that I could re-invent myself and emerge with a new outlook on life.
BPM – Talk about as well as quote your most memorable scene in the book.
MAX – The most memorable scene came in the form of a paragraph that I wrote after the book was completed. I wanted to write an Epilogue to give my readers a taste of where Book 2 might be headed. I felt like I wanted to give a more in-depth look into Avani’s mother, Gisella. Throughout the Book 1, Gisella’s motive may have been questioned. It was obvious from the beginning that she had a secret or two of her own.
As I thought about Gisella’s love for Avani, all of a sudden, I couldn't stop thinking about my own child. I believe I was able to transfer my true emotions over to my character—bringing Gisella to life. This was the perfect time to write the words below, to get into the vein of knowing how Gisella felt about the journey her daughter, Avani, had taken.
Paragraph 1 of the Epilogue
“She was back, my precious Avani—Jolon’s heartbeat—my very breath. If she only knew how much we love her, how important she is to us, not because of her talents, but because of . . . her. She’s my baby. I have missed her with a tearing of my flesh. Our separation seemed like an endless void. ”
BPM: Tell us a little bit about your other titles. Do you have any series?
MAX – Well, I ended up releasing a smaller novel at the same time I release Blood Melt (August 2012). The Legacy of Sadie Mae Stevens has received good reviews as well as Blood Melt. The Legacy of Sadie Mae Stevens is about a fourteen year old teen whose mother dies brutally and mysteriously, leaving Sadie Mae a legacy no mom would want to leave her child. Also, I have two short stories in eBook format: After Hour Banking and Spending Christmas with A Yeti. All books are set-up to be series with exception of After Hour Banking.
BPM – Share with us your latest news or upcoming book releases. How may our readers follow you online?
MAX – Both Blood Melt and The Legacy of Sadie Mae Stevens are entered in the 2013 IPPY Contest for Indie Authors. The Legacy of Sadie Mae Stevens won a Book of the Day Award on a highly trafficked Indie website. It’s scary throwing your books out there, but I have confidence that they can hold their own in their genre.
My latest projects are Torene the Tornado, Book 2 in The Legacy of Sadie Mae Stevens series, and I’m writing the Book Proposal for the True Story that steps the reader painstakingly through the journey I took with my son—how it all began, the supernatural aspects of our journey, the end results, and everything in between.
At first, I had a tough time deciding which fiction book would submerge first with a Book 2. Since I’d gotten more of a stir of readers asking about Book 2 on Sadie Mae and the fact that Sadie is a shorter novel than Blood Melt helped me decide to write another Sadie Adventure first. I figured a shorter novel would give me time to seek literary representation on my True Story Book Proposal—a True Story every woman and child should read.
Connect with Author Max W. Miller
Author of Science Fiction and Fantasy books for Teens and Young Adults
Email at: bookbaby@maxwmiller.com - I enjoy hearing from my readers and take every opportunity to respond to each email. I look forward to hearing from you.
Website: www.scififantasyfiction.com - This website is the Hub for all of my creative activities. I invite you to subscribe today to be among the first to receive new information.
Excerpt from Blood Melt
Genre: Science Fiction and Fantasy Genre
CHAPTER 3 - EXODUS
Dizziness overtook her. She was headed face-first for the concrete floor. Her muscles tightened, preparing for something that never happened. All she remembered was a strong, unintimidating grasp circling her waist and then seeing the Star Warrior’s face suspended over hers. Weightless, her body moved through the air. She was in denial as she glided underneath him. They were in a horizontal position and totally gliding through the air.
“Seth,” he said as his amazing honey-brown eyes caught hers. Breathlessness commanded her to stop releasing air—to hold as much inside her lungs as possible. The feeling of her featherweight-gliding body paled in comparison to his overwhelming presence. Without physical touch, he reached into places inside her, places she’d never explored before, places beyond where she would have let him invade, if she had a choice. She’d never experienced helplessness like this and wished it would never happen again. Did she really mean that? she wondered. Never is a long time.
His golden coat surrounded them. Floating through an Amtrak train corridor with a drop-dead gorgeous alien Star Warrior hovering over you was the kind of thing psych wards were made of. From there, it got crazier. He began to look faded and speckled, as if he were changing into . . .
“Oh, no, not you too. Please don’t change into a grizzly bear or a big nasty bloody heart with teeth. Please don’t scare me again.”
“No distress, Avani Darrisaw.”
If anything could make this situation right, it was his words. Yet he continued to change—not into an oversized bloody heart with teeth, but into a new soothing frame. Now he reminded her of what she imagined the inside of a computer’s motherboard would look like—high tech. His body had separated into rays of infinitesimal lights. So cool. She could still tell where his eyes were and trace the image of his body.
“No distress,” he whispered. “Molecular structure alteration commences.”
“Molecular who?”
And that’s when it happened.
“Aaaaah. Aaaaah.” A sensation seized her body, like huge colonies of ants marching inside her flesh. Prickling dull needles annoyed her skin, while her body tingled and itched, as if the colony of ants were carefully pulling it apart cell by cell. Disjointed, she tried to panic, but the trillions of separated cells didn’t know how to panic. What had the Star Warrior done to her?
Drugs. It had to be some kind of spaceman drugs he’d given her. But how? And why would he do that? What did she ever do to him to deserve this? Numb with fear, Avani tried to convince herself that she was walking on a beautiful beach on a sunny day, watching the helpless churning of sand swirling at the will of the wind. She told herself that it wasn’t her body that had separated like his did, that it was just grains of sand on a beach.
She didn’t know how long it had been before the golden coat lifted, leaving her seated back on the same dusty bench she’d slept on half the night. Staring ahead at the same washed-out wall, shocking disbelief set in. Her eyes blinked in a stupor. Had what she thought just happened actually happen? Did the Star Warrior come out of her dreams to protect her from that man, catching her when she was falling?
And what was that feeling of being completely pulled apart all about? How could she see her body disintegrate into so many small pieces until . . . until she was framed out like a faded light show—just like him?
A few deep breaths later, she had regained enough brain power to glance around. She searched for him, Seth. But he had vanished. Over the intercom, she heard the last call for passengers traveling to Spartanburg.
“Oh no!” She stood on wobbling legs. Hobbling to the door, she ran as best she could. Despite her determination to get on the Amtrak, the image of Seth and the words he’d spoken blazed inside her:
“Danger surrounds you, Avani Darrisaw. Consent to have talks with me.”
Meet the Author Max W. Miller is a writer of Speculative Fiction. She enjoys creating characters with powers that earthlings cannot scientifically explain away—characters challenging traditional reasoning. Although writing for teens and young adults, Max’s SCI-FI / FANTASY books are enjoyed by all ages. Born in Savannah Georgia, Max comes from a large family. Presently, she lives in North Carolina. When she’s not writing, Max enjoys spending time with her husband, children, other family members, and friends.
Purchase Blood Melt by Max W. Miller
Science Fiction and Fantasy Genre
ISBN-13: 9781478315018 (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9855955-1-7 (eBook)
This audio-postcard presentation was created by Ella Curry of EDC Creations Creations Media Group. We offer the best in book publishing publicity! Visit the main EDC Creations website today to reserve your slot today at: http://www.edc-creations.com/publicity.htm we have several packages that will take authors to the top! Looking for one of the most popular Internet radio shows in the industry? Check out The Black Authors Network Radio Show today!
